Malden City Council 06-09-2026

The council will come to order. All rise and salute the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please remain standing for a moment of silence in honor of our veterans, service members and those who have given the ultimate sacrifice. Condon, would you like to do an additional moment of silence this evening? Yes. Okay, let me, hang on. Oh no, where's my mic?

Condon.

Thank you, Madam President.

As you know, we lost one of our finest people that's ever served the city, and Don Fumano. He was on every single committee that I can remember. You know, building the field house. He would volunteer for all the committees. Each mayor, whether it was Richard Howard, Jim Conway, just incredible how many jobs he volunteered for. And he would keep track of everything for us. I can remember meeting every single day

every single one day a week with the building committee and Dom just giving everything he's got. And, he's a tough one to replace. He just took everything to heart and was in it with his and a whole body and soul. He just never let it go. And even when he had retired, you could count on him Serving on the retirement board. And there used to be a joke, if you don't fall and get hurt, you're going to bleed blue and gold.

So how true. But certainly, he come back to the city in 1986 when I did. That's when I first and I learned so much from him. And I'm so grateful to have served with Dom. So I hope we can have a moment of silence for him because he's a very, very special man. Thank you.

Thank you very much. At this time, will the Clerk please call the roll?

Councilor Colón Hayes. Councilor Condon. Crowe, Wang, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Taylor, Winslow, President Linehan.

Okay, under the provisions of the open meeting law, for those of you in attendance, please be informed that UMA, Urban Media Arts, will be recording this evening's meeting. So just be aware there will be audio and video recordings of tonight's meeting. Is there anyone else present tonight who is recording in addition to Uma? Can you please identify yourself if so? Okay, seeing none, we'll move on to the first order of business. First order of business is public comment. Public comment is allowed under council rules. each speaker is limited to the subject matter relevant to the evening's agenda and must keep their comments to two minutes or less. I wanna make an additional announcement tonight. We do have some community members who may be coming to the podium with an interpreter. And it's going to be my judgment as the chair that we are going to allow extra time for the interpreter to speak, if so. So the clerk and I are going to double the amount of time to allow interpreters to speak into the microphone after those using additional language assistance. Clerk, do we have anybody signed up for public comment tonight?

We have three people signed up for public comment and one email to read into the record. Okay, let's get started. The first one is Elena Martinez.

Sorry, let me put on the podium microphone. Okay. Name and street for the record.

Hello, my name is Elena Martinez in Clifton Street, Malden. Go ahead. Good evening, everyone. I am the Language Access Coordinator for the city for 12 more days. And after seeing today's agenda, I just want to stop by and say Thank you, thank you to Malden, to the community, to the groups, to my collaborators, the people who made this happen. Even though I'm leaving, I just want to summarize. for four years of work in less than two minutes. So I just gave everyone a packet that it's in response to tonight's agenda establishing Public Language Access Plan and Policy.

So what you have on your hands is the Malden's Current Language Access Plan and Policy that I've been using This one was updated from the documents that I received when I started working in here. I did an assessment of how the departments work and how they serve the community. So each department is very unique. So what I came up with was the City Language Access Plan for Malden. It has three basic components. It has the citywide plan so we can look at, and I have shared these with police, with the fire, just looking at everything that we need to access. Then we have a department plan and then we have a program specific outreach guide and a community engagement worksheet.

So this is the same document that was shared with the major's office and Mr. Hogan with communications here. This is a training document that looks at every single service and you can just do a check mark.

How did we get this?

So I just wanted to leave my legacy for whatever the next plan is. I haven't heard. But so long, everyone, and just thank you. Thank you.

John Butler.

Name and street for the record, please.

Yes, my name is John Butler. I've lived in Malden for over 30 years on Chestnut Street. I have come here to support may come here to support resolution number 293-26. In 40 years of living in Massachusetts, I've never seen and 72% of the electorate agree on anything. As well as in Malden, 14,000 people voted yes. 5,064 voted no. I haven't even seen that many votes in a municipal election, whether it's an elected official or even under the override. A lot of people did express their beliefs in it. That, to me, definitely makes a big, loud response from Malden voters. After a year and a half of court battles and legislative delays, Beacon Hill has responded with a restrictive audit policy and for future prevention of intervention by this court system.

I don't think that's what the Malden voters asked for. As we celebrate our 250 years of this great nation, I ask you to support this resolution Resolution for the residents of Malden and give them hope that participating, you know, you have some say in what goes on. I really mean that from the heart. I used to go to a lot of city council meetings. I didn't go for a long time raising my kids. First time speaking in this building. I knew the other building quite a bit. I just really hope you take this seriously. and at least show the people that you're with them on openness and transparency because I know that's one of the big things for the override that we asked for and people voice their opinion, as you well know, you're dealing with that. but I think it's really important that you support the voters. Thank you. And happy birthday to America.

Thank you.

Steve Mariello, 283 Child Street. Exactly 250 years ago, the inhabitants of Malden led the way by speaking up with a unanimous vote for independence. the residents of this city left us with a historic and permanent reminder of the power and importance of voting. on November 5th, 2024, every precinct in Malden spanning across political parties, political designations and the unenrolled met in the middle and overwhelmingly approved question one, granting the state auditor the authority to audit the legislature. 19 months later, we are still waiting for the will of the people to be honored. Ironically, here we are on the 250th anniversary of the Malden Town Instructions needing to speak up and defend the vote of our community who simply wants to know how our tax dollars are being spent by our state leadership.

Such delays are an example of what leads to low voter turnout because of a lack of trust in government. We have an opportunity right now to take a step in reestablishing trust between the people and the process by speaking up in unity with a letter of support for the audit of the legislature on behalf of Malden's residents. What our community needs right now is an assurance that we haven't forgotten that when Malden speaks, we expect our government to act and respond with integrity. Thank you kindly.

Thank you. It had been my intent to take up the budget here but given the comments that we got I think I'm going to proceed through the agenda because it sounds like folks are here for a lot of the agenda items that we actually have next. Do I have any objections to that? Do folks want to take the budget next? I'm open to You have an objection. I have one public comment that we haven't written to the record from the email before. Oh, we have an email to read. Okay, well, let's take that up after we read the one remaining email, and then folks can let me know what you think. Thank you to our clerk.

Sorry to interrupt you. No, please, thank you for letting me know that. So it says, Dear City Council, I write to urge the entire Council to fully support Councilor Sica's resolution 293-26. as a constituent who voted for the audit of the Commonwealth's legislature given the majority of Malden voters voted for the override, I believe city leaders can send a clear message to state leaders. This step became even more necessary when state leaders voted to limit the scope of the audit after numerous attempts to block the state auditor from doing her job. I look forward to watching the council pass this resolution this evening to send that message to state leaders that the people's vote matters. Sincerely, James Sumner, 759 Highland Avenue.

Thank you. Okay. Well, I think that's one more tick in the column for keeping the agenda as is. Any objection to proceeding as is? Okay. Councilor Simonelli, do you have a Point of order, I see your light on. We don't respond to public comment, I'm just gonna remind you. Okay. Thank you for being honest. All right, next to order of business is our consent agenda. This evening's consent agenda consists of two papers being referred to the Finance Committee. Does any counselor have a desire to remove either of these items from the consent agenda for the purpose of further discussion? I accidentally put Chris's light on, danger zone. Okay, hearing none and seeing none, do I have a motion to approve? Motion by Councilor Sica, seconded by Councilor Luong. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, the agenda is approved. Next order of business.

