Housing, Community Development and Equity Committee

Good evening. This is the Committee for Housing, Community Development, and Equity. I am City Councilor at Large Kristen Strozo, the Chair of this committee. It is Wednesday, July 1st, 2026. It is 6.02 p.m. We are broadcasting live from City Hall and also remote. And I'd like to get this meeting started. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting of the City Council Committee will be conducted via remote participation. We will post an audio recording, audio video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record. of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels.

Madam Clerk, can you please recall the roll? This is roll call. Councilor Sait? Councilor Link?

Here.

Councilor Strezo? Thank you.

I wanted to get right at it and approve the committee minutes. First item on the agenda, 260722. approval of the minutes of the Housing Community Development and Equity Committee meeting of April 15, 2026. Happy to leave it on the table for us to do a work call or approval with the commencement of the meeting. Next on the agenda is ordered. We're going to skip item number two for right now. She's here. Yeah. Fast forwarding. Hold on. This is a remote control. Old school. We'll go over to number four then. Order number 260052.

that the commissioner of public works and relevant departments discuss the future community use of Founders Ring for 2026 and beyond. We have a couple of directors here to speak on this item. I see a director, commissioner. and we have Director Tramontagne here to speak from Art Recreation, not just recreation. and thank you very much for being here in person. I don't say it's maybe five degrees colder than outside. So you have the floor, happy to talk about this.

So for the record, Eric Wiseman, DPW Commissioner. I am going to talk about the status of the Founders' Rank operationally, and then I'm going to pass it off for programmatic considerations. So the rink hasn't had ice in it for several years now. So we have a plan to install ice in it over the summer. Aboff, Ackman, Biton, Brockelman, Capuano, Fullerton, Garavaglia, Link, Lippens, Mbah, McLaughlin, Sait, Schuster, Scott, Stellman, Sait, Schuster, and then filling the bed with two to three inches of ice.

And then smoothing the surface, having a contractor come in and paint the surface, reapplying a top coat of ice, More finishing, a little bit of edging of the ice, and then sort of at the same time doing a deep clean of the space, conducting any small repairs. And then, so we anticipated it would take about a month Starting at the end of this month to have it ready for September 1st.

How exciting. Commissioner. When it is ready, or whenever that is, hopefully for September, when it is, what will it look like after that? Will it be immediately open to the public, or what do you... Where do you intend to go now?

So I think I would hand it off to the recreation director, but that would be the plan that we'd be ready for.

Thank you very much.

Clark, I said such awesome things, at least to me. All right, fine. All right, we're back live. The owl is working. Director, it's all yours, please. We were talking about Founders Rate to start and when September happens, what happens from there and what plans?

Absolutely. So from there on, We are in the process of conducting an RFD, which will have a vendor come in and cert the The process of putting our non-profits and our people in the schedule of the ice rink into place. So hopefully we can get some into it and that would be the intent to go forward with after The vendor has the ice for that season. I'm assuming from maybe September, October, that area up until... Maybe February? Late February? March? Recreation will then take it over and we'll come up with DBW to clean up the ice and then that will be used for multipurpose programming. We're going to look into Going back to our normal program, so street hockey, girls' self-defense, training, summer training for our staff. And then on top of that, we're looking to add in pickleball and other various other services as well. We want to do some programming for our city staff, so we're really looking to use the space throughout the entire year.

I'm really excited about this, Director and Commissioner. Thank you for all your work on this. And additionally, Do you have a Zamboni or whether these will be purchased? I believe we have them, but I don't know if it's up and running.

Thank you, Chair. We do have a Zamboni.

That's great.

Councilor Link, how are you doing over there? Do you have any thoughts, questions, et cetera, anything?

Thank you, Chair. Yes. So through you, I'm curious, are there contingency plans if we find out that there's For example, the compressor maybe doesn't work and needs to be replaced or something like that. Do we still think that we would be able to stay on schedule or do you think that it would get thrown off if something medium to large came up?

Through the chair, thank you for the question. Yeah, we built in an extra week of maintenance time should anything come up. So that sort of baked into the schedule. Staff has been... on the roof and seen the compressor in the last couple of years so uh we're i don't know exactly when but we feel fairly confident that the um that the compressor should We do have vendors that can help service them as necessary.

Can I ask the chair, how old is the compressor at this point? Ballpark. I don't know if you might not have that on offhand.

Through the chair, I don't know when that compressor was installed, but I would imagine it was when... when the building was built within the last 15 years or so. I'm not exactly sure.

Okay. All that sounds great. Thank you very much.

Absolutely. So, Do you have any further anything else to say on this before? But I'd like to do is close this item. And actually, yeah, yeah. But Any other anything that was the floor or thoughts or anything? I'm excited about this and I'm happy to close this and recommend Google and send it out. I close this item. While we do have you here, I would love to take up Item number nine as well, which is, so we can, we're already talking about the rink and ice. on the rink and getting nice and ice skating out there.

