Legislative Matters Committee

Welcome everyone to this meeting of the City of Somerville's Legislative Matters Committee of the City Council. I'm your host, Chair J.T. Scott, Ward 2 Counselor. This is May 5th at 6.07 p.m. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Act of 2025, this meeting is being conducted via remote participation and a recording will be posted shortly after the conclusion on the City of Somerville website. Madam... Clerk, if we could go ahead and take the roll to establish a point.

This is roll call, Councilor Davis.

Here.

Councilor Mbah.

My experience.

Councilor Ewen-Campen. Strezo?

Present.

Councilor Scott? Present. With four councillors present and one absent, we have quorum.

All right, wonderful. I've Certainly would not mind taking up the agenda in order tonight, but I believe the administration has a request to take up one item out of order. Just to be clear. Liaison Radassi. That is the item about a secondhand ordinance.

Is that correct? Yes, that's correct.

All right. I'll sing no objection to that from my colleagues. Let's go ahead and pick that one up. We'll take item 251686 amending chapter 8. Article 3 of the Code of Ordinances pertaining to second-hand dealer licenses. I believe you have an update from legal on this.

Hi, this is David Shapiro. I think you're asking for an update on legal. My update is very brief. I have reviewed the language and I have approved it as to legality. That's my update.

Ah, great.

Thank you.

I understand it might have gotten to you late in the day. So thank you for taking the time, Assistant Solicitor Shapiro, to give it a read-through. Let's see. Analyst Salisbury, you have been leading the drafting in this effort, have you not?

That's correct, Mr. Chair.

All right. Would you like to talk us through where you feel it is right now? Because I know we had received some pointed feedback from at least one secondhand dealer in the city.

That's correct, Mr. Chair, as well as some questions and feedback from members of this committee back in December when this was last taken up. I worked with the City Clerk and our Assistant City Clerk for Licensing and Vital Records to make some changes to the proposed amendment that are responsive to those questions So I see that that is the version that is on the screen. In sum, the changes that we made were addressing questions from I believe it was both yourself and Councilor Ewen-Campen about whether a second-hand dealer would be required to request ID and produce a itemized receipt for items that they purchased at say an estate sale or a yard sale we did clarify in

let's see i believe it is subsection c of section 861 that before purchasing merchandise or accepting it for consignment at their storefront or place of business so therefore removing the requirement that they might or removing the possibility that they might be required Can I stop you there? 861C, you say? Yes, I believe so.

Alright, I don't see a storefront restriction there.

So that would be in the handout that is attached to the agenda, not the document that is attached to the item. That is the original document.

Ah, alright, so we are looking at the, uh, what we have on the screen is not the most recently updated one.

No, that is what is on the screen.

Am I in the wrong section, Brendan?

No, you are in the correct section.

All right. I am looking at the wrong one. Thank you. Please continue.

Next in D, we did make some slight changes to clarify precious item, er, sorry, yes, I believe it was. Yes, I believe it was D. To clarify the precious items category. Specifically, you may note that I did remove the word donation from the first sentence of D because as was actually pointed out to me, By our assistant city clerk who is clerking this meeting this evening, it would be unusual for a thief to donate a precious item to a second-hand dealer. So we did separate out into three categories, items that include precious metals such as gold, silver, or platinum.

Books, paintings, sculptures, or metalwork or similar items that are marked with a unique identifier and items that are identified with a serial number or engraving. We did include some examples such as electronic devices or bicycles. which are purchased by the second-hand dealer for $150 or more. The reason for this was as noted there might be somebody who sells a VCR which might be worth only $5 and the idea of treating that as a precious item might seem a little ridiculous to some the sum total of $150 we came to because that is Roughly the average sale price of a used iPhone or bicycle. And of course, as we know, smartphones and bicycles are very high theft items. And then lastly, we did clarify a bit about the transaction records and receipts.

There was, as you may recall previously, a requirement in there that receipts and transaction records be sent to the chief of police. in conversations with the police department we felt that that was not an appropriate method for enforcement and have kind of shifted to a strictly report-based model where if somebody reports an issue then enforcement can take place. We are requiring that dealers retain receipts and transaction records for at least three years from the date of the transaction and I am happy to answer any questions about those changes.

Sure, I've got a few, but I see Councilor Strezo has some questions. So, Councilor Strezo, you have the floor first.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First and foremost, I remember this being discussed earlier, but can we give a quick brief historical summary on the prompting of the tweaking of the ordinance, etc. ?

Certainly, Councilor, through the chair. This came up in, I believe it was September of last year. A few councillors put forward an order requesting that the city clerk work to amend this ordinance to... essentially modernize it. There were some things in there that had kind of fallen out of date. It was also a who was required to be licensed as a secondhand dealer. So we did add some clarifying language in there. The vast majority of the red lines in here are to bring this ordinance in line with the style guide that the city clerk's office published a couple years back. has been a couple years now actually so the vast majority of these changes are not in fact really substantive and are mostly style but there were some some important clarifications in there

Thank you. I'm happy to hop back in line, Mr. Chair, if you wish. I just had a question, additional or two, but happy to get back in line. Go right ahead. All right. Well, thank you. Um, and trying to figure out so we want to make sure that right if, if items are stolen, that there there is still in some way some kind of Ability that hasn't been lost, that can still be tracked in some ways if items are stolen and pawned or placed in these shops. Because as I recall last year, I remember the conversation's huge emphasis of modernizing it and then the licensure, but can you go into details? Has any of that been changed? I see that there's a three-year. Is that within the statutes of limitations of

Filing stolen property or trying to find your stolen property, etc. This is where I'm going with that.

Councilor, through the chair to you, Councilor, to answer your question. The three years was a length of time that I had seen in other ordinances relating to sort of similar things it doesn't have anything to do with the statute of limitations it may coincidentally line up with it but that was not something that we considered When setting that three-year timeline, it's a relatively common length of time to require that businesses keep records.

And last question, if I may, Mr. Chair. and so on. Maybe I missed the start through, but where are power tools and power tools which are often stolen and pawned items and even electrical, I'm sorry, musical equipment. Does that... Placer minus 150. So for instance, where power drills come in on this.

Mr. Chair, through you, yes. So those would fall under items that are Actually, I don't know that power tools are typically engraved with a serial number, but they may be. That's a good question. I actually don't know off the top of my head. But we do include electronic devices or bicycles in there as kind of a... an indication that we're painting with a broad brush and the intent is to capture high theft items I would actually have to look and see if they are typically identified with a serial number. I expect that they would be, but I would have to double check that.

