City Council

All right, let's call this meeting to order, please. All right, folks, please have a seat. Quiet down so we get the meeting started, please. Thank you. Thank you. This is a meeting of the City Council. It is Tuesday, November 25th. Please silence in the room. Thank you. My name is Lance Davis. I use he, him pronouns. As I said, it is November 25th. Please note that video and audio of this meeting is being recorded and may be shown live on local access government channels and on the City of Somerville website and will be available for future review. Would the clerk please call the roll?

This is roll call. Councilor Hardt. Present. Councilor Wilson.

Present.

Councilor Ewen Campen. Here. Councilor Scott.

Present.

Councilor McLaughlin.

Here.

Councilor Burnley.

Present.

Councilor Sait. Here. Councilor Strezo. Present. Councilor Clingan.

Present.

Councilor Mbah.

Present.

Councilor Davis. Here. With all councilors present, we have a quorum.

Thank you. Pursuant to our Rule 32, let it be known that this City Council salutes the flag of the United States of America, and let us recall our oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the Commonwealth to the best of our abilities and understanding. We begin our meetings with a moment of silence. Are there councillors wishing to say a few words about members of our community tonight? Seeing none, would everyone in the chamber please rise as you are able for a moment of silence. Thank you. All right, Madam Clerk, first item.

Item 1.3 is the approval of the minutes of the regular meeting of October 23rd, 2025.

Any discussion? All right, seeing none, that item is approved.

Item 3.1 is a grant application from Eversource to install a total of 10 feet of conduit in Harvard Street from utility pole 163 over 1 to a point of pickup at 25 Atherton Street.

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

Hi, Jackie Duffy Eversource. We'd like to install 10 feet of conduit in Harvard Street. This is to provide electric service to an EV charging station at 25 Atherton Street.

Okay, thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to speak on this item? If you're online, please use the raise hand icon. All right, seeing no one else, I declare the public hearing to be closed. Is there any discussions?

All right, seeing none, that item is approved. Thank you.

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

Jackie Dapper, you have a source. We'd like to install approximately 28 feet of conduit on Indiana Ave to provide electric service to 8 Indiana Ave. It's an upgrade of the service.

All right. Is there anyone else to speak on the item? Please speak your name for the record. Go ahead.

Crystal Huff, Ward 5, but I do a lot of work with MAMAS, which is around the corner from this address, at Connection, when we work with Connection. I wanted to ask you just come a little closer to the mic so folks at home can hear you and the mask um that's perfect Indiana Avenue is around the corner from Connection and we don't actually know if it's the same pickup or the same like specific I wanted to highlight this issue as Community Issue, The Barbershop, and a couple of the restaurants in the same area experienced the same thing, but I don't know who they've been trying to report it to or how it's been followed up on. And with everything of all of the everything, I just wanted to highlight the issue with regard to this address.

Okay, thank you. Is there anyone else here to speak on this item? Use the raise hand signal if you're online. All right, seeing no more hands, I declare the public hearing to be closed. Any discussion? Councilor McLaughlin?

Yeah, Mr. President, just so, for the notification. There was a last week there was some utility work being done on that street and wire was accidentally cut so there was a home without electricity for a few days so Miss Duffy can correct me but I believe that's what this is for. So hopefully it's an improvement to electricity for the whole area. Okay, thank you.

Ms. Duffy, can you speak to first the concerns that were raised by the member of the public here about brownouts in that area, whether they might be related to what's being proposed, and also just confirm yes or no whether the or more nuanced answer if what Councillor McLaughlin noted was specifically what we're looking to do here. Can we get Jackie Duffy back? It was causing the brownouts at the barbershop and everything. Hey, Jackie, sorry. We just got you back in the chamber. Would you mind starting your answer again? I apologize for that. Jackie?

Yep. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you. Could you repeat your answer, please? We didn't get it the first time.

Can you hear me now?

We can.

Okay, to Matt's comment, I'm not sure if that's what's caused that. This is not for this, that cut the wire. This is for something else. This is for 8 Indian Avenue. For the lady that has the concern about the brownout, if someone can give her my information, I will check and send it to the right direction so they can send somebody out there and figure out what's going on.

Okay, I thought I saw a thumbs up. Is that... Okay. Crystal, you can follow up with the city clerk. They'll put you in touch and make sure we get that information. Thank you very much. Thank you, Jackie.

Thank you. Have a look at my cell phone number, please.

Did you get that? All right. Jackie, if you could also loop in with the city clerk so that we can make sure everyone gets contacted. Sure.

Absolutely.

Yep. Very much appreciated. Thank you. All right. So seeing no further discussion, then that item is approved.

Item 3.3 is a grant of location from Eversource to install a total of 37 feet of conduit in Cleveland Street from Utility Pole 420 over 4 to a new hand hole next to 11 Harvard Street.

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

Hold on one second. I think I have the wrong one. Cleveland Street. I have this as 37 feet of conduit on Cleveland Street.

from a handhold next to 11 Harvard.

Yep, yep. This is for a gas telemetry cabinet. I don't know why that has that to something else.

Okay, anyone else here to speak on that item? All right, no more hands. I declare the public hearing to be closed. Any discussion? All right, seeing none, that item is approved.

Item 3.4 is a grant of location from Eversource to install a total of 38 feet of conduit in Warwick Street from utility pole 357 over 3 to a point of pickup at 16 Warwick Street.

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

Jackie Duffy Eversource would like to install 38 feet of conduit in Warwick Street to provide electric service to 16 Warwick Street, which will be two residential structures.

Okay, anyone else to speak on the item? Use the raised hands button if you are online. All right, no more hands. I declare the public hearing to be closed. Is there any discussion on the item? All right, seeing none, that item is approved.

Item 3.5 is a grant of location from Eversource to install a total of 47 feet of conduit in Berkeley Street from utility pole 30 over 3 to a point of pickup at 24 Berkeley Street.

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

Jackie Duffy, Eversource, would like to install 47 feet of conduit in Berkeley Street to provide electric service to 27 Berkeley Street, which will be a two-structure residential development.

Okay, anyone else here to speak on the item? No more hands. Any discussion? Okay. Seeing none, that item is approved.

Item 3.6 is a branch of location from Eversource to install a total of 48 feet of conduit in Vernon Street from Utility Pole 152 over 9 to a point of pickup at 70 Vernon Street.

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

Jackie Duffy, Eversource would like to install 48 feet of conduit to provide electrical service to 70 Vernon Street.

Okay. Anyone else here to speak on the item? No more hands. Any discussion? All right, sorry, declare the public hearing to be closed. Any discussion? All right, seeing none, that item is approved.

Item 3.7 is a grant of location from Eversource to install a total of 52 feet of conduit in Bolton Street from utility pole 378 over 1 to a point of pickup at 8 Bolton Street.

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

Jackie would like to install 52 feet of conduit in Bolton Street to provide electric service to a new residential development at 8 Bolton Street.

Okay. Anyone else here to speak on the item? All right, seeing none, I declare the public hearing closed. Is there any discussion? All right, seeing none, that item's approved.

Item 3.8 is a grant of location from Eversource to install a total of 223 feet of conduit in Broadway from manhole 10195 to a point of pickup at 299 Broadway.

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

Jackie Duffy Eversource would like to install 223 feet of conduit and this would divide electric service to 299 Broadway, a new 114 unit multifamily building with four retail spaces.

Okay, anyone else here to speak on that item? All right, seeing none, I declare the public hearing to be closed. Any discussion?

Councilor Clingan? Thank you, Ms. President. Through you. So as we know, this building is set to come down soon. Do we just grant these locations like way ahead of time for rewiring or is this to blow it up?

Ms. Duffy, can you speak to the relation to the...

This is for the installation of the new building.

Okay, so just getting ahead of the game?

They get ahead of it because they don't know how long it's going to take for it to go through the city and everything, so that's probably why it's on the agenda now.

Thank you very much. Okay, very good.

You're welcome. Councilor Wilson?

Yeah, Mr. President, I think it's worth pointing out here while we're talking about this that Councilor Clingan has put together a lovely celebration to mark the demolition of the old Star Market at 290 on Broadway, December 6th, 10 a.m., Winter Hill Brewery. Be there. All right, there you go.

All right, thank you very much. Then, seeing no further discussion, that item is approved.

Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

Thank you, Ms. Duffy. First item that we will take out of order. I'm going to go through the whole list here. I'm going to put my glasses on so I can read. We're going to take the unfinished business, item 5.1, out of order. This is all without any objection. And then we will follow that with 7.13, then 7.16, and then 3.9. and then 10.1. We will then take the Land Use Committee Report, which is 6C, because there are issues related to 90 Washington Street. For all of these, we have staff here, so that's why we're going to take this out of the way so our staff can get on with and other priorities. And then after the Land Use Committee Report, we'll take up together items 8.2 plus 4.6. then item 8.3 and then 9.4 and 4.2 together and then actually sorry so 9.4 is an executive session and we will take are we just going to do both the discussions back

We'll do 4.2 in the executive session. We'll come back and do 4.2, then we'll go back in the executive session to take up 7.1. And if anybody got all that, please let me know when I screw it up. Thank you. All right, so the first item out of order is unfinished business, item 5.1. Madam Clerk?

Item 5.1 is a resolution by Councillor Burnley in support of democratic divestment action regarding ballot question 3.

Councillor Burnley. Thank you, through the chair, and thank you to my colleagues for coming back to this item, taking it out for the second time due to its status as supplemental at our last meeting. This is an issue that has captured a lot of attention, as we can see in this chamber. There are hundreds of people who've stood outside in the cold, some for hours, to be here to mark this occasion. and to urge the passage of this resolution. Less than a month ago, the vast majority of residents in this city voted yes on question three. Voted for action from this council and the next council and our next mayor to actually

Bring forth the will of the voters and enact to the best of our ability the spirit of Question 3. Now this is a question that I know many of my colleagues may feel uncomfortable discussing, taking votes on, engaging with. It has been called divisive by some. And yet, this question received more votes than the vast majority of us around this horseshoe. It received more of a mandate from our constituents than many of us did. It is in my view, based on the results, the will of our community to do all that we can to ensure that our municipal funds

whether they be invested in pensions or through contracts or Serving the values of our community that they are used to build up schools to improve people's lives and not to enrich corporations that are Violating human rights that participate in the perpetuation of apartheid that destroyed the lives of residents both here and abroad. This is something that for many people in this chamber and throughout our community is very personal and I've constructed this resolution to be as straightforward and as plain as it possibly can be.

We have before us the will of the people and we can decide as democratically elected and many other communities across the country have. or to say to the voters that their voices do not matter when they make them heard. Every single ward overwhelmingly voted for this initiative. Almost every single precinct in our city voted for this initiative. I am often, when I sit at this horseshoe, told about this silent majority. Well, sure, people come to the council, but there are so many other people who don't care about this or that, who are not representative here.

I don't think you can straightforwardly and honestly make that argument with an issue that was brought before the voters for many, many months and was voted on. We have the moral duty in my view to take action on this. And not only that, not only is it our duty, But we are being urged by future councilors. Council elects Link and Wheeler, who are here, as many of you know, have sent letters to this council urging us to take action on this resolution tonight. and committing themselves to do the work necessary when they are in office to actually see the will of the voters be done. I don't want to belabor the point. I think that we could

debate the value of human lives, the actions of foreign governments, or even the action of our own government, which is, again, invested in a number of companies whose business model is perpetuated on putting a boot to the neck of the Palestinian people. So. So.

So, rather than do that... Folks, Councilor Burnley, if I may. Yes. We've got a full room tonight. I know folks care a lot about this issue, but we're trying to conduct a meeting here. There are rules to this meeting. The councillors will speak, the audience will not, unless they are sponsored by members of the City Council. If that can't be agreed to, then we'll clear the room. Councilor Burnley, continue.

Thank you, Chair. So, rather than engage in that debate, which I view as a fruitless debate for some, I urge this council to focus on Somerville by enacting the will of Somerville voters. And I would like to sponsor two Somerville voters and residents to speak to the urgency of this question. Firstly, I would like to sponsor Sarah Halawa to speak.

Okay, thank you, Councillor Burnley. Before we get to your sponsor speaker, and we spoke this afternoon, I also heard from two other councillors who wish to sponsor speakers, so I have no objection to hearing from four folks. We talked about timing. I feel like two minutes is a little short, so I feel like up to four minutes. Certainly don't have to take all four minutes, but we'll hear from four speakers for up to four minutes on the item that are sponsored If there's an objection, of course, our rules state that if any councillor objects, then it requires a two-thirds vote to hear from that speaker. My request is that we do hear from these four folks that I've already spoken with Councilors about. So I will appreciate your indulgence in that. And with that, Councilor Burnley, could you give me the name again just because I went on rambling and now I've forgotten it. Yes, I would like to sponsor Sarah Halawa to speak. Okay, Council Burnley, sponsor Sarah Halawa. Please approach.

Anything would be all right if they speak first.

To you, if I could swap the order of my speakers. Yeah, no problem. I would like to sponsor Moe Katz Christy to speak first. Moe Katz Christy.

There you go. Please introduce yourself just for the record. What did you say? Just name and address for the record. And go right ahead.

Okay, yeah, my name is Mo Katz-Christy. I live in Ward 6, 21 Cottage Ave. My pronouns are they, them. Hello, Somerville community. I grew up in the Somerville Jewish community. I was B'nai Mitzvahed at Temple B'nai B'rith in Somerville, and I'm a part of the Boston Worker's Circle, a Beth Revelt Yiddish choir, the Kavod Spirituality Team, Minyan Zeit, and Havarat Shalom. Being a part of the Somerville Jewish community is essential to who I am. The Movement for Palestinian Liberation has brought together disparate parts of the Jewish community in Somerville. Over the past year, we have had countless conversations with members of Temple B'nai B'rith and Havarat Shalom Finding out where we hold shared beliefs and how relationships can help us release our fear and work for liberation. We hosted a liberatory Passover Seder with dozens of summer villains, Palestinians, Jews, and countless others. The room was bursting with life.

I think a lot about the generational trauma of genocide. I spend my days as an herbalist helping folks regulate their bodies. I work with countless Ashkenazi Jews who, like myself, Hold trauma from a genocide thousands of miles away and generations ago in our bodies. As I do I wonder how could this have been prevented? How many Somerville residents could have been spared the generational effects of starvation? of trauma, of a hypervigilant nervous system, of the fear that leads us to the erroneous belief that our safety is conditioned on the oppression of others. Now let me get specific about the trauma happening to people in Gaza and our part in it. Somerville's pension has over a thousand shares in Lockheed Martin, the world's largest weapons company. Lockheed Martin has a particular missile called the Hellfire R9X with six rotating blades.

Instead of exploding, the missile sends out these blades to cut through flesh and embed in folks' bodies. On November 9, 2024, a Lockheed Martin-made Hellfire R9X missile hit journalists sitting near al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza where thousands of Palestinians were seeking refuge in Gaza City. Somerville tax dollars were invested in embedding those sharpened blades into children's, journalists' and other sheltering Palestinian bodies. When this is all over,

If I hear one more interruption of any of these speakers, the room will be cleared, the speakers will be allowed to remain, and we will go on with this meeting. Enough. We are adults. Let's act that way. Please continue.

