Finance Committee

Hello everyone, I am Ben Wheeler, he, him pronouns, Councilor-at-Large and Finance Committee Chair. It is 6 p.m. on the dot and I'd like to call to order the Tuesday, April 21st, 2026 meeting of the Finance Committee of the Somerville City Council. This meeting of a City Council Committee will be conducted via remote participation following Chapter 2 of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Acts of 2025. We'll post an audio-video recording and comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. We are joined by Clerk Delaney Fisher-Cassiol. Clerk, could you please call the roll to establish quorum?

Absolutely. This is roll call. Councilor Link.

Here.

Councilor Strezo. Present. Councilor Hardt. Here. Councilor Scott.

Present.

Chair Wheeler.

Here.

All right, with that we do have all members present, so we have quorum.

Thank you. We will be taking up our 19-item agenda in the order posted. As a general note, if I pronounce your name wrong or I get your title wrong or use the wrong pronouns for you, please don't hesitate to interrupt me. I want to get it right. Okay, so starting off with the minutes, ID 26-0640, approval of the April 7th, 2026 minutes. Is there any discussion of these minutes? Seeing none, that item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Item 2, ID 26-0601, a $125,000 grant for Dillboy Field Lighting. Sorry, let me read the actual text of the title. Requesting approval to accept and expend a $125,000 A dollar grant that requires a match from the Department of Energy Resources to the Office of Sustainability and Environment for light retrofitting at Dillboy Field.

We have Director of Sustainability and Environment Stephen Nutter here. Director Nutter, could you please tell us about this grant?

Hello and welcome. Good evening, finance committee and chair and vice chair. My name is Steven Nutter. I'm the director of the Office of Sustainability and Environment. and I'm here to request your approval and acceptance of $125,000 from the state, the Department of Energy's Green Communities Program. to help the cost of replacing the lighting at Dilboy Field. We originally had taken about $300,000 from the Energy Stabilization Fund earlier this year to pay for this project. and then in March we were awarded $125,000 from the state to cover that effectively reducing the cost of our

of our project to about $175,000 which reduces the payback significantly down to just over almost about a year, 1.4 years. So here's the night to ask for you to accept this grant. It will... This is one of our key projects to replace lighting around the city to reduce our operational costs, reduce our... and to help decarbonize our facilities and operations in general.

Thank you, Director. Members of the committee, do you have any comments or questions? Director Nutter, how does lighting add to decarbonization?

Well, the current lighting system there uses a pretty significant amount of energy and generates a lot of heat. You might also hear a buzzing as you're up in that area. These are LED lights, one of the latest that we have, and so they're very bright there. They're also controlled remotely, so you don't necessarily have to go to be on site to do these things, to turn them on and off and that sort of thing. And, you know, just generally it's a much lower energy cost. Thank you.

I see Councilor Scott.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one thing. I just wanted to make sure. First, I wanted to ask if you've identified and specified the lighting that's going to get procured and installed here yet.

Yeah, Chair, through you, I... We have a consultant, AECOM, who has prepared our lighting design and program. I don't believe we've actually procured them yet, but it's been specified in the documents.

All right. I just want to make sure that y'all have paid attention to the dark sky requirements and the frequency of that light. Sometimes we've had some Lights procured that were very blue that are outside of our policy. Is that something y'all reviewed as we were preparing it?

I can't tell you if it was reviewed during the process, but we did have a conversation Recently, with public space and urban forestry, talking about some of these items. I can follow up with you after the meeting with specific information if you like.

Yeah, I'd appreciate that. Just want to make sure that we're sticking by the ordinances we have on file here. So if you could just follow up with me later, I just want to make sure that what we're procuring is not going to be a mistake that we're going to be stuck with for Thank you, Councilor.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say. Any other comments or questions or concerns from committee members? Okay, seeing none, that item is placed on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Thank you, Director. Thank you. Take care. We have item 3, ID 26-0506, requesting approval to accept and expend a $30,000 gift from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. to the Public Library for Library Operations. And I believe we have Library Director Kathy Piantagini here. Director Piantagini, would you please tell us about this gift?

Sure thing. Hi, counselors. You may all know already, but each one of our existing library structures was built with Carnegie money back in the early 1900s. And out of the blue, a little bit more than a year ago, the Carnegie Foundation reached out to municipalities that still have their Carnegie buildings being used as public libraries to say hey you know in recognition of you know the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence we would like to make a gift and the gift is $10,000 per existing library so for Somerville that was three libraries and $30,000.

Wonderful news. Any questions or comments from committee members? I see Councilor Hardt.

Hi, thank you so much. And thank you. For being here tonight through the chair, I'm just curious if you could tell us a little bit more about if you have already in mind what you plan to use the money for or any priorities. Thank you.

Through you to the, to Councilor Wheeler. or through Councilor Wheeler to you. Sorry. Any way you want to put it is fine. Thank you. I don't have any immediate plans to use it. I like the idea that it's going to go into our consolidated I'm assuming it will go into our consolidated gift account and the gift is unrestricted so it could be a good opportunity to just supplement

the services that we already you know are offering thank you thank you director um are there any other questions from members of the committee Okay, seeing none, I'm very happy to lay this item on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Next one is also library related. Item 4, ID 26-0507, requesting approval to accept and expend a $300 gift from James and Linda Heisen to the Public Library for materials for the West Branch Library. Director Bianchegini, could you tell us about this gift, please?

Sure thing. So from time to time, we receive donations to the library from individuals, in this case, the Heisen family. It was a donation in recognition of a relative, Gay Heisen, who was a longtime volunteer for the Somerville Library, particularly at the West Branch, who passed away recently. And because of the check that we received from the Carnegie Foundation. So typically these checks of smaller amounts of money when they're received they automatically just get inputted and we send them off to the finance department but what I learned was that it seems Any sort of donation that's made to the library should go before the finance committee. And so that's why you're starting to see this particular donation.

So this happens a couple of times a year, particularly around the holidays. Excuse me. Where we'll get, you know, a donation in recognition of somebody's wedding or you know somebody passing or because it's like the holidays and that's what that is

Thank you so much. Unless there's any questions or comments, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Thank you, Director.

Sure thing. Thanks, everybody.

Okay, contracts and agreements. Item 5, ID 26-0512, requesting approval of a five-year extension to the lease with BWB Square LLC for Nibble Community Kitchen. Now, I believe we have, I always need to check to make sure. Yes, I think we have both. Program Coordinator Anthony Baum and ARPA Director Erica Satine-Hernandez. Coordinator Baum or Director Satine Hernandez, can you please tell us about this lease extension?

Absolutely. Thank you, committee, for the time this evening. This is a five-year lease extension for the existing Nibble Kitchen location at Boat Market. in Union Square and we are looking to extend our lease by five years essentially to continue operations and to expand our reach and our bandwidth The community kitchen, excuse me, is sort of the physical location and central hub of the overarching nibble entrepreneurship or culinary entrepreneurship program.

Thank you. And Director Cedric Hernandez, do you have anything that you wish to add about this?

Thanks through you, Chad. Tony has covered it very well and I'll leave to him and I'll be supportive where needed. Thanks.

Thank you. I see Councilor Strezo.

How's it going? Thanks a lot, Mr. Chair. Okay, so... I had reached out to the administration earlier about this. rent price proposal form and the contract and the lease signature and wanted to note that looks like from the first year to the fifth year in that the lease price has increased $8,000 from $40,000-ish the first year now to $48,600 and with that In a time where, as we've discussed in the budget conversation, what was it last week, two weeks ago, how excise taxes are down specifically for restaurants and how

Thank you so much for joining us. There is a very good intuition that this will increase. As Nibble Kitchen is a restaurant, I was really hoping to also include in the conversation office either Economic Development or OSPCD to discuss what the financial plan or what the business plan going forward with Nibble Kitchen in the years to come with an $8,000 increase from five years of rent um increase in a time where people aren't dining out as much um What is the plan to make sure that everybody's okay financially and that if as many diners aren't going out to Nibble Kitchen, what's the plan? How...

What's the forecast or what are you thinking going forward? So, yeah.

Yes, thank you for the question. Through the chair, I would push back slightly on the notion that people are not dining out as much or their revenues are down. Our program revenues derived through kitchen sales and through direct revenue are consistent over the last five years with blips, with ups and downs. But during that time we had to endure COVID, of course, and also Pretty stark moments of inflation and our program revenues mostly derived through kitchen operations have been quite consistent throughout that time. You'll see in the memo that the estimate that we will need to bring in through program revenues is $5,000 monthly. And that's not restaurant revenue, that's program revenue from the contribution of our program users. We operate on a profit sharing model. is five thousand dollars and that we have consistently over the last five years that I've been in charge of this program have consistently brought in between four thousand and forty five hundred

In program revenue per month, and that's without any specific decision making or without a clear goal in mind. So we feel quite confident that with this information, knowing exactly what it is that we need to Achieve in revenues and having a clearly stated goal that we'll be able to impact our decision making, we'll comfortably be able to increase that revenue from $4,500 monthly to around $5,000 monthly. and also noted in the memo we received a jobs creation retention trust grant in the amount of fifty thousand dollars for the next two years and we feel that with both that grant providing a cushion and for future grants that we intend to apply for we feel quite comfortable that we'll be able to derive the necessary revenues.

