Legislative Matters Committee

Good evening, everyone. It is Tuesday, September 30th, and here at 6 p.m., this is your Ward 2 Counselor, J.T. Scott, serving as Chair of the Legislative Matters Committee of the Somerville City Council. This committee will be meeting by remote participation this evening, pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025. Reporting will be available on the city's website shortly after its completion. To get things started tonight, let's go ahead and take a roll call to establish a quorum. If you don't mind, Madam Clerk.

Yep, this is roll call. Councillor Davis.

Here.

Councillor Strezo. Councillor Imbaugh. Councillor Ewen Campion.

Here.

Chair Scott.

Present.

All right, with that, we do have three members present.

And I did have a note from Councilor Strezo earlier saying that she anticipated being late to the meeting. So I hope she can join us later. But in the meantime, three is a quorum. So let's go ahead and begin. Our first item is just the approval of the minutes of our last meeting on September 8th. Is there any discussion on those minutes? All right, then seeing none, let's go ahead and take a roll call for approval of the minutes. So we can just step through these one item at a time.

Great, on approval of the minutes. Councilor Davis. Yes. Councilor Strezo. Councilor Inouye.

Present.

This is on the minutes, Councilor.

Yes, is it? I said present. Is that in order?

No, we're voting to approve the minutes. We already missed roll call, but that's all right. We know you're here now. Just yes or no on the approval of the minutes, Councilor. Yes.

Thank you, and I'll note the time you arrived. Councilor Ewen-Campen.

Yes.

Chair Scott.

Yes.

All right, with that, that is four votes in favor.

All right, wonderful. I was tempted to vote present there for a second. All right, let's go ahead and I anticipate we will just go in agenda order tonight. We have ourselves three items of substance on the agenda this evening. So welcome to what is hopefully going to be a very exciting and fast-paced piece of legislating this evening. Our first item on our next item on the agenda is number two that's requesting approval of a home rule petition to raise the sound business practices and written quote contract thresholds under mgl chapter 30b for city contracts with certified disadvantaged businesses so hopefully we can on the screen place up the hrp text and i would invite director allen from procurement who is here with us tonight to come in and give a brief introduction or iga if that's the preferred Let me just say at the outset, I'm excited about this and looking forward to it. Hello. Good evening, Director Allen.

Good evening. Through the chair, Counselor Scott to the committee. It's great to be here. IGA, do you want to speak or do you want me to dive on in? Through the chair to Angela. That's fine. You can go ahead. Cool. Okay. Yes, through the chair to the committee, I am very pleased to tell you about this proposed home rule petition from the city to, as you just read, Councilor Scott, to raise the current threshold, which is the one in the statute, the Uniform Procurement Act called Chapter 30B of Mass General Laws, from its current value of $10,000 up to $20,000 only if those contracts were goods and services, the business we would conduct up to that cap of $20,000 would be with a certified disadvantaged business, including minority and women owned businesses, veteran owned businesses, LGBTQ owned businesses, and other categories identified by the either the Massachusetts Supplier Diversity Office, or by the city of Boston that has its own certification program. Or third, that we would have clear and measurable discretion in the city. We will not have our own certification program in Somerville, but if we receive an application for work or seek a quote business, for example, from a company that is housed in Rhode Island or another jurisdiction that is certified as a disadvantaged business through an agency that has a recognized certification program that mirrors the same standards as Massachusetts, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or the city of Boston. We would want to be able to accept those as well up to that dollar value. The other thing that this home rule petition would enable us to do should we move forward with it and have it accepted by the legislature is that we would raise the current threshold for what we call a quoted contract. currently that the band, the procurement threshold dollar values are between 10,000, starting at 10,000 up to and including $50,000. We would raise that $50,000 up to $250,000, which is the current, it's called the simplified acquisition threshold, which is what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts uses. we would actually tie it to that benchmark instead of naming the exact dollar amount. That would be what I would recommend. And that would enable us to use this simplified procurement process called a quoted process, also only for certified disadvantaged businesses, certified by the same agencies that I referenced moments ago. This aligns with an existing home rule petition that Boston successfully petitioned for and obtained in 2022, I believe. I've spoken with their office, my counterparts there about how it's going, how it's being received. They were very enthusiastic about its reception in the city of Boston. And the city of Cambridge also has a current similar petition pending with the legislature. And I believe Somerville should join in that effort as well. And that in a nutshell is what the Home Rule petition would enable us to do. I'm happy to accept any questions that you may have through the chair to the committee.

All right, excellent. Thank you for that, Director Allen. I see Councilor Ewen-Campen has a hand up and Councilor Abbott next. I will say I did, I appreciate your raising. I appreciate the summary. There have been some questions raised by the legislative policy analysts and I'll pull those up later, but let me first go to colleagues. Councilor Ewen-Campen, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, through you. Thank you so much, Director Allen. I think this is really exciting. So I just want to make sure that I understand kind of in plain language what this would actually do if we were so lucky to get this pass. So for procurement of less than 20,000, am I correct? Basically, it would streamline the process for us to do procurement if we're awarding the contract to a disadvantaged business, diverse business. Is that right?

Through the chair to Councilor Ewan Kemp, and that is correct. I would like to, yes, it would streamline it. What it would do is we would not have to seek competitive quotes under $20,000. If we have a known supplier, for example, let's just say a graphic artist who like we need to have t-shirts and various things printed from a certified business that we know is here, local business, we could just set up a contract. We would still need a written contract. Um, other ordinances would apply that are set at the 10,000 mark, but we don't have to see competitive quotes. It would streamline it, say, Hey, we can, we can button up a contract with you. Um, so that's one example.

