Malden City Council 05-05-2026

Winslow.

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, 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'd like to do an additional brief moment of silence for our neighbors in Melrose who have suffered an unspeakable tragedy at one of their schools this week where a young child was killed by a falling tree. We just want to extend our condolences to the family and to every member of the Melrose community at this time. A moment of silence.

Thank you, at this time I'm going to go to Councilor Sica for an additional moment of silence. What are you doing? Oh, do you both want us to have, okay.

I would like to have a moment of silence for one of my Ward 8 residents and a colleague to all of us, Anthony Ciccarelli, also known as Chick. He was our Human Resources Director for, I think, approximately 10 years or so. I've known Chick for a lot longer than that. Him and his wife, the three kids. It's just an absolute devastating tragedy what happened to that poor man. and I just want to send condolences from all of us to his family at this time.

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

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

Here. Thank you. 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 Cambridge Health Alliance Department of Community Health will appear before the council to prevent CHP present CHA's 2025 Regional Wellbeing Report.

Thank you. Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. We have some slides. I'm not sure how we can get them back up here.

You can bear with us one moment.

Thank you.

Yes, while we're doing that, I'm gonna put on Councilor Colón Hayes' microphone to give a brief introduction.

Yes, hi, thank you. So yeah, while you're getting set up, I just wanted to let everybody here know that I am thrilled to have these two phenomenal women here before us to present. We have Kathleen and Laura from CHA. I've worked with them for so many years and actually I'm gonna say that CHA produced Crowe. Like years ago, we worked together for the first Malden health and well-being study ever. I think Councilor Crowe was already also involved in that. So that was a super proud moment. So I'm glad that we've done this every year and now it's going to be, it's a regional health and wellbeing but they are presenting on Malden and they're hoping that we ask some exciting questions and they have a little bit where to get involved. Hopefully you all had a chance to read the one pager. If not, they'll walk you through it. And I'm so excited that you're here. Thank you.

Thank you for the kind welcome, Karen, in particular. So good evening, everyone. I'm Laura McNulty. I'm the Director of Engagement and Evaluation for the Department of Community Health at CHA, and joined by my colleague Kathleen O'Brien, who has been playing an extremely instrumental role in this well-being assessment and also the implementation strategy that comes thereafter. So we're going to be tag teaming this presentation. So to get us started, Let's just talk a little bit about what this well-being report is all about. So it's really part of a cycle of assessment and then implementation in response to the findings. So our goal with carrying out this well-being assessment is to really examine and understand both the strengths and challenges of the communities in CHA's service area. And the purpose is not just to assess, but really to take action to positively change the factors that influence people's health. So this is a process that takes place every three years.

It engages communities across our primary service area, which are the eight cities and towns north of Boston, including Malden. It's guided by a community health advisory council, and we really coordinate with partner health systems, public health collaboratives, local health departments and it does fulfill some regulatory requirements for our institution as well. So the well-being assessment that we carried out in 2025 was oriented around understanding current state and progress on a variety of equity principles and focus areas. These particular equity principles and focus areas came out of the previous wellbeing assessment in 2022. So we really looked at the 2025 process as an opportunity to build on what we had learned in 2022 be really responsive to the priorities that community members had voiced during that cycle and see where are we at now, how can we continue to grow and improve.

So the focus areas, which we frame as the what, what is it that were priorities for collaborative action, centered on housing, what we call equitable economies, equity and access, and climate health and environmental justice. the equity principles or the how really frame how is it that we should be going about addressing these focus areas. This was something that really emerged through our data from community members was that it doesn't just matter what we do, it really matters how we do it. Are we carrying out this work with a commitment to language justice? Are we including underrepresented voices in leadership and decision making? And importantly, are we carrying out this work in such a way where we are promoting this idea of collective care and healing? Many of our systems actually do harm to people. So how can we be creating and fostering systems that are actually caring? So this is what we focused on addressing or really collecting data on during the well-being assessment in 2025.

So we'll just touch on this in the interest of time, but one of the ways that we went about conducting the assessment was through conducting what we call the community well-being survey. So this was co-designed with community researchers and input from the community. We have a really strong commitment to conducting assessment in a very participatory way, so it's not just C.H.A. behind closed doors coming up with a survey and putting it out into the community. We're actually working with the people that we aim to engage in responding to the survey as co-designers in understanding what is it that we want to ask about, Who are we going to reach and how? So this is just some data about who participated in the survey. So as you can see, we had almost 1,000 participants. Just over 100 were from Malden. And then you can see the demographics of participants.

We really aim to ensure that we were intentionally over-representing people of color, people who speak languages other than English, immigrant communities, and other groups that tend to be often underrepresented in surveys like this. In addition to the survey, we conducted focus groups and interviews. So you can see the demographics and areas of expertise of the people who participated in focus groups and interviews. I'll just note that from Malden specifically, we worked with folks from, let's see, Mystic River Watershed Association, Malden High School, Chinese Culture Connection, Malden Core, Housing Families, and a number of other people who have certain areas of expertise in the Malden community. And then I don't think we touch on it here in these slides, but just so you know, We look at an enormous amount of secondary data as well.

So data from the Census Bureau, the Department of Public Health, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There's probably 40 some odd sources looking at hundreds of different indicators. By bringing both of these primary and secondary data sources together, we get a stronger and more comprehensive picture of what health and well-being look like across all of those focus areas and equity principles. All right, so I'm gonna hand it over to Kathleen to talk about the content and what we found.

Wonderful, thank you so much, Laura. So I know ahead of time we sent the one pager and it is okay if you did not get a chance to look at it yet. You do have it in front of you now. It is the colorful graphic with I think 10 squares. So what we will do, we'll look at them on the slides and you can look at them on your page as well. And then we're going to do a very quick little vote, not an official vote, on which of these 10 you want to dive deeper into. I think we'll end up choosing two just in the interest of time. and we can always come back or you can have us come another time in another space. But overarchingly here we had 10 key findings. So this goes across all of our focus areas and all of our equity principles.

and the first one that comes up is, as Laura mentioned, really ensuring that we're creating these spaces of collective care because people said overwhelmingly that they feel most healthy when they're in spaces where they can either care for others or feel cared for. The first question we asked was, what does well-being mean to you? And this came up really overwhelmingly. We also found mental health distress is, as I'm sure many of you know, a key issue in all of our communities. Our third one had to do really with housing and food insecurity. seeing that a lot of our households are housing cost burdened. Many are severely housing cost burdened, especially renters. And a growing number of folks in our communities are facing food insecurity as well. We also found that environmental health issues are coming up more and more every time we do this assessment.

Number five is really about accessing care for physical and mental health and how those have really worsened since before the pandemic. Number six is really just showing some of the health outcomes that we're seeing. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and sexually transmitted infections are really the most the most challenging health issues in our communities at this time. And we're finding that immigrant community members' physical and mental health is significantly impacted by social, economic, and political exclusion. and our communities, folks with disabilities and LGBTQIA plus individuals are experiencing disproportionate barriers. Racism and language are the most frequently cited causes for discrimination

and kind of an uplifting one, folks, again, when folks are participating in decision-making around these issues that are impacting their health and their lives, they're reporting more benefits to their well-being. So the big question. which do you want us to talk a little bit more about, give you more of the numbers, give you some of the quotes, the stories around these? as were, yeah, you could shout it out, or we could do our Mentimeter. We do also, just the other handout that you have is the Malden Community Data Profile, which is, a lot of the data that Laura was talking about from all of our secondary sources. And that shows you Malden and the state on the handout that you have. This is Malden compared to all of the communities across our region.

but only really for the 12 selected health indicators that we chose for this. and really just showing which communities have higher rates. So when you see an orange, that means that the rate is worse than the Massachusetts average and when you see something in green, it means that the rate is lower or better than the Massachusetts average. So this is just a snapshot. Again, you have a lot more. And we can dive deeper into some of these five minutes or so that we have, and then open it up for questions. And you can ask a question right now if you want to, Steve. Winslow.

You know, I was at Malden High today looking at some applications of seniors to colleges, and I was surprised how many were looking into psychology and that type of thing. And it was something different. I mean, I've been looking at these things for since I was in the school committee over 10 years ago. So it showed me something's changing. So I thought maybe youth mental health would be something good to focus on. I was going to say the same.

I was going to say that as well, actually. Maybe we have some consensus there. Youth mental health or mental health in general.

Sound good to everyone? Youth mental health? You can dive in there.

Sounds like we've got a lot more than that. And we have a few indicators. As we said, we have number five, which is accessing the care for these. And then we're also seeing, when we're seeing number two, the mental health distress. how much it connects to things like housing and food insecurity. And just facing other sorts of barriers and other forms of discrimination so we could show kind of the care, the access piece, like getting to the doctor and getting to a counselor or a therapist, and also just reporting the levels of mental health distress. We'll do two and five. How does that sound? That sounds great. Great. Okay, Laura, do you want to? We can tag team, yeah.

