Housing and Community Development Committee

Good evening. This is the Housing and Community Development Committee. I am City Councilor at Large Kristen Strezo. Tonight is Tuesday, November 18, 2025. It is 6.32 p.m. And we are in the subcommittee room broadcasting live in Somerville City Hall and also hybrid virtually. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Act 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, it will access government channels. Madam Clerk, can you please recall the role?

Chancellor Hardt. Here. Chancellor Ewen-Campen.

Here.

Wonderful.

Thank you. Our first agenda item is an approval of the committee minutes, ID number 251224. Anyone else want to call?

On item number 25-1224, on approval of this.

June 30th, 2025. Councilor Hardt. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. That is all those in favor. Thank you. Okay, so the first item on our agenda. 240075 that the Director of Office of Housing Stability appear before the Housing and Community Development Committee to discuss the current status of residents facing displacement and the number of households seeking rental assistance. Typically, over the years in HCD, come on in wherever you feel comfortable, Director. Over the years in HCD, we've kept this as an ongoing agenda, Clayton. So we can every quarter or so check in and see what the Office of Housing Stability is seeing and experiencing and what we should plan and fund for in the months and days to come. So with that, I have... Blessing of having the Executive Director of the Office of Housing Stability, Ellen Chapter.

Thank you very much to the Chair for inviting me and to our new member of the Council and to Venue and Campen from afar. I'm really glad to be able to come here before you today just to share a little bit about what we're seeing, some of which is good news. The first thing, just in terms of volume, to let you know, the period that I looked at for this data for the most part was January 2025 to the end of September 2025. And during that time, we had 637 unique Somerville households seeking assistance sometimes households seek our assistance multiple times during the year with those unique households and about 49% or 312 of these households were at imminent risk of displacement. And out of these, 118 had already received a notice to quit or court summons for eviction.

About 41% of all our referrals reported a monthly household income below $2,000, and within this, nearly one-third reported having no income whatsoever. So that's kind of just a little look at the volume of the cases that are coming into our office. And then I'm going to talk to you a little bit about rental assistance and what we're seeing on the eviction front. So first, for rental assistance, When push comes to shove, they're all this OHS-assisted 102 unique families with obtaining rental assistance from federal, state, and city resources. This smaller amount, 42,674, was obtained through the state RAFT program. And I will just note for those who may not remember, that our rental assistance program here was really a more robust rental assistance program that was designed to kind of wrap around that state program and to fill in gaps and especially to be able to help with prospective rent

If a person looked like in some reasonable period of time they would be increasing their income or there would be some other way for them to be sustainable. So all totaled our main rental assistance programs. are administered by the Community Action Agency of Somerville, CAS, and the Somerville Homeless Coalition, and combined during this period With both OHS cases and the other cases that they had more independently, $2,593,000 and $595, sorry, in the first nine months of 2025. So this is obviously a fair amount of money and it is robust. And one of the things that I'm sure we'll be talking about in the next year to come is what are the various ways that we can sustain some of the funding for this program, even if not all.

and I will just say over the last few years we have been tightening the restrictions a little bit as we looked at not having the same kind of guaranteed revenue sources from Free Cash and from ARPA and other sources that we had had previously. and then from there just eviction data and I want to walk you through this because I'm really proud of this so um So first you can see we looked at the number overall of eviction cases. This was through the end of October, so a 10-month period instead of a 9-month period. And there were 167 eviction cases filed. And what I do want to say for those that aren't as familiar with the eviction process, A, it's always bad if a case gets filed because then you have a case in court. There's now eviction record ceiling thanks to a long effort by housing advocates so that in some cases we can get those evictions taken off. But there are many more cases filed that actually result in eviction. And I think that's an important thing to understand.

So the measure that we look at most frequently to really assess who is really getting evicted here as opposed to a case being filed. And there were 42 executions filed during this time. and in execution is the document that essentially tells the constable the judge has given you the authority to move this person's stuff. So it's the final stage of the eviction process. And what I did here was to compare What our rate of executions to the rate of executions in neighboring cities and towns and I broke it down to look at it by poverty population because obviously areas that have a more dense poverty are going to have a lot more eviction cases because about 85% of all cases are for non-payment of rent. So with that, what I really am proud of is that as you can see, Somerville has a rate of 4.1 executions per 1,000 households in poverty.

Malden is more than three times that amount. Medford is over 50% more than that. Significantly under Cambridge, not as big of a difference because they also have some pretty ample rental assistance and other anti-displacement measures. And we are about one-third of what the rate is in Waltham. From my perspective, this is evidence that the programs that we have and the investments that we make are working. We would like to see that number be zero, but that's not ever going to happen for a lot of reasons. So yeah, so that was a little bit to tell you about where we are with evictions. And I know that Yasmeen had shared that one of the things you were interested in too was what we know about the federal landscape, how that federal landscape is impacting things now. And what I will say is the single thing that is most concrete that has just happened comes within the realm of what we call CoC funding or continuum of care funding.

And this is primarily the funding that is directed and many more. Thank you. Oh God, 10, 15 years of big surge in a movement around housing first, saying that first we focus on permanent housing, then we're in a better shape to get people into treatment, mental health services, whatever else they need to stabilize. So HUD just issued its new NOFA. I think it went out about two days, which is a request for funding for the next annual allotment of its continuum of care funding. And what has been made clear is only 30% of all funding can go towards permanent housing of any kind, including the kinds of Section 8 housing vouchers that we have been using, that Somerville Homelessness has been using. to get people out of Davis Square and into housing.

And what is really scary about this, I did create this chart, I didn't create this, sorry. This came to me and I put it in this chart here to show We are in what's called the Balance of State, where it says Massachusetts Balance of State, COC, and the Homeless Coalition is the main convener for our area in that continuum of care. But If you essentially look, the funding for current, the PSH means permanent supportive housing and RRH means rapid rehousing. So those are like for security deposits, first month's rent, all of that, and the actual vouchers that keep people housed, that pay for their rent. The amount that we will be able to use for that purpose is going to go down from 27 plus million to less than 10 million. So cut by almost two thirds.

And again, they're not cutting the funding, but they are redirecting and reorienting so that the funding can really only be used for supportive services The other 70% supportive services, mental health treatment, substance abuse, etc. They also made clear that none of it can be used for homelessness prevention at this time. So the pot has really, really changed and I would just say if anybody does look at it, it's an incredibly ironic document because on the one hand it sets these goals and the goals are to get people off the streets and to make sure that there's Nobody living, but essentially it's focused on clearing encampments and forcibly putting people into treatment and then Sort of putting them away in shelter somewhere where people won't see them. That's my editorial comment on it, but that's basically what it is saying will be funded and how they intend to pursue COC going forward.

My guess is that this is going to mean that there's some population of, I know that it will mean there's some population in Somerville that have these Section 8 vouchers, and I think will yet to be seen if there will be a lawsuit or any legal challenges or what will happen or if they'll actually be yanking those subsidies away from people. And then the question is, what do we do? What do we do as a city? And again, you know, there's So many needs and ultimately only so much revenue. So having to figure out how as a city we make priorities about how we spend our housing dollars is is really challenging. So I think the only other thing that I will just add that isn't on this form because Emily, especially because this is your first meeting here is we do have, and you may have heard of this, A robust, fully municipally funded voucher program and very proud to say we're the first of its kind in the country of the way who we are funding and how we are funded.

We're tied with the public schools and for the most, there's a big priority given Thank you. Thank you. but again this is going to be something we do have funding through FY27 but we are already contracting for money through then and are going to need to be thinking very creatively and very quickly about how to how to shore up those accounts because I'll say one more thing since I said last, which some of you know, but We did have the first in-state pilot for something called the Older Adult Bridge Program, and this is a program which we were funded through Senator Jalen, we're very grateful for, at $100,000 last year.

and we did find out finally that the governor had released funds for FY27 so the FY26 so there's now $220,000 for this year so we are going to be admitting new people into the program and this really is for seniors who fixed income over 60 or older they are applying for public or subsidized housing and they have a reasonable shot within a year 18 months of getting into a unit that we will pay to keep them in their homes Collaborate around with Council on Aging and other resources to get them whatever kinds of other services they need, but then allow them to avoid homelessness and transition smoothly into that permanent affordable housing. So we're really excited to be opening that up again because When you have a program but it's fully subscribed, it's great to talk about, but it doesn't help new people who are out there needing help.