Paper 291-26, Mayoral Reappointment. Denise Belboni-Cowie, 81 Newland Street, Malden, as a member of the Licensed Board, said term to commence upon confirmation by the City Council. and to expire June 5th, 2032.

Okay, Councilor Crowe for the paper. Thank you, Madam President. As we have done in the past is the mayoral reappointments. We passed on the floor unless someone has a desire to actually bring in Denise. She did reach out to me to see if she should be here because she's going away. But I was like, I think we get this. So she was making sure she was doing her due diligence and could answer any questions. I make a motion that we approve Denise Bowie-Cowie on the licensing board.

I'll second. Okay, so we need a roll call to confirm that. On Councilor Crowe's motion, seconded by Councilor Sica, let's call the roll.

Colón Hayes, Condon, Crowe, Linehan, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Taylor, Winslow, Council President Linehan. Yes. That confirmation passed unanimously, 11 to 0. Okay. Okay.

Councilor Simonelli.

Thank you, Madam President. I'm just going to make a comment. You know, I've known her for a long time. She lives down right in the heart of Newland Street, where I grew up. And it's just nice to have somebody on the License Committee for Alcohol and Liquor Licenses in my district. And she's very strict and she really knows her subject matter. So I appreciate everybody here tonight putting her forward because she really is. is a good lady, and she really loves Malden, and it's good to have somebody like her on the license board, so I just wanna say thanks.

Sure, and we had a very thoughtful interview with her when she came on, so I think, I'm very comfortable with taking that vote. Okay, next order of business. Oh, sorry, Councilor Colón Hayes.

Thank you, I just had a point of order. former Councilor Anderson is in the room and we just referred on the consent document something that I believe he was here to speak on. Do you still wanna speak, like if I ask if we, Can we suspend the rules to do that?

What do we need to do to sponsor someone to speak?

If we can't, we can't, but I figured he came all the way out here.

Yeah, you just need to make a motion to sponsor the former counselor to speak, and then we can take a roll call.

Okay, thank you.

What's that?

Yes, that's why I came here.

Okay, all in favor? Aye.

Welcome, come on forward.

Well, good evening, Councilors. It's a pleasure to be here. Interesting for me to be on this side of the microphone. I was expecting to have some debate on the paper that I was going to be here for this evening, but I see you've already moved the Community Preservation Act papers to the Finance Committee. I really speak in that in more detail. But I want to thank you for the opportunity to allow me to come before you, Madam President and honorable members of this Malden City Council. It was my pleasure to be on the Council when we formed this Community Preservation Act here in Malden and the papers that are being referred to the Finance Committee are those things that specifically are what we designed this program for.

So Emmanuel Baptist Church, this institution has been around in this community for many, many years. is before the Finance Committee, and I'll be glad to speak about that in more detail at the Finance Committee. So I thank you for the opportunity to get up and speak. Glad to see you all. I had the opportunity to sit in on the The earliest subcommittee meeting, and I know you all are wrestling with some very serious issues that are going on in the city given the financial situation. I would also, while I'm here, just like to comment about the moment of silence that Councilor Condon has mentioned about Dom Firmano. I had the pleasure of serving with Dom As many of you have, when he was the guy that we went to for all of the information that we needed, Dom was one heck of a guy.

I won't say one hell of a man. Yeah, I will say he was a heck of a guy. And this city of Malden was well served by him. and we will miss him all and God bless his soul. Madam President, council members, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you. Thank you. And we will be docketing that as soon as we can in finance. So welcome you to come back next week for certain. Okay. We want to get this done quickly. Thank you. Yes, Councilor Simonelli, let me put your microphone back on.

Thank you, Madam President. I just got to say you're going to be really careful tonight because you've got three Ward 7 Councilors here in this. We might have a quorum just for Ward 7 alone, so I just wanted to make sure.

Thank you. Okay, next order of business.

Paper 292-26 resolved that it is the sense of the Malden City Council that the body supports the establishment of a public language access plan and policy as a diverse and immigrant rich city with seven major languages and over 70 languages spoken at Malden High School, language access services are essential for creating an open and welcoming community where every resident's voice can be heard. We are proud of the work the city has done in the last five years to build up these services and systems supported by federal stimulus funds from the American Rescue Plan. This startup phase included purchasing equipment, creating new resources and materials, and training staff across departments on language access procedures. We especially recognize the efforts to create bilingual elections that fully enfranchise our Chinese-speaking community. The City Council asks for the Mayor's collaboration to adopt a translation and language access plan and a sustainable policy for the City.

This plan could include codifying elections procedures, identifying key documents to be translated, establishing benchmarks for the languages spoken by city staff or setting expectations, public engagement for translation or interpretation. Recognizing the city must reduce expenses across every area to close our budget gap We want to be transparent about the commitments we will sustain to support every resident's participation in Malden's civic life, regardless of what language they speak.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the first sponsor listed, Councilor McDonald.

Thank you, President. So we had a great demonstration in our public comments from our language access coordinator of why I put this on the docket with my colleagues. because we've been doing some really good system building work. And I do thank you, Elena Martinez, for the work that you've done in these past few years, which is very well represented here by this draft plan that you provided us with. So my goal here was to make sure that this is not lost and that it is not a plan that lives on a shelf or wherever the final version lands, but that it is in fact has the force of policy and that we can set practices for this next phase of work. will talk about the funding in a little bit when we talk about the budget because we were able to restore some of the most concerning reductions that we had entertained in the mayor's proposed budget.

But I want to make sure that wherever we're landing on that support, that it's also clear to the community what commitments we are making and get us into this ongoing phase, out of the startup phase into the ongoing phase and so I'm you know I think I'm open to how that happens through the mayor's office or working with us or what it takes to set that when it's ready but I really do want to make sure that we do not lose the progress we have already and that it is clear how we're going to continue to sustain this really important equity and inclusion commitment in our city going forward. So thank you for your consideration.

Thank you, Councilor McDonald. Would either of the other co-sponsors like to speak before I start taking any of the lights that are on? Councilor Winslow?

Yeah, I thank Councilor McDonald for taking the lead on this and I think we heard very clearly last meeting from the community about the importance of language access and I think all of us as counselors experienced this. And we made that clear to the mayor's office. And so I appreciate that we are doing more and our budget is including more to ensure that happens. And Elena, thank you so much for bringing forth this the plan that you have been working diligently on and I think it is now our legacy to make sure that we continue to work on this even under tight fiscal times. this is a very fascinating document about how many people in our community have language access needs and that's not going to go away, whatever the budget is.

So we now have to commit as a council and as a community to make sure we work together to make sure we are communicating in a big way with our community. So I appreciate that. and I think ultimately it makes us a stronger community to be able to speak across the language barriers that we have. So we have to do that in an intentional way and that's what this is about. It's just really making sure we do stuff with good intention and that makes us a stronger community. And Malden being stronger makes us a stronger nation. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Winslow. Councillor O'Malley.

Thank you. So I really appreciate the public comment. You know, and I assume that these are good intentions, and I believe that they are. But one of the things that I've learned over the years by the hard work of many organizations, particularly Malden Core, is that there's a difference between intent and impact. And what we need to make sure is that passing this resolution is not marginalizing the hard work of our language access officer Alina Martinez, who has done a lot of great work over the last couple of years and has been highlighted the language access plan and protocol that is in front of us. So I would ask that this language access plan be added as an attachment to this paper and the agenda, which I believe it has to do for the public records law and open meeting laws. Additionally, I would offer, because I don't want to pass this and make it seem like

no work has been done and a lot of work has been done. And so I would move to amend this paper so that it says that it is a sense of the city council that the body supports the adoption of the Language Access Plan and Protocol drafted by Alina Martinez, the Language Access Coordinator. Thank you.