All right. As was stated in the key findings, we find that across the region of CHA service area, more than one in three adults and nearly half of youth are reporting high or very high levels of mental health distress. This statistic comes from a survey that was run by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health called the Community Health Equity Survey. So we were able to get the data from DPH that looks just at the CHA service area. This is where these data come from. So this is inclusive of Malden but not solely Malden data. So the chart that you see on the right-hand side of this slide shows the percentage of participants in each of the groups that are listed on the left. Axis, who report high or very high levels of mental health distress. So you can see in the blue at the very top, that is the stratification by age group.

So we can see that youth are reporting 44.6 or rather 44.6% of youth compared to 37.6 of adults overall. and then we can also see just knowing of course that all of these categories are not mutually exclusive. It's important to recognize that there is an intersectional Lenz of identity when thinking about mental health and distress. So we can also see some very high rates of mental health distress among transgender individuals, among LGBTQIA individuals, as well as folks with disabilities. When we dig into the stories and more qualitative experiences behind these statistics, what we find is that it's not always that and many others.

It is a very natural reaction to an anxiety of things like housing insecurity, poverty, climate change, lack of support for caregivers, discrimination, harmful social and political conditions. These are the things that people are pointing to as the cause. The quotes on this slide come from participants in our focus groups, and I won't read them out loud to you all, but it does really emphasize how mental health is a really comprehensive construct.

May I just share one thing? I believe that the quote on the right, so I did a focus group with young people from Malden High School through the Chinese Culture Connection. and there was a lot of talk around climate anxiety. And we had, it had come up in the 2022 assessment slightly. This time around, it was, it was very, almost, all the focus groups that we did, but these young people, they talked about the climate clock or something in New York City, and they said, you know, we feel like the purpose of it is to get people to act, but what are we supposed to do? It's not us who should be acting, right? these large corporations and the people in charge. So I just wanted to share, since we wanted to focus on youth, you have some amazing people, young people in Malden. They taught me a lot during that focus group, actually.

Any questions about that or as we go to the next one?

Is your question about that? I do see one light.

Councilor McDonald. Yeah, I just, I really appreciate that I met with a group of high school students at Malden High about, you know, their climate action club and like, yeah, we were talking about climate despair and how, there are a lot of things that people can do. There was this great youth climate summit that happened here. And so I do think it just makes the point about how important that is. My question was, Did you also look at access to mental health support? I'm sure that you did. Is that the next thing? That is.

Okay.

Well, let's go ahead and read this line.

Winslow, did you have your light on for a question on that same topic?

Let's go to the next slide now.

Okay, no problem.

So, yes, to that point, we did also look at access to care since even though, as we just talked about, many of the stressors related that are really the underlying cause of mental health distress, we should be addressing those upstream factors for sure. but still access to mental health care is critically important as well. So what we found through our both quantitative and qualitative data was that both mental healthcare access and physical healthcare access are much more challenging now than compared to pre-COVID. Community members and healthcare providers alike emphasize that people have more complex needs and health systems are more under-resourced. There are really not enough community, organizational and government resources to address the variety of needs that folks have. We know from state level data that

Healthcare providers are leaving the profession at higher rates now than prior to the COVID pandemic. We know that people who delayed access to care because of the COVID pandemic now have more complex disease processes that are more difficult to treat so all of these factors are really coming together to make access to care more challenging now than before. and when we look at health insurance in particular, of course, insurance is not the only factor that influences access to care, but we do find that in Malden, rate of uninsurance is quite a bit higher than the statewide average. So 5.9% of residents in Malden do not have health insurance compared to 2.7% in Massachusetts. and that rate of uninsurance does vary by group.

So non-citizens have much higher rates of uninsurance compared to naturalized citizens and U.S. born residents. and then biracial and ethnic group, we do find that Asian, black and Hispanic residents have higher rates of uninsurance compared to white residents. Did you have a question on that slide?

Yes.

Okay, so just digging into the, just a little bit more around access since, again, insurance is not the only factor. I won't go into all of the details of this slide because there's a lot on here, but I will focus on the mental health side. So in our survey, the CHA well-being survey, We asked people what kinds of health care they needed in the last 12 months and whether they were able to access that care or not. And if they were not able to access that care, we asked them why. So the chart on the left-hand side, I will draw your attention to the, I guess, fifth bar down, or I'm sorry, sixth bar for mental health care. So what we found is that Around 32% of our respondents said that they needed mental health care at some point in the last 12 months.

And of those around 32% who needed mental health care, around almost a third were not able to access that care. So on this slide, we're showing you 22.8% and 10% since that is of the overall population, but the relative percentage is really closer to a third. So that's pretty substantial that about a third of people who needed mental health care couldn't access it in the last 12 months. Now, when we look on the right-hand side of the slide and ask why, the sort of third block down for mental health care. The vast majority, 39%, it was because they couldn't get an appointment. There was just not availability to get that care. not knowing where to go to get services was the second most common reason, followed by not being able to afford the cost, followed by my insurance didn't cover it. So these are pretty significant challenges to accessing mental health care.

just access and availability of providers, costs, insurance coverage, and just knowledge about where to go to get the kind of care that people need. So I think that's the last, yes, that's the last one of that section. So yes, questions, thoughts, reactions?

I know Councilor Winslow, we wanted to go back to you had a question, and then I'll come back to Councilor McDonald.

Just a broader question. I know there's often a youth risk behavior study. Was that data factored into this? Is that something that's happened recently?

It is. We did look at, so the challenge is that Malden actually did not conduct a YRBS. in the last several years. So the data that we had was, I think it was maybe seven or eight years old. So we didn't find it to be especially. They did conduct something.

They just weren't able to, for some reason, get the results from the folks who conducted it. But it wasn't the YRBS that we're used to. It was just, there was some barrier, and by the time we were doing this, because we collected all of our data by November of 24? 25, 24? What year are we in? Yeah, so there was just a They weren't able to get it to us. It was something, but it was not the YRBS, so our other communities didn't have that.

Okay, thank you, Councillor Winslow. I'm going to actually take Councilor Colón Hayes and then come back to Councilor McDonald.

Thank you. Thank you so much again for coming here. I wanted to also tell people though before that there is a full YRBS. Can you just tell people where to access that since there's so much to get through that people know they can look at the whole... The whole well-being report.

The whole well-being report. Yes.

Yes.

And you will also get these slides, and it is at the end. Oh, OK. Also, there is a link there. Main takeaways document that you also have is an expanded version of those points that we just talked about. But again, I believe the well-being report is Yeah, maybe 60 pages altogether. I can't remember how many. So you can research this.

I know it's less than 100. Because there's so much data here, you can dig deep on your own is what I wanted to say, because the youth, we could just talk about this all day long. This breaks my heart. Winslow, did already bring up, we talked about the YRBS data, and anyone who was here over the years and on the school committee, you probably remember, those were a huge That was a huge benefit to our city. It was going through all the schools and asking information that we desperately need. So maybe we can talk about that at another time. But thank you for asking that. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Colón Hayes. And back to Councilor McDonald.

Yeah, thank you. I kept having questions, and then it was the next slide that you had. So I was just, like, waiting to get this one.

I like that we're on the same wavelength.

This is great. No, I love this. The, so I just wanted to ask if there are really better prac, the figures about mental health not being, not knowing how to access a provider, not knowing where to go, not being able to get an appointment. I mean, we do have a mental health parity law for insurance coverage in this state. Not that that deals with everything, but like it's just very sad and concerning, especially for emergency hospitalizations for mental health. Obviously, we're building a facility. You know, we just built a facility in Malden that can help address that. If there are best practices that you think would be important for our community to consider around helping people to get access to the mental health care that does exist, I know there are long wait times and it's hard to find a provider. I saw that for primary care and I know that's a big concern too. I would love for us to talk more about that. And if there's anything that you have, you can follow up with us about, I don't need you to fix that problem on the spot, but like, that's just very, it's very concerning.

It is, we fully agree. One thing that we can share as far as best practices, so CHA recently opened a community behavioral health center at the CHA Malden Care Center on Canal Street. That includes an urgent care. for Behavioral Health, where you do not need an appointment. Anyone can walk in, whether or not they are a CHA patient, whether or not they have insurance. There is a 24-hour urgent care hotline that anyone can call. 24 hours a day if they're experiencing an urgent mental health crisis. There is a mobile team that in crisis situations will go out and address a person's need, visit them wherever they are. and that pathway can then provide an entry point to getting connected to more stable care. So the Community Behavioral Health Center model is a really strong one to have in communities.

So as much as we can be promoting awareness of the CBHC, as we call it, at the CHA Malden Care Center on Canal Street, I think the better we will be able to be able to serve some of the both youth and adult mental health needs that exist in our communities?

That is amazing. I didn't even know that could exist. So, wow, thank you so much for saying that.

That's our fault, not yours.

No, no, this is excellent and will help, I mean, I'm sure will help spread the word. And you said, so that urgent care clinic takes adults and youth.

It does.

That's really powerful. Thank you so much for that.

Absolutely. Yes, and we're glad to send any more information about the CBHC so that you can share it with constituents as well.