When this is all over and Palestine is free, how many generations of Palestinians will carry this in their bodies? How much of that generational trauma is preventable? How much can you prevent today by following the will of your constituents and voting to take our Somerville tax dollars out of genocide? Refusing to support genocide is a shared Somerville value. More voters came out to the polls in Somerville to cast their ballots than in any mayoral election since 1981, and 11,599 residents voted yes. Liberation is a shared Jewish value. Jews are required to tell stories of liberation every year at our Passover Seders. We are required to pass these stories down from generation to generation until we are all free.

In a time of doxing and countless people losing their jobs from speaking up about Palestine, Somerville Jews from both Somerville congregations and countless minyanim and local Jewish organizations have been publicly bravely announcing their support of divestment along with our rabbis. Some people will tell you that opposing genocide is divisive and even anti-Semitic. Instead, we as a people know the lasting effects of trauma and are most suited to oppose the oppression of others. You have the chance to be elected officials who listen to the will of your constituents or to choose to disregard the will of your people. Choose the will of the people.

Folks, folks, folks, folks, quiet down. Councilor Burnley.

Thank you. Through the chair, I'd like to sponsor Sarah Halawa to speak next.

Council Burnley would like to sponsor Sarah Halawa. Any objection? Seeing none, go right ahead.

Thank you to the Council for hearing me tonight. I'm here to encourage you to vote yes for this resolution to enact the specific language of Question 3 in solidarity with Palestine. My name is Sarah Halawa. I'm a Muslim, but my father was born Jewish. He converted to Islam and built the mosque in the town I grew up in. I had the good fortune of two Jewish grandparents. My husband Jamal is Palestinian American and together we are raising five Palestinian American children right here in Somerville. As we have witnessed Israel's live streamed genocide in Gaza, my family has experienced the most acute heartache, racism, and dehumanization. As leaders locally and nationally make excuses and exceptions for Israel as it commits crime after crime against the Palestinian people with impunity. Excuses for Israel and excuses for themselves for not taking action.

My son was five years old the first time he was silenced for talking about Palestine. A friend at his school said, we don't say Palestine, it's a bad word. My husband was silenced right here in this chamber by the chair of our school committee during public comment for talking about Palestine. And my children witnessed their father physically assaulted by an out-of-town pro-genocide supporter who's in this room. at a standout in front of Somerville High. All we are saying is that Palestinians deserve the same rights and freedoms as everyone else. That Palestinians too deserve life, dignity, and peace. In 2007, Israel began the blockade, land, sea, and air of Gaza. The UN humanitarian chief described Gaza as an open-air prison, with Israel holding captive 2 million Palestinians, 50% of whom were children. Open air prison, it was not a metaphor.

Nearly two decades and every few years Israel would bomb Gaza and Israeli leaders would call it mowing the lawn. So when Hamas attacked Israel nearly two decades after open-air prison in 2023, those of us who were aware of the context of Israel's oppression of Palestinians, we could see that what Israel would do next would be Genocide Israeli leaders called for Palestinians in Gaza to be treated like human animals. Less than a week in, Israel had killed more children in Gaza than attend Somerville High. Accounts of daily multiple children across Gaza who were killed by a single bullet to the head emerged at hospitals across Gaza. The only way a bullet gets into a child's head is if a sniper trained aims their rifle at a child and then chooses to pull the trigger.

Israeli... Israel started to bar foreign journalists from entering Gaza and then simultaneously killed many, many Palestinian journalists. We saw thousands of Palestinians from Gaza and across Palestine rounded up, detained, held captive without charge, and brought to Israeli prisons where they were tortured. Testimonials and videos Videos of widespread rape of Palestinians in Israeli prisons emerged, suggesting that systemic rape as a policy is a policy, it's not an anomaly. For two years we watched Israel and Israelis block food from entering Gaza. As images of emaciated children and adults emerged, people began to starve to death. And since the U.S. negotiated ceasefire, which Israel has broken 500 times, Israel has killed 340 Palestinians in Gaza.

On and on and on, crime after crime after crime against Palestinians, apartheid, genocide, occupation across the land with no accountability. I swear I'm almost done. In Islam, there is a hadith, a saying of the Prophet Muhammad . Whoever among you sees an injustice, let them change it with their hand. If they cannot let them change it with their tongue. If they cannot then change it with their heart through prayer. But this is the weakest of faith. Today, before you, you have the opportunity to speak against injustice and commit to act against it too. Your constituents have directed you to do. The call to boycott and divest comes from Palestinian civil society and we overwhelmingly, Somerville voters, have called on you to vote yes to divest. Vote yes to divest.

Thank you.

Yes to divest.

Vote yes to divest. Thank you.

Yes, I'd like to sponsor Sam Gechter.

Please step forward. Four minutes on the timer, okay? Could you state your name for the record? Sam Gechter.

Thank you. My name is Sam Gechter. Rabbi Elisha Gector and I have lived in Ward 3 for nearly eight years. Together we founded Shalom Somerville, a grassroots coalition of people who live, work, and study in Somerville. Our goal is to build an inclusive, respectful, and civil community that is safe for Jews and Israelis and where people with different viewpoints are able to listen to and learn from each other. We stand against anti-Semitism and against anti-Israeli hate. I also say unabashedly that I am a Zionist and that I stand against anti-Zionism and I am going to tell you how I define Zionism. Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in our ancient homeland. And anti-Zionism is the belief that of all the peoples in the world, only Jews don't have the right to self-determination in their homeland. It is this anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli hate that I want to speak about tonight.

Here we are at our fifth or sixth city council meeting within two years where a significant amount of everyone's time and energy will be taken up with this issue to the detriment of other issues facing our city. Here we are again, despite a ceasefire that everyone had claimed to long for, and despite a new UN-approved peace plan, here we are debating this again. Here we are again just talking about Israel and Palestine, and here is where we will stay until they have their way. Somerville for Palestine has promised that this is just the beginning. They have promised to keep coming back until things are resolved to their satisfaction. So my question is, what would satisfy them? What end state would have them call for an end to a boycott? I'll tell you what they have said when we have asked them. To them, the entirety of Israel, a sovereign nation and the only democracy in the Middle East, the entirety of it is occupied. Ending the occupation to them means the end of Israel.

We have heard that in their speeches, and we have heard that from their canvassers during their campaign. They will not be satisfied until all of Israel, an ethnostate as they call it, is replaced by a new, different ethnostate, a Palestinian one. The movement here, and really every Israel boycott movement in the United States, is aligned with a larger set of organizations, including and especially the global boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, the BDS movement. and they all share the express purpose of destroying the Jewish state of Israel. So my question is, if that were to happen, where then would those 8 million Jews go? Supporters of BDS have waved their hands and said, well, hopefully everyone can live together. That's a utopian pipe dream.

If Israel were to become a single state with a majority Arab Muslim population in power, we have seen how Jews, Christians, and most recently Druze have fared in the 22 Arab League states. These countries literally threatened to kill their Jews over the creation of the state. And because of the rape and murder and pillaging of Jewish populations, both before and after the creation of the Jewish state, Over 900,000 Jews had to leave Arab lands where they had been for over 2,000 years since their exile from Israel. There have been no reparations offered for these losses. Indeed the reason these Jews lived instead of died is because of Israel. The majority of them fled to Israel. and if the representative leadership of the Palestinian people in this utopian dream of a single state is Hamas, we have seen what living side by side with Hamas means. And so to the majority of Jews in America, This just looks like the latest version of anti-Semitism.

As others have said, first we were hated for our religion, then we were hated for being of a lower race, now we are hated for our nation-state. What all of these ideas have in common is that they are ways of saying Jews do not have a right to exist with the same rights as other humans. I ask for the same as Sarah to finish up. I've got a few paragraphs left. We see support for a boycott as clear support for the end of a Jewish state of Israel. and support for the eventual forcible removal of half the world's Jewish population from the only sanctuary Jews have. We see your support for this as you standing with organizations that call for the eventual ethnic cleansing of our friends, our siblings, and our cousins from our own homeland.

This is what it means to those of us here who haven't lost sight of our people's deep and undeniable connection to Israel and of the fierce urgency for Jews of always having, when anti-Semites turn against us again, a place that will take us in. At the last appearance in these chambers, Somerville for Palestine told you to do your job. I agree. Do your job. Focus on Somerville. Find ways to take the rhetorical temperature here down before we see more violence. Find ways to build dialogue and understanding. Help the city and its residents find ways to really, actually make everyone feel welcome. This does not have to be a zero sum game. Let's find a finishing sentence, please. By dragging this conversation out over and over again, you are normalizing antisemitism. We need you to stop institutionalizing bias and racism against the Jewish people and calling it liberation. Thank you.

Ba. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to begin by acknowledging the tremendous activism, organizing, and heartfelt advocacy that has gone into this measure. And while I do not support it, Initially, I have always believed that our responsibility as elected officials is to honor and implement the will of the voters. Some of the residents have spoken clearly and compassionately. They have expressed deep concern about the ongoing humanitarian crisis and a desire for our community to stand on the side of dignity, compassion, and justice. We have an obligation to respond to those concerns within the scope of what municipal government can do and to do so with thoughtfulness and integrity.

This resolution is the first step in that direction. It reflects the values of our community and our commitment to doing our part. For that reason, I will be supporting this resolution. At the heart of this resolution is also an understanding that we live in a democracy. We are beholden to the will of our constituents and have a responsibility to listen to them and make space for their ideas and concerns. Even when these may not align with our own viewpoints. This is why today I'll be doing something unusual. I'll be sponsoring someone who is here to speak in opposition to this resolution, my friend Kate Auspice. She served two mayors as chair of election commission and personnel director. Kate, you have the floor, my friend.

Thank you.

I'm very grateful to...

Thank you. My name is Kate Auspitz. My husband and I have lived in Somerville for 60 years. As my friend, Councilor Mbah said, I have been honored to serve two mayors. And for 20 years, I worked for Mike Capuano when he was a member of Congress. It has been my great pleasure to know Councilor Mbah, who's a naturalized citizen. and I have the pleasure of teaching classes for legal permanent residents who are preparing for the citizenship exam. And Councilor Mbah often comes to our classes and encourages them to persevere and to register to vote and to continue running for office. and his inspiration is worth anything I could possibly say. So you're lucky to have him as a colleague. That said, As I say, we've lived in Somerville a long time.

Both our grandsons, Jacob and Danny, have been bar mitzvah at Temple B'nai B'rith. I am a Jew and a Zionist and we have many relatives in Israel. And as my friend Sam said, to be opposed to Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism. It gives permission to anti-Semitic acts which we know are increasing including murders in the United States. To be a Zionist does not mean one cannot criticize Israel or any particular Israeli politician or policy. In fact, the harshest critics of Benjamin Netanyahu are to be found in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, where there are Arab members and two Arab parties, one Islamist and one secular.

and Israeli Press, which is very lively in many languages, including Arabic, which has one daily newspaper and two weekly newspapers. And that does not sound like apartheid to me. We all grieve for the sufferings of Gaza. It is terrible. But what did Hamas expect after the atrocities of October 7 and the taking of hostages? This was a deliberate provocation to subvert an ongoing peace process. and it obviously invited a forceful response. To my mind, BDS is political theater. It's part of the performative politics. There's much too much with us now on both the left and the right. I believe it is... I think it's virtue signaling.

I don't think it's policy. Divestment will not achieve anything. Question three will not achieve anything. The city solicitor in Somerville and at Medford have said that divesting in companies that do business with Israel is illegal, unenforceable, and discriminatory. I urge you not to carry on with it as I say I think it is pointless it will not bring peace to the Middle East but it will bring bitter division to Somerville. I also, with respect, and I've discussed this with Councillor Imbal, I don't think you need to be bound to the will of the people. No, seriously, I mean this. You are a deliberative assembly. Edmund Burke, the great political philosopher, made the very strong case in his address to the electors of Bristol

that you elect me not because it isn't practical for all of you to assemble in parliament in Westminster we only have room for a couple hundred people you elect me to exercise my judgment and it may be that It may be that some of your opinions are unenlightened. I just tossed that out there. But I really do urge you to focus on Somerville. I plead with you to do nothing that will pit neighbor against neighbor and the city we all love.

Thank you. I'll take a brief moment and say thank you to everyone for coming. I love when the room's full. I wish it were full more often. Come back and listen to all the other stuff we do also. Councilor Ewen-Campen.

Thank you, Mr. President. I want to say a few words on why I'll be supporting this resolution and I want to thank my colleague for bringing it and I want to thank everyone who's here tonight, everyone of the many, many people who have reached out to us. So this resolution says two things, and I really want to encourage everyone who's following this to read the resolution. It's really short, very straightforward. The first thing it says is that Question 3 just passed in Somerville. As Councilor Burnley said, these are the very same voters who give us the legitimacy to sit here. This was not a fluke, right? Over 10,000 people signed a signature saying they wanted this on the ballot. The City Council could have fast-tracked. As you all know, we didn't do that. The people chose to put this on the ballot. There was a legal challenge that survived that. Then there were two very robust campaigns. I know myself and I think many voters received Knox on our door. We received things on the mail.

I think voters heard very strong arguments on both sides of this. And then they voted yes. As has been mentioned in all precincts except one, that is not to say That there are not many constituents who voted against it. Of course there were. And we respect those constituents too. But the fact is, this resolution passed. And that's what the resolution says. The second thing the resolution says is that the City Council agrees that we will work on this, quote, in a manner that is practicable and legally feasible. And I just want to really emphasize that quote. I think it's really, really important. And I want to be clear to everyone who has written like a concerned email to me, there is no universe in which I will support an ordinance, and I feel very confident saying this about the rest of the council, that we would support an ordinance that violates constitutional rights,

that is discriminatory based on national origin or ethnicity or religion or other protected classes or that is illegal in some other way, I am committed. to working to understand what our legal options are, what is and is not available to us going forward. And to be clear, there is Clear precedent for Somerville using public funding as a way to honor our values. We have a living wage ordinance which says we will only contract for services with companies that pay their workers a living wage. or I think of the work that we've done unsuccessful to date to divest our pensions from fossil fuels that that is still blocked at the state level or our ordinance that that many have brought up that we recently passed that we won't contract with companies that use prison labor But I also know that there are really distinct legal issues around this issue. And I do not pretend to be an expert on them, and I don't think that they're the same as those examples I just mentioned.

Obviously, we are going to be submitted to an incredible amount of scrutiny. So it is incumbent, I take it upon myself and all of our colleagues to make sure that we get it right. I am totally committed to doing so. So to me, this resolution says this question passed and we are going to do everything we can legally and practicably to make progress on it. I think that both of those things are true. And with that, I move to approve.

Mr. President, no. I would like to speak as well. Thank you.

So Councilor Ewen-Campen moves for approval of the item. Councilor Strezo?

I wish to speak on this item.

The motion is on the table, yeah.

