Malden City Council 04-21-2026

Okay, apologize for the delay. The council will now 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, Invisible, 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. At this time, I am going to turn it over to Councilor Simonelli for an additional moment of silence.

Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. So I know that most of you are probably already aware that Wayne Martineau, who is a worker here in the city of Malden, worked here for quite some time, has passed away yesterday at 10 o'clock. in the morning. So I know that everybody here knows Wayne. And everybody that has had an encounter with Wayne has always walked away. Feeling just a little better every time they have talked to him. Every time he's seen something that was wrong, he'd want to write it. He's a hard worker.

You know, Wayne and I grew up together down at the New England Street Housing Projects. And there was a lot of us back then, like the 70s and 80s. And Wayne is nine years older than me. Sorry. And Henry's sister Sue used to babysit me and my brother, because we lived next door. and if Wayne was here now, he would tell you that he's still babysitting me. You know? Wayne did... everyone that knows him or know about him, know that he was just an all-around really good guy.

He took his work serious, and he worked like 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We used to have like conversations at nighttime You know, it was a time when we were all down at the housing development together back in like the 80s and it'd be like 35 of us that would hang underneath the acorn tree in front of our house. And we would talk about if we ever had the opportunity, to be able to be lucky enough to work at City Hall and had the opportunity to make changes in our neighborhood, particularly Ward 7 and the City of Malden. the things we would do.

Wow. and I just want to say that Wayne, you did it. You made a lot of changes.

Wayne's a good husband, good father, good grandfather, and a good friend. And he will be solely missed here in the city of Malden. for the work that he's done here. And Wayne has always went the extra mile and be always one of those people that would be like, why can't we? Cut through the red tape and make changes to help people throughout the community. Wayne has suffered. Serious personal loss and trials and tribulations in his family leading up to his battle with lung cancer and lost two children. son and a daughter within a couple of years apart from each other. And then had a face that he had stage four lung cancer.

and Ballard for like a year now. And you know, things were getting better for him too. You know, the tumor was shrinking and They received, he made these trials for July, and everybody was optimistic that he was gonna pull through this. So, you know, again, Wayne, is just an all-around really good guy and a good Maldonian and loved the city and worked hard and helped people on a constant basis. Wayne, a lot of people probably don't know that Wayne was part of the Yes We Can on the New School Project. you know, he was clerk of the works there.

And I remember I was council president when they, the school first came online and you know, they wouldn't have came online on time and on budget if it wasn't Wayne's enthusiasm and his ability and leadership to have people work together. For unforeseen circumstances that you come across all the time in the unions, but Wayne had that magic and ability to get people working together. And you know, Malden's gonna really miss Wayne Monno. because I've been up here for about 15, 16 years now on and off. We do this a lot for a lot of people in the city of Malden because Malden's great that way. and we always recognize people that have made a difference here in this community.

But I gotta say that this one's been a difficult one for me, so. his family is very grateful for everybody's enthusiasm and condolences. And they wanted me to say thank you to everybody here tonight. Look, I'm gonna end it here because I know there's probably some folks that want to say some good things about the guy that have worked with him personally, so I don't want to take up everybody's time. But you'll be missed, Wayne. and I just want to thank you Madam President for your time and my colleagues for allowing me to speak. So thank you and excuse me for crackling here.

Thank you for your words. Wayne truly was the best of the best. Does anybody else want to share a memory of Wayne? I think you did do a great job. I think we can leave it at that. may he rest in peace, a moment of silence in memory of Wayne Martineau. Thank you. at this time will the Clerk please call the roll?

Councilor Colón Hayes? Here. Councilor Condon?

Here.

Councilor Crowe? Here. Councilor Wong?

Here.

Councilor McDonald? Councilor McDonald. I think you may be muted, sir. Councilor, we can't hear you.

Bear with us. We're going to try adjusting your volume. Want to try again? It's lighting up like they're talking. What's that? Well, let's have Councilor McDonald raise their hand to acknowledge that they are here.

Councilor McDonald is acknowledging that they are here.

And maybe, Allie, you might be right, maybe when the laptop is off after the presentation, but that's our next thing, so I wouldn't worry about it for now.

because the computer is unmuted, the console is unmuted, the volume is up here, but it might be this.

So let's see after the presentation if it still persists, then we'll figure it out from there.

Just for the record, I will announce that Councilor McDonald is coming in via Teams, obviously, so all the votes tonight will be taken by roll call. Councilor O'Malley? Here. Thank you. Councilor Sica? Here. Councilor Simonelli? Here. Taylor, Councilor Winslow, Council President Linehan.

Here.

Okay. So we have 11 in attendance. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. So 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? Okay, seeing none, first order of business.

Representatives from Malden Safe Streets and Safe Routes to School, accompanied by Malden School Crossing Guards, will appear before the council to present on a new safety initiative being rolled out for the school population.

Welcome, you have the floor. Come right up, please. and while you're coming up, I will also recognize that we have additional board members of Malden Safe Streets and our interim DPW director, Paul Myers, joining us in the audience who have assisted with this initiative. So welcome, come on over to the podium and we're happy to have you here tonight, whoever wants to get started.