Through the chair, you Mr. Baum, thank you for that. I gently push back that it is not accurate that people are going out and not dining as much. We have the absolute numbers and statistics to prove that's true and even just as I've mentioned before Boston Globe article very recently that people are eating more at home they're not going out to eat at restaurants as much And yeah, there has been a lot of endurance between the pandemic when I first started serving and just, oh my gosh, what are restaurants going to do to now? And I'll make it clear that I very much... I appreciate Nibble Kitchen's presence in our city and its importance because it is important so I support this. There is no concern about that at all. I worry about with

Aboff, Just an open conversation about it and make sure that you continue to do well in the years to come. Thank you.

Thank you. And just through the chair to clarify my point, it was only reflective of Nibble's performance over the past handful of years, not the industry as a whole.

Thank you. I see Councilor Link.

Thank you, Chair. Through you, I just want to say how much I love Noble Kitchen. I'm so glad that we're able to continue this. It's... it's kind of in my neck of the woods so I get to go there regularly see all these different amazing like startup restaurants you know my Favorite being Carolicious, which has done such a great job starting in Nibble Kitchen and, you know, just expanding. And it's really great to see this. I mean, it's just, it's... It's such a great service. It's such a great engine to our restaurants. It is an amazing thing. I'm very happy to support it. Thank you.

Thank you very much I see Councilor Scott.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to point out that this is basically just a continuation exercising the option on lease that the city already has. I wanted to check in on that. Because we are at the, you know, the original contract had a three-year extension option in it. Is this just exercising that or are we tacking on extra years in the extension?

The initial lease was, as you're stating, for five years with the additional option of three years. We have been in this location for the full eight years of the first lease term. this is to sign a brand new lease for five years with three additional years as an option at the end of that five years okay okay okay uh then i just want to

So if I'm looking at the rent price proposal form, is that the piece that I'm looking at here as the new five-year agreement?

What I see on my screen is the memo submitted by the interim director, Rachel Struth.

No, I understand. There is a document attached here that says Brent Price proposal form amended.

Mm-hmm.

So that's the new agreement.

Correct.

All right. Okay. All right. So this is all right. So this new lease mirrors the original lease of the five plus three. We're creating a new five plus three based on that baseline. I'm just this is a pretty standard five percent increases here. Is it a 5% increase that we're tacking on from year eight's rent in the new renewal here?

It is a 25% increase over the previous lease and then five years annually after that.

Ah, okay. So it's a pretty big step up here. All right. Just trying to understand if we were in the... Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. All right. Well, prices go up, but this is a great program. And it is something that I think. is one of the better successes in terms of business development and actually putting folks on a path to success. Whew! 25% rent increase. I know some of my constituents can sympathize, but I'm happy to vote in favor of this, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thanks. I have a quick question about this. How do the finances work if more or less Nibble Kitchen is covering the rent with income? Is the city sort of agreeing to be effectively on the hook for this rent if necessary, but that may not actually turn out to be necessary? Or is the city paying the rent and then... Income is being sort of kept in some other account.

My understanding, and Erica may be able to jump in with more detail, my understanding is that Nibble operates its own or has its own bank account. Thank you so much. The city that is on the hook for it, so to speak, but it is nibble revenue coming in, nibble expenses going out, so there is a clear delineation between Arts Council budgeting and Arts Council expenses versus specifically for this program.

I see. And maybe that's why this is not a request for us to appropriate money for this. It's just kind of agreeing to this contract, agreeing to this agreement. And I saw a hand from director Cedine Hernandez, but then I saw it go away. Feel free to jump in.

Mr. Chair, I just would point out that any lease over three years has to be approved by the City Council. There's an ordinance that Council White passed a bunch of years ago, so this would have to come up.

Thank you.

Thank you. Through you, I think, you know, if we can ask a little bit more detail from, I'm thinking our law and procurement departments about the Um, ownership of the lease more technically, but to Anthony's point, yes, all of this is covered through revolving accounts and Not through the general fund to my knowledge, but we can follow up written afterwards.

Well, thank you both very much. Are there any other questions or comments from members of the committee? I could go for an arepa right about now. Appreciating Carolicious, appreciating Nibble, and appreciating what you do. Thanks a lot. Seeing no further discussion, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Okay, moving on to item 6, ID 26-0513, requesting approval to appropriate $46,500 from the Street Tree Stabilization Fund. For fiscal year 2026, ash tree treatments. Say that 10 times fast. And I believe we have urban forestry and landscape planner Vanessa Bukili here. Planner Bukili, am I saying your name correctly? Okay, wonderful. Well, please take it away. Tell us about this appropriation.

Great, thank you. Yes, this request is for our annual ash tree treatment. This is a biannual treatment for all healthy ash trees in the city. It's an injection of a neem oil based treatment that protects ash trees against emerald ash borer which is an invasive species that has been positively identified in Somerville as of 2018 so we are attempting to Successfully, I might say, attempting to preserve all of our healthy ash trees in the city by performing these biannual treatments. Biannual meaning every two years, not twice a year. We have received funding in the past for this treatment. Not exactly received, but used Street Tree Stabilization Fund funds for this treatment in the past. And we need it again this year. Happy to take any questions.

Thank you, director or planner. Are there any questions or comments from the councillors on the committee? Councilor Link.

Yeah, sorry, Chair. Just a quick question. I'm just curious, do we have an approximation of how many ash trees are left? We do.

We do. Through the chair, we have approximately 956 public ash trees in the city. About 750 of those are on city property and the other A couple hundred are on DCR and other state land. not all of those are healthy but most of them are we've been treating for about 10 years now anything that's healthy and reasonable in a good good enough condition in a reasonable spot to treat and the other ones are We take them out as needed, but most of them are doing really well.

Wonderful. Thank you. I see Councilor Hardt.

Thank you, Chair, and through you. I was just curious, do you know where do the funds in the Street Tree Stabilization Fund come from? Is it a specific allocation?

Great question. Through the chair, the funds for the Street Treat Stabilization Fund come from various sources. Sometimes there's A lot of it is from mitigation payments from our private tree removal ordinance. Most of the recent ones or if Street Tree is illegally removed. We will receive mitigation payment fines for that as well. Before that, I think some funds have also been transferred into the stabilization fund from other capital sources, but I can't recall offhand what those may be. Thank you.

I see Councilor Scott.

Yeah, I just wanted to echo that most of this money comes in from payments that we get from folks Let's say belatedly complying with our tree removal ordinance. So just another great feather in the cap for the advocates that fought for that way back in the day and glad to hear it. Glad that we're getting to use that money to keep protecting trees.

Great. Any other comments or questions from members of the committee? Okay, seeing none, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Thank you, Planner.

Thank you.

Okay, on to item seven, ID 26-0603, requesting approval of a transfer of $31,800 from the communications and community engagement salaries account. to the communications and community engagement professional and technical services and printing and stationery accounts for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and program signage. and I believe we have Communications Director Denise Taylor here. Director Taylor, would you please tell us about this transfer?

Sure. Through the chair to the full committee, thank you for being here. This is a request to move from personal services lag monies from that part of our budget into our OM budget. Primarily to cover two unplanned and unexpected expenses for WCAG compliance. This is the ADA compliance For all digital services that municipalities have to comply with, the original deadline was April 26th of this year on Friday. Thank you so much for joining us.

and we realized that there wasn't a plan for two of the Arts Council websites, their main website and their Art Space Moves website. For a cost of $18,800, we needed to get them into compliance. The SPD website also needed compliance help for a cost of 12,500 SPD was able to chip in 2,000 for that so we are looking to cover 10,500 of that and the final $2,500 roughly is for unplanned signage for Year of the Neighbor. and another wave of loyal to local signage which was greatly appreciated by businesses across the city and in particular in Davis Square which was where that project was The spring project was hatched.

We'd like to put up some new signage to get us through spring, summer, fall. And the total that we are requesting to move is 31,800.

Thank you, Director. Any questions or comments from members of the committee? Councilor Link.

Thank you, Chair, through you. So am I right in understanding that the Police website currently is not accessible.

So there are very detailed accessibility requirement upgrades required through this round of WCAG compliance. And no, neither the SPD site nor the Arts Council sites were compliant. I should share that because of the seriousness of this requirement coming from the DOJ that what we did is we what is the phrase you borrow from Peter to Steal from Peter to pay for Paul. I don't remember the exact phrasing. So basically we went ahead and paid for it with other monies in our budget that are going to cause us Some real pain if we are not able to move in money to cover it. But they are both in compliance now and I'm looking to restore my budget so that I can continue to pay for necessary software and services through to the end of the year.

that I will have to put on hold otherwise that would normally be renewing in the next couple of months and or taking place in the next couple of months.