Yes. So first off, let's talk about the fact that I want to thank everyone for coming tonight and sharing your feelings. And I want to point out to the fact that this question on the ballot was marketed as non-binding. So let's fact check that right away. For the most of you visiting Somerville tonight, welcome to our great city. For our Somerville residents who showed up tonight, it's good to see you again. Know I'm fighting hard for you every single day to ensure you're living your best life here. And I'm working hard to do the work as a city councilor within our four square miles of Somerville. Before anything else, I want to begin with gratitude because Somerville is a community that cares deeply, even when we disagree. We show up and we speak up. Our city has the potential to always be a place where every resident feels seen, valued, and safe. Yes, safe. All of us.

Oh, silly. And I love our community. I love cherishing the spark inside each one of you and supporting your everyday lives. Some of you in this room, I've held your hands when your family members died. Some of you, I've cooked your meals when you were sick. And I was happy to do so, to help you. and I'll gladly do it again for so many of you out of love. That's community. That's what I fight for. This resolution before us, spawned by this Question 3 ballot, however, works again our collaboration as a community. It is divisive. It focuses on a global quandary that has nothing to do with our Somerville. It's outside the roles as a municipal legislative body and Jewish members of the community have stated that it makes us feel more targeted and more unsafe.

That's not being inclusive. That's not everyone is welcome here. I would hope that this would be enough of an argument. But if it is not, let me legal version it. Targeting based on national origin is illegal, it's discrimination, and so is anti-Semitism. And I've heard horrible stories of the antisemitism inside Somerville. I've heard it of an incident of a child crushed when grownups in a car shouted obscenities at them as they walked down the street. And the child's offense? The child carried a flag of their parent's homeland, which happened to be Israel. That's it. A child. That's discrimination against a national origin, wherever they come from. And the idea behind this resolution before us is a sleigh ride into normalizing that discrimination.

I stepped up as a city councilor to ensure that everyone feels welcome here. that everyone feels supported, heard and responded, and not to be diminished. In Somerville, we are so strong together. And when we work together, we're unstoppable. I saw that so clearly when I was serving during the pandemic. So many of us rolled out our sewing machines to make masks because remember there was a time where we couldn't get masks. and some of us donated to the Somerville Cares Fund and some of us delivered food to our doorsteps of our neighbors. Do you remember that? Do you remember that? Sometimes he did it on bikes. I remember that too, and that was cool. We are so strong when we are together in Somerville.

and I would hope that standing together against hate would be something that we could all agree upon. Good policy ensures that no one gets left behind. and the concept of this resolution would. So I will not support it. What I will do is work to unite us. I will work with all faiths to make sure that we're making the Somerville we want to see for everyone, not just some of us. Thank you Mr. President.

Further discussion? Councilor Sait.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilor Burnley, for bringing this resolution forward. Thank you everyone for being here. The call for divestment in the Palestine solidarity question was supported by the majority of the people who voted during the last This is past election. And as Councillor Ewen-Campen said, the ask in this resolution is to implement question three in a manner that is, quote, legally feasible. As one individual councillor, I strongly believe that I owe this to the voters. Listening to constituents concerns and looking for ways to address their concerns is one of my job responsibilities as a counselor. In this case, fulfilling the majority of the voters' will regarding Question 3 is not different from all the other work I do on this Council. This one is especially important as this has to do with the complicity in a genocide of thousands and thousands of Palestinians, mostly children and women.

If there is anything in question three that we can legally implement as a city, then I see it as my duty to do that. This resolution is the first step to doing that. I will be voting in support of it.

Hardt.

Thank you. I just wanted to share that this decision is really difficult for me. I appreciate everyone speaking tonight. and I've been talking to so many people in our community on many different sides of this issue and I can really understand where a lot of different people are coming from in their positions on this. And as a brand new Councilor, I am working hard to figure out how I can best represent the people of Somerville. And what I've learned in listening to so many people is that I have a lot more to learn. There's a lot I don't understand about the many facets of this Resolution. And I'm not able to abstain, so I'll be voting no.

Other discussion? Councilor McLaughlin?

Thank you, Mr. President. I'm going to be supporting this for the reasons that Councilor Ewen-Campen, please, no one's going to be happy with me, don't worry. For the reasons Councilor Ewen-Campen stated, We're going to work on this. I think most people know what I want to spend my time working on, and it's the city of Somerville, it's the people here, the people that I see every day. We're going to work on this regardless of how I feel. So we're voting to work on this, to work on what the voters have passed, and do it in a practical and legally feasible way. I don't know if that's possible. We'll see. I do want to say one thing, though. When one of the speakers came up and spoke about bombs, of pension money going towards weapons, I'm actually, I may draw a pension someday from this city. I've been around that long. And I would not want my hard-earned retirement money going towards weapons anywhere against anybody.

and it did really bother me when someone said they're dropping bombs I hear someone say good it's like that's not acceptable to me on either side I want peace on both sides for this I personally wouldn't want my money going there This is the legally feasible part. That is the pension fund's responsibility. And we went through this with the fossil fuels a few years ago, something that I spearheaded on the council. We wanted to divest from fossil fuels. We were told explicitly we can't because we are all drawing money from the pension. So we cannot instruct and the Summable Pension Fund to do that. That is just one example. There's many more examples to come, but I just want to say that because I do not, I want to work on peace in Somerville. I don't want my money going towards my personal money as an individual going towards weapons anywhere. That's why I'm supporting this tonight and we'll see what happens in the coming months about anything that comes out of this.

All right, seeing no further discussion, I guess we can roll call on that one.

on the item in support of democratic divestment action regarding ballot question three. Councillor Hardt. No. Councillor Wilson.

Yes.

Ewen-Campen, Councilor Scott, Councilor McLaughlin, Councilor Burnley, Councilor Sait, Councilor Strezo, Councilor Clingan, Mbah, and Davis. With nine councillors in favor and two opposed, that item is approved.

Folks, I welcome you to stay and watch the rest of the proceedings. If you'd like to leave the chamber, you're welcome to do that as well. We do lots of cool stuff here. Folks, we have work to do. We have a long agenda. We'll take a three-minute recess while the room is cleared.

They want to just kill people, that's all they want to do.

It's all lies.

All you said was lies.

If you'd like to stay and listen, sit quietly. If not, please clear the room. We're going to call this meeting back to order now.

Our next item out of order, Madam Clerk. That will be item 7.13, a request of the Mayor. Requesting the appropriation or reserve of $7,260,181. in estimated fiscal year 2026 Community Preservation Act revenue for CPA projects and expenses.

Is there anyone from the administration here to say anything further? It's fairly self-explanatory, I think. I see. There he is. Alan, we just read in the item. Thank you for joining us. I apologize. Thank you. No worries at all. No, we appreciate you jumping in here. The item has been read into the record. Just introduce yourself for the record and let us know what we need to know about this request.

Thank you. Through the chair, Mr. President, this is one of the tax recap items tonight. We are correcting the CPA original FY26 budget appropriation. Now that we have the final tax recap numbers and final assessed values, We can now adjust the CPA budget for the full 3% surcharge that's taking effect this year and we hope to Include this if we get this timely vote tonight for immediate consideration. This money can go towards the FY26 CPA funding round which is currently underway. All right, very good.

Any questions, discussion? See none? All right. That item is approved. Do we need a roll call on that one? No? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good night, everyone. You too. Next item.

The next item being taken out of order is item 7.16, a request of the mayor. Requesting approval to accept and expend a $304,954.10 grant with no new match required from the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities to the Health and Human Services Department for the 2025-2026 Winter Warming Center.

All right, welcome Director Carroll.

Good evening. Through the president, we are presenting tonight for your approval, immediate approval given the time frame that the warming center is due to open on December 8th, which we're thrilled to report. We received a grant from the Division of Housing and the Executive Office of Housing and Stabilization. and Healthy Communities, I think is the full name, to expand for our winter warming center. And this would provide funding from The December 8th till April 12th in conjunction with the funding that was already approved. So we are piecemealing together this year's funding actually two grants and some city funding that you all approved a little bit ago. And we were just awarded this, so that's why it's a very rushed timeframe.

The state put out a grant for us for communities to apply for in maybe late October. So it's a very tight timeline. We appreciate all of our colleagues who helped make this happen. on a quick timeline, the grants office and everyone else. So we were awarded the grant. It's to cover essentially the operations after the first four weeks so it would be Early January through to the closing time in April for the main room of the warming center. And then the 10-bed extension is another grant. If there are questions, I can answer them or I don't want to get into too much detail. I know you have a very full agenda tonight, but happy to talk about any questions.

Thank you. Councillor Burnley.

Thank you to the chair. To the director, thank you for being here. As usual, there's a very welcome item before us, and I just want to I state for the record that this is for 35 beds, is that correct?

Yes, it is for 35 beds. We do have the capacity through the chair. We have the capacity for overflow that are not official cots and things, but these are for 35 beds.

Okay, thank you. And through the chair, could you just tell us for the record, like, where is it going to be? How can folks get in touch with the community if they, with the city if they need these services?

Sure, thank you for the question. And through the chair, the warming center will be at the Cummings School again this year. There were some important safety and We have compliance upgrades to the building and the bathrooms that needed to happen, so they are in progress, almost complete. We have a walkthrough scheduled for Monday, December 1st, so we'll be able to see All of the renovations, some are things like fire suppression in the area that will be hardwired in that are not, you know, nothing too visible or exciting. But mainly to the bathrooms so there will be accessible facilities in the space as well as adult size fixtures. This was a small children's school. So those are some of the main things that have been done in the facility. And what was your final question?

No, the final question was just how can residents reach out to the city for these services?

Yes, thank you for the question. We have the same warming center email that's set up that we've had in years past, the same lot of communication. So again, we'll be pushing out and have already started The messaging to our partner agencies who work with this population and getting the message out through outreach workers, through a number of partner agencies and our own teams to make sure that everyone that needs to know about the warming center will be reaching out to first responders, our Friday huddle. We are really just solidifying, as you can see the funding is just happening, so we are Solidifying very quickly now the final contract with the vendor. And at that point we'll be able to put a phone number in there of the on-call operator at the site. who can help facilitate things like taxi rides or answer questions should we be at capacity or they are at capacity.

So once we have that phone number, we will push out all of those materials really quickly through all our channels as well as city website to make sure through 311 that people know about this service that will be opening.

Thank you for that and I have no further questions but I just will state again for the public's amelioration That email, if you want to reach out, is warmingcenter at somervillema.gov. The website is warming... The number currently, you can call the Office of Housing Stability for that. I just saw the website, which is, I think it's Warming Center.

Yeah, it has its own, yeah.

At Warming Center, Somerville, it's somerville.gov slash Warming Center, yeah.

Caput. Thank you, Mr. President. Through you, I'm extremely happy to see this. Congratulations on receiving the grant. And I also just want to take this opportunity to thank you and your staff through the president. As the ward counselor, obviously, I'm copied on a lot of emails that come in from abutters in particular, and I'm just really impressed by the way that the staff is able to work collaboratively with all the neighbors. I'm thrilled that this is not only coming back this year, but is going to Okay, seeing no further discussion, that item is approved.

Thank you.

Wonderful, thank you.

And that will return us to the regular order of business, Mr. President, which is item 3.9, an officer's communication from the chief assessor presenting proposed fiscal year 2026 tax classifications. and requesting the adoption of a minimum residential factor for fiscal year 2026 and acceptance of MGL Chapter 59, Section 5C, a residential exemption of 35% of average assessed value for owner occupied properties.

Good. All right, Mr. Golden. Mr. President, through you, welcome to classification. Somerville Public, Honorable Counsel, I have two motions to bring before you tonight. The first motion is that the City Council adopts a minimum residential factor of 82.816, the legal minimum for the City of Somerville for fiscal year 2026. The second motion is that the City Council accepts the provisions of Chapter 59, Section 5C, approving A residential exemption of 35% of the average assessed value for owner occupied property in fiscal year 2026. The residential factor is basically a 1.75 shift from the single tax rate onto the commercial property in the city. That would be commercial, industrial, and personal property.

When we shift at 1.75%, a single tax rate of 1083 becomes 1099, and a commercial rate comes to 1895. How we get at the minimum residential factor is when you take the shift percentages that the residential drops in the commercial gains. The residential New percentage would be 67, 379. The commercial would be, excuse me, the commercial would go from 18,641 to 32.621. When you divide the residential new percentage by the percentage when it's a straight rate, that gives you the .82816 that's before you today. The second motion,

For the residential exemption, you take all the residential apostles in the city and you divide it by the residential value. It gives you an average value in the city of 1,191,318. That's up roughly $60,000 from last year. Once you apply the .35 to the average, you come out with a residential exemption of $416,961, which in tax dollars for everyone that lives in their home, would be an exemption of 4,582.40. Next slide. The LA-4 comparisons compares last year by use changes in value for our single-family, condo, two-family, three-family, Two buildings on one lot, which is a 109.

Our apartments, four and greater units. Our vacant land, our commercial, industrial, mixed-use residential and commercial. and Personal Property. This year, our single families went up 6.7%. across the city. Condominiums went up 5.6. Two families went up 4%. Three families, 8.1. Residential lots with two or more buildings, 18.7. That's kind of skewed because we had nine new lots that had two buildings on them. So that can be a little confusing on why that percentage is so high.

Apartments 111 to 125, which is anything from 48 units and up, is down 9.3%. That is another skewed number and the reason for that is we had 300 million plus apartment buildings have retail space on the first floor. become stabilized and they had to move from apartment to mixed use. So if you look at the mixed use, 012043, you can see the residential. had a significant increase in value, 52.2% increase, and that's where that value went, which caused the 9% drop. Commercial is less than a percent, an increase, and that is something that we're a little concerned about. It has a lot to do with the life science stabilizing at 60%.

We'll get into that a little later in another slide. had roughly five buildings at 60% that are vacant. Personal property is a pleasant surprise. We're up in personal property 8.8%. It couldn't have come at a better time. Next slide. Apostle count changes. We may have the most condo conversions in the Commonwealth as we know. That number has come down a little because of some of the ordinances that we have in place now, but we still had 165 residential condo units, 52 conversions. We added nine parcels with two or more residential buildings, which I talked about. That's the 109 use. We have 62 fewer two-family properties because of those conversions. The average valuation changes in the city market growth and growth only.

Single families up 6.7%. Condominiums, 5.6%, which is down from 6.5 a year ago. Two and three families are up at 5.5% are up from a year ago. at 1.4, so it's nice to see the twos and the three families come back. Multifamily, four units, as I said, It's skewed because we had two or three enormous 112s valued over $100 million go into the mixed-use class. Commercials, 8%. Industrial, 8.7. That has a lot to do with the increase on a data center that we finally got into with some cooperation and we were able to value that properly. So that's what's driving that industrial number up 8.7%.

Next slide is just a nice map showing the different neighborhoods in the city before we get into each use. in each neighborhood, the first being the single families. Single families are up 6.57% on average. That's up from 3.72% a year ago. Two families, 5.4% up from 2.11 a year ago. Two more slides. We went to the twos. Now we're on the threes. The threes were very healthy this year. We had a lot of strong sales in the market, 7.71% across the city. that's up from 2.07 a year ago.