Okay. And then can you just in, in like, you know, for, for members of the public and, and for myself, can you just also explain the section two part just in like really simple languages? So this is for larger than 20,000, but, um, less than, did you say quarter million?

Exactly. So for that, yeah, from 20,000 up to $250,000, let's say the city needs potholes filled. And normally we would have to put out a bid. It's a more intensive process. It would have to be advertised. It would take longer time. What we could do instead is identify at least three businesses that have a certification as a disadvantaged business and seek quotes from them. So we'd send them, you know, this is what we need, this is our price form, our contract, and we would only compete that opportunity with certified disadvantaged businesses for certain contract types. That's how that would work. It's easier than the process the current state laws require us to follow.

Got it. So, Mr. Chair, I just want to say I'm looking forward to hearing the questions from my colleagues, from our legislative analysts. I think having seen the results of our disparity study, having kind of worked on this for a long time, I think this makes a lot of sense. I think of this basically as starting to level the playing field. My general understanding is, especially for newer businesses that don't have a long history of contracting with municipalities, it's really... you know, there is a major, major, major advantage to companies that have been doing this for a long time and kind of have the existing kind of flywheel going on these permitting and taking action like this really will kind of help smaller businesses that have historically kind of been locked out from the process. So I'm glad that this is before us. I want to thank all the staff that worked on this and I look forward to hearing from colleagues.

Agreed. Thank you, Councilor Ewen-Campen. Councilor Mbah, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chairman Scott. Can you hear me okay? We got you. Amazing. Director Allen, good to see you. And thank you for your work, as always. You know, it's, I guess, the thing I want to clarify here, it's, I mean, not necessarily clarify, because I think I understand, like, the state process. which actually has three-level classification. And I also concur with Ben, my counselor from Ward 3, that this is a way to open up the process for disadvantaged folks. I guess just a little bit of clarification question that I have is, Like, do we know how many businesses in Somerville are already registered, you know, in this system?

Through the chair, I want to make sure I understand your question, Councilor Mbah. You're asking are there vendors already registered, meaning do they already work with the city that already have city contracts? Is that your question?

Yes, please.

Yes. Yes. We, through the chair to you, We have a number of certified businesses that already do business with the city of Somerville. They would be included in this process and we hope to engage more who may not currently be bidding on our contracts as well.

Okay, thank you, Director. And so what is the relationship, you know, between the state registration process to our existing program of promoting small and minority-owned businesses?

Through the chair to you, I'm going to repeat the question to make sure I'm addressing your question. So the question sounds like it's how would this change the existing procurement process we have already with this with certified disadvantaged businesses? Is that your question?

Yes, please.

Okay. So what it would do through the chair to you is that it would simplify the procurement process for certain contracts. It may not, it's not necessarily a fit for all contract types, but we would review with each department. Again, this is down the road, but we've already thought about how would we implement this. consult our existing vendor pool. And we have lists of certified vendors from the city of Boston and from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And we'll look and say, are there enough? Are there at least three contractors that fill potholes as one example? And then we would seek quotes only from them for that opportunity. That's one example. That would be different from the current process, which is now, what we do is if the contract is valued, let's say it's valued at $200,000, we need to advertise a bid and we still contact all those vendors. We say, hey, Somerville is looking for pothole filling companies that do this work. We need your help. Here is the forms you fill out. Please bid on this job. But they are competing with other companies that are not certified vendors. So what this home rule petition, if the city council approves it and the legislature accepts it as well, we would be able to have a marketplace for certain contracts where it makes sense for the city, where there are enough available vendors who have that certification. We would make sure that a certified vendor gets that contract. That's the difference from what we're currently do versus what the Home Rule petition would enable us to do.

Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Allen. And to you, Chair, one last question. It's like, so with the language, you know, of the Home Rule petition intends to have, you know, like, again, a simpler process that apply for contract as large as $250,000?

That's correct, through the Chair, yes. For, yes.

Okay, because that's what the OSD publications seems to say. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair.

No problem. Excellent questions, Councilman Ba. Thank you. Councilman Davis, I see you've got your hand up. Before I take a shot at it, go for it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't seem to be able to allow my camera to work today, so forgive me for the moment. I'm going to continue working on that. But in the meantime, I assure you I look like I just got back from work and frazzled. So I had a picture in your head. This sounds great. I appreciate the director's explanations and my colleagues' questions that hit most of what I wanted to ask about. I guess I just want to hit one point that the director just mentioned through you, Mr. Chair, in terms of, you know, the kind of the process and how we'll implement it. Because that's, you know, to that... Everything sounds... great that sounds logical right but if i sort of think through like where the potential pitfalls um it's kind of that like when do we decide to use this process versus not when do we what if there's more than three companies do we get to pick and choose or get to is probably not you know you know would it would we be able to pick and choose and is that the right thing to do um and so is it Is it the thinking, and do we know if the other cities who are going down this road have talked publicly about their plans in terms of, will we have a clear, set, transparent procedure for exactly how this will be implemented? I know that you just touched on that, but if there's any more detail you can provide, I'd appreciate it. If not, then we'll look forward to having that conversation if and when the petition goes forward and if it's granted.