Mr. Chair, through you too, Mr. Salzberg, yeah, I would like to find out about that, uh, and fact check that, not fact check that, but get confirmation on that, including musical equipment as well. We're not just talking guitars, but like, you know, amps, et cetera, stuff like that, which may or may not fall. Over, like with the serial number, sure with a Roland amp, but with power drill, maybe or maybe not. We want to make sure we're doing the least bit of harm if people's equipment is stolen.

All right.

I appreciate that, Councilor Strezo. Is that it? All right. So it sounds like the request is to look into how to reference power tools. And the secondhand value of power tools, I think, is also a question in terms of the $150 threshold there. I think it's something to just ask a few questions about. Councilor Mbah, I see you have a question.

Really quick, Mr. Chair, and musical equipment.

Right, right. Thank you.

Amps and guitars, right, got it. Councilor Mbah. Thank you, Mr. Chair, since I don't have much time. I just was curious about the kind of enforcement mechanism or incentives that will ensure that this updated licensing framework is both effective and equitable. Is that in there?

Mr. Chair, through you to Councilor Mbah, the enforcement mechanism is not something that we have changed in terms of licensing. that is something that is going to remain in place if somebody makes a report that a second-hand dealer is operating without a license then there will be an investigation and there may be some enforcement such as a fine or a requirement that they shut down their operation Thank you for watching! Okay.

And so that means, so thank you, Dr. Sarasvati. So if we had, no, that makes sense. and if I may just follow up Chairman Scott I'm also just curious you know as to you know how my this changes you know uh and many more. you know like folks that have already been in the market and then there's also like the the ones that are probably going to be getting in I'm sure the ones that are getting in they're just going to get caught up but the ones that This will be applying to them. How would that change in requirement affect compliance rate?

Mr. Chair, through you, I don't foresee that it will affect that. We did clarify a bit who is affected by this, but generally speaking, we expect to... Rather, I should say we don't have any predictions about changes in compliance because there were questions about whether this was impacting secondhand dealers if they were not taking in... We saw fit to clarify that, but we can't speak to whether that will alter people's inclination to comply with the ordinance.

Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Scott.

Thank you, Councilor Mbah. Compliance with the ordinance is, I think we're trying to make something that's going to be possible to comply with. I think there may only be one. I know we've got a lot more secondhand stores than that. In fact, I've gotten a few constituent complaints about one of the stores in the area asking about about some of the procedures there and it's tough when they're not operating with a license right now. So hopefully we'll be able to move on this before too long. My only question for analyst Salisbury here was It says went in, I believe, 61D, which is starting at the bottom of our screen right now. Secondhand dealer create a record of a transaction when they take possession.

of an item such as a book, painting, sculpture, metalwork, or similar marked with a unique identifier, signature, or stamp by its creator, manufacturer, or owner. I mean, every book has like a publisher's mark on it. Is that what we're referring to here?

Mr. Chair, no. My understanding of this is that this would be similar to, for instance, an autographed copy of a book or, you know, a... As you may recall, earlier on in the ordinance, we did exempt Dealers who operate specifically and exclusively in the sale of books. So I don't read this as an intent to capture all books, but specifically those that are Unique in the sense that I think that the unique identifier itself helps to indicate our intent there. for instance I have a signed screenplay of Star Wars from George Lucas and I'm pretty sure it might actually be the only one in existence and I'd be very upset if it showed up in a second-hand dealer shop so hopefully this would prevent that from going missing if that were to happen

I learn something new every day unless Salisbury uh and I guess I just want to You know, this doesn't also exempt, say, secondhand. There's like a bunch of vinyl stores in the neighborhood here. Some are exclusively vinyl, some are vinyl and other things. Presumably those, unless they are signed, like a signed album, Michael Jackson signed a copy of Thriller that those would also not be covered by this section regardless of whether or not it was a large collection of pieces that were bought in bulk for $200.

That's correct, Mr. Chair. That would be covered under subsection C. We do require an itemized receipt for collections like that. However, in conversation with We're choosing not to be explicitly clear about what itemized means. If somebody were to take in an entire mountain of t-shirts we certainly would not expect them to take several days to sort through and list and A full description of each t-shirt that they are taking in. We think that it is appropriate to leave that to the discretion of the business owner and then if it causes problems in the future we can revisit.

That sounds good. I know in my days shopping the Garmin District dollar a pound bins, I probably couldn't even give you an itemized receipt of what I purchased. Let's see, Councilor Ewen-Campen, I see you popped on screen there. Do you have anything to contribute?

Just to note that I am here.

All right. Happy to answer the record. All right. Well, that sounds good. I've got my questions answered here. It sounds like there's a few outstanding questions from Councilor Strezo, so I'm happy to leave this in committee. hopefully we'll be able to push it back out on May 19th because we've got some room I believe on that agenda and in the meantime I will also continue to circulate this around for Public comment for anybody who's tuning in. Please bring a copy of this by your favorite secondhand and vintage dealer in the city and make sure that they feel good about it and that it's the kind of language that they can get behind in terms of complying and being a registered part of the city. Okay, given that, let's go ahead and keep this item in committee for now. And we will return to the regular order of business. And I've lost my tabs. All right.

Returning to the regular order, that would take us back to item number 1 on our agenda that's 260046 amending chapter 2 article 3 of the code of ordinances by adding a new section establishing the time and place of regular meetings of the city council I know this is one that Our Chief Administrative Officer, Kimberly Wells, was very excited about. I don't believe she is with us tonight, but Annalise Salisbury, I believe she identified you to be the one to carry the torch on this side.

Mr. Chair, that is correct. I did write this and I feel pretty confident in my ability to speak on it. As you noted, this is a change that is derived from the new Charter. The Charter does require that The time and place of meetings be set by ordinance to make it a little bit more durable. Previously it was set by the rules of the city council. The proposal here is very simple. The first portion of it, the first subsection, is to simply codify the current practice of the City Council. The interesting part for committee discussion, or... Not to make any presumptions, of course, is that in 2028 we are recommending that the regular meetings of the City Council be held on the second and fourth Tuesday evenings beginning at 6 p.m. except when Tuesday falls on a holiday in which case the meeting shall be held on the following Thursday evening at 6 p.m. We have a lot of reasons for this recommendation.

