Finance Committee

All right, good evening everyone. I'm Jake Wilson, he, him pronouns, Councilor-at-Large and your Finance Committee Chair. It's 6.01 p.m. and I'd like to call to order the Wednesday, November 19, 2025 meeting of the Finance Committee of the Somerville City Council. First, it's my pleasure to read you all this language that lets us do this all here on Zoom. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting of a City Council Committee will be conducted via remote participation. We will post an audio-video recording and a comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. Clerk, could you please call the roll to establish quorum?

Yep, this is roll call. Councilor Mbah Present Councilor Burnley Present Councilor Clingan Councilor Scott All right, I do see Councilor Clingan. Councilor Clingan, are you there?

Is there going to not... Oh, I said present. I had my speaker, the other thing, muted.

No worries. We got you recorded. All right. Councilor Scott, Chair Wilson.

Present.

All right. With four here, we do have quorum.

All right, and Councilor Scott did let me know that... Well, Councilor Scott might be joining us at some point tonight. We will see. We are going to take up our 16-item agenda in the order posted. So, clerk, can we go ahead? We're going to take up our first agenda item, ID number 25-1711. Approval of the Minutes of the Finance Committee Meeting of November 10, 2025 on the Minutes. Not seeing any discussion, the items laid on the table will recommend approval with a single vote at the end of tonight's meeting. That's going to bring us to our second agenda item, ID number 25-1451. and the Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management conveying the draft combined sewer overflow plan. Let's see, we have Director Rich Raish from Infrastructure and Asset Management with us. Director Raish had presented about this previously to the Council. Director, I'm guessing you don't have anything to add Subsequent to that discussion, we're here for a discussion if people have questions about it.

That is correct, Chair. Unless you want me to present the 65 auxiliary slides, I'm just here to answer questions.

Don't threat me with a good time. Thank you for that. All right. Colleagues, any questions, any discussion on this item before us? Councilor Mbah.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. President. No, Mr. Chair. Yeah, no, this is on this item and then also on my own good friend, Director Rachis. Memo. And I'm glad that you're here, Director Ridge. I just want to say, you know... I appreciate you and I value you as a friend, as a neighbor, and just your expertise. I wanted to say... My comment during the last meeting on this item was an oversight on my part. I had met with a bunch of advocates. They were all in my head at the time. So that wasn't intentional, so I want to clear that out. And I appreciate, you know...

I just wanted to have this opportunity to clear that up and I wanted to reiterate my respect for the work that you're doing for our residents and our ratepayers. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Councilor.

Yeah, and we need to keep a focus on the item here in front of us, but I appreciate that, Councilor Mbah. Any questions about that presentation or big picture here about the CSO plan? Director, I'll ask one. Any movement, anything change since we last heard from you in that council meeting from your point of view?

Chair, good question. After I presented, about a week after I presented, the MWRA staff presented to their board of directors. As you might recall, this is more of an informal presentation to get feedback from the Council. There isn't a formal action that the Council had to take on this item. The MWRE Board of Directors do actually have to vote to allow staff to submit their recommendation. There has been some discussion at the Board of Directors, some questions on the plan. Charles River Watershed Association and Mystic River Watershed Association have been very vocal in their desire for a higher level of control, a more costly level of control. And so the board is considering that They've delayed their vote until December, which will give the tech team very little time. to turn around and finalize this.

So it may be the case that we need to file an extension for maybe a month if DEP will allow us to do that. But otherwise, the tech team is still Working away on their report writing right now.

Thanks, Director. And just for the public, if we were to ultimately have to go pursue that higher threshold, what was the delta in terms of the overall cost for going to that level?

So the delta can be significant. One of the things that I want to highlight is that we managed to negotiate a cost share for what that recommended plan was. And we have not negotiated a cost share for that higher level. So, you know, what's on the table right now is, as I said, about a threefold increase to our sewer rates. If we go to the higher level of control, it could be anywhere from four to seven times the increase for our rates subject to negotiation of that price or price share. So actually, I think the... Council resolution that Councilor Ewen-Campen put forward that the Council passed a couple weeks ago.

Make it clear Somerville's negotiating stance on that. So I thank the Council for that direction. and we'll see where it goes. But it certainly at a minimum would increase our rates substantially.

All right. I appreciate that. Colleagues, any other discussion on this?

Councilor Mbah. Oh, yeah, no, thank you, Chair. I just also just want to reiterate that, yeah, there's no way that, you know, most of this is going to, like, really, you know, pass with this current council as it stands, so I'm glad that Thank you for watching! you know like this stuff now in a very holistic way so we are looking forward to having you know the conversation you know in the months ahead thank you chair

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, through you. You know, I just continue to be distressed, disappointed, dismayed at how we got to this point as a state and, you know, I supported Councilor Ewen-Campen's resolution and I hope that something will be worked out at the state level. You know, I haven't gone back in the sort of the looking glass of the past to see, you know, What was going on in the 80s or the 70s where we got all these Winter Hill building and cut all these corners and all this austerity? And now here we are having to pick up the tab for something that we don't We can't afford as a municipality. And so this is a plan. It is, you know, it is a plan and I appreciate you for bringing this forward, but something's got to give here. So hopefully we can come to some Some change can be made at some point, but thank you.