Um, yes, through the chair to you, counselor Davis, I appreciate the question. And, um, I, I really appreciate also that, uh, counselors like yourself are thinking about implementation. How does this actually look on the ground? How it sounds great on paper. Is it going to work? Um, so my answer to this question is that, um, We've already given it some careful thought. We don't have an exact plan yet because we're not there yet. I have spoken in depth with the city of Boston who actually has a program that they've been running for a few years. And one approach I would advocate for is to do an audit of contracts that fall in that up to $250,000 category work with those departments look at existing who what vendors have done this work in the past um we don't want to displace an incumbent local vendor that has does excellent work so we might not compete every 250 000 contract under this we have to look at which vendors are on the marketplace but we're still inviting everyone to come bid on this opportunity um but that elevated increased threshold would only be available for the certified businesses. So we would need to have a process in the city that is not yet set up. It would depend on the passage of this home rule petition, but I have ideas of how to do that and how to market those opportunities further in advance and drum up interest and preparation for contractors on the marketplace who have the certifications that make them eligible for such contracts. to say, hey, Somerville is throwing me a bone. I've got this great, hey, let's go for this. Keep certain people on staff, whatever it is that enables them to compete for that contract. Something that is in the question you asked is, I believe, what would the rule for award be? How do you pick the three? So I'm gonna interpret your question this way, is how do you pick which three We could offer a contract to, we could seek quotes, I should say, not offer it. We would seek quotes from at least three certified vendors that offer the good or service that we are seeking. They have to be certified and they have to meet certain minimum requirements. We will state what those are for the given contract. And it's the one, the contractor that meets those minimum requirements that And submits the lowest price, so we still that's the rule for a word that is stated in the Statute we're not changing that so that's how we would select the word a word the contract and that is consistent with with current law what we're doing is. We are. having the marketplace for that particular contract only competed among certified disadvantaged businesses council davis you're all set yep thank you mr chair that's excellent i appreciate the response and that's all i got for now

All right, excellent. Thank you, sir. Well, thank you, Director Allen. This has been both succinct and excellent. As stated by my colleagues, I also greatly support the aim of this. And while I am customarily a little bit cautious about putting more paperwork requirements on your office, given how complicated procurement is already, um this appears to just simply be giving you a little bit more leeway to actually uh create a shorter process here so i also appreciate the amount of work that you've done contacting colleagues in boston who have been working with this process to figure out if it causes more heartache than it than it answers um i i guess i just had a couple questions you know we spoke about how there's a Certification from the Supplier Diversity Office, that's the state level Supplier Diversity Office, I think, and Boston. also has a separate process. I guess I'm curious as to how much extensive vetting is in those processes as opposed to just what we might have available, which is a history of old contracts and bids where people selected WME or some other category on their previous bids.

Um, yes, chair, uh, Scott on this question. This is a great question. You all have great questions tonight. I like it. Um, so the language I drafted and vetted, uh, with, uh, wonderful support from our city solicitor's office and IGA team, um, really mirrors very closely the language in Cambridge's home rule petition. which they based on Boston's. And there was a, so it lists exactly as you said, the supplier diversity offices certification process and the city of Boston's, both of which are quite rigorous. I believe the state's process is more rigorous and there've been anecdotal complaints about it. I personally have never had an issue with it, but I think it is quite a heavy lift to manage such a certification program. Boston has their own program, and they've been very cooperative with us in sharing their lists. It is publicly available. It needs to be easy to use, and the goal is also to incentivize vendors to get certified. Like, there needs to be something in it for them. But going back to the language in the draft home rule petition, we did have a clause in there saying that the city of Somerville could also, by virtue of our own certification, I'd like to work with this committee and our legislative policy analysts, others who know, advise on the clearest language, but to enable the city Exactly what I believe you're suggesting, Chair Counselor Scott, is what if we have a supplier come forth? We know of a supplier that is not certified by the Supplier Diversity Office, nor by the City of Boston, but we know that supplier is a veteran-owned business, for example, or a minority-owned business. Can't we offer them this opportunity? So I would like to look at that and say, well, are they certified by any agency? I think it is important that there is a body out there that has some standards, whether it's, I don't know, I'm not going to go into all those details now, but you can get certified in different states. There's the Department of Transportation at the federal level has a has had a robust supplier diversity and small business disadvantaged business program for years and every state in the United States has such a program. So we'd wanna look at what do you have? What can you furnish to us that gives us what we need? And that would be part of ironing out what the implementation looks like. We wanna lower the barriers, but we don't wanna lower the standards, if that makes sense.

Well, no, and that was where my question was going to, was just trying to understand how onerous the certification process was simply beyond that. Because obviously, you know, you receive bids all the time from folks who check the box saying veteran or WME and some kind of certification you have to do. If they're not already certified on a list, you see that checkbox and you say, OK, show me some documentation that proves that this is the case. uh or maybe maybe i'm presuming too far but um that would be what i would guess yes uh on you know on that basis especially with companies we've already done business with you know we've done the contract like you said we know they're a veteran local business or something like that uh i i would definitely be eager to allow for in the home rule petition a pathway that will allow for uh some business with that kind of track record locally that maybe has gone through all the other certification hoops to still be eligible for this. So am I understanding you correctly that that's also your intention here with that language?

That is correct.

Yes. All right. Well, okay. Sounds good. So I'm going to pause for a second here and go to some of the concerns or issues raised by our legislative policy analyst here on this. There is some concern about wording in the first sentence of section two, which frankly, I don't necessarily share the concern, but understand why it's there. In the language there at the bottom of that page saying, from not fewer than three disadvantaged businesses, Analyst Salisbury's recommendation would be moving that final clause of customarily providing the supplier service up to right after the number three there, basically saying three businesses customarily providing the supplier service that are than disadvantaged businesses, etc. I think I understand the concern there, but it's not one that I'm as fired up about. Before I go to my second point here, let me offer Analyst Salisbury, do you have a substantive reason why that change is important?

Well, Mr. Chair, through you, thank you for the opportunity. For the record, Brendan Salisbury, legislative and policy analyst. I will simply say that while there is no specific substantive reason for that, I will note that as lacking in enthusiasm for this change as you may be, that is why my job exists. This is merely a drafting issue to promote clarity and remove potential confusion.