I will note from the outset, though perhaps one of the less important ones of these, is that that note about a holiday would probably only roll around once every five years on the rare occasion that Veterans Day might fall. And so it is our recommendation for a variety of more substantive reasons. I'm happy to go through those or I'm happy to take questions, whichever is your preference.

All right. Tell you what, let's go to Councilor Strezo.

Oh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Wow, I'm the first one to raise my hand? Right on. Okay. Yes, Mr. Salisbury, I definitely do need details of a suggestion of Tuesday for some kids, especially single parents with kids. The difference between Tuesdays and Thursdays is very much more complex. So to even get on board with the suggestion, I definitely need to hear more of the reasoning. And I do see that the time slot has potentially changed from 7 to 6. which I want to hear as well from my colleagues about how that may or may not help Our constituents be able to attend meetings and even those with kids school-aged children or little babies.

So I'll start with the first question of the reasoning of suggestions for the Thursday to Tuesday.

And certainly, Mr. Chair, through you to the Councilor's question, there are really kind of two reasons for this, the first being staff considerations. Fundamentally, Thursday meetings are a little bit of a nightmare for staff. There's a variety of reasons for that. One of them is logistics. Generally speaking, there is a lot that goes into post-meeting work. So following a Thursday evening meeting, which could run quite significantly late, we do have our Fridays, which are a half day. and it is very difficult to get our normal work done as well as all of the post-meeting logistics done on Friday especially given that we're going into a weekend and we generally would like to Get all of the things done before the next business day. So a change to Tuesday would allow us to use Wednesday which would allow us to space that out a little bit.

It also means fundamentally that a lot of the items that are before the council could end up approved within the same week without actually having to wait over the weekend. Current practice right now is that items cannot go to the mayor until Monday, which then might take a significant amount of time depending on the item itself. Whereas if we were to change to a Tuesday meeting, we'd be able to put these items before the mayor on Thursday and have them approved as soon as Friday. There's also a lot to be said for the issue of staff morale. It is difficult to say the least to work a 12-hour day and then potentially be in a meeting starting at 7 p.m. until whenever your item gets taken up and of course you know sometimes we do make the effort to take up items that have staff to speak on them out of order but there's no guarantee that that the item would be taken up before the end of the workday

And while certainly a 6pm meeting on a Tuesday falls outside of normal working hours, it does grant about an hour and a half for people to breathe, go get dinner, take a break, kind of decompress a little bit before having to attend a city council meeting. I will also note on that note that moving some of our kind of heavier hitting city council committee meetings to Thursdays Starting at 6 p.m. would mean that staff would be able to attend those in working hours and there are significantly more staff that tend to attend those meetings than attend city council meetings. or certainly more regularly and then sort of lastly to your point with regards to the timing of the meeting 6 p.m. is of course the time when most of the City Council's committees meet, so it's not really a significant change in terms of Expectations for availability.

It does however mean that City Council meetings may not run as late or that there may be a little bit of extra time to get some additional business done during those City Council meetings without the Oppressive presence of 11pm rolling towards us. There's a few other sort of incidental things that are associated with Some of these points. For instance, I will note that, of course, on Thursdays, we do work at City Hall until 730. And a lot of the kind of key figures who are frequently in attendance at City Council meetings, particularly the City Clerk, that means that they have to sort of leave their team on their own for the half hour before close typically even you know maybe even an hour maybe an hour and a half before then and I will say for the city clerk's office Thursdays tend to be an extremely busy day for us particularly in the evenings we get a lot of people coming in for marriages and those are

A complex and impactful piece of paperwork that typically requires the city clerk to come out and offer some clarity on those.

Mr. Chair, if I may, through you too, legislative analyst Salisbury, thank you for all of that insight. I will digest all that and I appreciate it.

All right. Councilman Davis, I see you have your hand up. Why don't you take the next crack?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it. And through you to Annalisa Salisbury, thank you so much for your work on putting this together. The baseline requirement that is part of the new charter requirement and also the The sort of thoughtful tweaks and particularly the change in the day. I sign on to all of the rationale and reasoning that Mr. Salisbury presented. I think it all makes perfect sense. As hopefully folks have noticed in my planning out the city council meetings, I try my absolute best to make it as you know at least impactful as possible but it's just it's not easy to do and you know Ms. Salisbury laid out a number of ways that this Tuesday meeting in the six o'clock time would

You know, would be somewhat less of a burden on somewhere city staff. And I think that, you know, that is a very compelling argument. I'll also note as an aside, and, you know, this is a very secondary or even, you know, Lower priority, but there's a lot of cool stuff that happens on Thursday nights around our city. Taste of the immigrant city, the homeless coalition fundraiser, just to name a few. So it'd be great to be able to show up to support those community partners that we have that are doing such important work in the city. and have that night free. I mean, notwithstanding committee meetings that may be happening, but I think it gives us a little more flexibility.

certainly a six o'clock committee meeting versus a seven o'clock city council meeting feels like it You know, it would give us a little more flexibility as well. So I think this is a great idea. I will confess that I was very hesitant at first in my sort of initial, maybe it just says the oldest counselor, you know, change, no, change bad. but in hearing the arguments in the conversations I've had since then I think it's very well thought through and I appreciate that and I'm in support That said, Mr. Chair, it's a pretty big change. And, you know, while I certainly have nothing else that I... at least at this point feel like I need to consider although obviously I'll hear my colleagues thoughts and if there's questions raised I would value those but um It might be the kind of thing that we want the public to have an opportunity to weigh in on. I don't know. I'm just throwing that out there like it...

Because the change wouldn't happen until 2028, there's no rush. If there's something that we're not thinking of, it's the kind of thing, it is a big fundamental change. to the way the city council works and has worked for literally decades. So I wouldn't oppose to keeping this in committee just in case someone wants to tell us why we're all wrong. I don't think that's going to happen, but if it were, That said, like I said, I wouldn't object if someone made a motion to move it forward tonight. I think it's a great idea.

Apologies. My thoughts on this aren't quite as gathered because I think I'm still in the... The apprehension phase, like I'm thinking through in real time the effect it would have on my life. Which would be, you know, in theory, right, were I to be a city councilor in 2028, it would be significant, I would say. I mean, I'm thinking through the two years that I spent as president. The two hours between the end of my regular workday and the city council meeting were really important for my planning. That's when I met with the clerk to go through the details. That's when I would have a little bit of dinner with my family beforehand. That all said... If the meeting were another time, I would adjust my schedule, right? I think, you know, I came on to the council, as Councilor Davis said, this is the way things worked, and I have gotten very used to it.

