Watertown City Council- Committee of the whole (Tuesday March 24, 2026)

Okay, I'd like to call this meeting to order. This is a meeting of the city council sitting as the committee of the whole. This meeting is being broadcast and recorded by cable access, and there is remote access. We will begin our regular city council meeting at 7 p.m. this evening. 645 for an executive session and roll call and then come back at 7 as a city council. Can I get the clerk to call the roll? Oh, by the way, Councilor Bays has joined us by Zoom. So we will be doing all roll call votes tonight. Please call the roll.

Councilor Bays.

Present.

Councilor Feltner.

Present.

Gannon, Gardner, Izzo, Offei, Palomba, Piccirilli, Sideris, Watertown, Councilor

and I'm going to turn it over to the city manager. Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, Councilors, for being here tonight to take on this step. Just by way of kind of a reminder of the way that the city charter works surrounding these things, administrative codes are created by having the city manager submit a code under section 6.2 of the the code of the city charter, which is then sent to the city council and then the strategy is the city council is allowed an up or down vote on that particular item. you know that said I submitted a draft and we had a conversation about a draft and we did our best to incorporate comments into that draft as best we possibly could before submitting the final version so that hopefully we could capture the council's intent and concerns in the version that I submitted as an official version.

Now, before you tonight is that official version that was submitted to the council a few meetings back. there is a very small set of changes in there that we emailed to you basically one essential scrutiners error in one of the charts and then the other making some changes to the stormwater committee and that after meeting with the chair of the committee, we made a couple of adjustments to the language there to meet that committee's needs. and I'm happy to answer questions about that. But that's the version I would like to have in front of you for review and potential consideration for approval this evening. Now the other part of the admin code in order for this admin code to work in the long run is that what I don't want to do is pass the admin code and then leave the provisions in the remainder of city code that are contradicting the admin code. So the very last page of your packet is the sections of city ordinance to repeal.

We had talked about this when we met the committee the whole last time. That is not officially before you tonight because the way we have structured what's before you tonight is the admin code itself. should the council see fit to approve the admin code, what I would be asking the council president to do is to be taking this list of ordinance repeals putting it for a first reading at the meeting on April 14th and a vote of the council at a public hearing on April 28th so that we can clean up the remainder of the ordinance to make it match where the admin code goes. And again, we answered some questions about that at the last Committee of the Whole, and I'm happy to between me and the deputy city manager, Emily Monet, we're happy to answer others about what is in this particular stretch. On the front of your packet is a short three-page memo in response to a particular question that came up from the Council at the previous meeting, particularly about the suggestion to

to repeal the personnel code sections of the existing code. So the key personnel code sections of the existing code were incorporated into the admin code and our suggestion was to repeal the rest of it. We received a question about any consistencies or inconsistencies between the personnel code that is on the books today and the circumstances surrounding existing collective bargaining contracts and whether or not it provides any remaining protections for employees. I tried to provide in that memo a section by section review through that. and again I'm happy to answer questions on that although I will note that we have until that April 28th meeting to have that particular discussion because this is a part of the what's going to be removed question rather than the what's going to be added question.

but I did want to get those in front of you tonight even knowing we have a month of running room before asking you to take a vote on removing those other sections. They do intertwine with the code in front of you and I just want to reassure the council again that the personnel code as written, which references the role of the town meeting moderator in the finance committee, includes a holiday schedule that's out of date, includes a overtime compensation system that is actually a violation of federal law, is outdated and if the council sees fit to remove it, I think that's my recommendation. If the council sees fit to keep it, we're going to have to rewrite a lot of sections of it in order to make that happen. because there's some things there that just absolutely don't make sense. But it's not consistent with the type of government we have today in the class and compensation system strategy that we've put together.

I'm going to just run ahead and answer one other question based upon a letter and a comment that you have probably received. There was some discussion as we were implementing the admin code about the statement in the admin code that boards cannot hire their own staff and that basically the staff has to work through the city administration staff and right now I think I noted it only the CPC manager is a staff person hired by a board. I have stubbornly taking the position that I think that it makes sense to have the CPC manager be part of the administrative staff for the purpose of personnel management and supervision, et cetera. The last response we received from the members of the Community Preservation Commission was a suggestion that the CPC staff person be placed in a finance office rather than in the Community Development and Planning Department where we had originally considered the possibility.