Condominium is our number one class. It's down slightly, 3.18% increase from 3.5 a year ago. The FY26 New Growth This is one of the snapshots that I think is important for the council to take a look at. You can see how strong our residential new growth remains and will continue to provide the city with I mean, 3 million annually is a very healthy number for the residential property. I commend my team on all the collections they're doing out there on permits from January 1 to about June 30th. Commercial, as we know, took a dip. Our growth went from 14 million a year ago to seven, eight this year, largely because

The life science remains vacant, and there's a slide coming up that'll show that vacancy. Industrial, we had a nice spike with that data center, so that number's healthier than usual. Next year I'm predicting that the number will go down some more and stabilize for a little while until we can get some commercial activity going again. Next slide shows four of the properties that contributed the most. Our flagship building, 250 Water, finally finished the final floor in the building, and that's what's driving that new growth there. Eversource Utilities Electric, very strong number this year. 70 in a belt is the data center. Healthy Increase as well. And that building's not even functioning yet.

We're feeling it's about at 60%. 20 to 50 Prospect, we captured retail space on the first floor for the first time along with the residential portion of that building going from about 85% to nearly 100%. as of June 30th. So those are the four new growth leaders this year. Next slide. Life Science, as we know, in the greater Boston area, we had about 16 million square feet a year ago that was vacant in our abutting communities. The appetite for Life Science is about $2 million a year, so you can kind of see what we're in and how hard it's gonna be to get out of it. The fiscal year 26 market depreciated 20%.

across those various communities we were fortunate that that number wasn't so high here. The life science market depreciation will absorb the new growth captured for another year. Our expert comes back in We're right at the point where we're almost valuing the buildings with the money that they put in to build them. It's right there, and I think that's the encouraging thing about what was achieved at 188 Assembly. You have a half a million square feet. As that comes to fruition, it'll... it'll be a really nice thing over the next 10 years because we'll be able to capture all the growth lost in the buildings that aren't full yet and more importantly the the jobs and the The atmosphere that building will bring once it's stabilized.

I'm looking at about 15% next year out of that building. They agreed to the 25 base. They're our fourth highest taxpayer in the city currently. If you look at the red highlighted area for vacant, that number's not subtracted out of that, so it's gonna really bring our vacancy down quite a bit with that building getting occupied. 100 Chestnut is another building that's moving forward that we're feeling very comfortable about that will stabilize and should bring us Anywhere from 5% to 10% more new growth as the tenant fit up a space for a new tenant. We had one leave and one's coming in, so that's encouraging. Next slide. FY 26 tax levy and classification. We start with last year's levy limit.

Two and a half comes in at $6.4 million. New growth at $7,829,455. Brings us to an FY26 levy limit of $270,858,977. We have the high school debt exclusion after that, and it rounds out our maximum allowable levy at $279,575,488. In a perfect world, we'd like to tax rate to that number, but until the recaps finalized, We're not quite sure where the excess levy capacity will be. Sometimes the commercial will go up two pennies, sometimes the res will go up one. We're not in control of the adjustment button at this moment, but it's important that we capture as much as we can.

Below, you can see the commercial value percentage at 1864, and after shifting at the minimum residential factor, it goes to 3262. The residential value goes from $81.36 to $67.38. These are the numbers that I talked about in the beginning. If you divide the 67.38 by the 8136, that's how you get the 8282 minimum residential factor that we have before you tonight. You can see what the commercial levy is. You can see what the residential levy is. 91 million, 188 million. The res burden goes on to the commercial about 39 million this year. Commercial base was larger, we could pass more onto it, but it's capped at .75 in terms of what we can pass.

Next slide. For the first time in some years, our residential base outgrew our commercial base. Our commercial base was just climbing and climbing and climbing, and you can see by looking at the smaller box in the right-hand corner that the 2633 went to 2538 on the pie grid. PP is up, industrial slightly up. Next slide. If we had no classification in the city and we had one rate for everybody, it would be 1083. The Board of Assessors doesn't recommend this choice. using the minimum residential factor in the residential exemption for the past 12 years and shifting at 1.75% for 19 years.

So option one is usually not a choice. Option two, Next page is the classification with no residential exemption. As I said, the residential exemption has been voted by the Honorable Council for the last 12 years. The 35% is the maximum that we can recommend. and I think if we go to the next slide you'll see the differences if you look at the two groups and compare the uses that with the residential exemption at 35%. The condos, the one families, the two families, and the three families have had a pretty stable increase over the years. Nothing

Alarming about the increases and the fact that the high schools in that number is really amazing when you get right down to it. The next slide is the high school slide. You can see how the debt exclusion affects each use. Condominium's been pretty consistent over the years. There's a three-year snapshot there. One family's up slightly. Two family, it's been very consistent, a little up and down. Three family. A little bit of a bounce this year, but I think it's just because our three-family market was so strong. We had some high sales throughout the city and over 40 sales altogether, arms-length transactions. The 4-8 unit is down a bit.

I don't think people realize how many 4-8 unit buildings we have in the city and that's a pretty good number if you're living in it when you get right across. Next is a comparison of what's going on with our abutters that share similar conditions. Unfortunately, we're fifth, Our commercial base is the smallest of the group. This is a 25 snapshot, not 26, because a lot of the assessors are doing what I'm doing tonight, and who knows what direction it's going. It's a year ago snapshot. It's still encouraging to me that our tax rate is 1091. 8,027 on that average bill last year.

That's a good number for being this close to Boston. Before the deputy assessor speaks to the exemptions, I can open the floor to any questions anyone may have.

Any questions at this point? Still tabulating all the questions, I assume. So, go ahead. Veronica?

Hi, I'm the deputy assessor. We want everybody at home to be able to hear you as well. To give you a summary of the options we have to reduce real estate taxes for our residents. So we have some personal exemptions that we offer. and on the slide you can see an overview of them and kind of what the qualifications are.

I beg your pardon, can I ask you to try and get into the mic just because it's not picking up your voice and I want people to be able to hear you. Thank you.

So you can see on the slide an overview of the personal exemptions that we offer. And there are asset limits and income qualifications Unfortunately, we can't set those limits ourselves. That's the state. So we're just dependent on that. We can't... We have a double up, so when people get the exemption, it eventually can go up to the double amount that is initially they capture. I wanted to let you know how we do our outreach. So in the beginning of the fiscal year we always sent out a mailing to all the

Previous applicants that got it last year so to give them an early opportunity to get their papers together and submit it. We have of course everything online as well and in all the most used languages in Somerville. and then we also have a text update that's about a text update newsletter and that's about to go out again with the first quarter bill and that goes out to our residential Property Owners. And then for the rest, I just wanted to take this opportunity that we are always, you can reach our office We try to be as accessible as possible.

This is kind of it for the summary. Just want to mention that the total amount of personal exemptions we give out is a little bit down. I think that has more to do with our senior population. and then there is also, we also offer the CPA exemption for seniors and for low income and we see that that's a little bit up. but that's a very small exemption and it's only on the surcharge. Okay, does anyone have questions?

Wilson. Thanks, Mr. President.

Through you to the deputy assessor, thanks for showing us this. Does that reflect Have we opted into the HERO Act that allows us to double the exemption for veterans yet?

Yes, well we already had a double up on that. So it helps with other things, but we already had to double up on the veterans exemption.

I believe we did opt in, but I stand to be corrected.

The HERO Act has more consequences than just the double up through the chair. It also has consequences for excise, so it gives a more broader exemption. I think the proof of being a veteran and your disability changed a little bit. It's easier because often they can just show a more simple proof, but I have to check that with my staff. But the double op we already had.

President, I'd be interested in looking into the full impacts and whether it makes sense for us to opt in fully to the HERO Act just because of the full ramifications of it.

I will look into, through the chair, we'll look into that.

Other questions on this presentation? Okay, seeing none, then we will open the public hearing. So for tax classification, we have a public hearing. So any members of the public wishing to speak on the item for us? No one in the room jumping up. Anyone online? Oh, yeah. If you're watching online at home, you can raise your hand using the Zoom function. In the Zoom function, use the raise hand function. Give folks a minute to find it if they want to. All right, seeing none, then I will declare the public hearing to be closed. Any other questions or discussion from the council? See none.

Okay, so ma'am. Yes, so those public hearings did happen at the beginning, but what I'll ask is if you could... I understand, I understand. So what we'll do... I understand. I understand. So what we'll do is if you could... Okay. This is the... Which item was it? Which street? That's what we're gonna do. I just wanna make sure. All right, so here's what we're going to do, ma'am. We have the item before us now. After we finish this item, I will entertain a motion to reconsider that one, and we can open it back up. All right? So for the moment, we're going to...

All right, tell you what, let me finish this item, and then I'll ask for anyone that we're not here at the outset for those hearings, I'm happy to open the items back up for discussion. So the public hearing on the tax... Item is closed. Do we need a roll call on that? It's two separate motions.

My mother speaks Portuguese and writes Portuguese. They sent her a letter that says Thursday, November 25th. And I noticed some of them here got Tuesday, November 25th, so they're trying to So, ma'am, if I could ask you, we want to make sure I give you the chance to speak.

We want to hear this, but that's not the item that's before us. As I just said, we're going to go back to that item so we can hear your concerns. Please let us finish the business here on the item that is before us, and then we will entertain a motion to reconsider the item that you noted. Do not need a roll call vote. Okay, so seeing no objection, then that item is approved. Is there two separate? That were stated at the outset? Just to remind folks.

Okay.

Clark was going to put it back on the screen so folks can remember. Okay, so those are the two items before us. Any further discussion? Councilor Mbah?

Thank you, Mr. President, to Dr. Gordon. Good to see you. Thank you for your work. I think on one of the slides, maybe like 12 or so, you had like different percentages for the lab buildings, like some were 60. Mr. President, through you, can you just go back to that slide?

I'll explain this one. Yeah, keep going. Keep going. It's slide 12. Yes.

Thank you. Why is there variation for the various percentages?

Hold on one second, let me put my glasses. 10 Prospect, 808 Windsor, 188 Assembly Park Drive, 74 Middlesex Ave, 599 Somerville Ave, and 495 Columbia Street. Those are the percentages that they are complete at the moment. They're all vacant except 188 Assembly is going to begin to be moved forward in January. That's why it's in red. The others are all vacant. They are weather-tight buildings with no tenants.

Yeah, no, I understand that, but why is the other one taxed at $5.99, Somerville at 50%? and then 74, Middlesex at 57.

Because when we walk through the buildings, that's the percent complete when we're there as of June 30th, 2025. I see. and we work off of a chart that we can get that detailed. Believe it or not, and we have an expert appraiser who does all our life science, so we're right on top of it twice a year. Just because some of these are appealed and are going to the Appellate Tax Board, and we have to be very exact as of certain years to argue these appeals on value. Thank you. And we always...

Thanks for watching!

That's correct. I've been here nine years and we went to the top of the mountain and we're regressing now and we're going to regress a little further and we're going to do everything we can as a team to get these buildings to have tenants in them and be successful that's that's the goal 188 is a perfect example of the city doing the right thing and realizing that we can Get folks into these buildings and move forward. It may not come as fast as we like, but over the 10-year period, we will capture the growth necessary at 188 that we would have liked to have gotten in a three-year period. But unfortunately the market's saturated and we're not alone. Cambridge, Watertown, Boston, we're all in this fight together. I think you're going to hear the word TIF quite a bit to fill these buildings. It's just where we're at.

Well, four of them are stabilized. Chestnut's the lowest percentage, but 222 Jacobs, 101 South, and 250 Water Street are very successful buildings. We hope to get the other five into that breath in years to come. From what I understand, this conversation's all ready because of 188 of two of these other addresses. Exciting news.

Yep. Discussion? All right, then seeing no objection, those items are approved. Now, I'm trying to use my little calculator here to confirm which ward 70 Vernon is in, but the lookup tool is not working. Is it five? Okay. So, Councilor Sait moves to reconsider items 3.6. Would folks like to reconsider that? Anyone not like to reconsider that item? See no objection. That item is now back before us.

That is item 3.6, a grant of location from Eversource to install a total of 48 feet of conduit in Vernon Street from utility pole 152 over 9 to a point of pickup at at 70 Vernon Streets.

I want to reopen the public hearing then for the reason being that members of the public who wish to speak at that meeting were not able to access the chambers when it was opened earlier, so we will now reopen the public hearing. If folks would like to come speak on the item, ma'am, please step forward. Just provide your name and address, and you can speak to the item.

Yes, my name is Elina Vicente. My name is Zelina Vicente, and I live at 74 Vernon Street in Somerville, Mass. There's a building which Barboza just bought. They're building their three-family home. A condominium, three story condominium. My mom has a very wonderful property that everybody wants to grasp at. and this thing here with a pole coming next to the house and it's a 48 feet conduit. I asked if they looked that up. I'm not interested, my mom's not interested in having anything in front of our house or anything touched around the property. because as I read into it there's like little things that they can get in there and sneak a little piece of the land or everything and I also made a recording of the people who bought I purchased the property next.

The guy was trying to take three feet into my mother's yard. I said, what are you talking about? He says, oh, your house doesn't have documents. And they used to belong to Joe, the famous guitar player there, whatever. You know, we have everything. you know the measurement and everything like that and he said oh this is oh we measured every single house and every single house have so many feet and we're gonna take three from here and three i said you gotta be kidding me no hell no So, and also in the paperwork that I got, it said Thursday, November, okay, November 25th on my mother's letter. And everybody else got Tuesday, November 25th. So what's the deal? They're trying to take my mother's house. It's not happening. My mother and father worked too hard for it. When Joe was next door, the fire truck did, everybody knew each other. And before Joe, the other guy. They left it to Joe. No one's going to take my mother.

I know my mother lives in the perfect place. They ran off everybody that I went to high school with. Nobody that I grew up with is here. and I don't want, my thing is no on that ever source near my house. I don't care where the hell you put the post, but you're not putting it near my house. And I talk like this because I'm from Somerville originally. Sorry, can't help it. But nah, nah, that's not happening. I don't know what else to say. And I also made a copy of what they sent everybody else and what they sent my mother. There's a lot of things that they've been doing and it's just too sneaky. My mother lives in prime location. You can build six apartment buildings in that spot. especially on my mother's yard. She even gave Joe a little bit of something, but we're not giving that to nobody that's building there right now. When Joe was there, we allowed Joe to use a little bit of the flower pot, we kept it clean, but they're not gonna use it now.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in the chamber that would like to speak on this item? Is it on the Vernon Street issue? Okay, then after we finish this, we'll ask you which one it's on, and we'll take that one up as well. So I'll declare the public. So is there anyone else in the chamber that would like to speak on the item? Anyone else online? Do you have a hand on line? I do. Okay. Tyler Barbosa. Tyler Barbosa?