So just to follow up on that, it's through the chair. I'm trying to understand, like, was... are the new requirements. It sounds like either they were extremely onerous because of the amount of money that it cost or that we just weren't accessible at all. And I'll just follow up on that so then I can shut up. And then if that's the case, how are we making sure that we're not that we're not falling into that trap again. We should be, I think especially for something where it's a public safety website, be designing with accessibility first.

Sure. So accessibility requirements were updated according to the new requirements. So it's not that the site was completely uncompliant. is that there were just so many things that didn't meet the new requirements. I wouldn't call them onerous, but your assumption, your first assumption was correct is that there was So much to do and so much of it new to get it into compliance that yeah, it was fairly expensive. And what we... WCAG is usually not updated all that frequently. So we will work to stay in compliance. One of the other things we're working on is Procuring some software that will help with creating compliance on an ongoing basis that can be applied to all of our sites. and maintaining staffing on this team is also part of that.

And then the long-term goal to move more of our microsites into the main site will also help with that so that they are not off on their own. growing out of compliance without the same attention that the main site This is really important to the full team, I would argue. It has been our most important priority for this fiscal year, and we are not going to let it slide once we get past it. The compliance, we will continue to make sure that we stay ahead of that.

Thank you, director. To the chair. Thank you, director.

And director, just to clarify the terms. So WCAG, I've never known how you say that as sort of an acronym. That's the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. and as I understand it that is it's you know one of these standards like ISO standards where there are people who are appointed to terms and they get together and they They do work and research and then they articulate some kind of set of rules that then have versions that supplant previous versions over time. Is that correct?

Yes, absolutely. And I'm not sure if we're pronouncing it correctly either, but that's how everyone I've ever heard say it says it. But I would note that the DOJ itself found that the requirements, maybe your term onerous is... Appropriate here. They found their own compliance requirements so excessive that they extended the deadline by a full year. Like I said, on Friday they announced that. and we were not going to play with this and have been really working hard to meet it so We've met it. Our sites are now in compliance. They can start going out of compliance tomorrow if something gets posted that needs to be addressed, but we've got a team in place now working on that, as I mentioned. Software coming as well. But yes, they get together, they decide the new requirements.

This time they re-evaluated and realized that it was too burdensome for most municipalities to meet the deadline.

Thank you and this recent approval that this committee made of the $100,000 if I'm remembering correctly for an outside contractor Is it your hope that that work will set us up to be in a position to sort of more flexibly address issues like this in the future?

So that funding is intended to overhaul and or update the website. I think we're all aware that this is a difficult budget year and this may not be the year for a full overhaul, but that funding will help us take care of the greatest needs on the site at a minimum in terms of updating the actual functions on the site, pathways on the site that make it possible to find information easily for users. And so that is really for website overhaul. Getting into compliance, the key thing that's going to help us stay in compliance is the software I mentioned, as well as being fully staffed. We've not been fully staffed for... Some time now, as I believe some of you are aware, and that position is posted. And we hope to start scheduling interviews next week.

Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments from members of the committee? Okay, seeing none, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Thank you, Director.

Thank you.

Okay, next items are related to the Community Preservation Act. Item 8, ID 26-0518, requesting the appropriation of $400,000 from the Community Preservation Act Fund for improvements to the Kennedy Schoolyard And it's my understanding that this also relates to the bond item that's a few items down on the agenda. Clerk, do you have an opinion of whether it makes sense to take these two up together or just deal with that one when we come to it? I know Bond is different from an appropriation, even if one is the cause of the other.

I also am not familiar enough with the content to advise on that. Okay, no problem.

Why don't we take this one out?

Okay.

Okay, great. Sorry for that. Appreciate it. And I believe that we have Community Preservation Act Manager Roberta Cameron here to speak about this appropriation. Manager Cameron, please tell us about it.

Thank you for having me. So I will talk about all of the appropriations related to the Kennedy School at once. This item, as you mentioned, the following item requesting the transfer of $228,000 to the Open Space Reserve, and as you pointed out, related to reducing the bond appropriation.

So this story is- I'm sorry to interrupt you, Director Cameron or Manager Cameron. Clerk, why don't we take those three items up? together than if manager Cameron's going to speak about them. And maybe I'll just read them in really quickly if that's necessary.

Yes, so sorry to confirm we'll take up 8, 9, and 11 together.

Correct.

Great, okay, so we will just need to read those into the record and then we can proceed.

Okay, so we will also take up item 9, ID 26-0517, requesting approval of a transfer of $228,000 from the Community Preservation Act Undesignated Fund Balance to the CPA Open Space Reserve. And we'll also take up item 11, ID 26-0519, requesting approval to reduce the borrowing authorization for the Kennedy Schoolyard renovation project. Thank you very much.

So the Community Preservation Committee, after expending all of the funds for the Applications for funding this past year saw that there was an opportunity to save some future revenue by applying The balance of what remained of the current year's revenue Kennedy Schoolyard Project and thus reduce the amount of the bond by $400,000. This is going to save approximately $30,000 of interest payments over the life of the project. and potentially make it possible to reduce the bond further next year by delaying having to start utilizing the bond right away.

So that's why they have requested the appropriation of $400,000 for the Kennedy Schoolyard. And of that, A portion is coming from the, I believe it's the undesignated fund balance and from the budgeted reserve or no, it's coming from the open space reserve. and in order to transfer it from the undesignated fund in order to spend it from the undesignated fund balance it has to be first transferred from the undesignated fund balance to the open space reserve. So that's the reason for the transfer in item nine and then the reduction of the bond in item 11.

Thank you, manager. Members of the committee, any questions or comments about this? Well, I'll just say I appreciate the Community Preservation Committee's attention to this. You know, we've discussed the Kennedy Schoolyard Project. and the the many benefits of that the ways it's going to be an especially accessible schoolyard for the many students of the Kennedy with Disabilities and that project is also going to involve some amount of stormwater mitigation so even though this is a big ticket item we're hitting We're feeding several birds with one scone as the preferred saying is. And I appreciate the CPC finding this way to ease that financial burden a bit. Thank you so much for explaining this one to me. Okay.

So about the bond. Is there any other speaker who might be present with a desire to speak about the bond? I don't see anybody from finance. Okay. Just wanted to double check that before we talk about that one. Okay, so on these three items, is there any more discussion from anybody? Alright, so for all three of these, these items are laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. and then we will go on to another Community Preservation Act related item, item 10. ID 26-0509 requesting the approval of a time only contract extension until May 31st, 2029. for the Mystic River Watershed Association, for the Community Preservation Act Fiscal Year 2023 grant for design of the Blessing of the Bay Linear Park improvements.

Manager Cameron, could you please tell us about this extension?

Yes, so the Mystic River Watershed Association has been overseeing design of the improvements to Blessing of the Bay Linear Park. Since they first received a grant in FY23 to initiate this project, now the CPC and other funders have also supported the Implementation of that project with additional funding and the extension of the design contract will enable Mystic River Watershed Association to to oversee the construction administration throughout the construction period of the project.

Thank you very much. Well, as people will know if they follow these meetings, a time-only contract extension does not involve more money. It's just saying that the existing terms Can't keep going for a longer period. This is a wonderful project, so I'm excited to hear about this. Any comments or questions from members of the committee? Okay, then seeing none, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Thank you very much, manager. I think you are free. Okay, that brings us to item 12, ID 26-0515, requesting authorization to borrow $8,284,000 in a bond and to appropriate the same amount. for the recurring fiscal year 2026 Water Main Rehabilitation Program. and I believe we have Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management, Rich Reich, here to speak about this.

Director Reich, could you please tell us about this bond?

Good evening. Thank you, Chair Wheeler, members of the Finance Committee. As the title implies, this is our annual Watermain Rehabilitation Project. By and large, our water mains are adequately sized for what we need them to do. However, they are on average 100 years old. So those pipelines need rehabilitation. This is our annual program to do that. We escalate the dollar value each year so that we can get to roughly the same linear footage every year. We've been doing that. At least for the past seven years on a risk-based algorithm, knowing the types of water mains, basically the materials that they're made out of, some fire flow tests. Knowing the kind of soil conditions that they're in. And we do move around the city doing that.

In the past, we've done Broadway in Holland. We've done the States, Pearl, Cross. This year, we are focusing on the McGrath Corridor. This is partly to get out ahead of the anticipated grounding of McGrath MassDOT program. So that we'll rehabilitate our water mains in that corridor ahead of them. We're really focusing here on water mains that need some rehabilitation. largely from sort of the Medford Highland Ave intersection near that Pony Trust down to Washington Street also with some tie-ins to Chester and Cross. As with past programs like this, it's a mix of construction types depending upon the needs of the water main. We're very often able to do a lot of it trenchlessly. We can dig some pits and rehabilitate the water main from the inside.