After meeting with a couple of folks from the committee, I agree with their position that it actually should be a finance role. I've had conversations with the city auditor where our intention at this point is that the CPC manager would become a part of the auditing staff should the administrative code pass. and I'm happy to answer further questions about that. But that is my plan from an administrative day-to-day structure. The auditor agrees, the council president who supervises the auditor and I have had conversations about this as well. and I think that that is the best way forward to provide a little bit more independence from the department that might be submitting proposals. and with the independence of the auditor's office as it's structured. I think that makes sense while still bringing the CPC manager into the city administration for personnel and supervision type roles while at the same time having them will not be in a department that regularly bids on CPC projects.

So I'll leave that there and just say for the rest of the meeting, we're happy to answer questions. I think Deputy Manager may be more adept at answering the questions than I am, but we're happy to answer questions the council has and go in whatever direction you'd like.

Thank you. If you could just also highlight the two changes that were made in the document that Deputy Manager Monet pointed out to us today?

Sure. So one of those is on page 7, the names of the multi-member bodies with their term expirations. The question may come up, why did we take the word advisory out of stormwater advisory committee and solid waste and recycling advisory committee? And the reason we did that was because a lot of our committees are advisory committees. and we thought that kind of reminding everyone that these two were advisory while not reminding people that some of the others are just as much just advising kind of made them seem lesser committees than some of the other advisory committees. we thought it made more sense to call them stormwater committee and solid waste and recycling committee. We made that change in the section where we laid out the committee titles and it just didn't make it into this chart. So this is literally just a typo to reflect, you know, The other change is starting on the bottom of page 23 with the stormwater committee itself.

under Section A303Q, we had considered the possibility of reducing the Stormwater Committee from in number of members and in conversation with the committee chair decided that five resident members, one appointed by the council president, four appointed by the manager was a better answer than what we had written before. So we made that change. and then if you go on to page 24, rather than specifying the conservation agent as a member, that specifies that the assistant city manager for community development planning can be a member or can make a designee from their team. The expectation here is they probably would potentially still designate the conservation agent, but if they wanted to designate the sustainability manager or the energy, if there was some other position in the team,

that had an interest in stormwater, it gives a little more flexibility for the assistant city manager to pick from amongst their team to do that particular role. and then the final change we made was that previously it specified that the Stormwater Committee advises the Department of Public Works. That was under letter B. and in discussing with the chair, she pointed out that the advisory role to the committee is more than just to DPW. It's often to community development and planning, it's often to Public Buildings, it could be to any department in the city. So we just made it more general and said the stormwater committee reviews and makes recommendations on stormwater ordinances rather than specifying they're doing it specifically to DPW. And since the last submittal, to the council. Those are the only changes that we're proposing incorporating should you see fit to pass this. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, and I just want to reiterate the part about removing the advisory. If you look at C on both of those, it says it is an advisory multiple member board. Yes. So that makes it more consistent. So I'll now open it up to questions from the City Council. Councilor Gannon.

Thank you. And first of all, with regard to the CPC employee being under auditing, I've seen that in other communities, so that's consistent. I did have a question. It's actually a follow-up from the last time we discussed the issue, and that's the repeal of the personnel regulations. who heartily agree that sections that discuss a town moderator and a personnel board should have been stricken 40 years ago. It says 45. Yeah. so 45 years ago. But I do have a concern, I raised it before. We have non-union employees who aren't covered by any contracts. So first of all, I'd ask how many non-union employees do we have in the city? that aren't covered by contracts, roughly.

The deputy manager can get you an exact answer to that question in just a couple minutes.

My concern is for them. Certain positions are required by statute or they have access to collective bargain agreements, for example, that prevent them from being parts of a union. So I see issues with longevity payments, Holidays and the like, and Vacation and Sick Leave, among others, that I'm concerned if we toss out everything, what about the rights of those employees who have benefited from the existing regulations and have no other contract provision or other place to go for their rights and their responsibilities and their benefits.