All right. Last call for any discussion on this one. And again, we don't have to vote on anything. This is sent here for discussion. There's no vote that needs to be taken in this committee. All right, not seeing anything else, so we're going to mark this one as work completed because we had that discussion. Director, don't go anywhere. Are you around for the next one as well?

I do believe Director Bean is here to speak to that, but I can also assist Director Bean.

All right. Mr. Chair?

Yes, I'm not sure why, you know, you will mark this as well complete when you know that we're going to be revisiting this stuff, you know, in 2021. A month or next year. So you don't want the director to come and do another 90-minute presentation. I think it is... Best course is to keep it in committee until we kind of like reassess everything that the director is mentioning before we cannot like mark it as well complete because we'll still need to get another presentation.

Anything sent for discussion, though, expires automatically at the end of the year, so there's no real point in keeping it. It would just time out and disappear. It was sent to discuss this. We did that discussion. I appreciate what you're saying about... you know subsequent discussion but i mean we did you know it was sent here for a purpose we did that work and uh it's appropriate to market work completed cool uh All right, so moving on to our fourth, let's see, that was the third thing. No, wait, that was our second thing. Third agenda item, ID number 25-1680. Mayor requesting the appropriation of $407,090 from the Water Enterprise Fund Retained Earnings Account to the Water Enterprise Fund Debt Service Account to fund debt service for a Massachusetts Water Resource Authority loan.

I believe we said we heard Director Bean was on hand for this.

Good evening. Director Bean. Can you hear me?

We can hear you. We can't see you. We'll settle for that.

You can't see me. Well, okay. Let me see if, well, it's not working. Well, there we go. There we go. All right, so I actually wasn't expecting to speak on this, but this particular loan was executed in mid-June after the budget was submitted. So... This is an appropriation from retained earnings, which is the equivalent of free cash for an enterprise fund, to pay the first year debt service on this loan.

All right. Thanks for that explanation. Colleagues, discussion.

Councilor Mbah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good to see you, Dr. Bin. Our MVP person in the city. I guess one of the things I'm curious is... Like, so this, when you talked about return, because when I saw this first, I'm glad you mentioned, I was very curious about where it's coming from, but is this like... Just for clarification, this is a loan from the city to MWRA to cover some aspect of ongoing seawater separation project or maybe normal operation of water supply and sewage processing.

Yeah, to the chair, I can answer that. This is one of our normal annual projects that we do to replace pipelines. and the mechanism that we use to do that is actually a loan, a zero interest loan program that the MWRA offers its member communities. Because they've got a very good bond rating and stores of money, they're able to offer this. to the member communities rather than have the member communities have to go out commercially at their own, usually at a higher interest rate. So we leverage that money pretty much to the maximum extent that we can because each community gets an allocated amount. So depending upon where we are in that program, we'll either use this or commercially purchase Barrow for our annual pipeline.

And as Director Bean says, this is something we typically budget. The repayment of, but the paperwork from MWRA came late this year and we weren't able to catch it during budget season. So we're just making a correction there.

Got you. That makes sense. Thank you for that explanation. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Any other discussion on this?

Makes sense to me. So not seeing any further discussion, we're going to lay this on the table to recommend approval. And that's going to bring us to our fourth agenda item, ID number 25-1679. Mayor requesting the appropriation of $403,980 from the unreserved fund balance, free cash, to the debt service interest on Notes Bands account for payment of interest for the 90 Washington Street property acquisition. Is this you again, Director Bean, I'm guessing?

Yes, Mr. Chair. This is the interest on the first year bond anticipation note, which was floated to secure the 90 Washington Street property. This will go to the debt service fund on the general fund. Payment is due in February.

And we were warned this would happen. Any discussion from the committee? I don't see any, probably because we were warned this would happen. Councilor Mbah.

Yes, thank you, Chair. I guess one of the, just curious about like, you know what is like you know uh like maybe the outstanding you know like principal like or what the interest rate is. Do we know that?

Yes, yes. First of all, there's no principle because we're borrowing short term. So the way it works, we can borrow short term for two years and then we're forced to borrow long term. So if the property is not sold to a developer or what have you through the RFP process, After two years, then we will have to pay more principal and interest. So the interest on this bond anticipation, though, is 2.8%. So it's the first year. Next year at this time, in February of 2027, we'll borrow again on a short-term basis, and hopefully it'll be about the same amount of money depending upon the interest rates. If you get to the third year, then it's going to be probably over a million dollars in debt service because you'll have to pay down a principal and interest.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Bin.