Hi, can you hear me? I'm Tyler Barboza and I'm here with my grandmother. We're just right here to reinforce. that we are saying no to ever source applying for grant of location because under reading the law of grant of location is us relinquishing 48 feet of our property to the neighbor and again my grandma has said no to the construction no to any damage being done within our property and we will deny any moving forward if you continue to pursue doing so because the The property already had electrical poles and systems in place and they have enough space within their own property and in the back to do so. So we are saying a clear no to this grant and we hope that you can respect that because they are in the game of trying to destroy mementos like flowers that are my grandmother's husbands that passed away and in doing so it's not just

Physical damage, you are also causing psychological and emotional damage by taking on property that are leaving mementos of my grandma's husband.

Okay.

Anyone else here to speak on the item? Or online? Okay. I will declare the public hearing to be closed. Councilor Sait?

Mr. President, I was just going to ask if we can take up 3.4 after this item?

Councilor Ewen-Campen? Mr. President, just a suggestion. Oftentimes when an issue arises with one of these requests, It can be helpful to send them to Licenses and Permits Committee and then we can get representatives from the utility company in the same room with the abutters and get questions answered face to face. It's not my ward, but through the president, I would recommend this might be a good one to go to committee. So the folks can kind of interface directly with the actual utility company and get these questions answered. Councillor Scott.

Ewen-Campen was sharing a brain with me, Councilor Davis. Also, it sounds like there might be multiple issues here not related to the utility grant. So I'd be supportive of sending it to committee as well as it pertains to reconsideration.

I thought exactly. Councilor Sait, did I see your hand go up then or not? I'm sorry. I wanted to make sure I didn't see your hand go up to speak. All right. I agree. So I... Yeah. So I think we'll send this one to committee. Councilor Sait, I assume if you want to touch base with the constituents. to make sure they're looped in on the process and license the permits. Councilor Burnley, is that just a yes? I'll take it on the committee.

To the chair. Yes, mostly. I was going to say happy to take this up in committee. I do want to note these are butters. These are neighbors of mine. I am not in a butter, but I do. I'm quite close to Vernon Street. I see them quite often. I just made sure to check that I'm not within 300 feet of this. But happy to talk through this and to help coordinate with any communication if necessary. Okay, farewell. Yes, Councilor Sait.

Mr. President, are we asking the constituent to just show up to the meeting? of License and Permit, or can the constituents speak to item 3.4 right now?

So right now 3.6 is before us. That's going to be sent to licenses and permits. That's the process to allowing that conversation to go. That way the representatives from the utility can be there as well. You may facilitate some back and forth in the interim, of course. That's your prerogative. Sometimes that helps, but certainly our formal process is to send it to committees so that we can have a further discussion on it, certainly make sure that these concerns are heard and addressed in whatever way they can be. So that'll be the disposition of 3.6. Slate, and then Councilor Slate would like to move for reconsideration of item 3.4. Is there any objection to reconsideration? Seeing none, that item is now back before us.

And that is item 3.4, a grant of location from Eversource to install a total of 38 feet of conduit in Warwick Street from utility pole 357 over 3 to a point of pickup at 16 Warwick Street.

I'm going to reopen the public hearing on this one for the reason being that the member of the public who came to speak on the item this evening was not able to get into the chamber. due to it being full when the item was first read. So that public hearing is reopened. Is there anyone here in the chamber that wishes to speak on the item? Sir, please.

My name is Matthew Penny. I live at 19 Warwick Street. That telephone pole is... You just state your name again.

I was talking over you. I apologize.

Matthew Penny. This evening, I was given this... I got this notice in the mail on Thursday. I didn't understand why they want to do this... So I called Eversource. They assured me that there'd be representatives here tonight to answer my questions. When I stood outside, I told the police I needed to be in the meeting. They assured me those items won't be taken up until after the meeting. and protesters leave for whatever was going on. I waited. And I called my wife and said, get on Zoom, because the police said, get on Zoom. You can go home and get on Zoom. But you can't, because the meeting already started.

So I hope this item hasn't been decided on because I don't see anyone from Envis was here to answer my questions and I have questions and I guess I don't know, how does this work? Has the item already been voted on?

So right now we are in a public hearing. I can speak to your questions after the public hearing is over, so hold on for a moment. Is there anyone else in the chamber here to speak on the item? Anyone online? Use the raise hand icon. Okay, I declare the public hearing to be closed. I apologize, sir, that you were not able to access the room. There was a representative from Eversource here when the item was first called. and so on. I suspect we'll likely send this one to committee as well where we can then get the representatives from the utility there, hear your concerns, and have a full conversation. But I'll open it up to members of the council if there's any discussion. Okay. This one is also in Ward 5, I think, Councilor Sait.

I was communicating with the other constituent there. This will go to licenses and permits. In the interim, I would recommend that you connect with a ward counselor who's speaking with your Sleet, and other Ward 5 neighbor there at the moment to get information. Councilor Sleet, I'm just noting that we'll send this. So we'll send this one to licenses and permits as well if you want to help facilitate any conversation beforehand by all means. But we'll make sure that Eversource is there. And that is the process. That's the forum we have for if there's any questions, any concerns, we don't do it. We send it to committee so you all can have a full conversation, make sure that your concerns are heard and hopefully addressed. I saw Councillor Clingan.

Through you, Mr. President. I'm just wondering to the Chair of License and Permits, I can't recall off the top of my head if there is one more meeting on the calendar. I know that our last meeting of the year is the 11th of December. So just so the folks know that we're Attend that meeting. It should be happening very within the next week or week and a half. So it'll be by Zoom.

So the typical schedule for that would be for that meeting to happen on December 10th. That's, of course, up to the chair at the chair's discretion to schedule another meeting at another time. But certainly, December 10th is the one we have designated as available for license purposes. Davis. So I'll defer to the good chair for scheduling on that. Do you have any thoughts on that at the moment?

I just want to reconfirm through you that I do have a meeting scheduled for December 10th at 6 p.m. which will be remote on Zoom so you can log in from home and we'll and we will make sure to the clerks will make sure to contact Eversource to to ensure that they are present to answer these questions. And I will be hopefully facilitating a thoughtful and kind but thorough discussion, if that is to everyone's Liking.

Thank you. Okay, so seeing as I'm here, A Zoom meeting to me is not the way I like to go to a meeting. I like to be in person. But if that's not possible, I guess that's not possible. It says here that Eversource is applying for a criminal location to install approximately 38 feet. You said that. Why?

So that's information that we can get you. I don't remember off the top of my head what the resource representative said unless somebody has minutes.

Does Eversource have a crystal ball about what's going on at 16 Warwick Street? Because I don't understand why they would preempt any permitting process.

So I could tell you that this is the permitting process, that these grants of location are very common. We have several of these at the beginning of every meeting. It is so that they can usually to run power or replace a faulty line or if there's a new project run the necessary lines for that building. That's typically why these

Why would the public utility be asking to do something before the permits were even applied for? Like I said, do they have a crystal ball? They know what's going to happen at 16 Longwood Street?

Clingan. I saw your hand. Did you want to speak to that specifically? I'm happy.

Yeah, Mr. President, similar to the question around 299, which hasn't even been demolished yet. They're already, you know, they try to get ahead of the game. But I do understand the residents' concern if There is plans in place that are not yet made public. I think he just wants to know what's going on in his neighborhood, and this is kind of an indicator as to something's going on and what. I don't know that Eversource would have the answer to that question, but I definitely think that they would be able to tell you. I don't think they're asking for a new poll. They're just asking for a new line to the thing. But ultimately, that would be a question probably for the planning department.

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the good share will make sure that the necessary folks are there. If there is someone else in the administration that can speak to any plans there, I think that...

Does anyone else not think it's curious that the public utility is applying for things put in a cart before a horse, as it were?

It's not. It's not uncommon at all for the utilities to... apply for these early so that they have all their permitting in place before something happens. I can't tell you what exactly is happening at that property because I don't know, but that's something that we can... But Eversource does know. My understanding of the reason that they submit these requests is that they have been asked by the property owner to and so forth. They provide power, for example. They figure out what is needed to do that, and then they come and request the permits to do so. That's the standard process. I'm speaking generally to that. I can't speak to the specific item. The way we can have that full conversation is in committee with the Eversource representative there, and anyone else who would care to invite, I would encourage you to work with your ward councillor to determine if there's other folks who should be present. Obviously, Councillor Clingan, again, happy to recommend

Sorry, thank you, Mr. President. They don't give a long explanation, but Mr. Penny, if you do run back on the video, I want to say I could be wrong that they said to accommodate two units, but I could be mistaken on that. So, you know, just in terms of what they've been asked, sounds like if you're concerned about the number of units, it sounded like they were saying, they did give a quick explanation of how many units it was accommodating, so... That is on the video as a sneak peek into the December 10th meeting where you'll get more information, hopefully.

And you can see why it would have been helpful to have the Eversource representatives in front of me to answer the questions.

I absolutely understand your frustration, sir.

I would have appreciated being able to ask them.

I understand these hearings are supposed to be set up so that we have that exact opportunity for you to hear from the resource representative. That said, they are not set up for question and answer back and forth between the utility and residents. They are a public hearing where any member of the public can speak to the item. If there are questions and there is a need for discussion, we send it to committee. So that's what we're going to do with this one. We're going to send it to committee, which is the standard process, which is what would have happened if we hadn't had the unfortunate circumstance where you weren't able to be here. And that is the process for which we have an opportunity to have a full conversation about the concerns and have both sides sort of talk it out.

Okay, so that's December 10th or 11th? December 10th.

Future information center.

I mean, the street I live on has had plenty of cuts in the street. I don't know why that needs another one. For a property that hasn't been permitted. And I would think that all of you would ask the same question. Why do the residents have to put up with a utility cut? The residents don't know anything what's going on in that house. It's an empty house. It sits on an empty lot. The developer came and bought it and piled a bunch of fence in front of it, put banners on the fence. It's an eyesore. That's not my issue. My issue is the pole in front of my house already has an underground service on it. For the three units across the street, Now, picture a coffee cup and you drop three pencils in it. That's what the conduits look like going up that pole. So there's no room for any other conduits on that pole. So this request, I don't even, from a physical point of view.

So the logistics of how the Office plans to do it are exactly the kind of thing that can be discussed in committee. Again, I apologize you weren't able to come at the beginning. We would not have entertained a back and forth at the beginning of the meeting. If there was no one else in the room, we wouldn't have had this conversation. So the next step in the process is that this is going to get sent to committee. That meeting will happen on December 10th, and that's where the opportunity for the discussion to continue will be. Okay? Okay. All right. Thank you. Yes. We will do that after this item is complete. So this item is, see, no further discussion. This item is referred to licenses and permits. Okay, thank you, and I again apologize you weren't able to come in. All right. I guess if we didn't get a roll call, we don't really need to move consideration because it didn't actually get resolved. So turns out the tax classification is still before us. We do need a roll call vote because we're making sure that we get everything right here this evening.

That is item 3.9, which we will pick up off the table. Exactly right, Mr. President. And for a roll call vote on the two resolutions, can we do them together?

We can do them together on the minimum residential factor and the 35% residential exemption. Councillor Hardt? Yes. Councillor Wilson?

Yes.

Councillor Ewen-Campen?

Yes.

Councillor Scott?

Yes.

Councillor McLaughlin? Burnley, Sait, Strezo, Clingan, Mbah, Davis. With all councillors in favor, both of those motions are approved.

Okay, thank you. So I appreciate folks indulgence on that. Again, I apologize to the members of the public who weren't able to be here for the items that they wanted to be here for. Madam Clerk, next item. So this goes back to our out of order items then?

The next item being taken out of order is item 10.1, a request of the mayor requesting the appropriation of $2,400,000 from the receipts reserved for appropriation parking meter receipts account to reduce the fiscal year 2026 tax rate.

Mr. President, thank you for your vote on the classification. So the final action required to set the tax rate and send the tax recap to the state is the vote we traditionally take at this time which is to appropriate parking meter receipts to reduce the tax rate. The appropriation is $2.4 million in parking meter receipts. That number has not changed since the budget. We disclosed that at budget time, so nothing has changed on that particular number, $2.4 million, to reduce the tax rate. Any questions, discussion?

All right, seeing none, we'll call it. All right, then that item is approved. Thank you.

The next item then will be item 6C, a report of the Committee on Land Use, meeting on November 20th, 2025.

Councillor McLaughlin.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We did have a land use committee meeting and things happened. We all met, we discussed a few items, talked about Gilman Square upzoning. What we need to discuss tonight is 90 Washington Street. Where we approved out of committee a memorandum of agreement, demonstration project plan, and updated objectives for the 90 Washington Street site. I believe Ben Demers is here, if anyone has any questions, but that vote was unanimous. and I submit the committee report to be accepted. All right, any discussion on the committee report?

Any questions of that? Those are part of the committee report, right? So any questions for Mr. Demers on the nine Washington items? Ben, did you want to add anything? I'm happy to give you the mic. Sorry.

Through you, Mr. President, I just want to make a couple of very quick comments in addition to what Councillor McLaughlin mentioned just around next steps. As well as just to note, so for the two of the items that are on the demonstration project plan and the memorandum of agreement, just wanted to note that these were also approved by the Redevelopment Authority at their evening yesterday evening. at their meeting yesterday evening. And then I just want to note some next steps. So if the development program and the updated development priorities in the development program or program of uses are approved, The next steps in our process are that we'll be finalizing a draft of the request for proposals, the RFP, over the next month, which we'll be refining with the Civic Advisory Committee and the Redevelopment Authority at meetings in December.

and then our goal is still to release the RFP early next year so just wanted to kind of reference those next steps the next step that we would be bringing an item back before the council assuming this process continues as we've laid it out would be once we have responses to that RFP process So sometime early, mid next year.

Okay, thank you. Any further discussion or questions yet? Councillor Hardt?

I have one question about the report, I think, in the committee or the presentation in the committee. So in the presentation through you, the question, You had said no surface parking required or involved in the plan. And I just wondered if that includes like Short-term parking for things like deliveries and Uber and DoorDash or if those things would be incorporated like short-term parking into the site.

Hardt. From my understanding, what this is really talking about is no surface parking lots on the site, so no large The traffic planning could still allow for different kind of delivery and different traffic markings along any thoroughfares that might border the site, so along Washington Street or New Washington Street, or along any potential thoroughfares that are also added to the site if somebody is redeveloping the parcel and adds any new thoroughfares.

And I'll just, for the question clarification, a building could also incorporate a sort of, I don't know what you call it. Portico, Structured, you know, like at a hotel where they pull in, right? That wouldn't be parking. That could potentially be available for the type of use that Councilor Hardt, is that correct?

To the President, I can't confidently say yes, that I'm sure of that. But from my understanding, that is not what the discussions at the Civic Advisory Committee have been focusing on. They're really talking about larger surface parking. So if there's these more specific An area of the street where somebody would be parking for a short time period for the specific use, I think something like that would still be fine within whatever plan was put forward.

Okay, thank you. Other questions? Any other discussion? All right, so the committee report is approved. Do we need any further votes on that? We're good. All right, thank you very much.

and that takes us to so next we'll take we want to take up items 8.2 and 4.6 together please item 8.2 is an officer's communication from the director of the office of sustainability and environment conveying climate forward 2024 and Item 4.6 is a resolution by Councillors Mbah and Sait in support of Climate Forward 2024.