Order number 261078 that the Director of Parks and Recreation discuss the cost barriers and equity constraints that prevent low-income residents and local youth from accessing accessing academy, Somerville programs such as public skate time and veterans memorial rink on early school dismissal days. This is an agenda item I put forward. The reason that I had put this forward because as I mentioned in regular council that there was an equity concern that some kids that wanted to ice skate when school gets out on Wednesday early. But they were heading over to the ice rink and didn't have enough money to pay and were actually being turned away. and double-digit numbers of kids, which is just kind of heartbreaking. So put this item forward. We did hear from Mary Wilson and I, but also wanted to just talk about it.

and happy for the conversation of it. So, Director and Commissioner, happy to hear from you on this.

Through the RFP process that we're coming up with, we are looking to include that into Super 4D. We are looking for the vendor to provide resources for the kids during that time. We don't want the kids, we want every kid to be able to use the ice rink. So that's the plan that we have going so far.

Link, do you have any thoughts or suggestions or Thoughts or comments or anything, questions?

Yeah, thank you, Sharon. I'm glad to hear that. So the RFP process is going to include that. Is that going to be a requirement of the RFP that this happens? I guess I'm excited that we're including it as that, but I want to make sure it's not just like a... So we're considering that we're asking for like as a nice to have but as more of a like we have to have this.

Yeah, you know, I can't speak too much on the end result of how it will turn out, but I do know that our intent is to put that in there and make sure it's definitely on the table. And that would take something catastrophic to kind of move away from that. So that's the intent for right now.

Wonderful to hear. Director of Communication, I'm not trying to put you on the spot in any way. Please forgive me. And if you're live, thanks. Thanks for being here tonight. But when we do, when we are ready and open to go, do you know? I'm happy to just I don't know how to formulate what's in my brain but more just like how do we get the word out to the teens and the kids or even schools that when we are ready to go on Wednesdays that the rink was open or do you think it was just spread by word of mouth or, and again, I'm so not trying to put you on the slide. Just, I guess, to brainstorm ideas.

So I think we would work with recreation to push through their channels as well as with the schools to push through their channels because those are the two best ways that we can achieve that. And then we can also put out broad announcements so that parents and guardians and family members can be aware of what's available to their youth. We can ask the schools to make sure that all of their staff know so that they can put it to their students. Teachers can do that. We'll put our heads together. I think you're on a good plan because this is really important. And everybody wants to not just do it, but make sure that it gets used. So we'll work on it.

Can you just say your name and get over to our group, please? Sure. I'm Denise Taylor and I'm the director of communications and organization.

Oh, great. With no other thoughts on that, if we don't have any other thoughts on that for the moment, I'm happy to mark this as we're complete. Are you gentlemen here to speak on any other items? Well, with that, Thank you both very much for being here tonight. And I look forward to hearing all the exciting updates on this. So thank you for all you do. Thank you. Have a good night. Thank you. So with that, why don't we head back? Thank you for being here. No, I know. Thank you.

But thank you for being here. I was hoping... We could go into item number two, which is order number 260082 that the Director of Parks and Recreation Board in the Stock and Condition previously installed playground communication boards that assist nonverbal children in playtime. I wrote this as that, but I hear that you're going to speak on this, Director, and I'd love to talk. I really am grateful to you. This was one of the first things that I really did as a counselor. I know it was kind of a request at first, like coming in, like, how do I explain what this is? But it was so important. both the visibility of this item for special needs families that I couldn't not do it. So on this item, The communication boards, and I just want to quickly explain in case someone's like, what is this? So communication boards are if you go to playgrounds within Somerville, see a board that's attached to a fence.

and it has pictures of things like yes, no or objects like up, down, running, bathroom. There are not as many words. And the point of it is for either nonverbal kids, kids with skills of being able to communicate or emerging, that they wouldn't have to find the words to express what they need. They can point to a picture and especially with kids that are autistic or have needs or have ADA accessibility requirements, This is groundbreaking for them, for kids that are autistic and are nonverbal and are reliant on their iPads for communication. This can take the place of that so the kids can put the technology aside

and use their hands to run and play and point and jump and climb and not have to use the equipment for the time being. And kids could just leave. It brought a tear to my eye The first time I saw them and saw a toddler with her dad pointing to it. So I want to tell you personally how wonderful it's been and thank you for that. because you were right there at the start. Like, okay, let's figure it out. It really made a difference. And even just the visibility and the acknowledgement that there are kids in our community that use at least These objects, of course, look for everyone, but that requires us to meet it. And we've thought about them. I've heard about from the parents very directly. There are no words. So thank you. You're very welcome. They have become a Standard now for all of our programs.

