City Council

All right, folks, counselors, please take your seats. I'm going to call this meeting to order. this is a meeting of the city council it is thursday april 23rd my name is lance davis presiding i use he him pronouns please note that video and audio of this meeting will be recorded and may be shown on light shown live on local access government channels and on the city of somerville website and will be available for future review. Would the clerk please call the roll?

This is roll call. Councilor Ewen-Campen? Councilor Link? Councilor Scott?

Present.

Councilor Clingan?

Present.

Strezo, here. Councilor Sait, here. Councilor Wheeler, here. Councilor Hardt, here. Councilor McLaughlin, here. Mbah.

Present.

Councilor Davis. Here. With eight councillors present, we have quorum.

All right, thank you. And I'll just note that, councillors, Ewen-Campen, Link, and Sait are all traveling this week. And I encourage folks that went traveling, especially with families, it's OK to miss a meeting. Before we could do the hybrid thing, it was quite normal that folks would miss a meeting every once in a while, and now that we can do it hybrid, everyone wants to dial in from overseas, and that's honorable and respectful, and I appreciate that, but it's also okay if you want to just miss a meeting. We're recording them. We'll all take care of the stuff that's here. So that's why they're not here this evening. Before we get going, I'll let you know that pursuant to Rule 32, let it be known that the City Council salutes the flag of the United States. and let us recall our oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the Commonwealth to the best of our abilities and understanding. We begin our meetings with a moment of silence. Are there any Councillors wishing to say a few words this evening? Councillor McLaughlin.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to remember Larry Iamello, also known as Mr. I to high school students at Somerville High. He was my sophomore geometry teacher. and he gave me the greatest lesson that a teacher could ever give someone. He failed me. He gave me an F in Geometry sophomore year of high school. and would not let me pass and told me that you can do better and you expect more and that was a great life lesson for me to have someone say like you should hold yourself to a higher standard he could have passed me along he could have just I'm very sorry to hear of his passing. He did a lot of great work for a lot of young people in this city.

Clingan would like to sign on to that one. Councilor Clingan?

Just sign on as well? Okay. Councilor Clingan? I just want to say that I have fond memories of Mr. Aganello as well. He was also my math teacher in high school, and he will be missed.

High. I just want to keep Charles Lesage Jr. in our prayers this evening.

He's my brother-in-law, my wife's brother, and he passed away. We'll miss him. Thank you.

Okay, would everyone in the chamber please rise however you are able in remembrance of the aforementioned individuals.

I'll see you next week.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, next item.

Agenda item 1.3, approval of the minutes of the regular meeting of March 12th, 2026.

Seeing no discussion, that item is approved.

Agenda item 2.1, a citation by Councillor Strezo, commending Gary Rogers, Community Action Agency of Somerville, Office of Housing Stability, and DeNovo Legal Services for their work with housing justice.

Councillor Strezo. Thank you. Can we have the people that are here to receive this citation come forward? So Gary Rogers has, he hasn't been doing this alone, but he's been in a huge battle. to stay in his home. His apartment building was sold and the new landlord upped his rent.

And his neighbors and he attempted to create a tenant association, a union. Somerville Office of Housing Stability, CAS, were right on it alongside with him. and he challenged some really unfair and dubious Practices to just try to relinquish Somerville, longtime Somerville tenants from their homes. And it takes a lot of guts. To stand up for housing justice and for you know it feels in your heart is right. And we have to celebrate the small wins sometimes. It's not a small win, actually. This was the process of years.

Here's, and may I say, many standouts, and some where my dog also showed up to say hello and support as well. But it takes a lot of strength, endurance, and courage. to do this. And Gary, you had to go to court. And you had Somerville behind you and a lot of advocates behind you. And you got through to the other side. And I don't want to paraphrase as much as I want to allow this floor to be for you and housing advocates. I'm happy to sponsor Gary Rogers and anyone else who would like to speak. I see Cass here. I see some other great housing advocates. Mr. President, at your indulgence, may I sponsor Gary and any who may wish to speak on this item?

Councilor Chavez, I would like to sponsor Gary Rogers and others. Any discussion? I see no objection.

Thank you.

Folks, when you do step up, just please let us know your name for the record so we can make sure we get that accurate.

Yes, my name is Gary Rogers. I'd like to read something that I wrote last night. With this citation, I have changed my view Now I feel like I won more than I thought I would. The picture is clearer for me. I understand now why this case has excited many and why I have been misjudged by some that made me question myself which is understandable too. But in the end, I realized what I chose to do was rare and it took courage. I am proud of my Obstinence.

I have had it all my life. Hopefully taking this path may become less rare. In a way, finally, and amazingly, part of the housing crisis has been dented and tempered. by a case involving a small neglected attic apartment and a hardworking tenant in Winter Hill. Instead of running away in fear, feeling that they can't fight back when speculators and corporate landlords try to price them out of their homes with abominable rent increases, Chase them away from where they grew up, living near where they have worked for many years and even decades.

and have friends close by, I have now showed them that they can stay and fight and even win on the first try If they learn their tenant rights, the rules to follow, ask for help when they need it, and there are lots of helpers. and quote, wow, I can't believe you did it, will be something you hear a lot like I have. You will feel proud, courage, Courage is the virtue that leads to all the other virtues. Thank you

Hi, everybody. My name is Samantha Wolf. I'm an organizer with the Community Action Agency of Somerville. Just wanted to introduce who's up here. We've got some of the cast team and cast executive director. We've got Somerville Renters Committee member, community members who've showed up. for countless rallies and court supports, Michael, who is also part of the Sargent Avenue Tenants Union, Strezo, and also Emily from De Novo, who represented Gary the whole way through. So thank you so much for this, Councilor Strezo. It's really meaningful to us.

Thank you. And I just really want to mention that I know that you work alongside Gary as well, advocates, and also I remember you. It's constant hard work. You get constant numbers, constant calls, constant just cries for help at times. and I always think about you and I always, I sometimes say a little prayer for you because I know It sometimes feel like just like a sea and keeping hope and keeping endurance and keeping just the momentum and the spirit and love in your hearts for this. It's evident, but I want you to know it's not missed either. I know it's a constant action of endurance. So I really want to make sure that you know that too. So thank you.

And this is exactly why we need rent control. Woo!

Thank you all for being here. Councilor Stresi, do you want to do a quick picture? Yeah. All right. So let's take a brief, any discussion, any comments? No, we'll take a picture. All right, we'll take a brief recess to take a couple pictures, and we'll come back as soon as the pictures are done.

Okay.

All right, I'll call this meeting back to order. So that item is approved. And let's see, let's go through the grants and locations, then I'll go through the items we're going to take out of order so folks don't have to remember too long. So Madam Clerk, next item.

Next item is agenda item 3.1, a grant of location from Eversource. Applying for a grant of location to install 3,520 feet of conduit and four new manholes 32441, 32442, 32443, and 32444 in Prospect Street, Charlestown Street, South Street, Windsor Street, and Medford Street from 9 Medford Street to a point of pickup at 51 Prospect Street.

Councillor Scott. Mr. President, I, along with about a third of Ward 2, are recused from this item. Thank you. Very well.

Let the clerk reflect. Councillor Scott is recused from this item. So I now declare this public hearing to be open. Is there anyone here to speak on the item? Rick Brenka online? Apologies if I got your name wrong. Please feel free to correct me.

Thank you, Council. Rick Branca is correct. Thank you again, members, for allowing me to speak. My name is Rick Branca here on behalf of Eversource Energy and the Greater Cambridge Energy Program. This program was previously approved by the Energy Facilities Citing Board in fall of 2024, and we respectfully request that you grant approval of these grants of location.

Okay, anyone else here to speak on the item? Anyone online, please use the raise hand function if you'd like to speak. Okay. Seeing no further comments, I declare the public hearing to be closed. Is there any discussion on the item? No. All right. Seeing none, that item is approved. Next item.

Agenda item 3.2, a grant of location from Eversource, applying for a grant of location to install 60 feet of conduit in MacArthur Street from utility pole 122 over 1 to a point of pickup at 8 MacArthur Street.

All right, I now declare this public hearing to be open. Is there anyone here to speak on the item? All right, we have Jackie Duffy online. Go ahead.

Hi, good evening, Jackie Duffy, Eversource. We'd like to install 60 feet of conduit in MacArthur Street, and this is to provide electric service to 8 MacArthur Street.

Okay. Anyone else here to speak on this item? Anyone online? Use the raise hand function if you'd like to speak. No one? All right, I declare this public hearing to be closed. Is there any discussion? All right, seeing none, that item is approved. Next item.

Agenda item 3.3, a grant of location from Eversource, applying to install 49 feet of conduit in Somerville Avenue from existing manhole 20630 to a point of pickup at 737 Somerville Avenue.

All right, I declare this public hearing open. Is there anyone here to speak on the item?

Jackie Duffy, Eversource would like to install approximately 49 feet of conduit to supply electric service to 737 Somerville Avenue.

Okay, anyone else here to speak on the item? Anyone online? Seeing none, I declare the public hearing closed. Is there any questions, discussion? No? All right, seeing none, that item is approved. Next item.

Agenda item 3.4, grant of location from Eversource, applying to install 28 feet of conduit in Horror Street from utility pole 173 over 3. and a half to a point of pickup at 31 Horace Street.

All right, I now declare this public hearing open. Is there anyone here to speak on the item?

Jackie Duffy, Eversource, would like to install approximately 28 feet of conduit to supply electric service to 60 Medford Street.

Anyone else here to speak on the item? Anyone online? Mary Mello, online, go ahead. You're unmuted on our end. Mary Mello, are you able to unmute on your end? Is she unmuted? Waiting to see if the technology catches up with us in real time.

Can you hear me?

There we are. Yes, go right ahead.

All right, sorry about that. No problem. So I own 31 Horace Street and 60 Medford Street. So I'm curious on the grant location says 31 Horace, but Jackie, you had just mentioned 60 Medford Street.

Right, we're going, it's servicing 60 Medfin. It's a development that's going in there.

Okay, all right, that's kind of what I wanted to confirm. What's the time frame that this is looking to happen?

Right now I'm working on an easement for everything that's going in there. I wouldn't know. I'd have to go back to the division because I don't know. I can take you. I'm sorry. They can give you my number and you can call me and we can speak offline about this when the work will start if that works for you. that does that does okay okay thanks Mary okay if you have any questions at all they have my number there at Somerville okay appreciate it thank you you're welcome

So there you send an email to cityclerkcontact, all one word, at somervillema.gov. And you can go back to your contact information. I'm going to try this again with my microphone on. You'll all be able to hear me better that way. So Mary, please send an email to cityclerkcontact All one word at Somervillema.gov. And we'll respond with Ms. Duffy's information. And hopefully you guys can get that squared away. If there's any other issues, then let us know. You can reach out back through the clerk's office as well if there's continuing concerns. Anyone else here to speak on the item? Anyone else online? Scott. Okay. Seeing none, I declare the public hearing to be closed. Are there any questions, comments? Councilor Scott? Thank you, Mr. President.

Ms. Mello can also reach out to me, 857-615-1532. I'll be glad to connect him and do any follow-up needed. I am thrilled to announce that there are no double poles or dangerously leaning poles on Horace Street, so this one I move to be approved tonight.

All right, any further discussion? All right, seeing none, Council Scott moves to approve, and that item is approved. Sorry. All right. Ms. Bell, I hope you're still listening. We're going to correct. What did I say?

The title is city clerk contacted city clerk.

Okay. So the email that you should send an email to is cityclerk at somervillema.gov and or contact your board councillor, Councillor Scott, as you said, and he'll be happy to help facilitate that communication.

Mary, JT has my phone number also.

Okay.

I love when we solve problems in real time. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Next item, Madam Clerk.

Agenda item 3.5, a grant of location from Eversource applying to install 25 feet of conduit in Pearl Street from existing manhole 18868 to a point of pickup at 181 Pearl Street.

I now declare this public hearing to be open. Is there anyone here to speak on the item? Anyone online? Jackie Duffy.

Jackie Duffy, Eversource would like to install approximately 25 feet of conduit on Pearl Street to supply electric service to 181 Pearl Street.

All right, anyone else here to speak on the item? Anyone online? Mary, I see your hand is still up. Did you want to speak on this item as well, or was that for the prior item? Put her hand down. Okay. Very good. Anyone else online? No. All right. So I declare this public hearing to be closed. Is there any discussion? All right. Seeing none, then that item is approved. All right, folks, we have a number of items we're going to take out of order tonight. I'm going to read through them. If you are here for an item that you don't hear me mention right now, please let one of our council or IGA staff know. because we do have an executive session later this evening. We're going to make a real strong effort to not leave you all sitting here when we disappear into that room to do executive session stuff.

After we go through the list here, if there's something that you're here to just observe or whatever the case may be. IGA staff and our clerk there you go folks in the corner here let us know and we'll we'll do our best to make sure that you can hear your item before we go into executive session so In this order, we're going to take up item 715, which is proclamation of Arab American Heritage Month. Item 4.3, which deals with firefighter equipment. Item 4.6, which deals with to support Harvard academic workers. Item 7.2, which relates to the SMEU Unit D negotiation or contract, I guess. Let's see, Item 8.4, which, sorry. after 8.4, right? So 8.4, which relates to 90 Washington Street, that's going to be sort of an update. Then we'll take up item 6.A, which is the Finance Committee Report.

Related to that will be a supplemental item, which is 10.2. Then we will... have a presentation which is a presentation regarding combined sewage outflows and then we will go into executive session. If you're here for anything else at some point before we get to that point, let the folks over there know and we'll make sure that we don't keep you around longer than we have to. So with that, seeing no objection, we'll take up item 715. Madam Clerk.

715, a mayor's communication proclaiming April 2026 to be Arab-American Heritage Month.

Madam Clerk, would you read the item before the mayor comes up?

Whereas for over a century, Arab Americans have been making valuable contributions to virtually every aspect of society in medicine, law, business, education, technology, government, military service, and culture. and whereas since migrating to the United States and the city of Somerville, people of Arab descent have shared their rich culture and traditions with neighbors and friends while also setting fine examples of model citizens and public servants. and whereas they brought with them to the United States their resilient family values, strong work ethic, dedication to education, and diversity in faith and creed that have added strength to our great democracy, and whereas Arab Americans have also enriched our society by sharing in the entrepreneurial American spirit that makes our nation free and prosperous and whereas the history of Arab Americans in the U.S. remains neglected and defaced by Misconceptions, bigotry, and anti-Arab hate in forms of crimes and speech.

And whereas issues such as civil rights abuse, harmful stereotyping, and bullying must be combated in the forms of education and awareness. and whereas they join all Americans in the desire to see a peaceful and diverse society where every individual is treated equally and feels safe. and whereas the City of Somerville stands against all forms of hate including anti-Arab bias and Islamophobia and is committed to standing with Arab American residents of Somerville and the Commonwealth, and whereas the incredible contributions and heritage of Arab Americans have helped us build a better nation, now therefore be it known to all those present that the Mayor of the City of Somerville respectfully proclaims April 26 to be Arab American Heritage Month, proclaimed on this 23rd day of April 2026 by Mayor Jake Wilson.

Thank you. Mayor Wilson.