Do you want me to go? Yep, Gina's going to go first. We're a team here.

Good evening. Welcome, Gina. I'm very nervous, I'm going to tell you that. I've never done this before, so. You're doing great.

You're doing my best.

Right?

I couldn't be crossing guard.

I think I'd rather jump in front of moving cars right now. So I'm Gina Hayes. I was born and raised in Malden. I've been here my entire life, actually in the same house that I'm in now. I'm also Malden's first Crossing God of the Year as of last year. Thank you. and I received an award at the State House with Tina from MassDOT and that's where I met Ali. We've been friends now for almost a year. And for several years, I have been trying to shine light on getting our cross-guards corners safer. because when the snow and ice come, no one seems to come out and clear the corners. They'll do part of the crosswalk, but they won't do where we actually stand at the curb cut. And when it is cleaned, it's usually the snow is piled against the crosswalk buttons that no one can reach them over five feet deep across.

So I asked Allie if she would like to help me on a project that I wanted to work on, and she agreed. And so for months we've been working on maps, trying to get maps going. to let DPW know where all these crossing guards stand. There's 48 of us. And for the last three months, we've been working with the help of Councilor Michelle Wong, mentoring us, We got Paul Myers from DPW and Eric Rubin from the Facilities Director on board. At one point, Malden Safe Streets delivered eight buckets of salt that came from donated buckets and the salt from the DPW yard delivered to them. and those guards did really appreciate it. Unfortunately, some of the buckets were stolen before they could even use them. So I want to give a very special thank you to Michelle for helping us to make this possible and getting everyone together.

I received the, I got the locations from Kathy Hannon, the supervisor to the traffic department, and that's what we were working off of. So with everybody involved, I wish to thank Kathy Hannon, Paul Myers, Eric Rubin, and my friend Ali for working on this with me. The crosswalks are beautiful now and much, much safer. On behalf of all the crossing guards, thank you.

I'd like to thank Gina. If she didn't come and I guess find me and I didn't sit down and listen to her, We wouldn't be here today. So really, it's teamwork. And I saw something in Gina. I was like, man, we could really do something. And we're here right now. Telling Council. I've never done anything like this either. But it's funny how this is practiced, maybe. But I have to thank Council Long for making the process feel smooth. You have such a strong relationship with Gina that when the going got rough, we just all of a sudden knew how to work together.

if we didn't have clear communication lines when, I don't know, what was it, two feet of snow? And then another two feet of snow and a polar vortex freezing the snow. So, and then Paul, I don't know how you just like came out of nowhere and you're like, don't worry guys, I'll fill the gap. So we really appreciate you coming in and being open. having open communication lines during extreme weather hazard. We all know you can't predict the weather It feels like it was unpredictable. But today is about celebrating Gina and the other nominees. So Gina has exposed me to all these awesome crossing guards in our city.

We have gone. and I have met with them and learned about what their daily lives are when they're working. But I also know them as individuals now. Yeah, that's Shauna. She was my buddy that I delivered a bucket to. We assigned Malden State Street members to a crossing guard. So there's a couple of schools we were closest with, like Ferryway and BB. So we've started to create relationships with individuals. And Shauna is an amazing human. and she was nominated, right? Yes. It makes a lot of sense. Just like makes a lot of sense why Gina was crossing guard of the year. The more I'm with her, The more I understand why she got such a large number of votes.

Do you remember how many? So we gather nominations. They're voluntarily submitted by members of the community. And I think in Gina's year, I'm going to say it was 80 plus. but Ali's going to talk about four crossing guards from Malden who were just under the love and appreciation from members of your community nominated them. So it's, we put out the Notice that the nominations are being accepted, but members of your community volunteer and step up, and they do the lift of nominating. So Ali's got a list of your crossing guards who made it to Massachusetts Safe Routes to School. number one to be recognized and number two nominated for Crossing Guard of the Year award. We don't make these decisions, MassDOT makes these decisions in the end, but last year they picked Gina, so yeah, many nominations for Gina and many more this year again. For her still. I mean, I guess that doesn't, that still happens. I don't know. Unfortunately, you can't get nominated. You can only win once.

What I mean to say is many nominations for Malden's Crossing Guards. over the last few years. You're doing all the right things. Beautiful.

Thank you. And these nomination process, it's only existed for six years, right? It's a new award. As advocates, we look to you as well and you're inspiring us to also hopefully host maybe like a A Breakfast, where we nominate our own city-focused crossing guards. So hopefully we can do that maybe by next year. But Tina's been telling me about other cities that are doing this. Do you want to go through the presentation? Yes, I will do. Sorry, guys. I'm really excited about showing everybody everything. So this is the bridge to T-Nut, even though we've already started the conversation. So this is an image. where one image that happens around the whole city, the walk, bike, and roll.

But this is an example of Linden's walk, bike, and roll. and you see Councilor Winslow on his Ward 6 area. And Officer Evan Tuxberry, he's amazing. We work with him all the time. and Tina's worked with him. Broadway, where Shauna is, is pretty dangerous. So, I mean, it's intense. So we need her there and that's why I took Sperry there too with the large group. I'll let you take it from here. The rest of your slides are next.