So thank you, Mr. President, if I may answer that question. I think I'm going to sort of phrased this a slightly different way and say the holiday pay, vacation pay packages that we are offering non-union employees aren't the same as what's in this ordinance right now anyway. Valley. There are holidays that we offer now that weren't here when this ordinance was created. The way we establish vacation pay with non-union employees is based upon a policy written in the personnel in the Human Resources Office that is not where this 45-year-old policy was. But if you boil it down to those questions, which is the particular elements in here, and I think if I could define it it's probably essentially, it could be the salary chart, it could be the holiday pay, it could be the vacation and sick leave policies. Essentially that's probably it.

affect non-union employees. Those are sitting in personnel policies that are in our human resource office. If the council sees fit to the idea that the current policy, the current whether it be the non-union compensation table, the holiday pay, the vacation, the sick policies, et cetera, that those should be embodied in ordinance and not in and not just in a policy held by the manager's office. If that's the opinion of the city council, we can develop that ordinance. It's not this ordinance, it's one where I would take what we're currently doing and write it into ordinance and have the council take a look and say, do you want to pass this in ordinance? the only thing that particularly worries me is if I place the compensation table in ordinance, which we do change every time we change the union contracts, I am now asking the council

to make a ordinance change every time we also, so like for instance this year we put we adjusted the entire compensation table by 2.25% because that was the cost of living increase we offered to each of the unions that are in the compensation table. they all agreed to that 225 and then we agreed to give that 225 to the non-union staff as well. If the compensation table is in ordinance I would be in front of the council then requesting an ordinance amendment to amend the compensation table by that 2 to 5% if we keep that compensation table in ordinance. There's other ways to do this. but essentially I will leave it to you as the policy body of the city to make the determination if you want those particular items, the compensation table, the sick leave, vacation leave, and the holidays, for non-union personnel.

If you want that in an ordinance, I can work with legal to create a version of that that covers those things. Again, I would not recommend leaving anything else in here and I will leave it to the councilors whether you want to control that through ordinance or essentially, you know, we, I feel like we have it under the management of the city manager's office working pretty well right now, but if you're concerned that you would rather have that in ordinance, we'd have to create that. and I still would strongly suggest the other pieces of this don't belong here anymore and I hope we can we can get to a point of agreement at least on that and then figure out those other pieces. Thank you.

Yes. I've asked her, what about them? You said there was a policy in the manager's office. So if I'm a newly appointed department head, not part of a union, how do I know what my benefits are through the city?

Well, so first of all, you're going to get an offer letter that lists your salary, explains your grade and step on the grade and step system, which Human Resources Office will share with you and explains the number of weeks of vacation leave that you're receiving as a part of that package. Sick leave is standardized across the entire organization. and then all of the other benefits you receive are reviewed with the benefits manager person who sits in the auditor's office and it's the same health insurance, deferred comp, the same programs that every employee of the city gets access to.

Okay, so I'm just concerned that we're not, well, I mean, I've been involved with other cities that have picked and choose among different staff members about benefits.

when the appropriate time comes, if you'd like to make a motion. And if it passes, fine. If not, we'll continue.

Sure. To that end, I'd like to see the benefits of having it done by ordinance or by present policy. I just don't know enough about it to feel comfortable.

Well, Mr. President, through you, if further outlining things in this memo, I can lay out the advantages and disadvantages of doing it each way. between now and the April 14th meeting when we're submitting the repeal request and you can make a determination as we do that repeal if you want to replace that piece with something but I I will say some of this is dependent upon having confidence in the city administration, not essentially playing games with the non-union staff. My team doesn't do that. are pretty straightforward in our offer letters. We have a class and comp study. We offer people. Changing the grades of a non-union position is a process that we do for our students.

Am I making any accusations? So if we always plan for what happens when each of us is gone, we want to make sure there's a continuing policy in place. So I would appreciate if you'd bring an analysis back the next time. I'm happy to drop the topic for now.

So regardless of what we do with the admin code today, we still have a little bit of time on this, so I'm happy to bring you back something next time.