You have the floor. Mr. President, thank you. Good evening, everyone. Proclamations are typically very joyful, celebratory, feel-good things. There's some heavy stuff. In this one, as you heard, it's a sign we have to do better as a society. This is us recognizing that and aiming to do better as a city. Everyone should feel immense pride about who they are, where they come from, and what they're contributing to our city and to our society. To our Arab American neighbors, You help make our city what it is. I hope you feel embraced and welcomed and part of the fabric of the city of Somerville. Happy Arab American Heritage Month, everyone.

Mayors, would you like to request to have someone else speak? Otherwise, we need a member of the council to sponsor someone. But I understand there's someone else here that we were going to get.

Mr. President, I didn't know I had that power as mayor.

Well, you can make the request through me, Mr. Mayor. Through you, yeah.

We'd like to request that we hear from the public about this, please. Okay.

Thank you so much.

Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor, just so that we understand what we're embarking on here, is this one speaker, multiple speakers, just so we know how many spoke? One speaker, Mr. President. One speaker, very well. And who is the speaker? Please step forward and introduce yourself. I apologize for the little glitch. Usually we've got this a little bit more smoothed out ahead of time, but our apologies. Welcome. Glad to have you here. Please just say your name for the record so I can get it into the minutes and go right ahead.

Thank you very much. My name is El Mariche and I'm the executive director of the Center for Arabic Culture. And the Center for Arabic Culture is located here in Somerville. and Mr. Mayor Jay Coulson, President Lance Davis and members of the City Council on behalf of the Center for Arabic Culture It's board of directors and the Arab American community here in Mansfield and around Massachusetts. We thank you so much for this beautiful recognition. Since 2006, The Center for Arabic Culture has been working as a force of change through arts and culture. Somerville has been our home not just as a location but as a family and a community to connect with, build bridges to, and grow and thrive together.

Whether through the City Hall, the Office of Immigrant Affairs, the Somerville Arts Council, and all their vibrant teams, CSE has been working to support the community and has been supported and very meaningful way over the years from the city. Somerville has been our home and we are very proud of that. and I would like to take this opportunity to say that the Arab Americans in Somerville and in Massachusetts since their early arrival more than 100 years ago has been an integral part of the community and We're thriving to build home in this country, working to support their communities socially, economically, and politically. Early Arab immigrants settled in cities in Massachusetts since the 1880s. and they were key figures in the textile mills and shipyards and participated in the also historic 1912 bread and roll strike.

Boston South and once a vibrant neighborhood known as Little Syria, which shared space with growing Chinatown, The area featured Arab language newspapers, local grocery stores and churches that served as community anchors and from there Arab Americans went on to live around Massachusetts, including Somerville, spreading their culture, cuisine, music, business minds, and their strong belief in family and hard work. Today, Somerville is the home of a very vibrant and diverse Arab community. Communities from Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco, to name a few. all call Somerville their home and work to enrich its culture and economic and political life hand in hand with their fellow neighbors.

The Center for Arabic Culture through our mission that is secular, non-political through arts and cultural events and activities of Building Bridges and Connecting Cultures believe that art, language, and culture are the grassroots pillars of building a community through which bridges of understanding, empathy and humanity between all its groups are cultivated and will render the community stronger on all fronts. A matter that will allow all of us to express who we are culturally, socially, and politically and contribute to our community in a democratic and humanistic way. and again on behalf of the Center for Arabic Culture board and community we are blessed to call Somerville our home and look forward to keep working with its leaders and fellow neighbors to build a strong, aware and rich community.

I would like also to thank everybody who has attended here from the larger community and from the Arab American community. Thank you for showing up and showing support. We appreciate you all. Thank you so much.

Any discussion? We want to take a couple pictures, Mr. Mayor? Yeah? All right. So that item will be placed on file. I'm going to remember to do that before we take pictures this time. And we'll have a brief recess for a few pictures, and then we'll come back after the pictures are taken. Thank you.

I call this meeting back to order. The next item we'll take out of order is item 4.3. Madam Clerk.

Agenda item 4.3, a resolution by Councillor McLaughlin that the administration update this council on the ordering and maintenance of firefighter equipment such as fire engines, ladder trucks, and all other fire apparatus.

McLaughlin.

Thank you, Mr. President. This is just a request for information, but it comes from discussions with the fire department about concerns with their equipment, particularly their engines as well as other equipment. I think they're stuck in the hall right now, but I would like to sponsor Mike Jefferson from the Firefighters Union to speak on this item.

Do you want to lay this one on the table until they're able to make it? There's a lot of traffic out in the hallway right now.

Right there, but sure.

All right, let's lay this on the table briefly while we let folks work their way through the crowd. And Madam Clerk, if we could take up then item 4.6.

McLaughlin. Agenda item 4.6, a resolution by Councillor McLaughlin, Councillor Mbah, and Councillor Clingan in support of Harvard academic workers.

Councillor McLaughlin. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm not sure I've told any of you, but I go to Harvard. Have I mentioned this at all in a conversation? Very proud of this for someone who grew up in this community to go to this school. Learning a lot, but one of the great lessons I've learned from both students and professors is that economic inequality, the affordability crisis is affecting everyone, and that includes Harvard workers and students. We saw just the other day that a Harvard union has gone on strike for their rights, and we also have the Harvard academic workers, which is represented by the same union, who are going to be voting for a strike soon. Just some of the things I've seen there. Again, growing up here, you assume everyone who goes to Harvard, everyone who works at Harvard is affluent. I've seen students and people working there go into food lines to get food, trying to scrounge up whatever meals they can get.

People paying over 75% of their income in childcare. People worried about their documentation status and whether they're going to be protected by the federal government when they encroach on the school. So this is a universal problem for all of us, affordability, and it extends to Harvard students, it extends to workers, and I'd like to extend the opportunity to sponsor speaker Allie Stanton from the Harvard Academic Workers Union.

McLaughlin would like to sponsor Ali Stanton. Seeing no objection, please just formally state your name for the record and go right ahead.

Thank you. My name is Ali Stanton. Good evening, counselors and neighbors. I live just a few blocks down the road on School Street. I'm a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School where I study how viral diseases like yellow fever are transmitted by mosquitoes. In case you didn't know, the effects of climate change will likely soon be bringing those mosquitoes here to Massachusetts. I've also been a member of UAW since I started graduate school in 2018. Being a union member has changed my life as it gave me the ability to afford necessary mental health care during a difficult period of my life through my graduate student union's co-pay relief fund. It also enabled me to support and advocate for my coworkers as a shop steward for several years and join other Massachusetts UAW members in the auto industry on the picket line when they were on strike in 2023. It's my most fervent belief that a better world is possible for everyone and that a strong union in every workplace is a large part of how such a world can come about.

That is why when I began my postdoctoral appointment at HMS, I again chose to spend a significant amount of my time organizing my coworkers into the Harvard Academic Workers Union. which is also part of UAW and represents more than 2,600 non-tenured Harvard employees in teaching and research positions. Our union has been bargaining with Harvard management for around 22 months and has unfortunately seen little movement on the items that are most important to me and my coworkers. These issues include the increasingly unstable position of visa holders who make up well over half the bargaining unit. Harvard has refused to commit to denying immigration enforcement access to employee information without a warrant. and recently attempted to reduce the quality of our health insurance to the point that it was no longer compliant with J1 visa requirements, putting those individuals in immediate jeopardy. Among my coworkers at HMS, and I'm sure this is true for many Somerville residents, I found out a major issue is the extremely high cost of childcare.

I know many people with babies or young children who tell me that they spend upwards of 75% of their take-home pay on daycare. This issue affects all genders, but it's a particular obstacle for women in the profession. Harvard offers more generous financial support for the cost of childcare to its tenure-track faculty, but our kids are just as important and just as expensive. Though my employer's persistent crying to the press would indicate otherwise, Harvard is wealthier now than it ever has been in its nearly 400-year history. When the Trump administration made deep cuts to science funding last year, my coworkers and I helped restore nearly all of that funding by protesting here in Massachusetts and in Washington, D.C., and by winning a lawsuit filed on our behalf by UAW. The University has rewarded us with massive layoffs and terminations for which we received no severance and increasingly short appointment lengths, sometimes two months or less, in an already outrageously precarious employment arrangement.

I myself do not yet have written confirmation that I will still be employed when my contract is up for renewal on July 1st. This is in addition to Harvard's policy of time caps for non-tenured teaching faculty unique amongst its peer institutions in which talented and often award-winning educators at the end of a fixed term and non-renewable contract are let go for the sole purpose of hiring someone new at the bottom of the pay scale. The university has also attempted at every turn to strip workers of their union membership and even their employee status based off of arbitrary metrics like funding source and a comically expansive definition of who's a supervisor. I and many of my coworkers are fed up with this injustice and are ready to take action to win a strong contract, including a strike action in the coming months if necessary. It would be very meaningful to us to have the support of the City Council of my beautiful home of Somerville, where I've lived for many years and hope to live for many more, so long as my employer and my landlord will allow me to afford it.

Thank you. McLaughlin, Doe, Councilor Mbah.

Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you to my colleague for putting this forward. And to Ali for continuing to demonstrate courage over fear. You know, this is really... As also a member of UAW myself, I think that this resolution reflects Somerville's long history of supporting organized labor. So we always support fair wages, workplace protection. So academic workers, including teaching assistants and researchers, play a critical role in higher education but often face job insecurity. and inadequate compensation, like you mentioned. So supporting the organizing efforts is consistent with broader commitment to economic justice and workers' rights. So thank you for standing up for these values.

Hardt, and Councilor Strezo would like to sign on. I saw Councilor Scott would like to sign on, Councilor Clingan, and then Councilor Wheeler.

Thank you, Mr. President, through you as one of the co-sponsors of this I just want to thank Allie, my constituent, for coming up here today and speaking on behalf of her brothers and sisters who are probably walking the picket line with the other I just kind of want to echo what Councilor McLaughlin said. We've been down on picket lines with 32BJ and the The other... Local 103, they have like a trade union that's like made up of three unions, but seeing a lot of these academic unions come along and the solidarity that's been there with

Just to have that type of power, to be able to have solidarity when the cafeteria workers of Unite Here, Local 26, or 32BJ, the custodians, go out. I just think it gives that much more power to fight against Harvard and the massive amount of power and money that they have. And as you had said, it's only fair, it's only right. Everybody has the right to organize. Wheeler, and I hope that you all come to a resolution fairly quickly and I'm happy to support and I don't want to see you have to strike, but if you do, I'll be out there with you. Thank you. Council Wheeler.

Thank you, Chair. I deeply, deeply appreciate the work and the risks that the members of your union are taking to stand up for yourselves. and for others, including the many people who may be in too precarious a situation to speak out themselves. I am a former Harvard teaching fellow, which is what they call their teaching assistants. Anybody who's been anywhere near that knows the pay is woefully inadequate and the other conditions as well are desperately in need of change. I think it's nothing short of absurd for an institution with the many, many billions with a B that Harvard has to be paying the academic workers who represent and

and many more.

Any further discussion? All right, seeing none, that item is approved. We will now pick up off the table the item that was laid on the table, which is 4.3. Councilor McLaughlin, back to you.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to sponsor Mike Jefferson to speak.

McLaughlin would like to sponsor Mike Jefferson. Any opposition? Seeing none, please step forward and state your name for the record.

Thank you, Michael Jefferson, President, Somerville Fire, Local 76. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilor McLaughlin, for sponsoring me to speak tonight. I understand that it has been a packed night already and I believe there's more speakers so I will be brief and to the point. And I want to start by addressing that I do realize that the city over the last two years has spent millions of dollars to purchase new apparatus. There's a national nationwide issue right now Thank you very much. I would also like to acknowledge our mechanics and how they do a phenomenal job maintaining our fleet when companies go out of service but the rapid rate that they are going out of service is incredibly difficult for them to keep up with the workload and I've seen a lot of negative comments When we post stuff about our mechanics not doing their work, and that is just not the case, they work diligently and tirelessly to keep our fleet up and running to the best of their ability, and so I wanted to put that on the record.

I don't have the exact numbers of traffic calming devices in the city. I will say a week ago today I reached out by phone, by email, and left a message with the transportation department No response by phone, no response by email. But if I had a guess, I would say there was hundreds of speed bumps, flex posts, raised crosswalks across the city. and I would like to say that the studies show that one speed bump can delay a fire response by 3 to 10 seconds. One device can slow a response, each device, three to ten seconds. Think about that if your house is on fire. Think about that if you were having a medical emergency or your loved one was having a medical emergency. On average, a fire engine weighs 36,000 pounds and costs $1 million. A ladder truck on average weighs 70,000 pounds and costs $2 million. There were 10 fire companies in Somerville. Six engines, three ladder trucks, and a heavy rescue.

And in 2025, last year, those companies ran just shy of 16,000 calls. These apparatus are being exposed through thousands and thousands of contacts with traffic calming devices a year responding to emergencies. The toll it is taking on our fleet is unprecedented. 16 and 35 ton trucks with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of intricate mechanical Workings inside are not designed to constantly speed up, slow down, go over a hump, speed up, slow down, go over a hump, repeat, repeat, repeat, over and over again. These humps are causing wear and tear on our suspension, causing issue on our brakes, the alignment on our trucks, and overall parts are wearing way too fast, shorter than their lifespan should be. Flex posts are ripping lines out from under our trucks. They are wreaking havoc on the undercarriage of our vehicles.

Many instances our drivers have no choice but to drive over these flex posts and take them out because these streets have become so compact and condensed that the cars have nowhere to pull over and get out of our way. And I don't expect civilians to take their personal vehicles and drive over those flex posts to get out of our ways. I'm not sitting here advocating for that. But it has become a nightmare to traverse these streets in our trucks over the last few years. A major issue that I have is no one has asked our drivers for their input. Privates drive the apparatus, not lieutenants, not captains, Not the district and deputy chiefs who drive the SUVs, not the chief and the assistant chief who drive SUVs. It's the privates. And this isn't like the military where as you stay in longer, you move up with rank. In this profession you can stay a private your entire career and many of us do and are proud to do that. But it's these men and women who drive these trucks day in and day out Go over them in the morning and have the first-hand perspective of the adverse effects these streets are causing as well as the increased difficulty navigating through this city.

Their knowledge and experience is invaluable yet no one looks to them for input. I want to thank Mayor Wilson for coming out and riding along with us on Ladder 3 and getting a firsthand look at what it's like to be in one of these pieces of apparatus. I encourage all of you to do the same. Go to the station in your ward. If you're at large, go to the station in your neighborhood or of your choosing. Go at rush hour so you can see what it's like in gridlock traffic. Go at rush hour so you can see what it's like to have to go over flex posts because these cars have nowhere to move out of the way. There needs to be more consideration for our fire apparatus and the men and women of Somerville Fire Department when drastic changes are being made to our city streets. We deserve better. These members should not be coming to work and driving Waltham and Stoneham fire engines or a Medford ladder truck. It destroys morale, but more importantly, they deserve up-to-date, frontline working apparatus to be able to perform their duties to the best of their ability.

The same way your citizens and your constituents deserve to feel safe in their homes knowing that Somerville Fire has the equipment they need to do their job and can respond in a timely manner. Three people last summer were rescued in the North Street projects over an aerial ladder on a truck that was 31 years old. Thankfully, there was no issue. But how many times do we want to run this risk? We have been extremely fortunate, but eventually something will go wrong. We are working with old equipment because our frontline pieces are out of service. That is not fair to my members. That is not fair to your citizens. And to close and bring this back, like I said, full circle to the purchase of the new apparatus. This city has now invested millions of dollars on four new pieces of apparatus that should all be here by early next year. Shouldn't we all want to protect that investment and get the most

I urge you to take this matter seriously because it really is a matter of public safety. Thank you.