Thanks, Councilor. Councilor Clingan. So on that, just to confirm, Director Bean just said, so we won't make another payment until February of 2027?

So that'll be the second year payment. So this first payment is due on February 2026. Got it. All right.

Thank you. All right. Any additional discussion? All right, the items laid on the table will recommend approval. That brings us to our fifth agenda item. ID number 25-1698, the mayor 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. I see we have Director Rachel Nadkarni from Economic Development with us. Director Nadkarni.

Good evening, Councilors. I'm here tonight with Greg Jenkins, the Director of the Arts Council as well. And we are here. To present this item, we are looking to move $100,000 from community benefits to the Armory Stabilization Fund. And what that will allow us to do is really align the... All of our stewardship support for the building with the onboarding of new tenants. We are anticipating right now that we are getting this RFP for new tenants out at the beginning of December We've already announced that it'll be out for three months. And so we'll be starting our selection process in March with the hope that, you know, mid next year, we're filling that building with new tenants. We want to be able to bring on a staff person who will focus on the Armory tenant management and property management. That has been a big part of the master plan that you all have seen.

The anticipation is that that position will be paid for out of the Armory Stabilization, the Armory Revolving Fund, basically paid for out of the rents collected from tenants. There is a little bit of a lag though, because we want that person on board in time to help onboard those tenants. So this is really about the startup costs. So the main part of this $100,000 is $50,000 to bring that person on. in time for them to be in position to support those tenants in their onboarding. The second part of this is to address Issues with the front door. This has been a longstanding challenge for the tenants if you've had a chance to speak with any of them around how does a member of the public enter the building and find them. And so this $30,000 is what we understand from DPW's research is what it will take. to be able to really modernize that call box system and set up the tenants for success so that when they get there again on day one, they're really in position to start off right away with a great experience.

Part 3 of this appropriation is $20,000 to support all the general custodial and maintenance support that we think is going to be necessary to again go through that startup phase. We're anticipating that our utility costs are probably going to go up when we aren't just Keeping the pipes from freezing in our vacant spaces. We want to be able to really make sure that we're in a good position, again, for this to be as seamless as possible for those new tenants that are going to come in next year. So that's the ask that we have before you tonight and happy to answer any questions.

All right, thanks for that, Director. Councilor Valle, you're first up.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Director Nakani, for for explaining that stuff. I guess where I'm coming, you know, from with this, I'm just trying to learn a lot because this is like... A new thing that we just created and this is like the first time that we are now drawing funds from the new community stabilization funds, you know. I just want to make sure I understand what is going on so that it doesn't become like a precedent now where, you know, I don't know if money in the fund will, you know, They will be available for city agencies to just plug into the operation, take money, you know, to kind of like do like some maybe routine program or ongoing programs.

and so circumvent like the traditional way by which you know it's most of those programs are funded by rev that by the general like the regular sources of revenue so um So will the appropriation of money be limited for projects and programs that are designed to mitigate or offset impacts of, like, Development. We just created this thing. I just want to be clear. If this is how money now will be spent without really going through... The normal appropriation that is like, okay, there's like, we have money in the budget, they come, you know, and take it. But this is not like a new setup. Like, how is that gonna really work? Is it like... Is it how things are now going to be unfolding or this is just like a one-off? Like how does it, does that make sense?

If I may...

I can repeat it if it doesn't make sense, but I'm sure Director B understands exactly what I'm trying to... This is a whole new setup. I want to understand what's going on.

Absolutely. Through you, Mr. Chair, if I can... This is really anticipated to be a one-time thing. The Armory is expected to be financially self-sustaining. That is our ultimate goal. We are really looking at a gap financing challenge with the Armory The Armory Revolving Fund is expected to cover these expenses. We have built out a five-year pro forma. We're anticipating that we are going to be able to fill this building with some fantastic community tenants. and support them through this. Why we looked to the community this particular fund is that this is not an ongoing program. This is not something that is going to be funded off the general fund going forward. This is going to be the Armory Revolving Fund funded activities in the future. And so this really is just this one-time startup time when we're looking for that support.

And so we look to the community benefits as perhaps this could be that bridge to this success that we are all hoping for for the armory. I hope that answered the question.

Yeah. You still got the floor. Yeah, no, thank you, Chair. I'm still kind of like processing my thought there. No, but I appreciate that. Yeah, because we got that money, like you mentioned, like for about $5 million. I think that was like, you know, and we really work hard to ensure that it will be, yeah, self-sustaining, like you mentioned. Okay, this is not going to be like this. Okay, yeah, I think you answered the first part. You know, let me just mull that over and then while I'm listening to my colleagues. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Burnley, you're next up.

Thank you. And through the chair, excuse me for not having my camera on. I have my typical computer issues. If I turned it on right now, I would be upside down, and I do not wish to be upside down. Through you, I just want to dissect a bit what we heard and get as much clarity as possible before making a decision on my vote. Through you to Director Nat Carney, when you were just speaking about tenants, are you talking about commercial tenants or residential tenants or both?