Other questions? Councilor Palomba.

Thank you. I first want to thank the administration. I was looking back at the questions I had from the 1125 meeting and the first three questions all had to do with the issue of what the bodies can do, what the MMBs can do. And I do appreciate you adding this quasi-judicial and making it really clear that there are four levels of what they can and can't do. So I just want to acknowledge that. I mean, I think most of my other questions from that meeting were either answered by other councilors or appeared in the minutes of the meeting where folks went over their concerns. I did have just, One quick question on page 11.

I think as I reviewed the other draft, that number M, number, excuse me, letter M, seems to be new. And has that been added? from the other drafts, I should say, not other draft.

This is the item on external communications generated by the organization being reviewed by the staff liaison. Emily, do you want to provide some? perspective on that one. I do think that was a more recent addition, I believe.

Yes, I believe that was in the back of the admin code under administrative policies. There's a communications section and that statement or a version of it was contained in that at what is now A603 Communications. But we decided that since it's relevant to multi-member bodies, that it actually belonged in this earlier section that's specific to multi-member bodies.

So where did I miss it? It was under what?

It was in what is now A603 communications. It was in that administrative policy section of the code. I apologize for missing that.

Now, Mr. President, if I may just add, and just kind of as a general note, this is consistent with the strategy, to some extent, that the council itself uses, in that it specifies very clearly that the board speaks for the board, not one member of the board speaking for the board. I don't want individual board members signing things on behalf of the entire board without the entire board having a chance to reflect on it and participate in that. And this establishes and makes sure that that is the case.

Gonsola, yes.

The other issue, and again, I may be wrong on this, but at one point, there's an issue of staff liaisons and I did see it in one or two of the MMBs, but I didn't see it in all of them. And is that just an assumption that there always will be a staff liaison for each of the boards of the MMBs?

So in section A301, letter K, staff assistance. No, that's okay. It's on page 11, letter K, staff assistance. It says the city manager shall designate one or more staff liaisons to a multi-member body. I think we actually changed that language between the draft and the final version. It used to say may designate. and we changed it to say shall designate so that every board or commission, every multi-member body will have a staff liaison assigned by the city manager.

Okay, but in the actual draft, I did read a couple of places where it actually said staff liaison, but I'm assuming that it now, because of this item, it means that everybody will have one. Yes, yes.

Okay.

Anyone else before I recognize you again? Councilor Feltner.

Thank you. I just, I'm wondering in terms, well, I'll just give a couple examples that are maybe what I maybe consider more typos than, you know, that I disagree with policy or something. So like in the list of multi-member bodies, I guess it's supposed to be alphabetical is my assumption. Appeals zoning board of, but all the other ones would be Board, Zoning Appeals, so I don't know if that would be under Z instead of A. Affordable Housing Trust Fund, I think it's just the Affordable Housing Trust, not a fund. and then I think you'd switch the order. Stormwater would come after solid waste.

and then like residence advisory committee is inconsistent. I believe by charter it's residence plural with an apostrophe possessive, so residence advisory committee. I did have a question on the historical commission. Let me see what page, I'm sorry, because I'm on Historic District. I thought I saw back maybe even as last year that we were changing from regulatory to advisory only. Sorry, now I'm not finding.

If I may, Mr. President, historical is on the bottom of page 21.

Right. So it says advisory quasi-judicial. Okay, so we're not taking away all their regulatory authority because we do have the demolition delay ordinance, is that correct?

So correct, we redefined regulatory to mean that you could promulgate your own rules as opposed to quasi-judicial, which basically is you're making a call on something based on an ordinance. The ordinance is making them quasi-judicial. The ordinance gives them the, the demo ordinance and they make a decision of whether or not to put a delay or how long the delay that's quasi-judicial. Historic Commissions also have a role to play in looking at new historic districts or doing historic studies. That role is advisory because the council actually votes new historic districts, but the Historic Commission has an advisory role. so they are there for both advisory and quasi-judicial, but unlike the Board of Health that can promulgate a dumpster law, they're not regulatory under that definition. So that covers the two things they do.