That would be great. Thank you. Yeah, that's great. Thank you for that. Well seeing no other lights on for questions, I just really want to thank you so much for your time and for giving us so many helpful materials. This was wonderful. I know all of us will be sharing this with our constituents. and sharing the video of the meeting. Thank you. And if you think of anything else you wanna share with us by email, we can distribute it to the full council and make sure that our community members have that. So thank you so much for being here.

will definitely, we'll share the slides, we'll share the materials.

Thank you all so much for having us. We appreciate it. Thank you for all that you do.

Thank you. Okay, our next 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 folks must keep their comments to two minutes or less. Clerk, do we have anybody signed up for public comment? Okay, seeing none, we will move on to our next agenda item. Next agenda item is this evening's consent agenda. Tonight's consent agenda consists of meeting minutes to be approved, one appointment to be referred to personnel and appointments, and 10 petitions to be referred to the License Committee.

Does any Councilor have a desire to remove any of these items from the consent agenda for the purpose of further discussion? Okay, on a motion by Councilor Sica, seconded by, was that Councilor Taylor? We need to do a roll call because Councilor O'Malley is remote.

I didn't hear Councilor O'Malley.

O'Malley, can you indicate whether you plan to be on screen and present to take roll call votes for the remainder of the meeting? I know, but we can't hear him and he didn't indicate that he's here and now he's off. I can see that your thumb is up.

Oh, weird.

You're right. You can see the caption. I was sitting too low. Okay, so Councilor O'Malley is indicating he's been here the whole time. Councilor O'Malley, we can see you. However, you need to be on camera and audible for us to record your vote. That's the issue that we're having. I know it is really far away. Actually, I think we can hear you a little bit. Bear with us one moment. We're trying to adjust the settings. You can kind of hear him a little bit, can't you?

If you can keep your camera on and just help us by putting a thumbs up or down if you're Okay, thank you. We can hear you. It's just very, very faint. For some reason, I'm like deafeningly loud in the chamber. Yeah, it must be. You're right. If it's recording the text to speech, then it must be able to hear him. I don't know, I just don't know what he was saying.

Okay, so in that case, yes, we do need to do a roll call.

So we will be doing a roll call vote for our votes this evening with Councillor O'Malley participating remotely. Okay, so we had Councilor Sica seconded by Councilor Taylor for the consent agenda.

Okay, so Council Colón Hayes. We're voting on the consent agenda?

Sorry.

Sorry, yes.

Councilor Condon? Yes. Councilor Crowe? Yes. Councilor Luong? Yes. Councilor McDonald? Yes. Councilor O'Malley? Very good to see you, sir. Thank you. Councilor Sica? Yes. Councilor Taylor? Yes. Councilor Winslow? Yes. Councilor President Linehan? Yes. Okay, so that's passed.

Okay, the agenda is approved. Next order of business.

Paper 252-26 order that the City of Malden commence a one year moratorium on permitting any proposals including but not limited to the creation, construction, or use of a property for the purpose of a data center. The foregoing moratorium is imposed to allow the city time to undertake studies and obtain resident input on the infrastructure, environmental health, and economic consideration data centers may have on the community. This moratorium will be effective upon and will expire one year from the date of the adoption of this order. And this is sponsored by Councilor Taylor and Linehan.

Okay, Councilor Taylor for the paper. Thank you so much. So I wanted to put this on here to start the discussion. I think it's important when we're looking at economic development and we're looking at our master plan, we currently don't have any ordinances regarding data Center, and their use or being able to use them that we start being proactive instead of reactive and we put this in place before we have someone come to us with a proposal and then we have to act quickly. This way we can really take our time to look at the impacts and what's gonna make the most sense for our city. So I'm hoping this goes with the following paper a little bit that we will actually do the work, put something together. and being able to have a solid policy on these data centers.

Thank you, Councilor Taylor. I do see some lights. I just wanted to say quickly from the chair as the co-sponsor, this was something I was I'm pleased to have Councilor Taylor bring forward. Really the genesis of this in part was the Councilor and I attended the Mass Municipal Association annual meeting in January and in speaking with some colleagues from other communities that have been caught a little bit unawares or unprepared, not proactive as the councilor stated. We really were encouraged to be more proactive and start thinking about what we wanted to see in terms of economic development. We feel this is in line with being prepared and the committee that the councilor is chairing and thinking about what is a good fit for Malden. I think there's been a lot in the media about oversized or unwelcome proposals in some of the gateway cities in Massachusetts. I think that not in the interest of fear mongering or thinking about worst case scenarios.

We're rather trying to think about what would be a good fit for some of the parcels that we do have in the city. We've done our due diligence to meet with some of the communities that have seen some of these proposals. We've talked to the labor community. And of course, we'll be working with our Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development and their expert staff are the ones who know more about this than we do and we appreciate their time to work with us on this. I think what I will say for myself, what I've learned is that there are some proposals that could be a great fit for the city that could and so forth. So I think it would help us bring in the revenue that we're looking for that could be more in line with infill and not the larger things that you read about in the news that overutilize water or are damaging to the environment, Academia side are things that we would want to attract from the healthcare sector or our partners in the region that are you know things that we would want to see that could be a benefit to the community that might be a good fit for Malden.

I think there are some guardrails that we could put around but we really want to learn and figure out what those things look like that would be a good a good solution for our community that fit with what we have already here and really just start that discussion and then think about the things whether it's a max capacity or size or if it's a fuel type that we don't want to see or a noise that we want to implement, hearing what those things are and what kind of rules we might want to put in place, but really going to the experts, giving them the time to research that and then not wanting to get hit with something that is a bad fit or that's exploitative in the meantime and giving us that space. So with that, I will turn it over to my colleagues to hear their thoughts. And first up, I have Councilor Crowe.

Thank you, Madam President. I actually wanted to be added as a co-sponsor. It's been something that I've been talking about. Actually, I went to the Youth Climate Summit we would have in some of this discussion about that, and I just said it to Councilor Taylor earlier that I've been reaching out to some of the communities to sort of figure out, because they did get sort of caught with their pants down, and it became sort of a bigger issue. I think having a really in-depth conversation, as you just said, Council President, Linehan, you know, to make sure that we have the right, it's the right fit and it's the best from Walden.

Great, thank you. Councilor Winslow.

Yeah, no, I definitely, you know, this is something that's certainly, a lot of stuff is happening and it's great to get ahead of this stuff as a community because if we don't, it can be very impactful. I mean, one of the things I think we also have to understand, and I didn't know I have a question for the sponsors is that, Technically, there might be some data centers here already. I don't know, but I mean, I know if anybody's familiar with the old Jordan Marsh building, which is Macy's, when that was redone, some levels of that upper part are actually a data center. a lot of what we're talking about are these AI dentistry centers that have a lot more processors and computing power than the ones for the current set of internet and stuff like that. So that's one of the things of We might, you know, technically the city kind of has a data center and that type of thing. So what's definitional here, I think the intent here is at that level. And so I guess I,

would be supportive of the order of just understanding it's really at these AI data centers that are substantially larger and more energy demanding than what we've encountered in the past and something that we do want to take a pause on, so thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Winslow. Councillor Colón Hayes.

Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Councillor Taylor, for bringing this forward. we learned so much for our youth, I can't even say it enough, but at the Youth Summit, I was actually carrying this around in my bag because it which says mitigating data center speculation and risk because it sounds like we're all been looking into this and it's called Rep Donato too to talk about it. And I'd be happy to put the moratorium, whatever it takes on that. I don't think we have the kind of data centers that they are talking about that have not caused the most harm in Malden yet, but I did hear about Everett and we don't want to be there. So I really appreciate you bringing this forward. And maybe on the next paper, I had a question of like what kind of surveys, is that something that we're going to have to, that's probably what you're discussing. I didn't know if that was going to your committee or to ordinance or to finance and talk about like this. Okay, perfect. To talk about how, but then how much a study might cost. I'd be interested in that, but thank you.

like I said for bringing this forward because I think it's the right idea. And also if that's okay to be a co-sponsor.

Added as a sponsor? Okay, no problem. Thank you, Councilor Colón Hayes.

Councilor McDonald. Yeah, thank you so much. Really appreciate also you bringing this forward. as a co-sponsor. I do think this is a really smart approach because as soon as a permit is filed, we're locked in and we can't change the zoning at that point. So it just buys us some time to be smart. I think that is a good and there are lots of groups who are doing some good work at the state level on suggested approaches to mitigating the impacts of data centers. There might be state policy changes in the next year or two which I think is good to consider. like making sure those are water usage and renewable energy are front and center. I do want to say I think that a permanent ban on data centers can have unintended consequences because communities that don't have the ability to restrict that, it will often end up in the most disadvantaged communities. And while Malden is an environmental justice community, I don't want to contribute to that.

So trying to be thoughtful about mitigating impacts is a really great approach, and I'm very glad to support it. and I was just curious, are you looking for a committee referral or a vote on the floor tonight?

Taylor, do you want to speak to that? I think what we have on our docket is to adopt this order and then to refer the subsequent paper to committee for discussion, but I'll let you speak to that.