I've... figured out how it can integrate into my life and a change I think would be difficult. but I just can't come up with any arguments against what liaison Salisbury just went through you know I think those are really really compelling reasons for this I don't think there is a time that we can hold our meetings that will be ideal for every member of the public, obviously. I think there are members of the public that I've heard have made a really compelling case for our meetings should be during the day. I've heard lots of people say that that would be completely unacceptable for them. I mean, I think different constituents have different available times. So I don't think we're going to get 100% buy-in no matter what we do. I am a little bit apprehensive about this. I will say that I'm not, you know, I didn't come prepared really to vote on this. because I'm still working through it but I will say like I don't have any good arguments against what What Brendan just said.

I mean, I think that those are like very legitimate arguments around that are based on kind of like inherent frustrations with moving city business forward and respecting the time of our staff in addition to the public. So, you know, I'm leaning towards supporting this. But I will say, you know, as Councilor Strezo raised, like I have two young kids, it is not easy to prepare before a 6pm meeting all the time. I would make it work. I'm sure that counselors will make it work, but it's a challenge for everyone and I would imagine particularly with people with young kids. Thank you, Mr. Scher.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Ewen-Campen. You know, I do think it's an interesting thought. I also wouldn't mind getting our meeting started a little bit earlier, but I know I tend to get up quite early. Not everybody does. No, I think this is a useful thing to think about. One thing that occurs to me is that you know when we're putting in agendas for meetings you know if an item is coming into the city council it can't be put onto a committee agenda until uh you know before it is actually accepted by the by the council and directed to that committee. So I wonder if having our meetings on Tuesday would mean that no item that came before the council on Tuesday could appear on an agenda before the following Monday, which right now I think the delay is to Tuesday.

Just putting it out there, I'm not sure about all the logistics of that, but I wonder about if it abbreviates the amount of council committee meetings that we're able to get in functionally between council meetings. Because I know it's already a pretty compressed schedule. So it's just one thought I want to throw out there. I saw Councilor Ewen-Campen, you popped your hand up and then I saw Councilor Strezo, you did yours. So Councilor Ewen-Campen, go for that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Another issue that I neglected to raise. We currently don't allow committee meetings the day before a city council meeting, which is every other Wednesday, 2nd and 4th. You know, I don't know if that's not in law anywhere, right? That's a function of clerk office capacity, as I understand it. Taking Monday off the table would be really hard. You know, maybe this is the point you were just making, Mr. Chair, but that seems like a real issue to me. I wonder if the clerk's office could respond.

Yeah, I mean it's not just taking Monday off the table, but it's also taking the Wednesday and Thursday following the council meeting off the table because we couldn't publish an agenda. It would functionally shrink the meetings times between city council meetings to just the four days of the following week, I believe. Daniel Salisbury on that point do you have anything?

Mr. Chair I do to some extent I think that the I can appreciate the concern I don't Think that it is as significant, a real concern, but not as significant a concern, I think, as you're Thank you for watching! but that does also introduce some issues when there are Monday holidays and things like that which are frequent of course And so there are really already kind of these obstacles that we are required to navigate around with regards to the open meeting law. So I don't think, based on my conversations with the city clerk, that this would cause the level of disruption that you're expressing concern about. It's already relatively...

uncommon practice to have items come off the city council agenda in significant numbers and go directly onto a A committee agenda immediately following it. And so there's really not much of a change in that regard. I do know that that's occasionally the case for legislative matters. When something is of particular urgency, but there is no reason that I can think of why we would not be able to Sorry I'm just trying to plot out the time in my head. Those meetings could certainly be held on a Friday. I cannot think of any reason why posting the agenda on a Wednesday would prohibit those meetings from being held on a Friday evening.

All right. Well, you'd have to ask staff how they feel about staffing Friday night meetings, I think, in terms of staff morale.

Mr. Chair, that sounds like a party to me, quite frankly.

Thank you. Let's see. I saw, oh, Councilor Treasurer, you brought your hand down. So unless you got something, I will go to Councilor Davis. Councilor Davis.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And it is on that direct point as well. So it's an excellent point. As Mr. Salisbury said, I think the net impact would only really relate to those Somewhat less typical scenarios where there's an item submitted to the city council on a Thursday and then it goes on a committee agenda the next week. I would bet that if we looked at those data, it would be... That would be a pretty small percentage of the items that are in the council. Certainly with legislative matters, that does tend to happen. We slip those... But, you know, take this agenda itself. You know, these items have all been on here for a long time. So I think that we certainly could still have committee meetings Wednesday, Thursday. I don't know how I feel about Friday, but... Hypothetically could happen.

It could be a Friday day meeting as well if there was a pressing need to get our minds together on something. And, you know, and then, yeah, you would need to, I think, you know, my anticipation would be that the, you know, committees like Well, we'd have to think about it, right? Like where does finance sit? Where does legislative matters sit? Where does land use sit? I think in my head, I was thinking that probably land use still sits on that Thursday. Well, land use would sit on the Thursday of the council meeting. because those have to be advertised well in advance so you'd know that and then and then Finance and Legislative Matters would have plenty of time to post an agenda for the following week. Or something different, right? That's just sort of one off the top of my head kind of thought.

It's definitely a factor that we should think about, but I'll note that it's, I think, I would bet that a lot of, I don't like betting. I would guess that a vast majority of items on committee agendas have been sitting in that box for more than a week. and that it wouldn't be a significant impact and as I said if there was something really really pressing well we could sort it out figure it out we'll make it work If that's the decision we decide to make. And one thing I'll just also note to, if I may, Mr. Chair, to Councilor Ewen-Campen's point. also completely valid and would share some of those concerns. At least as it relates to planning, I'll note that

Since I took the presidency, at my request, we've moved those planning meetings to Wednesday. It's my opinion that planning ahead of time is easier and less stressful for everyone. And then if something comes up between Wednesday and the now currently Thursday council meetings, we can text each other, we can sort it out. Those planning meetings happen ahead of time so that we can do it in a more sort of calm manner. So hopefully that would mitigate some of that concern at least. While there certainly are lots of things to come up in time right before council meeting, for the most part, all y'all have been pretty good about letting me know stuff ahead of time because that's what I've asked. And I think going forward, I would hope that... you know for whoever holds this role in the future that you know we set that precedent because it just makes everyone's lives easier and so you know I think that that

I guess the planning meeting would then be Monday. and so you might have a little bit more because folks haven't thought about stuff over the weekend maybe whereas now they're thinking about stuff on you know Tuesday Wednesday and let me know but um All right.