McLaughlin. Anything further? No. If there's no comments, I'd like to refer to public health and safety. Public health, public safety. Any discussion? Councilor Wheeler?

thank you chair um i just want to say first of all thank you for uh for coming and talking to us about this um i want to say it's hard to hear it's hard to hear this uh you know some of the streetscaping work is speed bumps you know there are are ways that The hope has been, and some of the evidence has shown, that these improve safety. This may be something where there's a need for us to be taking more voices into account. and more perspectives into account than we have been. I think you can't make a decision well balancing everything if you don't I really hope we make a shift to really taking this information as part of what is informing our decisions about our streetscaping moving forward. I'm not sure what that balance looks like

But I do want to make sure we're making a balance with the best information we can. Thank you.

Scott. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm not on public health and public safety. I'm glad it's going into committee. But as a counselor who's going to be watching that later, I hope when that discussion happens that there's going to be some data on What the frequency of breakdowns are on this equipment and how long this equipment is out of service so we can see how that's trended over time to help understand not only where we're at today but how we got there.

I saw Councilor Clingan, then Councilor Schozo. Thank you, Mr. President, through you. Thank you to Councilor McLaughlin for bringing this forward, and I thank the firefighters for coming and speaking today. I also look forward to that conversation and looking over the data. I've had frank conversations with President Jefferson In the past regarding what we've been told and what we've been shown in terms of whether it be response time or whatever. So I think it's high time that we actually take a good look at this, as Councilor Scott said, with sort of the The rollout of the speed humps and what we can glean from that, other than the fact that it's kind of common sense if you have a huge vehicle going over a speed hump that many times. So I really think it's also just the number of calls that these guys respond to, men and women respond to on a daily basis. I think it's a lot more than we realize because if you don't see a fire on the news, But they're constantly going to gas calls. I mean, it's constant as far as how many trips they're making and how much this is wear and tear

Wheeler. I get many, many requests, constituents really want to see these speed humps. I struggle with the balance between public safety of saving lives and also public safety of saving pedestrian lives because of the amount of cut-through traffic we have. and the amount of speeds at which the cars are going through it's it's nothing that i grew up in the city i've never seen anything like it um it's just so many cars on the road um and so yeah i think uh this is an important conversation to have and i'm glad we're having it and i'm glad that Scherzer.

Thank you, Mr. President, to our Firefighters, thank you for coming to speak on this. Thank you for your persistence and also just for making sure that this is front and center of attention and we know that this is this issue Much to our dismay has been now three administrations long, which is unacceptable because We need the right people in the room talking about when we talk about street design that it isn't just one department or another so when we do get this conversation to public health and public safety I am

Asking the administration or department heads that will be there through to the administration to really be thoughtful on who is going to be there to discuss this. And I do request that mobility. Be part of the conversation at least in this meeting because I don't understand why that would not be included. They are the ones that helped make the street design on this and the projection of the years ahead. In addition to that, through you to the chair of public health and public safety, are you planning on putting this forward at the next public health public safety meeting?

Through the President, I was going to request for the IGA's office to follow up on Councilor Scott's request for information, so I'd like to have that information before the meeting. If we could have that before that meeting, yes, I would take it up.

Personally, I was hoping that it would not be in the more recent May 5th or 6th meeting because there are some firefighters who are hosting an Autism Eats event and I know that There will be numerous firefighters at that event and if they want to be part of this conversation or listen to part of this conversation, they may not have that chance. So I do want to bring that to your attention. Attention, but we're with you. I'm with you. And we'll right this wrong and fix this. Thank you for being here tonight. Through the chair, we can wait. We can wait.

Very good. Thank you for raising that conflict. Any further discussion? All right. Seeing none, that item is approved with a copy to Public Health and Public Safety. Next item out of order, which is 7.2, I think, right? Yeah, 7.2.

Agenda item 7.2, a request of the mayor requesting the appropriation of $719,817 from the salary and wage stabilization fund to various departmental personal services accounts to fund the retrospective portion of a collective bargaining settlement with the Somerville Municipal Employees Union, Unit D. All right.

I see Assistant City Solicitor Matt Serigou. Good evening, Council President. Through you, this is an appropriation of funds to fund the retroactive component of the Unit D. The contract was ratified by the council at that time and this now just funds the three years plus that was retroactive on that contract. Wheeler.

This is not a question, but being satisfied that this appropriation is appropriate and wanting to support the coming together of the union and city negotiators, I move to approve this item.

I'm happy to get them paid.

Any further discussion? All right. Let's lay this item on the table until we have enough members here to actually take a vote. We got a thumbs up? We got enough here? Okay. I can't count, I guess. All right, so motions to approve. Do we need a roll call on this one? We don't need a roll call on this. Oh, yeah, see, there you go. This one's easy. All right, seeing no further discussion, then that is approved. Thank you, solicitor. Next item, Madam Clerk.

Next item is agenda item 8.4, an officer's communication from the Director of Economic Development conveying an update on the 90 Washington Street request for proposals.

Who do we have from the administration to speak to this item?

Director Nguyen-Williams. Mr. President, I think there is a desire from some of the Councillors to take a photo with the firefighters in here. I'm happy. You know I always love a good recess for pictures.

Quick recess for pictures. All right we're gonna we're gonna take we're oh here we got Mr. Demers here all right very sorry for that no no worries hold on one sec so Councillor Scott

I'm just saying we're perilously close to losing quorum. I see folks hovering.

I think we've still got what we need here. Mr. Merzby, please introduce yourself for the record and then you can speak to the item.

All right, thank you. Through you, Mr. President, my name is Ben Demers. I'm a senior planner with the Economic Development Team with the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development. I'm going to keep these remarks brief this evening, just giving a quick update on 90 Washington Street. For this item, we shared a memo ahead of time just kind of describing where we are in the process for the 90 Washington Street request for proposals to select a development partner for the site. We received two proposals. Currently we are reviewing the technical proposals. So each of these proposals includes both the technical component, this includes things like site plans, the more qualitative elements of the proposal, and then also a financial proposal, so the financial offer for the land. Currently we are reviewing the technical proposals with the 90 Washington Street Civic Advisory Committee. So we have a few more meetings with that group. and then following that we'll be coming to the council in May. On May 11th we'll be having a discussion to really dive into the contents of those proposals and bring in the financial components. So I'm really just here to answer any questions.

Didn't want to start deliberating on these two proposals this evening. We're going to really get into that in May.

Okay, just so for in terms of process, as Mr. Demers said, we have a sort of a We have a schedule of discussion points laid out that I've worked with IGA to sort of put forth. The intent here is the first introduction, high-level overview. We will have opportunity both in open session and in executive session for the degree that there's I think the key point I think tonight as I understand is that I believe attached to this item in the agenda are all of the relevant documents if I understand correctly did that happen correctly yes okay and I believe there's probably also an easier way for folks the public to get to or there will be soon is that is the public website open yet

Yeah so the public website is up so if you go to somervillema.gov slash 90-washington-redevelopment all of the documents that we also shared for this item this evening so that's the two proposals a copy of the RFP that was released to which these proposals are responding And then also there is a summary memo there from the city's real estate consultant on this project, HRNA, that does an initial assessment based on criteria in the RFP of how each of these two proposals scored.

So those are available at that website as well as attached to this item or this agenda for tonight, depending on how folks like to get to their public documents to take a look at. As always, folks can reach out to the City Council Send us your thoughts. We would welcome that as we move forward in this process. So in terms of the process, high-level questions, any discussion or questions for Mr. Demers at this point? Scott. All right. Seeing none, we look forward to digging into it. Councilor Scott, go ahead.

Mr. President, I just wanted to congratulate everybody on getting it to this point. I look forward to the in-depth discussions. And for members of the public, there was a meeting, I believe, of the Advisory Commission just last night. A very spirited discussion and I think a very helpful one and the recording for that is already posted on that SomervilleMA.gov 90 Washington page. it takes a little digging but it's down on the right hand side so if you'd like to watch the deliberation of your neighbors who have been engaged in this process for a while I recommend folks to go check out that video thank you excellent very good

Wheeler. I am a member of the 90 Washington CAC and I wanted to make one The observation about this process and echoing the comments of one resident who spoke at yesterday's meeting, who is here this evening, It is a little disappointing that we in this process only resulted in two proposals and that At least by my judgment, they might not have both been quite as fully baked at this point as we might have liked. and I'm just curious in the future how we can approach this kind of process so that we are making sure the network casting is as wide as possible and we're attracting all of the parties that might be interested in this.

That's a question that I suspect probably would benefit from a little bit of work before it's answered. Is that something you can... I believe so. Come back, speak to the process. Director Narcarni, I see you. If you're going to speak, please come up to the microphone and introduce yourself.

Hi, everyone. Rachel Nadkari, Director of Economic Development. I was wondering if it's worth just a quick rundown of the advertising process that we went through, if that's helpful at this point, or if that should wait for another time.

I feel like it might be a bit out of scope of the current meeting with our long agenda, but I do appreciate that there was a lot of staff work that went into this.

We'd be happy to provide to anyone interested in what that process looked like.

Thank you. Thank you, Director. Thank you, Council Wheeler. All right, any other discussion? All right, so as I said, this is the, it's not even really the first discussion, but it's to set up the next several stages as Mr. Murray has laid out. Council will have a key role in all of this, so stay tuned. and we'll get to dig into it a lot more and we have just to be clear my understanding is that is that you know the the council does have discretion to I recommend not forwarding either of the proposals if that is the body's decision. Ultimately, it would be the SRA that would choose. We're not sort of... I don't want to say stuck with these because I don't want to diminish the value of what's before us. But we have a lot of options on the table and we're going to do our diligence.

So as I said, I laid out a process for us to have plenty of opportunity to do that. I wanted to get this all out to the public ahead of time so that the council members and the public all have an opportunity to dig right in as much as you like and give us your thoughts. Thank you, Mr. Demers. Seeing no further discussion, then, that item is, I guess, placed on file, all right? All right, very well. Next item is 6A, the Finance Committee Report. Thank you, Chair. One moment, Councilor Wheeler. We're going to read the item into the record, then I'll toss it over to you.

Oh, please, thanks. Go ahead.

Sorry, I dropped my papers. Agenda Item 6A, Committee Report, Report of the Committee on Finance Meeting on April 21, 2026. Councilor Wheeler, take it away.

Thank you, Chair. And before I give the report, I move to sever one of the items. That is item 6A. 7, the Nibble Kitchen contract, because there was apparently some ambiguous wording in it, and it has been replaced by an almost entirely identical item, as I believe you mentioned before.

Wheeler. Okay, so Councilor Wheeler moves to sever, which was the...

It was 6A7, that's ID 26-0512.

6-0512. I see no objection. That item is severed. Go ahead with the report and then we'll take up after the report. After the report, we'll take up the related submission, which is the replacement for that end. So go ahead with the report, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Chair. The Finance Committee met on Tuesday, April 21st, 2026 via remote participation with all members present and with the help of Clerk Delaney Fisher-Casiol. We took up a 19-item agenda. We approved a $125,000 state grant for lighting retrofits at Dilboy Field, replacing older fixtures with more efficient LED lighting. We discussed the importance of aligning the new lighting with dark sky principles. We recommended approval of two library gifts, a $30,000 contribution from the Carnegie Corporation recognizing the city's historic Carnegie Libraries, and a $300 gift for materials at the West Branch Library. We approved an approximately $47,000 appropriation for ash tree treatments needed every two years, which protect hundreds of our trees from invasive pests. We approved an approximately $32,000 transfer to cover unplanned costs related to ADA compliance for city websites and signage, restoring funds after work was already completed ahead of federal deadlines.

Several Community Preservation Act items were considered together. We recommended a $400,000 appropriation for the Kennedy Schoolyard project and a $228,000 transfer to the Open Space Reserve to support that funding. and also a reduction of the Kennedy Schoolyard bond with a matching amount from $2 million down to $1.6 million, lowering our long-term borrowing costs. We also approved a contract extension for the Blessing of the Bay linear park project. We recommended approval of two infrastructure bonds, approximately $8.3 million for water main rehabilitation and $2 million for sewer work, including in the McGrath corridor ahead of the state's changes to McGrath. To address aging infrastructure. So to be clear, this is not changing what the pipes are. It's just fixing the pipes, noticing where they are wearing and repairing them. This will be repaid through water and sewer enterprise funds and indirectly through people's water and sewer bills.

We approved two fire department grants, approximately $49,000 for an auxiliary vehicle and approximately $30,000 for safety equipment for new recruits. There was discussion of the recent issues in Quincy and elsewhere regarding toxic chemicals and some firefighter equipment, and city staff recognized this and emphasized that the equipment is being selected with those issues in mind. We also recommended two police department transfers, $35,000 for animal control staffing due to unexpected leave, and $325,000 for medical costs associated with line of duty injuries. Police Department staff explained that these medical costs are uneven over time and can be unexpected. They certainly were in this case. The committee spent significant time discussing the approximately $232,000 body worn camera grant. While cameras are widely seen as a best practice for transparency and accountability,

We discussed the substantial ongoing costs estimated by, and this is my math, using some of the city's estimates, to total about $430,000 per year. And the need as well for clearer policies on use, oversight, and access to footage. Councilors raised questions about how footage would be used for supervision and training, expectations for consistent camera activation, and how much flexibility the city will have to shape these policies over time. Given these open questions and the ongoing review of the Surveillance Technology Impact Report, the committee voted to keep this item in committee. Chair, I ask that this committee report be accepted as submitted. All right, any discussion on the committee report? Councilor Scott?

Thank you, Mr. President, and I thank the Chair for that thorough review. The Finance Committee does a lot of deeply technical work. I do want to point out for members of the public who might be curious about the body worn camera discussion. It was a very interesting one with a lot of thought and nuance. It occurred to me, one of the things that surfaced in that memo, Mr. President, is that by accepting this grant, We are fundamentally committing to a budget increase to the police department. As I've mentioned that $430,000 and one component of that is the hiring of an additional. You know how I feel about midyear appropriations to create midyear position requests.

I assure you that we will continue to discuss this in finance, but I just wanted to highlight that this grant acceptance Actually has much wider ranging impacts. And as we approach a budget season where we have requested that the schools prepare a million dollars in cuts, I have a hard time figuring out how it's going to be justifiable to put a half million dollar increase into the police department. But thank you for that, Mr. President.

Further discussion on the committee reports? All right, seeing none, the report is approved. That puts a few items before us for a roll call vote, and then after which we'll take up the item that was severed with them before us. Madam Clerk, on the roll call votes.

Yes, that puts four roll call votes in front of us. The first being 6A8, requesting approval to appropriate $46,500 from the Street Tree Stabilization Fund for FY2026 ash tree treatments. Ewen-Campen, Councilor Link, Councilor Scott, Councilor Clingan, Councilor Strezo, Councilor Sait, Wheeler?

Yes.

Councilor Hardt? Yes. Councilor McLaughlin?

Yes.

Councilor Mbah?

Yes.