That was the intention, and the reason why we did the separate papers was to Adopt the first one and have the moratorium and then immediately go to doing the work so we weren't just putting something into place that then could get bogged down under a whole bunch of other stuff that we have to do but really to focus on it now.

Yeah, we do have a lot moving through economic development so we're trying to be Cogged us into that workload.

Okay, so we would have understood. And then is it, and I'm sorry if you're not knowing this, but is an order sufficient for a moratorium or do we actually have to put something in zoning?

So I would have looked to our clerk for that because we did have a bit of discussion about this, how we've handled orders to implement a temporary moratorium in the past.

We did. Correct. That's correct. In the past, this is kind of the language that we used. We did use it as an order. We adopted the order, and it didn't. go through zoning or ordinance to make it a permanent fix. This is just a temporary thing and it's how it's, we used historical data to figure this one out. Really quickly.

Oh yes, one moment. Let me put your light on, Councilor Sica.

I don't know if this helps but I think my moratorium on class two dealers might have been the last time we had a moratorium and this is the exact process that we took in order to put that moratorium in place back then. It was some years ago, but I'm pretty sure that might have been the last time we had a moratorium on something.

Yeah, that's a great example. That's great, thank you. Okay, Councilor Crowe.

I just had a quick question. I know that we have a one-year time frame. So if we, I mean, I know you have a lot going on, but if we got in here and we figure out what the right zoning, the ordinance, whatever, would we coming back to sort of lift that, but just gives us the full year if it's needed?

That would be my intention, yes, is that if we got the work done in the next three to six months, that we would be able to lift that sooner and not keep things lingering just to keep them lingering. So that would be my intention, yes. Thank you.

Okay, and I do see Councilor O'Malley has a hand raise. If you wanna put your camera on and then try to, you're gonna have to speak up a lot for us to hear you, I think. We cannot hear you at all. Okay, for some reason we can't hear you, but the dictation... Yep, we can read your text. We see that you're asking to be added as a co-sponsor. Great, thank you, you're welcome. For the next two papers. For both, for the next two papers. Okay, we hear you, thank you so much. Okay, so we will need a roll call to adopt the order. Do we have a motion to that effect? Would you like to make that motion, Councilor Taylor? Okay, seconded by Councilor Colón Hayes. Will the Clerk please call the roll?

Colón Hayes, Condon, Crowe, Linehan, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Council President Linehan. Yes. Okay, so that order has been adopted 10 to 0 unanimously. Okay, next order of business. Paper 253, order. that the City Council tasks the Economic Development Committee in conjunction with respective city staff to undertake studies and obtain resident input on the infrastructure, environmental, health, and economic considerations data centers may have on the City of Malden and surrounding communities. The Economic Development Committee will report back to the full council on the findings from this study and provide a recommendation to determine appropriate zoning districts and use regulations.

Okay, Councilor Taylor. Thank you. I stated before, this is the second half of that paper to really start doing the work. We're looking forward to working with OSPCD and also the community. again with the labor unions and just everybody who has some prior knowledge of this to really put something together that is going to be very thoughtful and mitigate any serious impact while still allowing for for their economic development.

Okay, any further discussion? I'll second our motion. Fantastic. On a motion by Councilor Taylor, seconded by Councilor Sica, will the Clerk please call the roll?

Councilor Colón Hayes? Yes. Councilor Condon? Yes. Crowe, Lawong, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Taylor. Yes. Councilor Winslow. Yes. Council President Linehan. Yes. Okay, so that paper has been referred.

Okay, that is referred to Economic Development.

Can I be added as a co-sponsor to that?

Certainly. Add Councilor McDonald. Okay, next order of business.

Paper 254-26, order that the City Council will adjust the meeting calendar for June to accommodate for scheduling of the budget public hearing process and deadline of the final vote on the fiscal year 27 city budget. It is so ordered that June 2nd will now be a meeting of the Committee of the Whole and June 9th will be a meeting of the full Council.

Okay, Councillor McDonald for the paper. So after we had calendared out the Finance Committee schedule and trying to to ensure we have a plan for a 45 day review and vote on the mayor's proposed budget. That really led us to a June 9th vote to meet that deadline. Now, if we fail to meet that deadline, there are procedural options, but they get messy. and I also just want to say that the proposed budget and I'm sure the adopted budget will in fact include layoffs and position reductions. the more time we can give to implement those reductions and those really hard changes the better. We really don't want to jam up the city at the end of the fiscal year. So for those reasons I do think it makes sense to try to keep to that timeline.

the original calendar that we adopted had June 2nd as a full council meeting, June 9th as a committee of the whole, and then the remaining, and then the following two weeks, the 16th and the 23rd were full council meetings, and then the 30th, the final day of the fiscal year, we did not schedule a meeting. So, because you can't do anything in the fiscal year when it's over. So my request suggestion is that we flip the June 2nd and June 9th meetings so that we will end up with two, we'll have two council meetings back to back, followed by committee of the whole, followed by two more council meetings. And that... I'm sorry, that goes the other way around. No, I said it backwards.

We'll send an amended calendar for everyone.

Yes, we'll have two committee of the whole nights followed by three full council meetings to close out the year. and we'll send an amended calendar. Thank you, Council President. The June 2nd as Committee of the Whole would allow us to conduct the public hearing on the budget during the Committee of the Whole so that that can be easily televised at that time. and we can meet earlier in the day, earlier in the finance committee prior to that. we may end up needing to adjourn the Finance Committee and reconvene after the public hearing, depending on where we're at, but that was, the proposal based on the discussions we all had in the finance committee about how to make sure we stay on schedule and have a chance to hear all of this. So that is my suggested change to the calendar and happy to have any questions or further discussion on that.

Okay, seeing no questions on a motion by Councilor Crowe, seconded by Councilor Winslow to adopt the order. Councilor O'Malley, are you able to be with us? Okay, great. Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Colón Hayes, Condon, Crowe, Linehan, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Simonelli, Spadafora, Winslow. Yes. Council President Linehan. Yes. That order has been adopted. I will send out an updated calendar. Sure.

Okay. So for the next item, I'm actually going to vacate the chair and recuse myself because it concerns my employer at my day job. So Councilor McDonald is going to handle this agenda item, and I will be back. for the remainder of the agenda.

Paper 255-26, order that the mayor on behalf of the city be authorized to negotiate and enter into a contract for a period of up to nine years related to the regional bike share program, also known as Blue Bikes. which is expected to be paid through a combination of state and regional funding, private sponsorships, grants, and system user fees and will have no impact on the city's general funds. and this was sponsored by default.

Yes, let me clarify that yes, while I am listed as the sponsor of this paper, I am carrying this paper on behalf of a proposal from the administration. This would typically be a paper that the Council President would sponsor, but because she has recused herself from this paper, I am not sponsoring it, but It's not an appropriation order. So I think we have our staff from the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development here. Alex Pratt, our director, can explain and lay this out for us. Let me make sure that your mic is on.

Alex, please. Thank you. So as you all know, the city joined the existing Blue Bikes Network about three years ago, we joined partway through a long-term contract for the region. So there was provisions in that contract for communities like Malden to join. We have never spent any City of Malden operating funds on Blue Bikes. We have no intention of ever doing that. We were able to join using some ARPA funds and other grants that were available at the state level. and because we joined then, we have been able to participate in this ongoing negotiation between a number of communities led by MAPC and the City of Boston but with all of the other member communities at the table and our number one priority has been reduce, reduce, reduce any operating liability to the City of Malden because that is our We don't have the money to pay for Blue Bikes unless someone else is giving us the money to pay for Blue Bikes. And that is largely where the conversations are going.

The contract is not yet complete. There's a number of contracts involved involving Lyft, which is the operator. of Blue Bikes, Blue Cross Blue Shield, which sponsors and has naming rights to Blue Bikes, all the cities and towns. There's a lot of ongoing legal work. The paper in front of you tonight would authorized the mayor to execute that contract when that is ready. As of now, we feel very confident that there is no liability to the city in terms of its operating funds ever having to be used. There have been a number of grants that have been identified already by the MAPC region that can go towards the operating costs of the first few years of this program. And the cities are largely exempt from operating costs. the only situation in which the city would really be responsible was if we were to add a new station and if we were to add a new station our intention is we would use a grant

There are some grants from MassDOT that have been used both for the region and for individual cities and towns for that type of thing. There's the MassDOT Last Mile Grant, there's a Federal Highway Administration Congestion Relief Grant, and then there are other grants that are being secured by the region. Our expectation is that there was little risk before. There's much smaller risk now that any operating funds would ever go to this. And we also have an exit clause if we need it. Let's say the grants dried up one year and we were really looking in a bad place. We could pull out of the agreement if we needed to, which we hope would not happen. But I just want to be very clear because I know a lot of folks here tonight and at home are worrying about the city budget. there is no impact of Blue Bikes on the city budget. And our intention is that that will always remain the case. And the way that we look at the draft contract and the grants that have already been secured and the intention of the state to kind of fund this network as well

We feel pretty good about that remaining the case, but if push came to shove and it was, are we staying in the Blue Bikes network or is it coming out of our operating budget, we would exit that network.

