Malden City Council 2026-02-10

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, 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. I also wanted to do an additional moment of silence tonight. Tragically, a seventh grader at the Beebe School where my daughter is a student passed away last week of cancer. A young woman, Norma Rose Tremay Smith, who my daughter and many of her friends had the opportunity to get to know over the last few years, has been battling a rare form of brain cancer since 2019.

and she has actually been able to attend school up until just very, very recently and she did pass last week. Norma Rose has a, you know, from everything that my daughter and her friends have told me has just a bright, sparkling personality. the services are going to be this weekend the information is posted on the BB Facebook page if anybody's not on Facebook and would like that information please feel free to reach out to me and I'm happy to share that privately but just wanted to have A moment of silence for this darling young girl who's gone too soon, Norma Rose. Thank you. Thank you very much. Will the Clerk please now call the roll?

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

Here. Okay, under the provisions of the open meeting law, for those in attendance, please be informed that UMA Urban Media Arts will be recording this evening's meeting, so just be aware that there will be audio and video recordings of tonight's meeting. First order of business. is public comment. Public comment is allowed under council rules. Each speaker is limited to the subject matter relevant to this evening's agenda, and everyone must keep their comments to two minutes or less. Clerk, do we have anybody signed up for public comment?

We do not.

Okay, then we will move on to our next order of business, which is the consent agenda. So this evening's consent agenda consists of one appointment and one communication to be placed on file, as well as 13 petitions to be referred to the License Committee. Does any councillor have a desire to remove any of these items from the consent agenda for the purpose of further discussion?

Motion to approve.

Okay, hearing none and seeing none, I have a motion to approve by Councilor Sica, seconded by Councilor Simonelli. All in favor? All opposed? The agenda is approved. Next order of business.

Paper 98-26, Mayoral Appointment, Catherine Price of 30 Tough Street, Malden, as a member of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Board, said term to commence upon confirmation by the City Council and to expire on January 31st, 2028.

Okay, Councilor Crowe.

Thank you, Madam President. These are the mayoral appointments. And so we have been, for the reappointments, not bringing them into personal appointments unless someone had a reason or really wanted to talk to somebody in particular. We can always do that. Besides this, we'll make a motion that we approve this reappointment. Second.

Okay. Do we need to do a roll call to confirm? We do.

Okay. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Councilor Colón Hayes. Yes. Councilor Condon. Yes. Councilor Crowe.

Yes.

Councilor LeWong. McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Taylor, Winslow, yes, Council President Linehan, yes, that has been confirmed unanimously, Catherine Price is confirmed, okay, next order of business, paper 99-26, mayoral reappointment, Kirk Zemdewski of 5, 69 Fellsway East, as a member of the Conservation Commission, said term to commence upon confirmation by the City Council and to expire on February 13th, 2029. Okay, Councilor Crowe.

Again, this is a mayoral appointment and with a Mayoral Reappointment. And so, again, you can go to Conservation Commission, or we can have them in at another time, but I make a motion that we approve his appointment here on the floor.

Do I have a second? Okay, second by Councilor Winslow.

Let's do a roll call to confirm. Council President Linehan. Yes. Okay, confirmed unanimously. Okay, that is confirmed. Next order of business. Paper 103-26, the Malden City Council will address the open meeting law complaint submitted on January 30th, 2026 by John Sayah of 37 Pierce Street against the council related to the wording of paper 7226. Okay, thank you.

And I will invite our assistant solicitor. Well, I guess we need a vote to refer this to legal. Invite our assistant solicitor to come up if folks have questions. Is that appropriate?

As soon as we get a motion. Yes, I think that it is appropriate to have the legal. Yes, please. Okay, thank you.

Do we have a motion to refer to legal? Okay, by Councilor Taylor, seconded by Councilor Simonelli. We can do a voice vote. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Let me put your podium on.

This is a vote to refer the open meeting law complaint to legal to devise a response. President.

Okay. Do folks have questions?

Did you want me to read? Did you want me to read?

That's fine.