So I would say that in the world of Massachusetts Safe Routes to School, Malden is one of those communities that goes above and beyond in a number of different ways. As an example, this year, The Linden STEAM Academy won the Bike Rack Grant from the Massachusetts Safe Routes to School Mass DOT Bike Rack Grant Program, say that fast, one of six communities in the state. just as a show of how you support walking and biking. This year also, the Salem Woods School has three walking school bus maps that were created by Massachusetts Safe Routes to School that will be, I believe, unveiled This May to promote walking in the community. One of the things that we look for at Massachusetts Safe Routes to School when we're designing these walking school bus routes, or really any walk to school route, is we look for the placement of crossing guards because they offer such a huge safety benefit for students. And so Malden again is a wonderful community. There's more I could say about Malden,

But what I would like to say is I'll be reaching out to your police department following this meeting just to share our Massachusetts Safe Routes to School Crossing Guard resources. So they're training materials that we have just redeveloped. We released an updated set of materials. for municipalities across the state to make sure that crossing guards have good training. So I'll be contacting your police department to share those resources with them. And then We spend a lot of time here at Mass Safer School in the city of Malden, again, because you're such a strong community for our program. So these are just some images from around town. I believe I'm looking at one of those crosswalk corners. where the snow is piled up right at the intersection. This day it was, what, minus two degrees. And then this is Gina last year. These are the four crossing guards who've been nominated by individuals here in the city of Malden. So families, some of these are students themselves. You get little kids who are putting in their nominations.

So you have four. Crossing Guards who were up for contention for Crossing Guard of the Year award. And the last thing I'd like to say is that Mass Safe Routes to School, we really support policy change. So I would like to just applaud the council for considering any policy change that benefits crossing guards in your snow removal process in the winter. This has been a challenging year across the state, but really kudos to you all for considering a policy change that benefits the safety of your students walking to school. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to say thank you to Council President Amanda Linehan for sponsoring us tonight and putting us on the agenda and seeing something special in this team.

You all are amazing, so it's my pleasure. Thank you for your presentation. I do see some lights. I'm going to go first to Councilor LeLong.

Thank you. I just wanted to say that this was by far one of the easiest projects to work on, just because Ali and Gina were just amazing and it was so much fun. Our Tuesday morning meetings that we had and Councilor, President Linehan, have come to a few. And what was really wonderful is to see our conversations with Facilities Director Eric Rubin and DPW Director, Paul Myers. And just to get the wheels rolling and what, and it was wonderful. It was such a collaboration and no one person was a star and it was just what you can do to get everybody together and everybody on one topic you go as a side and solve the problem and we see the result of that. So, thank you ladies.

Thank you, Councilor Luong. Councilor O'Malley. Oops, sorry, I just turned you on and then off. Okay, you should be good now.

Thank you. Thank you for the great presentation and for all your great work in making our community a little bit more safer when it comes to walking and other modes of transportation. I did have a question. Is there an interface between Safe Routes to School and like the Mass Trails Grant. Because I know that there's, if possible, because I know that like one of the safest ways for kids to commute to school is like, you know, not directly next to like high speed traffic. So I'm just wondering.

So when we develop walk to school routes, usually it is always at the invitation of a principal. So the school reaches out to us. When we're contacted in that way, we will look to trails as, so you have the Northern Strand Trail here in Malden, Salemwood's a great example where we did actually put that on one of the walking school bus routes. In terms of grant applications, when you're looking for infrastructure changes, if MassDOT through our program receives a grant where A MassTrails grant funding may be more appropriate. MassDOT will redirect. So there are some examples recently where an application came in for one of our infrastructure grant programs, Mass Safe Routes to School, and then once it moves forward to MassDOT, they redirect it to the MassTrails grant funding program to move forward. So I think that's probably the best example, the two ways in which we interact with that program.

Awesome. And then this is a follow up. You said it's principles. Is it possible for it to be done district wide by a superintendent?

Yes. And I've been in contact with your superintendent about different program activities. It ends up being, you know, it's their jobs are very full. and it can be a capacity bandwidth issue. But I would say Malden principals are quite active and your superintendent as well. If there's any follow up, I'm happy to reach out with a comment from council. members, but we are in very good communication with your superintendent and your principals.

And I appreciated your plug for policy changes that can make crossing guard jobs easier and how we take care of it in the winter. would you be able to maybe share some best policy practices with the council? Maybe you could do it now if you want to, but to not put you on the spot, maybe we can filter it through the appropriate staff. It would just be great to know what we can do and what other communities have done that has been effective.

I actually hear that you already do one of the greatest things, which is to give them the reflective gloves in cold weather. Oh, fascinating. So the highly reflective yellow gloves, because when you're putting your hand up to have that high visibility, that's a great one. But yeah, how about I follow up with an email after with some materials?

Perfect, thank you so much.

That would be great, thank you.

Okay, next I'm going to go to Councilor Colón Hayes. Thank you.