We do also have some locations in this contract where that's not a viable rehabilitation method and we actually have to do full dig and replacement of some of the pipes. So that's on tap for this year. The design is complete. We are ready to bid. And this appropriation and bonding request will... Thank you, Director.

Members of the committee, do you have any discussion or questions? I will just say an item like this is hard for me to know how to exercise oversight because it's such an area I know so little about, but it's such a big ticket cost. It's helpful to know this is a recurring year-to-year big-ticket cost, and I see from previous years. We've been doing this. We've been getting a lot out of this. One thing I'm always curious about when we're talking about going to bid is... To what degree are we confident that we're getting competitive bids where there isn't a situation

where one or a small number of contractors effectively have a monopoly and are able to charge us more than maybe some municipalities in other states or other parts of the state might have to pay.

That's a great question. For these types of projects, we do have a decent field of contractors that are qualified for this. For some of the bigger sewer separation projects, like the one we just finished, Spring Hill, and the one that we're anticipating bidding next year, Mross, those are bigger projects that narrow the field to larger contractors with that bonding capacity. But we are able to get some good bidders on that as well. This has a wider field of contractors that can bond for this. We've also had frankly some success in attracting more contractors. There was a point in time when Somerville was not an attractive place to work.

But with the professionalization of the engineering department, having construction liaison, having professional project managers and engineers, we've built up a reputation of being good to work with. Certainly not, you know... Anyone that would roll over, we keep the contractors to task. But, you know, it's certainly a place where contractors want to work. We've seen a fairly competitive bid environment and we always index. Our bid responses to our neighbors, Medford, mostly Cambridge, Boston, and we get good bid prices and a good field for work like this.

Thank you. In terms of how the sort of repayment of this bond works, is this a setup where repayment is made with funds that are designated from residents water bills

Correct. Yeah. So this bond will lean against the water enterprise. Water enterprise is exclusively funded by water bills. So yes, essentially the work we do here, the water bills over the next 20 years, we'll be repaying it.

Thank you. Okay, I think that's the end of the questions that I was able to muster for this. Any other thoughts by members of the committee? Okay. Seeing none, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Thank you, Director. Okay, but stick around because item 13, ID 26-0516, is requesting authorization to borrow $2 million in a bond and to appropriate the same amount for the annual fiscal year 2026 sewer system rehabilitation in McGrath Corridor. Director Raish, could you please tell us about this bond?

Thank you, Chair. So this is a similar story, but on the sewer side. The sewer system is a little bit more complicated in terms of rehabilitation and reconfiguration of the water system. With the sewer system, there are areas that we need to do sort of wholesale replacement to meet modern needs, like the Spring Hill sewer separation in the future, M-Ross sewer separation area. But there are areas where the basic size and functioning of the pipe are adequate. However, again, they're about 100 years old and are subject to failure. We've been proactively, after not doing it for decades, inspecting those sewer pipes with closed circuit television. Identifying pipes that are at risk of imminent failure and going out and repairing them. Proactively.

Again, we use a mix of trenchless rehabilitation when possible because it's much cheaper, or if the pipe is too far gone, full dig and replacement. We've been moving around the city, doing pipeline rehabilitation for the sewer, same sort of thing. We've done the... The Avenues area, we did extensive work in Ward 2. We've done sort of lower Broadway. We've done the sort of Tufts neighborhood as well. And again, in anticipation of MassDOT's grounding in McGrath, we're getting out ahead of that and rehabilitating some pipes along that corridor. This appropriation will be both for the design and construction of that. We've got the CCTV inspection records. We know what pipes we want to do and we'll hire one of our on-call inspectors.

engineers to put together a bid package based on that and turn that around fairly quickly. Because this is by means of comparison, but you can tell by a fourth of the dollar value of the water work This is more focused. It's less focused in terms of location. It sort of spots all along that McGrath Corridor. But it's a smaller number of pipes, linear footage of pipes that need to be rehabilitated. Sort of anticipating your question here. This is the same story. except on the sewer enterprise so this would be a bond repayable over 20 years and so sewer bills will pay for that debt service

Thank you. Any members of the committee have questions or comments? Just to clarify, Director Raish, you mentioned the work that we do elsewhere in the city on sewer separation to deal with these combined sewer overflows. It sounds like this work is entirely about repairing existing pipes, not introducing separated pipes.

Is that right? That is correct. About 10 years ago, we had nearly weekly pipe collapses. And so we entered on a program of inspection and rehabilitation to prevent Those sort of pipe collapses. So this is just keeping the system operational and avoiding very costly emergency repairs that are also very disruptive to the neighborhoods.

Mm-hmm. Okay, if there's no other questions or comments from members of the committee, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Thank you, Director Raish. Thanks, Masha. Good night. Okay, fire department grant and gift acceptances and transfers. Item 14, ID 26-0524, requesting approval to accept and expend A $48,866.25 grant with no new match required from the Urban Area Security Initiative to the Fire Department for the purchase of a vehicle for the Fire Department Auxiliary. and I believe we have Fire Department Chief Charles Breen here to speak. Can you hear me, Ben?

Yes.

Chief Breen, please tell us about this grant.

Thank you. Good evening, committee. This is basically, these funds were initially accepted for ASHA training by the police department. And when it came to be known that they weren't going to be able to spend all the funds, I had been in conversation with Chief Benford for a while about trying to that are the equipment for the auxiliary. Got in touch with URC to see if we could repurpose the remaining funds for the training to purchase them a van. And the URC gave us their approval to do so. So this money is going to go to purchase a brand new van for the Auxiliary Flight Department. They report to me, but they also do work for the police at crime scenes and whatnot. They do work for the DPW, Emergency Management. and I think if approved this will be the first new vehicle that they've ever had in the history of the auxiliary flight department.

They used to get in hand-me-downs and recently I had to come before you to get them to use the ambulance. And, you know, the equipment is run down. It's usually at end of life by the time they get it. So, you know, I was thankful to Chief Bentford for Maybe repurposing these funds for this purchase.

Thank you, Chief Brain. And sorry, just one point of clarification before I go to you, Councilor Scott. The conditions for this grant are from the FEMA fiscal year 2023? Correct. Agreements. Okay. Thank you very much. Councilor Scott.

You read my mind there, Mr. Chair. I just did want to point out that this is from fiscal year 23 UAC, so the terms and conditions are not the ones that we are concerned about. Yes, that's correct. Happy to hear the Auxiliary is going to get a nice new van and appreciate, I think this is a fine re-purposing of UAC money.

I'll also add it's kismet, you might say, that this item's coming after Director Raish was talking about the water repairs. Because as I understand it, that's one of the things that the auxiliary has been really useful for in the past is when there's been a water main break.

Yes, that's correct. They do a lot of pump outs.

Well, thank you very much. Any other questions or comments from members of the committee on this one? Okay, seeing none, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. And the next item is also firefighter related. Item 15, ID 26-0523, requesting approval to accept and expend a $30,380 grant with no new match required. from the Department of Fire Services to the Fire Department for Firefighter Safety Equipment. Chief Breen, could you tell us about this grant?

Yes, to the committee. We have seven new recruits that will be coming on board very soon. They'll be coming before the council for appointment, I believe, at the next meeting to be referred to committee. and this will offset costs of purchasing their fire helmets, gloves, hoods, boots, bunker coat and bunker pants.

Thank you so much, Chief. Any questions or comments from members of the committee? I'll say the one thing that comes to mind is I know that in the past there have been chemicals that have been judged to be unsafe in some firefighter gear. My guess is that now they're making it without those things, but I assume that's something that's on your radar as a question to be asking about the gear that we're buying, Chief?

Absolutely. It's on my radar. It's on the union's radar. This gear does contain some PFAS, but we're going to be... There's just one manufacturer out there right now that's come out with PFAS feed gear. And I've talked to the union president about it. We're sort of in a holding pattern to see how this stuff is going to hold up. There's also movement afoot by the state to open up some funds for departments to replace gear. So it's my hope to, you know, do a little more investigation on this new project. P-Fast Free Gear to make sure it's going to live up to what they say it's going to live up. What I don't want to do is jump into something and it falls apart in like two years.

This is not like, we're not like Quincy. Quincy's been in the news recently. This gear was not the gear that Quincy had. It was highly contaminated with PFAS. This does have some PFAS in it and we are aware of it and we are looking into at some point, all the manufacturers are going to have to go completely PFAS free. and I'm just sort of in a holding pattern to see what our manufacturer and what the other manufacturers are going to do before jumping in with one particular manufacturer. I sort of want to Play the market and see what's out there and I'll work with the union to make sure that we buy the right gear for everyone.

Thank you. I appreciate you speaking to those concerns and it's something that It's reassuring to hear that you're in communication with the union about that. I would love in the process of this to somehow... Hear from the union as well, you know, their confirmation that this is a direction that they feel like makes sense. Okay. Managers of the committee, any other questions or comments? Okay, thank you. Thank you. If no more discussion, then this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Thank you. Thanks. Okay, police department grant and gift acceptances and transfers.