Love clarity. All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I wanted to make sure there was nothing in the effect that I was missing for a change like that. I also wanted to go in. So there is a second point here, Annalise Salisbury, that I believe you raised, that goes to the conversation we were just having about state supplier office, supplier diversity office, or in Boston. And the concern is that if there is, that there would be a presumption that the city clerk would be responsible for any certification or administration process that would create a local certification, which isn't necessarily what I heard from Director Allen there. Could you maybe... Given the context of what we just heard from Director Allen, could you maybe help us out with what your concern or the clerk's office concern might be?

Certainly, Mr. Chair. So to clarify just a little bit, it's my understanding that we do not have a certification process that is substantively similar to the City of Boston or the Supplier Diversity Office on the state level. And so it is the... It is my recommendation that we avoid using language that purports to utilize a standard that does not exist, because historically, when questions arise about a thing that does not exist but appears to exist according to state law, The most frequent person to receive questions about that is the city clerk's office. We are sort of the one-stop shop for many issues within the city. And it is the opinion of the city clerk that she does not have the appropriate expertise or qualifications to certify businesses in this way and would not want to have that expectation be disappointed for our local businesses.

OK, I can appreciate that. The way the language is written right now, I believe, I'm sorry, let me find the language once again, as certified by Supplier Diversity Office by Boston or by virtue of certification by Somerville. So that does insinuate that they're not necessarily that one exists currently, but that one might, which I think is the room we're trying to allow here. Is that right, Director Allen, that in the future there may be a process, even if that process is simply as abbreviated as you are a supplier who has previously done business with City of Somerville as representing yourself as a WME veteran owned or other category specified, correct?

Yes, that is correct. I would like to add to you, Chair Counselor Scott, and through you to Brendan Salisbury, that I fully am open to clearer language that removes ambiguity, but still gives the city the flexibility we just discussed. One option may be to, you know, any certification that meets the standards aligned with the Commonwealth or the city of Boston, for example. But anyway, that's I wanted to add that. But yes,

Okay. Well, I appreciate that. I think I definitely would want to err on the HRP, particularly since we're pre-implementation, to err on the side of giving us more room to maneuver once the HRP is accepted and we're in the implementation phase. But that's just my opinion. I see Councilor Davis. Councilor Davis, you've got the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So first off, I, end of the day, completely agree with your final statement, which is that this is a mechanism for asking the Commonwealth to enable us to do something. And so leaving us the flexibility to do that thing is in our interest to the extent that it doesn't impact our likelihood of getting it passed. I guess at its crux, I think I'm not hearing a clear connection between what exactly we're saying here. To me, it sounds like there's two concepts. One concept is at some point in the future, we may establish and put in place and budget foreign staff or whatever is necessary, a certification process of our own. Another Another possible interpretation or path or parallel reality is that we might decide that XYZ company, even if they don't otherwise meet City of Boston or Commonwealth of Massachusetts or some other state certification, are good because they meet all the conceptual things that the others do. And we want that to just be our yes, okay. I'd be a little more concerned about that because it feels less structured and transparent and more open to... nefarious things that governments sometimes do. Hopefully never again in the future, but these things happen. So I guess I'd just like a little clarification from the director, if I could. Is the idea, when you talked about flexibility, that we might establish a transparent program or that there might be a vendor who so clearly checks the boxes that even though they don't otherwise meet any certification, we want them to be able to be one of the three?

Yes, through the chair to you, Councilor Davis, I completely appreciate the concern. I had it myself when I read Cambridge's language and prepared ours, and we've discussed this internally with our colleagues here in the city, and I'm glad to discuss it with you. So to answer your question, it is, to allow for flexibility, not be so rigid to just these two programs, because they're not the only two out there. We certainly, so anyway, we would need to define what those standards are. And I appreciate the city clerk's office saying, this could come to us, that needs to be established. We don't have that yet. We don't have the home rule petition yet. But I think, Today, if this were to go into effect tomorrow, I'd say we would want to see an official letter from the issuer that has certified you as a business in Rhode Island, New Hampshire, California, the federal government, Kentucky, wherever it may be, and what the process is, and we will accept this. It'll be a notation. I do want to leave the door open for some sort of future I don't see that being a direction we will go, but I can't speak for my colleague who isn't here from OSPCD, Luis Quixpe, who was the project manager of the disparity study, but he was very in favor of the concept of a community compact and saying that there's anecdotally in the vendor community, especially disadvantaged vendors, local certifications or local recognition of a business's status is very desirable. I firmly believe there has to be some guidance so that I'm not making a judgment call at my desk when I get a bid. There needs to be documentation furnished. So I use the language that Cambridge did. We've embedded it internally. I fully am open to edits to it that would make it clearer. I would advocate that we retain some flexibility as a city to allow disadvantaged businesses that might not be certified by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or the city of Boston also to be considered for this opportunity.

Follow up, Mr. Chair, if I could? Please. Okay, thank you. So thank you for that. I think, so what I think I'm hearing is that the intent here is that we, you know, we may well want to put something in place whereby we could then say yes to a company, but not that, you know, without otherwise having previously put a process in place, we would just be like, oh, no, these are fine. Right. And so I think that my, you know, just my sort of initial thought in terms of the concern raised by the clerk's office, I think is perfectly valid, you know, would be, and maybe to make the language a little more reflective of what you just described is, you know, but, you know, something like, you know, by virtue of a certification process that, you know, may be established by Somerville or something that, you know, that sort of acknowledges that if we take steps to say, to establish a process, right? If we take some steps to put a process in place, then that will be good. That'll be good enough as well. But not that by virtue of certification by Somerville, therefore call the clerk and ask how to get certified, right? It may still be called the clerk and find out if there is a certification process, the answer is no, we don't have one yet. So you got to go to the other ones, right? Which would be, I think that it's going to be is what it is. Does that make sense? And to my colleagues who like is, or I guess maybe to you, Mr. Salisbury, you know, Could you noodle with some words along those lines that might address that concern?