I just wanted to say thank you and that it was a joy. That was probably one of the most fun presentations I've seen. And, you know, I know all of you and just, Your work and what you do in this community and your energy was contagious. And it's so easy to see why this went smooth. So just thank you so much. And I know this is not the last time we're going to see you all. So thank you so much for everything you did.

Thank you, Councilor Colón Hayes. Councilor Winslow.

Yeah, no, thank you for coming out tonight. I know this is something that I've been working on a long, long time, and it's good to see that little by little, you know, crosswalk by crosswalk, crossing by crossing, we're making progress. and, you know, our police streets policies, our focus on safe routes. I mean, and really engaging with parents. I encourage any parents watching that that's actually a really key component to getting this all to happen, because ultimately, It's parents who make that choice to have their kids walk to school. And one of the biggest causes of congestion in communities if it's not safe for you to have your child walk to school for whatever reason. People go in cars. So having the fact that our city dedicates funds to 48 crossing guards is fantastic. But then, you know, working and hearing from you all to see what support to make it even safer. I know like

for Linden, we got an extra crossing guard and we got, you know, we worked with the traffic commission to get other signage. So it's just great. That's the type of, we need you out there, but then we also need to show up for you to make sure that you have every resource you need to make things safer. So it's great to see this partnership growing and that. So thank you so much. Great.

Thank you, Councilor Winslow. Do we want to try to get Councilor McDonald and see if we can

Can you hear me?

Oh, we can. Fantastic. Councilor McDonald, you have the floor. Wonderful.

Thank you so much, Council President. Thank you, Gina. Thank you, Ali. And thank you, Tina. I'm sorry I'm not there to see you. I am happy to add my thanks and congratulations to this really good community partnership and just want to emphasize that This is a key part of trying to make sure it's even just like safe and possible for our families to walk to school. And we had some pretty serious and so I'm really glad that this collaboration helped get us through that and just want to hope ask us all to commit to trying to follow up with the DPW, with Safe Streets, with our crossing guards, with the traffic division of MPD next year. to make sure that we have a really good proactive plan that we are supporting to make sure that this good collaboration continues and moves forward because this has been such a grassroots approach. And I think we just wanna be the,

you know, the wind in those sails as much as we can. And I think it's made a huge impact for just the day to day lives of our parents and students and families walking to and from school because we have the support for our crossing guards to make sure they have safe crossings in winter weather. So thank you.

Thank you, Councilor McDonald. Next, I'm going to go to Councilor Crowe.

Thank you, Madam President. I just want to say again, thank you. And so I did have a question. So when you were doing this project, is there anything written when you evaluated sort of the 48 crossing guards? Because besides the snow, sometimes you see, the egregious behavior that the crossing ads are kind of put into just because I'm kind of think I did see like online that Mass, sorry, Malden Safe Streets had had some other data about crash data that someone had put together. And I think that's really informational and it helps us put our resources to where We really need, I mean, I know they all need it, but to some of the most egregious things to make sure it's safer for you and safer for the kids.

So there's a lot of things that cars will do even if we're standing out there with our stop signs up. I've had a car roll right up under my arm so far that my stop sign hit the windshield. and he yelled at me for hitting his car even though I have kids crossing in the crosswalk and they keep creeping right up behind your legs. So there's a lot with, we don't have enough for enforcement for people to, because of the crosswalk violations, there's a ton of them. We do the best we can, but with the communication with the kids, they trust us because we've been there for so long and we're there in every single kind of weather. so they know that we'll be there that day and if the parents can't walk them to school, they know that we're gonna be there and we're responsible enough. And I tell the parents, you had them but we love them. So we're gonna look out for them like they were our own kids anyway. but unfortunately we're not allowed to write tickets or anything like that for the people that park on the crosswalks.

Won't move, you ask them to move and they swear and yell at you or they're irate because they had to sit a little longer in traffic. and I explained that we don't live on an island. You're allowed to go any other way you want, but for 15 minutes out of the hour that we're in there in the morning or afternoon, it is crazy. It's very chaotic, but we manage it. We tune out. to make sure the kids wait for us until we tell them to go. Unfortunately, also, accidents aren't always reported. So some of the reports that come in for crash reports, there are more.

There are a lot more.

You know, so it's tough to track.

No, I agree. So I just thank you. I appreciate it. I do think of some of the policy things and sort of things that we can do to help support the crossing gods would be important.

Any help we can get would be great. You have to like to do this because you can't do it if you don't like it. Thank you.

Thank you.

So the Maldon Safe Streets maps that we made, When we were creating them, we were trying to think, like you're saying, there's probably going to be notes. So in addition to just like knowing where the locations are, So we created that section for Paul and his team to use, but your suggestion is a good one, and our team is very data, They loved data. So this might be something that we could do. So thank you for suggesting. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Crowe. Councilor Condon.

Thank you, Council President. The crossing guards, to me, really don't get the recognition that they deserve. So I'm glad you decided to come up here to the city council meeting. and I'm sure the parents appreciate you very much. You know, to see you out there in the cold weather and the snow, it's greatly appreciated. You're the unsung heroes of the city.

Thank you, Councilor Condon. And I see Councilor Winslow.

