City Council 06/16/2026

Good afternoon everybody, welcome to the Worcester City Council meeting. If you can, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and the Star-Spangled Banner.

O say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming At the twilight's last gleaming Whose broad stripes and bright stars Thank you. Thank you. We're so gallantly streaming And the rocket's red glare The bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave The land of the free and the home of the brave

I'll do a roll call.

Bergeman, Here, Councilor Bilotta, Here, Councilor Economou, Here, Councilor Rosolo, Here, Councilor King, Councilor Mitra, Here, Councilor Ojeda, Councilor Rivera, Here, Councilor Rosen, Here, Councilor Toomey, and Mayor Petty.

Yeah, okay, we have some awards to give out. We just had a Thomas Green Award ceremony. Is this Paul? Yeah. Mr. Matthews, and do you wanna say a few words and we'll celebrate the people who the awardees are?

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, and through the chair, the members of the council for this opportunity to celebrate The Worcester Regional Research Bureau holds every year our annual Thomas Green Public Service Awards and this year we're proud as we are every year there are exemplary five employees Two from the City of Worcester, two from the public schools, and one from the Central Mass Regional Planning Commission. So we very much appreciate this recognition from the entire Council and the community at large. I am simply here to say the Bureau is proud of all the honorees and want to celebrate them accordingly. So I'm happy to do so in any way appropriate to the Council.

Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay, so it's a pleasure to have all the award winners that come in. So we can honor you, great work that you do. So we'll call you up one at a time, maybe come up, I'll give you the presentation, then we'll take a group picture, how's that sound? So first up is Christina Conley, Community Resource Manager with Worcester Public Library. Christina Conley has devoted more than 25 years to advancing the Worcester Public Library and played a central role in establishing community resources department. She was recognized for her leadership and unwavering commitment to connect the residents with essential service and supporting vulnerable populations. Christina, come on in. So, Bess?

So I'm going to present each awardee with the key to the city in recognition and selection as the Thomas Green Public Service Award recipient. Thank you. Emily Gorbitz, and Emily is, she is the manager of the housing project for the Central Mass Regional Planning Commission. Emily leads a broad range of regional planning initiatives including housing production plans, economic feasibility studies, and municipal master plans. should receive the award for a thoughtful, collaborative approach and for providing critical planning expertise to small communities lacking full-time planning staff. And we can wind up. Next up we have Richard Gonzalez, Community Navigator and Recovery Coach with the Health and Human Services.

Richard, widely known as Richie, has shown exceptional dedication in assisting Residents Facing Mental Health Challenges, Homelessness, and Poverty. He was honored for the Championship to Recovery Court Diversion Program for Founding a Net of Compassion. and offers vital support to individuals in crisis. And Richie's on his way, he's not here yet, but okay. Next up is Kelsey Lamoureux, Kelsey Lamoureux. the Assistant Director of Innovation, Career Pathways, Worcester Public Schools. Kelsey oversees career connected learning programs, building partnerships among schools, employers, and workforce organizations. She was recognized for expanding high-quality work-based learning opportunities for more than 300 students and strengthening pathways to academic and professional success. Kelsey, come on in.

Then we have Sewell Barrio, Student Assignment Officer, Parent Information Center, Worcester Public Schools. Sue serves as primary point of contact for families entering the school district, providing guidance in eight languages to ensure equitable access to educational resources. She received the award for her two decades of dedicated service to which she has supported thousands of families with professionalism, care, and attention to detail. Come on in. You guys want to do a booth picture? Why don't you guys get in the middle? Then Paul, do you want me to take one?

Yes.

Do you want me to take one? Sure, if you don't mind.

Oh, we're going to do it in front of the table. In front of that table.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks Paul, appreciate it.

Okay.

Okay, we're going to approve of the minutes. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered.

Mr. Chairman? I'm gonna ask for a suspension of rules so I can next address petition 7A. Sure, roll call.

Councilor Bergman. Belotta, Clerk, Economou, Fresolo, King, Manager, Mitra, Ojeda, Rivera, Rosen, Toomey, Mayor Petty.

Thank you Mr. Chairman and to my colleagues. on this 7-8 petition filed by myself and District 5 Councilor Jose Rivera requesting the secondary honorary naming of a street. When we filed this, we did not know there would be opposition to the item. We weren't aware of that, and the opposition seems to be quite significant. and over all my years on the city council, school committee and city council, district five councilor, at large councilor, I have never encouraged people from the city of Worcester to come down or even via Zoom to speak negatively about any other residents of the city. So I'm going to ask tonight that Councilor Rivera and I be allowed to withdraw this petition.