So I'm available for any questions, but that's an update.

Thank you. I'll open the floor up. Councilors, do you have any? Councilor Ewen-Campen?

Thank you, Madam Chair, and through you, thank you, Director Schachter, as always. I guess I have two questions. When we talk about these federal funding cuts Can you just help me? The numbers that we're seeing on this memo, is this like, this is done? This money is not going to be there 100%? We know that we're planning? Or is this... I work at Harvard, right? You're constantly headlines that the funding is gone. Can you just help me understand where we are in the reality of we are going to have $10 million less guaranteed next year?

And sorry, the room is muted.

Can you hear now, Councilor Ewen-Campen? So through the chair, thanks for this question. It's a good one. First, I do want to point out that these numbers here, just so you can see them, it's actually a loss of almost 20 million, but it's for the entire balance of state COC. So it's not just for Somerville, it's for the other cities and towns as well. I don't know yet, but can certainly find that out exactly what the impact is in Somerville. What did happen is that this NOFA for funding went out. It's live and applications are due in January. The only thing I can think of is if there's any litigation strategy. Thank you for joining us. President Trump and his administration have the legal authority to change the rules for funding for their NOFAs as part of their executive power.

So

I don't know if there's a litigation strategy that somebody's going to be able to think up, but at this time, because this is not dependent on a statute or a regulation or anything, it's just funding, and the funding is being targeted. differently so I do think you know there's a lot of organizing around this by national organizations and others really trying to combat this there's a lot of fear that this is There's a lot of fear that this may be in part designed to make homeless encampment situations worse in large urban Eastern and Western cities. I don't know if that's conspiratorial or not, but in any event, the note is out. The funding is changing unless there's some kind of litigation or other strategy to get HUD to turn around on it. But it doesn't have to be like with regulations where you have a common notice period and a comment period and it's suggested. This is out there.

And I will just add one other thing besides this that I didn't say the first time this is important. The other big place that we're seeing impact currently is from Section 8 funding changes. so that for the last, we met with Somerville Housing Authority in October for something called the Resident Advisory Board process. They had not given out a single Section 8, what we call regular general Section 8s. There's some like niche ones, like for veterans, for some people in DCF custody, but for just regular Section 8s, which the vast majority of folks with with vouchers use. There had been none issued in the last six months, including turnover vouchers. So as people were moving out, giving up their vouchers, they were not able to reissue them. And they also are not, do not believe they will be able to issue any in the next six months.

And part of what this impacts, it impacts obviously our ability to help people who are in need of Section 8 vouchers, but It also potentially impacts on the revenue sources that are available for affordable housing developments. So, for example, many developments that have come in want to try to rely on project-based subsidies to Be able to reach the most lowest income folks and there really are no vouchers available anywhere. Letters went out to all the landlords asking them voluntarily to not increase any rents. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has been terminated because of funding shortfall yet. And that is not anticipated immediately, but... Just means it's shut down. That's not an option or a resource available for folks going forward, which is a big loss that I didn't mention. And one other thing I'm just going to say orally, it's not in your paper here is,

Some of the really big dramatic cuts and things you may have heard about, like they're talking about time limiting public housing. So if someone goes into public housing, let's say they get there three years and then they We did see there was a memo that was an informal memo and we did see from that that it looked like these really big changes might be up to the discretion of the housing authorities. We are really hoping that that is the case because We have faith in our Somerville Housing Authority. The director there is very supportive with the advocacy community and very engaged that if it is Voluntary, even if this happens, that it may not impact us. That was the thing I was sort of the most worried about of all is what happens if they time limit public housing and

The last thing I'll mention on this, Ben, I know I went off track on your one question, but just filling you in on a few others, is that there is a movement now which may say that they may still kick out mixed immigrant households from housing if any one member of the household doesn't have their green card so that is still like a wait and see and we're kind of on Bated Breath, waiting and seeing how that plays out because that may be another situation where we're seeing people who've been housed for a long time successfully at risk. But so far that hasn't happened yet. There's just a lot of saying that it probably will. But that's what I can tell you about the federal stuff.

Madam Chair, through you, I mean, it's just sickening. I mean, there's obviously a talking point you hear a lot. They're screwing over poor people to give tax cuts to the rich. And that sounds sometimes like a... Thank you for watching! It's despicable. It's really horrifying to hear. I guess the only other thing that I'll just, I wanted to, well, I think intergovernmental affairs is there. Our warming center is opening on December 8th, the Overnight Warming Center, is that correct?

We have a chair. My name is Yasmin Radassi from IGH, for the record. Yes, that's correct.

Okay, well, I'm grateful that they have not been able to destroy that yet. And through you, Madam Chair, thank you, Director. Please, obviously, always let us know whatever we can do to help on the City Council.

Thank you very much, Councilor. Director, yes, I have to say that when I read this paragraph, just this from the memo, in addition, I'm just going to read it out loud because it's my hard time. In addition, no general section 8 are being issued by the Somerville Housing Authority. Landlords have been asked not to raise rents. There have been no terminations to due date funding cut. What are we going to do? So as you're saying that it's going to be potentially at the behest of

regional like municipal housing authorities whether or not they do that so in terms of the time limit the big changes to work requirements time limits um so far it looks like it's going to be discretionary but there has been no actual rule issued and so we don't really know this was from drafts that were released that we saw that it was hopefully going to be at the option of the housing authority. So I am just hoping that that is the case. I do know the one other thing I do know is I did, I believe it was 30 households. I did ask at one point Diane Cohen from the Housing Authority, it was close to that I'm estimating now, the number of households that had mixed immigrant status that were sort of like the most likely to

to be at risk and that yeah that number was around 30 so and what we we did yeah so that's still on hold and obviously that is a big issue and if that happens we will have to brainstorm as a community What resources we have and how we want to prioritize funds and some of it may be up to ultimately the Affordable Housing Trust Fund to make some decisions about funding that they have at their disposal. But again, we're looking to that fund for a lot of different purposes and I think you know that every single affordable housing development project right now needs so much more local match than they used to so even when we have you know what looks like a good amount of resources in the Affordable Housing Trust when there are so many competing needs and will be including my probably rental assistance and MVP program and all these other things so

But for now, I think it's critical that as there are populations really impacted that we look together and see if there's a way to help those families stay in the city. Yeah, each day is a new thing to worry about, yeah.

And with that, just to clarify, are these Section 8 voucher holders already or are they

No, so there's no new voucher holders being issued except, like I said, a few of those specialized for veterans and DCF families. So basically right now when somebody loses their voucher either because they're terminated, which are very few, but some, or they move and they don't need it anymore or they buy a house or whatever happens, they're not reissuing those vouchers. So not only aren't they issuing new vouchers and Just to be clear, over the past five years before this started, Somerville Housing Authority was aggressively giving out vouchers. So we had at our disposal, there were vouchers going to people in domestic violence shelters, there were vouchers People in office shelters, there were vouchers for prevention available. We have so many of our clients over the last five years through that resource, which is just gone. So, yeah, and I will say that, you know, part of what happened is

2 is that as rents went up, what we call payment standards, right, which is the maximum that you're allowed to pay with a Section 8 voucher, we kept pushing those up and up because tenants couldn't find housing in Somerville. So we really increased those payment standards to make our Section 8 vouchers more usable. But that also made the program a lot more expensive. And in the end, when this all came out, They were able to basically able to administer fewer vouchers than they had hoped or anticipated because of the increase in rent and payment standards. So that is also another reason why we're seeing this retrenchment is just because of the escalation of rents.