Councilor Davis? Yes. With eight councillors in favor, the item is approved.

All right, next one.

Brings us to agenda item 6A9, requesting authorization to borrow $8,284,000 in a bond to appropriate the same amount for the recurring FY2026 Water Main Rehabilitation Program. Ewen-Campen, Link, Scott, Clingan, Strezo, Sait, Wheeler?

Yes.

Councilor Hardt? Yes. Councilor McLaughlin? Yes. Councilor Mbah?

Yes.

Councilor Davis?

Yes.

Eight councillors in favor, that item is approved. This brings us to agenda item 6A10, a request of the mayor requesting authorization to borrow $2 million in a bond and to appropriate the same amount for the annual FY2026 sewer system rehabilitation McGrath corridor. Councilor Ewen-Campen. Link, Councilor Scott, Councilor Clingan, Councilor Strezo, Councilor Sait, Councilor Wheeler, Councilor Hardt, Councilor McLaughlin, Mbah?

Yes.

Councilor Davis?

Yes.

With eight councillors in favor, the item is approved. Final one. And 6A13, a request of the mayor requesting approval to reduce the borrowing authorization for the Kennedy Schoolyard renovation project from $2 million to $1,600,000. Councilor Ewen-Campen? Councilor Link? Scott?

Yes.

Councilor Clingan?

Yes.

Councilor Strezo? Yes. Councilor Sait? Wheeler?

Yes.

Councilor Hardt? Yes. Councilor McLaughlin? Yes. Councilor Mbah? Yes. Councilor Davis? Yes. Eight councillors in favor, that item is approved.

All right, that puts item 26-0512 before us. Please honor Radassi on that item.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the record, Yasmin Erdasi, Legislative Liaison. We would like to request to withdraw this item. As Councillor Wheeler mentioned, there was an error in the wording for the title of the item. Old version which is the one we are asking to be withdrawn says that it's for a lease extension but the documents that were reviewed on Tuesday at Finance Committee and the discussion that happened was based around the fact that it's a new lease So the new item that we have submitted is referring to approval for a new lease with the option to extend.

Any discussion? All right, seeing none, so that item is withdrawn, and that then we'd like to take up out of order item 10.1. Is that right? 10.2. 10.2. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 10.2. Madam Clerk, would you read that one for us?

Agenda item 10.2 a request of the mayor requesting approval of a five-year lease with option for renewal with BWB Square LLC for Nibble Community Kitchen

Thank you, Mr.

Chair. We're seeking immediate approval of this item just because we had the discussion in Finance Committee on Tuesday. Again, the documents that were attached to the old version of the item with the incorrect title. are the same. The discussion centered around the same item that is before you now. The lease does expire in May, so that's why we're hoping to have it approved tonight.

So conceptually, same tenant, same use, same space, just a different word on the document, otherwise exactly the same issue.

I think the terms were updated and the price proposal is different, which was discussed on Tuesday. Wheeler.

Thank you, and Chair, just to be clear, this was unanimously approved in the Finance Committee, these documents.

Okay.

I did look into this and have a conversation in terms of we're taking up a new item tonight that wasn't on the agenda when it was posted earlier this evening but as was said since it's effectively the exact same Concept. It was already duly noticed and discussed, certainly within our ability. So I see no objection. That is before us. Any questions, any discussion on that item? No. Okay. Do we need a roll call on that? We do. We do need a roll call. All right. Let's take a roll call on that item.

Roll call on agenda item 10.2. Councilor Ewen-Campen? Councilor Link? Councilor Scott?

Yes.

Councilor Clingan?

Yes.

Councilor Strezo? Yes. Councilor Sait? Wheeler?

Yes.

Councilor Hardt? Yes. Councilor McLaughlin? Yes. Councilor Mbah?

Yes.

Councilor Davis?

Yes.

Eight councillors in favor, that item is approved.

All right, still in our out of order items, that brings us to item 8.2. And actually, Madam Clerk, let me just ask, before we get to 8.2, because while I'm told this is going to be an appropriately length item, it's a topic we love hearing about, and they sometimes take a little bit. Is there anyone here in the chamber that's here to hear about an item that we haven't discussed yet? Okay. CSOs. You read it in, did we do that? Did I jump ahead? Yeah, okay. Madam Clerk, go ahead.

Agenda item 8.2, an officer's communication from the director of infrastructure and asset management conveying the April 2026 draft combined sewer overflow plan.

Director Raish. Thank you much. For your record, Richard Raish, Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management. And a surprise to no one, there will be a deck. Anyone who bet the under on the number of slides wins this time. Cambridge, Somerville, and the MWRA will submit a draft updated combined sewer overflow CSO plan to MassDEP and US EPA on April 30th. which will start a five-month public comment period and extensive evaluation by EPA and DEP which will culminate in a final plan in 2027. The plan employed a detailed hydraulic model of the sewer system that has been refined over the past 30 years, leveraged a water quality model that has been calibrated with a decade's worth of data, used a Cornell University peer-reviewed simulated rainfall based on climate change projections to 2050, making our CSO plan the first in the nation

That estimates the impact of climate change rather than looking backwards at historical rainfall data. This is the most sophisticated CSO plan in the country to date and the first to be taking these bold progressive next steps of a higher level of control. Getting to zero discharges in a future typical year and only suffering discharges under extreme storms that cause other system failures. Dozens of staff at MWRA Cambridge and Somerville, along with a small army of consultants, have been hard at work on this plan for four years. That team includes some of the nation's best wet weather experts, many of whom, myself included, have deep experience with implementing the prior MWRA long-term control plan here in Boston. We are, frankly and rightly, proud of the work that we have done. All that we've accomplished and are excited as professionals to be on the cutting edge leading the nation in the next generation of CSO management.

We are also clear-eyed that the CSO and other desperately needed regional infrastructure improvements will be expensive. We're talking billions with a B. It's important that we keep the impacts to ratepayers in our minds. This Council knows very well how difficult it is with our annual water and sewer rate increases on our constituents' finances. Every other community in the Commonwealth shares those concerns. We collectively, Cambridge, Somerville, MWRA, the other 41 MWRA sewer communities, the state, need to examine how we will pay for this important work. With the draft report completed, we are excited to enter the next phase, to have a regional conversation about our analysis, our conclusions, the data, the findings, Greater Boston's priorities, each community's concerns, and our collective goals. We do not expect DEP and EPA to simply rubber stamp the draft plan.

We sincerely hope that a positive collaboration with the advocates, the stakeholders, the regulators, and the state leaders will improve the final control plan. With that said, we can start the presentation. That probably would have been a better background for the diatribe, but we can move on to the next slide now. In terms of procedures, this is an update. I updated the council in October, item 25-1451. The slides for that are attached for reference. As with that item, this item actually does not require a formal city council vote. However, it has a huge impact on our water and sewer rates. So I felt it was appropriate to come before this body, lay out the plan, and perhaps get some initial reactions to it so that we can frame the submission of the plan correctly as we go to the next steps.

I will point out that following that October presentation the council did pass resolution 25 1677 which said that the city council respectfully calls for our state delegation to advocate for policy changes that would result in MWRA playing a role in stormwater management. That item has been sent to the state delegation and is a conversation that we need to have. All right, so what happened since the last time on the next slide we met? When I presented the plan in October, it was a $0.87 billion plan that Allowed limited discharges during that typical year. The following week, MWRA staff presented that same plan to the board of directors. There was some pushback from the advocates and MassDEP, which led us to negotiate with DEP for a 120-day extension. The deadline for filing the report had been December 31st, 25.

It is now a week from tonight and we are feverishly attempting to hit that deadline. We held an additional public meeting in January of 26 with some more information. Very well attended. Have reworked some of the plan that was presented again to the MWRA Board of Directors. The Board of Directors voted to approve that plan or technically they voted to allow staff to submit that plan. which is now a $1.69 billion plan that gets to zero discharges in that future 2050 typical year. Which leads us to our report submission date of April 30th. which the team is trying frantically to meet and I think at this moment we're considering April 30th at 1159 to be our deadline. On the next slide.

So this is an important shift, and there's a lot of words on this slide, but they are important for the record and for everyone to understand. The variances, which are the regulatory mechanism that requires us to do this plan, require the partners who are Cambridge, Somerville, and MWRA to examine solutions quote and unquote up to and including elimination. This is consistent. With CSO guidance across the United States and in fact with what is done abroad as well. And every Long-term control plan that has been approved in the states and elsewhere always allows for a limited number of CSO discharge in the typical year so that that first Submission was in line with that. Now, notwithstanding that precedent, throughout the outreach and engagement process described in the report,

The partners clearly heard from stakeholders and the regulators that even a single discharge in that typical year would not constitute elimination, and that was the goal by which we were being held. So this, because that would require a change in designated use in the state is reluctant to change the use of the Mystic and the Charles. So with that feedback in mind, the draft plan was modified to do this first in the nation and possibly the world to get to zero discharges in a typical year. Setting a new standard going beyond any identified plan. Next slide. So what is that recommended plan, the $1.29 billion? On the next slide, you can see for the ill-wife Brooke, It is a few storage tanks in Cambridge, some limited sewer separation in Cambridge.

And then the primary method for us and for Cambridge is a microtunnel. Microtunnel is a nine-foot diameter tunnel board, fairly shallow. It would go essentially from Mass Ave in Cambridge, wrap around Clarendon Towers, and terminate at Dillboy Field. This is actually the same plan that we had presented before. We were going for this level of control for the eel life all along. On the next slide, I will highlight one piece of construction impact that I think we will want to talk about during the public review period is that for this to work, we would need A mining shaft to be in Dilboy parking lot. The construction of that, which would last two to three years,

would require construction lay down in Dilboy, so Somerville will have to figure out what to do without parking or snow emergency car tow area in Dilboy for that duration. There would also be a permanent footprint, only removing a few parking space permanently. Construction impacts would be... Largely along Elwha Parkway, about 20 trucks per day loading up the soil that's excavated from the from the tunnel. On the next slide you can see the performance of that. The graph on the left are volumes of discharges and the graph on the right are frequency. We designed this for that future typical year, which is sort of an esoteric idea. So what we wanted to do was run that performance against the past 10 years of

and many more. If you think of a typical year as an average, you would expect half of the time it gets exceeded and half the time you're successful and it does in fact reduce the frequency to about half and the volume significantly. Moving on to the Mystic on the next slide. We are still moving forward with what we call the MROS project, the 95 acres of sewer separation and a new stormwater outfall to the Mystic. and also a 7.4 million gallon storage tank in Assembly Square. On the next slide you can see the sort of layout of this. This is one of the things that changed. We increased the size of that tank.

Before we had a limited number of CSOs at that location we're now getting down to zero and to get to that extra volume we had to increase or almost double the size of the tank. If you're not orientated, that's basically the parking lot by Staples where Christmas Tree Shopped. used to be. And of course, we would have to negotiate this with FRIT and integrate it into the development plans for that last development parcel. Again, on the next slide, you can see the performance of this. We only have red bars. The red bars indicate the historic discharges at that location. There are no blue bars because we get to zero in all instances for that. So designing around that future typical year manages to capture all of the rainfall that we've experienced in the past 10 years. So we're almost over performing with this design.

On the next slide you can see where the largest number of changes are and really in terms of the dollar jump from the $0.9 to the $1.3 billion is in the Charles River. Seward Separation in Cambridge, and in Boston's Back Bay, some storage tanks in Cambridge Magazine Beach in back neighborhood of Cambridge, as well as some storage tanks basically in Jamaica Plain. On the next slide. You can see the performance, some of the construction impacts there. Extensive sewer separation in the back bay. The magnitude of that construction is expected to require 25 years worth of work. There would be closures of Magazine Beach and some impacts on the Esplanade to facilitate that construction.

Thank you.

And then finally, the performance here is very similar to what we saw for the alewife, essentially reducing the frequency so that they would only spill every other year, the total number and the total volume significantly reduced. We can move on now to the financial capability analysis. This was something that was not prepared in October so I can run through that now. On the next slide is sort of a description of where we landed on the cost share between Cambridge, Somerville, and MWRA. Right, wrong, or indifferent when the Clean Water Act was passed and outfalls like CSOs were permitted by EPA and DEP. They needed essentially a throat to choke for each one of those discharge locations. So each CSO was permitted to a political entity. So some of those CSOs along the Alewife and Charles are permitted to Cambridge.

Somerville has one on the Alewife and one on the Mystic, and there's a small number of outfalls on the Alewife and Charles that are permitted to MWRA. Curiously, Boston was not named as a permittee on any of those. All of the outfalls along the Charles on the Boston side of the Charles are permitted to MWRA. So we use that as the basis, at least for the sake of argument, to share the costs of the $1.3 billion plan among the three parties. And on the next slide, you can see The cost breakdowns for the various alternatives. DEP and EPA did ask us to submit the financial capability analysis for all the alternatives that were considered. So these next slides show the alternatives. that we're not in fact proposing, but just for sake of completeness, we'll run through that.

The EPA methodology, as I've told the council repeatedly over the past 10 years, In my opinion, it's not terribly applicable to Massachusetts where we've got very high income and very high cost of living. They define an affordable sewer bill as anything less than 2% of median household income. which again you know we've got a high median household income so that gives us a high threshold but we also have a very high cost of living so two percent of that in a household is a lot more significant than elsewhere in the country that notwithstanding This would be the only thing that we could turn to for relief to say, oh, this plant is too expensive or it goes too far. And as you can see by those metrics, we do not have that avenue for relief. All of the alternatives with the exception of sewer separation all fall within the mid-range burden and only sewer separation.

That's using the first methodology that's been around since the 90s. There's a second methodology that they've more recently adopted on the next slide. That allows us to break it down annually by rate increases, but it does essentially tell the same story if you look on the next slide. The residential indicator over time. We're only in the mid burden for the recommended plan, that typical year plan, and only hit the high burden for sewer separation. There is one other methodology that EPA allows on the next one is the lowest quintile of income as opposed to just straight up median. They look at lowest quintile.

But even by those metrics, while more of the years fall into the median burden by EPA standards, we would not qualify for any relief. So what would that do to our bills? On the next slide, again, you can see that sewer separation is the outlier. Were we to be forced to do sewer separation, bills would increase by about ninefold. But the recommended plan, the typical year plan would see like a 200% increase from a typical single family bill being $852 going up to $2600, so a threefold. But I would also point out that that isn't that much higher than what we're projecting the baseline to be. The baseline here for evaluation purposes assumes no additional work for CSO.

It does include work that we anticipate needing to do within, it includes for example The debt service that we're taking on for Poplar Street Pump Station, which is substantial, but also additional recurring work that we need to do. It also includes MWRA projections for needed investments at the Deer Island Treatment Plant. Deer Island Treatment Plant is approaching 30 years and as with, you know, many other Building Systems or Mechanical Systems. That's about the lifespan of them. So there's going to be a lot of anticipated work at Deer Island. So our MWRA assessment is anticipated to go up even without CSO work. On the next slide, of course, we will be before Finance Committee and probably Finance Committee the whole next month to talk about our rates. So we're at work looking at this as part of

The evaluation but all of our other needs as well so you'll you'll we'll be taking a deeper dive into that but before we leave this um I do want to just highlight on something that's a little bit easier to read on the next slide. We're working on the rate proposal right now, so these numbers will change slightly, but they will be in this ballpark. That again, even just the baseline, Without CSO, we'd likely be looking at rate increases in the neighborhood of 15% for the next couple of years. Again, to meet those needs of Poplar and other. And if we really need to start planning for these CSO programs and pay Self-finance them the way that we're anticipating self-financing it between us and MWRA.