No, I just, while we have you here, there's the walk to school day coming up on May 6th. Do you want to say something on that quickly or just... I would love to have a plug for that.

I was going to say this is what we were hoping and I'm glad you reminded us.

So Massachusetts Safe Routes to School has three flagship days, October, February and May. Malden, your schools are very active participants. So yes, the first Wednesday in May is Walk, Bike, Roll to School Day. You can celebrate it big or small. We're here to support in any way possible. So if a school, a PTO, the staff, whomever, families are interested, we have all sorts of incentive materials to give out to make it a very fun day to celebrate. We not only want to celebrate the students who already do walk, bike, and roll to school, but we also want to show to other students by having them come on that one flagship day that it's something that is doable, it is enjoyable and you can do it with all of your friends. So it's a great day to celebrate and thank you Councilor Winslow for bringing that up.

and about Saturday about bike helmets maybe.

Okay, I can put your light back on for that.

Saturday is the Malden Green Fair at Pine Banks Park and so through the YWCA we'd be giving out about 350 bike helmets free. So come on, anybody, come on by, get some bike helmets so you can safely ride your bike to school.

That's great. Thank you both for mentioning that. Well, seeing no other lights, I will just say from the chair and as a ward counselor, this has been really inspiring to see as a project. I felt very fortunate to be invited to your planning breakfasts. and thank you for making those after school drop offs so that everybody could be there. Joking aside though, I often say that as a ward councilor, the crossing guards really are our eyeballs on the street. and I would echo what everybody else has said about both not getting enough credit for how hard the job is and needing to listen more to what those folks are telling us because I think you know, Beebe alone, I thought I knew how many crossing guards we had, but when I saw the number and the data on the map, I had no idea it was actually that many people, and I'm down there every day, I've been down there every day for nine years. I mean, we used to go and shovel some of these because there just aren't enough people.

There's best intentions, but when you get a storm like we had this winter, parents have to get out there and pitch in So I saw firsthand how bad the problem was despite everybody trying to do their best. And then I would get the complaints from the crossing guards as a counselor as well about, gosh, you know, the buttons, the mounds of snow get piled. the kids can't reach the button. We're doing our best but we need more support from the city. So seeing everybody come together and then seeing the power of an advocacy organization like this coming in and bringing their resources to bear it really just shows the power of you listen to your crossing guards, you bring in the resources of volunteers from the community and look what you can get done. So I just want to really underscore those points because I think it's been an amazing partnership to watch develop and I really want to applaud the city staff that have rose to the occasion too because these are folks that didn't know each other before this started and Paul's new in their position and Eric, you know, these are all folks that just met this winter basically

and all work together. These maps are being deployed in trucks when the storms happen and they're literally sitting there like a little checklist and we make sure that the plowing doesn't just stop at the school yard and the shoveling doesn't just stop at where the curb meets the sidewalk. So it's little things like that, that to Councilor Winslow's point, when parents get up and are making the decision whether to drive or let their kid walk, you know, if we know that the curb is gonna be fully cleared, that decision to walk gets a lot easier. And I know a lot of kids, my own included, they wanna walk, they wanna be independent. And I think as parents, you know, Gina, you hit the nail on the head. I'll say to my daughter, if you're gonna go home today, it's probably safer to walk up to where Bill is or to where Diane is. I don't even say the road name, I say the crossing guard name because they're so close to them. that they know how to get home based on that adult that they know is gonna get them safely across that big road. So just thank you so much for this. This is gonna be a game changer, I think.

I hope we don't have another winter like we had and we have to contend with that amount of snow. but I feel that if we do, this is just gonna be a tremendous difference. So thank you so much. Thank you for presenting and I can't wait to see what else you're able to get done. Thank you for being here. Okay, next order of business. Next order of business is public comment. Public comment is allowed under council rules. Each speaker is limited to subject matter relevant to the evening's agenda and must keep their comments to two minutes or less. Clerk, do we have anyone signed up for public comment or have sent emails tonight? We do not. Okay. Seeing no public comment, we'll move on to our next item on the agenda, which is the consent agenda. This evening's consent agenda consists of meeting minutes to be approved, one appointment to be placed on file, and six petitions to be referred to the License Committee.

Does any counselor have a desire to remove any of these items from the consent agenda for the purpose of further discussion? I see one light from Councilor O'Malley.

I was going to ask, actually, if we could take a picture, if possible.

Oh, I love that idea. Yeah, let's take a quick recess so we can take a photo. Great idea. Thank you. Take a pause on the consent agenda. will be in suspense on the consent agenda.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, we talked about that.

Thank you, that's my seat.

O'Neill.

Okay, do we have a motion on the consent agenda? Motion made by Councilor Crowe, seconded by Councilor Condon. We do need to do a roll call.

O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Stepped out. Oh, that's okay. Councilor Taylor. Yeah. Councilor Winslow. Yes. Councilor President Linehan.

Yes.

Okay. Consent agenda has been passed by a vote of ten to zero.

Okay. Next order of business.

Paper 224-26, Mayoral Reappointment, John P. King of 67 Upham Street, Malden, as a member of the Board of Appeal, having served since 2000. said term to commence upon confirmation by the city council and expire May 1st, 2029.