I think that we have to get really creative and really go inward of our insular and our four square miles and figure this out very hyperlocally. Director, you've been on the forefront of that. The policies and ideas you've put forward for years have always been just different and over under through to a roadblock that the state Tad, or even federally. So I do believe in us and I believe in you, but I can't see us not being like it. We have to be four square miles right now. I can't figure out any other way that we're going to get through this. And I'm This scares me, but we will figure this out, I guess. I'm so scared. I'm going to stop right now. Councilor Hardt.

Thank you. Through you, Senator DeChamper, I won't repeat that. This is really upsetting information, but could you help me understand in terms of not having your Section 8 going forward, like what percentage of our overall housing...

So I think what I want to be clear is that this doesn't take money away from anything that is currently funded for Section 8 vouchers. So there's many affordable housing developments that have project-based vouchers, many people that have mobile vouchers. So, yeah. I don't know how to answer, you know, maybe I could say that in many years, in the past like four years, before six months ago or eight months ago, you know, maybe I would estimate that there were, you know, Do you do 100 vouchers being administered per year? So it was very substantial for our client base and for who we see in the prevention world. Now, some of those people had been on wait lists for a long time, so it wasn't like they were all available to the 50 people that walked into my office. But it was a big part of meeting the need. I will say of all the Section 8s that Somerville Housing Authority does give out, only one third of those stay in the city.

and then in part is because it is so difficult to find housing here. So many are sort of forced out into other localities where rents are lower and there's higher vacancy rates. So it is substantial, but I will say that the good news really is that there's been no terminations and that ultimately is sort of the most important thing is at least not taking away what people have been counting on for so long.

With that, if there are no other questions, happy to keep this in committee and thank you very much. Thank you so much, Dr. And thank you for your time, Chairwoman and

Very, very nice to see you in person. Thank you, Councillor. And thank you, Councillor Ewen-Campen. I will see you tomorrow at the State House.

All right. Well, with that, we're going to keep this item in committee. And our next agenda item. Okay, it's a resolution 250140 by Councilor Boffin, Clingan, and Councilor Davis that the Memorialization Committee dedicate a memorial to Kenneth Lonergan. Here to speak on this item is the IGA Department, the Mayor's Office. Welcome.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I already introduced myself. So unfortunately, I don't have a significant update on this item. There's still some coordination that needs to happen with school committee members and with our memorialization committee. I've reached out to the sponsor to get a bit more information about the request. I haven't heard back yet, but happy to follow up with the sponsor when we have any subsequent updates to provide.

Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, I don't recall how this ended up in the HCD. But I was hoping that there was eventually a new year and that's fine. We can keep this in committee. And thank you very much for checking in on it. And hopefully we'll get an update later. But until then, yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. With that, we'll just keep this one in committee. Order number 243. 0070 that the Director of Parks and Recreation discuss how inclusive playground accessibility is being considered in future playground plans and redesigned projects. I'm here to speak on this item. Come on. This is Dr. Luisa Oliveira. I'm happy for you to introduce yourself. And yes, I believe there is a question on this.

Good evening. Through the chair, welcome, Councilor Hertz. My name is Louisa Oliveira, and I'm not the Director of Parks and Recreation, but I am the Director of Public Space and Urban Forestry. and we are the ones who design and manage the construction of our parks. as well as over 350 trees every year. So I did send some slides earlier today just to get a So that we are all kind of on the same page. Sometimes folks will say that our parks are not ADA. They're not in compliance with the American Disabilities Act. And that is not true, at least not for the last 15 years since I have worked here. and I know for a fact beyond that.

So the American with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990, updated in 2008 and it is a set of standards that that rules that have to be followed. It's a law for the physical layout of certain things. And we can talk about what the ADA touches in terms of public space, but it's a minimum. And I think everyone would agree that it is not enough, but it is something that The federal government has determined we have to do in order for people to be able to move through public space. I don't know who's controlling the slides, but yeah. So the types of physical things that are touched by the ADA are ramps, walkways, the...

Width of walkways has to be a minimum of 36 inches. There has to be a grade that is under 5% unless it's a ramp and then it requires... a number a number of other things there are requirements for stairs and handrails all of this there are requirements for surfaces and playgrounds to that make playgrounds accessible so and that make them Easy for a wheelchair to go on. In the case of playgrounds, there's poured in place rubber, which you have seen in many of our playgrounds. Some people love it, some people hate it. Rubber tiles, which we don't use very often, but that's also an ADA accessible surface. And engineered wood fiber, which looks like wood chips, but it's actually not wood. It's made out of an engineered wood. Fiber, or synthetic turf, which we don't use in our playgrounds.

So there's a number of different things that are considered to be ADA compliant surfaces. There is parking. To be honest, we don't really... are not very involved in that because we don't usually have parking lots or garages adjacent or in our playgrounds and then um Facilities. For example, if you have a bathroom, they have to be ADA. Drinking fountains must comply with ADA. And a number of other things that we do as well, making sure that handles are easy I just bring this background to say that I personally I get very upset when people say our parks are not ADA because we are absolute sticklers about this. The landscape architects that work for us are licensed and are held by their license to make parks ADA. We go out and check all of the grades with a smart level. They are ADA.

I promise you that the parks that have been built at least for the last 20 years are ADA. Now, what happens is that sometimes they fall out of compliance. You may have a tree root that rips through a surface. I mean we see this all over the city. So that is another issue that has to do with maintaining them. And sometimes they're not easy fixes. But I just, you know, if there are any questions about the American disabilities laws as they pertain to parks, I would love to hear them. Okay, great. So now that we got that out of the way, there are the next slide, please. There is somewhat recent, but not that recent idea, concept of inclusive play.

and inclusive play, first it was accessible play, now the word that's being used is inclusive play, is much broader than that, right? So if the ADA is the minimum, Then what we're looking towards is trying to create things where everyone of all physical abilities is able to participate in play. And we know that many disabilities are not physical. There's a large range of them, but in terms of what we can design in a playground, we are trying to create things that all children can use. And we have just recently finished, had a ribbon cutting. Can I ask for that next slide, please? With our back one, please.

with our swings where, and this was an initiative by the Somerville Commission for Persons with Disabilities and also funded by them, where we inventoried all of our swing, all of our parks, and went from having 23% that had an ADA swing to 83% of them. and we looked at each of them with a certain criteria. Where we were able to put a new swing, we put a new swing. Next slide, please. We chose a swing that has all of the safety, international and national meets all the safety requirements, has a hard yoke, but also an additional strap if a child doesn't have the muscle tone to hold themselves up or is too small and we are working now to distribute those to folks that have that need. We're happy to give them a strap.

So we'd love to hear from folks and we're trying a number of different ways to get in touch with people who may have that need. and then in addition to this, the Inclusive Swings Project, We are in the process of designing Somerville's first inclusive playground. And this playground is at the Kennedy Schoolyard. Kennedy Schoolyard has a larger percentage of children with disabilities and so we have been the project managers named John Brown and Kent he has been at every Kennedy School event for the last six months or so. Back to school night, the professional development days, harvest fair, drop off and pick up, teacher surveys, community surveys. He sent out a teacher survey, sent out a community survey.

and then we have a number of things that are community meetings that are happening two of them to really start to take all of those ideas and put a physical form to them and we invite everybody to please participate in them because like all of our schoolyards when they're out of When their school is not in session, they become a playground and a park for everyone. So there will be a September 2nd uh community meeting we have made it virtual so that more people can participate but we hope that everyone will come and we are working towards getting a set of construction documents to put the project out to bid in the winter so that we can begin Construction on this in the summer of 2026.

Pardon me, Director. I have a Kennedy School student here, and I thought this is very exciting. Yes, it is very exciting. I think it's really cool that he's watching it happen live. And I don't know, it's just amazing.

Through the chair, he is probably engaged with John because John will go out for recess and talk to the kids about their playgrounds. So, yes. Sorry to interrupt. No problem. I do want to mention that this project has not yet been funded, so we are still looking for funding, and it is in the capital improvement plan. But I also understand that's in flux in a lot of different ways. So to the question of where are we going with inclusive play, I think that we are constantly learning more about what can be done. It's sometimes difficult because some of our playgrounds are very small, so it's hard to do some of the things that require more space.