We'd be looking at 20% this year, 17% for the next three, and then leveling off and getting down to 2% about 10 years out. Just trying to give you some sticker shock now before we come into the month. Now, it's important to highlight some of the other things that we learned. Again, we've used sophisticated computer models and took a very deep dive on this. and we learned a lot about our collective system. So on the next slide, one of the counterintuitive things that we learned that is important for everyone to understand is that Surprisingly, full sewer separation does not eliminate overflows. It again seems counterintuitive. If you separate the sewers, how do you still have overflows? Well, I guess technically on paper, they would no longer be combined sewer overflows because we would have a fully separated system.

But the lower reaches of that system are very old pipes. They were built in the late 1800s. and they were built in areas that were frankly filled. Like all of Boston's Back Bay was a bay. What is Assembly Square and Foss Park for us was once a marsh. As Councilor Scott well knows, we filled the Miller's River, which used to be our border with Cambridge, and replaced it with a pipe. All of those pipes had limited capacity based on what they were anticipating in the 1800s and all of those pipes had relief points. And the other thing to understand is that it's impossible to keep stormwater out of even separated sanitary sewers. So when you combine the fact that we've got a lot of upstream communities with that inflow into their separate sanitary system and downstream pipes that have limited hydraulic capacity,

Even if Cambridge and Somerville separate our systems, you would still have overflows. The other thing the water quality model clearly shows is that there are multiple sources of pollution. There are perpetual sources of dry weather flow. There's stormwater that happens every time it rains, and then CSOs only in those intense rains. To give you an idea of the relative contributions of those sources on the next slide, you can see that stormwater, even just focusing on bacteria and not all the other pollutants, Stormwater is the largest source in both the Alewife and in the Mystic. On the next slide, we have another very important conclusion from our efforts, and that is these climate change storms, particularly anything with a five-year recurrence interval or less, are really blockbuster storms.

And they will completely overwhelm our collection system, not just the MWRA interceptors, not just the things that are subject to combined sewer overflows, but all of our pipes. This will result in human contact with wastewater, the same public concern that CSO mitigation seeks to mitigate. On the next slide, you'll also see that there's, I'm sorry, Maddie, go back one. Just to explain this, where you see a black dot, that is a manhole that is successfully handling the flow. Where you see a red dot, that is a manhole where the system is surcharging and causing flooding. And flooding on a sanitary could be a backup into a house, or flooding on the surface. But our hydraulic model, which is built out with a lot of detail for Cambridge-Somerville and for some reason Belmont, You see a lot of failures there.

The absence of a red dot in Arlington and Watertown is just because we don't have very many modeled manholes in those areas. We can extrapolate from this and expect that those communities, although they don't have the sophisticated hydraulic model that we do, will be facing those same problems. and on the next slide we also did model street flooding so again you know these are two bad things to happen coincidentally with the sanitary System, surcharging. We've got sanitary waste coming up to the surface. We also have surface flooding in areas where the sewers are separated. Then that is an indirect route for that sanitary waste to get back into the rivers. So that leads us to some conclusions. The major conclusion is that climate change is going to cause significant problems in our systems. Sanitary sewer overflows and flooding throughout all of eastern Massachusetts. Elsewhere, but who cares? We're just going to focus on eastern Massachusetts.

Those larger storms, anything larger than the largest storm of the 2050 typical year will therefore cause Health risks and water quality impacts that are identical to those of the CSO discharges and pollution from non-attainment pollution from other sources causes Nonattainment of those standards. So really the takeaway here that we've done this work, Cambridge, Somerville, and MWRA have done work that we really need to have our neighboring communities understand. The region must invest in and complete local system improvements, flood mitigation, capacity increases, storage, stormwater treatment, all the lovely things that we've been doing for the past 10 years before higher levels of CS control can produce any tangible benefits. The other thing that a number of us working on it have concerns, the size of the CSO infrastructure needed to manage those.

If we just look at it as a CSO problem and not do those upstream system improvements is massive. We have doubts that some of that is constructible. If the communities are able to do upstream work, that downstream sizing gets significantly smaller. Which brings us to the next section here, which is the context for this regional plan review. And I hope you all find this as clever as I thought it was. It might just be my sleep deprivation. But municipal freedom may give national strength but it complicates commonwealth in the commonwealth when water ignores municipal boundaries and regulatory programs for stormwater and wastewater are separate. All right, right on. We got a couple people. You're probably also sleep deprived. On the next slide to sort of graphically show that, the only things that this team

was developing in the course of this evaluation were those CSO solutions. We've identified problems that need solutions. that the climate change impacts to local systems need to be addressed. The stormwater pollution from all of the communities in the basins. upstream stormwater and flood solutions throughout the other communities. Those are all things that will need to be addressed as we're racing towards 2050 and climate change. Now on the next slide. In an ideal world, we would pause and just figure out those other pieces of the puzzle and come up with a single integrated plan. However, the regulatory reality is that We have a regulatory deadline for the CSO and I don't see the state pausing this to then do another four plus years of planning work elsewhere.

So we will be proceeding, but we have to keep, as we're evaluating this, we have to keep those other future needs in mind so that we don't Over extend ourselves on the CSO side, seeing no benefits and then are facing other problems regionally. And this also gives us on the next slide a Massachusetts provincial problem or a problem with our parochialism. All of those stormwater permits are issued to the individual municipalities, 35 in the Charles, about half of which are even outside the MWA service area, and 21 in the Mystic. So to solve those stormwater water quality problems, each one of those communities is on the hook to do work. Looking at the capacity issues, the 43 sewer communities in MWRA are on the hook for operations and improvements to their local systems the same way that we are.

They need to mitigate that stormwater contribution to their separate sanitary systems. They need to address flooding and capacity issues in the face of climate change. And as I said earlier, MWRA is also anticipating significant upgrades at Deer Island. And so these 43 member communities are also the ones MWRA does not have a money printing machine. MWRA's only source of funding is what the member communities provide to it. So on the next slide, just sort of wrap up this sort of regional thought. Yes, we have a combined sewer problem, but it's actually more of a common sewer problem, as I discussed earlier. The problem with the discharge isn't just associated with the fact that Cambridge and Somerville have combined sewers. It's a capacity issue in the downstream portions. of the system.

And honestly, MWRA doesn't have any or there isn't any physical or logistical way to expand the capacity of those systems. Again, they were built and then the urban environment was built around them. There's no physical way of increasing that conveyance capacity so we are very much Limited. I'll also point out that in the previous plan, while Cambridge did a lot of sewer separation, there was a lot of work in Boston and Chelsea and elsewhere. There wasn't a lot of work in Somerville, but the work that was done in Somerville was in alignment with a system optimization plan that MWRA developed. Early days in that CSO plan, the plan was to call for very large tunnels, same as is done in a lot of other cities.

The price tag on that was going to be $2 to $3 billion in 1980s dollars, like significant. So the MWRA reevaluated that and really tried to eke out as much capacity in the system as they could. and they found a lot of it in Somerville. So Somerville of the 80s and 90s gave up a lot of capacity, storage capacity in the pipes. So that was sort of our contribution to that effort. But it does sort of explain why we see those large jumps between that historical typical year and the performance of the system under that historic typical year which is pretty much in line with what MWRA had projected. And then when we layer on climate change and we have so much more CSO activation and volume it's because the Somerville system is right at capacity. There's nothing left to give there. So what happens next?

Moving on to the next section and the slide after that. We're coming into a formal public review and comment period submit this month. Five months of public comment. DEP and EPA are the ones that then synthesize all of that public comment and ultimately DEP is the one that makes a decision on the content of the final plan. The substance of that review on the next slide is technical in nature, yes, but it also needs to be big picture. Should we do more? Should we do less? and importantly, how should we pay for it? We can move to the next slide, which is just adding up those three previous discharges. Again, the red bars are the number of discharges in a given year. The red line is the volume, which can then be read on the right-hand axis. and the blue are the performance of the recommended plan.

And I want to point out that the years in which you do see discharges, well one, that the frequency and volume is significantly reduced. But the years in which you do see discharges are in themselves very wet years. 2021 had Hurricane Ida. 2023 had a blockbuster storm where almost two inches of rain fell in one hour. That's something that by statistics only happens four times a century. So the performance of the system is actually pretty good and only spills when we have these blockbuster events that cause other system problems as well. On the next slide, it's just another breakdown of the numbers of where we are. And again, a reminder, that MWRA isn't a magic source of revenue. MWRA gets its revenue from us. If you look at our sewer bills, about 60%

of the money that Somerville Sewer Department collects and bills goes directly to the MWRA. And Somerville along with Cambridge and Quincy are top four. Boston is like number one by a mile in terms of contributions to MWRA, but we're right up there. So coming into the homestretch here, I would say that we are at a historic inflection point. Again, we're dealing with sewers that were built in the 1870s. Denise Taylor likes to say that men wore top hats and women wore corsets. Back then, I'd add that it was not allowable for them to switch then. Ulysses S. Grant was the president, and we were reforming after the first Civil War. I'm assuming a second one is coming soon.

It's also interesting to remember when we're talking about the overflows from these, and I'm not saying combined sewer overflows, they're just overflows, the way the pipes were built. Those pipes that were built were just conveying stormwater and wastewater away from people and to the rivers. The first regional sewer treatment plant wasn't even built until 1952. So getting it to the river was the objective. We're now layering onto that a much higher standard, a very good standard, but we're working within some constraints. was created in 1985, essentially adopting all of that old infrastructure. And that first round of CSO long-term control plan, 35 projects, almost a billion dollars, 88% reduction. in total CSO volume and 94% of that remaining is treated.

We're now moving on to the next phase of that and again by October DEP we'll have to make that final decision following a public comment period. and again you know looking out towards the future we're designing towards the 2050 climate conditions But these are big, expensive projects and if funded the way that we're currently assuming they need to be funded, the debt service on them would extend into 2070, at which time the system that it is seeking to Rehabilitate will have had its bicentennial. So wrapping up, that was a lot of information. And that's only a fraction of what Greater Boston needs to consider as we review the draft plan.

Payne, Fully, how difficult it is to get people to talk about sewers but this is the moment that that we as a region need to have that in-depth detailed and well-educated discussion about sewers. We have a legal and moral obligation to eliminate CSOs. However, we cannot ignore the finding that cities and towns throughout the region will face widespread sewer and drainage system failures caused by large climate change storms that will result in water quality and Health Risks that are even worse than CSOs. Cambridge and Somerville are enthusiastic to share what we have learned with our neighbors and help them prepare for What they will need to do to protect their communities. Massachusetts must tackle these problems, all of these problems. That preparation must include serious consideration for funding those efforts in a way that does not unduly burden sewer ratepayers for a generation. Like other regions addressing CSOs, Greater Boston is tackling a problem created over a century ago.

Other regions are still working towards the milestone we reached in 2015. We are now advancing to the next more difficult phases of that effort, and we are further challenging ourselves by considering climate change, something no other CSO effort has ever done. and eliminating discharges for all but the most extreme storms that will cause many other problems. No one else in the nation is doing that. The CSO planning effort thus far has included extensive community process, six public meetings, 29 events, six meetings with watershed advocates, 19 meetings with EPA and DEP. The technical team thanks everyone involved with getting us to this point. The community members, the advocates, the regulators, the scientists, the regional partners, the people who have been willing to talk about sewers with us. Thank you all for your valuable input. I personally like to give a shout out to our engineering staff.

Gina and Stephanie are with us tonight, which means that they're losing a couple hours of production on the report. Give them a round of applause. I know I'm biased. And IAM are a bunch of rock stars. These are rock stars among rock stars. So, you know, thanks for that. I also want to thank Mayor Wilson for his unwavering support throughout the process and his commitment to leading the next steps as we have to trumpet these findings with our regional partners in his Peers, and other communities. The work contained in the report represents some of the most technically sophisticated analysis performed in the nation, and the progressive recommendations of the plan are well aligned with our values. We hope to have an active engagement with the Council, our constituents, the advocates, the stakeholders, our delegation, state leadership, as we review the draft plan and define the final updated CSO control plan.

With that, I would entertain all of your questions.

Thank you, Director Raish. First off, I just wanted to let folks know, in terms of analyzing whether we hit the over-under, the Gaming Commission is reviewing your use of that bumper slide for long soliloquies at both the front and back end of your presentation. Scott, and Councilor Clingan. One question for me. Would it help if we ate fewer vegetables? Scott.

Thank you, Mr. President. You know I love a good subsurface infrastructure conversation. I'd like to congratulate our director, On a new record, I believe. You always go into the historical perspective, but I think this year, including a 200-year-long timeline chart is a new record. There's an impressive amount of information here. The maps on slide 28 are very impressive, but I did want to get some clarifying information about slide 17. Slide 17, we were talking about the cost share. It showed the three entities that are sharing costs, but it didn't have any numbers on there about what percentage of the Project Cost is being borne by each entity and before we say it the follow-up is going to be MWRA gets their money from us so we are also funding a piece of that but Just as individual contributor entities, how much is each one of those?

That's a great question. I don't have the numbers off the top of my head. I can get them to you. Because we went by CSO by CSO and the cost for each CSO, so I don't have the bottom line or top line, but I'll get that to you.

Yeah, I mean, it's just, I would imagine it's not as crudely simple as just counting out how many of those have SOM prefixes versus MWR prefixes.

We did slice the data a few different ways and then averaged it. We sliced the data three different ways for each outfall and then averaged it. for each outfall. But I can get you the final tallies.

Yeah, I'm just curious because I think it will help folks to understand. Any kind of cost increase this large, any kind of project this large is going to hurt. And I think it is very helpful to be able to tell folks, look, you're not in this alone. The other municipalities are also paying into this project and this is how the costs are being shared. So I'd like to be able to answer that when folks ask me questions about this because they will ask all of us questions about this. I did want to check on slide 25. I really appreciate the preview on the rate increase. and this is showing, if I'm understanding this right, the base rate is staying the same but we're going to have a 20% usage increase on that in fiscal year 27. That's going to be the ask.

Yes, through the chair. As you recall, last year we made significant adjustments to the base rate to get us more in line with industry standards. That change is still, I think, Appropriate against industry standards so that the only change will be on the volume metric.

Okay. And then I guess my final question, Mr. President, through you is, Last year during the presentation on rate increases, one of the big key features was the anticipated implementation of a stormwater infiltration fee. You can think of it as a rain tax or you can think of it as a pavement tax, which might be a better way to look at it. They had in there pretty significant contributions to our revenue here, and the proposed implementation, I believe, was midway through the fiscal year. Precourt is the way through. I was wondering if there's an update on the implementation of that.

Yeah, I'm very sad to report to the president and the chair that we are not ready for prime time on that. As you know, we've got a new finance director for water and sewer. He is completely outstanding. He was my best kept secret. He was my finance director and I am since we invented it. We've now taken on water and sewer and he is uncovering a lot of data anomalies and the billing database that we are fixing. So we made the decision that we need to fix the billing Before we implement a new billing paradigm. So we have biweekly meetings. We're working through it. It is just painfully long and hard to get there.