Okay, Councilor Crowe for the committee.

Thank you, Madam President. So as been in the past that our mayoral reappointments, we have voted on the floor. We did have sort of a policy that if they've been serving for more than 20 years, We would bring them in, but we did have John King in the last time he was reappointed. So I make a motion that we approve John King as a member of the Board of Appeals.

Second.

Okay, on a motion by Councilor Crowe, seconded by Councilor Sica, we will call the roll.

Councilor Colón Hayes? Yes. Councilor Condon? Yes. Councilor Crowe? Yes. Councilor LeJuan?

Yes.

Councilor McDonald?

Yes.

Councilor O'Malley?

Yes.

Sica, Councilor Simonelli, Councilor Taylor, Councilor Winslow, Councilor President Linehan. Yes. Okay, that has been confirmed. Okay, that is confirmed. Next order of business. paper 225-26 mayoral reappointment William Hurley of 67 Kimball Street, Malden as the labor member of the Malden Housing Authority Board having served since 2020 said term to commence upon confirmation by the City Council and expire May 2nd, 2031.

Councillor Crowe. I make a motion that we reappoint William Hurley. is the Labor member of the Housing Authority Board?

Second. Okay, on a motion by Councilor Crowe, seconded by Councilor Simonelli, we will call the roll.

O'Malley, Councilor Sica, Councilor Simonelli, Councilor Taylor. Winslow, Council President Linehan. Yes. That confirmation has been confirmed by unanimous vote 11-0. Okay.

Next order of business.

Paper 226-26, Communication. The Community Preservation Committee appropriation orders for seven different projects and programs have been sent by the Mayor's Office directly to the Finance Committee to avoid delays on the City Council's review and approval thereof. All seven orders will come back before the full council with recommendations for a final vote after review by the Finance Committee. This is just a notification because instead of having it come to the council first and losing this Tuesday night to be able to meet on that. It went to committee first and it will be coming back before us in the appropriate manner.

So I actually stepped out for the end of finance, so I apologize. I didn't know if we were sending it back tonight or in the future.

On next.

On the next agenda. Okay. So we need to take a roll call to place this on file. Okay, so I don't know if we need a motion. Do we need a motion on that?

Just to place it on file.

Just to place it on file. Okay, so on a motion by Councilor Winslow, seconded by Councilor Simonelli, the Clerk will call the roll.

Councilor Colón Hayes, Councilor Condon, Councilor Crowe. Wong, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Taylor, Winslow, Council President Linehan. Yes. Okay, so by unanimous vote that paper has been placed on file. Okay, that's placed on file. Next order of business. Paper 227-26, Committee Report, the Standing Committee on License, to whom was referred papers 165 through 169 and 186 through 195, series of 2026, having considered the same. make the following report. Committee recommends these petitions out favorably to the full council.

Okay, on a motion by Councilor Sica, seconded by Councilor Taylor, to receive the committee report, we will call the roll.

Councilor Taylor. Yes. Winslow, Council President Linehan. Yes. Okay, received. Okay, will the Clerk please read the papers? How would you like to handle this?

Read them all. Read them all at once? Okay. Because then, if not, you're going to be taking several different roll calls. So read them all. We'll take one roll call book.

Okay, so we're going to read all of the petitions and then take one roll call vote at the end. And you'll speak after.

Okay, that sounds fine. Petition 165-26, extended hours, Maya Donuts, LLC, DBA, Duncan, 200 Commercial Street, 7 hours, 7... Days a week, hours 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. renewal. Paper 166-26, extended hours, CMB Medeiros Incorporated, DBA Duncan, 57 Eastern Avenue. Seven days a week, 24 hours renewal. Paper 167-26, Extended Hours, Aries and Helena, Donuts Incorporated, DBA Duncan, 424 Main Street. Hours, seven days a week, 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Renewal. Paper 168-26, Exterior Vending Machine, Rocky Mountain Spring Water Company, 1 Wellesley Street, Malden, Renewal. Paper 169-26, Petition for Taxi Driver Ronald C. McRae, 11 Tower Street, Apartment 3, Boston, Renewal. Paper 186-26, Amusement Machines, Kittleton Incorporated, 423 Main Street, Malden, 3 Machines, Renewal.

Paper 187-26, Class 2, John McMillan, DBA, McMillan Automotive, 388 Eastern Avenue, 15 Cars Renewal. Paper 188-26, Lodging House, Top, Tier Properties LLC, DBA, Sir Carlton LLC, 33 Maple Street, 44 Rums, Renewal. Paper 189-26, Outdoor Parking, Robert McNulty, 28 Cedar Street, 12 Spaces, Renewal. Paper 190-26 Pool Tables Loyal Order of the Moose Lodge 1910-562 Broadway Two Tables Renewal Paper 191-26, Pawnbroker, Golden Diamonds, Etc., Incorporated, 27-29, Pleasant Street, Renewal. Paper 192-26, Secondhand Deal of Golden Diamonds, Etc., Incorporated, 27-29, Pleasant Street, Renewal. Paper 193-26, Self-Service Gas Station, Gibbs Oil Company, L.P., 728 Main Street, Malden Renewal.