Mr. Chair, through you too, Councillor Davis, I could certainly consider that. I think, and Director Allen, please correct me if I'm wrong as well. I want to restate what you and I had talked about and also what you've stated here. I think also introducing some language regarding certification from other entities beyond the Supplier Diversity Office, the City of Boston, or the City of Somerville. I do think that we could probably replace the language of by virtue of certification by Somerville with something like by virtue of certification by another... certification by another agency with similar standards, which would, I think, still leave the door open for us in the future to become an agency that certifies using similar standards. So I do just want to throw that out there.

If I could, Councilor Davis, just a thought. Of course, of course, Mr. Chair, please. Thank you. So I get what you're getting at there, and I certainly would not want to put us in a situation where the presumption is, hey, you know, Jim and John and Joey have three companies. They're the approved companies. They're the ones we're going to go to. I think as impossible it is to legislate good behavior, I think it's also at the home rule petition state one where I'd want to be perhaps a little bit more broad It occurs to me that language here along the lines of, you know, instead of, or by virtue of certification by Somerville, it could be, or by virtue of certification by Somerville, according to regulations promulgated by the procurement, director of procurement. It could even be promulgated by director of procurement and approved by the city council. I mean, there's, There could definitely be safeguards in place so that whatever those procedures are, are things that get reviewed and approved rather than just appearing in straight, you know, becoming just a matter of past practice. So, analyst Salisbury, while you're considering language, I want to put that in there. I did have a thought as we were talking about certification by other agencies, I can certainly understand. the possibility of, say, the Federal Department of Transportation promulgating a list of disadvantaged businesses because they are owned by people who were previously convicted of trespassing at the U.S. Capitol in 2020, for example. And certainly that would not necessarily be a list that would be looking to apply here. So having there being an option of which standards we could take into consideration here, which is what's allowed in this language here is something that I'd be interested in. And again, I generally err on the side of not being overly prescriptive in terms of which certification standards can be selected at this point or which eligibility standards are, certification standards are eligible and rather go with some of that language that Analyst Salisbury was talking about saying that they, you know, or some language about standards that are found to be acceptable certifications by the director of procurement or something along those lines. So it's just my general thoughts because it sounds like what we're looking at right now is doing a little drafting between now and our next meeting and hopefully coming back with some language that satisfies everybody's concerns and then moves forward. I do see Solicitor Amara. Solicitor Amara, I'm going to recognize you just in case there's a, what do you have on your mind here?

I was just going to say, we've worked really hard and looked at different propositions and different language and a lot of time has been invested in it. And I think to your point, if language is going to be changed, we need some time to do it. But I think the goal and the point of this is to give Somerville the flexibility to create its own process for certification. And what that is down the road, I don't know. But a process for certification, which could be you're on another state. You've done business for 10 years at over $50,000. I mean, we could create whatever those standards are. And one thing I will defer to Angela on, I don't know if we would then have to get any sort of approval from anyone for our certification. But we would also, we would want to make sure that the safeguards are put in place, that it's a process, that it's not a, oh, I like this contractor because they did a good job on my yard and they gave me a good discount. No, it's going to be an objective sort of certification process. So I just wanted to say that is the goal. And if we need to go back and work on some language, we're happy to do so.

Okay. Well, I think I've heard the general concern from Councillor Davis here. Councillor Davis, do you feel like you've had your concern adequately kind of captured here so that some work can go in the background between now and our next meeting? or is it more productive?

Yeah, I mean, I appreciate all the impact. I appreciate Solicitor Mara clearly confirming what I heard from the director. Sounds like we're all very much on the same page. I fully respect and appreciate the time and effort that went into this. I think that the clerk's office has raised a concern, which my read of this language seems very valued, or by virtue of certification by Somerville, leaves a lot to the imagination and, frankly, might raise concerns on Beacon Hill, right? That we might be talking about, we like JT and Lance's construction business, and therefore we're just going to give them, you know, right? So, you know... At the risk of sort of trying to oversimplify this, like certification by a process as may be established by Somerville or something along those lines seems fairly straightforward. I don't think that changes. I think the only thing that does is clarify and narrow the meaning. I certainly would defer to the solicitor's office if there's concerns with that. My suggestion would be to make a change along those lines either tonight or Thursday and move forward unless there's some other compelling reason not to get this going.

I certainly love moving fast, Council Davis, but I think I'd rather give Analyst Salisbury and Solicitor Amara and the team a little bit of time to make sure they've got language that they all feel good about, as opposed to us necessarily trying to generate it on the fly this evening. Of course, it's always the will of the committee, but my inclination would be to take this discussion and let them run with it for a hot minute, and also allows them to compare with notes with Cambridge and Boston, who have also gotten similar language through the HRP process, in case there's anything that they felt that they got flagged through the legislative process that was a close call for them, for example.

Mr. Chair, as you wish.

God bless.

All right. Mr. Chair, please reflect in the minutes that I am here. This is Councilor Strezo.

All right. Let the minutes reflect. Councilor Strezo has arrived. Welcome, Councilor Strezo.

Why, thank you.

All right, we're about to keep this one in committee and move on. Did you have any comments or thoughts you'd like to share before we do that, Councilor Strezo?

Thank you, no, I think, right, I agree with you, Mr. Chair, on this.