That was part of my question, too. If you could clarify for the traffic commission, because my understanding is that I thought they did have the authority under rules and ordinance orders when it comes to overnight parking versus the snow ordinances and ordinance by the council. for example in 25 it says the traffic commission is an advisory multiple member. it seems like the council is not involved at all really the way this is worded because it's all through the city manager and them and yet it says it's advisory so if you could speak to that role?

The traffic laws as established in Watertown, the existing ordinance that's in place, authorizes the city manager to do the traffic regulations, but states that the city manager can only implement a change in traffic regulations upon a positive recommendation of the traffic commission. So the way this typically works is the traffic commission meets, the traffic commission takes a vote. That vote may look regulatory, but it's actually advisory because typically within the next couple of days, Sergeant Sampson sends me up a document that I sign, which is basically signing the traffic commission's rule into effect, and then it goes to the code company and gets added to the code. and that's the way it works, that's the way the code is set up. So will the Traffic Commission, I can't think of a circumstance where I've ever denied a Traffic Commission proposal and I certainly can't make a change to traffic regulations without their taking a vote on it first.

but the fact of the matter is their role is advisory because they provide that to the manager and the manager does the actual signature on it. That is a very common system for local governments in Massachusetts, by the way.

So if I may follow on that. So in C, I mean it does reference the Comprehensive Plan and Complete Streets. I've just received conflicting signals as a counselor from the Traffic Commission on authority over this. I imagine, as you said, it's a common practice that the plans and goals stated that come out of other bodies, including the council, inform the traffic commission in their decisions, but they take a vote and advise you. So if the council were to advised changes that would affect their perspective, I expect, on their decision-making at the commission. Is that correct?

Yeah, so specific to what's here in the administrative code, the language that's in here about authorities, the references to pedestrian and bicycles, the references to complete street strategies, all of that was reviewed when we updated the traffic commission ordinance a while back and added the two more residential members and in an effort to not redo any work I tried we we tried very carefully to copy and paste that language into here as we took it out of the code of ordinances and put it in the admin code because I didn't want to re-litigate any of the stuff that we had talked about in detail at that previous point in time. With regards to just how this generally works, and I mean I've said regarding some of the bigger and larger decision making around traffic rules, I wouldn't take some of the greatest traffic decisions like winter overnight parking and just have the traffic commission send me an answer on that. There's going to be conversations involving the city council on that. And on the smaller items,

I know often there are Councilors who work with their constituents to bring proposals before the Traffic Commission. The Traffic Commission vets those proposals. As I said before, it would be a rare occasion when they sent me something that I would say, no, I'm not going to sign that. I mean, so far. in three and a half years here, they send me their recommendation, I sign it. If I think something should change, I can't just change it, I suggest it to Sergeant Samson, he puts it on the Traffic Commission agenda, they talk about it, they bring it back to me. I think most councillors will find that if you and your constituents have a similar request it'll get there and as far as the bigger curb use questions we have to have that's going to be vetted through the community there'll be conversations the council will be in the middle of that before that happens anyway. I don't think the traffic commission is changing the overnight parking ban without the council's input at any point in time as it relates to that. As it relates to the admin code, the goal here, keep the language as it was, essentially.

And the reason they're advisory is just because that's the way the ordinance is structured.

I have maybe two more, but I don't know if you continue.

Does anybody else have questions before I continue? I want to recognize Councilor Gannon first, and then we'll come back to you. Gannon.

Thank you, Mr. President. So getting back to the page 11, letter N, compensation, I just wanted to clarify that it states that members of multi-member bodies shall receive no compensation. unless otherwise provided by charter ordinance or administrative code. So we've got members of the traffic commission, the, let's see, the Community Preservation Committee of Art by Nature, city employees, and hence they are compensated as well. There might be other examples as well. Should that section be amended to say unless those employed by the city?

I'm going to defer to the city attorney on that question. I see the point you're making, if it needs a clarification.

because we do have compensated members.

Right, so you're pointing out like there's a member of the CPC who's compensated and that he's compensated to be the the parks division head at DPW, but he also sits on the CPC.

And the traffic commission as well, we've got the chief and other... Police chiefs.