Paper 194-26, Self-Service Gas Station, Snap Mart Incorporated, 245 Main Street, Renewal. Paper 195-26, Taxi Driver, James Flan, Island, Hill Avenue, Apartment 212, Renewal. Thank you to the Clerk, Councilor Sica, for these petitions.

Thank you, Council President. So these are various licenses that need to be renewed every year for City Ordinance. We met, I think it was last week for license, and we had the compliance guys in. They're all renewals. None of them are new. There were no issues with the police department or anything. Any other issues? So the committee voted to recommend all of them out favorably. So a motion to grant the petitions.

Okay. On a motion by Councilor Sica, seconded by Councilor Colón Hayes, we will call the roll to grant.

Councilor Colón Hayes. Yes. Condon, Crowe, Linehan, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Taylor, Winslow, Council President Linehan. Yes. Okay, so all of those petitions were granted unanimously. Those are granted.

Okay, next order of business. That would be your docket. Okay, the docket is clear. Would anyone like personal privilege? I see Councilor Sica first. Thank you, Council President.

I just want to remind everybody that the annual Fish and Derby is coming up in a few weeks. It's Saturday, May 16th at 9 a.m. You can go on to Facebook or to the Malden Rec Department to sign up. to register for that event. And this past Saturday we had our Earth Day cleanup day in Ward 8. This was probably the first year that as I was driving around with the DPW, I actually saw people cleaning their sidewalks. It was amazing. I've never... It happened a long time ago, and it kind of fell off over the years, but it was so nice. People were planting tulips in their tree boxes in front of their house. They were sweeping the sidewalks. I don't know if it was because you know, amounts of snow we had this year or what, but the people were super engaged for the first time in a long time. So it was really nice to see and I just wanted to give,

and my Wood 8 residents a little shout out for that because I think I'm driving these past couple days and it's amazing what just a few hours of picking up some litter and trash on the side of the road can do. It really looks... Great, Don and Woody. So I just want to thank everybody who participated in it this past Saturday. Thank you. And to the DPW for all their hard work on a day that they were supposed to be off. So thank you. That's great. Thank you.

Yeah, no, in that spirit, I want to thank the Columbia Street neighbors to helping lower Columbia Street to clean up a couple weekends ago. And then today on the bike trail near the bike kitchen from Ferry Street, down to Everett. National Grid had 41 employees out there today helping clean up. And Bike to the Sea helped coordinate, so that was great. And just a reminder, well, today's Earth Day, technically. but coming up this weekend there's a lot of Earth Day related events but one thing in particular at DPW there is a hazardous Waste drop-off you can do, I think it's from 9 to 1. So you can bring down paint and motor oil and that type of thing that you can't normally put... in your trash. So you can bring that down. I believe there's some fees. But you can look at the DPW website to get that information. I'll be getting some paint. I found some paint from the old NHD hardware from about 30 years ago.

So there's some stuff maybe in your basement to get rid of. So thanks.

Thank you, Councilor Winslow. Councilor Taylor.

Thank you very much, Council President. So this weekend is the big weekend for the yard sale on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. There are 32 locations across Malden. that will have yard sales. If you go to maldenward5.com and go to the calendar, you will see a map with also a breakdown of what is being sold at various locations so you can kind of plan your your shopping spree. And I will say Webster Street has one, two, three, four houses participating and one of them will have a bake sale. So, There will be a, the Forestdale School is the only school that was able to participate, so there'll be a lot of people there, and in case you wanna start off with coffee, the Traveling at Coffee Carry will be there.

So get your coffee in the morning 8 to 1 and then 8 to 2 you can shop all over Malden.

that's great yeah and just to remind folks so there was going to be a Beebe location but if you had heard me say a few weeks ago to come to the Beebe school we've moved all those folks to Forestdale so just wanna underline that piece. But that means there's gonna be a lot of places to shop at Forestdale. So that's a great one-stop shopping if you wanna check out Councilor Taylor.

at, so there's 32 locations and 11 additional that will be just at the Forestdale School. So North Reading has been doing this for years and I believe they get 100 total. So for us to start off our first year citywide, with almost 50 people participating. Amazing. It's admirable and all thanks to Marlene who really put this all together. Fantastic.

Okay, I'm gonna go to Councilor McDonald on Teams. If you wanna unmute, you can have the floor.

Thank you so much, Council President. Can't wait to see you all at the yard sale this weekend. So Saturday is also our Green Malden Fair, and that starts at 12. and goes to three. It is at the Field House at Pine Banks Park, as it's been in the past. So you go in the field side entrance and just keep winding around. but this is the, I think the fourth year in a row that we've done this and it's just an awesome opportunity to learn about all the ways you can be a part of climate action and environmental work in the city. Everything from composting to clean energy usage through Malden Community Electricity, our community groups like the Mystic River Watershed Association, Bike to the Sea, Friends of Felsmere Heights. There'll be a food truck and you can drop off some recycling items. They will be receiving styrofoam, latex paint, electronics, school and office supplies, textiles, and there'll be a document shredder truck.