All right. Okay, well then, is there anything else from the administration or any questions for clarification that we can help with before putting this back in the box for the evening? All right. Not seeing any. I once again want to thank Solicitor Amara and Director Allen for all your work in prepping this. And hopefully at our next legislative matters meeting in two weeks, we'll be able to quickly adopt some amendments to take care of everything and get this back out to the council so it can go up to the statehouse. All right. Seeing no further discussion on that item right now, let's go ahead and keep number two in committee. Thank you so much this evening. And move on to item number three. This is a home rule petition requesting approval of home rule petition to raise the maximum amount of fines for violations allowed by MGL chapter 40, section 21B. And this is another one of those that I'm very excited about this evening. Thanks to the administration for bringing this forward. Let's go ahead and put that HRP text on the screen if you wouldn't mind. And I believe, let's see, IGA or, oh, I see Mr. Zegler here this evening. Oh, are you here to present on this?

Through the chair, yes.

All right, well then please take it away.

Thank you, Chair. Good evening, everyone. My name is Colin Ziegler, Environmental Health Manager for the City of Somerville, Inspectional Services Department. I'm joined here today with my colleagues, Deputy Director Matt Zaino, as well as Environmental Health Coordinator Alicia Purvett, to present this home rule petition to committee to discuss the ability for city departments and the city itself to increase the maximum violation fines from $300, which was introduced in the 80s, which we all know inflation and the cost of things has increased substantially since then, and to catch up with our regional partners like Boston, who have passed a similar home rule petition back in 2024. Just for clarity, this home rule petition does not change the violation maximum immediately. It just gives the city and departments and the council the ability to restructure fines, how we issue them, what they're issued for, and negotiate those through the correct channels and processes. So we're here tonight to answer any questions you might have, comments, suggestions, to make edits that we can come back to you with, or what's appropriate. So looking forward to the discussion. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Manager Zegler. I will say, just as a TLDR for anybody at home, this Basically, up to now, it's been capped at $300. My reading of this is that if proved, this would allow us to raise that maximum fine to $2,000 currently, and then every five years to index that change for inflation. based on the annual percentage change of CPI. So if I've got that wrong, please feel free to flag me on it. There is one note that came up about the section, maximum fines set forth shall be adjusted for inflation. on January 1st, 2025, and on January 1st, every five years thereafter, given that we're playing pretty far past January 1st, 2025, it would seem to be, I would be inclined to just set that at January 1st, 2026, because it's not like there's an off year problem for CPI, just to allow it to start getting indexed on a first possible year after that. Does that, would that make sense to y'all? All right, I don't hear any, I don't hear anybody. All right, great. All right, then let me give the floor over as usual to colleagues. First, let's Councilor Davis and then Councilor Mbak. Councilor Davis, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Allow me to just say here, here, hallelujah, can I get an amen? if there is, of all the things that I have to explain or that I have the privilege and duty to explain to my constituents over the years, and I guess since we changed the city council and what is an alderman is no longer at the top of the list, it is why can't we do anything about blank? And oftentimes that it's, we have an ordinance, we have a law, but Effectively, there's no meaning whatsoever to the way that we can enforce our ordinances. Sometimes there's little, you know, tricks and ways that we apply it. But, you know, if... If there's ever been a bigger no-brainer from a really substantive issue, I'm not aware of it. This is obviously long overdue, and it really cuts to the city's ability to meet the expectations of our constituents, whether it's garbage disposal that goes directly to our effort to... mitigate the rat issues, whether it goes to vacant property ordinance, whether it goes to any number of other things that were hamstrung by the current status of our fine limits, noise ordinance, as another example for construction sites. I would love to have more flexibility to make it a little more meaningful to maybe dissuade future bad actors. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You're here indeed, Councillor Davis. All right, Councillor Mbah, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Councillor David, for that editorial. I think I really also am right there with you. I support that. I was also waiting to hear the good director, you know, to say this is, you know... In particular, one of the things we've heard in the past is mostly construction, because if they violate, you know, there's a violation, they can pay $300. That's nothing. They can pay even, you know, a hundred times over. So one of the things I was hoping to hear was just, you know, that this is not for small violations like, you know, traffic, parking rules, you know, littering, you know, there's like all this. So I guess which brings me to the question, like, what are the categories of violation that are the most common and which are the worst problems that a large fine will be expected to remedy?

Thank you, Counselor, for the question. Through the Chair, we haven't defined any fine structures currently. The basis of the home rule petition would just be to give us the ability to. But of course, there would be no capricious, you know, sort of application of larger fines for minor violations. The intention of this would be to issue violations for more egregious things or long-term problems without response. But each of those will have to be negotiated in the proper processes internally within departments first to the council, the public will have to weigh in, of course. This is not something that's just going to be waved around and just done willy-nilly, essentially.

Thank you, Director Ziegler. And thank you, Chair. You know, Director Ziegler, we're asking this question because you never know. You know, people use all kinds of methods to set scores, you know, with neighbors and residents that they don't like and all are not, you know, so... It is what it is. Anyway, but yes, this has been long overdue because one of the things, you know, I had a million times over is about construction. They don't care. They don't pay, you know, and the fine is very, you know, minimal for them that they don't even care. You know, so yeah, so that's like, for me, this is like, this will go, you know, it should even be, we should even double this for certain violations even. This is 2,000 even still. For me, I feel like we should even increase it, like just have a certain category and then slam them so that they don't have to, you know, when they see that, they will stop, you know, creating any violation that will hurt our neighbors and constituents that will cause every day for the same issues. So thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilman Ba. I would point out once again, this is the home rule petition stage. So this is simply allowing the city to levy fines higher than $300. All of those fines and penalties are set forth in city ordinance. So any recommended change to a penalty would have to go to the city council for approval and would be reflected in ordinance. So the... the possibilities for any kind of shenanigans are already under oversight. All right, are there any other questions from colleagues on this? All right, then just to the point that I made at the very start, which is similar to a point that was raised by by analyst Salisbury. Is there a reason why we wouldn't change this date of the first indexing to January 1st, 2026, instead of 2025, just so we don't have to wait a full four and a half years until our first indexing?