If I may... Mr. President, through you, I think the purpose of N is to address their status on the multi-member body. and not with respect to their underlying status as employees in those positions. it certainly could be clarified if that was the desire, but I think the intent here is that your status as a multi-member member of a multi-member body does not bring with it compensation. Those individuals are compensated separate and apart based upon their positions. And there's specific provisions within the administrative code that makes them part of the multi-member bodies. But that doesn't change their employment status. So certainly this would not then render a

an employee of the city who otherwise would get paid to be unpaid because of this. This is intended strictly and it falls within the discussion of the multi-member bodies. It does not discuss them as employees of the city independent of this. So it's just, again, it's intended to clarify that your position on an MMB would not result in your obtaining essentially additional compensation. Obviously, in finalizing this, if it's the will of the council to change that language, there are ways we could address it, but I know that was the intent of it.

and just to follow up my question, we still have other, like the Board of Assessors, the Chief Assessor is a member of that board as well. I would feel comfortable with some policy language to state that. On a related note, at one point, the part-time members of the Board of Assessors were compensated. Is that no longer the case?

They still are, and on the top of page 16 it does note that the Board of Assessors may be compensated. The Elections Commission is also compensated, although they are not they're created by charter and I'm trying to recall if there's another compensated board. election, yeah, elections, assessors, is there any other? I don't, there's nothing I recall at this point. So I have no objection under N, you know, unless otherwise provided by the Charter Ordinance of the Administrative Code, members of multi-member bodies with the exception of those who are otherwise city employees shall receive no compensation. I don't have a problem with doing that. as a friendly amendment to a document that is supposed to be voted up or down. I'm happy just saying if we put that in there and vote that up or down, I'm good with that.

I think that's relatively straightforward language that could be added.

Feltner.

Thank you. So back to the stormwater, just to note that what I thought I heard you say is increasing the number of members. So it would be nine members instead of seven. If that's the case, it just would also, and so on. Thank you. are those five resident members, four of whom? So is it staying seven?

Yeah, I think the problem is that we missed the blue mark on the seven. Seven actually is the new total, right, on the bottom of page 23. there shall be a stormwater committee consisting of, it would have otherwise been five, and should have had a cross out there, but it's seven members. It's five resident members plus the DPW person and the community development and planning person, so it is seven. I think we just missed the mark there, not the, the number's correct.

And then in the description for that on page 24 in B, you mentioned that they work with other departments, not just Public Works, but we took Public Works out of B. but then we say relevant to assisting the department. So I don't know if that should say the Department of Public Works or in that last sentence.

Yeah, I'm sorry. If you don't mind my otherwise editing this, I would change department to actually just city there because in that very last sentence, and performing other tasks relevant to assisting the city with the implementation of best practices for stormwater management. My goal across the board here was to generalize that beyond DPW, and thanks for catching that.

Okay. And just to clarify, on ad hoc committee, so on 25, on the definition, is that, so an example maybe of that would be the 400th year celebration?

Yes, exactly, yes.

and kind of relevant to that, thinking of volunteers because we We say volunteers on boards, but because they're appointed, they don't fit the definition of 39 for volunteers. We're talking about volunteers otherwise not appointed. Is that correct?

I'm sorry, you somewhat lost me there.

On page 39A.

39A.

Because are these referring to, say, ad hoc? committees. I just was a little concerned that it doesn't really recognize maybe the partnership between the council president who's head of the town and administration that would often work together on volunteers for committees, but I'm assuming this is just a manager tapping a volunteer?