For example, with walkways, which all of them have to have, if you visit some of our newer parks, they have kind of switchbacks because 5% slope means that it goes up one foot in 20 feet. So it's quite long. So I am very confident that we do our absolute best on this front, for sure. And we would like to do better. We would like to engage more with families that have children with disabilities and to understand more and to go above and beyond the ADA law.

And on that, especially with the Kennedy School playground, I know that there are, say we have some students here that are very physical and need to play. They need to play football. They need to play to get that energy out. And although there is, it's a tight space. Has there been conversations or considerations of expanding the space past the green, the grass closer to the sidewalk? You know how it is. because I hear that there's some rumblings, I mean, this is third person, but possibly four, who knows, Some parents at Kennedy School are concerned of whether there be enough space for everything within it. So I'm just spitballing the question that

Are we really bound by the grass area or can we push out the area a little further closer to the sidewalks where there is a little more space for both? the high energy games of football or basketball and then additionally making sure that it is absolute enough space because having sure that it's inclusive is a necessity and a bottom line

can we have all the things through the chair we can't ever have all the things all the time darn it but we have been looking at expanding the playground yes and looking at different variations of changing the parking configuration and removing some parking spaces. And you can imagine that there are people who are not happy about that. Kennedy has the most parking of all of the schools and there's a lot of street parking. We are looking at different configurations and those will be shown at the December 2nd meeting about If we did this, we could have this much more space. If we did this, we could have this much more space. While also trying to listen to the teachers who, in my experience doing schoolyards in Somerville, This is the point where they get very upset.

But there is a balance here between retaining parking and increasing the schoolyard.

Is it so, although with all the things, is there a possibility of expanding the parameters of the schoolyard currently where it is to go on further and for the grass? Or is that an intentional square footage where we must abide by that?

Through the chair. No, no, no. Absolutely not. We are trying to expand it. And we may expand it beyond the grass. and we're trying to expand it beyond the grass to get the maximum that we can while eliminating minimal parking. So yes, we think it should be expanded. It's the schoolyard. It's important. Play is not only important for our President Kennedy schoolyard student, but for all children, that is their work.

Right, right. And so we can kind of have a little bit of all the things.

Through the chair, we can have some of the things some of the time and all of the things some of the time, but we cannot make everyone happy. Right.

But we try.

I think parks is one of the areas where we can make many people happy.

Thank you, Director. Colleagues, do you have any comments, questions, thoughts on this?

Yeah, so through the chair, if you can please just let any constituents know about the December 2nd meeting. We'd love to have as much participation as possible. Our outreach right now has focused mostly on the school community. because that is who the park serves. But of course, we want also to hear from the neighborhood. The Kennedy School parents have been incredibly supportive with CPA applications and other things. So we're very excited about this project.

That's wonderful, and I do want to give a wonderful compliment to the fact that, yes, I was there at the unveiling and swinging of the The Hoyt Sullivan Playground, the new swing of the inclusive swings yesterday. Yesterday, right? Yesterday. But recently, this week, it was cold and windy. And it was wonderful to see these models out. So I do want to thank you. for your work on that and the fact that they're out there. I'm honestly disappointed that, and this is not in any way to take at you, but with the sites of the new inclusive things, seeing how Trump Field is a state, owned property. I'm kind of bummed that they wouldn't like help us pay for that. We wanted to pay for it. Through the chair, Trump Field.

Oh, I'm sorry, Trump. I'm sorry. I was thinking of Foss. You're right. I think through the care.

I don't know if Foss has swings, but I know that they recently put new swings at the Dillboy property, the DCR Dillboy property. and they were the same model as this one. So we were really happy to see that. It's possible they've done that everywhere just to kind of get to safety standards.

That would be tremendous. Yes, my apologies. You're one soulful and I saw thoughts in my mind and saw trauma as the word.

We'll have to take a look. It's possible they did that.

That would be really exciting. So thank you very much for your work.

You're welcome. And also from what we hear, all children like these swings. So it's great.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, with this, I'm going to close this and mark this as complete. And our next agenda item, yes, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We have to do motion. Vincent. Order number 241008 that the Director of Economic Development discuss with this council ways to provide small businesses with Financial and Technical Support when Impacted by Construction and Other Emergencies. This was a order put forward by Councilor Kaneda-Limfeld, and I think it is, oh, we lost it. I'm pulling up a workbook.

but we're still in the meeting hopefully everything's well all right um yeah happy mercury and retrograde everyone um have a happy holiday

Happy Thanksgiving.

All right. Hey, there we are. Sorry, I don't want to put my email on public internet. All right.

Keep on rolling. Through the Chair, I was wondering if we might take up the two items since they're both related to small business together, if you're amenable to that.

I hear you, but I'd prefer not to because of the... I want to talk more about construction and other emergencies. I think that that really needs to be said on its own. I hear you, but yeah, if we can, I'd really like to focus on construction. Okay, sorry. Hi, director.

Thank you for being here. For the record, Rachel McHarris, Director of Economic Development. I'll be joined momentarily by Dana White, Director of Executive Director of Economic Development. He is wrapping up with the East Central Main Street Board Meeting. So he'll be down shortly.

Welcome. Okay. Thank you for being here. Sure, so, um, it was a third presentation, correct? Never.

I, I didn't care. Sorry, I just finished. Okay, well, no, thank you. No, no, no, uh, no issues. I was like, uh, I'm a paper gal. Sorry about that. Yeah. No, there's nothing. Yeah. Okay. Well, welcome. Glad to have you here. So, yes, I could see where the concert was going with this because

because I had more than a few conversations with small business owners when it comes to construction. When construction happens in front of a on the street or down the street sometimes or when street design is happening sometimes and I've heard Numerous times, definitely a pattern where businesses may or may not be informed with enough time. One of the worst examples I've heard was in Councilor Ewen Campen's work. in the strip of businesses on, not school, well, actually school and Summer Street were that

very very um a lot of construction was happening for months and the businesses weren't sure when they could open or not because on Mondays is when they were drilling and Tuesdays blah blah blah was happening and it was very um the the customers were coming and going the sidewalk was blocking or or was no longer a sidewalk was gravel and so it became inaccessible for anyone with any needs and that was a part of the customer base. with the hair salon, but then also this sound was so unavoidable that it impacted the business. It was indisputable and and I heard from these residents, I'm sorry, these businesses that they couldn't get ahead.

They could, they did not have, there was no communication plan. And again, this is no slight, but just, It was so hard for them to keep ahead of it. It was such a take for those months that this was happening. And it felt very... just omnipresent to them. I see Councilor Ewen-Campen's hand up and although I want the director to present, I'm happy to have you speak if you wish.

Oh, thank you, Madam Chair. No, I'm happy to hear the presentation. And then I have an even more specific ask.

Super. So construction is It can be very devastating for the small businesses. I mean, you're the director, you know this, but I do hear about it enough to know that we need to get a... A good plan to discuss what we're doing with that as well. So please, director, thank you and welcome.

Yes, the presentation I have is more on the technical assistance front, so we can hold that for a moment. On the construction side. Typically, economic development is not in the role of construction communication with the community. That really falls to the contractor, the... The engineering team with the city project and...

Perfect.

We're talking about construction. Or often what we find is there's... There's a range of construction challenges, right? So there are city projects where we have a project that's out there and our contractors are the ones causing that disruption. The engineering department is handling most of the communication with residents and businesses to all of that. Typically, it only comes to us in these moments where there's something that is there. It's getting to the point where it's a broader neighborhood issue. That's when it usually lands with us. Then we have a lot of other construction that happens. There's private construction that disrupts things. We had this conversation in the Davis Square neighborhood, and literally the next day after we were with the Davis Square merchants, a merchant could not get in their door. Searching high and low. What the heck is happening? Why can't they get to the door? It was the landlord had scheduled something and hadn't told the tenant that this utility work was going to be happening and preventing them from opening for the day.