Item 16, ID 26-0511, requesting approval of a transfer of $35,000 from the police department salaries account to the police department animal control salaries account for an expected deficit. and I believe we have Somerville Police Department Director of Finance and Administration Emily Wisdom here to speak about this. Director Wisdom.

Thank you so much, Chair. So we are asking to move some of our lag money from the salaries account to the animal control salaries account as We have had to, so as you know that the animal control department is only two members and one of those members had to go out on an extended leave. which caused extensive overtime that has not been previously budgeted for or has happened in this as far as I know has happened with their personnel services accounts in the past. So we usually keep a relatively small amount of overtime and a very tight salary amount in the personnel services line. to cover just those two positions and their typically anticipated amount of overtime.

However, we did have to borrow from the personnel services, the salaries line to cover the overtime That was caused by the member picking up extra shifts while the other person was out on extended leave. So that is why we are asking to transfer this money.

Thank you, Director. Members of the committee, does anyone have questions or comments about this? I'm just curious, Director Wisdom, I remember the second police K-9 that was given to Somerville at the end of last year. Is this tricky financial situation that we're in partially because of taking on this second canine?

Absolutely not. That is completely covered by the police department OM budget. Any expenses? The police department technically has three separate personnel and OM lines for the three departments. We have police, we have animal control, and we have the E911. So this is only for the animal control. That's two members. They make up a team that handle the animal control matters in Somerville. And one of the two was out on leave, personal leave. and so we basically the other one picked up shifts of overtime that depleted our account.

Thank you. I appreciate your indulging my ignorance. There's so much that I don't know. Are the kind of animal control situations we're talking about here like raccoons?

Anything where a animal control person who was the person that was off shift, they basically work a rotating schedule so that at all times one of them is kind of on shift or available. and so that could be any call that came into the police department that would have required someone to come out and attend to Any animal. It could be a lost dog. It could have been a raccoon. It could have been any wildlife of any sort. So it happened for many reasons. Also, the matter of it was also that While the second member was out there were still animals that had to be cared for in the evenings or in the mornings depending on what shift that person was working and so they picked up extra shifts to continue animal care while that person was on leave.

Thanks. And I'm sorry, pardon all my questions on this. What sorts of animals needed ongoing care?

So my understanding is typically like dogs and cats that are rescued and they're trying, they haven't been able to foster yet. If they come in one evening, they provide the care until they can find a suitable foster or an adopted home for those animals to go to.

Thank you. I very much, of course, appreciate the work of caring for these animals and all the different, the wide variety of situations that some rural police officers respond to. I can't help but wonder and maybe this is a broader conversation or conversation for another time if maybe our city could save a little bit over time in situations like this in calling in the SPCA or other organizations that... Scott, I'll come to you. to this point sir to this point okay uh counselor scott please

The animal control officers are separate from Somerville Police Department. There are two of them. They're lovely people. I recommend you have a conversation with them. But they absolutely work with Cambridge Alley Cats and other organizations here. So I assure you, they're not the problem in our overtime budget.

Thank you. I appreciate that clarification. Chief Benford.

No, thank you very much. I think the Councilor captured it appropriately. I would just add that, you know, anytime we talk about the dispossession of work, we do have labor implications with our unions and so forth. There is a broader conversation to be had there, but to the councilors' comments, they do work with our partners across jurisdictions to try and minimize those expenses, but regrettably, we do have costs that we have to cover.

Thank you. I appreciate that clarification. And pardon my stumbling into this new matter. There's a lot that I don't know. And I appreciate everyone's educating me. On this item, do any other councillors have questions or comments? Okay, seeing none, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. And that brings us to item 17, ID 26-0510, requesting approval of a transfer of $325,000 from the police department salaries account. to the police department medical and dental services account for medical procedures for current and retired employees injured in the line of duty. Director Wisdom, could you please tell us about this transfer?

Of course. So one of the things that the police and fire both are required to do under, I believe, state law is 111F injury prevention. We are required to take care of the Injured Employees Medical Bills that are associated with line of duty injuries. So we have, of course, there are current people that are on that fall into this category of 111F, but there are also retirees who have been retired due to medical needs that are under 111F also. This year there were many, many procedures. Outside of the normal amount of procedures that are typically done in a year that usually fit within our budget. I'm just trying to make sure that I stay HIPAA compliant and don't share any personal information.

So I'm not trying to be purposely vague, but I don't want to single anyone out or point any medical history out or anything like that. So I'm just trying to be careful with my wording there.

Understood.

So typically... In the past few years, we've maintained a typical average. That's how much we typically ask for at the beginning of the year based on what we've spent last year. However, As we all know medical bills are sometimes unpredictable and when there's a really really big issue that comes from an injury of someone who is required to be paid for those medical bills Out of our funds, we are required to cover them. So this is a these these medical procedures have been approved by the city's medical panel. So we all we verified that they're approved. Appropriate. Yes, that's a good word. No, I appreciate that. They're appropriate. They're necessary to pay. The amount of the medical interventions are a high dollar amount.

And so we are requesting from our lag money to be able to take that money to pay for the rest of these medical procedures that we've had come in.

Thank you. Members of the committee, does anyone have comments or questions about this item? Councilor Hardt.

Thank you Chair Wheeler and through you Director Wisdom. Could you just explain more to help me understand the lag money and why there's this amount that's not

Thank you so much for joining us. and throughout the year we've had at least two retirements as well as we've had some typical people leave to go to other places attrition I guess you would say retirement and attrition and as well as some people who've been promoted due to that so that leaves us throughout the year we've kind of had a rolling rolling vacancies that have been filled and then have emptied have been then and so on and so forth. from the from the attrition while we're filling those spots and promoting within and then as well as while we're recruiting new recruits to go to the academy that does leave money Thank you.

Of course.

Thank you, Director. Any other questions or comments from members of the committee? Okay, seeing none, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Thank you. And that brings us to item 18, ID 26-0378, requesting approval to accept and expend a $231,635 grant with no new match required. from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security to the Police Department for a body-worn camera program. And I would like us to take that up together with item 19, ID 26-0636, Alexandra Thorne and Daniel Wong submitting comments regarding item 26-0378, Grant for Body Worn Camera Program. Since those comments are directly on this item. So we have Director Wisdom and Chief Benford. I didn't introduce you before.

We have Police Chief Shemaine Benford with us as well. So Director Wisdom and Chief Benford, would you please tell us about this grant?

Sure, Mr. Chair, thank you so much for your comments and for the committee this evening. I'm going to provide a high-level overview of the grant. In some context, to help guide our conversation, I want to obviously acknowledge the committee as well as my city colleagues, my SPD colleagues, our union partners, the mayor's office, as well as our community partners. The Barting One Camera Program was settled as part of a prior year collective bargaining agreement with our respective unions. As you well know, we are a very open and welcoming community, so body-worn cameras Thank you so much for joining us. Over the years, particularly in the last six to seven years, body worn cameras have become a best practice in policing.

Certainly, it was part of the discussion that we've had around commitments to the future around relationship building and trust building with our community during our accreditation process. Body-worn cameras also help in the 21st century around validating the overwhelmingly positive interactions that we have with our community members. Back in 2020, the state published a report around body warm cameras and subsequently afforded state funding to help municipalities Support the implementation of body-worn camera programs. The state has funded in the neighborhood of 144 local police departments across the state in support of standing up a body-worn camera program.

Many communities that surround Somerville as well as the Metro Boston area to include Boston, Medford, Cambridge, and Somerville Housing Authority police officers all have body-worn camera programs. The Boston Police Department is in the midst of a major expansion in their body-worn camera program to include not only uniformed personnel but plainclothes personnel as well. Somerville through its robust community process. Also, you know, produce reports by way of the Public Safety for All. reports as well as the staffing study that both spoke to the importance of our body-worn cameras and helping us particularly with I'd also like to report to excuse me reference the 2015 President's Commission on 21st Century Policing. There were six pillars that were defined to help promote and support

and guide and advise departments in producing quality policing programs in the 21st century. And two of those pillars spoke to two key areas, building trust and legitimacy and also Pillar 3 using technology to help do that again in the 21st century. In 2023, That report was reformed through a renewed call to action with a focused on whole of government and whole of community approaches. to Transformational Policing. And in there, it talks about due process and again, encouraging transparency, accountability, and preventing and highlighting any images and experiences of police misconduct. As we look at the Body Worn Camera program, The Mayor has designated this a priority for implementation on the backs of many

Different priorities that I've outlined earlier, particularly with the PSFA reports as well as the staffing study reports. I would also like to point to what we've experienced as a community, quite frankly, and a country. With the overwhelmingly aggressive tactics by ICE and Homeland Security with regards to immigration enforcement. And I just point to legislative and government colleagues and peers in Washington that are calling for body-worn cameras as a key component. and many more. So, Mr. Chair, with that said, I'd like to pause there and again acknowledge my city colleagues that are on with us that join in this conversation to help respond to questions and comments that may come out of this conversation. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief. Chief, were you referring to anybody else who is in attendance who might also want to speak about this item? Or were you speaking sort of more generally?