The Armory Master Plan lays out very specifically we are looking for artist commercial tenants. Thank you so much for joining us. And so what we are looking for is commercial tenants. They do need to meet the ACE definition of artists. There's a limited range of categories in that. Again, that has all been announced and it's on the Armory webpage.

Thank you for the clarification. I'm pretty sure I got that, but I might have to ask one more question about artists, commercial tenants, as opposed to like... Simply just artist residential. So just to be clear, under this plan, no one would be living in the armory.

Correct. And that was established at least six months ago.

Yes. Through you. I certainly agree. Through you, the chair. I certainly agree with the assessment that the city has not prepared the appropriate capacity or Infrastructure to serve as a good landlord to this point. I think there is proof of that when you actually speak to the tenants of the armory who have been Number of whom reached out to me about this particular item and wondering what it was for, wondering what it could potentially go toward. This is a building that the city owns. The last few years has had a number of facility needs, custodial needs, part of which this item seeks to address. Amind, in a sense.

But I'm curious also, how much communication has the Arts Council had with the current tenants of the Armory in terms of how these funds would be deployed?

If I can answer that. I did have this conversation.

Go ahead.

Or through the chair. Go ahead.

Go ahead.

I had this conversation with Councilor Seay yesterday as well. We have not communicated with this appropriation to the tenants because We frankly aren't sure yet that we have it in hand, so we don't want to get hopes up that we are making changes that we are not confident that we are able to make at this point.

I would also like to add and make sure everyone understands is that, you know, for the past several years, you know, the Armory, we have lost tenants in the Armory that weren't necessarily architects. You know, gym owners. So we approximately have four tenants in the building and some of them, you know, are paying rent and some of them aren't paying full rent, point blank. and so the revenue coming in into the revolving account we have enough to cover some basic expenses but what we're asking for in the request in a way is to kind of up and revamp what our needs are in terms of expenses for this building. So related to the door, related to extra, hopefully extra custodial support, and then also to bring somebody on in the next four or five months as a staff person.

which is all of what those services you know everyone's claiming that they you know what we all want to provide we just have a cash flow situation so once we start getting tenants in there then hopefully you know the the rents will stabilize and we won't necessarily be coming you know coming back to you or coming to anyone and that the the the rents coming in will help provide core services and core support for this building. So this in a way is a stopgap measure to get us through this threshold of the next six months.

Thank you for that. And that does, I think, help give some context to, particularly in relation to hiring new staff, what work would be happening from coming from this item. Again through the chair, I'm curious if you have a sense of how this person would be setting up the The tiers for rent, like are these going to be flat rates across the board? Are they different for different tenants? I know that they're certainly through RFP. Q process. There are certain criteria that need to be set for the city. But I'm curious about what the process is envisioned to be and also if there is

Room for public input about, I suppose, how best the public would, you know, engage with this process moving forward. I'll leave it at that.

Do you want me to chat? I mean, through the chair. So we have the master plan, which has been posted and discussed and discussed. and one of the things that we've learned that the community said that they wanted is that they wanted to have a multi-tenanted building. We're also looking at, in terms of developing the RFP, the idea to develop the RFP is to look at the spaces and to look at what some of the current rents are and to try to understand are some of these rents too high or some of these rents too low based on again from our own experience of knowing that rents at Vernon Street are at $15 a square foot and Joy Street are at $22. Looking at varying rents around the city and understanding what the community has been paying or can't absorb.

And then looking at what our expenses are and how much can the city subsidize, subsidize isn't the right word, If we look at a programmatic thing, whether it's a pool or whether it's a field or something, the city provides resources to these activities. So we looked at all of these expenses and then looked at essentially at the rents. are at the spaces and thought that, you know, rents in the basement, it's not very high-end space, that they should be set at this rate. Rents on the first floor, this rate. Rents There, and then trying to find a mix of ultimately providing a rate structure or rent structure that makes sense both to support the arts community But at the same time brings in enough money to create stabilization for that building. And that's what everyone will see when we start to issue this RFP. is that we have a rate structure.

We have a pro forma, as Director McCarty mentioned, looking at a five-year plan as to how much money we need to come in to cover. Custodial Services, Common Area Cleaning, Trash Removal, go down the list of all the services. And I think the whole discussion that's happened throughout this process is at what level we can't place an entire burden of operating this building onto the tenants of this building because we would probably be back in the same situation we were five years ago four years ago when we took When we took the building by eminent domain is because the arts need that type of support and services. So what you're going to find when we issue this RFP, I hope if you dive into it and you can come back to us is that you'll hopefully see a balanced approach to where how do we support the arts community and or the larger cultural community

at the same time create stabilization for the building, but yet have a very active five-year plan where we're developing stability and fulfilling the mission through the master plan. and that's what it's about so specifically to your question the rates for those spaces will be different based on the floors and based on the the the you know in a way the amenities that those spaces provide At the same time, point blank, we'll say it, we're not charging the large performance hall space. There's no way anybody could afford We're trying to create levels of balance between what's an appropriate rate space or rate rent for larger spaces as opposed to the smaller spaces. and then there's differentiation between the basement, the first floor and the second floor and the third floor. Hopefully that answers a lot of questions.