Councillor Mbah? Proctor, do you want to speak on the item?

Yes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. I wanted to circle my items. Introducing this item in support of Climate Forward. We appreciate the good director and all the work she's doing with her staff to kind of like, continue to show that Somerville is a leader with our climate priorities. And of course, you know, we are also aware that we are bringing this forward at the moment when the conversation around climate, you know, and energy is shifting rapidly. in Massachusetts and across the country. So even at our state level, we are watching major debates unfold about affordability, clean energy, and the future of climate commitments.

So nationally, we also see how climate progress is facing significant headwinds with some leaders questioning even the rollback of longstanding environmental protections. Many of our residents are hearing mixed messages and are understandably concerned about what this means for their families, their bills, and their future. If you look at a massive, it's all almost like being threatened. But here in Somerville, we have always been clear about who we are and what we stand for. So we believe The climate crisis is real. We believe that clean energy transition can and must be equitable, and we believe that affordability and climate action are not competing priorities. They are inseparable. So every investment we make in weatherization, resilient transit, or healthy buildings isn't an abstraction.

It affects the comfort, safety, and economic stability of our residents, especially low and moderate income families. So I'll save all these other editorials. I will pass it on to my colleague, Sait to substantiate on this conversation. Councilor Sait.

Mr. President, thank you, Councilor Mbah, for your climate advocacy work. I'm very excited to be bringing this resolution forward. I will tell you why I'm very excited right now. As you know, before being elected as a World 5 City Councilor, I was a French teacher at Somerville High. In the advanced French classes, they would teach and I made the choice to teach about climate change because there was a lot of interest from youth, my students, It was also for personal reasons after my hometown in Algeria burned to the ground like many other regions in the Mediterranean. As an educator, teaching about climate change was a way for me to help educate and prepare future generations. My students learned about what actions are being taken around the world and what actions we can take at the local level.

I'm sharing this because I learned that some of my former students provided input and feedback provided feedback and input in putting together the Climate Forward Plan, which was an early step in their pursuit of careers in sustainability. With Somerville Educators Union, they also organized with other educators around climate education and school building decarbonization. It was the first union in the Commonwealth to have climate-related asks as part of teacher-to-contract negotiation platform and won. There were two huge wins. This said, you can imagine my excitement today to see our city commit to the climate goals we put together as a community.

My deep gratitude for you, Director Blais, and all your staff for continuing to move forward with Somerville's climate goals in times, as Councilor Mbah said it, Our national government is overrun by the deadly corruption of fossil fuel industry and their lies. When the nations of the world at COP 30 proved incapable of meeting the needs of global leadership, and when even our own state government just last week is proposing rollbacks to basic measures like Mass Save. It is now more essential than ever for leadership to come from the bottom up for communities like ours to speak as loud as possible and set the boldest standards of what climate action needs to be. In the total vacuum of leadership at other levels of government, it is up to people like us to be the example that others can look up to, so that together we may build an irresistible momentum towards a better future.

We have to hear, feel, and act on the call from our youth to do more. Today is one part of that. We can't slow down for a moment, and I look forward to building a better future here together tomorrow and every day after. We owe this work to our future generations. And with that, I would like to sponsor Director Blais.

Director Blais.

Through you, Mr. President, and thank you so much, counselors. I'm Director Blais. I'm Director of the Mayor's Office of Sustainability and Environment, and I'm So grateful to be here this evening, this week of Thanksgiving. I'm here to speak to two different items, item 251720 and 251699, which is an officer's communication that was submitted jointly it's the climate forward plan itself that the resolution is is discussing so I just wanted to frame that too before I address the resolution. So our climate action plan is our community's climate action plan, Climate Forward 2024. It was created with over 700 residents. The latest We have a lot of data to create science-backed recommendations for how we can not only mitigate our emissions but we can adapt to our changing environment.

Primarily around heat and rain events and coastal flooding, we learned through this exercise of updating our climate forward plan that there's these three critical pathways for flooding in Somerville. Not only Assembly Square, but Union Square and Davis Square too might see up to 10 feet of flooding by 2070 in a major storm. We are also already experiencing very extreme heat, getting reports of residents sleeping in wet pajamas just to stay cool. On the emissions front, we've made really incredible progress as a city. We have reduced emissions significantly since 2014 when we collected our baseline data. Our 2020 greenhouse gas inventory shows that we have curbed emissions by nearly one-third.

and we are starting to look at 2020 and 2024 inventories to make sure that we're accounting for the whole picture, not only just the impacts of the pandemic, but what happened afterwards. to inform our policy as we move forward. The Community's Climate Action Plan is centered around equity and helping to strengthen our community to be thriving and more resilient as 2020 or 2050 gets closer and closer. So this resolution is designed to support climate forward and there are obviously symbolic There are a lot of opportunities here at the moment, as the counselors have mentioned. But there's also more practical implications, too. We frequently submit comments. on various state-level policies.

We also give comments to the press on various initiatives and in our communications with our constituents too. We're constantly Going down the laundry list of how this council has unanimously supported climate action and we have unwavering interest in this initiative, but that story is Not quite concise, right? And our neighbors, in contrast, will have these very concise statements where they will just say, you know, our city council adopted this, our city council passed this resolution, and meanwhile for Somerville we and it's very important that we do this too but we have a list of of things that this council just in the past three years even has supported unanimously including the fossil fuel free home rule petition Ordinance and Resolution, and the Specialized Energy Code, the state's highest level of energy codes that are offered to us.

So this can more not only be symbolic of the community's widespread support for this issue, but can also be a method to concisely communicate and demonstrate I'm happy to take any questions and thank you all for your time.

Thank you. Any questions, discussion? Plotits?

Okay. Seeing none. Councilman, yeah? Thank you, Director Blitz. Again, it's just to reiterate what she just said, that the Climate Forward Plan 2024 is a roadmap built locally, like you said, that is so true, with real data and real community input. We were part of that process, a number of us. Also a clear understanding that, you know, there's also that lived realities was also involved. So it really affirms that we will stay on course regardless of, you know, the various uncertainties that are surrounding us. So we really appreciate your work and we will be there with you as we unfold this roadmap. Thank you.

All right, see no further discussion. So 4.6 was approved and 8.2 is placed on file. All right, good.

Next item is item 8.3, an officer's communication from the Somerset Director, conveying an update on the Happiness Survey 2025.

Director Gartsman.

Good evening, everyone. Hi, I'm Anna Gartsman. I'm the director of Summerstad. I am here largely to talk about the 2025 results of the happiness survey. and to encourage everyone to look at the data themselves it has been released and out in the world for the past two weeks and we're very happy to be able to provide it. Would you mind putting up slides?

Are the slides attached to the item? Yes.

They're in PDF.

Let's take a moment so that we can find the slides.

and I can talk while that's happening because I also know the slots if that would be helpful. So I can give a bit of a background on the happiness survey, which is a fun word that we use to describe a very extensive effort to capture the well-being and satisfaction levels of our residents. This is a survey that Somerstadt has run since 2011. We conduct it every two years and it is the only sort of continuous random sample survey that the city runs. We use the data from the survey in a number of ways, largely in three kind of main areas in tracking performance in long-range plans. in evaluating pilot programs and in helping set budget and resource priorities.

And we also make this data available to the public so they can use it for any research purposes they need. So if you go to slide four. A little bit of background of why we run the happiness survey. As I mentioned, it is the only random sample survey that we've been running. We do a random sample that's based on your mailing address so people are randomly selected to participate. We also do targeted outreach to special populations. and in combination this provides insight into a broad cross-section of opinions that aren't always heard in public meetings or online comments. The idea being that we hear a lot from people who come to the meetings and it sounds like they represent many people and this is the only way to know how many people that might be. We also ask about a lot of topics in the survey. So generally when the city runs surveys, it's on one topic.

And so people who care about that topic have a tendency to participate more. The Happiness Survey covers so many topics that people of all sort of opinions and interests participate, and so we get a lot more of sort of breadth of responses, not just from people who care about a subject matter, And last but not least, running the survey every couple of years allows us to see patterns over time and so unlike the regular sort of One-off survey where you might have a data point. You don't know if that data point is part of a regular trend that's been happening for a long time or if it's an outlier or if it's part of a decreasing or increasing trend. And so the happiness survey addresses all of these concerns. In the spring of 2025, we sent the survey to randomly selected households. We provide paper surveys in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole. It comes in one giant envelope.

and we also provide an online option in all of the languages above and Nepali, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese as well. We received almost 1,400 responses. As usual, our sample over represents some folks who tend to take surveys more, specifically women, white people, homeowners, and high-income households. All demographic groups have enough respondents that we can do analysis and reporting on those groups. Because the survey went out in the spring of 2025, remember that results reflect the sentiment of that time. New in 2025, we have on Popular Demand, now able to produce some more fine-tuned maps. If you recall, last year and before, we could only provide ward-level maps. changed our sampling plan to be able to provide a maps by census tract.

So there's 25 areas in Somerville that we can now report on. We've also done some deep dives on some themes of city work. This year we focused on community and governance, public health, public space, infrastructure, commercial development and arts, and education. We've also introduced some open questions for what the city is doing well, where folks could respond up to three items, and what it could improve, also up to three items. Almost a thousand of the 1,400 people left comments in both areas, so there's a ton of data We also have some open response questions about people's last interaction with the city and where the city should spend more and fewer resources. I'm going to skip this one and just talk through it as I go, but this how to read the charts is available for your reference in case you go back to this later, as everybody should, because it's very important and critical.

So, results from 2025. Overall, Somerville residents are happy and the way we know that. There's two charts here. The top chart shows the average response. This is on a scale of one to five, the answer to the question, how happy do you feel right now? As you approach kind of four on average, that's on the high end of what we see in the survey. A four is satisfied or agree or generally good. You can also see the distribution of responses below. and that's where you get kind of the nuance of how many like is it just that everyone is happy or are some people very happy some people are neutral you can see that it's been going down a little bit recently 3.7 is still fairly good but it is definitely lower than we've been seeing recently. But if you go to the next slide, you will see that despite that people are still happy with Somerville as a place to live. And this has been steady since the pandemic.

So it's been at a 4.0, basically, since then. And on the next one, this is... A question about agreement. So how much do you agree? I feel safe in Somerville. And people do feel safe in Somerville, nearly 4.0s across the board, basically everywhere. So next I have a series of slides that are kind of more digging into the themes that we're seeing. These are a sample, so there's a lot more data available for playing around online. But to talk about a couple, we asked about core city services and satisfaction with them. So in general, respondents are satisfied with the overall quality of city services they receive. That's the first bar.

as well as emergency response services, reliability of water and sewer services, and the availability of information about city services. The availability of information about city services in the comments is largely reflected in how people feel about 311. There are about 170 comments about 311, and two-thirds of those are positive. I have some quotes here. 311 is always extra helpful whenever I call, and 311 has been great. When people flag sort of improvement suggestions, they say something like, contacting 311 is easy, but I'm not sure if actual action was taken afterwards. So it's more about the follow through. And so this is an example of how we kind of use what people write to explain and give some nuance and context to the quantitative data. The next example I have is governance.

We asked some questions about how people feel about their opportunities for civic participation and information. Access for Voting in Local Elections, both quite good. Respondents are less likely to feel that government processes are visible and understandable to them. There are about 80 comments about city processes, largely focused on processes for permitting, getting a parking permit, paying tickets, et cetera. And comments are split about one-third positive to two-thirds needs improvement. So kind of positive comment examples are things like easy to use the website and online payments. And on the improvement side, I went in person to pick up my permit. It was easy and quick. However, the reason I went in person was because my mother, who also lived in Somerville, warned me that she ordered hers online and it never came. So we kind of see a mix there. and more. Another theme we have is city design.

People are very satisfied with their proximity to parks they want to use and other public spaces, and they're less satisfied with layout and design of streets in their neighborhood. There are about 200 comments about street layout and design, largely focused on availability of bike and pedestrian infrastructure and availability of parking. And the comments are split about 50-50, positive to improvement suggestions. I think is not unexpected, but good to confirm that it's actually as split as we tend to see. People say things like bike and pedestrian infrastructure has improved a lot. Please keep it up. And also that we should stop taking away parking with no alternatives. Another theme is maintenance and you can see here maintenance of street sidewalks and bike lanes on the very right there is one of the lower kind of Scores we see in the survey.

So respondents are fairly satisfied with the beauty, cleanliness and upkeep of their neighborhoods. Although I will say that that has been going down over time. And people are also satisfied with maintenance of municipal buildings, but respondents are, as I mentioned, less satisfied with maintenance of street sidewalks and bike lanes, and that has also been declining since before the pandemic. There are over 250 comments about maintenance of roadway infrastructure and they are split about 10% positive to 90% improvement suggestions. People flag sidewalk repair in general and after street work, so it makes it harder for seniors to walk. People flag that we need to repair roads themselves and also bike lanes.

On a more positive note, arts and local economy, respondents continue to be highly satisfied with social community events, the ability to create and enjoy art in Somerville and the restaurants, shops, and other businesses in their neighborhood. What I want to flag here is that this one on the top on the very right is a very high satisfaction with Neighborhood restaurants, shops, and other businesses. But the comments are actually split because people think we should be doing even more. So people are happy with what they have in their neighborhood. They say things like, small and unique businesses abound, love the lack of big chains. So easy to shop for almost everything. But at the same time, they say we need more support for local businesses, less big corporate development, and businesses close and nothing reopens for years. What I want to bring up here is that the question wording matters. So here we asked, are you satisfied with what you have? But we didn't ask, are you satisfied with the city's efforts to supporting small businesses?

So I think it's important to keep the question wording in mind. On the next one, we have another theme of education supports. We asked some deep dives on education questions. So these results are specifically parents and guardians of children under 18. We asked about Availability of child care and out-of-school care of various age groups. And what you see here is that it's on the lower side of what we see in this survey at sort of all the levels. There are about 45 comments about education supports split about one third positive to two thirds needs improvement. People really like the quality and availability Pre-K school and after-school programs and new parent groups, but improvement mentions frequently include asking for youth programming and the center, more affordable child care options, and universal pre-K. Um...

On the housing side, also one of the lower things we see in the survey, not surprisingly, respondents are highly satisfied with the condition of their housing, but much more likely to be dissatisfied with the quality and variety of housing options in their budget. Wood. You can see on the map on the right is how concerned are you about being priced out of living in Somerville? This is an average This is a scale of 1 to 3, so higher is more concerned. So the redder you get, the more concerned you are. And people are very concerned about being priced out. of Living in Somerville. Housing affordability is one of the most prevalent common topics, around 350 mentions, and they are split about 10% positive to 90% improvement suggestions. Health supports, the last theme.