Sure. Thank you. So if any of them get, the reason I said just wanted to check what happens when they get broken or dislodged or I remember when we first put them up they were so new that we were like oh no how do we get this on the the fence remember um and I didn't think about that but we were also in the pandemic too so it was like we weren't I remember so it was not like we could just like go for a trip somewhere and be like well what does it look like in a warehouse or something everything was on screen or like it was a different world Through the chair, I really, I don't remember. But if anyone is, if any of them, it's just a three-word one. That's wonderful. Okay.

Like that, Councilor Link. I'm so not trying to put you on the spot for like anything, but I also, you know, you're over there and I'm over here and I don't, I'm not going to pick up the cues if you need me. And so I don't want to like miss you.

I appreciate that, sure. I think for this one, I mean, that's, I just, I think you said it best. They are really meaningful. And I'm glad that we're committed to maintaining them.

Thank you.

I remember when I saw them show up, I was very appreciative, yeah.

So with that, I'm happy to close this item and mark it for complete. Do you understand what I'm saying? Okay. Yes. So I'm going to, okay. This is order number 260059 that the Director of Mobility provide an update on the Kensington connector. I'm going to give a really quick, like, if anyone's like, what is this? Where is this? So the Kensington connector, I remember being in a, in a, what do you call not a charrette it's not like a working group or like an ideas group of what is of like what do we do with the Kensington connector what are some ideas and like okay so the Kensington is so It's many things. It is an underpass that is between Stop and Shop and Ward 1, Stop and Shop area of On its way to Foss Park.

Pass the stopping chop and going into assembly. And it is under I-93. It is... Sometimes I run there with my dog and it is sometimes smelly and sometimes it's on fire and sometimes...

And sometimes it's scary and sometimes it's friendly and sometimes who knows what it is. but it's all things and so that is the the Kensington um underpass and so yeah I see Councilor McLaughlin put this forward I was like yeah I want to know too and sometimes it's

Slashy because there was art and then somebody took some kind of sharp object and has slashed all of the cool artwork that East Somerville Main Streets put up. many years ago so that's not there now it's just dangling which is a total bummer um so it's all things but director um you're here to speak on it we'd love to hear your thoughts and just like what the plan is and other things Yes, thank you. Through the chair. The Kensington Connector, the artwork that was put on it was put on it by Corbett Kirk. She commissioned that artwork, who was in our division before moving on to Cambridge. The mobility Mobility had been kind of shepherding this and now it's switched over to public space and urban forestry. There were some initial charrettes and working groups in 2019-2020.

But we fixed that ball back up. We have just recently, alongside mobility, applied for a $1.3 million grant. in a math program, math students program called One Stop. Ooh, this is exciting. It's called One Stop, One Step. Here we go. One Stop for Growth. And we've applied for various things and our division has applied for the infrastructure grant in the amount of $1.3 million for constructing. We have some initial ideas. We do want to go back to the board to look at them, but we hope to We awarded this money and move forward.

It's a challenge because the connector used to be called the Kensington underpass. I was counting today. It goes under 12 lanes of traffic and It is a challenge to bring lighting or water or anything in the future like that. If anybody has been in it recently, we do have a new park on the other side of the assembly park, so it will be great to get moving on this and create safer Access Point. It's not really going to be, we don't really want people to linger, but it can definitely be a better experience to possibly. Thank you for that. Yes. It's a little dark at night. Another thing that I just throwing out what I've heard from community members of what thoughts, immediate impressions of it when People talk about it that I've noticed.

Yeah, it's dark at nighttime, especially sometimes women feel unsafe traveling there. I'm sure you've heard that as well. Of course, we know both sides of it because it's a... on off-ramp, what's part of the on-off-ramp-ish area where people are going fast, stopping or starting, and it's back of the so-called corridor of death. So we have that, but I know that that is not anything that we have any control over, like the state roads at that. I've heard that some residents have asked if a skate park could even be under there, which would be interesting. You had a strong reaction to that, respectfully. So please tell me your thoughts, if you're open to discussing. Through the chair. So first, in terms of the safety stuff, there were some Signals that were added by MassDoc, which has improved safety tremendously.

I was talking about this recently with the mobility director, and he said, like in 2016,

It was one of the worst intersections of the Commonwealth and that has been greatly reduced because of the storms that are there. It is too small of a space to make a skate park. skate parks require that you get enough space to get speed and then jump over things. Mm-hmm. So probably people are thinking about that because of the Lynch family skate park in Cambridge, which is an enormous one. But there's just, there are not the physical requirements for a skate park and also If people are walking through and then you have skateboarders, there's potential conflicts there. Thank you. Councilor, do you have any...