Thank you very much. I think more generally, but I would acknowledge, I can't see everyone in the galley, but I would acknowledge our partners from IGA that are here as well.

Thank you. Members of the committee, does anyone have questions and comments?

Chair Wheeler, if I could just quickly hop in. Please. Somewhat of a semantics thing, but I would suggest we don't take these up together as they were The first one was sent for recommendation and the second was sent for discussion. And the narrative of this first item won't necessarily tie in with the second because the second we would just mark work complete. So if you're open to that, I suggest we take them up separately.

Thank you. I appreciate that. We can take them up separately. I will just note on that point to briefly summarize what the public comments say because it relates to Some of the sort of logistical questions before us. Those public comments suggest that we wait to make a decision about this grant until the Legislative Matters Committee can make a decision about the surveillance technology impact report item relating to body worn cameras that's before that committee. Just logistically, I want to point out to everyone that there is another finance committee meeting on May 12th before the May 14th city council meeting That May 14th City Council meeting will be the first City Council meeting after the next Legislative Matters meeting.

I have no predictions about what any other committee is going to do, but were the Legislative Matters Committee to... to discharge one way or another that item and have it be taken up in that city council meeting It could make sense whether we discharge this item in one way or another today and it is in control of the city council again, or we keep this item in committee and discharge it one way or another at the next finance committee meeting. I'm just saying we have this meeting and another finance committee meeting before that surveillance technology impact report could be back in the city council's hands at the first opportunity. Just purely logistics. And thank you for allowing me that. Okay, members of the committee. I see Councilor Scott.

Thank you Mr. Chair I just procedurally if you would like to kick this can down the road we can kick this can down the road if you'd like to discuss it tonight I absolutely Thank you.

I would like to discuss this tonight.

Okay, great. Did you want to lead off or would you like me to start?

No, I was going to cede the lead off role to any members of the committee who would like to begin with questions or comments.

Alright, well I'm happy to yield to any colleagues that would like to go first here. All right, seeing none, I'd just like to, oh, some, oh.

Oh, I'm going to ask Yasmir Radassi, Intergovernmental Affairs Liaison.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to flag for the record that we did submit a memo with some of the figures for this item. So just wanted to put that out there for everyone.

Thank you. Yes, I appreciate that. And, um, Leah Zambardassi. Oh, okay, great. I was wanting to make sure I was telling anybody listening and interested where they could find those, um, Are those attached to the entire committee meeting? For anyone who doesn't know about this, this is this additional location where attachments can sometimes be found. If you go to the calendar in Legistar and you click on meeting details and you get the list of all the agenda items, there can be attachments that are attached to the meeting itself and that is the case here. One of these items, I believe the third one, or is it 0378? Yes, it is the first one, sorry, has a financial... Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Please, Councilor Scott.

All right. I appreciate it. I'm glad that you called attention to that memo because I also wanted to call attention to that memo. I'm going to just start right there with what the costs of accepting this grant. This is a grant to start off the city and commit it to a course where we will be spending an annual, let's call it $100,000, $95,833. that there will also be there is also already negotiated in the police contract that if any body-worn cameras are implemented that there is an automatic two percent raise for every member of the police department So that's an additional $215,000 estimated for this, according to this minimum.

I haven't gone back and double-checked that number to see if it lines up with what we say we're spending in salaries, but I'll take the memo at its word right now. and then also it notes that there are extra costs to administering the program a full-time civilian employee presumably to just manage the program manage the data and then other minor costs for additional batteries and replacements and things like that. So when you put all that together conservatively, right, that's $450,000 a year. Thank you for joining us.

I look at this as an extraordinary increase given that our police budget is currently $21 million a year. That's a pretty big increase in our lease budget. I also, you know, I have concerns from a policy standpoint Though I understand that we're going to be taking that up in legislative matters in about a week. But I have particular concerns about accepting this just procedurally. you know moving forward tonight procedurally on this in the absence of approval from legislative matters of a technology specific use policy are city of Somerville ordinances around Surveillance Technology do specifically call out that the the city can seek

approval or can seek but not accept funds without approval from the city council and that details regarding the nature of surveillance technology as well as the Surveillance Technology Impact Report for that have to be accepted. Not to get too specific in the timing, because I think the timing of this could be a very easily settleable thing if we come to the conclusion that I'm inclined towards here. But yeah, it is enormous cost for, let's say, dubious gain. When I look at the requests that were made by Just Us Somerville back in 2020, Their requests were for civilian oversight and for a number of other reforms in the police department, but in no way were body cameras requested.

When weighing the potential benefits of this immense surveillance increase in the city versus what's been called for, what's been asked for from our communities most impacted. and what's been called for in the numerous studies that we've had over the years, I don't see the benefit to signing up for an extra half million dollars a year that will increase over time. I'd also point out that As it stands, we don't have any guarantee that even if we did have a... Even if we did have a civilian oversight committee that was created, passed, established overnight here, we have no guarantee that they'd have access to that camera footage. So I have a A great many concerns here.

I don't think I need to get into the full dissertation of them tonight. Keeping it strictly to the financial aspect of this, it's a half million dollars a year. that we're accepting this money puts us on the hook for an extra half a million dollars a year expenditures and I for one am not inclined to do that. So I appreciate your forbearance Mr. Chair. I'm happy to hear the discussion in my office.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Link.

Thank you, Chair. I guess I have to echo a lot of what the good counselor from Ward 2 just said. And it's not lost on me that we're Hot off of a meme where we're talking about what do we have to do to tighten the belt and are our schools going to need to do more with less? and you know while this while the full cost won't come for this current budget year there certainly will be a cost and and then you know there's there's no I don't think we have any reason to anticipate a windfall in subsequent years where we're going to find ourselves in a different position and I think as

My colleague said that there's a lot of reasons to have reservations about this, but looking at it strictly from a financial standpoint, it seems... Thank you, Councilor.

Councilor Strezo.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, I know that some of my colleagues will vote against this no matter what. because of the way they feel about things and I respect that and I'm always open to the conversation as well. I've been listening to these conversations since of course now my fourth term for a while now and I always appreciate learning something new, but to point out that the NAACP recommendations include and I've asked and checked every single time include the recommendation for body worn cameras and also of course the civilian oversight committee and here in Somerville for the some of our counselors who are new and haven't been following this uh conversation for um The many years that this has been in conversation.

Some of that we had our police over, I'm sorry, our re-imagining police civilian public task force. One of the members, Ben Struhl, I've been speaking with him as well. Mr. Chair, if it's possible, I'd be interested in sponsoring him to speak tonight now.

Yes, I'm open to that.

He's in the audience.

I see him in attendance. Clerk, is it possible to promote him to being able to speak?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just to confirm, this is Ben that we would like to sponsor?

Yes, Ben Struhl.

Ben, you should be able to speak now.

Thank you Mr. Chair and thank you Councilors. I appreciate the opportunity to speak. I will give the briefest possible introduction. I am the executive director of a research center at the University of Pennsylvania, and we have directly studied the adoption of body worn cameras in the city of Boston. Also, as part of our research center, we have my respected colleague Cynthia Lum, a distinguished university professor at George Mason University, who has done a systematic review of every single study of body worn cameras ever undertaken. And I'd like to particularly highlight Some of the research of my colleague Morgan C. Williams.

He's a professor at Barnard College at Columbia, and his research interest and specialty is the economics of crime and incarceration policy with an emphasis on racial inequality. The most consistent findings we have on the research And I think there's a lot of variation in how these different programs are implemented. with some being what you would clearly see as being the worst possible implementation of the idea that officers are equipped with cameras, camera footage is taken

stored in a vault and no one ever gets to see the camera footage or interact with it in any way, which, as you might imagine, would not create any possible benefit. Looking at the wide range of studies of these different types of programs, you can see this consistent finding that body-worn cameras reduce citizen complaints about the police and in Boston we found that body-worn cameras reduced officer use of force. My colleague Morgan Williams at Barnard did a cost-benefit analysis of body-worn cameras and this is publicly available information that I'd be happy to share um and he found that body worn cameras uh create uh about five dollars in benefit for every one dollar of cost spent upon them and that um

about a quarter of those budgets might accrue directly to the city budget so uh you know a quarter of five right being um $1.25 for every dollar goes to the city budget. Now, this is an average of what he found in different results of studying this. And the benefit to Somerville financially could be lower if Somerville does not have a lot of complaints against the police. But this is what the large body of research says. You know, we do, I think, have a pretty good idea of the fact that these generate benefits in many cases, and the state of Massachusetts has put together a very thoughtful task force report, which is also publicly available on what sort of policies should accompany body-worn cameras.