So this is limited to respondents who report difficulty paying for food. The reason we did this is that Overall, respondents report very high levels of satisfaction with the ability to access basic needs, grocery store services that support health, and relief from extreme heat. It is one of the highest results we have in the survey. The average is something like 4.6 for overall. Remember the highest you can have is a 5 and the 4.6 on average is extremely high. However, This is one where just because it's high doesn't mean it's necessarily good. In some cases, neutral is maybe fine. We are maybe okay with people not having extremely high satisfaction on some topics and it's okay to be neutral on something like access to basic needs we probably want to aim higher and so we've selected here just the respondents who report difficulty paying for food and how they reacted to the questions.

For them, the ability to access basic needs is lower and reminder that these are results from the spring So they don't reflect the recent food insecurity that we have been experiencing. They also flag in the comments that They want to keep living in Somerville, but they need to fix the affordability problem so that they can access all of the resources of our city. They say things like I cannot fully appreciate and engage in all the opportunities to socialize or volunteer with my neighbors because my entire human existence is devoted to paying rent and not becoming homeless again. So it's hard to kind of engage in all the other study services and functions for folks who respond that they have difficulty paying for food.

I have two things here of the kind of the most split opinions in the city. According to the happiness survey, respondents actively disagree on whether to repurpose parking for other uses. That's not surprising. There's 46% of respondents agree and 38% disagree. There's higher agreement near T stations, which is also interesting. You can see that on the map. There's an interesting age pattern, which is what this shows, as older respondents are are less likely to want to repurpose parking for other uses. And this is an area of actual real disagreement where what is the right thing to do is not clear. And the other area of big disagreement is on whether the city is doing enough to decrease the presence of rats and mice. This is a mix.

I think we see the biggest difference between respondents from word one, which are less satisfied, and word six, which are more satisfied. I'd say more satisfied is not Amazingly High. It's neutral on average, so I wouldn't call that a win necessarily. But people write a lot of comments about what to do. They want to offer composting to reduce rats and waste. They want to continue to combat rats, citing restaurants when they let dumpsters overflow. They want to curb the rat population, et cetera. and there's a map here showing kind of where so the bluer areas are more satisfied and the redder areas are less satisfied so East Somerville is less satisfied with sort of well agrees less that we're doing enough. So I've just gone through a lot, but there's a ton more available on the website.

There are questions you can view over time and demographics of the survey respondents over time and questions by all of these demographic slicers. and questions by geography and these concern questions including maps and you can compare questions to each other if you're interested so there's There's a hundred different views and slicers for you to explore the data on your own. You can of course also download the data and make your own views and slicers as you choose. Some of the geographic explorations can be really fun. Here's an example where respondents in assembly row are, for example, among the happiest that we see on this map there at 4.1. but they also feel the least connected to Somerville. On the question, I feel like a part of the Somerville community, they have a neutral on average where most people are closer to satisfied, which we felt was interesting.

So yes, the dataset and data dictionary and data visualization are available for you and for everyone. I just want to flag that we just published the data as we are cleaning it. So while we've done extensive quality checks, this initial release is likely not perfect. If you notice anything or would like anything added, please let us know. We are still finishing processing the open response comments, but we're going to publish comment categories in the data set as well in the coming and then next for us is conducting internal assessments by kind of topic areas and departments and by request investigations so if you would have any of those let me know and of course we're always planning for the next happiness survey which will be in 2027 if you have questions you would like us to include please reach out

Thank you, Director. Could you read out the website again, just for folks that are listening at home? Of course.

Yes, all of our data sets are available at our open data portal at data.somervillema.gov.

Burnley. Thank you, through the chair. Thank you for being here, Director. Almost as a rule, I don't tend to have favorites anything. Favorite color, favorite pie, favorite anything. These presentations are my favorite presentations that we receive once a term. If I remember correctly, the last time that You were here. I asked so many questions that we might have had to punch it to committee or might have gotten Madagata, Apollo Music, as it were. So I'll try not to do that again. But I do really appreciate this data. I think it's really incredible that we're a community that is invested in the happiness of our residents that we study the happiness of our residents and that and I'll circle back to this at the end of my comments and questions

that we try to use this data in a way to best serve the direction of the city. But having just looked through a bunch of the different data sets, I have a few things I want to mention, highlight, and then a few questions. I guess I'll start. with the fact that When you look at this data that is broken down by both race and gender, you see a spike both in 2023 and 2025 of more folks choosing not to identify themselves in terms of what their race or gender is. And subsequently, when you also look at this data in relation to happiness,

Non-binary folks and folks who chose not to respond to give a preferred gender, this data shows tend to be less happy here. There's no question there. I just think it's really important to note those things. I'd also note that When you look at the respondents of this data, throughout the years it has been relatively even. In fact, it's gotten more even between the respondents who are homeowners and who are renters. And as most people who live here would know, the city has vastly more renters than homeowners. So I guess a question coming out of that is, how do you think that that

That affects the data and the responses here when we have, particularly around the questions of housing, you made a point to say that there is a real palpable feeling in this committee about The worry of being priced out. And that is from a dataset that is about half people who own their homes. So I guess I'm curious if you have any insights there if any of the data that you saw gives you more information about how that might be affecting things.

Thank you for the question through the president. I have a couple of comments and let me know if I forget to address any questions. On the question of gender, I think what's interesting to see is the different questions to which non-binary respondents respond. respond like and unlike binary respondents. For example, as you flagged, non-binary respondents flag being less happy right now. But if you look at their satisfaction with Somerville as a place to live, they're actually identical to binary respondents. So I think... Having to look at the kind of combination of questions is important. I do believe that non-binary respondents are having a harder time overall right now and I am happy that that doesn't appear to be reflected in their satisfaction with Somerville as a place to live. But it is important to check that and all of the questions that might be kind of reflecting the lived experience. On the question of renters and homeowners, yes, I think renters and homeowners frequently disagree.

For example, on the rat question, renters are more likely to think that we're doing enough. and I think we can also check about concerns of being priced out as well. And I think it's important we provide those demographic slicers in order to be able to check I think it is especially for kind of low prevalence populations it's more important to have enough of them that you can look at them rather than try to get them to be representative and therefore frequently kind of absorbed into the Overall Average, for example, to go back to non-binary respondents, because they are kind of less prevalent in the population, you actually want, you don't want them to be smushed in with everyone else because then they're

and so on. but I think by being able to report on them separately you do get the nuance of their experiences but you do have to check the individual demographic groups. Did I miss anything?

I don't believe so. And I have questions, but I'll respond as well. Yes, heard. I think those are really important points. Just to go back to to bring up race again, part of the reason I use that Indicator Factor Identification. Beyond the fact that, like gender, there is an increase in the preference not to answer is when you look at and many more. One might think it's counterintuitive, but I would imagine that

Both race and gender are being influenced by, as you kind of alluded to, larger societal issues that are impacting people and their experience just living their lives in public. Somerville is one part of that. It's really important that this survey breaks out between How happy are you and how harpy are you with Somerville? Because those can be different questions and sometimes starkly so. But I just wanted to say that to note that that is why I phrase it that way because I understand that you have to look at these questions in combination to get a more broader sense of their importance.

And to your other point about homeowners and renters, I also noticed that A significant amount of the respondents, or I might call it significant, are folks who make above $200,000. In my view, as someone who makes nowhere near $200,000, and never has, it could affect your happiness. I know they say money doesn't buy happiness, but it buys comfort, and comfort can make you happy. So again, these are are things that we need to look at. I don't think that that is necessarily as disproportionate, frankly, as the renter versus homeowner dynamics because we have seen an increase in high-income earners in Somerville over the last 10 years. But it is important when we look at the factor. I could do this all night, so I'll just end with one question.

which I believe I ask every time you're up here. How best do you think that the council can use this data to serve our constituents and direct our policy discussions?

Thank you for the question, through the president. This is my opinion, so a grain of salt, of course. I think the best use of the happiness survey data for council is that it reflects a random sample of I think that by nature of elected office, people come to you with concerns and people everyone I think has a tendency to surround themselves with like-minded people and so I think that my concerns because they're all my friends concerns are the concerns of the community and it's really hard to know whether those concerns are reflected in just the people who have come to you or if they are actually reflecting a broader concern so I think this is a good source of that information as like a gut check of Are the things you're hearing reflective of a broader concern or are they maybe acute concerns for a smaller group of people?

And one last thing, just because you asked the question, kind of, or had a request of us, which is if there are questions you previously asked that you'd like to see in the 2027 one to bring up. I remember last year, or two years ago, when we had this One of the questions that was most interesting to me was, when do you feel most unsafe in Somerville? And the answer from the data was, when riding bikes. and that was compared to when walking home alone at night when you know in a dark place Again, I think that question is really important for our elected officials to see and to find ways to actually address. So regardless, I put that as an evergreen question myself.

Okay, thank you. Councilor Wilson. Yeah, thanks, Mr. President. I want to thank our Somerstadt director for being here. Somerstadt just, it's such an invaluable part of the city in terms of giving us Data we can we can take and actually go make decisions based on so I want to thank you for that presentation I want to thank you for the if you haven't looked at the website I would encourage everyone to go through that the We're having sort of the kind of visual crosstab discussion we're having here. You can go deep on so many of these things. I spent some time with that. It's a really fascinating insight into you know to the director's comment about sort of stepping outside of bubbles and understanding you know where different parts of the community are at it's really really helpful for understanding that. I wish we weren't having this discussion at 9.48. Me too. It's an important one. Thank you for doing the work on the Happiness Survey.

It's always fascinating to look through this and understand where the people are at on so many different things. And again, those breakdowns, the crosstabs are just absolutely fascinating.

Thanks. Thank you.

So no further discussion. That item is placed on file. That brings us to our first executive session, I believe.

Yes, Mr. President, that would be item 9.4, a public communication from Osnat Hoffman, submitting an open meeting law complaint against the City Council.

I see that Solicitor Amara and Assistant Solicitor Peek are in the room. Can somebody please approach and confirm whether or not this item is appropriate for executive session?

Thank you, Mr. President. For the record, Jason Peeks, Assistant City Attorney. This would fit within one of the exceptions of the open meeting lunch or meeting executive session.

All right, very good. Thank you. One of these days, I'm going to get the solicitor attorney switch back right in my own brain. I apologize every time I get it wrong. All right, so with that, we will take a roll call to go into executive session.

Indeed, Mr. President. On that motion, Councillor Hardt? Yes. Councillor Wilson? Yes. Councillor Ewen-Campen?

Yes.

Councillor Scott?

Yes.

Councillor McLaughlin? Yes. Councillor Burnley? Aye. Yes. Councilor Strezo. Yes. Councilor Clingan. Yes. Councilor Mbah.

Yes.

Councilor Davis.

Yes.

With all councillors in favor, this council will enter executive session.

Thank you, folks. We will return to open session when this executive session is over. For folks who are watching at home, just so you know, there's then an item that we will discuss, and then we have another executive session that we'll go into. And after that point, we'll start the meeting.

Thank you for watching!

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, call this meeting back to order. Would the clerk please call the roll?

This is roll call. Councilor Hardt? Here. Councilor Wilson?

Present.

Councilor Ewen-Campen? Scott, McLaughlin, Burnley, Sait, Strezo, Clingan, Mbah,

Present.

Oh, Councillor Davis. Here. With 10 councillors present and one absent, we have a quorum.

Okay, no meetings were, no votes were taken in executive session other than the vote to leave executive session. The next item we'll take out of order is 4.2.

Yes indeed, and that is... and order by Councillor Davis that the City Attorney's Office is authorized to respond to the open meeting law complaint by Osnat Hoffman on behalf of the City Council.

Any discussion? All right, seeing none, that item is approved.

and then the next item that will be taken out of order

Which is a request of the mayor requesting that this council convene an executive session to discuss the potential settlement of a claim against a former employee.

Okay, I see we have the city attorney here. Would you please advise as to whether this is appropriate to go into executive session to discuss? Would you mind just for the folks who are listening at home so we can hear you on the microphone?

This matter is appropriate to go into executive session to discuss settlement of a claim against an employee.

Thank you very much. We just did this. We don't need a roll call.

We do indeed need a roll call. On the motion, Councilor Hardt. Yes. Councilor Wilson. Yes. Councilor Ewen-Campen.

Yes.

Councilor Scott.

Yes.

Councilor McLaughlin. Yes. Councilor Burnley. Aye. Councilor Sait. Yes. Councilor Strezo. Yes. Councilor Clingan. Yes. Councilor Mbah. Councilor Davis. Yes. With all councillors in favor, this council will adjourn to executive session.

I'm sorry, again.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Thanks for watching!

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right folks, let's get back at it. One, two, three, four, seven, eight. All right, we have a quorum. We got to do a roll call coming out of executive session.

And this is roll call. Councillor Hardt. Here. Councillor Wilson. Present. Councillor Ewen-Campen. Here. Councillor Scott. Here. Councillor McLaughlin.

Here.

Councillor Burnley.

Present.

Councillor Sait. Strezo, Clingan, Mbah, Davis. With 10 Councillors present and 1 absent, we have a quorum.

All right, there were no votes taken in executive session other than the vote to leave executive session. That brings us back to the regular order of business. Here we go.

That will be item 4.1, an ordinance by Councillors Davis and Wilson that the Code of Ordinances be amended to prohibit the use of taxpayer funds for self-promotion.

Councillor Wilson? Mr. President, I'm happy to say this ordinance won't need to be approved before the next administration comes in because the next administration won't be doing any of these things, but as we're all aware of from the recent process of drafting a new charter, good policy isn't based on the current situation, but I think it's a great idea to codify this into law. That it could be my name that might be plastered all over everything. It's not just a misuse of taxpayer funds in the first place, in my opinion, but having to update all of this signage all the time just makes that even worse. So this proposed ordinance is going to ensure better use of taxpayer funds in the future and I look forward to seeing what Legislative Matters does with this.

Davis. Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you to my colleague at large for signing on to this. This is something, an ordinance that I've had kicking around in my head for A long time. Certainly back into the past administration, so to be clear, this is in no way an indictment or a critique of the current administration's practices other than the extent to which they're just as Frustrating to me is the past administration's practices were, as Councilor Wilson said, seeing the mayor's name in lots of different places where there really is no reason or value or Add additional informative value I guess to having it there has always bugged me and it especially irks me when it feels at least to me

The frequency prevalence of that seems to increase at certain times of year every two years or so. So it's around election times for those of you whose brains are as tired as mine are. So I look forward to having this discussion in legislative matters. I want to thank our legislative policy analyst, Brennan Salisbury for putting together a draft. I will note that this was an early draft of his that I did not have time to sit down and talk with him about. To the extent that there's room for improvement, that is my responsibility and fault and not his. It's a great starting point, so I thank him for that. And yeah, let's focus all our money on things that matter and not... you know promoting ourselves when there's really no reason to.

Thank you to the chair. I'd like to sign on and I also have a question for the sponsors. Does this include the mayor's summer jobs program?

Through the president. It's funny you mention that because just today I was talking about how much I would love to rebrand and move out of the mayor's office, the summer jobs program. I think there's a Big opportunity to, you know, one, just decrease the workload of the mayor's office by having the mayor's office, you know, sit with that. And also it's the city's jobs program.