Yeah, I think that's really helpful. I'll ask just one more question before yielding to my colleagues through the chair. And I appreciate also, again, the emphasis on the need for this to be Cash Neutral, for lack of a better term. You know, I appreciate that you corrected yourself for legal reasons around subsidize, but I'll just say for the record, I'm not against the government subsidizing the arts. I think it is really, really actually incumbent upon us to do so. Somerville has done so for many years and I think it continues to do so. And on this council, I've advocated for Half of the 3% community impact fee that should be bringing in about $400,000 a year to be going to the arts in the form of

grants and funds that support, put cash in the hands of local artists in particular. and frankly to that point we are subsidizing this space currently and we for the I don't want to say foreseeable future, but for a bit we will be. So just as a last point, you mentioned the five-year plan. Is that the timeline that we're hoping to get this Cash Neutral by or is there an established longer term timeline? And I ask just for clarity because that is a space in which we as a municipality, I believe, have Maybe a bit more flexibility than other operators in this space where we can talk about what it would mean to rent out spaces at this price along this longer term period.

versus another, that's going to have, in my opinion, pretty significant impacts on who's able to rent out spaces and which spaces. So, yeah, thank you.

Through the chair, I mean, I can address it very quickly. At the first year, I think that we project that we're bringing in approximately $200,000 in rents that will essentially go... I think around 180 of that is would be going towards expenses and then the following year Thank you for joining us. So it creates a parallel structure. Director Bean, we've all discussed this too. We want to try to create maybe a small... What you would call free cash flow around $20,000 to $30,000. But back to your point that it should be fairly cash neutral after the first full year. of Teneting.

So it would not necessarily happen this spring, this summer, but probably this, you know, June of 2027.

If I may, bringing it back to this appropriation, this appropriation is really about those startup costs. We've been trying to balance three things with the rents. One, having it be affordable to the artists and the arts organizations that we want to have tenancy in this building. Having it cover costs, all the operating costs, and then as available. and so on. Above and beyond our typical spend for our municipal buildings. There are some things about the building that need investment. We know that. And so the idea is to build a little bit of a reserve that we can use to leverage for grants and other things. So that's been the balancing act that we've been trying to play with this pro forma.

And again, what we do know is that the first year there's this bit of a gap and we want to be able to, again, offer the tenants the experience that we know that they would like to see the city offer as a landlord.

All right, Councilor, that's everything you had. Councilor Burnley? All set. All right. Thank you for that. Councilor Clingan, you're up next.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through you, yeah, just speaking on the specific item, happy to support this. I do share some concerns about, I'm sure that it falls within the bounds of community benefits. I do, you know, worry about rating it too much for lots of different purposes. for something that we got ourselves into, such as the Armory. So, you know... This is only $100,000. I don't think you're asking for a million dollars. I am concerned about operating costs going forward. I did look at the business plan and the armory master plan, and I have...

I have faith that we can right this ship but as far as bringing this position on board and moving us forward towards tenancy and towards cash-neutral Situation. Happy to support this. Thank you.

Yeah, I'll just say I appreciate the discussion we've had here. I mean, obviously the Armory, we all know, is one of those things that has been kind of a black box to a lot of people and definitely a source of... Sources of a lot of discussion, a lot of anxiety, a lot of uncertainty. So it's helpful hearing a clear plan sketched out like that. It definitely helps me wrap my mind around what we're doing here. To Councilor Clingan's point, we just authorized the creation of this community benefit stabilization fund. Obviously, here we are. We tapped into it. Basically, no sooner had we created it than we tapped into it. with those appropriations back on Thursday? Thursday. And here we are coming back again. I guess, yeah, it'll be an interesting question of like how often do we go into that?

you know we'll have to I guess we'll be we'll be keeping an eye on that but yeah I appreciate this discussion yeah I feel much better about this having having gotten all those details so any additional discussion on this one? No, Mr.

Chair, I just wanted to say I appreciate your comment. You know, it's you make me feel like really, you know, I thought I was my editorial was just. A little too much. Nobody was getting me. I'm screaming on the rooftop and trying to put my... So I appreciate that we're all on the same page trying to figure this thing out together. So, you know, thank you.

Teamwork makes the dream work. All right, any additional discussion? Clerk, could you please call the roll on a motion to recommend approval? I'll make the motion. So you can call the roll now, please.

Perfect. On recommending approval for item number five, ID 25-1698, Councilor Mbah.

Yes.

Councilor Burnley.

Aye.

Councilor Clingan.