I guess, I mean, I'm not a woman. I don't go through there at night. So those two things I can't really speak to. It does sound, I can imagine having gone through there in the daytime. that it would get a little spooky because it's kind of spooky by default. Yeah, I'd love to see it become something to somehow to become a more welcoming space. And I agree that and I understand that it's not. You know, as you said, Cher, it's, you know, the roads are DOT roads. I appreciate that we have the hawk there now. And then I think it's a hawk and then a signal or is it at any rate? It's definitely safer. I wouldn't describe it as safe, unfortunately. But yeah, if we can do anything in there to bring in light and to make it nicer.

I understand not wanting to linger there, so let's not set up tables, but something, yeah, definitely. So I guess my question would be, what does that $1 million grant through the chair, what What's the framework of that grant that we're applying for? What could it do?

Through the Chair, that money would allow us to construct The project and to put things in night light will help in nighttime and to create something that's a little bit more than temporary art. So that it's, I mean, it's never going to be an interesting place in the sense that it's not interesting to go under a highway, but it can definitely be a better user experience. And also we are working with mobility to make sure that we're continuing to improve the safety, which is the most important thing.

Chair, we're not turning this into a Somerville destination, it sounds like, then?

Anything can be a Somerville destination. That's true.

Fair enough.

Yeah, the ambience is kind of like one out of five. Less smelly and less stabby would be cool. but yes understood it it's it's it's all things but that's exciting and do we have like is there a good chance okay or is this we're hoping we haven't heard anything yet but I think we should find out by the fall nice yeah okay And in the fall, if it does go through, what would the turnaround time be, I guess, or when you have to spend money? Through the chair, I don't remember off the top of my head when the money has to be spent by, but we would. Restart Community Conversation with the goal of getting to construction documents as soon as possible. Awesome. Awesome. And you know us in Somerville, there's going to be so many, there's going to be Everybody will have an opinion of what we can do under there, from shiny puppy dogs to everything.

Which, you know, I love the fact that everybody has... You know, you see, Councilor Link, you know... So I'll be curious to see everything, the thoughts that come from our community. But it will be great for improvement or just some emotion on this either way. So I really appreciate it. Thank you.

later um uh all right uh so thank you very much for that uh any other further thoughts on this counselor no you're good all right all right with that i'm just gonna close this item out and um

Mark, before we're complete, we can follow up with Councilor McLaughlin on this, that all things are super, and move on from there. And you're for any other arguments? Yeah, that's right, the AB. We're on. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Okay. Order number 260051 that the Director of Parks and Recreation provide an update on upcoming inclusive playground accessibility plans and redesign projects.

Hey, director, have you heard of any upcoming playgrounds anywhere recently?

Because I think you do. Chair, yes, we broke ground last week from the week before at the Kennedy Inclusive Playground. They are doing phase one because it has to be phased with the school year, which is redoing the parking lot, putting in some stormwater attachment measures underneath, and then we will move next summer into the actual implicit playground But I had a site visit yesterday and they are moving. They're trying to get this done before they start school. So we're not wasting any time. Do you know that if I worry about... Teacher parking or visitor parking. Will that be affected at all when school is back in session? Through the chair. So we know through the planning of this project that

This school has the most parking for any of the Somerville schools, and we do know that teachers were very vocal about not losing any of that parking, including sending us a petition. but we tried to find a middle ground where we had enough space to create the playground which is important for children to play which are equally as important I would argue as academics and the parking lot so A number of spaces were removed. I can't remember off the top of my head, but I think they were 12 or 16 really to create, to increase the play, the schoolyard by 30%. If I may, thank you for knowing that. So with that, I'm going to immediately just suggest if this conversation has not yet happened, but I assume it may have, don't know.

Similar to what we did with the high school, remember where there's parking that is available on Island Ave that is reserved for the teachers only for a certain amount of time. with that loss of 12 to 16 spots because that will be a cluster situation come the fall. A lot of the teachers are driving in or they're doing service providing or they're coming from the school for that school, et cetera. That puts them in a really tough spot. Has there been conversation about reserving spots along Cherry, etc.? There's been a lot of conversation. We've had 26 Um, meetings, public meetings and school meetings on this project. And we are talking to the traffic folks and trying to help as much as possible.