We're still working on how we will implement the stormwater fee and what we want to do is run mock bills so we see exactly We don't want any surprises. We frankly have had enough surprises from the water department and bills. So we don't want this to be, we want to make sure that we get this right. So that's a long way of saying we're still working on it. It's not ready. It won't be ready for July 1.

Okay, so starting the fiscal year, we still won't be ready. So we're potentially, because we're cleaning up old problems, a consistent theme in the water and sewer departments. We're potentially not seeing that rollout until mid-fiscal year 28 then. Or mid-fiscal 27. Mid-fiscal 27. Okay. All right. And when we do that, I mean, I know you've done studies on how much revenue is anticipated to come in there. Obviously, that's going to add another row to this chart here. Will that row potentially reduce that downstream impact? Downstream is a funny choice of words here, I guess. The usage rate increases in future years.

Yes. The idea is that it would essentially be revenue neutral with the sewer bills. So the sewer bills would relatively be smaller and the stormwater bills would relatively be larger. But the sum of the two across the whole city would be the same. and what we're trying to make sure is that we're that the increases and decreases are hitting the right properties that's right yeah and and that's that's where we're having a lot of difficulty

And Mr. President, that's really the point that I was trying to get to through this line of questioning, which is the stormwater tax, the pavement tax that was proposed last year, and there was a great deal of discussion about it. is functionally just another revenue stream that can reduce the amount of increases that we'd see in people's usage rates. It is a way to put the disproportionate or let's say the appropriately proportionate share of our costs on the entities that have enormous surface parking lots. like Target or Assembly Row, honestly. Those properties Just disproportionately contribute to our stormwater our sewer overflow problems and it is a difficult pill to swallow to know that the consumers

are going to be looking at these massive increases in their bills, much like our ability with our property tax to put an increased share of that on commercial property owners. This would be a way, the stormwater fee, as I understand. is a way to actually put that burden on the ones who have those big impermeable surface area parking lots and ease the burden on you and your neighbors. So I know there's a lot to untangle down there, but especially in a year where you're asking for a 20% increase. Having a tighter timeline on implementation and impact of that would be real helpful. Thank you, Mr. President.

Clingan, Strezo, Mbah. Thank you, Mr. President. Just a couple of quick questions. Through you to Director Raish. So you said this is the draft proposal. When do you expect that you'll be submitting it? Finalized for consideration.

So we expect to hear, again, the public comment period is five months, and then there will be one month for DEP and EPA to synthesize all those. They're going to get them all along, but they'll have an additional... and then give us direction. Because again at the end of the day it's DEP who is the arbiter of water quality and permit compliance. EPA is also there because we're not a delegated state. So the essential content of the direction from the state we will receive on Halloween. We will then have five months to revise the report. And again, as I say, we're not anticipating this is going to be a rubber stamp like, yes, that's great. Do that. Do the draft. We anticipate there's going to be some rework, remodeling, new cost estimates.

So we regulatorily get five months to then do that and that would then land us submitting the final report in May of 27.

Three, Mr. President. Another question is just, so you showed that, well, you said two things. One, even if we did complete sewer separation, we would still have overflows. Okay, I just want to confirm that. And the second was... You showed that the bills, if we were to do complete sewer separation, we could see that because I think it was like a $7,000 quarterly bill versus $800 and some dollars right now. Have you run any other models that would... You know, of course, speaking with our friends of the Outwife Brook, I, you know, and I said the last time that they were up here speaking that, you know, the Outwife Brook is... Thank you. Thank you. Waste getting it onto the path that's over there.

Have you run any models where we could do even a partial Seward, Seward Separation in a certain area that might have an impact, a positive impact in that area.

So the plan that we've put forward has substantial improvements to the alewife. And this plan would only spill in very large dorms. and those storms again we don't have a detailed model of Arlington's sewer system. But I strongly suspect if it behaves anything like Cambridge's, Belmont's, and Somerville's, That the storms where we're discharging, there are sanitary sewer overflows in that same part of Arlington's system. The combined sewer overflow problem there is not the only source when those happen. So that is why Cambridge Somerville and MWRA are in agreement that this is the right level of CSO control.

It does not use sewer separation because sewer separation, particularly in that area, is extremely difficult. Like Miller's River, there was a tannery brook that was closed. is now a combined sewer. and then everything was built right up against that. So there's no real way of increasing the capacity of that Tannery Brook drain. When we're looking at these climate change storms, were we to separate, we would have huge flooding problems because we couldn't move the water. We looked at anything else. The only corridor that we could identify would be Mass Ave in Cambridge. and Mass Ave in Cambridge is so filled with other utilities that the capacity of that stormwater conveyance pipe is extremely limited.

So we're very limited What we can do as far as sewer separation on that side of town.

Thank you. Then just the last question along the lines of Councilor Scott's question about the rain score or whatever we're calling the official name. You know, it definitely is... Thank you. Thank you. I just worry, like, if we became reliant on, like, say, like, that particular bill, say, of, like, Target over on Somerville Lab, and then, like, they have the option of putting in, like, a big tank, right? And then that would then... and so on.

And in fact that's a feature not a bug and one of the things that we're seeking to get right in terms of the finances of the fee and then what private property owners can do to lower is that we would love Target to put in a huge tank rather than us build a 5 million gallon tank. If Target built a 5 million gallon tank to reduce their stormwater fee, we get the same net result. Probably dollar for dollar is more cost effective for us. And so that's part of the philosophy here. We just have to make sure we get the finances on it right.

Right, through you Mr. President, that's my comment is just like in case if we start relying on certain Revenue Streams, like we often do. And then we end up in shortfalls, and then does that go back to the ratepayer again? And I don't expect... That they'll be going out and putting in these, you know, different places, be putting in massive tanks overnight, but just, we could be talking way down the road, but just something they work. That's all, Mr. President. Shazo.

Thank you, Mr. President. I will start. Where shall I start? I wrote all over it. I guess we'll go right to it. For some of our newer counselors, I'm a traditionalist in some ways. and I have not supported the rate increases by year which have increased from 11% and then 15% per year and have gradually just increased. Why? Because I feel like our lowest income residents and our residents on fixed incomes or who are just Teetering by and holding on, that gets harder for them every year, and we are contributing to that, sustaining our residents to be able to stay in our community unless we're looking for a certain kind of demographic of Somerville resident only. and I think that's really unfair.

In the past I have proposed for the Water and Sewer Department several directors ago. to create some kind of first in its kind rate payer assistance program or something to help our residents out. would like to follow up with you Mr. Raish if we ever did get the recoup back from the consultants we paid for several years ago that just ghosted us but we paid probably what triple digit hundred thousand dollars to I do not know off the top of my head. The city several years ago hired consultants to look into A repair program to help residents pay for their water and sewer bill increases, and I guess they just never appeared. So every single year the City Council is asked to make 15% increases on our water bills and water and sewer bills and 11% and 15%.

and I want to point out to this one slide that says rate approval coming soon to proofread that that to our newer counselors this is your first water and sewer conversation rate change we have the option We have the option of approving the rates or we have the option of not approving the rate increases. So we need to make sure that that is not a misleading In addition to that, I am worried about our lowest income residents, including and alongside, shout out to Councilor Hardt, Ward 7, and North Street and the residents there, their SHA property, as in Ward 4, which is also a large Somerville Housing Authority property. Now the residents of the Somerville Housing Authority do not pay their own bills, their own heating bills and electricity bills. But the Somerville Housing Authority does pay the water bills.

So my question to you is, especially with the teetering and the... The confusing world of whatever federal funds are being stripped from HUD projects and housing authorities all over the nation and tighter budgets. and we don't really know what increases. How have you accounted these rate 20% increase of water and sewer bills and all the extra additions that you were proposing that we approve at our decision or not. How have you accounted for the Housing Authority water bills and the lower income residents water bills this year?

To the President, as we've discovered from that consultant's recommendation that went much further than it should have before it was reviewed by someone who knew what they were talking about, Under Massachusetts general law, it is not allowable for a utility like water and sewer to provide an income-based subsidy within that utility. By Massachusetts law, The bills have to be based on usage, not income.

If I may on that point, yes, that is correct. So they probably just literally Google searched the consultants, Google searched that this wasn't possible, but we paid them as consultants to tell us something that we already knew. So I want to bring that up.

We're in agreement on that.

The question, Mr. Reich, Mr. President, through you to Mr. Reich, Director Reich, is how has, when we're talking about 20% increase, how has this rate a suggestion? of the City of Somerville. and what they can do for their residents and how this affects their water bills.

Through the chair, I suggest that we have a future session to discuss that and bring in some other departments that are better adept at that. But I think it should be part of the rate discussion this year.

Mr. President, through you, thank you very much for that and I look forward very much for that conversation. Additionally, when we do have the public comment session, I am specifically requesting that the administration and the departments that set this up have one with the Council on Aging and the Somerville-Cambridge Elder Services Department with the Council on Aging Board and that the public hearings are held in the daytime for some of our fixed income residents or retired residents so they have a personal chance to be able to attend these meetings and not at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. and in person. Thank you. Can I get a commitment from that or a something? I don't know. Administration or Director Raish.

We can certainly work around that idea because apparently now that's my problem.

Councillor Bott and then Councillor Hardt and then McLaughlin.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Dr. Reich, for your presentation and to your staff for all the work that you're doing. I should have said, thank you, neighbor, but... So I guess just maybe my question goes back to like where During your last presentation, I'm always just curious about like how we arrive at this cost distribution like because you said, you know, there's so many different communities within and so like How do we get to this?

To the president and to everybody. We needed to, in the development of this plan, Cambridge, Somerville, and MWRA had to come to an agreement on how we would share the costs for the purposes of doing this financial capability analysis. So that we could run the numbers and see what it does to our bills respectively. I will also point out that the MWRA Advisory Board, which as you know I'm the chair of, is also now doing some outreach to its member communities and Taking the MWRA share and letting each of the 42 member communities know what their share of that is. It is very much my position both as Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management and as Chair of the Advisory Board that

This cost distribution is not fair to the sewer rate payers of Cambridge-Somerville or the other 43 member communities. that we as a region need to find basic principles. This is a very good plan. This is something that we should do as a region. It is aligned with our regional goals. We should not be suffering combined sewer overflows to continue. But the generation of sewer ratepayers that would be paying this off, the debt service off through 2070, those aren't the right people to be paying for this plan.

I am very much of the position that the state needs to help us find another funding source, which is why I'm sort of imploring, you know, Not just us, Somerville reaching out to its delegation, but everyone in eastern Massachusetts reaching out to their collective delegations. As I said before, simply pushing this on to MWRA is not a viable answer. In one way, as Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management for Somerville, it would be great if our share was less, and we push some of that cost onto MWRA, but that then just comes back on us. Again, 60% of our bill goes straight to MWRA. So we increase MWRA's cost, we're still going to see a good portion of that.

And, you know, Charles River Watershed Association very rightly has trumpeted the success of the prior plan. Boston was a laughing stock. And the cleanup of the harbor is A significant, not just sort of Boston pride, but it's also allowed for fantastic economic development. If you think about the seaport district, that wouldn't exist if the harbor was still in the shape it was in the 80s. Now, who made the money off of the seaport development? It's not the ratepayers in Stoneham. It's not the ratepayers in Wilmington. But the ratepayers in Stoneham and Wilmington are the ones that paid for the infrastructure that then allowed for that development Seaport District.

We need to have a serious conversation about who's going to be reaping the benefits of this and put in a financial mechanism by which that is distributed correctly.

I wish I had a soapbox to sort of demonstrate that. Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, Dr. Raich, for that. So what is Boston's commitment in this?

So Boston... Thus far is not directly contributing anything to this. The only contribution as the costs are currently allocated for this analysis and discussion purposes are through what they pay to MWRA. That is just sort of the regulatory framework in which we sit whereby all of the Outfalls on the southern bank of the Charles were permitted to MWRA, not to Boston. I wish I had a better answer than that. There was a smoke-filled room. Hamilton might have had something to do with it. Jefferson was iced out.

I don't know. Question slash comment. Would you agree that the solution to climate change is sewer suppression, not building storage?

Yeah, so... Again, the modeling that we've done, given the constraints of the infrastructure that MWRA inherited from the 1800s, Seward separation is not the solution we have to look there's targeted sewer separation for sure like the MROS project gets us about 80 percent of the way there just by doing and the rest of the state. Even London, Paris, Tokyo, they have tunnels. That's usually the way that these large volumes are dealt with.

And just one last follow-up, because as we know, the climate change and the storms are going to intensify. If you build a storage tank, are you planning to expand it when it intensifies? Because as we've seen, If you've done your modeling, it knows that. So at what point are you going to say, hey, this is not a fix.

So I think that it's interesting. I was just talking with some of my national colleagues that specialize in this area last night. There was a national wet weather conference with people from all the springfields. Massachusetts, Missouri, wherever the Simpsons are from. And there's a realization in this industry that you're never done. And frankly, they're looking at Boston. They're looking at this plan. As I say, most of the other communities are striving to get to the point that we got to in 2015. And it's very clear that once they get to that point, there's going to be the next. And from a technical standpoint, I do stand behind this plan, and I think this is the right plan. But it also likely means that there's going to be more work that needs to be done in 2070. Thank you.

Hardt, and then Councilor McLaughlin.

Thank you. And thank you, Director Raish, for the presentation and to your whole team for the immense amount of work that has gone into this. I want to build on my colleagues previous questions and just in terms of The fact that none of these outfalls were permitted to Boston, when you said that Somerville had given up a lot of capacity, in previous decades. That was new information to me that really highlights the injustice of that I just wanted to highlight that as well. I really appreciated slides 33 through 38 where you're laying out the The reality that these problems that we're looking at are regional.

They are driven by stormwater, which is... and that it's very hard to come up with a regulatory Thank you. Thank you. you know and when we're talking about climate change you know we often say that you know you can't negotiate with the climate um the science doesn't um I really care about, you know, the regulations or whatever. And so I guess, you know, especially like I... I applaud the MROS plan and all of the work there, but I guess I am still having a hard time understanding why we can't...

Given the level of impact, expense, disruption of residents' lives along the Elwhaife Brook, and then we're We're going to invest so much into the storage tunnel, and then we won't be able to expand it. And it doesn't take into account stormwater. You know, other solutions in terms of stormwater mitigation. I just wonder if you could speak a little bit more to that because it's hard for me to... I feel good about the great investment and hardship that people are gonna go through when it won't really be flexible enough to continue Meeting the needs in a climate change world.

That's a very good question through the chair. Other regions that have more successfully navigated some of these things do have a broader scope than what we were limited to here, right? Milwaukee is sort of the standard that they do a ton of work. in the upper reaches of their system in the more suburban landscapes in stormwater control. and by doing that by and again we've got that sort of two-prong problem we've got the inflow coming from the upstream communities and capacity limitations down here where we are So,

The thesis that I have, and a bunch of us have on this project, yes, the alewife storage tunnel has limited capacity of X. and so on. That then will reduce the amount of inflow that gets into the interceptors and will have a further CSO reduction benefit. So I think that that's actually it's a technical part and also a jurisdictional part of this regional conversation that we need to have. But as I say, we need to move forward on both of these fronts.