Yes.

Scott, Chair Wilson.

Yes.

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

All right. Thank you all for being here for the discussion. Yep. Thank you for the questions. All right, that is going to bring us to our sixth agenda item, item number 25-1620, the mayor requests an approval of a transfer of $15,500 from various Somerstadt ordinary maintenance accounts to the Somerstadt salaries. and Wages Temporary Account to fund additional temporary employee time. I see we have Director Anna Gartsman with us from Somerstadt. Director, please tell us about this request.

Of course. Good evening, everyone. So we had funded some OM line items in the budget process. We were hoping to take advantage of some professional development opportunities this year, but with the combination of working to release the happiness survey in a timely manner while one of our staff was happily out having a baby, We aren't getting to them and so instead we would like to use that money to clear some of our workload backlog. So we're hoping that the temporary staffing will help us with capacity towards that goal this year and we can revisit the OM funding next time.

All right. Thank you for that explanation. Colleagues, any discussion on this? All right, I don't see anything. So we're going to lay this on the table to recommend approval. Director, thank you so much. Bring us to our seventh agenda item, ID number 25-1624, the mayor requesting approval of transfer of $729. From the Communications Department Community Outreach Account to the Somerville High School SHS Salaries Account for SHS staff participation in the new Pre-K-8 School Building Planning Focus Group Session. Does IGA want to speak to this? We have legislative liaison Kimberly Hutter with us from IGA. Did you want to speak to this one?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to make a quick note that there is a small error in this item, so we will be resubmitting it. This should be coming from and the The account numbers in this item in the body are correct, but it's been mislabeled. It is not the Somerville high school salaries account. It's just the Somerville public schools high school account. The participants in this focus group were from all of the different Several different schools throughout the school district. So staff will submit that corrected item. So I wanted to note that for the committee. But all of the substance of the item will remain the same. I am happy to answer any questions about this on behalf of the comms team. and yeah happy to answer those.

So colleagues and the public in general, what this means is, right, we're going to have this discussion about this item. It's only going to be marked as withdrawn. There will be a replacement item submitted at the next regular meeting on Tuesday. Tuesday. At which point we'll have had that discussion. We should feel comfortable moving ahead with immediate consideration of that item since the only difference will be a corrected account name. Any discussion on this request given the explanation we just heard? All right. Not seeing anything. So we're going to lay this one. Actually, no, we're marking this one as withdrawn, right?

Thank you. Yes, Chair.

Yes, caught myself in time. And then again, there will be a replacement item submitted for next Tuesday's regular meeting. So, Clerk, we're going to mark that item as withdrawn. Moving on to contracts and agreements. Item number eight, ID number 25-1649, the mayor requested approval of a pedestrian access easement and grant of maintenance license for 495 Columbia Street. I see we have attorney Kathy Lester Salkert with us from the law department. Attorney Salkert, take it away.

Good evening, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Yes, this is a public access easement for pedestrian access along Columbia Street and Webster Ave and also a corresponding maintenance license for the portion of the bike lane is what it really is that's in the actually in the public way but it's on it's a protected curb protected bike lane which you wouldn't know is in the public way because it looks like it is on the private property because of the way it's built. and that's one characteristic of this that's a little bit different because of the building being right up to the property line and then the sidewalk being partly on the property line and partly in the public way. So there's an access easement over the portion of the sidewalk that's on private property and a maintenance license for everything that is in the public way.

Property owner is responsible for maintaining the entire thing as always with our easements and licenses. I have a photo of it if you want to see what it looks like. I can share a screen, but it's a little bit unique because right now in this particular photo too, it's not striped as a bike lane, so you wouldn't really know. but I don't think I submitted the photo with the item but I didn't understand it until I looked at it it just looks like a sidewalk with some pavement next to it which is it's five it's um Not our typical bike lane where it would be in the road and it would be striped and have bollards and all of that. The project approvals required curb protected. So because it's protected by that curb, and it's removed somewhat removed from where the sidewalk is. They created the best bike path that they could with the building that was being put on that location.

Yeah, Clark, did you want to give Attorney Salkert the power to do a shared screen for all the visual learners out there curious what this looks like?

All right, you should be all set to screen share.

Okay. Oops, wrong share. Wrong share button. Hang on. I'm just going to practice this ahead of time. Oh wait, I'm in the wrong, that's why. Okay, here we go. One second. Sure. Can everybody see that? Here's the bike lane. Here's the curb. There's the street. So I'm told by Justin Schreiber that this is marked better now. There's actually some markings on here. so that people know that it's a bike lane. And it's supposed to connect with bike lanes before this property and after this property according to the project approvals. And then the sidewalk's over here.

I don't know if you can see my cursor.

We can. Okay. Very helpful. Thanks for sharing that.

Sure. I thought it would help since this one's a little bit unique.

All right. Everyone get a look at that before we, before Attorney Salkert cedes screen sharing back to the clerk. All right. Attorney Stalker, anything else to add to this before we throw it over to the committee for discussion?