Thank you, Alex. I see a couple of lights. I'm going to go to Councilor Winslow first.

First, I'd like to be added as a co-sponsor to this. So that's one of the things. I had been actually approached by the mayor a few years back when Medford was looking to get involved in the Blue Light program and they needed a partner. And we initially just planned three stations. and found some of the ARPA funds to help get that going. But I was always very, made sure that we never got out ahead. ever jumped ahead to 20 stations. I said, let's just put our toes in the water a little at a time. We've added a few more. There's a potential to add a few. So we've always been trying to be... you know, not oversubscribing on this. And, you know, now that the transportation, Jim Tarr has really taken the lead on that, that continues. And I have at times, you know, participated in, viewed the team that's pulled together this RFP to hire the next nine-year contract.

Very diligent, a great group of planners throughout the region that are working on this. and I say it's been a very diligent thing and it's great to see the Blue Bike program in our region is one of the most successful in the country. It has a good business model of grant funding for the infrastructure plus you know, sponsorships and other sources for the operation fees. So it's working and it's, you know, it's only $15 a month if you want to do that yourself. So it's very, you know, we talk about affordability and this is an affordable transportation option. And one reason why I kept at it is when we had the line bikes which cost nothing to the city but were chaotic, one of the things that we saw from that program where the bikes could end up anywhere was they tended to end up in our lowest income communities because those folks don't have a place to store a bike safely.

So the Blue Bike Program opens up this other opportunity for transportation that you can, you know sometimes at little or no cost people can have another form of transportation that gives them access to times maybe sometimes the bus doesn't have or doesn't go conveniently. This provides another transportation alternative for residents who need that. So I think it's very important and the stations are often, if you ever see the one right here across the T Station, right now it's probably empty because so many people used it to take it to the neighborhood. So it's working but the city's been very conservative of not getting ahead of our skis on this and this is just the next step and so just happy to be Thank you, Councilor Winslow.

Next I have Councilor Sica.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Alex, really quickly, I had my light on before you touched upon it briefly, but this exit clause that you mentioned, right? we're allowing the mayor to go into a nine-year contract with these blue bikes and there's no way we can predict tomorrow never mind nine years from now so I just want to be certain that that exit clause states that If we cannot, we will not go into our general fund for these blue bikes. Do we have wording on that exit clause? Do we know what that says?

The last version that I saw is still being negotiated. It's just for the city's convenience, so we don't even need to give a reason. We can just exit. But to your point about it being a nine-year contract, I believe it's a I believe it's a three-year contract with two options to renew for an additional three years so we could also exit at that point if if the picture is looking strong here.

Okay, but next year if the state funding's gone, the regional funding's gone, private sponsorships, if everything falls at the wayside, We will not be responsible to stay in the three-year contract and have to pay for this particular program.

Correct. I don't know if it's a 30-day written notice or something like that, but let's say on July 1 we say, Listen, we got to be out by, I'm going to say the end of the summer. Perfect.

I am totally in support of this paper and this program as long as it doesn't cost us $1 from our general fund. and I'm sure the majority of us are but I just wanted to be certain you briefly touched upon it it was the question that I had hit my light on so I just want to make sure that that exit clause like Councilor Crowe just said is iron clad We will not spend $1 of our general fund for this.

That's a big priority for the mayor as well.

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you for that clarity, Councillor Sica. And Councillor Colón Hayes, you're up next.

Thank you. just to add on to Councilor Sica. So I just had a question, like why is that, just curious how that, why that contract is, like spread out like that, three, three and then nine.

And I don't remember if it's three, three and three or if it's five, two and two, I'm not sure. But that is generally how longer range contracts will allow communities to come in or come out. I'm not sure why they spread it up that way, but I take some comfort in that because it gives us more exit strategies. If something's not working well, we have some leverage to renegotiate if we needed to. so, yeah.

Yeah, I know, it makes sense. Definitely makes more sense than going into a nine-year contract, but I was just wondering why you would have to do that. Like, why wouldn't it just be a three-year contract or a one-year contract and you just renegotiate?

I could speculate that Well, this procurement process took more than a year to get to where we are and we're not done yet. A company like Lyft to make a long-term investment in the system wants to know that they're going to be operating the system for a long time. I would speculate that that would probably be why any provider would look for a longer term contract.

Okay. And I think it's a great idea. And I, you know, I see kids using the bikes all the time. So I do see that. and I think it's great that we're gonna have that back as long, like you said, as long as it's not costing any other funds. And then I wanted to know if you had data how often they're used as compared to other cities or like yeah if you could give us some of that that'd be great.

Yes I don't have a What I can do is I can follow up with some real streamlined data. But what we've seen is that in our first year, there was not a lot of activity. In our second year, it really blew up. Last year, the station at Kearseth Park was added, I think, about halfway through the calendar year and there were more than a thousand rides. That's awesome. I do see them.

I know people say they don't see. a lot of kids, but people using them all the time.

So I think it's- There's also data that you can look at that shows that people are commuting as well. The ridership really picks up around commuting times.

Okay, thank you.

Luong, and then back to Councilor Sica.

I'm actually Councilor Sica. No, she answered, you answered my question. It was really about, honestly, it was really about the exit clause and making sure that we don't, there's no penalties there's none of that. I absolutely, especially in my area of the east side, we see a lot, I see a lot of young kids using it. I see a lot of, which is great for commuting to school and having those options. Thank you for doing your due diligence on that.

Again, they're still finalizing on the language. There's going to be a lot more negotiation back and forth. But the last version I saw had a for the city's convenience. I can't remember if it was a 30-day or a 60-day written notice. And unless we've ordered something, order them to do something. Like we say, we're putting in a new station on Monday and we're pulling out on Tuesday and they've already ordered it. Besides that kind of thing that wouldn't happen in the first place, we'd be free.

Fabulous. Thank you. Great job.

All right, and now back to you, Councilor Sica.

This is the craziest question, Alex.

I'll give you the craziest answer.

When you send us along that data, is there a way to find out the vandalism rate of these particular blue bikes? Because I saw our kid down in Linden. It's probably one of the only kids I've seen ride one of these bikes, and it was spray-painted red, like he made it his own personal bicycle. So they're very distinctive. You can tell what a blue bike looks like. So when I saw the Red Spirit, I'm just curious. It must happen more than just that one time I saw it. it's just, it will be interesting to see, like they must take that into consideration with this whole entire program.

Yeah, I'm sure they have data on that.

All right, if you can include it, I would be interested in seeing what and so on.

This is crazy. Pretty sure there is an age restriction for using blue bikes, but it's impossible to enforce because if he gets the parent's credit card or something like that.

Well, I'm pretty sure he Mickey'd this somehow and he was just, yeah, I don't, yeah.

Yeah. Was he a Linden kid?

He probably was. They're very smart over there, you know.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, we'll find that data for you.

All right. Any other comments? Just from the chair, really thrilled about this. And I would just say I really appreciate how we're pooling our bargaining power as cities and towns. I wish we did more of that. and I think we can get better rates and better negotiating power because we're doing a lot of the same things. So I just really appreciate the work that your team is doing to help bring this about. and I'm very excited to have this move forward. So I have a motion from Councilor Sica to approve, seconded by Councilor Crowe. Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Colón Hayes, Condon, Crowe, Linehan, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Taylor, Winslow. Okay, so that order has been adopted.

Thank you. Thank you. Councilor O'Malley, just real quick, we turned up one of the volume things. Can you say something and see if it's any better? Yeah, it's not any better, okay. Well, that was a good try. We can see your, it's just the same, we can see your, the captioning for you, but. Melissus, thank you for trying. It's appreciated. All right. Back to you, Council President. You did that.

Okay, next order of business.

So the next two papers are pretty much both the same.

Right.

Paper 256-26, communication from Mayor Christensen regarding an economic development package proposal. and paper 257-26 communication from Mayor Christensen regarding commercial street economic zoning analysis. And I think the intent on both of these packages were to be referred to the Economic Development Committee.

Taylor, did you want to speak to either of these before we look for a motion to refer?

Yes, I just wanted to give a little insight into referring them to economic development. So we do plan, I've worked with both Zach LaMelle and Alex Pratt from OSPCD to devise a plan for these papers. So we will introduce them in our next economic development meeting next week. And then we do plan on having an off committee meeting and other community members of the Historic Commission to further discuss them. that way we're not interfering with the budget process as well. So that is our hope and that's the goal and then from there refer them to a joint planning and and Ordinance. However, we will take as long as we need to.

So if we don't get through everything we need to talk about in our off-committee night, you know, we are prepared to extend out the process a little bit. So everybody has input.

Okay, great. And I was just gonna say, does anybody from OSPCD want to speak to these? I know you were just here, but are you, you're good, okay. Great, thank you. Yeah, we have one question from Councilor Colón Hayes.

Okay, so I just had a question to Councilor Taylor. So you're referring it, to ordinance. I'm actually not going to be here, but I do have, I've already taken some notes.