Through the chair, I don't have a problem with that. I just will note that Boston's home row petition process did take a full year to go into effect.

Oh, heck. Well, then we might want to change it out to 2027 then. All right, so given that, I would move to amend simply in the second, is that a sentence? My God, that's a heck of a sentence. In the second sentence, January 1st, 2025, to amend that to January 1st, 2027. On that motion to amend, is there any discussion from the colleagues? All right, then on that motion to amend, let's call a quick roll call.

Right on the motion. Counselor Davis.

Yes.

Yes. Counselor Strezo. Yes. Counselor Mbah.

Yes.

Counselor Ewen-Campen.

Yes.

Chair Scott.

Yes.

With that, everyone is in favor of the motion.

wonderful on the uh is there any further discussion on the home rule petition or any other concerns otherwise i'm inclined to move for approval this evening uh giving it once here i'll ask the question because why not um i wanted to ask through you mr chair to uh director ziegler um

What once and hopefully, fingers crossed that the home rule petition passes and all thumbs up. What timeline do you envision modifying the new structure of fines? And has the city considered the rollout or even conceptualize that as of yet?

Matthew Zaino, Deputy Director of Inspectional Services. We've had some internal discussions for ISD specific violations. early as to like which ones we would think are appropriate for the new fine structure um there hasn't been any um substantive discussions with other departments on enforcing um caps that they have even though isd does do a lot of enforcement um we would upon passage of the whole rule we would have you know our priority violation types that we think would be appropriate we would try come to you is probably as soon as possible. Props to Colin and Alicia for really pushing this. I mean, specifically the impetus for it was specifically rodents, but obviously keeping it broad for other violation types is definitely appropriate. But obviously the rodent specific ones would be high on our list for the first ones, but we would try to come before you for the ones that we think were priority ones as soon as practical.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, through you to Director, well, this isn't Director Zaino. Thank you.

All right, sounds good. And I'd point out that once the fine maximums are raised, I probably have a list of things that I'd like to see the fines increased on. And thanks to my role as the city councilor, I'd be able to propose those amendments as well. So everybody start building your wishlist. All right, so given that, let's go ahead. I will move for approval of the homeowner petition as amended. Is there any discussion on that motion?

seeing none let's go ahead and take a roll call all right on the item as amended counselor davis yes counselor Strezo yes cancer and bob yes counselor Ewen-Campen yes chair scott yes please all right that was everyone in favor

All right, wonderful. Thank you. That'll be recommended out for approval at our next council meeting. And thank you, of course, to Manager Zegler and Deputy Director Zaino for being here on this. Let's see here, moving on to our final substantive item on the agenda, that's item number four, requesting ordainment of an amendment to section seven and section 1-11B of the code of ordinances to require notification to tenants of parking permit restrictions in transit areas. Hopefully we can pull that up on screen as well. I'm pulling the text up myself. And I see, Oh, that's not the right one there. That's also not the right one. There we go. And I see Ms. Stegnari with us. So hello, hello. Thank you for joining us. This is a fun one, I think. So perhaps you could introduce it for us.

Yes, thank you. Through the chair, just making sure you can hear me. Of course. Thank you. So through the chair, Jackie Stegneri, project manager in the parking department. So just gonna give a little background and context on this item. Hopefully this sounds a little familiar. I believe all of the committee members were counselors in 2019 when the new zoning ordinance was passed. So part of the zoning ordinance was a restriction on eligibility for parking permits for residents of new developments within half a mile of a transit station. And I do want to note that restrict is not applied to properties that are zoned neighborhood residents or NR. And so. In addition to this being included in the zoning ordinance, a subsequent traffic regulation was passed by the traffic commission, again, enabling this restriction on parking permits for specific addresses in transit areas. and so a major component of the restriction is that prospective residents should be informed before they sign a lease or buy a unit that they would not be eligible for parking permits and the idea is that they'll have you know informed choice about their housing and you know can make an informed decision based on their individual needs you know for a car or you know if they're car free And so while the zoning ordinance language places specific conditions about advertising and disclosing this restriction to projects that apply for a discretionary or administrative permits or what we refer to as special permits, so projects that go to planning board, et cetera, there's currently no avenue for the city to enforce this regulation for projects that are by right. And so right now at the direction of our legal department, the strongest thing that we have, kind of tool that we have at our disposal right now is to send certified letters to property owners of, again, projects that are by right. and we can suggest that they notify tenants prior to signing a lease or buying a unit um but that obviously does not offer you know the guarantee that they will be informed of this restriction which is what we want to make sure is happening and so this has again created a separate kind of rules for special permit projects versus buy right projects even though both types of projects are subject to this parking restriction and so tenants regardless of if you're living in a special permit building you know a building that was built through special permit or by right again you are not eligible for parking permits and so the goal of this ordinance is to strengthen the advertisement and notification requirements for these property owners and to close the existing loophole and give us the ability to enforce this restriction for all projects equally and it'll bring it to we've included that there's a form prescribed by the parking department and so again developed uh by parking and approved by inspectional services as well um we'll make sure that the projects are using again a standardized form that has been approved by city staff so that all tenants are receiving the same language and that we make sure that you know they're all getting the same information And this was, yeah, this was a joint effort between parking, ISD, legal, IGA, and the clerk's office. So I also want to thank my colleagues in those departments for their effort on this. And yeah, with that, we're here to answer any questions that you may have.