So all of those are free to use. Come check it out. and on a perhaps less sunny note, I do want to make sure that we share in this meeting that our city budget process and many more. Thank you. Thank you very much. but we do expect the order from the mayor to be introduced first next week and to have finance meetings most nights through the approval of the budget in June. And we may need to add some additional nights because we wanna make sure that we have a chance to talk with every department about how the cuts that you'll see in this budget will be impacting their work.

So again, we'll have a draft schedule next week, but I want to let the community know that we are going to be starting our conversations about next year's budget proposal from the mayor starting next week. Thank you.

Great, thank you, Councilor McDonald. Councilor Colón Hayes.

Thank you very much. All this talk about spring reminded me to let people know that Fuji will be having their annual plant swap It's going to be at Quarter Millie Park on Saturday, May 2nd, from 1030 to 1230. Fuji's been around for over 15 years. Actually, I think we're going on our 20th year. Yeah, it's crazy. So we've been doing these plant swaps for lots of years, but it's been collaborating with other groups in the past few years has been fantastic. So Malden Grows is partnering and also Malden Pride. and it's just growing and we do one in the spring and one in the fall and I definitely want to thank the Fuji president, Maureen Camerado, it's very hard to keep groups going like that for a long time. So she's been our president since I think in COVID and really took us a long way. There's Eden Gerhardt Smith, Katie Ferrier, Patrick Hayes,

and I said Maureen Camerota. Okay, so just wanted to make sure that I give them a thank you because as everybody knows, it's really hard to keep coalitions and community groups going. So it's kind of fantastic. We're gonna be celebrating our 20th anniversary this year. So thank you. That's great. Congrats on that. So the plant swap, just quickly, it's free. You bring a plant from your yard. You don't even have to bring a plant from your yard. And show up at Quarter Millie. There's lots of extras there. And you take plants home. If anybody's ever been in my garden backyard, that's all been from plant swaps over the years because they're native plants. So they really take to your garden. So show up. Thanks. Great. Thank you. Councilor O'Malley.

Thank you. I just wanted to let everyone know that we had our annual cleanup at Waite's Mount, as I've been announcing the last couple weeks. And I would like to thank Haley Taglienti for donating a tree in memory of Joe Pulcilowski. and active member of the Malden Run Club who unfortunately passed away. I'd also like to do a great shout out and thank you to Darren Josie of the Great Malden Outdoors who has been helping with the annual cleanups and helps bring out more people and volunteers to our parks, not just for recreation, but also for stewardship. And so I really appreciate the collaboration when it comes to that. A couple other things that are going on in the community. May 1st is the Malden High School Alumni Association annual event and dinner, and that's at 6 p.m. And then May 2nd is the, I believe, Malden Community Coalition Volunteer Fear at 2 p.m. at the YMCA. Thank you.

Okay, seeing no other lights from the chair, just briefly, this Saturday, there's a lot going on, but we're gonna be doing an Earth Day cleanup also in Ward 3. I have a couple of volunteers who are leading Three different locations. One of them, the first one, starting at 9 a.m., is going to be the Malden Lions, thanks to Michelle Luong and so many of her Malden Lions members. So if you're interested in participating in the cleanup at Felsmere Pond, that's going to be from 9 a.m. to 10.30 a.m. there's gonna be two other groups in the Middlesex Fells area. So there's gonna be one group meeting up at 10 a.m. and going until about noon The meetup point is Flynn Rink, which is technically in Medford, but is right over the Malden line. That's just going to be where they're meeting to get everybody sorted out. And then they're going to be walking back into Malden from there. So that's 10 to noon. and then from noon to two, there's gonna be a third group meeting at the top of Woodland Road at East Border, which is also near a trailhead to the Fells. They're gonna be doing a cleanup on kind of the other side of the Fells area.

and they are gonna be led by my resident volunteer, Catherine Tarka, who's been pulling together different groups to do community cleanups and we're kind of partnering this year to get the word out Special thanks to the DPW for providing all the supplies. I'm not actually going to be able to be on site because I'm helping at the yard sale. This kind of came together organically from the community. I'm thrilled to have the help from these two groups. So I did do a post today across all my social media platforms. If you want to go check that out, there's two flyers for the two different groups of meetups. Great opportunity if you have a teen that needs volunteer hours as well. I or any of the other coordinators can sign those forms either by paper or digitally, so just follow up. If you have a teenager that comes and helps out, Hope for good weather and would love to see people in Ward 3 on Saturday. So with that, it is 8.15 and I would love a motion to adjourn. Motion by Councilor Sica, seconded by Councilor Taylor. We will take a roll call to adjourn.

Colón Hayes, Condon, Crowe, Linehan, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica,

Spaddy, Sunday.

Councilor Sica.

Yeah, 3 o'clock.

Councilor Sica.

Yes, sorry.

You're Sica, right?

I'm Sica, yeah.

Sorry. You said yes. Would you like to adjourn? Yes. Okay. Councilor Simonelli. Okay. He's already adjourned. Councilor Taylor. Winslow, Council President Linehan. Yes. Okay, so we are adjourned at 816 p.m.

Okay. Good night, everyone.