Okay, I'm going to continue to take our lights. We do have a motion on the floor. I want to continue discussion before we take that up. Councilor Colón Hayes.

Thank you, and Councilor O'Malley. took that right out of, I was going to suggest the same thing. First, I want to thank Elena Martinez for everything you have done here for this city. People might not have known it or seen it, but I'm out in this community at every event and different nonprofit organizations, and you are always there. You're making connections. Connections sometimes can't be quantified and people don't know how to put them in data and stats, but I see you. and the community sees you. And I think that this city needs a full-time language access coordinator. We are the most diverse city in Massachusetts. we're gonna need someone to implement your plan. And so I agree, of course, I support this, you know, this paper tonight that we need to have a plan, but I also would like to add that it's your plan that you've worked on. I haven't had a chance to read it all.

I'm not sure if you were contacted before this went up or not. I think I might have heard that you weren't, but you did speak with the council president because You're going to be looking, unfortunately, looking for another job. And people need to know about all the hard work that you did here. And the resolution may seem to think that there wasn't a plan in place. So I would like to second that. Yeah, that's all I have to say about that. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Councilor Colón Hayes. Councilor Simonelli.

Thank you, Madam President. You know, I just want to say that, Elena, you know, in the four years that I've known you, I know you've done some great work, and I know you're working real hard. And, you know, I'm not a sponsor on this paper or a co-sponsor on this paper, but I would like to be. I would like to be so you can add me to it. And I have all the confidence in the world in the chairman of the finance committee McDonnell, which is Councilor McDonald. President Amanda Linehan, and the Mayor, and Chuck, and Ron, and Maria, who are sitting here as part of the financial team, because they're busting their back trying to figure it out. and try and save as many jobs as they possibly can, but we can't save them all. And it was the mayor's office that brought Alaina Wynn in the first place because they know that we need her. So we're trying to find the funding.

I have all confidence in the people that I just mentioned that they will find the funding down the road. But, you know, look, honesty is my policy. We're in a financial crisis and we're doing the best that we can. You know, and it's like, you know, everybody wants to keep five firemen, five police cadets. Listen, then we get back to the place where we're in deficit. If you're in deficit and you don't balance your budget by July 1st, guess what? I don't want to scare anybody, but it's the reality of it. You're going on receivership. And we're not going to do that. So hard decisions have to be made. But that doesn't mean that the people that I just mentioned with the ability that they have and the stuff that I've been able to do here in the city of Malden over the last 10, 15 years, I have all the confidence in the world that they will try and find the funding, they will go after grant money, they will go after other things to try and restore these things and I'm coming from

the most low to moderate income neighborhood in the city. Ward 7, Suffolk Square, Newham Street Housing Projects, Bowdoin Street Apartments. Anyone that lives in Malden knows I know what I'm talking about. Of course we'd love to have that. I need that. So we'd love to have that here. So I have all kinds of confidence in the people that I have mentioned that we will move this city forward. and I got to tell you, I said in the subcommittee a little while ago, you know, look, I'm the first one to come out and snap on you for Not being competent enough, I don't think you're competent enough doing the right job. But listen, we're in a $10 million deficit. I've been here for 16 years. The only other deficit that I've seen that's only close to this is the one after 2001, 9-11. And we were about short maybe three and a half million dollars. We're short almost 10. Everybody, everybody that's sitting up here has been working.

We've been talking with each other here, off here, one-on-one. Sometimes it even gets heated discussions. but everybody's trying to do the best that they can. Look, I've been laid off a couple of times in this business. That's the business I chose to be in. And I've been laid off on a couple of times myself. I know what it feels like. Everybody up here knows what it feels like. We don't want to lay anybody off. We don't want nobody coming back. We know we need everybody. But there's only so much money. There's only so many pieces of the pie. And I think the Malden, Constituencies intelligent enough that I know they are to know that. And I think that, you know, I just want you guys to have confidence in us confidence in this committee that's up here today. I know that, you know, Councilor Linehan, who was the council president this year, has been, you know, in the mayor's office on a daily basis. Daily. I talk to, you know, the powers to be on a daily basis myself. It's tough.

Like I said, we're doing the best that we can and we're going to get through this. And we're being as transparent as we possibly can. We're not holding nothing back. We're asking for an audit on ourselves. Can't get any more transparent than that. So I'm just saying that bear with us, have confidence in the City of Malden, and we're going to get back everything that we're losing. Trust me. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Simonelli. Councillor Luong.

Thank you so much. I just wanted to say in this fair in which I co-sponsored this was not to minimize what Elena Martinez has done, which has been amazing, but it's also to recognize that we have been working on transliteration services as a city, for many years prior to having a language access coordinator all the way up to the changes in all the systems that are currently put in place. And so, You know, as a city, as we navigate, you know, as Councilor Simonelli just said, very challenging budget environment. I believe it's important that we establish a multi-year language access plan that clearly defines the services, the systems, the technology, and the staffing resources that our current budget that we're about to pass, or not pass depending on who's voting for what, is gonna be able to let us sustain over the next three years.

And I'm not saying that her plan isn't the plan, but I think it's trusting in our administration to see what we have for resources in every department, and to be able to come up with that plan. So that's what I'm supporting as a paper, is the paper that we put through. But I'm hoping that that will be a meaningful discussion and the support because our residents deserve it. We are a multicultural city and all of our residents deserve to be able to access our services even in our budget crisis.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Luong. Councillor McDonald for the second time.

Thank you, President. So to comment on Councilor O'Malley's proposals, obviously we should attach this, yes, to the record of the paper. I wholeheartedly agree. I would just say, you know, I mean, I think I just got this. a couple minutes ago, and so I haven't had a chance to read it, so I think the whole point of a policy is that you take the time for everyone involved to make sure that you're clear on every detail of it. if you are open to a friendly amendment to say a language access policy building on the draft policy done by the language access coordinator, be happy to support that. But I think the whole point is like, we need to make sure this is like really solid and I can't do that on the fly on the floor. and we want to make sure that all of the departments who are involved in that, as you say, Councilor Long, have a chance to look at this and weigh in before something is said.

Okay, I'd like to hear Councilor O'Malley respond to that.

I accept the friendly amendment. and having had the chance to go through this, I do think it is gonna be everything that you're looking for. I think it does comply and take into consideration the reality of our city finances. It does talk about using AI and Google Translate where appropriate and when it's not appropriate. And I do also want to note that in terms of having time to review it, it's dated February 2025 and so you know we're in 2026 and so I think that as a city we had a plenty of time to review this and I look forward to O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Sica, Simonelli, Sica, Simonelli, Sica, Simonelli, Sica, Simonelli,

To vote on the amendment, it would be resolved that it is the sense of the Malden City Council that the body supports establishment of a public language access plan and policy building on the work done so far by our language access coordinator. Did I capture that accurately? Yes? Okay, so we'll, we have a motion. Do you want to make that motion, Councilor O'Malley? The motion is yours and you second it. Okay, so I want a motion by Councilor O'Malley, seconded by Councilor Colón Hayes. all in favor of the amendment? Aye. Okay, any opposed? All right, so let's, we have a motion on the resolve. Oh, you have a question, Councilor Colón Hayes? With that addition, I'd like to be added if that's okay as a sponsor. Absolutely. Does anybody else want to be added before we move forward? Okay. Okay, so taking motions on the resolve.