So just to clarify, so A606 on the bottom page 39 about volunteers isn't specific to committees. It also can include, you know, High school student decides they want to volunteer in the city clerk's office helping out because they want to learn more about how city government works. and the goal of that really was intended to ensure that volunteers working in city departments have some sort of a process surrounding them and they don't just suddenly appear one day because some junior department staff person decided they wanted to volunteer, but that there's some structure surrounding it, especially because there is liability and challenges surrounding suddenly having someone do work There's also some questions of whether or not people can do work for no pay in certain circumstances versus others and we want to make sure we control that situation.

that is somewhat different than 401, which was really intended for potentially something like the 400th Committee, but otherwise there's just sometimes things where A manager says, I want to bring a group of people together to study a policy or figure out some particular issue and just clarifies a practice that we already do that we do that. to the extent that the council president feels that there's a value of specifically mentioning his role, I'll just, I'll start by just assuring you that the council president and I spend a lot of time talking about these things when I do this, but if there's a feeling that that should be clarified as we're doing volunteer individuals or ad hoc committees we can we can try to capture that but The volunteer thing on page 39 was really more intended for people helping out departments, which is really kind of just a day-to-day management thing. The ad hoc committee thing,

I will just say that if it's anything other than a committee helping me with some internal policy, usually the council president and I are having a conversation about applicants and committee membership.

and then back up a page on 38 under communications B. So we had a fair amount of discussion about stationery, identity, letterhead, logos, city seal. again with the president being the town head. City Stationary, this would not include Council Stationary. I'm just wondering. That is correct.

Not that, okay. It does not.

I know some towns by state law, they have to be erased, actual town seal, but I know we're city government, but I was trying to look for language when we moved from town meeting and then been known as a town and city and it was a little unclear to me given that our seal I thought was also under the custody of the city clerk, although the city clerk reports to you. I guess there's some clarity on that other than it's just administrative, stationary.

So it specifically said administrative organizations. under the city manager's jurisdiction to make it very clear that I am not dictating how the council do communication in any way, shape, or form. I will just, as a matter of note, since this topic is here, Sarah Burns from my administrative team has spent an extensive amount of time studying the city seal recently going back to the original drawings and I'd be happy to show the whole council where where we've ended up and what we've learned from this. The versions of the seal that are appearing on Letterhead and the versions of seals that appear in a variety of different formats, have sort of degraded from the quality level of the original version of the seal that after an extensive amount of work, we have managed to find a clear, clean, well-lined electronic version of and then from that created a number of different color versions of that.

We have that clean clear version we're passing back to the city clerk to make sure that their official seal is the best Crispest, highest quality version of the seal we can work with. And then we're going to do a color version of that for our city letterhead as well that then works with the new branding Fonts, et cetera, but at the same time, this is something we haven't had up until this point. We've developed it over the course of the last few days. Council President got a chance to see some of it just a little bit ago, and I'm happy to share with all of you where we are in that. I'll send an email on that but it's it's just been interesting because we've really tried to find a high quality version of this seal and I think we've made a lot of progress on it.

Attorney Rich. Yes, just a brief comment on this issue. It's important to remember, we're dealing with the city's administrative code. Ultimately, the code follows from the charter. and ordinances. So the code itself can't take away authority of the legislative branch that provides policy guidance overall pursuant to the charter. So areas that are within the jurisdiction of the city council remain with the city council and are non-administrative. So I think things like, as was discussed, volunteers, you're talking about volunteers with respect to the administration of the city ad hoc committee. if the city manager wants to allow volunteers to clean up the dog park, that's administrative. If the city council wants to bring someone in to assist, policy analysts, things like that, that remains under the jurisdiction of the city council.

So there's not really a gray area, that remains a hard line.

Great. Well, that ties into, I guess, the previously I had asked about the cultural district partnership and the residence advisory committee partnership. so the cultural district partnership isn't here at all, listed at all, the resident advisories committee I know it's written specifically in the charter so if changes were in the charter then that would to that or any other section it would then the administrative code would be updated and reflected those changes. So I'm wondering if I could just on the cultural district partnership a little clarity on that. Is it because basically came out of a resolution by council that then we got the state designation by

the State Cultural Commission, and yet the Public Arts and Cultural Committee is kind of seems to be overseeing the cultural district partnership, but we have residents and public members on there, although When I looked, I know there's not term limits. Well, there are four-year term limits for the officers, but there's not like a specific term, I guess, other than a calendar year and they vote themselves. But I'm just wondering if you could speak a little bit to the operation of that and why that's not... included in our multi-member body. I mean, I understand it's a public-private partnership as well, but they do have to follow state local ordinances and open meeting laws. would help me understand the operations a little better.