You can also look to some of our neighboring jurisdictions like Cambridge for what kind of policies they're implementing. My understanding is Somerville is interested in adopting similar policies for this. I guess my final thing I would mention is that this is one area where there is actually relatively very little concern for For outside groups to gain access to surveillance data, we have seen increasingly across the country in places we've worked, federal government entities gaining access to government databases. in all sorts of areas that they had never had access to before, often contravening the law. So this is a very good

General concern, but the amount of difficulty it would take for such agencies to access and produce this type of footage would be prohibitively difficult. So I think those basic elements of the research are really valuable. Maybe I'll just sort of close and say, having observed The reactions in Cambridge after the shooting of Syed Faisal in that city, that shooting really had a negative impact on the community that reverberated for many months, in part because there was some Real uncertainty about what happened in that incident, which really, really divided the community afterwards and led to Cambridge deciding to adopt its own body-worn camera program.

I think the benefits of having public transparency on elements like this really cannot be always stated economically. So thank you very much. I really appreciate it. And I'd be happy to take any questions if there were any.

Mr. Chair, I just really quick forgot to mention his credentials for the minutes. Mr. Stroll is Executive Director of the Crime and Justice Policy Lab at the University of Pennsylvania. launched the executive director of Center of Crime and Community Resilience at Northeastern University, leading projects in seven U.S. cities and 10 countries. Of course, Somerville resident, very proud to say, has worked at MIT's Poverty Action Lab. and worked for the mayor of Boston, Boston Public Schools, Center for American Progress, including As a data analyst for Senator and then President Barack Obama, so he may know a few things about what he's talking about, but I'm very interested in hearing what our colleagues have to say as this conversation continues. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Strezo, and thank you, Mr. Struhl. And I'll also mention another credential, chair, I believe chair of Somerville's Public Safety for All Task Force, as I think Chief Benford was referring earlier. Scott.

That was the clarification I was looking for was his role in the Public Safety for All Task Force. I didn't see him on the Task Force page, so I appreciate it.

Other members of the committee. I could speak. This is a big topic. It's hard to know where to begin and there's a lot of different perspectives. I've spoken to a number of different people about this. I really do take to heart some of the benefits that Mr. Struhl was describing. And, you know, the way that Camera footage can provide a shared grounding of understanding of what happened in a given interaction. in a way that could help move understandings and perspectives towards each other as opposed to

To how they too often separate out between police officers, members of the public, other people observing. One thing that I want to share that I haven't heard mentioned in this conversation is that there are a number of public defenders and defense attorneys who also describe appreciating body-worn cameras for the way they provide An additional set of facts beyond what's often just one person saying he said, she said in many court cases. and that at least anecdotally there's a sense among many public defenders that The body-worn camera footage reduces both the false positives and false negatives.

Make sure the people who are being violent, there's more evidence demonstrating that and people who may have been wrongfully accused or the victim of a misunderstanding to have context to clear their name. That's something that matters to me immensely. In reading the Public Safety for All Task Force report and other reports about best practices, I do see a lot of discussion of having Having patterns of professional review within police departments and involving both police officers and other groups. In the context of Somerville, those other groups could include civilian oversight bodies yet to be created and could include the core group that's part of the police department now. Uh...

When I'm thinking about the version of body-worn camera implementation that I would feel most confident in, it involves really clear practices of review. Both internally and with other bodies. Not so much in a spirit of finding misbehavior, but of professional development. There's a pattern in many industries. I come from education, so I'm the most familiar with that of communities of practice where people who are already working professionally and doing a good job. are able to develop their expertise through reviewing what? What other practitioners are doing through reviewing even what people who may have observed them teaching have to report.

So those are pieces that would make me feel more confident that if we're talking about taking on this project, Pretty large recurring spending commitment that we'd really be investing in our staff expertise. In the long term. It's tricky, the timing of our talking about this right now. And there's a sense, I think, among some in the public that the conversation is rushed. Part of that is just that there is this grant before us. I think something I've gathered from a few of my colleagues' comments is If you look at the, essentially, Councilor Scott said conservatively $450,000. My math put it at $430,000.

But we're talking about a similar size dollar item either way. If we're talking about... That is an ongoing cost. And here I'm adding up this $117,000 full-time employee, the additional spare cameras item, The salary bump and this cost to the city. And apologies if I'm double counting some aspect in this $95,800 recurring cost. I'm not sure if that includes any of these other items. But in the light of that, I think this $230,000 grant, as much as I never want to... Treat $230,000 as though it doesn't matter.

It's something that quickly gets dwarfed by the recurring... A few years in and that $230,000 becomes 10% of the total. So I feel like the question before us really is, is this cost worth it? And I think that's a very difficult question. I take Councillor Scott's point that We're talking about something, oh here my math is going to be bad, but about 1 40th, so a 2.5% annual bump. in the overall police budget.

That's something that I might be interested in more if we were talking about more staffing for patrol officers, for example. It seems to me like the The value that we'll get from this much cost, it still feels pretty speculative to me and I do appreciate that That in these other localities, there has been a decrease in civilian complaints against police. That certainly is a sign that we could expect some benefit. and I don't mean to be dismissive of the benefit but given that this is something that We could come back to if we feel the stars are aligning and we feel the conditions are aligning.

We could come back to it next year. We could come back to it the year after. I don't mean to kick the can down the road that way, but as Councillor Link said as well, in this time of tight budget, It makes it hard for me to feel supportive in my sort of final judgment. But it's a tough one. I think there's a lot of good to be said about cameras. Thank you for all listening to me ramble a bit. Chief Benford.

Thank you very much for your comments, Councilor. I greatly appreciate it. I also want to... I certainly am not a subject matter expert in this space. You know, when he talked about investment, right? We can't minimize that it is an investment in this technology to bring about the reward of transparency and accountability that we're looking for. There's a debate certainly in the conversation to be had about those numbers, but there is a cost associated for which I think we all acknowledge. It will only be one adverse experience that one of our community members experiences in the worst case scenario. that will prove its value. I will certainly, as I always do, acknowledge everyone's life experience. I only wish that body-worn cameras You know, existed when the police officer told me that he was going to kill me and I had to live my life, you know, for several years.

And then subsequently ended up working with this same individual as a colleague. I think the benefits to the community, there is no doubt, bring about a level of accountability and certainly comfort that I hope would come with the community by having these cameras. So I just want to acknowledge that there is a value, there is a cost, but the immense value around trust building and transparency with our community also has a value that's attached to it as well. And I want to acknowledge that. And I also counsel, as you mentioned, You also talked about the grant and there are some timeliness factors that's associated with the grant. You know, we were very fortunate as a community. My understanding is that there were This is the last year of funding being offered by the state to support programs such as this and there were 80 plus departments I believe that applied and only

I do hope and implore that this committee as well as the full body continues to take this up favorably. as I do think that it will be a significant value add as we talk about that trust and relationship building with our community. Thank you, Chief. And just lastly, you mentioned, my apologies, you mentioned professional development. Absolutely, you know, we're all bound by in-service, mandatory in-service training hours annually. We're always looking for creative ways to use experiences not only of our own department members and community but also Those are things that we very much are open to. It is something that is also included in our welcoming ordinance where we also embed training into our annual training to make sure that we're staying abreast.

and fully cognizant of the value set for our community in our training annually. So that is something, Councilor, that is important for us. Hardt, and would certainly look to use appropriate tools from this technology to help inform better policing and better use of the tools and resources that we have.

Thank you, Chief. Councilor Hardt?

Thank you, Chair Wheeler. Also, I want to appreciate you, Chief Binford, for your comments just now and everyone who's spoken. And Chair Wheeler, I think you articulated very well a lot of my concerns and hesitations around the commitment to the large expenditure. And one other thing, So having reviewed the public safety for all, I know recommendations and I know that so many people in our community have been doing work on this for so many years. And so I definitely don't want to dismiss the potential value and benefit lightly at all.

But I do feel that I would be more comfortable making the commitment with some more information, with some more knowledge of what the policies were going to be that guided its use. So I just wanted to put that out there in terms of the timeline of making the decision.

Thank you, Councilor. Any other members of the committee have thoughts or questions? I'm seeing a hand from Mr. Struhl. I would sponsor, sorry, I'm seeing a hand also from Councilor Scott. Councilor Scott?

Mr. Chair, I just have some conclusions and emotions, so if you'd like to hear from more members of the public before that, that sounds like a good idea.

Okay, thank you. I'd like to sponsor Mr. Stroll to speak.

I appreciate that, Mr. Chair, and I can see none of these are easy fiscal discussions when thinking about things. I sort of wonder, for the committee's consideration, whether there is any data about the ongoing cost of citizen complaints. As the chief mentioned, this might be a little bit difficult to fully think through because in my experience, you know, one well-founded citizen complaint can be incredibly costly to the city. But those are less common. So perhaps that could help the committee consider more the costs and benefits of adopting this type of policy.

Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. I do think more information is useful and another piece of context here. it is a matter of public record that in our last council session we went into executive session specifically to talk about collective bargaining with the two police unions that's not new information I am curious to make sure that we are allowing ourselves reasonable time so that any information that's relevant is something that we can be taking into account at the time that we make the decisions on this grant and any other matter relating to it. Police body-worn cameras.