Motion to pass the resolve.

Okay, on a motion by Councilor Winslow, seconded by Councilor Simonelli. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The resolve is passed. Thank you, everyone. Next order of business.

paper 293-26 resolved that it is the sense of the Malden City Council that the body wishes to express support of an audit of the Massachusetts state legislature by the state auditor as was voted by a majority of Malden voters during the 2024 state election. Whereas the principles of open government accountability and fiscal responsibility are fundamental to the trust placed in elected officials by the citizens they represent, and whereas in the 2024 state election, a decisive majority of voters across every single precinct in the city of Malden overwhelmingly approved the ballot measure calling for a comprehensive audit of the Massachusetts state legislature and whereas this mandate from Malden voters spans across all neighborhoods and political lines representing a rare and powerful moment of community-wide unity on the need for government transparency and whereas local

Municipal budgets are directly impacted by state funding and fiscal decisions and absolute transparency at the state level ensures that local tax dollars and state aid are managed with the utmost integrity. Now therefore, be it resolved, that the Malden City Council, on behalf of the residents of Malden, hereby voices its strong support for the clear and expressed will of the Malden voters regarding the audit of the Massachusetts state legislature. and be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution be sent to Malden's state legislative delegation, the governor and the state auditor urging compliance with the transparent governance demanded by our shared constituents. This was sponsored by Council of Sica.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Councilor Sica for the paper.

Thank you, Madam President. Tonight, I am proud to introduce a resolution that is fundamentally about one thing, listening to the people who sent us here. In November of 2024, the voters of Malden sent a crystal clear message to Beacon Hill. When question one appeared on the ballot, calling for our comprehensive audit of the state legislature. Our residents didn't just approve it, they approved it overwhelmingly. It was passed with over 71% of the statewide vote, and right here in Malden, it won in every single precinct. From Ward 1 to Ward 8, across every neighborhood and across every political party line, Malden voters spoke with one unified voice. something we all know almost never happens on any topic in this city.

they demanded transparency, they demanded accountability, and most importantly, they expected their votes to matter. Yet just recently, we watched the State House pass a bill that effectively guts the core of what our residents voted for. Instead of opening the doors to a full audit, they voted to heavily restrict it, shielding their core functions from independent oversight and barring the courts from intervening. When 72% of the electorate votes for A and the legislature rewrites the law to give them B, that isn't compromise. That is a dismissal of the voter's mandate. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution to defend the intent of the Malden voters and to send a clear message to Beacon Hill that we expect them to honor the democratic process. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Sica. I do have a couple of lights. I'm going to go to Councillor O'Malley first.

I'd like to thank Councilor Sica for introducing this resolution. I'll be fully in support of it. And I think that what first comes to mind when I read about what the House did and I hope that the Senate will vote down what the House did and I hope that Maura Healey, our governor, will veto it if for some reason it gets through both houses. What first came to mind, it was very George Orwell, very Orwellian, where they passed a bill that makes the legislature more opaque, less visible, less transparent, and they called it a transparency bill. You know, it's very much in the line of war is peace, peace is war. It's just not trustworthy, and I don't think the public recognizes it. I know the public can recognize that it's not what they say it is. I'm not going to reiterate and go ad nauseum of what you said.

You did a great job of summarizing it. by far the most crucial thing that's going on right now. People are trying to say that the separations of powers prevent any type of oversight of the legislature, which is just not true. The reason why you separate powers in our country is so that you do not have one body that's completely unaccountable to the others. The courts check the legislature. The courts check the executive the same way the executive checks the other branches. And the fact that that's not happening shows just how broken our statehouse is. So fully in support, thank you so much. and as some people online guessed, I don't know if maybe there's like a prediction market out there right now on whether or not I'm gonna be a co-sponsor, but I am gonna be a co-sponsor, so.

Even I guessed that. Thank you, Councilor O'Malley. Councilor Winslow.

Yeah. You know, we talk about it is very much a core thing of making sure that our government institutions fulfill the will of the people. I mean, one of the reasons why in our US Constitution, the First Amendment talks about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right to petition government is because ultimately, the people are the check on their own government. And so having more transparency at the legislative level is just so apparent that what we need So very supportive of that, and just, you know, in this 250th year of our, you know, honoring our revolution, it is important that all officials at every level of our government understand that

having arbitrary ability to spend our funds without oversight is wrong and we need to have people who help keep everybody knowledgeable about how our money is spent. and that it's authorized by law. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Winslow. Councilor McDonald. Thank you. So I am part of the 72% also who voted for the audit because our legislature and our leadership should be transparent and accountable and need to change the way they do business. Here in Malden, as we've said, we voted to welcome another audit into our city to make sure that we're doing things as well as we can in addition to the ongoing regular financial audit. Thank you, Councilor Long, for sponsoring that. So I couldn't agree more that these changes are needed. You all may or may not know, I started my career working in a different state's legislature. and I actually worked on school funding issues there, which is part of my passion for this issue. But Malden, excuse me, Massachusetts is the outlier among all states when it comes to these basic transparency laws.

nearly every other state, the legislature is subject to public records, subject to open meeting laws, all committee votes are recorded, there are expectations about how long you need to provide notice before things are voted on. So these seem like basic protections to me, and all of the, you know, that same vote when the legislature voted to restrict this access to the audit, all of those things were together. They all seem like the same kind of unwillingness to follow the will of the voters in our community. So I will be supporting this. I do want to say I think this has become an unnecessarily nasty political fight on Beacon Hill. and I hope that our leadership can consider this the opportunity it is to build trust because transparency matters When we are trying to get things done on behalf of our communities, not just for itself, and there are way too many policies that are being blocked because we don't have insight and transparency into what's happening behind closed doors.

I would recommend that if that's an issue that we bring in outside partners or that the legislature and the state auditor bring in partners like the National Conference on State Legislatures who are very trusted and neutral to help make sure it's a success. But I wholeheartedly support this. Thank you for proposing it and would like to be added as a co-sponsor. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor McDonald. Councillor Luong.

Thank you. You know, when I first started on school committee many moons ago, first thing I put through was a special education audit. from Malden so we could audit ourselves and how we gave our own services. And that was important to make sure for transparency and all the things that Councilor McDonald was saying. and same thing with our upcoming audit that we have coming in the fall. So for the state legislator to not think that they don't qualify or that they shouldn't also be audited, I find is criminal. I also voted for the audit, so I am happy to support your paper. Thank you so much for putting it through.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Luong. Councilor Simonelli.

Thank you, Madam President. You know, I just want to commend Councilor Sica on bringing this paper forward. Again, you know, I know I'm being redundant up here. I know we want to get this talking moving, but I just got to I got to say it the way it is, we're coming to recess soon, so I just want to say that, you know, it hasn't been easy up here. Everybody's been trying to do every little thing and, you know, there's been a lot of, I won't say fighting, I will say disagreements. There's been a lot of disagreements up here and people have been going at it. And, you know, Councilor Sica and I, you know, sometimes you can see us, sometimes we go at it up here. If you think that's something, you should see us when we go at it when we're home on the phone with each other. But at the end of the day, Sica and I have grown up with each other and we come from the east side of the city and we understand the same problems that are going on and we try and do different resolutions and We try and put different amendments forward. We try and be on different committees to help our constituency.