And I hope those who are in opposition to it will be satisfied with that because I certainly don't ever want to encourage anyone to feel they have to address the city council and talk ill of other residents in this city. It's never been my method. and I know there's some of that certainly on social media but I've never used social media so I'm glad I don't get to see that. if it's a motion or whatever we might call it on 7A, Councilor Rivera and I would like to withdraw. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

All those in favor? Opposed, so ordered. Now open public participation. A speak may speak more than two minutes. Mr. Clerk.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Rule 39, items of public interest at every meeting of the city council under public participation portion of the agenda. the Chair shall recognize any person seeking such recognition for the purpose of addressing City Council both in person and remotely. Any person who wishes to speak more than one agenda item shall combine their testimony on all items to one appearance of the microphone. the time for speaking should not exceed two minutes or 30 minutes for all speakers. Rule 40 petitions on the first occasion of petition appears on the city council agenda. The prime petition may address the city council for no more than three minutes on the subject of their petition.

Thank you. Is your name, see your residence, and item number?

Yes, Fred Nathan Worcester, number 7F. I brought this item in probably a year ago. It's nice to see it's back up there to basically institute having traffic lights at Bigelow, Davis Parkway, and Lake Ave. are we gonna wait until someone's killed? Because I'm sure there have been serious accidents right at that point. Consider, somebody going down Colborne Ave to the parkway If the traffic is so bad down at the bottom, they will actually turn around and make a U-turn, go back up the hill, and then go down Colburn. I mean, you know, at some point, something has to give here. I put this item in at least a year ago. Now someone else put it in here again. Well, I'm glad to see that other people think the same way I do.

Okay.

Okay, items 8, 35, A, B, C, D, E, F, yeah. These are all where the city will apply for a grant and hopefully they'll get it. And collectively, they amount to about $7 million. Just curious. if that seven million is factored into the one point whatever billion dollar budget that the city manager has put forth. I think the city manager's done a good job, but I think certain people under him are lying to him. At some point in time, the city's gonna face the hard facts that you might have to make cuts, and when that does happen, it may not be pretty, because right now the way I see it, there will be cuts.

And you guys don't want to admit it, come to terms with it, well you're gonna come to terms with it when they're- Richie, why don't you hang on for a minute?

Okay, go ahead.

when there are problems that do exist because of an inflated budget of whatever it is. All I know is it's over a billion, so. at some point there will be questions and there will be, hopefully there will be answers.

Thank you. We'll do them after we do public comment. After public comment we'll do that.

Hello, councillors. My name is Gary. I think most of you know me. Some may agree with me and many may not agree with me. I'm talking about 10D. to clarifying the jobs of each one of you so we can understand what's going on. As you probably know, what's going on in the world is crazy. And people in Worcester, are scared of what's going on and also about their budgets. What I want to know in this council by giving a job description is who is in charge? We need a leader. I think the people of the city of Worcester are looking for a leadership from this council and the city manager. Who is taking responsibility and leadership in this group? People of Worcester would love to know. They don't hear.

You hear about different subjects and you can talk about chickens for two years, but what's actually the leader of this city? We are affected by what goes on in Washington. We need a leader here that will give us counsel and give us some leadership that is sorely needed. I'm not sure which way you go with this, but it's run on committees, it's run on the city planning government, and it just seems like it's a government that would point fingers. Nobody wants to take responsibility. Oh no, that's the city manager's job. No, no, that's the commission. No, no, that's the city council. Who is taking responsibility for what's going on here? And I hope this report will help and maybe somebody will stand up and take responsibility and leadership. Thank you.

Okay. Call on.

My name is Colin Novick. I'm the Executive Director for the Greater Worcester Land Trust. I'm speaking to item 8.4, which is a conservation restriction for the Pakachoag Springs site. That's a site that is about a half an acre in size and straddles the Worcester-Auburn line. It is a historic site. where Sycamore John Horawanonit was the last Sycamore that we are aware of that we have a name for for the Nipmuc. It is a site that's important to Massachusetts history, Worcester history, and the King Phillips War all being documented on the site. The CR would have the Greater Worcester Land Trust hold the land, and the Quinn-Sigamond Band of Nipmuc would manage public interpretation, public programming, and site management. In order to make this happen, we however need the permission of the City of Worcester and the Town of Auburn in order to have the conservation restriction recorded.