No, it's being referred to economic development. and then from there we would be looking to refer it.

It would be, yeah. Okay, great, because I was going to say I'll forward you my notes for your meeting if I'm not there, but okay, it can wait.

Did everyone receive the package? Did the whole, the whole council can access that, right?

Okay, okay, great, great, great, great. Thank you, no, thank you for clarifying that.

Okay, so we had a motion by councilors. Oh, I'm so sorry, did you have a light, Michelle?

Are you okay with doing one vote for both papers?

I'm fine with that. Are you okay doing one vote for both papers? Okay, so on a motion by Councilor Sica, seconded by Councilor Taylor to move both papers, we would be referring

Sica, Simonelli, Spadafora, Taylor, Winslow, Malden, Councilor Sica, Simonelli, Spadafora, Taylor, Winslow, Malden, Councilor Taylor, Councilor Winslow, Council President Linehan. Yes. Okay, those papers have been referred unanimously.

Okay, thank you. Next order of business.

Paper 258, I'm sorry. A representative from the Solicitor's Office will follow up on paper 234-26 with an update to the Council on the investigation into the open meeting law complaint filed by Bruce Friedman of 8 Marvin Street, on April 16, 2026 against the Council related to the release of Executive Session Minutes from April 14, 2026.

Thank you to the Clerk.

Solicitor McNeil, you have the floor. Elish McNeil, City Solicitor. So as you read, Mr. Friedman filed an open meeting law complaint. And in that open meeting law complaint, there were three separate allegations regarding seven Executive Session Minutes. So the first allegation was that the City Council failed to regularly review the seven Executive Session Meeting Minutes. The response from the City Council is essentially that the Open Meeting Law does require regular review of executive session minutes. And so that was the first. The second analysis was whether or not Mr. Friedman timely filed

these allegations with the public body, the city council. And after reviewing the dates when these, so the standard is when the complainant knew or should have known. that there was a violation. And after reviewing the seven executive session minutes and the dates, it's reasonable that Mr. Friedman knew or should have known that there was a violation and since he did not file the complaint within 30 days with the public body, I requested that the Attorney General decline to opine on this particular allegation because it was not timely filed. The second allegation was that the city council entered

Executive Session without valid exemptions and without identifying the matters that would be discussed in Executive Session. based on this allegation, and again, it was for those seven dates of executive session meeting minutes, those meeting minutes are not disclosed So the response to that allegation was that the, another one request that the Attorney General declined to opine because they're not released and as having not been released, there is no way, it's really speculative in conjecture as to what is included in those seven executive session minutes. The second part of that was that

The second part of that was that the matter that was going to be discussed in executive session was not properly identified. and I included exhibit one and exhibit one are all of the agendas for those executive session minute meetings, those dates and on the agenda you will find that there is listed the matters that were going to be discussed. And so again, on that, I asked the Attorney General to find that the executive session minutes were were properly identified and the subject of those minutes were allowable under Exemption 3, which is litigation, discussing litigation

having to discuss it in open meeting would be detrimental to litigation position. The third allegation was that these minutes again have not been released, these seven minutes. And the third allegation was that there was no legitimate reason to withhold the executive session meeting minutes. I included in the response a statement made by the city clerk that these were reviewed and after reviewing them they still would be withheld based on Attorney, Client, Privileged, and based on the fact that they are still, the purpose is still present to withhold these executive session minutes. I... and the other allegation was that they were withheld in their entirety.

The Attorney General allows these executive session minutes to be held in their entirety if it defeats the purpose for which they're withheld. So I asked again the Attorney General to find that there was no violation on either or all three of those allegations.

Thank you, Solicitor McNeil. Do we have any Questions or discussion? Okay, do we have a motion to authorize the response to be sent? Okay, on a motion by Councilor Winslow, seconded by Councilor Taylor, the Clerk will call the roll.

Winslow, Malden, Councilor President Linehan.

Yes, and just to note, I think Councilor O'Malley said present according to the transcript.

Thank you.

You are welcome. Okay, so we've authorized the response to be sent. Thank you so much, Allie. Next order of business.

Paper 258-26, Committee Report. The Standing Committee on Finance, to whom was referred Papers 208 through 214, Series of 2026, having considered the same, make the following report. Committee recommends these papers out favorably to the full Council.

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

Councilor Colón Hayes? Yes. Councilor Condon? Yes. Councilor Crowe? LeWong, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Taylor, Winslow, Linehan,

Okay, the committee report is received. And just by way of explanation before we proceed, so these would typically be filed under, of course, our finance chair. They are docketed under my name because we do have one item that requires recusal. from our finance chair, Councilor McDonald. So I'd just like to explain that because you... Right, so I just want to make sure that we explain that because normally these things would be under your name. And is it your preference that you recuse just for the item that is a conflict for you?

Yes, that's correct. I participated in the discussion and the others, but I think Councilor Taylor is going to talk us through each one since she chaired the committee where we discussed them.

Okay, Councilor Taylor, is it your preference to take these up? Take them one by one and vote them one by one since they're pretty unique projects.

We can do that.

Yeah, I think that makes the most sense. Okay. The first one is paper 208-26, order that the appropriation enumerated below being in the amount of $60,000 be appropriated from the Community Preservation Act Fund to the following project, Malden Rental Assistance Program from Fund Balance to Action for Boston Community Development.

Okay, Councilor Taylor for the paper. Thank you. So we had a really great meeting in finance last week to discuss all of these papers. And Dan Koff did a great job going over everything. This is from the housing portion of the community preservation funds and would help our rental assistance program through ABCD. Sorry, I wasn't prepared for... That's okay, we have Dan here as well if there's any additional questions.

Dan, do you want to approach the podium? He did such a great job in the meeting that I didn't and he's hung in here this whole time, so why not invite him up?

Thank you. Hey, everybody. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Council President and Councilor Taylor. So the project we are discussing currently is the Rental Assistance Program. CPC has funded a start secure program with ABCD since FY20. that has provided folks with move-in costs so they can get first and last rent to move into a new home in Malden. That program was particularly helpful when the Oak Grove fire happened at the Laundrie building and we were able to help a couple residents in that building move to a new home in Malden.

So in those quarterly reports that ABCD provides to us diligently, they have found that upwards of 50% of the people who apply for rental assistance cannot access the Start Secure program because they really just need Rental Assistance because they are in arrears, they need to get back on their feet, something has happened and they need, they've fallen behind on rent and they just need to get back on their feet. A, B, C, D is applying for the $60,000 to help upwards of 20 families to get rental assistance and then also ABCD would provide matching funding from their existing housing counselors to provide wraparound financial support to ensure that these folks won't fall into arrears again.

Okay, great. Well, I will just say from having engaged with some of the residents in that fire, having the ability to refer to a program like this was invaluable and it was a I had happened to have just met one of those folks just a few weeks beforehand just while walking around and then had their contact information and be able to check in with them and then knowing we had this program These things really do make a difference for folks, just to say that from the chair. Do we have any other questions or comments on this or a motion? Okay, so moved by Councilor Colón Hayes, seconded by Councilor Taylor. We do still have Councilor O'Malley remote, so we're gonna need to do a roll call to adopt the order.

Councilor Colón Hayes. Condon, Crowe, Wong, McDonald, O'Malley.

That's a yes.

Councilor Sica. Yes. Taylor, Councilor Winslow, Council President Linehan. Yes.

The order has been adopted. Thank you, Dan. And maybe hang around if we have any other questions.

There's a few more orders that pertain to... Yes, I can hang out here.

That would be very helpful. Paper 209-26, order that the appropriation enumerated below being in the amount of $100,000 be appropriated from the Community Preservation Act Fund for the following project, all of the street restoration project from fund balance to Malden Public Facilities Department.

Councillor Taylor, I'm just going to keep your light on.

Thank you. So I will defer again to Dan to talk about this one, but this is the restoration of the old library.

It was a library at one point, right?

Okay. the old fire station slash library that is being used by the DPW. Public facilities. Public facilities. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Thank you.

Yeah.

It's in your ward. All right. So public facilities has now returned to CPC for their for a second round of funding following last year when they conducted building conditions assessments on this building and also the additional fire station that still City owned but decommissioned as a fire station on Pearl Street. So the city has come back to, after that assessment, the assessment found that the roof and masonry were in need of repair and this application is to fund the repair of the masonry, the historic facade on this historic fire station that was built, at least in part, by the WPA when they added the ward room and... Here we go, a picture of it.

So the fire station and then the library and ward room is over here. And so this whole facade needs to be repointed This is an effort to make the building watertight so public facilities can continue to improve the inside, making it more energy efficient. But the first step is really to make sure that the and so that's what this funding is for. This property is currently used by public facilities as a shop. This is where they do a lot of their repairs and maintenance for all of the City-owned buildings throughout the city.

And what part of it is WPA work?

Well, 1908 was the fire station and I believe the library.