Other discussion?

Yes.

Councilor Scheiser?

Thank you. Mr. President, rhetorical question, what do we do with our tote bags now?

I'm sorry, I didn't hear that.

What do we do with our tote bags now, our City of Somerville tote bags?

I think those are yours to do with whatever you choose.

Councilor Ewen-Campen. Mr. President, I'm resisting the urge to sign on just because I'm jealous I didn't do this first. I'm thrilled about it. Thank you for putting it in. Looking forward to working on this.

Councilor Mbah, would you like to sign on? All right. So with no further discussion, that item is referred to legislative matters.

Item 4.3 is an order by Councillor Davis that the Commissioner of Public Works provide an update on how snow and ice is removed from different types of surfaces in schoolyards, including any limitations based on surface type.

That'll be approved and sent to school buildings, facilities and maintenance. Can we waive the reading to 4.4 and send that to school buildings, facilities and maintenance?

Item 4.5 is a communication by Councillor Davis in his capacity as president. Canceling the regular meeting of this council scheduled for December 25th, 2025. Place on file. Item 4.7 is an order by Councilor Strezo that this City Council discuss the safety of the Summer Street bike lane design around or near Putnam Street to Benton Road and how and if additional safety modifications can be made.

We want to lay this one on the table for next meeting? Okay.

All right. Item 4.8 is a resolution by Councilor McLaughlin supporting the resale of certain city-owned property.

Councilor McLaughlin. Thank you, Mr. President. I have a slide to go with this too, if you could pull it up.

and Councilor Wilson would like to sign on and Councilor, okay, Councilor Batt would like to sign on.

So while we wait, I recently had a meeting where I said what I'm going to say right now at 90 Washington Street to the residents of Cobble Hill that I've been on record, both public and private, Opposing any further development of the green space along 90 Washington Street, as you can see here. The area in red is city-owned property that we have through eminent domain. And so I publicly said this, so I was pretty astonished when I go to a community meeting on behalf of Cochran Jenison where they say that they would actually like to take some of the green space that we own to build parking. The very people who have admonished us and had people criticize the taking of green space for the seniors there. So it surprised me. I guess it didn't surprise me that much. But you see that, if you could see on the south side, you see a little red grid down there.

They want to use... Land that belongs to the city to build parking space. You can see the black lines too where they want to add even more parking in order to address the parking lot in the upper left-hand corner. So I got up there, talked in front of the residents, and said, I will do you one better, and I would like to just sell all of that back to Cochran Jenison. and just be done with this once and for all. They made a killing off a lawsuit that we lost. So they have plenty of money to take this land back if they so choose. And I think it addresses every concern that we have. It addresses the green space that would be kept in perpetuity for the seniors there. It addresses the parking that they don't want to lose. We don't need to build new parking because there's a parking lot there. We received some of the money back, which is the goal now for 90 Washington is to retrieve the money that we had.

and we get to build on 90 Washington Street which is the place we've always wanted to build to begin with and hopefully build something quality for the community there. So I put that out and the seniors loved it and the people there want to see this happen. I did have a speaker who wanted to come but unfortunately she too could not get into the building tonight but she sent a written testimony and I would just like to consider Good faith discussion between the city and Cochran-Jenison. See if we can agree upon a price for this piece of land that I would like to keep as is. And I submit for approval. Any discussion?

I'd say none of that item is approved.

That brings us to item 5.2, a resolution by Councilors Strezo, Clingan, and Wilson that the administration inform this council of the process, action, and communication used to consider acquiring the closed school building privately owned by the Archdiocese of Boston on Thurston Street after the Winter Hill Community Innovation School was deemed unsuitable for use.

This was an item that was, I believe, submitted at the last meeting, so it's now been, it was.

Mr. President, if I may, this is an item that was, it did not receive a disposition.

You're right, you're right.

and I did not catch that as it landed on the last agenda I caught it in the minutes so it is back because it has already been discussed but it does need a final action from the council for the record the clerk explained all of that to me

yesterday, and I had completely forgotten. Thank you, Madam Clerk. So yes, it was simply, it was the wrong designation in the committee. I believe the correct designation would be to place it on file, or either approve or place it on file.

So, well, Councilor Clingan, this is my item, but Councilor Clingan looks really anxious to speak, so I'll defer to him, and then I'm going to speak.

Councilor, so just to be clear again, this was, if the disposition in the Clingan, in the Clingan, somebody get me another Red Bull. If the disposition in the committee had been placed on file, then it wouldn't be back before us. It was marked, we're completed, which we can't do yet. In theory should be nothing more to discuss. You're welcome to discuss it because it is before us, but it would just be to give it the proper disposition.

Okay, yeah, that's what I thought. Okay, so I had work completed, but I should have just placed it on file.

It was, yes, there's details that I won't bore everyone with that require us, there's a difference between those two things. So the proper disposition would be either to approve it, Now that it's before us, we could prove it and replace it on file. Both have the same effect.

Okay.

Thank you. Councilor Wilson. Mr. President, really quickly. There was a previous inquiry made to the Archdiocese about this. It did not go anywhere. What I can say is I have it on good authority the next administration is going to re-engage about this. Chazza.

Thank you. Okay. Mr. President, through you, Councilor Clingan, so this discussion happened in committee, and yes, can you please, because I wanted to be part of this conversation, so can you please summarize this?

Mr. President, yeah, this item, in my opinion, I know I did sign on, but probably never should have been put on because this would be an item that the city would engage in a transaction There's nothing to discuss publicly in a meeting about a property. So whether we're doing a take-in or whether that would be most likely discussed We can't discuss this publicly in any fashion as far as the transaction. So that's why I meant to not work complete it, but meant to place it on file. I've been pounding this drum for a while now, and I know that the new administration that's maybe coming in is also seriously considering re-engaging on this process. That's all we can really say publicly.

Okay, thank you. So, Mr. President, through you to Mayor-elect Jake Wilson.

Councilor Wilson.

Councilor was awesome because yes as far as I understand I don't know where the communication exactly happened with this because some of the directors were kind of iffy of the details on this and I'm not really sure how hardy a conversation... City of Somerville had with the Archdiocese. So I am happy to resubmit this next year and open up the discussion. I think this is an excellent solution and There's so much to talk about what happened with the Winterhill and Brown School conversation, but that's the next meeting. So yes, I'm looking forward to the conversation. Thank you.

All right. That item is placed on file.

Item 6A is a report of the Committee on Finance meeting on November 19th, 2025.

Council Wilson. Mr. President, I had a longer committee report prepared, but yeah. We met on November 19th. The four or five members present took up a 6-9 agenda. Recommended a number of things that you approved tonight. I'm not going to go into detail on them. It's all in the minutes. One thing I do want to flag, though, that is going to come up here shortly, We did mark as withdrawn at the request of the administration ID number 25-1624. We did go ahead and discuss that item because we knew there was going to be an item on tonight's agenda replacing that and correcting the small error. That is item 10.2 on tonight's agenda. So just know the Finance Committee did discuss that. Seemed as though there was no issue with that. Just wanted to name that. So with that, I'll ask you to approve this committee report as submitted. Any discussion on the committee report?

All right, seeing none, do we have votes coming out on that one?

That puts two items before this council for approval by roll call vote. Those are items 6812, item 25-1649, requesting approval of a pedestrian access easement and grant of maintenance license Hardt, for 495 Columbia Street. Wilson, Councilor Ewen Campen, Councilor Scott, Councilor McLaughlin, Councilor Burnley, Councilor Sait, Councilor Strezo, Councilor Clingan,

Yes.

Councilor Mbah. Yes. Councilor Davis. Yes. With all councillors in favor, that item is approved. And the next item before this council will be item 6A16, item 25-1698. requesting the appropriation of $100,000 from the Community Benefits Stabilization Fund to the Armory Revolving Fund to prepare the Armory for onboarding and support of tenants.

On the item.

On the item. Councillor Hardt. Wilson, Ewen-Campen, Scott, McLaughlin, Burnley, Sait, Strezo, Clingan, Mbah, Davis. With all councillors in favor, that item is approved. The next item is Item 6B, a report of the Committee on Housing and Community Development, meeting on November 18, 2025.

10.30 p.m., ladies and gentlemen. What's the four? Oh, Mr. President, through you to Councilor Clingan. Correction, 10.34 p.m. The Housing and Community Development Committee, the last of the year of 2025, happened Tuesday, November 18th, 6.30 p.m. in person and hybrid option. We were happy to welcome. Hardt, to the committee. And we had a really great conversation, some really bleak news on housing. For instance, we had Director Schachter come in and talk about housing insecurity happening in Somerville and update us as she Director Schachter reported that 637 households are currently seeking assistance, with 49% at imminent risk of displacement.

and she updated us that due to statewide fiscal situation restrictions have tightened on housing support so only 30 percent of all funding may now be used for permanent housing Rapid rehousing funding has been cut by nearly two-thirds, redirected to substance use and mental health housing, and can no longer be used for homelessness prevention. State policy has also shifted towards clearing encampments and moving individuals into shelters or temporary sites. And this is, Councilors, you need to know this, the Section 8 vouchers are no longer being issued statewide. I'm just going to pause for that. Let's digest that. Also, the Older Adult Bridge Program received additional FY26 state funding allowing more seniors with fixed income Incomes Awaiting Subsidized Housing to be Admitted.

So that's good, but Section 8 is... You finished that sentence. Not good right now. We talked about the playgrounds. So if you're getting questions or are interested, we have the Kennedy School. Playground lot is going to be next on future playground design and making sure that they're ADA accessible. And the project is. And I want to mention that we will be having a looks like a virtual community meeting that will be on the Kennedy School in the Design on December 2nd. So please mark that. And also we recently celebrated with the Commission for Persons with Disabilities and their hard work. I want to commend them for that.

They increased ADA swing availability, which is from 23% to 80%. and also mention that that Kennedy School is going to be an inclusive playground. We talked about additionally small business and financial and technical support. because tis the season, holiday spirit is here. So we're really trying to put a focus on supporting Somerville local and Economic Development came and really talked about what their goals and plans are to increase our Somerville residents' purchase here and staying local to Somerville. and I encourage you all to help our local small businesses as well in Somerville, loyal to local, etc. I would like to submit this committee report as accepted.

Any discussion or questions on the committee report? Councilor Hardt?

Through you to Councilor Strezo. My memory is that it was not the state shift in focus for the, that we are losing the housing support, that it was a Trump administration change. So just wanted to clarify.

Thank you. Yes, federal support is the problem. The state here, as you know, thank you for that correction if I didn't convey that. As that, yes, state, we're doing a lot better. It's federal. It's where we're really going to have to buckle up. But of course, all of us know this is not news.

That brings us to item 6D, a report of the Committee on Traffic and Parking, meeting on November 17th, 2025.

Thank you, Mr. President. I will keep this report short. We discussed two items. The first one is an update on the community path safety improvements, mobility safety improvements. We learned that staff have been reviewing over a thousand unique responses received from the public about the safety concerns. They will use this data to produce a report that will be posted by the end of this month, sometime next week. and then an exciting update regarding the current efforts to fix the unsafe crossing of the Community Path and School Street and also the Community Path and Lowell Street. Posterway, Director Posterway presented three options that are being considered design options that are being considered.

Yeah, so these, it's important to note that the staff are still Still need to reach out to the fire department, to DPW, to make sure everyone give their approval before they present this to the MassDOT, and same for the community path Lowell Street crossing. I believe there were two designs. as well. But again, very exciting to receive initial designs because we have been waiting for this for so long. And it was also Councilor Hardt's first meeting. So yeah, please check them out.

All right, very good. Councilor Seat submits the report to be accepted. Any discussion?

Ewen-Campen. Mr. President, just probably the question I have asked 100 times, and I'm sorry I don't get it. The presentation to the committee? Is that going to be linked to this meeting for people in the public who want to see that memo? It's not there currently. Director Postoway's presentation. Is it like show up at some other place in Legistar that I don't understand?

Mr. President, with apologies that I don't know specifically what it is that you're referencing, What I will say more generally is if a presentation was submitted with the item, it will be attached to the item. If a presentation was submitted after that, it will be attached to the agenda of the meeting at which it was presented. for example the traffic and parking committee meeting of November 17th if you click on that meeting there should be a handout of that presentation typically it would be one of those two things depending on when that presentation was created.

Excellent, Mr. President, through you, thank you. So currently, I don't see it in either of those places. I only bring this up because we get so much feedback about the intersection between the community path and School Street. If there are options that we can share with the public, That would be great. So if that's some magic the clerk's office can work.

Mr. President, through you, thank you for flagging that. I will make sure that committee clerks get that attached.

Thank you. Any further discussion? All right, seeing none, that report is approved.

The next item then is item 7.2, a request of the mayor requesting ordainment of an amendment to section 12-178 of the code of ordinances to remove the prohibition on sourcing neonicotinoid treated plants.

That is referred to legislative matters.

Mr. President, I will move to weigh the readings of items 7-3 to 7-12, 7-14 and 7-15, and 7-17 to 7-19, and ask those be sent to Finance. All right, those items will be sent to Finance.

Item 7.20 is a request of the mayor requesting confirmation of the promotion of Andrew Patrickwin to the position of fire captain.

Councilor Ewen-Campen. I'd like this referred to confirmation of appointments. This will be on the December 3rd agenda along with all the other fire promotions. All right, that item's referred to confirmation of appointments. Personnel matters?

Item 8.1 is an officer's communication from the Condominium Review Board conveying the fiscal year 2023 annual report pursuant to section 7-70 of the Code of Ordinances.

That item is placed on file.

Item 8.4 is an officer's communication from the City Attorney conveying a clarification on the purpose of item number 25-1639.

That item is placed on file.

Thanks. Through you, I'd like to waive the readings and move for approval for items 9.1 through 9.3.

Councilor Scott. On the items on 9.2, I just want to, or not 9.2, 9.3 in particular, I just want to celebrate that this comes close to having the vacant commercial space at the ground floor of the Flatiron Building at the corner of Webster and Prospect finally filled with a business. It's just a landmark occasion. I just wanted to celebrate it here tonight. Thank you. You're here. All right, those items are approved.

Item 9.5 is a public communication from Bill Valletta submitting comments regarding item 25-1698 regarding the Armory Revolving Fund.

That item is placed on file.

Item 10.2 is a request of the mayor requesting approval of a transfer of $729 from the Communications Department Community Outreach Account to the Somerville Public Schools Professional Salaries Account for staff participation in the PK-8 school building planning focus group session.

Administration asks that we take this up for consideration this evening. Any discussion? Any requests for administration folks to answer questions? No? All right, seeing none, that item is approved.

Item 10.3 is a public communication from the Davis Square Neighborhood Council, submitting comments regarding item 25-1539, a zoning amendment for 110 Willow Ave and 363 Highland Ave.

That item is placed on file.

Item 10.4 is a public communication from Daniel Wong submitting comments regarding 90 Washington Street.

That item is placed on file.

And that brings us to the end of the agenda, Mr. President.

Are there any late items? I see no further items before this council.