It's actually not that brief, to be honest with you. No, it's got a full addendum. It's not that brief. Okay, so how do we want to handle this? It doesn't necessarily need to be read into the record unless somebody's got a question about it.

Are folks familiar with the, I know we've had a lot of these lately, would folks appreciate a summary of what we're talking about, or has everybody caught up? Everybody's good? Did folks have questions for our Assistant Solicitor?

So I will say that the opening of the alleged violation complaint says I submit this complaint under Massachusetts Open Meeting Law concerning the City Council's consideration of Order 72-26 and its referral to the Public Safety Committee. the agenda and order language as posted did not provide the public with sufficient notice of the substance or practical implications of this matter. The order used mandatory language with potentially significant operational effects yet relied on broad undefined terms that did not clearly describe what actions or policies were being considered. I will go further to explain that Mr. Seya also said that he deems that if this paper went onto the Public Safety Committee agenda, because it was referred, then that would also be another open meeting law violation for the same reasons on the different agendas.

On tonight's agenda, Council Condon, you had like a little, almost a disclaimer at the top of your agenda to try to get clarification to the public on the scope and the nature of the paper that you talked about in committee last night. I hope that made it clearer for the people, the scope that we were talking about. I see. Of this paper.

OK. So folks, recall this is because this is a little bit of an unusual.

It very much is.

Compared to other complaints that we've had. Do you want to summarize what's been sent to us so far or what the response has been, what the recommendation is?

I actually have not worked on this one myself. Okay. I'm sure we will take this in, we'll review the complaint, apply the law to it, and bring you something back to vote on.

Okay, I have a couple lights on. Councilor Winslow, you have a question?

Yeah, no, I mean, I think certainly this is definitely unusual and, you know, I guess I think it's... Just based on my own experience, and I'm sure this is something you'll do in looking at the cases, I think there's a pretty definitive thing in the decisions on these complaints about the scope of them. O'Malley.

so I would say that the open meeting law is great and we try our best and I think that you know, when the mistakes are made, you know, we should admit our mistakes. I don't think that this was a mistake. I don't think that what we presented on the docket would be an open meeting law violation. I did not talk to either of the sponsors and I was able to read it and pretty clearly ascertain what it was related to. So I just don't, you know, everyone has their right to file Open Meeting Law complaints and I think that they provide a good Check on us to make sure we're following the law. I think we follow the law here for sure I don't think this this particular open meeting law complaint has merit and I do think it's important to make sure that you know if this does get sent up to the Attorney General that we kind of explain ourselves well so that we don't have a determination that for some reason putting

even vague policy objectives on the docket to get more specific. I think it would be an open meeting law violation to have something so overly specific that it looked like you were doing the deal behind closed doors, whereas if you put something more generic out there to be worked on in committee, that actually is more compliant with the open meeting law, in my opinion. I did vote present because I wasn't understanding the motion. It was a little confusing earlier, but I think our legal department will do a fine job responding to this. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Councilor O'Malley. Councilor Winslow, you have your light on again. Okay, Councilor Winslow for the second time.

Just another quick thing. I mean, the other thing is just for the legal office is just make sure you get the record of the meeting. We had a lot of people make comments on that, so... both in person and in writing. So I think that's part of the thing about the open meeting law in terms of vagueness is that obviously there was a lot of people that were not on the council that understood what that was and made comments. So I think that's an important part of the record to emphasize in our response. Thank you.

Okay. Councilor McDonald.

Yeah, I would just echo my colleague's comments on this and say that I think the goal of the open meeting law is to promote discourse in public to make sure that we are not doing things behind closed doors inappropriately. I think we had a very robust exchange in the council and that is what we should be doing is being transparent with the community about what we think and what we're discussing and so I hope we can continue to do that and I'm glad that our legal department will be helping us respond to this because I think the ability to put open-ended conversations on the docket feels really important for the council to be able to do its job rather than trying to micromanage How those discussions happen before they even get to the agenda. That's the whole purpose of an open meeting. So thank you for responding.