Not that I can think of, Mr. Chair.

Very helpful. Thank you for that. Colleagues, discussion. Mr.

Chair, this seems like a standard agreement. From what I can see, it's really nothing soft. It seems like a pretty standard agreement, so it should be good.

Attorney Sacher, do you agree with that assessment? That's a pretty standard agreement.

It is, although Councilor Mbah did remind me of something I wanted to mention is that unlike most bike lanes, we have asked the developer and the developer has agreed to maintain that one because it's more on their property in appearance and... Somewhat easier for them to maintain with their equipment.

And does that include snow removal? Yes. All right. Excellent. Councilor Mbah, anything else?

I've said my piece, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I wanted to make sure you knew you still had the mic if you wanted. Anyone else? I don't see anything else. So, Attorney Salker, thank you for that. We're going to lay this one on the table to recommend approval.

Okay. Thanks very much.

That's going to bring us to... Prior your invoices. Our ninth agenda item, ID number 25-163. The mayor requests your approval to pay prior invoices totaling $125.43 using available funds of the Department of Racial and Social Justice computer equipment account for freight charges. This is a pretty low dollar figure. Any discussion on this? Anything that wasn't answered by the request itself?

Those free charges will get you. Councilor Mbah. Mr. Chair, you know my philosophy around invoices. You know, they need to be paid. So you can run through those invoices.

We're going to do that. Not seeing any discussion on this one, so we're going to lay this one on the table and recommend approval. It's going to bring our 10th agenda item up. Item number 25-1640, the mayor requesting approval to pay prior invoices totaling $5,000. $285.77 using available funds in the Police Department Computer Supplies account for computer supplies. I see we have Director Emily Wisdom with the Police Department here tonight. Director Wisdom, do you want to take these up separately or do you want me to take these all up together?

I think that we can take them up together.

Always here for taking up items together. Clerk them. We're going to take up agenda items 11, 12, 13, and 14 all together here. I'll read those. That is ID number 25-1622. The mayor requests approval to pay prior invoices totaling $1,765.28 using available funds in the police department professional and technical services account for case management services. ID number 25-1646, the mayor requests your approval to pay prior invoices totaling $1,547.55 using available funds in the police department animal control professional and technical services account for veterinary services. Item number 25-1648, the mayor requests approval to pay prior invoices totaling $271. These are available funds in the police department badges, emblems, trophies, account for educational achievement award bars.

and ID number 25-1651, the mayor requesting approval to pay prior invoices totaling $54 using available funds in the police department, badges, emblems, trophies, account for a hat badge. All right. So with those... Five items before us. Director Wisdom, you have anything general on those five?

Yeah. So we are working diligently to kind of clean up. The majority of these are from FY23, FY24. Some of these were missed due to employee turnover. We've been reaching out to vendors to get them on our new shared service. Police Invoice Email. As we talked to them, they realized that they've still been sending invoices to people who haven't worked there in two or three years. So we've been kind of collecting these We're hoping by the end of this year to have talked to every possible vendor we could because we've been working through them, reaching out to them and to clear that up so that we don't continue forward in this way. We definitely want to. to meet our obligations and get those done within the correct fiscal year. So that's something that we're really being diligent about and really trying to

you know reach out to vendors and just make sure that you know every time we talk to a vendor that it's not a surprise from last time so we appreciate your patience with us as as we get some of those cleaned up from from people who haven't worked in the past and we get it cleaned up to move forward.

Thank you for that. Committee, any discussion on these five items? See none. The five items are laid on the table to recommend approval.

Thank you.

Thank you. But don't go anywhere, please, director.

I know. I think I got one more.

You got one more. We're going to jump to our grant and gift acceptances. Our 15th gen item, ID number 25-16... To one, the mayor requests your approval to accept and expend an $87,450 grant with no new match required from the Massachusetts Office of Grants and Research to the Police Department for Public Safety Staffing. Once again, Director Wisdom.

Thank you, Chair. So the purpose of this grant is to help municipalities maintain public safety and helping to address any police staffing shortfalls. This is through the Massachusetts Municipal Public Safety Staffing Program. To be eligible a municipality must have a population of at least 60,000 and demonstrate that their police department has an operating budget per capita of less than $200. A total of 10 communities meet this criteria, including Somerville is one of those 10. so this is not a competitive grant this is a grant that's pre-designated and we just we apply describe to them what we are planning to use with it for in our case O.T. to fill any vacancies that we have from promotions or from turnover, things like that. And we're going into the holiday season, so this is an excellent time in elections when we see a little bit of spike in public safety needs.

This helps us to cover some of those gaps and not need to ask for additional overtime in the future.

All right. Thank you for that. Finance Committee. Any discussion? Councilor Burnley.

Thank you. Through the chair, just to clarify, Director Wilsdom, This is for temporary stuff. This is to cover what would otherwise be overtime hours.