So it is definitely an issue. It's an issue on city projects, it's an issue on Eversource projects, it's an issue when it comes to private projects. We know there's a need to do better coordination, especially when it comes to the city projects on the communication front. But because so much of that really lives with the contractor, what they're showing up for that day, what they're showing up for that week, engineering really has been the center point for those communications. So I do think we should probably schedule a second. Can we have some conversation where we're bringing engineering to this conversation as well so they can really talk you through what they do because they do try and be as proactive as possible in getting out there and giving all the information that they can. Again, They don't always have all the information from the contractor and the time that the city would like or that the community would like as well. So it's a challenge.

What we've discussed in the past is part of it is that also, you know, if we want more lead time on some of these things, we also have to structure that in our RFPs in a way that is showing that we want to invest more dollars in... Thank you for joining us. They're going to do something different for that week. So because this is such live information, it really comes down to the contractor being in a position to be able to share that in a way that we can communicate out to the constituent. It started with the early stages of the RFP and our contractor selection of getting that contractor engagement that we're looking for. So looking at current projects is a lot harder than looking at future projects.

and again I do think we should really bring engineering into a deeper conversation about what that could look like and it is definitely something on our radar we'd love to be able to work on but it's it's hard to do in the moment with a an active contractor because we don't necessarily have Thank you.

And I do want to, I'm just going to, I know you have a presentation, but, and I do want to say that Yeah, I know. It's not like, oh, just here's a wand. Go fix it. I know it is extremely complicated because, right, Eversource has their plan, and then there's the private contractors have their own separate... and etc. And then there's the city work. I get that. But I'm hoping that, yeah, in the new year that we can have a conversation, I think, bringing in engineering as well. Because, right, I hear that. And I know that that Construction work is irritating. It's irritating to residents, to business owners. So I know it is tough, but I do know that there has to be some room for streamlining. And this is not... This is not a critique, and I know, like you said, there are different departments, but maybe we can, and it's helpful to clarify that as we go with the RFPs, that's kind of exciting, because maybe we could.

Hyden the standards now without expecting more. But we can figure out a way to do that. So that we can get some esteem, raise the esteem of our small business community on it. That's at least what I hear the most from it on. But thank you for that.

Yeah, so on the technical assistance front, and I think this is where it maybe bleeds a little bit more into the second item. I don't know if it's worth, I don't know how this works.

Okay, well, yeah, so did I'm trying to remember what the second item was. No, sorry, because we're not discussing the second item yet. So this order, the fifth one. So technical support when impacted in construction of the emergencies. Kind of wanted to focus on that. Did you, aside from what you said is the, should I, Close this item and then move on to the next or?

Madam Chair, can I ask a construction question before we move on?

Okay, yeah, all right. Yes, Councillor, go ahead.

Thank you very much. Through you, I have a very specific ask that the city absolutely can directly help with. It's fortuitous that this is on tonight's agenda. There's a stretch of businesses along Bow Street. Where there's a large utility work is happening right now. This is like the block that has... Block Cafe on it, but it also has Barra, Celeste, Fuki, Siam Ginger. And what makes them relevant here is that they have outdoor dining and they paid Thank you for watching! Thank you for having me.

Thank you for watching! shocked and appalled if the mayor can't do this. So I just want to take this opportunity to just kind of on the record with a bunch of staff here to ask that that please happen. I think some of these businesses, you know, are It's not abstract, right? Like they had outdoor dining and it was taken away. We all understand the importance of the work, but there's no way that these people should be made to pay for a full season of outdoor dining. So I just wanted to make that ask tonight. I don't know who's authorized to actually do it, but if that could be communicated to the mayor's office, I would greatly appreciate it.

Well, I'm not sure I can definitely, we can definitely convey that message on. It is not economic development's decision. It would be with the licensing issue. It's with licensing and within the city clerk's office. I don't actually, and it might be with the mayor. We did have this conversation out. We did... and a larger outdoor dining conversation with the community a couple years ago. We are due to reset the outdoor dining fees in 2026. We're gearing up to start that engagement sometime early spring. One of the things that we discussed actually when we did that reset was what do we do about construction? And at the time where we had landed was if it is disrupted for, if it's known early enough to say it's definitely going to be disrupted for that period, you know the majority of the season we would not charge them the fee there is some like procedural thing that needs to be figured out around this reimbursement question.

And at the least at the time, two and a half years ago, we didn't have that mechanism available. So I will reach out to Michael Pater, who staffs the licensing. side of the clerk's office and ask what possibilities might exist at this moment. And it's definitely something we should be talking about more for the next year's round of what adjustments are we making to the fee structure.

Madam Chair, through you, thank you for that. And just what's been communicated to me is that Union Square Main Streets, they've already talked to licensing commission, city clerk's office. They've been told directly, like, it is a decision of the mayor's office. So, you know, with intergovernmental affairs here, I just wanted to kind of raise this on the record and hope that this can get done soon.

So thank you.

If I may, on the same street. So we did receive an email from a business owner on Bow Street about just the disruption to short-term parking. I know Jesse was from the engineering department, engineering team is connecting with them and we are trying to get that message out to Back to the Main Street and everyone else so that they will receive the same information. There's been a lot of disruption to short-term parking over the last week. It's a busy, busy, busy time, especially with Thanksgiving orders coming up for next week. They are hoping that it will, they are expecting that the contractor will be Pulling in some of their equipment so that the short-term parking is available for next week. So I just want to share that as well. But again, there will be more detailed information going to the business owners.

Councilor, anything further on that? Okay. Councilor Hardt, how are you doing? All right, yeah, thank you. All right, well, I'll close this agenda item. And then happy to discuss the next agenda item, the last agenda item of the night, Order 241488. The Director of Economic Development appeared before the Council's Committee on Housing and Community Development to discuss immediate plans and short-term response efforts to best support and sustain small businesses post-COVID. So, plans, plans, plans. I wrote this and I think my goal of this was, oh my gosh, the ARCA funds are drying up. What's the plan? Now that things are on the complete other side of that, how are we doing? What are we looking like?

How do we insulate our small business? and help them thrive on the other side of this.

So that's the presentation now. A lot of sense to this item. And because it gets into our technical assistance, right?

All right, so we can go ahead to the next one, I think.

In general, sorry, 2020 to 2024 was a very unique time. We had a huge peak in funding that cities were allowed to spend on direct business support in a way that we never were before and may never again. So do you want to just sort of like put that in a frame of this was a really unique opportunity and we leapt at it to be able to help stabilize our businesses during COVID and help them with recovery? Before 2020. City governments were really only allowed to spend CDBG dollars and grants as direct-to-business supports.

If I may, Director, we have an absolute new counselor. Could you possibly...

Absolutely. Explain those acronyms. You got it. So CDBG is the Community Development Block Grant. It's a federal program coming out of HUD. Same programs that support affordable housing and... You could use federal dollars to invest directly in businesses, but the anti-aid amendment in Massachusetts means that you cannot spend municipal dollars directly to support a business. That's a tricky layer to our economic development work. that were constantly trying to find the gray edges. During COVID, there was a little bit of a relaxation Understanding that this is a major economic crisis, huge disruption to everything. We allocated at the city $5 million that we spent on direct business support to stabilize our business community here.

We then also invested $2.3 million in ARPA funding to support businesses. So all that ARPA money, that 2.3, that all went out the door in 2024. So we see this 2020 to 2023 where you gave out little bits of money at a time, a lot of stability money, a lot of money to support outdoor dining and the transition Our restaurant community out to the outside. And then in 2024, we had this massive influx of cash going out to the businesses to one, support folks who are opening brand new businesses in this wild and crazy era. We had 30 awards to new businesses who are opening. That was a rent support, helped a lot of small businesses get started and sort of get their sea legs started. and then we also spent 1.8 on business enrichment grants to 60 existing businesses.

That was in the form of technical support and cash for equipment. Now we're back really to that normal That old normal, right? We're back to the normal place of we can only spend CDBG funding and grants. If you go to the next, Dana will walk you through where we are in the new, what we've been doing this year.

So as Rachel mentioned earlier, welcome. It's good to meet you. My name is Dana Whiteside. I'm Deputy Director of Economic Development. Good to meet you. Congratulations on your new role.

Thank you.