Thank you, Councilor McDonald. Yes, from the chair, seeing no other lights, I echo what my colleagues have said. I would not want to quash debate on our ability to docket things where we need to generate discussion and refer to committee and do the proper work of the council. I was interested in this complaint but I look forward to hearing what the legal assessment is and seeing what

and so on and so forth. Okay. Okay.

So we have the option to have, oh, sorry, Councilor Crowe, did you have a question before we?

I do think that we authorize, you've heard what the council sort of thinks and sort of things to look at. I do think that although we refer to that we authorize them to submit to the Attorney General and not have to come back for another vote. And not have to come back.

OK, that's exactly what I was just going to ask. What's the sense of the body? Do you have a? Yep, go ahead, Councilor McDonald.

Just to clarify, so is that with the Council President's sign-off?

That's what we're discussing.

Okay, I would support legal submitting our response with your review.

Okay.

I just wanna make sure that it was.

That's what we need a motion around.

Yes, I'd be happy to second that motion.

Can we voice vote that? or do we need a roll call?

No, we can voice vote that.

Okay, so on a motion by Councilor Crowe, seconded by Councilor McDonald to have that response by legal, authorized by the Council President, signed by the Council President. All in favor? Aye. Okay, that carries. No by Councilor O'Malley.

Okay. That motion passed by a 10 to 1 vote. Thank you so much.

Okay, next order of business.

Paper 100-26 Committee Report. The Standing Committee on Finance to whom was referred, Paper 52, Series of 2026, having considered the same, make the following report. The committee reports the paper out favorably with the following recommendation that it is requested of the mayor to seek a financial management review from the Massachusetts Division of Local Services.

Okay. Motion by Councilor McDonald, second by Councilor Taylor to receive the committee report. All in favor?

Aye. Paper 52-26, order that the finance committee meet in conjunction with the mayor's financial team. to research the feasibility of submitting an application to the Massachusetts Department of... What happened?

We're missing a page.

Okay, so what's happening up here is that not everybody has page two of the agenda.

Oh, no. Where do you skip to? Just go with me, I'll read it to you.

The Finance Committee will meet in conjunction with the Mayor's Financial Team to research the feasibility of submitting an application to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue Division of Local Services Financial Management Resource Bureau for Financial Management Review of the City of Malden. The purpose of such a review shall be to evaluate municipal operations, financial practices, and organizational efficiency. Be it further ordered that upon successful completion of the review, the Finance Committee will come back to the full Council to report on the Bureau's findings, and this was sponsored by Councilor Luong. Okay, Councilor Luong for the paper.

Yes, thank you so much. You know, very excited about this and I think it's definitely time for a review. So the financial management review was originally done recently in 2011. and it's usually done with the transition of mayors. Now it's 16 some odd years later and our city has changed and the way we sometimes do business might change. So I think it's time for us to also take this moment to review it, and again, and call for review.

Okay, thank you, Councilor Luong. Questions, Councilor McDonald.

I just want to echo that I'm very supportive of this paper and would like to be added as a co-sponsor and that we had a really good discussion about this paper and the next paper in committee. and talked about the importance of an outside review and then just trying to get clear on really what that can do and what it means. The city does get financial audits and what that is is outside independent accountants who make sure that our books our accounting is correct. But that doesn't have anything to do with the decisions we make about those resources. This kind of a financial management review that the Division of Local Services can do for free, gratefully, is really focused on our financial and planning processes. It can't displace the work that we have to do as a council or that we do with the mayor about how we spend our money, but it can really help us think through the process for how we manage that money and those financial decisions. I think it's really worth doing. I appreciate Councilor LeLong and Councilor Colón Hayes bringing these papers forward so we could have a good discussion in committee.

And it was a unanimous vote to refer this back. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor McDonald. Councillor O'Malley.