The reality is that there is a finite amount of space and we are either giving it to parking or we are giving it to the schoolyard. So we really tried to find a middle ground so that We can build a good schoolyard and still, as I said, the schoolyard has the most parking and still allow for parking in the spaces for the teachers and we are also working with the traffic office about around the school. Director, yes. Not, no. I hear what you're saying that you're eliminating or like these 12, 16 parking spots no longer exist. Fine. Fine. Fine. then as a supplemental elementary and that certain spots are reserved for the teachers at this time similar to the way it is in Highland Ave in front of the high school that

during the during school hours from seven to blah blah blah these thoughts of the teachers or anybody coming to that special class through the chair I know that uh Our project manager, John Gardenkamp, has been doing everything absolutely possible to mitigate the effects of this parking and I know that he is working with the traffic department to see what can be done. in terms of reserving spaces on the street. Okay. Thank you. Councilor Link, did you...

uh yeah thank you um i guess so i've i've been actually following along our um our summer camp bus stop is right outside of uh kennedy school which is very noisy in the mornings but uh It's a good reason to be noisy. So yeah, I have been following the process. I'm curious, so the picture posted outside shows a playground, I'm not sorry, a playground, a park, Parking lot with a lot more trees than there was before. Is that something that's going to be part of this school year's, this summer's project? To add those trees or will that be part of next year's?

Through the chair, yes, because the project is actually being done in two phases and being within two phases. So they will complete The plantings as well as what you can't see underground, which is a system that helps to slow down any water from that very big parking lot and in times of extreme flooding, which we're seeing more and more. to let it out into the storm system in a slower way. I don't know the top of my head that there is a summer voice page that will tell you the number of trees that are being added and all of the meetings are recorded there as well as the different iterations of the playground design.

I'm excited for the trees. The kids summer camp was there last year as well, and it was fantastic. I think it'll be really nice. It'll make it so people in the summer actually want to come to the area and linger. So that's awesome.

Yeah. With that, I am happy to... I'm going to be able to close this item and mark it with complete. Thanks for the conversation. I'm looking forward to the next steps and hearing more about it as well. There's a lot going on, a lot going on. Thank you. Are you here to speak on any other items? I don't think you are. Oh, I would say no. Sorry. Yeah. Well, thank you. Have a good night. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, the next item, Mayor's Communication, item 263. 1033.

Being an update regarding item 260825 resolution that the administration submit a written report to this council regarding the timeline and processes for staffing. the Americans with Disabilities ADA coordinator role and update this council on the plan to process ADA complaints and accessibility coordination and this position is vacant. I'm here to speak on the item I have, Director Najee Williams. So you're here to speak on this item? Welcome. Representing the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs.

Welcome. Have a floor. Through you, Madam Chair, Amanda and Adam Williams, Director of Intergovernmental Affairs. The administration submitted a communication that kind of outlined recruitment efforts for this position. I believe it was posted for a little bit over a month. We've got robust responses there. The biggest update I would probably say beyond what was in that memo is that our human resources team has already moved towards Phone screens for this round. But in the interim, lots of gratitude to our staff in equity and belonging, in engineering, are chief admin officer for covering any of the gaps in the interim and responding to any of the needs of the city in the interim.

So really quick, Director, when someone has a complaint or an issue, right now at this very second, where do they go?

After you, Madam Chair. The if a complaint comes into the process remains the same. So if they email the ADA at SomervilleMA.gov email or if they call The number, the 625-6600 extension 2059, it is valid to a staff member. I don't want to misspeak and say which staff member. I want to say it might be the chief administrative officer, but it is handled that way. Sometimes the complaints that come through are niche in that it might be more suited for our engineering team, etc. But the appropriate folks are all on that email and will get these information. So

still the same process as was previously okay so so if someone calls that number like if someone so so like Councilor Linker and I had a constituent that was like I want to make an ADA complaint or I have a question about ADA

We would give them this email address and this phone number, the one that's on all the papers on all the city stuff. And then we would be confident that somebody's going to answer that and respond right back. I'm not sure if that's correct. Okay. Councilor Link?

Any thoughts, suggestions, questions, et cetera?

Sure. I'm just curious, since we've said we've had the position posted for a while, are there any Are there any candidates going through the process right now or have they been or was nobody a fit?

Through you Madam Chair, so the position was posted I believe in the memo noted Sometimes it's the second or third week in May. We got a lot of great applicants. So right now they are actually in round one of phone screens and then moving folks along. So with that to say, it seems to be that folks were really hopeful. the candidates that are there typically a recruitment cycle will take you know nothing short of a six-week time span but we we got some really good responses and you know a lot of appreciation to our human resources team for moving that along so we can get someone in that space.

Wonderful. So, Chair, it sounds like maybe then we can expect maybe a nice update in a month or so?

Yeah. You know what? I'm going to keep this in committee. How do you feel about that?

I think that's a great idea, yeah.

yeah yeah okay we'll give you a committee and so uh you get some hopefully um sunset on the horizon Brighter day. And in the fall, we can circle back and see where it goes. And I'm excited about that. Thank you for the information. And yeah, great. Great. Thank you, Madam Chair. Absolutely. Okay. Next, we have Officers Communication 260973 that the Director of Communications and Community Engagement convene. the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines or WCAG 2.0, Accessibility Compliance Update for city website and digital assets. With us to speak is the Director of Communications and Engagement. Is that good?