The Alewife Tunnel is sort of the biggest piece of infrastructure that we can cram into Ward 7. We really can't do anything bigger than that. And to get More benefits and more reduction in those overflows. Work needs to be done in Arlington, in Belmont, in Lexington. So we really need to set up as a region the means by which Belmont, Arlington, and Lexington are doing that work that will then have those benefits. So there's plenty of engineering that we can do to demonstrate that as the next. But on slide 27, it might sound a little flippant about Massachusetts being very provincial. We need to get beyond that and start collaborating more as a region. I know that's very difficult for us.

We pride ourselves on our independence within small jurisdictional areas. But when it comes to this problem, we need a lot more collaboration.

Can I ask a follow-up question? Thank you for that. I appreciate that. And on collaboration, I know you are, I'm guessing you are familiar with the community plan that has been put forward by the Friends of the Owl Wife Brook. and which involves a lot of collaboration with Cambridge for example in developing you know more engineered wetlands and things to deal with the stormwater. I wondered if you could it's a little bit outside of the scope of your presentation I know but I wondered if you could speak to that a little bit about if that's a possible Avenue, or if there's specific limitations or false assumptions that you see in the community plan.

Thank you for bringing that up. I think Save the Ill Wife has been doing some excellent advocacy work and raising awareness around this. That plan does have some great ideas, but it also does have some fatal flaws. It deserves attention. Right now, as I've sort of stressed, we are hurtling towards our April 30th deadline. We have absolutely no bandwidth to do anything additional, but, you know, Perhaps not starting on May 1st, we might give ourselves a day off, but the plan is to actually take the Save the Ill Life for Work plan and put it... Apply the same rigor to it that we've had to apply to our own. Because again, ultimately, what the outcome of this is will be... and so forth.

We have an administrative order by consent or some other The analysis of the performance and the cost estimates, we made sure that we had a sufficient level of conservatism so that we're not then surprised, you know, five years, ten years down the road on what we're held to. There are some great ideas in there. We want to apply that same sort of rigor to that analysis and our hope is to have that done well in advance of the June public meeting on this.

Excellent. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Council McLaughlin and Council Wheeler. Thank you, Mr. President. This is a slide that showed basically how we're going to get no assistance from anyone on this. Could we pull that slide up real quick? I forget which number it was. It was an earlier one. It shows a bunch of red bars. Was it 17? There we go. Quick question that I probably already know the answer to. I assume this does not take into account the previous three years of rate increases that we've had? It actually does.

Oh, it does, okay. Yeah, yeah. So by the EPA metric, and again, This metric of communities, largely in Indiana or someplace, are able to apply That 2% and negotiate with EPA for a longer term to comply with the needs. What this basically says is that under that federal framework, we don't have an avenue to negotiate out of any of this.

So no help coming. Still the point to make. You know, I share Councilor Strezo's frustration with this because we just spent the last three years telling people that once we finish With these rate increases, it'll flatten out, and now we're being asked to do the same thing again. And I just wonder what's gonna happen after all these rate increases happen. What's gonna be the next project that forces us to increase these rates? and I hear basically talking points about finding a different method for paying for this but I don't see anyone including myself have any plan about what to do about this. So just voicing my frustration on that. I know there's consequences to not doing this as well, but it's a hard pill to swallow to tell people that we're just going to keep increasing these rates.

because of water from another city or water from up the river on the state land that we have to take care of this. That's just my frustrating point. I did have another point about assembly and the tank that we might build there. I would just encourage the director through you. To talk to the planning department about this because we're looking in that exact area to double the amount of development there. And there was serious conversations about underground parking. So I wonder how that will play into a potential tank being there. Wheeler, just something to consider for the future. Thank you, though.

Councilor Wheeler, Councilor Clingan is waving to make a point on that first point. Do you mind if we go? Okay.

Yeah, through you, Mr. Chair, just on the point of what Director Race just said about somewhere in Indiana. The thing I don't understand about Somerville is that by other metrics, like all the time we hear that we are an economic, We are an economic justice community. We are an environmental justice community. We're like, we check all these boxes, yet the most Angering thing was when you said that the MWI or whoever the deciding body is, they look at our median income and they feel like we could actually pay more than what we're asking when it comes to the rates. I'm sure we'll be talking about this when we actually have a discussion about the rate increases, but I just, you know, why would somewhere in Indiana get a break and we can't catch a break on this?

Through the Chair, I'm not afraid to go on camera in my opposition to the EPA federal guidance on this. I've voiced these concerns to the EPA. Willard, and DEP. They understand my frustration with it and the non-applicability of those standards to Massachusetts, and yet we're still beholden to them.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Director Raish, and to your staff for this incredible hard work for an extended amount of time and the complexity of this work. I'm very aware of Only knowing the tip of the iceberg and trying to wade in and ask questions, fully owning my immense ignorance on these topics. One of the things in your presentation that I was a bit confused about and interested in were the points you made starting around slide 28 about sewer separation not eliminating overflows. and I want to make sure I'm understanding these points well. If I'm understanding and please step in and explain the downstream Pipe capacity going to Deer Island.

The limitation on that capacity means that even if we're doing immense amounts of sewer separation in Somerville and Cambridge, There's a limit on the benefit that we would get from that.

That's exactly it, yeah. The upstream communities, even though they have separate systems, are still contributing stormwater to the overall system. The downstream pieces that do that final link to Deer Island have limited capacity and there's really no practical way to increase that. So we just so happen to be at that crossroads. And even if we were to do sewer separation and remove the direct stormwater contribution, We're still stuck in the middle of those two forces. If we were to do sewer separation, technically it wouldn't be called a combined sewer overflow. But it would only be a victory on paper because

because of those capacity constraints we would still let those locations have hydraulic relief because the alternative to that like if we did sewer separation and then walled up those Those overflows, those pipes would surcharge and those pipes would then surcharge Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington, Medford, Everett. It would just back up into the system and everyone's basement would flood with sewage. So, yes, a discharge to the river is very bad, but everyone's basement full of sewage is objectively worse. So that's why I say we would still have an overflow of a sort to prevent that direct impact to houses.

Thank you. I was also interested in connection with these slides, this sort of run of slides, the points that you and your team were making about the problems with stormwater as a source of pollutants itself. Am I understanding correctly for slide 30 that the relative annual proportions of E. coli by source, this is basically saying that There's stormwater that is running into rivers on a regular basis, small-scale rain. That might not cause it as CSO. And then there's a small number of CSO incidents. I mean, hopefully a small number in a given year. We're looking at a larger proportion of pollutants from stormwater over 200 incidents.

Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it because the stormwater discharge happens every time it rains, including those small, so that there's a cumulative effect of bacteria reaching from those small storms. as opposed to the rarer occurrence of the CSOs. And the CSOs do have a significantly higher concentration and many more. The other thing we did with the water quality model, we were able to model it and see what the reduction in peaks are. And so this plan does a very good job of reducing those peaks. But it doesn't actually do much in terms of total numbers of days that it meets the criteria for fishable and swimable because again that stormwater problem is pervasive.

It happens almost every week and then just hangs out almost every week. If we truly have the goal of fishable and swimmable Charles and Mystic, the stormwater also needs to be addressed.

Thanks. And then I know, you know, trying to wade into these things and to make sense of the community plan. What's that? Was that a pond after the fishable and swimmable? You're wading into these facts? I like that. It was an unintentional pun. I'm trying to make sense of things like the community plan from Save the Alewife Brook and acknowledging that everybody involved has good intentions and is bringing different perspective. One of the things that I'm trying to understand a little bit better are the assumptions that are going into the future models around climate change and storms. And, you know, there are some people who warn that what was once a once-in-ten-year storm may become a once-in-two-year storm. I'm curious about the sort of range of assumptions that you, your team, and MWRI are using.

Yeah, thanks to the Chair. That was the product of Almost a year's worth of intensive work. We brought on some climate experts. We even had it, once we were nearing the conclusion of it, had it peer-reviewed by Cornell University, one of the Cs. It was a serious amount of work. I'm not going to do any of it justice right here at the podium, but in the report, there's a write-up in the report itself and also a memo in the appendix. that steps through all of that. And it was a fun process because not only were we on the sort of cutting edge of the science But Cambridge, Somerville, and MWRA had to agree with all of those assumptions. So to get a Zoom meeting full of engineers to agree on those kinds of assumptions was a feat in and of itself.

Thanks. And then just going back to, I forget which counselor was prompting you to comment on sewer separation possibilities in the area of the Alewife Brook. This is my sort of understanding why it makes sense to be doing the separation in the Ten Hills and Ward 4. Kind of area that we're planning to do, but not in the sort of general vicinity, to emphasize that a little bit. that it's about the difference in the nature of the current pipes and sewer systems The relative cost and complexity that would be involved.

Matt, if you could jump to slide number 10. The main difference is that for MROS, we were able to find a corridor for a new stormwater pipe. The sewer separation then leaves us the problem with where does the stormwater go? And we've got to get the stormwater to a body of water. In the case of Mross and that side of the city, Ten Hills and Foss Park area. That dark blue line, Even though there's some challenges there, like, you know, we've got to get under 93. We've got to cross over MWRA Water Main. We have to get around. There's a... Eversource, High Voltage Transmission Line. There's stuff that we have to get over, above, and around, but we're able to do that.

We're able to shoot basically right down along the Fellsway and get to Mystic River. So we're successfully able to put in a pipe to handle the stormwater. That said, that pipe has capacity limitations, which is why we're stopping at the 95 acres. We might have a little extra capacity that we find for five, maybe 10 more acres, but not much more than that. Which is why this plan on this side doesn't extend up into Gilman Square. We can't get Gilman stormwater out there. But we're able to get stormwater. Over in Ward 7 and the Alewife, there simply isn't a corridor, a realistic corridor, to move that stormwater. Again, as I said, The least bad route that we could find was Mass Ave in Cambridge, and that has a litany of problems.

We have to get over the red line tunnel, which is surprisingly shallow through there. and a whole bunch of other things. So really as a technical team, we came to the determination that it's simply not feasible for us to do sewer separation on that side of the city. As much as I'd love to do it, I mean, it's my neighborhood.

Thanks. And then I guess my final question is just what does happen in a 25-year storm? I was seeing from the projections for the Mystic and the Charles and the Alewife Brook, The improvements look great for the typical year and looking back at that 2015 and onward period. How bad do things get post this plan?

So again, that 25-year storm is a single event. It's a blockbuster event. I'll have to get you the exact number, but I think the reduction in volume is 36%. Do you remember off the top of your head? I think it's 36. I'm going to make a wager on my own memory. If I'm over or under 36%, I owe you a dollar.

I'll hold you to that. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Any further discussion? Liz Anardazi, did you just have something to add?

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to flag that IGA has been working with our state delegation to figure out some kind of help I just wanted to put the request out there that if there's any councillors that are interested in helping with those efforts Thank you. Very good.

Something else you wanted to add? No? Okay. All right. I see no further discussion. That item is placed on file. Thank you, Director Raish, as always. That brings us to our next item that we will take out of order, which is 7.1. We're going to go into executive session at the next item, Councilor Strezo, so we'll have a moment in between the open session and the executive session. Madam Clerk, would you please read item 7.1?

Agenda item 7.1 a communication association sorry that is swap the page agenda item 7.1 a request of the mayor requesting that this council convene an executive session to receive an update on collective bargaining negotiations

I see we have the Assistant Solicitor, Sirigu, here. Would you just please let us know, is this an item that is appropriate for Executive Session?

Yes, the Law Department has reviewed the agenda and the subject of this Executive Session and is appropriate for Executive Session.

Very well, then we will roll call vote to go into executive session.

Roll call to enter executive session. Councilor Ewen-Campen? Councilor Link? Councilor Scott?

Yes.

Councilor Clingan?

Yes.

Councilor Strezo? Yes. Councilor Sait? Wheeler?

Yes.

Councilor Hardt? McLaughlin? Yes. Councilor McLaughlin?

Yes.

Councilor Mbah?

Yes.

Councilor Davis?

Yes. Very well. We will return to open session following the conclusion of executive session.

All right. Let's call this meeting back to order for those of you who are still awake. Next item. So we have a roll call to come back from executive session, please, Madam Clerk, when you're ready.

Roll call to return from executive session to open session. Councilor Ewen-Campen, Councilor Link. Scott, Clingan, Strezo, Sait, Wheeler, Hardt, McLaughlin, Mbah, Davis. Here. Eight councillors present. We have quorum.

All right. Thank you. No votes were taken in executive session other than the vote to adjourn from executive session. One plus one item left to take out of order. Madam Clerk, would you please read 5.2?

Agenda item 5.2, a request of the mayor requesting approval of a home rule petition to authorize the appointment of special police officers.

and unless there's any objection we'll take up to get that together with item 10.1 Madam Clerk.

Agenda item 10.1, a request of the mayor requesting approval of a home rule petition to authorize the appointment of special police officers.

Thank you, Mr. President. The administration would like to withdraw item 5.2 with 10.1 as the replacement for that. Matt Sirigu will be able to speak more to this, but this is based on feedback that was received from councillors At the last meeting and between the last meeting and tonight. So the new version in 10.1 reflects some of those changes as well as some other language.

Thank you. Assistant Solicitor Sergu, I asked earlier today for an opinion from the Law Department as to whether it's appropriate for us to take up 10.1 this evening, given that it was a supplemental item. The Office provided that opinion that it was appropriate because it's essentially the exact same issues, but could we please just sort of confirm that my understanding of that is correct?

That's correct, Council President. Through you, the opinion of the law department is that the scope of the current home rule petition being presented to the council tonight is within the scope of the agenda item that was Posted for tonight's City Council meeting at least 48 hours in advance so the City Council can continue to consider the matter. Okay, thank you.

On the substance of the HRP before us, anything you wanted to say before we get into discussion?

Just at a high level, the home rule petition creates a process for appointing special police officers in the city of Somerville through the mayor with confirmation from the city council. These special police officers would now be restricted under the amendments discussed with various stakeholders and members of this council. would be restricted purely to Somerville Housing Authority properties and in and around properties occupied by Somerville Housing Authority occupants with the ability to exercise some police powers in relation to police duties directly deriving there from that position. So it essentially creates a system for providing police powers to Somerville Housing Authority officers. The old charter contained a process to do this. The new charter omitted that language, so this special act is designed

to reproduce that authority and put some more clear-cut guidelines on how that authority would be bestowed upon new Somerville Housing Authority officers.

Scott. Thank you, Mr. President. First, I want to start off with a giant thanks to Attorney Sirigu for the work that he put in on this. As I mentioned last time, there were several concerns I had about this. The new language is very narrowly tailored so that the special police officers that are effectively deputized are It's not like old Boss Hog cartoon, you know, Dukes of Hazzard. They don't just like stop at the edge of the property. They can do police job related to stuff that happens there. Even if they were driving from Clarendon to the Mystics and they saw something going down, they'd be able to intervene. That said, it was really important to me that this be very narrowly tailored so as not to create a separate third class of police that would be outside of the civil service process.

Another thing that got cleaned up and fixed in the intervening time was the 150E exemption which would have excluded these officers from collective bargaining which is kind of a problem because they're already in a union. I appreciate the work done to tighten this up. It is ultimately, as I understand it, in the goal of bringing the Somerville Housing Authority officers under the authority of the Somerville Police Chief. So that standards can be elevated and maintained and the expectations of these officers have supervision from our direct Police Department. So given the changes on the language, given the work that was done to tighten up and just the exemplary work by Attorney Sirigu, I'm comfortable with the language as written here. I just appreciate all the effort.