I would also like to thank the sponsor and would love to be added as a co-sponsor. I do want to thank, you know, Councillor Long, Colón Hayes. I know that you both have taken different positions here, but I think that your compromise has been great to find a cost free option here and fully in support. I think that the city only Gaines to benefit from this type of performance review. And I do appreciate the collaboration. I think that you'll probably see a unanimous vote up here. And the fact that people want to sign on as co-sponsors is a good sign of a healthy and well thought out paper. Kudos to Councillor Long. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor O'Malley. Councillor Colón Hayes.

Thank you so much. I also would love to be a co-sponsor on here, and I want to thank Councillor Long on your first paper. Well done. and I appreciated the chance. I think that my, I don't have my piece of the paper here, so I'm not sure what's happening. Oh, I am next, then nevermind. I'll say what I'm gonna have to say next.

Okay, any other lights? Anybody else want to be added as a co-sponsor? Okay. Yeah, I'd love to see everybody added. I think that'd be great.

Everyone?

Yeah, I'd love to be added as well. Okay, do we have a motion to adopt the order? May Councillor Luong, seconded by Councillor Taylor? Okay, all in favor?

Aye.

That motion carries. The order is adopted. paper 101-26 committee report the standing committee on finance to whom was referred paper 53 series of 2026 having considered the same make the following report committee recommends reporting the paper out to the full council to be placed on file

Okay, on a motion by Councilor McDonald, seconded by Councilor Taylor to receive the committee report.

All in favor? Aye. Order that the Finance Committee engage in discussions regarding the costs involved and procedures required for requesting the Office of the State Auditor to conduct a municipal audit on the City of Malden, The purpose of the audit shall be to identify any inefficiencies and irregularities in financial management within the City to ensure that public funds are being used effectively and in accordance with Malden's goals and policies to enhance transparency and public confidence and for the State Auditor's Office to provide recommendations for improving financial controls and safeguarding against waste or loss while complying with relevant laws and regulations, sponsored by Councilor Colón Hayes. Okay, Councilor Colón Hayes for the paper.

Thank you very much. So we talked about this in the Finance Committee. And I had talked about putting forward an audit for many, many months. I had lots of conversations with the state auditor's office and once I found out how long something like this was gonna take, they said approximately one, possibly two years, and that it would cost us some money, even though we weren't sure exactly what that cost was. I was happy to fully support Councilor Luong's, who was a different avenue to go and didn't cost us money, it made perfect sense. So yeah, I just wanted to put this on file and put an end to it. Thanks.

Okay. Oh, I see I have a light by Councilor O'Malley. You have the floor.

Prior to it being put on file, I would like to just say that I was in support of your paper and like to also be added as a co-sponsor. Thank you.

Okay, seeing no other lights, do I have a second to the motion to place the... Okay, second by Councilor Crowe. All in favor of placing this on file? Aye. Okay, that is placed on file. Next order of business.

Paper 102-26, order that the City Council will vote whether to go into executive session with legal counsel for the city in accordance with Exemption 7, Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 30A, Section 21A7. to comply with or act under the authority of in general or special law or federal grant in aid requirements in order to act on periodic review of those executive session minutes listed herein to determine if release of records is appropriate at this time or if continued non-disclosure is warranted. Council vote is required prior to the release of the executive session minutes for the following dates. April 29, 2025 March 11, 2025 March 4, 2025 February 25, 2025 February 11, 2025 February 4, 2025 September 26, 2023 September 12th, 2023, October 25th, 2022. And a roll call vote is required.

Okay, do we have a motion? related to going into executive session for the purpose of conducting these review of these minutes. Okay, we have a motion by Councilor Taylor. Thank you. Seconded by Councilor Simonelli. Okay, on Councilor Taylor's motion, seconded by Councilor Simonelli, to adopt the order and enter into executive session for the purpose of conducting periodic review of selected executive session minutes for possible public release, the Clerk will call the roll.

Councilor Colón Hayes. Condon, Crowe, Linehan, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Taylor, Winslow. Council President Linehan. Yes. The order has been adopted by a vote of 10 to 1.

Okay, so the council will enter into executive session. We will now enter into executive session. The body will not reconvene for any further business this evening, and we will adjourn directly from executive session. Too late.

734.

734 PM.