So happy to help explain, as Rachel mentioned, amplifying the fact that with 24-8 to 2025, we're in what I would call our new normal. And One thing that I'll reference is, number one, our use of the Community Development Block Grant to support businesses and to provide particularly The help of technical assistance, help with operational considerations, and also focus on business retention, making sure that businesses have what they need to stay in place. The primary venues through which the CDBG block grant funds are through our Main Streets. So we've got East Somerville Main Streets District as well as the Union Square Main Streets District. Those are the primary vehicles through which...

we do they are what I like to what I'd like to describe as the two critical forms through which Those funds can be given. I'm literally just coming from the East Somerville Main Street Sporting. Just before this ends, my apologies for that. Really useful opportunity to sort of talk through how resources can be utilized and how we can make sure that the staff of those particular districts have what they need to sort of give the businesses that kind of support so that is one of our one of the pieces of our new normal if you wouldn't mind going to the next slide I'll describe the next component of In addition to providing those funding sources, given the fact that The ARC funding is gone. One thing I will mention that we also, it's not articulated on the slide necessarily, we are thinking about what are some new sources.

entities like Mass Development, entities like Metropolitan Area Planning Council that look at ways to provide opportunities so that we're not only thinking about ARPA being done or CDBG being limited but also where are some opportunities that's a long-range game in the midst of that we're also doing a fair amount of what our practice really is in economic development is to and really focusing on what we like to call the principal touch and through means of interaction and communication that make it easy for them to sort of peel back the layers of consideration around policies and practices and how best to access information. So one tool for that is our small business office hours.

They are weekly opportunities that are convened by us, hosted by us, which bring together economic development staff, but also more importantly, licensing. Engineering, ISD Health, ISD Building, and other staff. What we like to call ourselves in many ways is we are the conveners. While we're not the regulators or the decision makers, Thank you for joining us. have their questions answered in a non-pressurized format and really get access to the great help that's needed. And we found it to be incredibly successful. The slides articulate some of the statistics. The three to five attendees usually. And the result is, again, that opportunity to really have that personal touch and opportunity to have questions answered.

The next slide goes to another aspect of what we try to do as well. In addition to having those, I should say those small business offices are via Zoom, they're virtual. In the context of that, we also have utilized language services. to those folks who English is not a first language. The other part of meeting people where they are, meeting businesses where they are, is through small business block blocking. We do that in conjunction with We were talking earlier about construction and considerations like that. Many times there are other departments that are doing work in the districts like our mobility department on transportation issues. So it's not uncommon for us to do block blocking. in conjunction with our mobility department. So if there's issues on parking, issues on mobility projects, our small business team as well as the mobility team will go and meet those businesses and talk through the issues that they might have. What we've found is that

The rapport that our team is able to build with owners there has been incredibly impactful. because it's providing answers to questions, providing access to resources and making sort of demystifying what it means to sort of be able to do business here. And we found that that's incredibly useful. It's not money. But it is access. It is information. And I think the other thing that I would probably say is education. And many times it's that ability to provide people with the input and information that they need to make their business successful. I think there's one more piece of information on the next slide that is probably going to a yearly success on Ridgewood, so I would probably tag team on this one. We mentioned earlier about looking for new funding structures.

We were able to, this year, access through the Commonwealth's Executive Office of Economic Development, the Urban Agenda Grant, which allows for the municipality to partner and utilize $100,000, which doesn't sound like a lot of money, but it was quite a bit. And as the statistics show here on the slide, Dr. Rachel, provide education, provide information on some important certification, and also provide one particular constituency-based, i.e., home-based daycare. which is huge in this neighborhood.

making certain that those individuals and those that those forms of small business could could thrive and have really the opportunity yes the home-based child care was really the one of the focal groups that we were targeting with this program

We were able to do a small amount of stipends and the stipends we targeted to that constituency. Our goal was to get as many as possible into these training opportunities. There's already a group convened through Summer Promise to help them sort of learn about latest information about, you know, Teaching methodologies and what it's like to run a child care center and really help bolster their ability to do the job. Our end of it is how can we support them in the business side of it? So things like the certifications on... The food safety was the main one, right? So getting that food safety training out there. We already offered food safety training actually not in English in this round. We only offered food safety training in Spanish and Portuguese. There definitely is an appetite out there for food safety training in English, not only for these home-based providers, but also all of our cottage industry folks who are doing big goods in their house and selling food.

as well as actually most of that you do need at least two people on staff at all food service businesses to be food safety trained so there's always somebody on site with that training so that's all the allergen training right so That is a service that we definitely saw through this program could be bolstered to put on more programming around food safety training. But one of the things I think that's also really helpful here for where we could go next is to think about it as more training with pharma. Because that is something that will probably pass muster with anti-AID. We can probably put on, you know, thinking about funding for next year, be thinking about programs that are Group-based and all businesses can apply and participate. It's not the same as that direct aid. That direct aid is really where we were limited in the 2020 to 2024 range. But now our future is probably going to look more like that.

A tricky layer on this grant speaking. A lot of what we, the grants that had existed, again, they were pulling from ARPA funding. So we are seeing a contracting in the small business sphere for grants as well. We are also seeing more of these grants shift to have a focal point of not the municipal government, but nonprofits directly. Nonprofits being where the training is happening and who's putting on those programs. The Urban Agenda Grant actually no longer exists. It has been rechristened. Community Workforce something, I think we're getting the exact wording, but also municipalities are no longer eligible. Under the new standard of it, it is only going to nonprofits. Again, we're working really closely with our Main Street partners. We're working closely with the Chamber, making sure that as we find grants that are not applicable to us, but may be applicable to them, that they're able to apply.

And I would say to Rachel's point, one of the things that has made us as successful as we were during the times of ARPA and COVID, but also as part of our success now in the post-ARPA world, Being able to connect with Main Streets, being able to connect with the Chamber, being able to connect with those nonprofits that do that service orientation, I used the term convener earlier, really is a principle of ours that we really hold to. because we become the trusted advisors, if you will, who can bring parties to the table and enable our work with our colleagues at the state to channel funds where appropriate to those partners. And in many cases, what we'll likely find in the next are already co-applicant with those various nonprofits. And that's a really good model to enable us in some ways to get out of the business of having to administer funds and more in the business of educating people.

Because I think with that education, I think our impact as a team is multiple.

And I think one of the other things to highlight since we're talking about the home-based child care. The Summer Promise team, again, they've already been doing a lot of convening with those particular businesses. They received a grant from the Jobs Corporation Retention Trust to extend their work on that and continue doing a lot of that education and building and certification work. with the specific targeted population. Again, childcare being foundational to all economic activity in our community. Everybody needs it before they can do the next thing. We're really trying to make sure that that is foundational to our support.

One final piece on the education part that I'll mention that is important. With these really successful workshops that we held that were in different languages, et cetera, they're also on video. topics, bringing technical expertise, having it in a digital library of sorts so that if a person can't make it, we can point them to our websites, et cetera, to anyone who has access for a long period of time.

And that video library is currently on YouTube, on the city's YouTube channel. So if you all have your own social medias, et cetera, that you want to be able to share out to constituents, I'd be happy to pass that on. Some of them were in person, some in Spanish, some in English, but they all were recorded. Portuguese too, we had all of those. If we could go to the next, do you also want to focus on a couple of sort of latest and greatest efforts? These are things that have really been launching in the last month. Even three weeks. First one, I know, Councilor, you have been pushing us towards how do we do some media?

We thought you'd like this one.

This idea has really blossomed out of a conversation with a couple of businesses in Davis Square. A couple of businesses in Davis Square have really said, hey, we want to change the narrative. If you Google Davis Square today, it is not the same as if you Googled Davis Square 10 years ago. and that is that there is a negative media circus that is, you know, we're in the middle of that vortex and we really want to shift that narrative. And so we've been working very closely with the communications team here at the city to develop a broader, what we can do as a City of Hawaii effort that can then amplify any messages that the Davis Square folks are putting out, East Somerville, Union Square, Maboon, anybody will amplify in this event. And so what we've got is a campaign that we're launching called Be Loyal to Local This Winter, Love Your Small Businesses. Again, this is building off of our Loyal to Local campaigns that we've run before. We ran a big Loyal to Local campaign when the bridges were out in Ball Square.