But at the end of the day, her and I, we come to a common ground. And I think that's a good thing to say about our friendship. And I will sponsor this paper and support her. Like I said, you know, we can be mad at each other today and tomorrow we'll be calling each other about, like, what rise we're getting for the 4th of July. And I think that's a good relationship to have. We have the, you know... same friends, same community. And I have to take my hat off to her again. I mean, everybody up here is working diligently and tirelessly with the mayor's office in their financial team to get us through this crisis. And we're getting through. We're getting through, and you can count on that. So, again, I just want to just say that Councilor Sica, it's a great paper, good stuff, and I'm on it. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Simonelli. Thank you. Councilor Colón Hayes.

I just wanted to ask, thank you for putting this forward. I just wanted to ask to be listed as a sponsor. Great job. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Colón Hayes. Councilor O'Malley for the second time.

Yeah, in the last time. And I just want to highlight, you know, our state auditor, Diana DiZaglio, is really doing the yeoman's work here. You know, obviously, she passed this audit law. She's currently working on passing a public records law. that would apply to the legislature to make sure that we can get all the public, the same public records laws that we have to comply with, making sure that they have to comply with that. And the reason why I have so much confidence in Diana DiZaglio is because she was a staffer. She was a house rep and she was a state senator. She knows exactly where the bodies are buried. That is the type of person you want doing an audit. She knows the inside of this organization and I have full confidence in her when it comes to that. I'm just wondering if it makes sense, should we be amending this to instruct our legislators and the governor in this? Or do we think it's enough to just, if the city clerk sends it to them, and send it to the governor so that they're aware that we've done this. I don't want it just to be us in this room and the public to know that.

I want the people that can still help prevent this backwards law from taking effect to know that Hey, you shouldn't be voting for this. And if it does get onto your desk, Governor, please veto it. I think if we're OK with you're sending it to them, that probably would be fine. Otherwise, I would be willing to amend it to instruct them.

You want stronger language than just to send it, am I understanding? Did you miss that?

Oh, yeah, so if I click into it, there's more?

Yes, there's, okay.

Sounds good, thank you.

Understood. It is the whole body, yeah.

I'm looking at you like, what? Did I not put that there?

No, you did. Okay, so seeing no other lights, do we have a motion?

Can we do a roll call on this vote? Do you mind?

I don't mind, yeah. So we have a motion by Councilor Simonelli, I assume seconded by Councilor Sica? Yes. Okay, let's call the roll.

Colón Hayes, Condon, Crowe, Linehan, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Taylor, Council Winslow. Yes. Council President Linehan. Yes. Unanimously passed. Okay.

Thank you all for coming out. Next order of business. Yep, no problem.

We all know I got to stick the whole thing.

Sorry, Tom. Paper 197-26. be it ordained by the Malden City Council that the Code of the City of Malden MCC 6.08.070C2 Licensing of Marijuana Establishments is hereby amended by inserting provided that no fewer than five marijuana retail licenses shall be made available after Mass General Laws Chapter 138, Subsection 15.

Okay, Councilor Colón Hayes. Oh, Councilor Winslow, did you want to speak to this?

Did you want to speak? I was just going to... and so on. So, we did already enroll this. So, as you might recall, there was an issue in terms of how many cannabis license we could General Issue, and it's sort of bounced between four and five. And so this is just to make sure that we have a minimum of five permitted. And so that's the purpose. So that's just to be clear. I would make a motion to ordain it.

Thank you. Okay, great. Any questions? Okay, seeing none, we have a motion by Councilor Winslow, seconded by Councilor Colón Hayes. We just need a voice vote, so all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that is ordained. Next order of business.

Communication. On May 13th, 2026, a request was made by Bruce Friedman of 8 Marvin Street for the executive session meeting minutes from the Malden City Council for the date of May 12th, 2026 regarding the matter of Benevolent Botanicals LLC and 926 Eastern Avenue LLC v. City of Malden. Pursuant to MGL Chapter 30A, Section 22G1, with the approval of Council President Linehan and City Solicitor McNeil, on May 28, 2026, 11 members of the Malden City Council were offered a period of time to review the draft minutes in the privacy of the city clerk's office. If there were any motions for amendments or need for further discussion, a date would be set to meet an executive session to deliberate. Otherwise, if there were no objections on behalf of the body, Council President Linehan would be tasked with the approval of said minutes. On June 4th, 2026, Council President Linehan authorized the approval of these minutes. Concurrently, a periodic review was completed to determine if said minutes warranted continued nondisclosure.

Under Open Meeting Law, MGL Chapter 38, Section 22F, these executive session minutes are being withheld as publication may defeat the lawful purpose of the executive session. Under the Public Records Law, the same set of executive session meeting minutes are being withheld based on attorney-client privilege. The meetings were held in executive session with the city solicitor and city officials who share an attorney-client relationship. The city officials sought legal advice from the city solicitor and the communications of these meetings have not, have all been waived. For the stated reasons, the above meeting minutes are withheld from public release at this time.

Okay, thank you. If folks have any questions, we do have a representative from our solicitor's office, otherwise we'd be looking just to do a motion for a voice vote to place on file, correct? Okay, motion by Councilor Sica, seconded by Councilor Winslow to place on file. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Councilor O'Malley has stepped out.

Okay, next order of business. Paper 295-26, Committee Report. The Standing Committees on Economic Development and Rules and Ordinance, serving in a joint session, to whom is referred Paper 256, Series of 2026, having considered the same, make the following vote. I'm sorry, make the following report. Under the authority of paper 256-26 to draft amendments to the sign control ordinance, committee presents the newly written paper 296-26 as the product of that task. to amend 4.16 sign control ordinance. Committee recommends this paper favorably to the full council.

OK. We do need to accept the committee report though first, right? Okay, so on a motion from Councilor Taylor, seconded by Councilor Winslow to accept the committee report. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay.

Paper 296-26, Order. Be it hereby ordained by the Malden City Council that the Code of the City of Malden MCC 4.16 Sign Control is hereby amended as follows, and it's explained in greater detail in the body of the paper.

OK, Councilor Winslow for the paper.

Yeah. So this is, you know, we're working to streamline some of our ordinances relate to businesses. And one of the things that Especially when you're starting up a business, one of the things you want to do is put up a sign to let everybody know you're there and know how to find you. And in the past, this has generally gone through a signed review committee. And that can be pretty burdensome. So this new update to the ordinance will really put more of those responsibilities in the hands of the building commissioner and really scale back the role of the sign review committee. So that's really the intent of this. So I don't know if Councilor Taylor had anything more, but yeah.

No, I think that was pretty well said, Steve. you know the biggest thing is the sign design review committee meets once a month so it's a lot to have somebody wait an entire month when generally when they show up it's it's maybe 35 seconds of reviewing it based on you know the recommendations of the building commissioner and so that is something that can be streamlined very easily regarding you know holding back that we will have the committee there if needed to convene, but not necessary to move forward. So it should be a help for many of our businesses.