Now, thank you, Councilor Davis. I appreciate that. Yeah, I think there's some thought that we can put into this. I don't think I'm ready necessarily to move this out right now, but I really appreciate approaching the discussion on it. I think what I'd like to do is to... Take a little bit of time with pen and paper and try to figure out exactly what this would mean in terms of a potential committee schedule and what this would do to our ability to schedule things. I do... have a concern about how folks would feel about Friday night city council committee meetings. But you know what? I think it's worth considering and taking a look at it. So I think I'm happy to do that in the interregnum between next meeting. Councilor Strezo, I see you got your hand raised.

I'm back. The interwebs is being not super great right now. So I missed some of the conversation, which is kind of a bummer. So I'll have to follow up. But yeah, I'm not ready to make a decision tonight. Absolutely not. I agree with you, Mr. Chair, that I think that... We need to sit and get out that pencil and paper and see exactly what it would look like because yeah I wondered then okay as we're just about to also on this agenda have a rule change for submitting Agenda items. What will that look like in January 2020 deadline, et cetera, hosting agendas for regular meetings? And then one additional question, and this I suppose it's more rhetorical at this point and although it is a different body entirely with the school committee which also meets on seven o'clock at night so are there plans or considerations from the school side of this to change and I know

different employees in different bucket. However, is there talk and consideration of a school committee body doing the same? and I definitely either way want to hear from the public on this and what they thought. Would this make this easier for say for instance we have a citation or when a member of rank goes up and their family comes is six o'clock easier or is it harder for some of their family members to be able to get to Council to get a firefighter promotion or not? Or is that 7 o'clock the sweet spot to where they can actually get through traffic to get to it? So those are considerations going forward that I really want to think about before... I would be able to make a decision on where we go with this specific item before us.

Yeah, I think those are good and interesting thoughts. All right. Well, it sounds like we've all got a little bit to noodle on. I really appreciate the work in bringing it forward. I anticipate I'll probably have a few conversations with our new chief administrative officer and probably with you too Mr. President just trying to get my head around all this. So I recommend keeping this in committee and then we can come back to it again at a future meeting. Hopefully with a little bit more thought, we can start asking our constituents and friends about it. Because I'm sure that the number of those that watch these meetings regularly, we know who the regulars are. all right uh so let's go ahead and leave that in committee uh next up in our agenda we have Item number two, that's 260354, that rule four, the rules of the city council be amended to update submission deadlines for agenda items consistent with the provisions of open meeting. This one I'm very excited about.

Annalise Salisbury, I see the language appears on the screen here. Would you like to introduce this or Councilor Davis, would you like to be the one to introduce this since it's your item?

I think I could take this one, Mr. Chair, if it's okay with you, Amos Salisbury. This was put together at my request, so thank you, Brandon, for putting pen to paper for me. As the item says, the intent here is to actually better align and more closely align our rules and, in fact, our practices with The actual law. So I know it's a really radical concept that we should just... Follow the laws that apply to our scheduling and posting of agendas and such. But this came about because... So historically, this council and the board of all of them before this have...

Use the supplemental agenda and just so for folks at home, we publish an agenda on Tuesdays and then traditionally any item that came in after that agenda was sort of put together, and prior to the publishing of a revised agenda on Thursday went on what's called the supplemental agenda. If you look at the agenda, anything that starts with the number 10, that's the supplemental agenda. And the public doesn't see those until Thursday. I'm stopping there. The public doesn't see those items until the day of the council meeting. That, in my opinion, is clearly contrary to the intent and probably the letter of the open meeting law, the requirement that we post an agenda 48 hours ahead of the meeting time.

That asset to me is really clear and unambiguous and something that we should... Do a better job of adhering to. Now, there are some gray areas because the open meeting law through a variety of sort of Sources of legal input. I won't bore all y'all with the nuances there, but there's some gray area. If If the presiding officer could reasonably anticipate that an item would be discussed at the meeting, then it needs to be on the agenda. If the presiding officer could not reasonably anticipate... then it shouldn't be on the agenda.

that kind of sounds funny because it's like well y'all just gonna show up and start talking about things that aren't on the agenda well no so it you know the the wording of the language itself is a bit It has some ambiguity in and of itself. What we've done in the past, or what we've done, sorry, in the past... Almost, well, going on a year now since I took this position is trying to be... More closely aligned with both the spirit and the letter of the open meeting law, as my colleagues will know, and all of our regular viewers will recall, When things are in that section 10, I will ask, I will make a note of why was this not anticipated? Why did this come up? And the second prong of the requirement is, is there some specific time consideration, right?

So there have been a whole host of items that have never made it to agendas or haven't made it to the agenda that week because I have asked those questions and the answer has been It can wait for the next meeting. The other thing we've done is to push things to a committee where it would then be properly noticed. And before any deliberation happens, it would be noticed to the public. But The intent of this is to really codify, or not codify, but... reflecting our actual rules, what we've been doing more or less for the past several months. It does... We'll stick with the Thursday night meetings for now. If we decide to change that, we'll get out a calendar and figure out what the right dates and times are. But for now... Whereas the current rules require something to be in by the end of the day Monday, this actually would extend that time until Tuesday morning.

If for those of you who can do math and understand how a clock works or a calendar works, you'll think, well, wait a minute. Tuesday at 7 o'clock would be 48 hours. Why has it been Monday? The reason is The clerk's office has to type the agenda. They have to do a lot of keystroking. and compiling and things to actually get. So the letter of the law says if something is submitted at 6.59 on Tuesday, it needs to go on the agenda. Practically speaking, that's impossible, of course, right? Because that button is going to get pushed, you know, not later than 48 hours before the meeting. There's sort of a gray area that is allowed for the practicality. We've shrunk that from our current rules so it now allows until Effectively, what Brendan finds in his inbox Tuesday morning when he rocks up to his desk. is good to go.

And what isn't there is not unless it meets those requirements of having been unforeseen and not reasonably anticipated. Reasonably Foreseen. I can't remember whether it's foreseen or anticipated, but same concept. You know what I mean. And has some time sensitivity to it. So that's the crux of this. Like I said, it is intended to sort of have our rules reflect both the open meeting law requirements and what we've actually been doing here for the last few months. Hopefully, I mean, you know, I hope this isn't controversial I hope there's no significant concerns as I said it does actually give us a little more time in the world to submit things and have them be validly appropriate for the agenda for that week and lessens the likelihood of someone making a claim that we're somehow violating OML. We try to avoid that as much as we can.