We printed Loyal to Local bags in 2019 that we've been using at every Civic Day and other event for a while. It's like, can you tell us about some small businesses you love here? We'll give you a Loyal to Local bag. So this is a coordinated effort that the communications team is going to be leading on our social media channels, in our print media, in our press releases, and in the physical world. So wraps on the... Big Billings. Looking at the, we're trying to figure out if we can pull off quickly enough on the blue bike. So we're trying to put out a really big series of messages on all channels that says stay loyal to your local businesses throughout the winter season. We are going beyond Small Business Saturday. Our goal is to start some of these messages going out for Small Business Saturday and extend it all the way through February. Businesses hurt in January and February.

So our goal here is really to tell folks, what can you be doing to support your local businesses throughout this season? If you go to the next one, I wanted to highlight a couple of important things. First are these key dates. So small business Saturday, Saturday after Thanksgiving, coming up in just a couple weeks. The Davis Square Merchants, we've been working with the Davis Square Merchants for a year plus on a monthly basis. and they have put together the data square holiday date. So huge kudos to their self-organizing effort. They don't have main streets, but they are pulling it all together. The merchants themselves without a staff of supporting them. So that's going to be on the sixth. So send folks out to Davis Square to shop. I think some folks in Teal Square and up Holland are also participating. Union Square Jingle is on the 7th. So Union Square Main Street was organizing the Union Square Jingle.

So again, head out to State of the Union on the 7th, and then Eat Out on East is an every Wednesday promotional activity that the east side of the street is really trying to coordinate. Spend your Wednesday out, go out to eat on East Broadway on Wednesday night. So we're going to be highlighting those key dates throughout this next month as hosts get up to. The other messages that we're going to be putting out on social media and in these places are, why should you shop local? What does it matter? It matters a ton. So we've got a lot of different messages around, you know, why are the different reasons that you should invest your dollars locally in your community? That doesn't necessarily get everybody to shop locally. Some people are gonna respond to that, some people are not. So we also have a few other things that we're gonna be targeting. One is a way to support your local businesses that don't cost a penny. So things like leading a five-star review, not leading a one-star review. Please tell, complain, complain quietly, like share successes loudly.

So we want to share, like give those tips. To folks, you know, maybe you might want to change from your Bank of America bank to a local bank here in Somerville, even if you are moving from somewhere else. All those kinds of messages are what we want to put out there. The last thing that we're going to do, and this is really going to be on social media, is Some questions that are going to encourage business discovery. Again, we are limited by anti-aid in doing a business promotion of a specific business, but we can highlight our districts, we can highlight And we can have some nice opening props. We have a super sharp communications student who was working with us off of the summer who put together a lot of good social media content and we're going to be building off of that. And one of the things that we're doing is a whole series of these question campaigns. Do you think you know the oldest business in Somerville? Do you have, like, what's your favorite new client deal? What's your favorite student deal? Where do you get your haircut? Like, getting people to help each other discover things.

We have a specific at Somerville Businesses Instagram page. This is what that is for. That has really been the shift that we made. As part of the ARPA programs for small businesses, we did a professional campaign around shopping locally. And that is going to, we've sort of like morphing that and using the same color themes, the same like content, but turning it, using that really to reach an audience that wants to shop local. and amplify our local businesses. So that is what that we're going to be using that for. And we are going to also have that on the summer. You'll see it on the Somerville citywide social media as well because that's such a larger reach. This is going to be a big coordinated effort for the next three months. It's really exciting.

Okay, can I talk? This is so exciting.

Okay. Thank you. This is thank you. And by the way, I So we see the emojis. No, I appreciate all the work you're doing, of course. And just a couple of thoughts. Also, I love the loyal to local view. Would you consider, I know that we have the Christmas tree lighting and we have the menorah lighting happening as well. Would you consider having a presence or at least a flyer or something on the tables? It's hard at the Menorah Lighting because it's dark and cold, always cold, but very important.

and although you know Hanukkah is not about gift giving we're just kind of trying to have our children catch up to you know Santa's big haul but there is still purchasing for Hanukkah so Just an idea for that wraparound special and with the Christmas... Tree Lining as well. Just a thought. I know, I know. It's about the spirit of the season. Of course, that's vitally important. But also, it's on our parents' minds. Just a thought. If I can actually respond.

Yeah, absolutely. There is one thing that we've been, we're also working on that's more of a physical flyer that will work well for that. We're trying to put together a calendar. We're still waiting to pay just November, December calendar, like December Founder Orphans of all three months. But the idea is to have a flyer that's like a thing you could do every day to support your local businesses. So that would be the perfect thing that we could bring.

That's awesome. Yeah. And just I know that I don't. I think we talked about this maybe a couple years ago or someone said it or we said it or someone said it. The concept of the reward-based consumer driving activity is a punch card or an app or something that... purchased 10 items at a local business somewhere in Somerville and get, I don't know, something. I'm very reward-based at times, so I could see that being useful. And then for the 10th purchase or whatever, they can get a tote bag or a little toy or whatever.

We are thinking about this in this campaign. So the first one is the Davis-Fort Holladayt. The Days for a Holiday is going to be a raffle, so you make a purchase at one of the participating businesses, they'll give you a raffle ticket, and you'll be able to enter to win a prize of a thing like GiveCards, and things from local businesses in Davisburg. So they are definitely on that train. With the broader campaign, we're trying to figure out how we would structure it better, because so much of this is social media-based, but we are looking at... We still haven't figured out how, we haven't pulled off the venue yet, but if we can, if there's still space available, the community tabling events, We're going to see if we can get a table for one Saturday. It's certainly late in this campaign. They aren't already taken, which is possible because we're so late at this. to actually have a physical presence where we can have flyers and then also be like, hey, have you engaged with our campaign? If you've done a couple things, snag a tote bag, snag a sticker.

We've got some cool stickers of different neighborhood names and business street names that people might be able to snag on their link to the campaign color thing.

Neat. And the business, do you think of the oldest in Somerville? I don't know, but I know that Lindell's has to be up there. We have a shockingly large number of businesses that you probably would never interact with that are over 50 years old. And funeral homes, right? Doherty? I actually don't know that we know the oldest yet.

One of the things that's been considered as a

is whether you know what we can't promote a business Thank you for watching!

So we're putting together that proposal. That's something probably for our next year timeline of how it would be structured. Is it a declaration of the city council, of the mayor? Is there a plaque? We're still putting that together. And then how are we tracking so that when someone goes from their five-year milestone to their 10-year milestone, it's like seamless. Love that.

Love that. That's great. And I'd love to be involved in one of that in the city council too. That's a great idea. This is really exciting. I don't know if I forgot.

Anyway, we do have a couple more slides too on one other thing that's not related to marketing. Right. So the last thing is, again, this is sort of live and like really early stages, but wanting to give you sort of a preview of what's coming. Again, this is in our budget goal, so this won't be This isn't new, but we are really at the point of starting. So we are launching a really like a city process review for how small businesses engage with us. And that's really around licensing and permitting. and all the things that they need to be able to exist as a business and their interactions with the city. and so we're starting on the internal front we definitely will be doing engagement with all of you on the city council as well as with the business community in the course of the next year but we're really at the very early stages

of engaging with all the internal departments who have say and sway over how business operates. And what we're looking for really are where does miscommunication happen? Is there a process change that would make that easier? And is there an educational or informational moment that could be found to, again, have the business show up prepared? Ready and also make it easy for the department that's reviewing whatever the thing is to be able to give them a quick answer. A lot of this ultimately comes down to miscommunications is usually what we find is miscommunication between the business owner and and their contractor, and the city. Usually there are three, maybe four party situations and somebody missed an email.

is typically how delayed happens and we're trying to find where those places are and figure out if there's anything that can be done whether that is on the system side, a policy side, or simply a like Personal Touch side that would make it possible to reduce that. But that's something we're really, again, like as of two weeks ago, have kicked off and are really starting to get into. We're expecting this is an ongoing process that's We will probably never be done with making it better, but we want to really focus on this for the next year and getting our teams all aligned on this. This is something you'll see in the economic development budget goals, you'll see it in the PPZ budget goals, the licensing budget goals, the clerk's office. There's a lot of alignment of departments who are trying to really look at how does that engagement look and are there things that could be fixed.