All right. I will note that the Residence Advisory Committee is mentioned on page 26 under appointments not subject to City Council confirmation.

Correct.

Just because they... it's just a very straightforward it does clarify a little bit more from the charter and that it establishes how many members they are and when their terms expire that's really all it does beyond charter does I'll let the deputy manager answer the questions.

But if you look in the guidebook for the cultural district partnership and any documents we have online, it's just not laid out at all.

I'm not sure I have a perfect answer to this one. It's my understanding that the cultural district is not an entity of city government. It is a public-private collaboration that is not solely an entity of the city government, which is why it's not included in the administrative code. But Attorney Rich, if you have a better answer than that.

No, I actually think that that's an accurate answer.

I just find it curious because Commission on Disability and the Cultural Council, these things come from state.

They come from state law and from the charter. They're wholly encompassed within the city itself as opposed to a public-private partnership that's not wholly within the city. within the city as a corporate entity.

I guess I got thinking about just, you know, we're talking as a demonstration project public partner, private partner, so it's just...

I certainly understand the point, but I think this is limited to those that are wholly controlled within the city administration through, we have like the Board of Health is established by state law and by charter and the library, board of library trustees, the library itself, certain entities, they are created and even the councils and entities that are referenced within are wholly within the city and those statutes put them within the control of the city. But that's something separate and apart. It's a little bit of a deviation.

Okay, thanks for indulging me on those questions.

Councilor Palomba?

No, my questions are outside the realm of this discussion.

Councilor Fea, Offei, Offei.

Forgive me, we've already touched on this, but my question has to do with the volunteers at Section 8606. The city is committed to providing adequate support, training, leadership, and recognition for all its volunteers. Can you tell us a little bit about what current support and training or leadership training are available for?

at this point it is very informal and a lot of times our volunteers are community members, sometimes our volunteers are High School or college students looking to volunteer on projects for credit. And this is one of the things we've had conversations with the as we were doing the human resources side of this study to say that there's nothing in specific that says that we are building a structure around how we do this. So this is I would say somewhat aspirational in that it is establishing that it's putting us on on a strategy where we're going to build that policy and build those programs. I'm not sure if the deputy manager knows the extent to which anything exists today. There may be some in certain departments. but there isn't a lot at this point and I think it's important that as a city we commit to this which is why it's here.

Okay, but I guess is there any plans for it? Because clearly, like in the past year or so, we've noticed that some boards would benefit from it, specifically like the CPC or something like that. has there been any discussion about it? What is the forward look in?

It's on the to-do list for our human resources office to build a strategy of how volunteers beyond the multi-member bodies, people who choose to spend their time and say, OK, I really want to help this city project or city Department, or something of that sort, that we can establish how we're going to do this and make some sense out of it. It's on our to-do list, which is why it's also in here. Thank you.

Are there any other questions? So in order to formalize part of this discussion, I'm asking for a motion from Councilor Piccirilli on the CPC. Motion. First.

So first, yes, so there's going to be two motions. The first motion is, I'd like to make a motion that the City Council request that the CPC coordinator report to the City Auditor.

is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion? Roll call please.

Councilor Palomba? Yes. Councilor Piccirilli? Yes. Councilor Bayes?

Yes.

Councillor Feltner. Yes. Councillor Gannon. Yes. Councillor Gardner.

Yes.

Councillor Izzo.

Yes.

Councillor Offei. Yes. President Sideris.

Yes. Thank you, Councillor Piccirilli.

The second motion I'd like to make is that the Committee of the Whole shall send the Administrative Code as amended tonight with minor edits to the City Council for a vote.

Is there a second? Second. any discussion? Roll call, please.

Councilor Piccirilli. Yes. Councilor Bays. Feltner, Gannon, Gardner, Izzo, Offei, Palomba, Sideris,

Yes, thank you. Can I get a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Is there a second? Second. Roll call, please.

Councilor Bays? Feltner, Gannon, Gardner, Izzo, Offei, Palomba, Piccirilli, Sideris.

Yes, thank you. We are adjourned and we'll be back in four minutes.