Yeah. And I do want to just offer a quick thanks to the counselors that have been serving on that as well, because it does take place during the business day. that is time that they've been giving for what has been a pretty regular process up till now. So just want to make sure to give that thanks. So thank you both for that update. I'm going to take one light so far that I have from Councilor McDonald.

just very briefly, I'm really excited to support this paper. It's the first one coming out that is part of this broader push towards trying to build up our economic development and tax base. and the momentum on that. So I am really excited about this. I think it's a great example of streamlining where we can to make it easier for businesses. I always thought it was kind of wacky. You had to go to a sign design review committee that only does that. Many communities that have design review committees have much broader ordinances or standards around facades and architectural quality. just to vote to confirm that you followed the ordinance. So I think this is a great example of where we're streamlining and I wanna commend the Economic Development Committee, the staff of the OSPCD, and everyone involved in this, thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Simonelli.

Thank you, Madam President. You know, I just want to applaud this paper because I'll be honest, you know, my experience 15, 16 years ago, I was the Director of Inspectional Services, and that was part of one of my marching orders when I, under Richard Howard, when I took the job. was to establish a sign design review committee and it was burdensome to both the department and the way it was run and the City, you know, the city councilors that had to come there during the day and it was a long process and I don't think we should have businesses waiting 30, 60, 90 days. to get approved for putting a sign out in front of their business. You know, every day matters when you're paying, you know, and many more.

Thank you. and the sponsors of this paper. I think it's a great move moving forward. Like I said, I've had experience in dealing with it. The way it was done before was Burnham, to the departments and to the business constituency. So I think this will speed things up and streamline things. So again, great job. Thank you.

Great, thank you, Councilor Simonelli. Councilor Winslow.

Yeah, so just for folks from the public, I mean, the great thing is because we have that ordinance, there's actually a lot of detail to that. the building inspector is going to have a lot of guidance and that's really what we were finding is that a lot of the things that were coming and were in conformance are just a few comments. So I think that's a great thing. So I would make a motion to enroll this ordinance. Thank you.

Okay, on a motion by Councilor Winslow to enroll, seconded by Councilor Simonelli. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, seeing none, that is enrolled. Next order of business. The moment we've all been waiting for.

Paper 297-26, Committee Report, the Standing Committee on Finance, to whom was referred, Paper 233, Series of 2026. Having considered the same, make the following report.

on a motion by Councilor McDonald, seconded by Councilor Taylor to accept the committee report. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay.

Paper 233-26, order. The mayor will submit. I'm sorry, do you want me to do the memo first, or do you want to give the committee reports? I can do the committee.

Okay.

Oh, sorry, only if I put your light on, eh? There you go. Thank you, President. So as Chair of the Finance Committee, I just wanted to recap, and it will not be exhaustive, but I think it's important when we talk about the city budget to realize this is not a one year process. We are actually in year three, I would say, of a process of reckoning with the structural deficit in this city. and we are not done today no matter how this vote proceeds either. I would go back to 2023 when we first started really talking about the inevitable structural gap. we were at that time able to use the approval of the budget in 2023, able to use ARPA funds to help support some of our costs, and we did things like shifted our pension payment schedule so that we could avoid some of our annual expenses. That year we passed two resolutions at this council table.

One was about growing our revenues over time. and the other was about one of the primary drivers here, tackling the changes we need to our school funding formula. As the single busiest expense in Malden, as it is for most cities and towns, the state's requirements for how we spend money on our schools has not been matched with tools to raise that money. And I am a parent of kids in the schools. I support investing in the schools. but the expectations from the state have really been impossible for us to meet and Malden is an almost unique position about that. There are only a handful of communities where the state's expectations for what we should be able to spend on our schools are so out of whack with the actual money we have. So we spent some

serious amounts of time in 2023, 24, and 25 trying to work with the legislature to get changes to the school funding formula. including work with Senator Lewis's office. We did another resolution in 2024 about supporting a study commission to make some recommendations. that didn't pass until 2025. And at that point last fall, a team of us went to the hearings that that task force was having on the local share problems with the formula and delivered a very clear message about the pain that we're feeling in our community from this as we want to invest in our schools. Last year, I think at this time, we realized how tough this year was gonna be, and so also began the process of shifting to the Group Insurance Commission, our healthcare pool, to the state pool. We are projecting still to deliver savings of about 3 million. We won't know until July.

But that has been a key piece of making the ends meet this year. We revised our fee schedule. We looked at long-term issues like permitting fees and trash fees and so on. and this year when we, this year's process cannot be separated from the failure of our override where we asked our voters to say, do you want to sustain the current levels of service that we have? We narrowly lost the lower vote threshold in that. But the reality is that the tough decisions we face now, the time to fully avoid them was three months ago. that was when there was the chance to perhaps change the outcome or advocate differently for the passage of that override. Now, having lost that, we have to recognize that that was not the will of our voting community, and so we are facing some pretty serious cuts.

Even this year, as I said, this is not the end of our story. The budget that we've considered relies on just over $5 million in one-time funds. to give us some more time to work on some of the other strategies. One of those includes our economic development work that'll build up our tax base. That's how we get long-term revenue in addition to the fixes we need for the school funding formula. And I'm really excited to see that work moving. So this year, the budget came a little bit early. We used that time to meet with every single department, representatives from every single department in the city We talked about the proposed cuts. Roughly 35 positions are being eliminated in this budget. That's a combination of open positions, Layoffs, retirements, and the city is working and bargaining with our unions to reduce the number of layoffs and shift that as much towards retirement and open positions as possible.

So we had good conversations and asked every department head, what are the impacts of this on your budget? And are there ways that we could save money in the future? And we had some good ideas from folks. And they told us about ways they'd reduce contract expense and they're hoping to reduce professional services next year when something expires or changes. So it was good to have those direct conversations. Ultimately, we had a very strong turnout for our public hearing last week and as a result, the finance committee proposed to the mayor restoring some of the cuts to our language access services, specifically the position in the clerk's office, the city clerk's office, that focuses on election based language access and enfranchising our most language isolated community, many of our Chinese speaking community members who rely on these services to access their vote and their ballot.

the Mayor agreed to that as well as to restore some, but not all of the cuts, which is what we requested, not all, but some of the cuts to the community events budgets that the Council manages, I think, we heard specifically given the July 4th anniversary this next month. This was not the time to scale all the way back. So we'll have to revisit that next year. So those were the things that the mayor agreed to in the memo that is attached to this. We voted as part of the committee report to recommend those amendments to the appropriation order. We don't have the authority to do that without the mayor's assent. We can only cut. So that was then recommended unanimously favorably back out to the floor just earlier tonight. So I just want to say again, we are here with an unfortunate task to figure out how much we can do to stabilize our budget and the finances of the city that we are entrusted with.

And we will have to be back here in a year again to figure out how to take the next steps that we need to truly bring this budget into balance. in order to give us more time for some of these other strategies to play out and consider other options. We're cutting it by about half. right now of the deficit we would have started with. And we'll need to continue to work on that in the year ahead. So I just want to say thank you to all of the counselors who have put input on this. Thank you to our city's finance team, Chuck Granaghan, Controller, Ron Hogan, Chief Strategy Officer, who will be retiring and his position not backfilled. Thank you, Ron. And Maria Louise, Chief of Staff to the Mayor, who are all here. And the Mayor himself, who was at nearly every single Finance Committee meeting. And Dan Grover, Treasurer. Where did Dan go? He's in the back. Oh, he's in the back. Oh, there you are. I'm sorry, Dan. Thank you, Dan Grover, Treasurer, for also being in all of these meetings. I appreciate that. That is my committee report.