That's my long-winded explanation, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your indulgence.

No, thank you, Councilor Davis. I did just have one question for you. So it references that items submitted by a member appearing, if in by Tuesday by 830. Any item submitted by a non-member shall only appear on the agenda if it is in the hands of the city clerk by the close of business four days before the meeting, which is Friday by 1230 p.m. I would presume that would... Cover public comment or a public petition?

Yeah, and I think I might defer to analyst Salisbury on this. My understanding is that there's oftentimes when things are submitted, there's a bit more Back-end office work that is required to verify, etc. But Brendan, if you want to add any color to that, through you, Mr.

Chair, I'd defer to Mr. Salisbury. Mr. Chair, through you, or to you rather, as you are the one who asked the question, Councilor Davis is correct. There are some additional logistics that go on with regard to approval processes and things like that for items that come in. either from members of the public or from members of staff so this would apply notably to items submitted by staff as well so we are not unfairly burdening Only the council or only members of the public. We are applying this to everyone equally. There are, of course, as Councillor Davis alluded to, some gray areas and some nuance. Certainly if somebody has a Thank you for watching!

But the event is the Friday after the city council meeting. There could be some flex there to make sure that it does appear on the regular agenda. or if absolutely necessary to appear on the supplemental agenda if it was not reasonably anticipated and does naturally have that time-sensitive component to it. So we're not going to be preventing people from holding their block parties or anything like that by this change. There is obviously going to be a component of things happen. bureaucracy being what it is as important as it is does occasionally move slowly in a way that frustrates people and we want to be cognizant of that and make sure that we are not disenfranchising any of our residents

Absolutely, I appreciate that. And you got ahead of my other question was that while we have certainly had some legislative liaisons that considered themselves the 12th councilor, city staff are not actually members of the body. So this would also apply to items that are submitted, for example, by the mayor for consideration or by city staff for consideration, yes?

That is correct, Mr. Chair, yes.

All right. Well, I feel good about this. I appreciate the explanation, Councilor Davis, and I'm comfortable moving forward with this because, as you said, it's basically codifying what you're currently doing. Are there any more discussion from members? I personally am prepared to entertain a motion to approve.

So moved.

All right, Councilor Davis, you get to move to approve your own item. All right, well, looking for any discussion on that item or on that motion. Seeing no discussion on that motion, let's lay that item on the table to recommend approval and a single vote at the end of the meeting. Wonderful. I love getting one out of the box. See, item number three has already been taken up, so that brings us in the order of business to item number four, which is item 251686 amending chapter 8 article 3 of the code of ordinances oh no that was the second hand dealer license one uh and the item three was uh actually so item three was the order to work with That's 25-1439. So we could probably mark that work complete since the city clerk has in fact been working with. So let's mark number three work complete.

Chair Scott. excuse me just quickly that was referred for recommendation so we do need to give it a disposition so if we could place it on file okay we can place that on file thank you uh place that on file we will keep the uh

That's item number four in committee. We already got that disposition. Which brings us to item 251762, that the Code of Ordinances be amended to prohibit the use of taxpayer funds for self-promotion. This is a fun one. Councilor Davis, was this yours or was this Councilor Wilson's? Oh, it was the two of you jointly at the end of 2025.

Thank you. This is an ordinance that I've had kicking around in my brain for a number of years. and chalk it up to finally getting off my butt and asking analyst Salisbury to help me out to put something together. and I think it's worth noting that another piece of that sort of motivation was at the time then the incoming mayor having had that conversation with him and him saying I completely agree do you want to put it in together with me and I said well I think that would be great you know because as with Well, Ms. Chair, as with just about all of our audiences, if the mayor doesn't want to do it, then we have a hard time making it happen.

And so I was happy that then-Councillor Wilson, it was an agreement on the concept. There may be some gray area around the edges as we get down this that I will look forward to exploring with our current mayor. But for the most part, I think the fundamental principle here is I just got sick of seeing mayor's names plastered all over everything. and you know all throughout the year and gosh gee especially on those odd numbered years it just seemed like mayor's names cropped up I can't figure out why it was on those particular odd number of years that mayor's names just seemed to seem to be in front of me all the time on city communications and city printed signs and banners and everything else and

I guess I guess that just kind of um you know I got stuck under my saddle uh if you will so um So the intent here is to put an end to that, to make it, to ordain that None of us, the mayor included, will effectively have the ability to use city resources for the sort of personal, what the intent is, what is sort of this sort of personal promotion. If you think about The former banner that used to be for the Greek festival. Mayor Kurt Atone. Big letters right underneath it. You know...

Press releases that said the office of mayor so-and-so would say blah blah blah you know we just we know it's the city of Somerville right it's the city it's the taxpayers who are presenting these things at the end of the day so that's the intent here hopefully pretty straightforward Um, I'm sure folks could poke holes and things that I, and I, I, I sheepishly, I see Leah Zanradazzi with her hand raised. So I hope, I hope it's something in agreement, but if we've missed something here, then, then, uh, I'll be happy to hear that input as well but that's the idea Mr. Chair and thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain it.

All right, well, let's see here. Liaison Radassi, you had an update from the comms department or from other city staff?

Through the chair, thank you. I am not disagreeing with any through you to anything that Councillor Davis said. Then Councillor Wilson did co-sponsor this and is very much on board with this. I'm just hoping on behalf of the administration that we can have maybe another meeting just to touch base with comms and maybe have some offline conversations with Councilor Davis as the sponsor to make sure that we're not inadvertently looping in something and making sure that we're just creating the best legislation possible without any inadvertent consequences but yeah thank you

All right. Well, I mean, so, Councilor Davis, this ordinance has been in now for six months. It has been before the City Council. Guess I'm curious as to how you would like to proceed. I know our comms department is massive and has frequently been, let's say, one of the One of the primary organs of this kind of communication. What would be your intention here, sir?