I just wanted to let the members of the public at home know that even though we are doing all this work to the SPIA station, It is not being sold. It is not being turned into apartments. Every time there's something new that's going on, they upgraded the windows and the heating system recently, and every time they see it. Work is out there. I have residents calling me. But it is going. I spoke to Eric Rubin today. It is going to continue to be. you know, a shop for our public facilities department. Where the two double doors are in the picture that Dan just showed, that's actually the shop area and they have made, some office space upstairs where the bedroom quarters used to be of the old fire station. So yeah, so it's just fixing the existing facade like Dan said, so.

and this building is a historic building. I heard you say the word historic, but I don't think, just so everyone knows, it has been deemed a historical building in the city. Thank you. I make a motion to approve this paper. Did you have anything to add?

Dan, I saw you raise your hand a little bit.

Well, for folks who are concerned about the city potentially selling this property and CPC funding being put in, we have instituted a clawback clause in our grant agreements so that if the city were to sell this building, CPC would have the option of recouping some of that fund.

Perfect. Oh, great. Thank you for mentioning that.

Yeah, good. Thank you. Hopefully we don't. Yeah, yeah.

But that's great.

Yeah.

Who made the motion? Councilor Sica, seconded by Councilor Crowe. We'll call the roll to adopt the order.

Colón Hayes, Condon, Crowe, Linehan, McDonald, O'Malley, Sica, Taylor. Yes. Councilor Winslow. Yes. Council President Linehan. Yes. Okay, that order has been adopted unanimously.

Okay, that order has been adopted. Next order of business.

Paper 210-26 order. that the appropriation enumerated below being in the amount of $114,000 be appropriated from the Community Preservation Act Fund for the following project. Digitalization and Preservation of Historic Records Project from Fund Balance to the City Clerk's Office.

Okay, Councilor Taylor. Thank you. This is a really exciting project where the Clerk's Office applied to be able to digitize our records and have an online access, which is gonna make it easier to preserve some of the old historical books We are currently keeping as well as have better access to our records. Did you want to add anything?

I have photos of some of the records that are falling into disrepair and so these would be preserved and digitized and made available to the public.

Fantastic. I do see Councilor O'Malley's hand up and I'm not sure if he's typing something. Or saying something, I should say. He's moving to adopt the order. Okay, I would just, before we do that, does our Clerk have anything to add?

Well, I would just thank you for your consideration on this paper. We've got a lot of historical documents in my office dating back over 150 years. and every time we do genealogy report on a project, which happens every day in my office, handling these documents isn't safe. They're brittle, they're old, they're yellow. and we're gonna do the best we can with the funds that we have. And then you might see us back next year for phase two. Love it.

Okay, so we have a motion on the floor from Councilor O'Malley. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Councilor Sica. the Clerk will call the roll.

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

That order has been adopted. Next order of business.

Paper 211, order that the appropriation enumerated below being in the amount of $122,500 be appropriated from the Community Preservation Act Fund for the following project. St. Paul's Parish Church, buttress restoration project from the fund balance to St. Paul's Church.

Thank you. Councilor Taylor for the paper. Thank you. So I believe this is also for our historical building. which St. Paul's is and to help reinforce around the windows so that there is less water damage and to stop any further damage to the building. Do you want to elaborate? Anything to add?

This is one of nine buildings in Malden on the National Register for Historic Places. This church has did a master plan over 20 years ago and has been slowly taking off all the items on their own and this is the First time that they've come to us for funding for restoration of this buttress that is clearly falling apart. You can see from the street that there's plywood over the windows.

Wow. Okay. I do have one light. Is this for the next item? Oh, this is for this? Okay. Councilor McDonald.

Yeah, thank you. I just want to thank St. Paul's Parish for engaging with us over time. because they had come to the CPC last year to get a planning grant. Is it for this exact work? I wasn't clear. but it is part of the same.

Yeah, it was a 3D scan that helps provide more detail for this construction.

And I just want to remind folks who may not have recalled that we did extensive review with our legal department about the appropriateness of CPC funds being used for religious buildings and set up some guidelines to ensure that they're not used for religious purposes but for historic purposes and looked at many other communities who do in fact fund those projects since St. Paul's Parish. make this through, figure this out and being such an excellent example of historic architecture in the city. So thank you.

Yeah, and following your vote on that project, we did recommend a condition be placed on this award following the condition that was placed on the last award. which is just that the appropriation not be used to repair or restore any item whose sole purpose is religious. We don't think this project will.

Thank you for that.

Okay, great.

We have a motion by Councilor Sica, seconded by Councilor Winslow. We will call the roll.

President Linehan. Yes. Okay, that order has been adopted.

Okay, that has been adopted. Next order of business. Paper 212. We actually, let me put Councilor McDonald's light on.

Yes, so this is the paper I'd like to recuse myself from. I am a member of this congregation. I have no involvement in the project, but just out of an abundance of caution, I wanted to recuse myself from this. from this paper, thank you.

Okay, we will come get you after.

Paper 212-26, order that the appropriation enumerated below being the amount of $250,000 be appropriated from the Community Preservation Act Fund for the following project. First Parish Church Restoration Project from Historic Preservation Reserve and the fund balance to First Parish Church.

Okay, Councilor Taylor. Thank you, and this would be another project historic restoration on the first parish church, which is another historic building. I believe this is for the outside of the building to, replace a stone, am I remembering correctly? Do you want to?

To repoint the masonry on the facade. Repoint the masonry. Similar issue as the other building.

Okay. Okay. Motion by Councilor Crowe, seconded by Karen, Colón Hayes. We will call the roll.

Councilor Colón Hayes. Yes. Councilor Condon. Yes. Councilor Crowe. Yes. Councilor Lewand. Yes. Councilor O'Malley. Sica. Yes. Councilor Taylor. Yes. Councilor Winslow. Yes. Council President Linehan. Yes. Okay, so that order has been adopted.

Okay, that's been adopted. Next order of business. Taylor, would you mind grabbing Councilor McDonald while we read the paper? Not at all.

Paper 213-26, order. that the appropriation enumerated below being in the amount of $500,000 be appropriated from the Community Preservation Act Fund for the following project. Malden Affordable Housing Trust Fund from Housing Reserve, the budget reserve and the fund balance to the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development.

Okay, Councillor Taylor for the paper.

Thank you.

So this is Dan, do you want to go ahead and speak to this? It's pretty self-explanatory, but I'll let you go into more detail.

Yeah, this is the third grant. application from OSP CD for the affordable housing trust fund to CPC. The previous two awards were within weeks allocated to projects that were coming through the pipeline. So the relationship between CPC and the Affordable Housing Trust Fund has been Thank you very much. Thank you. members of the public and how they think we should be prioritizing our funding. A lot of folks think support affordable housing. So, yeah, this would go to the affordable housing trust fund. to then reallocate to other projects.

This is really important as a foundation of the funding stack because a lot of the state and federal funding sources look to local funding sources to be in the project first. And so we felt it was really important to fund this application to its fullest extent.

Thank you. And I just wanted to amplify what you just said a little bit, because not only is that so critical as I've been, I think it's my second or third year as the council's representative on the Affordable Housing Trust Board. We're seeing not just that we're able to immediately leverage these funds, but that, as you said, they're essential to the stack. We can't actually do without them and that increasingly that match is either not there, we're having to wait multiple cycles, or it's just diminished in amount. So the fact that this is larger and that it's become a repeat commitment is gonna be incredibly essential to us being able to do any affordable housing production. So that's that's my soapbox from the chair on this one. But I do see some other lights. Councillor Winslow.

Yeah. And I just really, really want to reiterate that because I was the initial councillor on Affordable Housing Trust. And I know at that time the CPC was very skeptical about this relationship. So it's great to hear that that's working in between the trust and OSPCD. and this is really the purpose of that. We're leveraging the funds so the money we have from CPC is a small amount to what really is the multi-million dollars that needs to go into housing. If it's not there, it doesn't move forward. So it's great to see that happening. It's great to see this building very supportive of this. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Winslow. I did hear a motion, but I didn't quite catch Councilor Sica. Second. Seconded by Councillor Winslow to adopt the order. The clerk will call the roll.

Councillor Colón Hayes. Yes. Councillor Condon. Yes. Councillor Crowe. Yes. Councillor LeWong. Yes. Councillor McDonald. Yes. Councillor O'Malley.

That's a yes. Well, he doesn't have his camera on, but.

Oh, thank you. Councilor Siga. Councilor Taylor. Yes. Councilor Winslow. Yes. Councilor President Linehan. Yes. Okay, the order has been adopted unanimously. Okay, that's been adopted. Next order of business. Paper 214-26, order. that the appropriation enumerated below being in the amount of $500,000 be appropriated from the Community Preservation Act Fund for the following project. Linden Park Restoration Project from Open Space Reserve, Budgeted Reserve, and Fund Balance to the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development.

Okay, we are closing in on the end here. Getting there. Councilor Taylor.

So this project would be for restoration of the tot lot and the main playground, both of them, I believe, which is desperately in need. I believe Councilor Sica said that it has It is still the original mulch from when the school was built 25 years ago. So it would be great to see a restoration here.

So does Phoebe approve of this?