As of July 1, it's the Director of Communications and Public Engagement. And Public Engagement.

state my name again for the record it's Denise Taylor and this is director Denise Taylor for the record uh the director of that department and I quickly have to say that yeah I got a little flummoxed um

Stumbling to be like, okay, this is a different, these are different department names now. Okay, I'm going to have to read, I know. I had a total like brain freeze yesterday, Councilor Link, and I'm like, I didn't plan for this. I forgot that there was a change.

It's all very confusing, yeah.

So with that, we have a director. Thank you for being here tonight. and I know that that you I remember hearing you speak about this before and you think this will be seriously engaged in this so please give us more.

Sure so as with Sidewalks and buildings, ADA regulations also require that digital assets are accessible. That's under ADA Title II. and currently the guidelines that municipalities are striving to meet are called the Web Content and Accessibility Guidelines. I've heard that pronounced as WCAG. I don't know if that's the right way to say it, but WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA. The goals for compliance for cities of our size were originally set for April 20th, 2026. However, the Department of Justice, which oversees this, shifted the deadline to a year later, to April 26, 2027. Several days before the deadline.

So obviously we didn't know that as we were aiming to meet the actual deadline we were originally given. And the good news is that the sitting worked to create to achieve compliance for our main website which is SomervilleMA.gov as well as all of the city's micro sites to the exclusion of the school district site which is being fully overhauled so they are handling this differently. And this applies not only to websites but to other digital assets like apps, and also to any digital tools that are embedded in the website and provided by other providers but used by us on the site, things like CitizenServe or BillPay. Any tools that are on the site also have to be compliant.

So we have been working for the past year with our web vendor, Evolving Web, and By the deadline had completed what qualifies as compliance, which is to get into the 90% compliance zone. But to be clear, the guidelines call for full compliance with Municipalities were striving for was to get into 90% the 90% range with the understanding that there is no such thing as getting compliant and then putting your pens down and walking away this is an ongoing Permanent. So we have actually since I submitted this memo back on May 12th, our compliance rate when I submitted it was

91.6 for level A and 86.3 for level AA, but overall 93%. And I understand that those don't add up the way you would think, but it's complicated. but in the meantime our level A compliance is now at 92 we went up a little bit there and our double A compliance is at 92.4 percent and that's because we haven't stopped we're still working with the goal of getting as close to 100% as possible but the nature of a living website is that there will continually be issues that arise that have to be Remediated. It'll be a constant game of whack-a-mole. But the goal is to get as close to 100 as possible. Are there... I can... talk a little bit more generally, or would you like to ask questions?

I'd love to hear more, but Councilor Link?

Chair, I have questions, but I'm happy to wait and maybe they'll be answered along the way.

Sure. Additional digital assets that we worked on include the Arts Council websites. They have three, the Police Department website. We ensured that tools like the MindRec embedded website and our site were also compliant. um we there we have a few micro sites that micro isn't actually the right word for the library that is a massive site library websites are known for being exceptionally complex they work with a vendor to get into compliance Summer Gold Hub, Summer Voice, all of these were checked and addressed as we did. I want to be clear again that the mayor has said repeatedly that he means that the ADA is the floor, not the ceiling. So while we are considered to be in a highly compliant category now, again,

We are going to keep striving to achieve higher scores. This does not mean that people will not run into things that there are... lots of things on the site that are we're still working on to get to that percentage um and we look forward to for example the commission for persons with disabilities um pointing out things that they encounter Something really exciting is that last Thursday, we also installed a tool called Doc Access, which is an automatic tool embedded that we can embed on every website in the city. It's now live on SomervilleMA.gov. Any PDF that you click on can now be converted to accessible HTML, which works with screen readers. and that provides accessibility for PDFs, which has been a real barrier.

And the amazing thing is that it can even take like a handwritten vintage document and convert it It includes translation support. There is live person support for issues that people have and I would encourage you To go to the website, click on a PDF and explore the tool up top. You can click it to transform it to a compliant form. There are so many guidelines to make. PDFs compliant we will be working to train up the staff on it but this is the fail-safe to correct for movement error with the amount of PDFs that wind up on the website this will be really important for ensuring that all of them can be converted to accessible screen-readable form. And I can share a few stats with you if you like.

1.27 million occurrences resolved. That included navigability fixes like missing page title, length missing, a text alternative. All images and graphics have to have what's called alt text, alternative text that describe them. So again, someone using a screen reader can go through and it will describe what Others may see as a graphic or as a photograph. It will describe what's in it. We corrected for Font to use the most accessible fonts. Color contrast for the most accessible color contrast. Yeah, a lot of this was for folks who have vision impairments that includes text alternatives, contrasts.