Thank you for asking, Mr. Chair, and through you, Talia Zanardazzi. Thank you. I think the fact that it's been in here, sitting here for six months, could go both ways. But I think the fact that I don't... When I'm coming down Beach Street off of Mass Ave to get back to my house on Highland, I now see Drive Slow Save Lives instead of a mayor's name plastered under the sign that says, Welcome to the City of Somerville. The Wilson administration is already very clearly, in my opinion, complying with the spirit of this ordinance in many ways. and if if comms has some questions or because I mentioned in my initial statement there is some gray area I think there's a little nuance so I would be absolutely thrilled to have that conversation and I think it's I appreciate and respect the the request to sort of

try our best to make sure we're on the same page we might not be there still might be some gray area we fight about but that's okay we're different branches of the government and that's all right By all means, Mr. Chair, I have no problem keeping this one in committee if there's a good conversation to have to make sure that we all are aligned. No problem from my end.

All right, well then I guess I would hope that those conversations can be arranged by IGA in the intervening few weeks and that hopefully we'll have the opportunity to move on this soon.

Strezo I see your hand you're recognized oh thank you thank you uh Mr. Chair yeah I think if we're going to keep it um in committee and because right I get that there's a a list of some things So, and yeah, we don't need 8,000 tote bags with mayor's names on. I think we can be in agreement with that. but I am I would like uh through you Mr. Chair to uh liaison Madassi if we could have like a longer list of of just other items how it how it could be um I don't have a problem with this ordinance but I to her point as well I want to see exactly how extensive it can get and what exactly does social media mean does that mean that um I'm Posing this idea just out loud thinking, but does that mean any Instagram page? Does it mean a video?

How deep do we go with this? I just want to know that too. Thank you.

All right, sounds good. Councilor Davis, before we put this to bed, do you have a response?

Yeah, just briefly, Mr. Chair, and through you to Councilor Strezo, thank you. Another excellent point. As I said, I anticipate there's no way to be perfectly clear on all of this. So my goal and my objective is not to have a Perfectly Fine Line. I think all of these questions are great. I mean, the kind of things we should think about. And... Without question, even if we, to whatever extent we do come to as clear as possible an agreement, there's still going to be some stuff that... Thank you for watching! and that's okay right we're that those will be learning experiences those will be uh you know

opportunities to clarify everyone's intent and nothing beyond that obviously hypothetically there could be a different scenario but certainly in this administration I don't anticipate that being the case I look forward to having any conversations we can and need to and then get this in place.

All right, last bite of the apple, Councilor Strezo.

Last bite. Thank you. So, I agreed. I threw you to Councilor Davis. Yeah, I hear your points. And, you know, like I said, I don't I don't disagree. I think it's also I think it's also really thoughtful to if we do have like 30,000 water bottles with mayor blah blah blah that's wasteful if that's if we have one mayor who's no longer mayor what do we do with 30,000 water bottles with mayor blah blah blah but I do think I do like the idea of um when we enter Somerville uh mayor blah blah blah welcomes you or there are the mayor's name on are entrants to Welcome to Somerville. That is one case, right? I think it could be useful for visitors. There's a purpose behind that. but right like some of the smaller stuff where press releases go yeah we don't need 30,000 press releases necessarily saying Mayor Wilson says this Mayor Wilson says that

I don't know I leave that to the comms professionals to figure out what that means but yeah I want a little bit more detail on this as we go along thanks a lot all right

So I will keep this one in committee. I will encourage IGA to broker discussions with both Councilor Schozo and Councilor Davis in the intervening two weeks. Is that something you can do, Liaison Redassi?

Mr. Jerry, yes, I think that is something I can do.

All right. Thank you. I'm reminded of several conversations I need to have. Maybe we'll put this on the list. All right. So let's keep this one in committee. And then that brings us to the final item before us this evening that this council amended to Rule 24 by requiring a majority vote of the council before a councillor can be removed from a committee. This is a legacy Councillor Burnley order. which was intended I suppose to provide some check on the leader of the city council's ability to reassign committees at their discretion. So we have it before us. It was still sitting in committee. As it turns out, this circumstance didn't come up where where it was felt to be necessary. I suppose we have the current sitting president here.

Do you have any thoughts about this before we choose a disposition for it, Councillor Davis?

Happy to share my views, Mr. Chair, since you asked. My immediate thought is that this would create a Some significant hurdles in just sort of the day-to-day practicality at times. There are several times, several if not many times throughout the year where Especially on our committees with three folks, you know, where a counselor too is away or there's a really specific item that one counselor, you know, had submitted and that council got on the committee and one of the committee members is away and so the other request will come to me to uh to replace that counselor on the committee for the purpose of just that evening. Obviously, just to meet quorum, sometimes we have to go to the bullpen. And that, I don't know practically how that would work. with his ordinance at all.

I do understand and I want to honor and respect what I understand Assume is the intent. It's a pretty significant power that the president of the city council has. to you know to replace and remove folks from committee as they wish now there is of course a check There, because there's a process for removing the president. But I'm not aware of, as you noted, I think, you know, Ms. Chair, that the scenario didn't come up. I'm not aware of there being and maybe there has been I guess as I'm saying this out loud maybe I just wasn't aware that things could have happened but you know I would hope that anyone sitting in the presidency would

would have enough respect for their colleagues that they wouldn't willy-nilly remove or replace folks on committees. to me that's just a it's a fundamental obligation requirement of the job um and it's not I said a respect for their colleagues. It's really a respect for the voters, right? The voters, our constituents put all of us in these offices and I think it I think the president needs to respect that and undertake the committee assignments with that very much in mind. In my opinion, that is all the check I need at least to make sure I'm trying to do this as fairly as I'm able to.

and I suspect that that's the case with others who have held this role as well so I don't see a need for this I do see I do have concerns as I mentioned if it were put into place I think it would It would be an undue burden on our ability to do the city's business. My preference would be to whatever disposition is necessary to To not move forward with this change, Mr. Chair.

All right. Well, we certainly could place the item on file, but I will go to Councilor Ewen-Campen and Strezo, and then I'll provide my thoughts as well. Councilor Ewen-Campen?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ultimately, I'm also in support of placing this on file. Concur with what Councilor Davis just said. I think I really understand the motivation here. You know, you look, we often hear descriptions of How statehouse leadership works, where if you vote the wrong way, leadership will strip you from a committee chairmanship and cut your salary in half by doing so, and... I don't think that's good. I don't think that power should be centralized in such a way that it can be used to control the behavior of other legislators. But I don't think that is really in play here. Maybe this is biased from my experience, but my experience in the presidency was... It was often hard to find people who had the capacity to fill all the various committee seats.