And I'm sure there will be comments about this budget, as there should be. But thank you all for getting to this point. It's been a journey, and we're not done. Thank you.

and before we take motions or questions, do you want to read the Mayor's memo? Okay, I think we should do that next.

So a memo from Mayor Gary Christensen to the City Council. dated June 4th, 2026. Thank you for your focus, attention, and dedication to this year's budget process. I know you all share in the pain of seeing people lose jobs. the concern for the future and the commitment to do everything we can to put Malden on a sustainable path. That process begins with this budget but certainly doesn't end here. While I'm leery of adding anything back into the budget knowing what the future holds, I'm also mindful of the collaboration that is needed between us and as a result this memorandum is to inform you that we will support your resolution that was voted on unanimously at last week's finance meeting. To summarize, your request was to do the following. Restore $40,000 to the city clerk's office for Ana Say to continue her work with our non-English speaking community on voting rights and other matters.

and restore funding for ward-based activities and support including 4th of July by budgeting for the following in the ward improvements line item. This singular line item will replace the 4th of July line item. $7,500 per ward councillor, $2,500 per at-large councillor. The net addition is $87,500 which takes into account the fact that we already had $20,000 budgeted in the 4th of July line item which is now zeroed out. I am willing to increase the use of reserves to support your request in the spirit of collaboration in the community focus of these requests at last week's public hearing. with the addition of funding to continue the good work that Honest Say does for our community, I do want to address the topic of language access. As you know, the budget removes funding for an additional full-time language access position that we had hired previously with ARPA funds and funded last year out of the general fund.

This position had always tended to be temporary in nature and establish a foundation for the organization to follow. With Ana's position restored, she will work closely with our DEI coordinator, Kashana Harling, to strengthen our overall efforts on language access. We will amend Ana's contract to formalize these additional goals. and Kashana is also eager to lead in addressing our needs. The city clerk has also indicated that this capacity exists with on his role, given the seasonal and temporary nature of elections. I do want to proactively address some of the other ideas as well. that while not presented at Finance Committee did come up during the Committee of the Whole meeting. It was suggested that we could cut police and fire overtime to restore positions. both chiefs spoke in detail in the Finance Committee about the necessity of overtime funding to address staffing shortages caused by such things as injuries, FML leave, vacations, and sick time.

Overtime funding is a necessity for any public safety organization to provide the flexibility necessary to respond to circumstances unique to public safety. Cutting overtime budgets won't help us. Rather, it will simply leave these departments short midway through the fiscal year. For that reason, it's not a real cut and would result in a mid-year added appropriation from reserves. I cannot and will not support additional spending that would be funded by cuts that are on paper only while ultimately pulling more from reserves. Similarly, recommendations to cut the salary reserve is simply irresponsible. We have open contracts with unions for time periods during which other unions received increases. Cutting funding here is once again not a real cut, but rather just a backdoor increase to utilizing reserves to fund additional spending. This is not transparency. Again, I cannot and will not support additional spending funded by cuts to salary reserves that would then require the use of more reserves when contracts are settled.

There were several other items mentioned, such as cutting professional services from the legal department that once again don't provide any actual positive savings. Please remember budgets are a combination of controllable and uncontrollable line items. The use of outside counsel is largely driven by circumstances out of our control, and this line item accounts for that uncertainty. Cutting the budget won't cut the need. It will only leave us short-funded later on in the fiscal year. I have provided for the docket a revised appropriation order for the meeting of June 9th, which reflects the requests that were voted on in committee. I hope that with these requests being funded, that the City Council can take an affirmative vote on that budget. There remains a lot of work to be done with the various collective bargaining units, and the sooner we have an approved budget, the sooner we can finalize plans with these groups that meet the goals of the budget. Thank you again for your time, attention, and dedication to Malden.

and I will read into the record paper 233-26 order. The mayor will submit the fiscal year 2027 annual appropriation orders for the general fund. The revised budget appropriation is attached to the history of this paper and it is dated June 4th, 2026.

Okay, thank you so much. Questions, discussion? I have one light by Councillor O'Malley. I do have a motion and a second on the floor.

Yeah, so I would make a motion to amend The budget by striking or reducing the following account numbers 0010 to 105150. which is policed over time by $289,749.30. Account number 0010-220-5150. Fighter Overtime, $446,303.91. And then Salary Reserve, which is 00109965110. for $1.2 million for 0463945. So that would be a total of over $1.9 million in savings.

It would allow the mayor, he so chooses to restore the cadets who would be laid off currently as proposed. And it would also allow him to restore and the firefighters that are proposed to be laid off. You know, salary reserve, whether or not we put it in salary reserve or we have it in the free cash, I believe is irrelevant. I think that structuring like this makes it seem like we have less money than we really do. And I think when you take that into consideration with the fact that during The override discussion, it was, woe is me, the sky is falling, we're gonna have to fire and lay off 60 people. Now we're really looking at four or five people. the $1.6 million that we found out about the day after the election.

I think when you take it into this grand scheme of things, it undermines confidence in this process and whether or not to some degree This was a manufactured emergency. I think there's a way to save these people's positions without laying them off. I think I've just laid out a way to do that, and I hope we can restore all the positions that we're proposing to lay off. Thank you.

Thank you, Council. Would love a second. I'll second. Okay, so we now have... Okay, Councilor Simonelli.

You know, look, actually, honestly, I'm going to actually defer at this point. because I don't want to jump the gun here, but I want to defer to the chairperson of the Finance Committee. I'd like to hear this response. What is the reason for these cuts, and how do you think that's gonna restore? I mean, we're down to the final wire here, and we have to have a... Balanced Budget by July 1st. It's not too far off. It's a lot of fun that you're talking there for a second. So I just want to know, like, What's the reasoning behind it? What's it gonna do? And how's it gonna restore these positions? And if you can...

Why don't we vote on it and then if it passes we'll have that discussion and if it doesn't then it's a mute topic.

That's fine. I'm cool with that.

I also would just say that with respect to Councilor McDonald, I would also offer that we have the mayor's finance team. We have our controller, CFO, who could also speak to that.

They take the vote first and then speak to it if it doesn't.

Good idea.

On Councilor O'Malley's motion? I'm fine with that, too?

That's good.

Okay, so we have a motion by Councilor O'Malley, seconded by... No, I won't second that. I was going to say.

I don't know if you want to do that. I thought it was Councilor Sica's motion to take the vote. I'm sorry. My bad.

Okay. So we have a motion by Councilor O'Malley, seconded by Councilor Colón Hayes. I think, Clerk, you're comfortable with, you can get the numbers.

We can fill in the numbers and go back.

We actually did a pretty good job getting everything that you said. Okay, we'll do a roll call? Okay, I'm ready if you are.

Colón Hayes, Condon, Crowe, Linehan, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, No. Councilor Taylor? No. No. Councilor Winslow?

No.

No. Councilor Linehan? No. No. So that motion fails.

Okay. Thank you. so we can go back to the previous motion or we can undertake additional motions.

Motion to pass the budget. Second.

Okay. On a motion by Councilor Sica, seconded by Councilor Simonelli, we'll take the roll.

Council Colón Hayes. No. No. Council Condon. This is to pass, adopt the order.

To adopt the order, I'm sorry, I said that wrong. To pass the budget. Yes, to adopt the order.

He said yes. I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. I apologize. Councilor Condon said yes. Thank you. Councilor Crowe? Yes. Yes. Councilor Hwang?