Keyboard focus indicators are for people with mobility limitations. We worked also on plain language mixes for people with cognitive differences. I think, yeah, capital takes some questions. And to be clear, The federal deadline is a year from now, and we will continue making sure that we remain in compliance and have been inspired by that.

Thank you. Link.

Thank you, Chair. So, first of all, I just want to say, you know, a huge applause for not sitting on this. You know, obviously we We thought the deadline was coming up, but I think that there were some indications that if you just sat back, it might have been fine. And obviously, legally and fine, you know, in terms of our constituents are two very different things. So I really appreciate that. And I'm heartened to see all these improvements. I do, I guess, I'm curious, I have two questions. So the first is just, you know, do we have a process in place now to like, you know, before A new microsite goes live or before a big update goes live that there is some sort of process where we're checking to make sure that we've either maintained or improved our accessibility scores?

We are trying to move away from microsites and include all of that content in the main website. We are currently in the process of hiring our new Digital Services Director, our Last person who built that role under a different title, the title's been updated, had to take disability retirement, which she publicly made clear about sharing this personal information. So we're currently filling the role that will oversee this work and the goal is that we would not be creating new micro sites and that we will slowly begin migrating some of the microsites to the main website which will help us ensure accessibility as well as bring a number of User experience improvements for all users.

One of the things that came out of the transition working group for communications is that people were struggling moving between the micro sites. and they're really legacy sites most of them that predate a time when we had more web capacity there was a time when we've had just the one webmaster and really didn't have the capacity to improve design or push out new assets. And so people understandably were looking for other ways to get their information out well presented and visible format and in the meantime we have more resources and we need to sort of transition that but we need the person in the world to do that

The other piece of this isn't just building a new site according to the compliance guidelines, but also training staff, both our web staff so that they are not introducing new errors. into the main website and also all of our staff. And some of this step-by-step we'll be working on, for example, making sure that All of our memos have an accessible template. There are fonts that are better than memos. All of the memos that go to the council, you have a nice clean template right now for for those but we do have people creating their own documents and it will be very easy for us to create something that will go on the site accessible as opposed to have to be converted by the document converter so

There's different levels of preventing the need for corrections for compliance and maintaining compliance.

Great. Yeah, I'm just, I guess I'm hoping it sounds, I hadn't really considered the fact that there's also like some sort of CMS element to this where people are just like uploading images. documents um but uh you know I guess I was more curious about just if we've got you know like some sort of This is me putting on my software developer hat and saying that we would often have things like workflows where when you make a change, it automatically gets run through a few different checks that the users or the company whatever can define and one of those might be like a tool that will automatically scan to make sure that like you know that any code being committed so if like you know there's new new site new pages or being added or anything or new features being added to the website that they would be compliant coming out the gate and not something that we'd have to like kind of

Catch. You know, once someone sends in one of those 311s or sends a letter to the ADA at SomervilleMA.gov.

Absolutely. The goal here is process the systems and and hard coding that actually can prevent human error here. So we're in alignment on that.

Great. Do you have any other questions?

Chair, yes, just one last question. So we called out the one big exception being the schools, which are like really not compliant. Like, you know, even just like eyeballing it, I can see that there's lots of like blue, green, red, green, colorblind situations in there. So is there... How, what kind of timeline is it they're going to be, I guess, and how are we going to make sure that the school does kind of, is there a way we can help? whoever is managing this at the district level so that something like this because it's not to be like cruel about it but it's the ADA issues are pretty glaring.

The schools are just as committed to this. I'm sure they are conducting a full overhaul of their website. The website you see now will not be the website going forward, and they are in the process of working on developing that plan. I don't want to try to fill in a gap here just to be helpful. I don't have all of the details. The schools function very independently for their web presence. But I know that they are actively working on that overhaul. I believe they are preparing their RFP or they may have already identified a vendor who will It would be best to check with them or I can follow up and provide a response. But what they are doing right now is trying not to fix a broken car before you get a new one.

So they're maintaining that website but all of their resources right now are going toward a full replacement of that site and overhaul of their web presence which will be compliant. That is their plan right now. It was quite time intensive and expensive to get the city website improved, the police website and the Arts Council website as well. So I could imagine that it is Frustrating to have to wait, but it will save resources for their overhaul if they put them into that rather than trying to fix for a short period of time what is about to be replaced.

Chair, that all makes sense to me. Thank you.

Great.

Director, quick question. Are you responsible for doing it or do you work with, because it sounds like a real pain in the tuchus. I couldn't do it is that is your department do you hire someone to do it or how does it work exactly so the can't imagine how tedious like per page anyway it just What does this look like? And it's all worth it and very crucially important.