She hasn't seen the plan, but I'm sure she'll be very excited.

Deanna, anything to add?

Yeah, this is for planning, design, and construction. So OSPCD will be engaged in at least three community meetings in support of this project. and this follows up on CPC's investment in the Linden Rink which is now new and then you have these tot lots that are separated by fence and make it hard for parents to be with kids of multiple ages and the landscaping doesn't quite, isn't aligned anymore. So this would fix all of those issues.

Fantastic. Sica, one moment. There you go.

Yes, thank you. It has been since 2001, so 25 years old. The William Dempsey Memorial Playground slash Tot Lot has been there, and looking at everyone else's beautiful parks, I get nothing but grief that ours was looking the way that it is. So I look forward to this. This is along with the CDBG money so they're both going to work together to get this park looking amazing for the residents and then all our parks basically will be will be new, which will be amazing. I look forward to working with the project, and we'll make sure to have Phoebe at our meetings to give her input. Listen, there's no doubt in my mind if anybody's going to give it to us, it's going to be her. So I look forward to it, and I make a motion to approve this paper.

Second. on a motion by Councilor Sica, seconded by Councilor Long, we will call the roll.

Councilor Colón Hayes. Yes. Councilor Condon. Councilor Crowe. Yes. Councilor Long. Yes. Councilor McDonald. Yes. Councilor O'Malley.

He typed yes, or verbalized yes, and it got recorded.

Yeah. Councilor Sica? Yes. Councilor Taylor? Yes. Councilor Winslow? Yes. Councilor President Linehan? Yes. That order has been adopted unanimously.

Okay, that's been adopted. Next order of business.

Thank you. I think we're finally... You're off the hook.

Thank you so much.

paper 259-26 committee report the standing committee on finance to whom was referred paper 232 series of 2026 having considered the same make the following report committee recommends the paper out favorably to the full council

Okay. On a motion by Councilor McDonald, seconded by Councilor Taylor to accept the committee report.

Councilor Hayes, Council Condon, Council Crowe, Council LeWong. McDonald, Councilor O'Malley, Councilor Sica, Yes. Councilor Taylor. Yes. Councilor Winslow. Yes. Council President Linehan.

Yes.

So that will be a nine to zero vote to receive the committee report.

Okay. I'm going to go to Councilor Crowe right off the top.

I didn't read the paper yet.

I need to recuse myself because one of the organizations that's listed on here is my employer.

Okay, that's no problem.

Okay, paper 232-26, order. The City of Malden filed with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to consolidate a plan including applications for grants under the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 as amended and the Cranston Gonzalez Housing Act of 1990 as amended to be administrated by the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development for fiscal year 2027 including all understanding and assurances contained therein on or substantially in the form presented to this meeting and that Gary Christensen, Mayor and Chief Executive Officer of the City of Malden be and hereby is directed and designated as the authorized representative for and in the name and behalf of the City of Malden to sign and file said plan to act in connection with said plan and to provide such additional information as may be required.

Wow, a description only HUD could write. Sorry, Councilor McDonald for the paper.

Yes, not just directed, but directed and designated, yes. So this is our annual approval of the Federal Community Development Block Grant, which is a formula-driven grant based on factors from the that the Department of Housing and Urban Development does send to us. And so we did get confirmation, as I understand it, that this was approved in one of the federal budget agreements. So we actually know this money is coming. We're very glad for that. And it is level funded for next year as well. Is that correct? So that gives us a little bit of runway. It's a little bit less than last year, but still very close. Most items here, including the public services portion that goes to our various community organizations that we maximize, basically level funded. the affordable housing and rehab grant is basically level funded.

The physical improvements are where we see the most shift from year to year as projects cycle through. So we've completed the Dever Park phase two and Butch Jannetty Park financing, and next year we'll be focusing on the Linden Park playground. and the Malden Skate Park on Willow Street. And this also includes the new payment, a new payment for the Malden River Works Section 108 loan. Section 108 loans are paid out of CDBG money, so they don't, of the City. We approved that loan, you may remember, in December, I think, for the Malden River Works project. So now we are having to start to pay back on that loan as the final as a final piece of the financing to get that project done. The total expense, oh, and one thing I'll just note is that we did see a reduction in ADA pedestrian improvement funding this year, in part because there are other funding sources for this one unlike some of the other ongoing commitments here.

So the total is for a $1.79 million CDBG budget. had a good and smooth discussion in the Finance Committee and unanimously recommended adoption of the order.

Okay. Thank you, Councilor McDonald. Any discussion, questions? Okay, motion by Councilor Winslow, seconded by Councilor Colón Hayes. Clerk will call the roll.

Councilor Colón Hayes. Yes. Councilor Condon. Yes. Councilor Luong. Yes. Councilor McDonald. Yes. Councilor O'Malley. Yes. Okay. Councilor Siga is not here. Councilor Taylor. Yes. Councilor Winslow. Yes. Councilor President Linehan. Yes. Okay. So that has been adopted by any...

Okay. The order is adopted. Next order of business. Winslow. Okay, the docket is clear. Do anybody like personal privilege? Councilor Winslow first.

I just have a question. Is the National Grid paper that's tabled, was that something we had to take up? Did Councilor O'Malley need it?

It's my understanding that Councilor O'Malley, when he was ready to take this up, he was going to invite National Grid to come back at a date certain in May, I believe. and he would take it off the table at that time. I don't think we're prepared for that this evening. He's still working with the owner of the building to come to terms with the plans, the changes to the plans they were making.

But I do have a and I. Personal privilege. So on Saturday, May 16th in Maplewood Square from 2 to 5 o'clock, we're having our and a couple of local bands from the neighborhood. Some special foods being planned by our restaurants and games and other activities for kids. So just come out, enjoy it. And something we have been having fun with for five years. Take care.

Awesome, hope you have great weather. Councilor McDonald.

I just want to start reminding folks that Malden Porch Fest, everybody's favorite community wine music festival, is coming up on Saturday, May 30th from 12 to 6 P.M. It's dozens and dozens of community locations and performers across the city. And they are still looking for hosts. There are actually more performers than available hosts at the moment. So if you are able and willing to have some amazing local community musicians in your driveway or on your porch or your backyard, or some other property you control that it's not too late to sign up. So go to maldenporchfest.org and check that out. And I'm sure we'll all see each other around on the 30th.

Awesome. Can't wait. Thank you, Councilor McDonald.

Councilor Luong. I just wanted to also add to that that the Malden Lions Club will be doing a mobile eye van at City Hall Plaza from 1 to 5. at Porchfest, and you can have your eye screenings and your blood pressure screenings. So come by and then you can get other information. I'm sure we'll have a table out and they will have information on diabetes and all the different stuff that they do great works here in the city. They actually, on one of the last grants that they did a few years ago, they actually were able to equip this in particular, Van, with the ability to do ice screenings for very young children under the age, I think, going up from two years old all the way up to the very elderly. So come by and visit and get an ice screening.

That sounds fantastic. Thank you, Council LeLong. Well, I will just say briefly from the chair, tomorrow morning is is Safe Routes to School Day. So it's walk, bike, and roll to school morning across the city. I will say for just the west side of the city, for the first time, we do have an Edgeworth meetup, which has been a longstanding goal. There's going to be a group meeting outside City Hall right in front of the building here to walk over to Beebe at 740. There's going to be a group meeting up at Amherge Park, on the corner of Savin Street at 740 to go to Beebe, and then the corner of Charles and Russell, our first ever Edgeworth meetup to go to Beebe School at 740 tomorrow. Of course, there's folks meeting up all across the city. I would encourage anybody listening, if you wanna know where your school's meetup is, I think Malden Safe Streets has the comprehensive list and that's on all of their social media profiles. So I would check that.

I'll try to cross post it on my own as well. So if you follow me, I'll go home and share that as well. But it's an awesome day to just get together other families and caregivers that are biking or walking to school. The weather, fingers crossed, looks great in the morning and it's a fun time. and Councilor Crowe, I see that you have your light on, so I'm gonna give you the last word.

We've forgotten about.

Sorry. That's okay.

You usually get the mayor at your walk to school day, so I think. We do, so we will be meeting at the old Belmont School to walk to Ferryway from our side. And then I think there's a group meeting at Lincoln Commons as well. But the other thing is I want to say first, say happy Mother's Day. This Sunday is Mother's Day. and I will be hosting the annual Mother's Day breakfast at Anthony's from nine to 11 on Sunday morning. So come on by, it's free. It's just a time to celebrate all the important women in our lives and our communities.

Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for closing us out with that. It's 9.05. Do we have a motion to adjourn? Okay, so moved by Councilor Sica, seconded by Councilor Luong, we will call the roll.

Councilor Colón Hayes, Councilor Condon, Councilor Crowe, Councilor Luong, Councilor McDonald, Councilor O'Malley.

Yes, yes, yes.

Councilor Sica. Councilor Taylor. Yes. Councilor Winslow. Yes. Councilor President Linehan. Yes. Okay, we are adjourned.

Okay, we are adjourned. Thank you, everyone. Alright, I've got your papers here before I forget.