Yes, so this does not add any staff or allow us to add staff. It is for existing staff members and it covers overtime.

Great, thank you. How would this be applied? You mentioned election time. Obviously, our elections have passed. Is this I was kind of speaking globally.

I apologize for the chair. So we get this grant every year. And so one of the things that we we sit down and we kind of Look at community events and things and try to cover, try to discuss amongst us in the leadership team. Thank you for watching! We used it for some increase in patrols in areas for cultural events, things like that. So it's more of it allows us a little bit to strategize to kind of bridge some gaps or to cover some areas where we see an increase in our usual overtime. So this 2026 probably would not be used for an election as there won't be an election next year that I know of, at least not a larger primary election.

I guess in my mind, I'm not entirely sure. but if there was an election coming up we would we would absolutely use that for um you know to bridge that gap and I'm getting smiles so there's definitely an election next year right I mean I know that there's always municipal elections going on. I guess I was thinking about the mayoral race that we just had. So I know that there likely will not be a mayoral race next year, right? Okay, sorry, that's what I was speaking to. I wasn't speaking to all elections. I know that we still have business to do throughout the year. I appreciate your grace with that.

Yes, hopefully we do still have elections.

Yes, I meant kind of some larger ones that really draw crowds and we want to make sure that we have enough staff to cover all elections.

Thank you for that. Council Burnley, did you have more on this one?

One question related to the application. There's a question on the application, yes or no question, related to diversity supplier.

Okay.

Are you able to clarify what that would mean in this context? The city marked no. I don't know what it would mean to have marked yes. Yes.

So through the chair, in my experience, when it comes to the diversity requirement with some of the state grants, when we use vendors, Outside of our staff. So in this case, I do not think that this would be a grant that's applicable to the diversity requirement. But when so when we get funds from other state grants there are sometimes diversity factors like vendors that are on the supplier list they designate so much of the grant has to be used with diverse suppliers in this case we applied for OT so it would It would cover our staff rather than having the diversity requirement. But I will obviously double check and make sure that that's the case. But that's my understanding and that's why we marked no because we're not using outside vendors.

We're just paying current staff that we already have and that diversity expenditure threshold does not apply.

Thank you, through the chair. That's what I would expect the rationale to be behind that. Looking at the form again, it literally says standard contract form. So it seems like this form is more broadly applicable beyond just this type of grant. Yes. Yeah, I was just curious about that because by the nature of The fact that I thought we wouldn't be able to have a diversity supplier program for such a thing, it was strange to see the question on there.

The state does use that standard contract form for just about every grant I've seen.

Efficient, I suppose. All right. That's all from me for now. Thank you.

Clingan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm happy to support this grant. A lot of times people see police out on details. Those aren't paid by us. They're usually paid by a developer or a utility. But what we do need details for and over time is The many, many events that we have in the city. Porch Fest, Fluff Fest, all of our great fests. So it's good to have this little pot of cash that helps supplement some of our amazing events. Thank you. Thank you.

Any additional discussion on this? Councilor Mbah.

Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to Also echo Councilor Clingan that I always appreciate the wisdom, you know, from Director Wisdom, you know, and all the insights. So I'm happy to support it.

I see what you did there, Councilor. All right, Clerk, I will move to recommend approval of this. Could you please call the roll on that?

Yep. On recommending approval for item number 15, Councilor Mbah.

Yes.

Councilor Burnley.

No.

Councilor Clingan?

Yes.

Councilor Scott? Yes.

Chair Wilson?

Yes.

Sorry, I was calling Councilor Scott. All right, got you. Oh, sorry. So that is three votes in favor.

All right, that's going to bring us to our final agenda item tonight. Item 16, item number 25-1636, the mayor requests an approval to accept and expend a $109,296 grant with no new match required from Executive Office of Public Safety to the Fire Department for staffing costs. and I see we have Director James Mucci with us from the Fire Department. Director, please tell us about this.

Yeah, through you. This is basically a sister grant to the police. It's the exact same agency and grant application that we apply to. This money will be used to provide overtime to cover any sick leave, injury leave, vacation, so that we're fully staffed on all shifts.

All right, thank you for that. Colleagues, any discussion on this? Okay. We're going to lay the item on the table to recommend approval then. Director, thank you for joining us. All right, that brings us to the end of tonight's agenda. And Councilor Mbah moves to recommend approval of the items on the table and to adjourn. Could the clerk please read the agenda item numbers of the items up for that recommendation to approve and then call the roll on recommending approval of those items and adjournment.

Yep, on adjournment and recommending approval for items number 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 through 14, and 16. Councilor Mbah.

Yes.

Burnley.

Aye.

Councilor Clingan.

Yes.

Councilor Scott. Chair Wilson.

Yes, please.

All right, that is all four councillors in favor, and it is 7.06 p.m.

All right. Thanks, everyone. Have a great night.