So I'm comfortable with approving tonight, sir, unless there are other objections. Thank you.

Councilor Clingan? Thank you, Mr. President. Through you, I actually haven't seen the latest draft. My computer died. I don't have a plug, but I'll take Councilor Scott's word for it. But my question is just with regards to the original version that we saw, it seemed like we were trying to address many types of special police officers. So my question is, are those officers doing the details or what have you under the 2006 Act? They're just going to stay under that provision and this will just pertain to housing police alone?

President, through you, yes, exactly. The 2006 special act remains a special act of the state legislature. This does not supersede, revoke, amend that. That special act is limited. To retirees and limits the types of police duties they can perform to particular details, basically. So that is just a... separate special act that would remain and those officers can continue to do those retirees can continue to do details but this would be specifically for somerville housing authority officer okay

Thank you very much based on the changes that I've heard were made. I want to move this forward as soon as possible. Thank you.

Other questions, discussion?

Wa. Thank you, Mr. President. Just given the fact that this was an omission, you know, I don't think that it even merits a lot of debate. So, approved.

Bob, is that a motion to approve?

Mr. President, move to approve tonight.

Councilor Strezo moves to approve. Any discussion on the motion? I'm frantically flipping forward here to see what we need for standard. Do we need a roll call? Yeah, I figured we might. Well, gosh, there's a lot of licenses. Where is it? All right, so for item 10.1, Councilor Strezo moves to approve. I see no discussion on the motion. Madam Clerk, call the roll, please.

And roll call on approval of agenda item 10-1. Councilor Ewen-Campen? Councilor Link? Councilor Scott?

Yes.

Councilor Clingan?

Yes.

Councilor Strezo? Yes. Councilor Sait? Wheeler?

Yes.

Councilor Hardt? Yes. Councilor McLaughlin? Yes. Councilor Mbah? Yes. Councilor Davis?

Yes.

Eight councillors in favor, that is approved.

All right. Thank you. And thank you, Attorney Serigou, for all of your work on that. It is 1123. Let's start the meeting. Madam Clerk.

And that brings us back to the order of business with agenda item 4.1 in order by Councillor McLaughlin that the Director of Inspectional Services update this council on enforcement of the vacant properties ordinance.

Man, I'd love to know about this. Whatever committee you choose, Chair. Councilor Strezo?

Housing, Equity, and Community Development.

My only question to the... Mr. President, it is April, almost end April. H-C-D-E. It falls off your tongue now. Community...

H-C-D-E. In terms of the folks that will need to come to speak to that item, does HCDE present any concerns? I want to make sure we use our city staff efficiently.

No concerns. I know there's another. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. President. There's another item around an enforcement of an ordinance that's in ledge matters. That's the only thing I would point out.

I know that our Legislative Matters docket is quite full for the spring, so if there's no objection, HCDE sounds like a good place to send this, so this item is approved with a copy to Housing Community Development and Equity. Next item.

Agenda item 4.2, a resolution by Councillor McLaughlin that the Mayor appoint a City Council representative to the Commission for Persons with Disabilities.

Councillor McLaughlin, Councillor Clingan would like to sign on. Councillor McLaughlin. We can do it, Mr. President. I've spoken to the mayor's office about it. I move to approve.

Hardt. Any further discussion? Councilor Hardt would like to sign on, Councilor Mbah, Councilor Strasl, the whole council would like to sign on, the ones that are here anyways. So that is approved with a, do you want to send that to committee?

Just approved. That's just approved. There we go. Look at that. Next item please.

Agenda item 4.4, a resolution by Councilor McLaughlin that the Department of Public Works invest in trash barrels with latches to address rodent issues.

McLaughlin. So I do have something to say about this one. So we've talked for a few years now about the trash barrel I got my new compost barrel. which is plastic it has a latch on it and is supposedly rat proof and what I've learned from this is the holes that you see on the rat on the trash barrels Aren't rats chewing into the barrel? It's rats getting through the latch and then having to chew their way out of the barrel. So if we had latches, in theory, it would actually prevent rodents from getting into the barrels to begin with. I looked it up just online. It's like $60 more a barrel to get a latch. which sounds like a lot until you consider all the many trash barrels that we've had to replace because they're constantly chewed out. So I'm just interested in this.

I think it might be worthwhile to check it out and see if we can get some latches on these barrels. and help address eroded issue. I'd like this to go to public health and safety.

Councilor Wheeler would like to sign on. Any discussion? Councilor Hardt would like to sign on. So that item is approved with a copy to public health and public safety. Next item.

Agenda item 4.5, a resolution by Councilor McLaughlin, Councilor Clingan, and Councilor Mbah in support of the Thrive Act, Senate Bill 374, Empowering Students and Schools to Thrive.

McLaughlin. It's a good thing. It basically gives city control and tries to prevent state takeover of schools. I encourage everyone to check it out. I support it. Further discussion?

That item is approved. Mr. President, Tribe Act is in alliance with Somerville's commitment to equity in education, closing the opportunity gaps, and supporting the whole child.

Thank you, Councillor Boss. That item is approved. Next item.

Agenda item 4.8, an order by Councillor Davis in his capacity as president recommending the appointment of Courtney Henderson to the position of city clerk.

I will refrain from making any substantive statement up here other than to just go. I'm so happy to send this one to committee. So that is referred to confirmation of appointments and personnel matters. Point of order, Chair? Did we skip 4.7 or did I just miss it? No, 4.7 was withdrawn. Ah, thank you. If anyone's concerned, it's just because we had to fix some stuff and I'm going to resubmit it, but we wanted to get it right before we move forward. More right than it was at least. All right, next item.

Agenda item 4.9 in order by Councillor Davis.

We have the readings of 4.9 and 4.10. Approve those with a copy to school buildings, communities, school building facilities and maintenance, please.

Wheeler. Agenda item 4.11, a communication by Councilor Wheeler in their capacity as chair of the finance committee conveying information on the FY2027 budget review process. Councilor Wheeler.

I promise I'll be brief. There is a memo attached to this item. I encourage my colleagues to read it. With this fiscal year 2027 budget season underway, I want to share the upcoming review process and schedule. Building on recent years, we're going to continue using a format that emphasizes advanced questions and structured follow-up. Councillors are invited to submit initial questions for Department Heads ahead of each hearing. Departments will respond in writing and hearing nights will be focused on follow-up and discussion. So I am setting up a Google form for submitting questions. and the Department by Department. Departments will be assigned to one of three hearing nights and then a fourth night will be reserved for follow-ups to questions that come up in those first three nights where counselors can request additional appearances from department heads as needed thank you all right that item is placed on file next item agenda item 5.1 a resolution by councillor Mbah

that the Director of Parks and Recreation and the Commissioner of Public Works coordinate with local stakeholders including the Somerville Garden Club and other community volunteers to evaluate the feasibility of transforming the currently unused lawn space located at the small white church across from the West Branch Library into a community gardening space.

I'd like to sign on to this one. Councilor Bott?

Approved. Any further discussion? Seeing none, that item is approved. Do you want to send it to committee to have a conversation or just follow up and see where we go from there? Send it to committee? No. Sustainability?

Yes to which?

I think that we could probably have a conversation and then when we get a little bit more detail that new item could be submitted to discuss a committee as needed. All right, sounds good. So that item is approved. Next item.

Agenda item 6B, a committee report or report of the Committee on Housing, Community Development, and Equity meeting on April 15th, 2026.

Councilor Strezo. All right, colleagues. I really want to report these numbers back to you. So just... Park your ears for a moment. We talked about, first off, we had our meeting Wednesday, April 15th, 6 p.m. It was hybrid, in person, and on Zoom. We had Director Schachter of the Office of Housing Stability come forward and talk about the status of residents placing displacement and the number of households seeking rental assistance. She said over a five-month period from October 2025 to February 2020, I'm giving you information about the housing instability and the numbers of people facing displacement in the city. Thank you so much. Okay. Over a five-month period,

OHS received 505 requests for assistance across 471 households. Of those 37% were at risk of displacement and roughly half spoke a language other than English. She emphasized the need for a mayor to identify future funding sources, noting that while increased evictions are expected as assistance becomes more limited, This has not yet been observed but could start to happen within the next one or two quarters. Resident assistance disbursements have declined significantly. from an average of $250,900,000 per month in 2025 to approximately $97,000 per month due to tightened eligibility criteria and funding constraints. She emphasized that the

Ongoing advocacy efforts and outlined federal policy changes that may be further impacting vulnerable residents including reduced Section 8 voucher availability and proposed U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rule affecting mixed status households that could force families to separate or lose housing assistance. That's what we're facing right now in Somerville. When we talk about new units that have been approved for development year by year, This is the result of an information request talking about the approved for development based on the adoption of summer vision. Now, the question itself had a, the data can go numerous directions, so the director, Alana Gaffney from, I'm sorry, WD Directive Housing,

I tried to put them in as many buckets as you could according to the data, but there's space for more conversations to have on where we can go with the information. So, primarily within neighborhood, most of the development in Somerville is primarily within the neighborhood residential districts with 170 of 233 permits issued in these areas. and outside of the spot ending the program of spot ending 178, of 233 permits were for three units or fewer, which did not trigger affordability requirements at the time. She added the larger scale development has shifted with Assembly Square largely built out between 2016 and 2021 and more recent activity concentrated in Union Square

While mid-sized 10 to 20 unit projects appeared to have slowed. I will pause on that. We also discussed if you want to take a look for housing commission. and we'll talk more about that in future meetings and I offer this committee report to be accepted as submitted.

See no discussion. That item is approved. Next item.

Agenda item 6C, a committee report. Report of the Committee on Land Use, meeting in joint session with the Planning Board on April 16, 2026.

McLaughlin. Thank you, Mr. President. Pitch hitting for Councilor Ewen-Campen. We had a few public hearings of fairly significant issues, so I'll try to be brief but explain these to you. There was a citizen's petition to address dormers, to allow more dormers in the city. That was not too much contention on that issue, but it's an issue that the Somerville YIMBY group brought before us. and will remain in committee. There was a discussion around union to associates LLC requesting a zoning map amendment to change. The zoning district of 2 and 9 Union Square from CC 5, Commercial Core 5 to Mid-Rise 6. This would represent a significant change in the zoning plan, which would allow a switch from commercial to residential use. A lot of people spoke against it. Some people spoke for it.

I would encourage you all to pay attention to this one as it is a significant change in the plan for Union Square. And then there was also a citizen's petition of 29 registered voters to address four amendments, mostly to do with backyard cottages, accessory dwelling units, subdivisions, former Councilor Bill White, I introduced these and spoke on behalf of the people submitting this petition. This would represent some significant changes to the way we deal with accessory dwelling units, Subdivisions of Land, and not allowing condos to be built where an ADU is. So this would be interesting. I'll leave it at that. I submit the committee report to be accepted and I encourage you all to follow up on this. No votes were taken so this time for discussion.

All right, seeing no further discussion, that item is approved. Next item.

Agenda item 7.3, a request of the mayor requesting confirmation of the appointment of Rafael Santos to the position of police officer.

Councilor Bott. Moved to approve. I think there are probably a bunch. Councilor Barr, there might be a few you want to address. Where are we, Mr. President? 7.3 through 7.11, perhaps?

Yep. So, Mr. President, through you, I move to approve 7.3 through 7.11 and then... 7.12 through 7.14 to confirmation of appointment.

So 7.3 through 7.11 are all confirmations, new confirmations of new firefighter positions? Bobmose, to approve Each of those, first of all, waive the ratings of each individually and approve them all this evening. Any objections? All right, so seeing none, those items are approved. And then 7.12 through 7.14, Councilor Bayh, you wanted to waive the readings and send those to confirmation of appointments and personnel matters? Yes, Mr. President. Any objection? All right. Seeing none, 7.12, 13, and 14, we'll waive the reading and refer those to confirmation of appointments and personnel matters. Next item.

Agenda item 8.1, an officer's communication from the planning board conveying recommendations for item number 26-0204.

That item is placed on file with a copy of the land use. Next item.

Agenda item 8.3, an officer's communication from the city clerk conveying block party licenses issued.

Woo-hoo, block parties are great. No one's watching anymore, so I won't do my usual spiel, but yay, block parties. Next item.

Agenda item 9.1.

Councilor Hardt.

Yes. I move to waive the readings of 9.1 to 9.36 and approve this evening.

Any objection to waive the readings of 9.1 through 9.36 and approve this evening? See none. Those items are all approved. I was going to make a few comments about a few, but again, no one's watching anymore at this point. Go see the stuff. Go to all the stuff. If you watch the recording of this, look at the stuff on the list. It's cool. Go see it. Next item.

Hardt. Agenda item 10.3.

I'd like to take up 10.3 and 10.4 together please. All right.

I think if we're going to prove this evening, let's have the readings in these because they're new public events. Read them in and then we'll take them out for approval.

Agenda item 10.3, a public event from the Somerville Road Runners applying for a public event license for Moms Run 5K and Walk for Cancer on May 10th from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. and agenda item 10.4, a public event from the Arts Council, applying for a public event license for Porch Fest 2026 on May 9th from 10.30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Any discussion?

Scott. Mr. President, I understand it's been your practice lately to hold these until the next meeting because they were supplementals, but given that PorchFest is PorchFest and the The Somerville Roadrunners have been doing this for a long time. I'm inclined to let it slide and approve these this evening.

Thank you, Council Scott. Both of these would take place prior to our next City Council meeting, hence the time urgency. They were not able to be presented just due to the process of getting everything in place, but I did want to read them since they weren't on the agenda, so I wanted to have the items read in in case anyone has any concerns. Seeing no concerns, those items are both approved.

That brings us to the end of the agenda, Mr. President.

Are there any light items?

There are no other items before this meeting.

Are you sure there's nothing else we can do tonight?

I will not check twice.

Mr. President, we do have our Saturday cleanup days, thanks to Councilor McLaughlin. This Saturday? I mean, he was one banging the drum for it. So I encourage everybody who's still watching to come on out and help us clean up starting at I believe 10 a.m. There will not be a competition as to whose ward has the most volunteers. There will be competition as to whose ward is the cleanest afterwards.

Of course. All right. With that, Councilor Scott also moves to adjourn. And we are adjourned. Thanks, everyone.

You can go to and figure out, you know, how much carbon am I putting into the atmosphere. If you want to do something more specific, I always say you can donate to one of these penguin rescue centers that are throughout the southern hemisphere.

Tonight, what would you hope that our viewers take away from the story that you're going to share with us?

that we don't really know what we're capable of until we're tested and that we all are actually capable of much more than we even know and also that it's never too late to pursue or achieve a dream. The first time I held a penguin in my arms, I instantly fell in love. His name was Sand Cobb and he was this tiny African penguin chick and he was ridiculously adorable. He was all belly and big feet and he was covered in this soft fluffy down and he reminded me of my first pet, a soft fluffy bunny named Lilac. I've always been a huge animal lover so when I first learned about endangered species as a kid I was traumatized and I've always felt deep down that I was meant to help those animals somehow but I always wondered what could I possibly do? At 31, I went back to college to become a veterinary nurse, and I met Sankov during an internship at the New England Aquarium.

He was named after a rescue center in Cape Town, South Africa that saves African