Yes.

Yes. In the middle of a roll call?

I'm just wondering, do we take a motion to amend the budget to reflect the work that was done?

No, because the mayor sent down a revised budget and that's what you're voting on. the revised budget that was attached.

Okay, I just wanted to make sure that you guys were doing what you wanted to do.

That's a good question. Appreciate it. It is a good question. Councilor McDonald? Yes. Yes. Councilor O'Malley? No. Councilor Sica? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simonelli? Yes. Yes. Councilor Taylor? Yes. Yes. Councilor Winslow? Yes. Yes. Councilor President Linehan? Yes. Yes. So that order has been adopted. The budget has been passed by a vote of nine to two.

next order of business.

That is your docket, it's clear.

The docket is clear. Does anybody have personal, wow, everybody has personal privilege. Whoa, oh my goodness. Okay, Councilor Winslow was first.

All right. I want to thank everybody who came out for Bike to the Sea Day on Sunday. I know some of the councilors were there, the mayor was there, but... and also Malden Police for helping out, getting people a safety cross and Malden DPW to help clean up a few things as well. and then just remind everybody in Ward 6 in Maplewood, we are gonna have our 250th celebration on Friday. and many more. Thank you. of Henry's Catering, Burgers and Sausages, come on out. Thanks, great.

Okay, Councilor Colón Hayes. I didn't realize I was second, so yeah, thank you.

That's okay, no, I'm like, I got it, okay. So I want to let everyone know again about Juneteenth. We have been working so hard behind the scenes to get this going. it is Friday, June 19th, 11 to 3 at the Salemwood School. We have an excellent program. it begins with a flag raising at 11, then we have performances, we have a drumming corp, we have a welcome, we have songs, then we have a... let's see, Spoken Word, Double Dutch Group, yes, Step Routine, me too, I love Double Dutch, Keynote Address by Terry Carter, the AO Step Team in Malden High but also Salemwood and Funk Phenomenon which was huge last year. Then we're gonna break out and I want the community to know because there's gonna be workshops.

So Terrell Dortch is going to be doing a teen experience black identity workshop. Dr. Rachel is going to be doing the Double Dutch. She's going to talk about the history of Double Dutch. and Art on Canvases, and then the big finale, which would be the Community Meal. Last year, over 700 people attended. This gets bigger and bigger. And so this year, we're going to do a grab and go, not go, a grab and sit down, in the cafeteria because it got overcrowded to the point where we almost went over capacity last year. So they're going to be trying something different. So please be patient with us when we try and do that. I hope you all come. And then the second thing is I want to congratulate a couple of Malden students. So the District Attorney, Marian Ryan, had a celebration for good citizens. and I had put forward a few youth who ended up receiving this so they were there today actually.

I couldn't go because I was here but that was, and that's for being good citizens and being involved like I do a citizens group too with youth civics with kids. Caduce, so many people know him, he's done everything, Siege, Juliana Dormilville, Sophie Tran, and Eve Camarado. So they've all been doing some great things and just congratulations to them.

I didn't even know that. Wow, go Eve. And everyone. No bias. Okay, Councilor Simonelli.

Thank you, Madam President. So, Steve don't know yet, but I'm teaming up with him for the Fourth of July this year. I haven't told him yet.

Oh, my God.

He don't know yet. Yeah, that's right. We'll pull numbers. No, I'm just saying that, you know, Ward 7 will be doing their 4th of July festivity on Friday, July 3rd as well. in the afternoon, say around 5 o'clock. We're doing 5 to 8. I'm a little different this year. I think it's too hot in the morning. Kids don't want to run in the races too early. Or then in the mid-afternoon, it's a little too late. So we're going to change it up a little bit and see how that goes. We did a little bit last year like that, and it seemed to work out pretty well. And I just want to say that anybody that wants to come out and volunteer, Not just on the 4th of July festivities. I intend on working on several festivities moving forward in the neighborhood, in the city of Malden. So, you know... I could use the support and use the help if anybody wants to just jump in and do some neighborhood things and have some ideas on neighborhood activities. I really could use the help this year, like all of us can, so I just want to just...

Extend that arm out to everybody and say come on aboard. Thank you very much, Madam President.

Thank you, Councilor Simonelli. Councilor O'Malley.

Hi, everyone. I just want to wish everyone a happy Pride Month. We did a flag raising recently, and there's been a lot of great events at different schools, so I just want to wish everyone a happy Pride. In addition, Ward 4 is going to be having our Independence Day celebration on July 4th, Saturday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Quarter Milley Park. Obviously, if you'd like to volunteer, we all need volunteers. The pool would be open. There'll be, you know, obviously bouncy houses, the races, everything. But I think the big thing in Ward 4 that everyone likes, including the mayor, is the big bubbles, the giant bubbles. So I've learned how to make giant bubbles. If you'd like to see some giant bubbles, come to Quarter Millie Park on Independence Day. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Last but not least, Councilor Luong.

Yes, so I just wanted to mention that Councilor Simonelli and I are working on a book drive this summer in Ward 7. on the east side and throughout the city, actually. So anybody, any of the councilors, come see me after. If you'd like to join us, we'd love to be inclusive to everyone. And yeah, that's it. Thanks.

Condon.

My partner is very disagreeable tonight, but I would like To reach out to our two communities, Ward 1 and Ward 2, we have Friday night We're going to be doing Peg's show, where she's the star. It's all about Peg. But no, she puts on a great show for the basketball tournament and everything else.

Okay. In movie night.

What's the name of that movie?

You'll find out. Okay. It's a surprise.

You don't tell anybody what they're coming to see?

Continue on. You're a good backup.

All right, and Saturday we'll be doing, Saturday we'll be having a good time barbecuing. That's where we're gonna need some help. on the barbecuing and all the kids races and giving them out toys, judges. So if you can make it, I'd appreciate it. Devapark. I know where it is.

Okay.

She says I'm done.

All right. Well, Michelle, you got something else?

I just wanted to, really quick. I just wanted to thank the Kiwanis Club for donating 300 books to mine and Consul Simonelli's book drive. it's huge, we probably have about 450 books but a big part was from the Kiwanis Club and I just wanted to give them a really big shout out and to just to say thank you.

That's great. Okay, Councilor Sica.

Thank you. I guess I'm just going to do a little quick save the date for me, but Ward 8 is on the 4th of July. It's the 4th of July celebration on the 4th of July, so everybody save the date for that. We'll be starting our festivities at 9 a.m. Till Noon. Yep, I'm sure you will be there because I love going to other people's when I'm not running my own. All right. Thank you. No hot dogs. Thank you.

Okay, Councilor Taylor. Sorry, I don't want Ward 5 to think we're not having a 4th of July. We absolutely are having our 4th of July on the 4th of July, 10 to 1 at Forestdale. Park, right next to the Forestdale School. Thank you.

Yeah, now I feel like I have to say mine too. We'll also be having Ward 3 on the 4th of July. Tendawana, Amarage Park, come on down. We're having Pearl Street do the food again. It's been so popular the past few years. We'll have hot dogs, burgers, and veggie burgers. So be in touch if you want to volunteer or donate. We'd love to have the help. Awesome, I was just gonna ask for a motion to adjourn. So a motion by Councilor O'Malley, seconded by Councilor Crowe. All in favor? Aye. Aye, at 8.40 we are adjourned. Thank you everyone.