So the web team works on this, but we also have a vendor that we hire. or ongoing maintenance and improvements as well as special projects and over the past year thank you to the council we put in extra funding to hire them for extra hours to work on this and they had a very large A lot of this works with tools that stand to find the errors. And then you might have like 2,000 errors that are the same. And then you can use a script to fix them all up. with code as opposed to going through and manually fixing each one individually. So some of them might be global, like there's a feature of the design that is not accessible. And once you fix that, it flows through to every page. They also used some AI assistant tools for some fixes where it was safe to do so.

And that helps as well. It is, as you suspect, it is monumental and tedious. So through coding and outside support, this is how we've done this. Currently, we have 60 hours a month of work from them. And for the next few months, 50% of that will continue dedicated to trying to help our sport so they're still using a significant portion of their time to advance this for us thank you yeah

I couldn't do it and Councilor Link this is your brain can do it but for me my I'm better at this and you know we're all here but but give me in front of the people I I couldn't I couldn't do this, so I have a lot of respect for you just being able to just get in there and just deep diving it. Thank you. Like I said, I know you take this really seriously. I know you're committed to getting it done, and I know that we're in good hands. So this is a wonderful update. Absolutely. Do you have any other thoughts or anything? No? No.

Thank you.

Director, thank you. Thank you. We have one more item on the agenda.

um and that is um um just quickly you want to mark seven more quickly thank you thank you yeah yeah that's what whatever you did I'm not sure if Amanda is here to speak on the next one or not, but I know she's also simultaneously in... Oh, is she in public health? Oh, yes. She's pulling double duty.

you know what we can always do is you know just like keep it in committee um uh director we have one item

I can't see it.

We can't see it. Our director has closed her song. And she's in the other meeting right now. So.

and I think she's here to speak we have one item left and I don't know I think I might just keep it in committee Absolutely, you could simultaneously mark that we're completed, but follow up with the director of IGA for a memo submission to be presented to either the next city councilor or further, I won't speak for what you'd like to do, but

I am going to hold this committee. Perfect. And we will, because I think this is a really important item. I'll just speak on it really, I'm going to, I'm going to call it like, Well, I'll give the number because I didn't yet give the number. Just want to give a quick conversation on it. If you don't have anyone to speak about it, maybe you should come back. But yeah, Beth, I think that's a plan to just keep it in committee. But okay, let me read it first because I don't want to miss that. I don't want to skip that. This is Resolution 261077 that the administration discuss the City's Volunteer Policy and its consistency among various city departments. So the reason I put this item forward is because from what I've heard, and I mentioned this in regular city council, The volunteer requirements are not consistent throughout the city.

So for instance, in the Council on Aging requirements for volunteering is one thing, but then at the same time, the rec department sometimes struggles to have coaches for teams and the whole concept of just volunteering for it is no longer a thing and then of course there are coaches and also if people want to volunteer why is this a barrier and anyhow so Councilor Link wanted to know from the time that We had it first set in council. If you had thoughts on this, or I don't remember if you spoke on this or not, but we'd love to hear your thoughts. And then, Director, and on that and in the meantime really quick we have uh director um if you're here if you'd like to talk about it if not like we can get to some committee too either like what do you think d You do? Oh, cool. She has an update. But Counselor Link, did you run it off? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know. Come on in.

Is the algorithm okay-ish? Through you, Amanda Nash-Williams, Director of Integral Mental Affairs. Thank you, Councilor, for the question. I would say that some of this work is actually ongoing. So the goal is that over the summer, and hopefully we'll be able to give you a sneak peek before then, to let you know about what this looks like because this impacts several of our departments, including we're not limited to our parks and rec, but we're looking forward to sharing that standardized process.

Awesome. Awesome.

Spencer, Link, you have anything?

Yeah.

Standardizing sounds like it's going to be easier chair and you know I think that's that's the idea I think if it's not standard there's that needs to be a really good reason like it doesn't make sense in one particular situation.

um yeah yeah I agree so I'm going to keep it in committee and then we can we can go back in in the fall when um we're wearing sweaters and it's sweater weather and then we can talk about again you're going back look forward to that Yeah, right on. Okay, well then that will keep it in committee. We ran out of agenda items.

Well then, I'd like to just... I'd like one item lead on to you. That's right, the approval of the minutes. So could we please do a, thanks Matt, but could we just do a quick roll call and then can we, could that roll call also be to close the meeting or should we do an additional one? Okay. So yes, we just have a couple of minutes and then we can call it a night.

Councilor Link, what the heck are you going to do with the rest of your night?

Read some books to my kids. They've been asking.

All right. That's a great, great, great assignment.

All right, so to review, we have work completed. Items two, three, four, five, seven. We're keeping in committee six and eight. And on acceptance of agenda item one, approval of the minutes of April 15th, 2026. And on adjournment, Councilor Sait, Councilor Link,

Yes.

Yes. Those minutes are accepted and we are adjourned. Thank you. Have a good night.

You too. Take care.

And have a good night.