All right. Thank you for that. So just as a summary, this is very much in accordance with the intent that went in with our original drafting and with our zoning ordinance. But this simply covers the gap for projects that are by right, which currently is predominantly urban residential projects, which are apartment buildings at four stories that would be allowed by right. But there is also, I know great interest from some of my colleagues and members of the public in making more projects available by right as opposed to through special permits. So this would also ensure that all of the communication that we've intended as a council is uniformly executed. So hopefully that's a useful summary. I want to open it up to colleagues on the committee before I go into anything else further. Any colleagues on the committee with, all right, Councilor Ewen-Campen.

Mr. Chair, I support it.

All right, Councilor Davis.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to make sure that I heard the discussion right. And maybe I just missed a detail here. But when you said we were talking about enforcement against buildings that are by right, that's enforcement of notification or enforcement of actually like not issuing parking permits.

of the notification.

Yeah, okay. That's what I thought I heard. Wanted to make sure. But you know, with or without the issue, the issue that this is trying to solve it, and I appreciate this being brought up, sounds like a perfect, perfectly good idea, is that, you know, folks, folks are entering into leases, let's say, and they're just not aware that they can't get a parking permit, they still can't get a parking permit. It's just that they didn't know that, right? That's, that's the wrinkle where we're trying to loophole we're trying to close here. I have that right? Through you, Mr. Chair?

that is correct we would like to prevent people from buying a pig in a poke as they said where i grew up very well thank you i apologize for my folksy aphorisms folks uh all right are there any questions any other questions or comments from members of the committee counselor ma yeah chairman scott what what what is the statement you just made A pig and a poke. It's an old country saying you don't buy a pig and a poke. So if somebody was going to sell you a pig, you would not want to just have it be in a bag. You would want to see it first.

Got you. Got you. Thank you.

My apologies once again. The hour seems late. Let's see here. I did see one item from our legislative and policy analyst. That was again, it looks like a drafting and clarification change according to the ordinance template. Let's see here on the, in the preamble, here, be it further ordained by the City Council that this section is hereby amended, instead of saying as follows, our analyst recommends instead is hereby amended by inserting the following. Is this another clarification and style guide issue, Analyst Salisbury?

Mr. Chair, through you, this is one that I missed, I will admit. When I was updating this template, I included that sort of Boolean and or in the first preamble but neglected to in the second and it was raised to be by the city clerk that we do not want a situation wherein somebody misinterprets this and says oh no as As drafted this ordinance actually deletes the entirety of the table and inserts just this in its place While I think that that would be a bit of an absurd interpretation it is without question that that is an interpretation that somebody could come to and so in the interest of clarifying and making making it unquestionable what our intent is here i have updated the template going forward this will not be an issue again all right well uh if only to uh ease the possibility of anyone's ajita uh i'm i'm open to uh making

that amendment here on the fly this evening. The amendment to this proposed ordinance would be in that first sentence, the preamble above section 7-2.

Mr. Chair, if I can interrupt, it's actually the second preamble before section 111B.

Oh, before 111B, my apologies. Let's see, where's the second preamble?

It is below the substance of 7-2.

There we go. There we go. There we go. It's just a little bit off the bottom of the page here. There we go. be it further ordained by the city council that section 1-11B of the code of ordinances is hereby amended, we would strike as follows there and substitute the words by inserting the following, which would have the substantive impact of ensuring that we do not simply erase the entire code of penalties and fines in the city's ordinances in order to get this wanted. So moved. So moved by Councilor Davis. On that amendment, is there any discussion? All right, I would just point out that everybody looking at this on the screen, this is one of those things where there would be $100 first offense penalty, and if our previous homeowner petition passes, I would look forward to increasing that. All right, seeing no discussion on it, let's go ahead and take a roll call on the amendment to this amendment.

All right, on the amendment. Councillor Davis.

Yes.

Councillor Strezo. Yes. Councillor Mbah. Yes, please. Councillor Ewen-Campen.

Yes.

Chair Scott.

Yes, please.

All right, that is everyone in favor of the amendment.

Awesome. Then on the ordinance as amended for recommending approval, is there any further discussion on this tonight? Otherwise, I'll tell you what, I'll go ahead and move for approval and then ask if there is any comment on the motion. All right, seeing none, let's go ahead and take a vote on the motion to approve or recommend item number four for approval.

All right, on the item as amended. Councilor Davis.

Yes.

Councilor Strezo. Yes. Councilor Mbah.

Yes.

Councilor Ewen-Campen.

Yes.

Chair Scott.

Yes, please.

All right, with that, that is everyone in favor.

All right, so that item will also be recommended out of the committee at our next council meeting, at which point it will be an ordinance amendment for the entire council to be voted on for enrollment and ordainment. So thank you very much. I believe that is all. Thank you, Manager Stagnari. Appreciate it. I appreciate all the work from city staff and colleagues tonight. That brings us to the end of our agenda in a very brisk 75 minutes and productive, might I also add. So seeing no further business before the committee this evening, I believe I see Councilor Ewen Campin moves to adjourn. On the motion to adjourn, is there any discussion? No? All right, then let's go ahead and take a roll call on the motion to adjourn, please.

On adjournment, Councilor Davis.

Yes.

Councilor Strezo. Yes. Councilor Mbah.

Yes, please.

Councilor Ewen-Campen.

Yes.

Chair Scott. Yes, please. All right, and with that, it is 7.16 p.m. and we are adjourned.

Thank you very much to, of course, once again, all city staff and support here and to my fellow legislators. Way to legislate. I will see you all very shortly. Thank you, Chair.

Thanks.