Rodasi, pardon me, Councilor Scott.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry, I just wanted to add, I know I've spoken to you about this offline, but we're happy to let this stay in committee and wait until May 12th so that the conversation in legislative matters committee can happen. and also for further discussion at Thursday's council meeting and executive session to provide additional information as well. So just wanted to let you know and put that on the record.

Thank you, liaison. Councilor Scott.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, I find it shocking. that the argument is made that there's so much misconduct that having cameras would reduce our cost to the city. I would hope that Somerville Police Department is better managed in paper. Certainly that's what we've always been told. That said, I do want to point out that again we are talking about budget cuts we're talking about asking departments up and down the city to sharpen their pencil I believe in our finance committee meeting every department is being asked to look for five percent in their you know markers dry erase markers and colored pencils budgets and difficult choices might be had made on the school budget this is

As I said at the time, I think a time where we really need to be reevaluating our priorities. This is acceptance of a grant. In advance of all the determinations of policy around the use of that footage, in advance of any establishment of a Civilian Oversight Commission, and quite frankly rushed in order to recoup a value that is less than the transfer we just approved from lag money. Just unpaid salaries that are just sitting there to cover medical expenses. It is putting the city on the hook for a half million dollars, $450,000, my apologies, annually. for basically the benefit of sparing ourselves the startup costs of a program. And those startup costs are $180,000.

$181,000, I believe, from the memo. I just... I don't see any feasible way where that's a justifiable trade-off to me. To rush the process, to accept You know, that little startup costs when you look at the ongoing costs for the city moving forward. So I'd be inclined to move to recommend against approval of this item. If you feel like emotion is in order at the time.

Thank you, Councilor. I was going to see what Councilor Link had to say, but Councilor Link, I saw your hand disappear. You sure?

You sure you don't want to chime in? I think the good counselor from Ward 2 hit most of what I'd say. I guess I would just add that, you know, if... Body Warn cameras aren't going if there's a you know we talked about we could quickly see that a complaint costs more than this program but a body worn camera does not guarantee that it doesn't remove A complaint. You know, it could... decrease the number of complaints, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we're still not going to also get hit with a large complaint. So it's a bit speculative where we know for a fact that We're going to be looking at close to half a million dollars each year.

In my mind, I have to look at what Clear benefits doesn't seem to me at this time that any of the proposed kind of ideas of a policy or are going to confer that benefit to the city. Whereas taking that money from the city's budget is going to clearly harm other departments. I'm not comfortable with that, so I would also move to... Yeah, I can work against this.

Mr. Chair?

Strezo.

So to clarify, are my colleagues moving for a vote to where they can vote for or against it?

Mr. Chair, that is the motion that I'm making.

Yeah, I didn't hear that. I heard that you were voting or you were moving for a new... against your recommendation and that's that is not a motion so so from what I hear that you are proposing a motion then. I'm sorry uh Councilor Link was saying that and uh Mr. Chair, to you, through you.

Thank you, Councilor Scott.

Mr. Chair, through you. The item is referred to us for recommendation. The action of this committee is to supply a recommendation to the City Council Making that recommendation to the City Council takes the form of a motion to in favor of or against recommendation of the item. So I'm moving affirmatively to recommend against approval of this item.

Mr. Chair. Thank you, Councilor Scott. Mr. Chair.

Councilor Strezo.

Yes. No need to mansplain this. I believe that we have a roll call vote to make or we should have a roll call vote to make. If I may get my word in on this, I think that from the research I've done on this item, Because I have not really weighed in. I think this is good for transparency, body-worn cams, and I think we owe that to our constituents. And yeah, I know that some of my colleagues here tonight have their opinions and I always learn something new from them and I respect their opinions as I hope that they will respect mine. But I want to make sure that our community feels safe and that they feel supported. and I think that the transparency on this is a step forward.

BodyCam's transparency on this is important stuff as everything I've seen in the research has concluded. So as it is, but yeah, then if a move for a vote has not been done, then I will make a motion. to make a move for a vote. Yay or nay?

Thank you. And on the motion, I just wanted to share procedurally and partly I'm just checking my own understanding. Oh, please do. In terms of that possible alignment with the stir coming back from legislative matters, if that is indeed what happens, at the council meeting for May 14th, If we discharge this item in this meeting... It is possible at the next council meeting on Thursday as well to lay the item on the table to await a... I want to I want to appreciate that uh

We are all getting information. We've gotten information in the last few weeks, and I anticipate that there may be some more. I'm appreciating Councilor Hardt's point about wanting some more information and being curious about some of those answers. I also take Councilor Scott's point that it is our responsibility to decide on approval and I am also inclined to have us take a roll call vote tonight. Lias and Rudaci, I know you had spoken about the possibility of keeping this in committee. Do you have any thoughts before we move ahead?

You're the chair. Thank you. Yes. The administration's preference would be for this to either remain in committee or be discharged without a recommendation and laid on the table on Thursday at the council meeting. so that the conversation and executive session on Thursday can occur. We can share updates then and also for the conversation and ledge matters related to the stir can occur so that all those items will be back before the council for consideration as a package in the right order. on May 14th at the City Council meeting.

Okay, thank you. I certainly don't want to... influence the discussions in another committee. But the recommendation of this committee is not the final recommendation of the council. Isn't it essentially equivalent if this item were to be laid on the table? on Thursday. Mr.

Chair, is that a question to me procedurally?

It was a question I intended for Liaison Radassi procedurally, but I'd be happy to hear your answer, Vice Chair.

Procedurally, this is any recommendation made by this committee. is then the recommendation that is before the council the council can move to accept that recommendation or reject that recommendation if they do not wish to act on that recommendation at the next meeting the item can be laid on the table and certainly as soon as it is out of committee it is a poor discussion before the entire council so a vote tonight procedurally simply to uh Pass it along with that recommendation does not preclude any change of action in the future, as I'm sure my colleagues are aware, having overturned the recommendation of the committee on multiple occasions in the past. at the risk of mansplaining, sir.

Understood. Understood. I have another procedural question, which is there is a motion on the table to take a roll call vote. I or another member of the committee were inclined to want to lay this item on the table, would we take a roll call vote on whether to take a roll call vote? or uh Sorry if I'm not communicating that clearly enough. I think it would be my preference to keep this in committee until next meeting.

Allowing for additional information that may come our way in executive session or otherwise. And so I'm really just trying to find out what does that mean about this motion on the table.

Mr. Chair, Procedurally Rule 16 of the City Council states that when a question is under debate before the City Council or committee, presiding officers shall entertain no motion. But to adjourn to lay on the table, or for the previous question, to lay on the table is a preferential motion. The motion shall be decided by majority of those present and shall take precedence in the order in which they are arranged. So if you do wish to lay this item on the table, you can move to do so and it will take precedence over Thank you.

I appreciate that clarification. Councilor Link, did you have something on the motion?

Yes. I'm of the mind that we should be voting on this and making a decision. Stir and all of this aside, I think the question is really on the finance side. Does it make sense?

Thank you. For my judgment, I think the financial question could be swayed. Based on information I'm not saying that I expect it to be. and that's that's where my preference to lay it on the table comes so I do move to lay this item on the table for next meeting And is that something that we then take a roll call vote on? Mr.

Chair, given that there have been differing opinions on how to proceed, I would recommend a roll call vote on that.

Thank you. Clerk, would you please take a roll call vote on the motion to lay this item on the table?

Yep, so this is item number 18 to lay it on the table. Councilor Link?

No.

Strezo. Yes. Councilor Hardt. Yes. Councilor Scott.

No, thank you.

Chair Wheeler.

Yes.

Alright, with that, that is three votes in favor of laying this on the table and two against.

Thank you. I don't mean to string this along, but I do want to allow for more information to come our way. Okay, that item is laid on the table to be taken up. My intention is next meeting. and that brings us to the last item item 19 id 26-0636 Alexandra Thorne and Daniel Wong submitting comments regarding item 26-0378, the grant for body worn camera program. I hope everyone else has also read those comments. which call for us to wait until the legislative matters decision is made on the stir.

And if there's any discussion on these items, I see none. So this item is marked work completed. And now, Clerk, would you please take... Oh, sorry, do I hear a motion to... Sorry, let me look back at my notes. Do I hear a motion from anyone to recommend approval of the items on the table and then to adjourn?

Motion to approve the items on the table and also to adjourn.

Thank you. Councilor Strezo moves to recommend approval of the items on the table and then to adjourn. Clerk, could you please read the agenda item numbers of the items up for recommendation to approve and call the roll on recommending approval of those items in adjournment.

Yes, I can. Alright, this is on approving items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 11 together. 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17, as well as adjournment. Councillor Link.

Yes.

Councillor Strezo. Yes. Hardt. Yes. Councilor Scott. Yes. Chair Wheeler.

Yes.

All right. With that, it is 8.15 p.m. and we are adjourned and those items are recommended for approval.

Thank you all. Thank you very much. Have a great night. You too. Take care.