It was very rarely an issue of... you know trying to bully someone off a committee that never happened it was much more kind of begging people to please serve on a committee because we need you know these are these are jobs that need to get done and we all have a ton of work and we all have a lot of responsibilities already So just in reality, I'm not super concerned about that. And as Councilor Davis said, I think there's already a really good check on the presidency, which is that they have to get reelected every single term. Yeah. I think that functionally what this would mean is that even if there were a way to wordsmith it so that it was just to avoid vindictive removal from a committee unilaterally I just think that it would mean that no one could ever be taken off a committee. I think that's what the functional, you know, just knowing how the legislative process works. I think that's how it would actually play out and I'd be quite concerned about that.

just knowing that there certainly could be plenty of reasons why it might need to happen for totally whatever the opposite of untoward reasons is toward reasons so for all that I respect where this is coming from but I don't I wouldn't support it. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Councilor Ewen-Campen. Councilor Strezo.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I agree with my colleagues. I will not support this. I think that I hear what Councilor Davis said, and that makes total sense. So I will not move to place it on file because I want to hear what you have to say, Mr. Chair, but I definitely want it to be placed on file. to move it or whatever at a later date or not later date but later minute after you're done speaking and hearing from us or from we get to hear from you. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Strezo. So I appreciate Councilor Ewen-Campen bringing up the Speaker of the Mass State House because that is, of course, the preeminent example certainly no president would ever excuse their executive authority right either Mariana Rivera current speaker of the state house or Saldamasi, previous speaker who was convicted of conspiracy and fraud, nor Tom Fenneran, the previous speaker convicted of obstruction of justice, nor Charlie Flaherty, the previous speaker before that, who was also convicted this time of tax evasion. I'm sure none of them would ever abuse their executive authority. But I guess my point is that norms are not a guarantee of good behavior. And for many an hour, sitting at the knee of Councilor Bill White I heard tell of many shenanigans related to committee assignments that at the time were considered the norm.

So I can appreciate the... I can appreciate the urge here. And I guess my ultimate take on it is that any action of the president can be challenged by the members and can be overturned by a vote of the members although I'm not certain that a president I'm not certain we have a provision for removal of a president Davis. You said there was a provision for that. I couldn't find that in the rules of the City Council. Could you remind me?

No, Mr. Chair, I think I probably didn't articulate that as I intended. I I was referring to the fact that it's a one-year term and therefore, you know, if someone wanted to continue on, then they did have the votes.

Well, we would certainly not want to extend the term of the executive. That would remove them farther from accountability. Wait, sorry, what were we talking about? Oh, right. Okay, so... You know what? I'm inclined, given that it is a one-year term. and given that there is a lot of shuffling of committees that does happen for very legitimate logistical reasons, I'm also inclined to put this item on file. But appreciate that we've had a conversation about the importance of adhering to norms and the expectations that we have of how the council will conduct itself, including the president of said council. So with that said, we'll go ahead and mark that item placed on file. Madam Clerk, I believe that's correct disposition for it?

Correct. We can do that.

and then all the rest of our items have had dispositions assigned to them or have been laid on the table for a vote at the conclusion of the meeting, correct?

Correct. I can run through that if you'd like before we adjourn.

Sure. If I may?

Councilor Strezo.

Thank you. I'm manually raising my hand today, not... I know, and I know we're done, but quick procedural question. I forgot to raise a point. I know that we placed one of the items we moved for approval, the rules change of the city council norms. I'm fine with that, but I did forget to bring up a quick point, logistics. Can we quickly, are we able procedurally to bring it forward quickly? I don't have any problem with passing the rules. I want to make that clear. But there was a point that I feel like this is the moment to discuss it before it gets back to regular council. So I want to take this quick moment to discuss it. What procedurally, how can we procedurally bring that back forth before we vote on it?

Right now it's simply been laid on the table so we can simply pick that item back up off the table to hear your considerations before we Take it up for a vote. So I believe you're referring to item number... There were a few of those. I just want to make sure we get them right.

You're right, the general, you're right. I think it- Mission deadline. Correct, correct.

Okay. Item number two, that's 260354. We'll pick that item off the table. What is your, what's your consideration? What's your deliberation?

Thank you really quick. Thank you. Okay, we talk about council members needing to be on screen if we're virtual. However, should we make an adjustment? There's a Vincent Sighting locale. Should we make an adjustment? Because I don't think it's mentioned in this. in the rules that if, say for instance, a counselor cannot, so I'm having like wifi issues tonight, I can't be on screen, but I could still be present verbally. Should that be considered? Okay, no, you say, or video is not reasonably practical, it would be clearly, it would definitely be heard. Okay, so being heard, I'm sorry, I'm going into rule five, and I know we're talking about this, but I was wondering if this was where the taking up, um, Okay. You know what? Forget it. Nope. Forget it.

Okay. All right. Yeah. I was going to say it's rule five. We can, we can certainly go to rule five another day.

I was just going to say we thought about that exact thing and I erased it and that's why we wrote it the way we did. It's an excellent point and we covered it.

Thank you. Yep, yep. Got it. Thank you. All right, we're done.

All right. Adam Clark if you would like to run through the dispositions of items including the ones still remaining to be voted on.

So we have agenda items three and six placed on file. We have agenda items one, four, and five kept in committee. And that leaves us with agenda item two laid on the table for approval.

Well then let's pick up item number two and a motion to adjourn and we can take those votes simultaneously here.

Okay so motion to approve agenda item two and on adjournment. Councilor Davis?

Yes.

Councilor Mbah? Ewen-Campen?

Yes.

Councilor Strezo? Yes. Councilor Scott?

Yes. And before we actually adjourn, before we tabulate that and call for adjournment, I just want to say Councilor Mbah did have to leave. A little bit early for this to attend his eldest child's performance at the high school, so we appreciate his attendance at the start. Also want to say at our next meeting May 19th It had been the intention to bring up the rental registry and after conversation with members, I believe we will continue to intend to bring that item before us. I have heard from city staff that they intend to return with amended surveillance technology annual report based on the suggestions of this committee. and an amended impact report for Crime Tracer. So I do anticipate those also being

If you have other items that you'd like to make sure get onto that agenda, because we only have a few meetings between now and the start of budget season, please do reach out to the chair and I'll be happy to work with scheduling those. So with that comment made the results of that roll call vote madam clerk.

That item is approved and we are adjourned.

All right thank you very much everybody have a good evening.