I do want to highlight one that's been really impactful so far, and this is a collaboration that we are really not a part of, but we get to shout it from the rooftops for them, and that is that licensing city clerks and ISD have made some important changes to the citizen's reform. So if you looked at Citizen Surf a month ago, you would have seen, like, You have to scroll by, I don't know, a foot of text before you got to anything you could click on. They have made that a lot cleaner, a lot simpler, a lot easier to follow. So that landing page for CitizenServe is much better than it was a few weeks ago. Really quiet change, really important change. Another one is the license renewal process. License renewals happen in November, December because they go into effect for the calendar year. The license renewal process this year has had some seriously important improvements. This is the first time you can do your license renewal and pay for it without a check and having to walk in the city hall. A huge time savings for every business that encounters a license.

The other thing is that you can do the application for the alcohol license and the inspection for the alcohol license at the same time. So you don't have to do those in sequential order. It saves a ton of time. So this has been a really big impactful change. There's a lot of folks who are involved in this major team effort, again, licensing city clerks, IST, but also IT. All of our systems folks who've been really working in the background, the Treasury Department who accept those checks. There's a ton of folks who've been involved in making that work. Again, where we can highlight those moments through this process is that we are making incremental change. It is going to get a little easier. They've seen, especially with the application happening all online, for folks who don't have a lot of time, it's making a big difference. A lot of reduced missed paperwork. in the process. So that's ultimately our goal is find those places where the paper exchange isn't happening and make it a little bit smoother.

That's all I have to say.

That's our post-COVID approach. That is wonderful. Colleagues, do you have any thoughts, comments, questions?

Yes, through you, Madam Chair. Super helpful and very informative. Thank you. And so much exciting stuff going on. I was wondering about the Davis Square holiday and if Teal Square was going to be involved. So it's great to hear that there is some of that. Prior to that, you had mentioned that the Union Square Main Streets and the East Somerville Main Streets were the way that the... The money was going out. So in parts of the city like West Somerville where we don't have an organization like that, does that mean that they're not able to access those funds?

That's a really good question. The short answer is those districts do have access. It's more indirect. So our staff, when they're doing block blocking, our staff, when they're doing the upside, Calls and emails and visits. In many ways, our staff serve as the sort of conduit that a Main Street staff person would serve. We don't want to have a situation where those districts that don't have main streets don't have access to technical assistance. Would that we could have more main streets districts?

and the rest of the district. and many other districts that don't have the designation of a Main Streets and they give the same level of service. Now, in all candor, But the concentration of activity that happens in the East Street District is going to be very different than the concentration of activity This is not a mainstream state either, but our staff deal with the threats with them fairly regularly. So what we try to do is make sure that there's a regular interaction on the part of our staff.

And this is one of the ones that we've been talking with the Davis Square Merchants at the meeting. And the Davis Square Merchants includes PJ Ryan's, Connor's, all of the regular partners there. I think they are open to the idea of collaboration with the Teal Square businesses. There's been a long-standing idea of developing some sort of organization of business owners in Davis and Teal. There's a lot of things that the Main Streets organization can do that we are not allowed to do. So things like Some of the event organizing that happens, some of these kinds of things they get to do more of. The other thing that the Main Streets organization does is some of the support that they're doing, again, are things that we are not allowed to do. They can intervene when there's a landlord tendency. We can't. They can advocate for the business working directly with the lawyer. We can point them to legal clinics, resources, but we can't serve in that way.

are phenomenal and generous with their services. They generally will go beyond the scope of their area to support somebody that's struggling. We went through this with a business on Beacon Street. who are being supported with the East Somerville Main Streets available to connect them with resources much more quickly than we could because of the limitations that we are under. There is definitely a sphere where I could see either an expansion of Main Street's organizations across the city, an expansion of the business and employment districts. Main Street used a lot of their ARPA grants. to explore what would a business improvement district look like for Union Square, but also they wanted that to be a model for other districts that would consider being a business improvement district. That might be a Davis, that might be a Brookbottom, that could be a variety of districts where assembly even where business improvement district may be a useful tool. But again, that idea of

having that like place-based organizing is there the chamber is another resource the chamber has new leadership we're really excited to be partnering with their new leadership and They're getting really in the groove of having some more technical assistance activities as well. They did an AI for your business workshop recently that was open to them. Yeah, cybersecurity.

They also, as Rich was mentioning, the Chamber, they also this past year in their Taste of Somerville included upwards of 50 new small business who had never participated before. And so that opportunity to connect where there's not main streets to connect businesses with those other organizations that have that non-profit status that can do more than we can do. The other thing I'll mention too in this business history thing is a goal of ours in the coming year to, yes, think about those districts that don't have a Main Street designation, like the Magoons, like the Teals, like the, you know, to not so much push... but to think more intentionally about how we internally interact with them in blue square or with a I'm saying just as an example so much like we're thinking about

Not so much designation, but acknowledging, okay, where are those areas where there isn't a concentration of nonprofit activity?

And so the self-organization of Davis Square over the last year or so has been really telling for us that what they're looking for is a lot of information and engagement. And typically it's not accountable. We're the convener. and we're we always have a presence and there's some questions that they have that are in our wheelhouse but they often are looking for information around hey what's the police activity going on what is going on in terms of Development activity in our neighborhood. What's happening with the mobility project in our neighborhood? And is there a space where we can convene it on a regular basis and have those conversations? So again, we're really thinking that through as a, what could it look like? Could it look differently for there to be a more standing conversation? invited conversation for all businesses in different squares. That's a shift that's going to take a long time to shift because we've got a lot of folks involved and we've got to get those businesses organizing and proliferating around the When do we do this meeting?

How do we have this meeting? All those kinds of things. So that's a growth area that we're hoping to do. And we do think that also in terms of the construction, that might be a layer, again, that we might be able to improve on.

Thank you. Councilor Ewen-Campen, do you have any regrets? All right. This is exciting. very much push this information out. Do you know when you will have the calendar or everything finalized?

I will check the communication.

Probably will, I expect it'll probably be into next week. And also we'll have some things that are ready for some of us and some things that follow more in December. We're bringing on a graphic designer, which uses the materials. that that stuff might follow. They might have a November, December look and an updated look in January, just depending on how their timeline works.

And please, you're in... Here, just even with City Hall, I don't know, I'm sure you leave things here. You know, it's just people in and out all the time. Especially with the holidays coming up, that'll increase. but it would be even great if that say for instance the punch card idea or whatever 10 visit 10 Somerville businesses and Yeah, maybe you do stop in City Hall and pick up or whatever. You know, a little Somerville buck, whatever. They don't really have a mess, Scott. Or whatever, but... I think, in my opinion, IMO, I think going into 2026, we're going to have to really just go totally full-on Somerville-centric and pull in all of us, Big old four square mile hug and get really creative.

I think that our Somerville, we know our Somerville and our values of really supporting each other. We can really... Stoke that plane in the years to come in 2026. And we're just unlocking our Somerville residents to do so. I love the guidance on this and I'm really looking forward to seeing where we go with there. We can talk more about the updates at the beginning of the spring, but exciting to hear this. Even if we go Happy Love Day and get all Valentine's Day heart-ish up in February. I mean, the sky's the limit. Let's just entice everyone to shop Somerville. So, thank you.

Pleasure.

So, with that, happy to close this item. We ran out of items. So with that, if I may, I'm allowed to move to adjourn, please. So let's adjourn. So we're completing this? We're complete.

Correct. All right. Adjournment. Councilor Hardt. Yes. Councilor Ewen-Campen.

Yes.

Chair Stutzen. Yes. All right, that is all in favor of the chairman.

Thank you. Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving and I hope you have a safe fun holiday. Thank you.