Just last week the Town of Auburn approved the conservation restriction and so we find ourselves before you today asking for the City of Worcester is the final piece of the puzzle to make this happen. This site is one of the three villages that were Nipmuc that make up what we think of as modern Worcester. This is Pakachoag Hill in the south, which we think of as College Hill, Holy Cross. The other was Lake Quinsigamond. Indian Hill, that was over by the coal mine Brook, that was the village site there, and the last was the Boynton Park, Asnebumskit area. Thank you very much. for your time and attention and for making this possible. Again, this will be a site that is co-managed by the Quinsigamond Band of Nipmunk and the Greater Worcester Land Trust. Thank you very much.

Okay, seeing nobody else, we'll close this part of the meeting. And we'll go to petitions. If you have a petition, before we do petitions, hang on, we have one more key to give out and presentation to make. to Richard Gonzalez, Community Navigator, Recovery Coach, Worcester Health and Human Services. Rich Gonzalez, widely known as Richie, has shown exceptional dedication in assisting residents facing mental health challenges, homelessness, and poverty. who is honored for championing the Recovery Court Diversion Program and founding Net of Compassion, which offers vital support to individuals in crisis. Richie, come on up front here and we will grab a picture.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Okay, we have petitions. If you have a petition, just let me know. I'm gonna send 7B to 7C to Public Works Committee. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. 7D to 7V, we're going to refer to traffic and parking. Those in favor, opposed, so ordered. 7W, we're gonna set a hearing with National Grid for Russell Street condo location on June 23rd at 6.30 p.m. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Okay, we have appointments. First one is an informational communication, in terms of making information and communication relative to the appointment of Kathleen Head to the Worcester Arts Council. Motions to place on file. And Kathleen, thank you for your service. All those in favor, oppose, so ordered. Appointments, recommending the appointment of Santia Sita to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

Bergeman, Councilor Bilotta, Councilor Economou, Councilor Fresolo, Councilor King, Councilor Mitra, Councilor Ojeda, Councilor Bergeman, Councilor Bergeman, Councilor Bilotta, Councilor Economou, Councilor Rivera? Yes. Councilor Rosen? Yes. Councilor Toomey? Yes. Mayor Petty?

Yes. and Department of Human Resources recommend the adoption of an audit grant, Master's General Law 268A, exemption to Jesse Liddell, adopted on the roll call. Roll call.

Councilor Bergman. Yes. Councilor Bilotta. Yes. Councilor Economou. Yes. Councilor Rosolo. Yes. Councilor King, Councilor Mitra. Yes. Councilor Ojeda, Councilor Rivera. Yes. Councilor Rosen. Yes. Councilor Toomey. Yes.

Mayor Petty. Yes, next item is recommend passage of the accompanying proposed amendment to the salary ordinance to bring the ordinance in compliance with the Fair Wage By Standards Act. Motions to advertise, roll call.

Yes. Councilor Bergman.

Yes.

Councilor Bilotta.

Yes.

Councilor Economou.

Yes.

Councilor Fresolo.

Yes.

Councilor King. Councilor Mitra.

Yes.

Councilor Ojeda. Councilor Rivera. Yes. Councilor Rosen. Yes. Councilor Toomey. Yes. Mayor Petty.

Yes, yes. Next item is 8.4a, recommending adoption of an author-authorized and conservation restriction for Packer Chalk Spring. Roll call. Councilor Bergman?

Yes.

Councilor Bilotta.

Yes.

Councilor Economou.

Yes.

Councilor Fresolo. Yes. Councilor King. Councilor Mitra.

Yes.

Councilor Ojeda. Councilor Rivera. Yes. Councilor Rosen. Yes. Councilor Toomey. Yes. Mayor Petty.

Yes. Next item is Transferring Information and Communication Road to the host of the NCAA's events in Worcester, Center for Economic Development. Mr. Chairman. Councilor.

If I could ask a couple questions. Sure. First, I want to say thanks for the report, and I look forward to hearing more as it comes out of committee. But it can't be missed. how important it is, how these tournaments are here for our city. 2.5 million in direct and indirect spending and over 400 jobs supported. I think those are numbers that can't be glossed over. The question I have is when the time comes and the Hampton Inn and the courtyard by Marriott come offline, how many rooms will be lost with that? Do you happen to know off the top of your head, Mr. Manager?

Mr. Manager?

through the Chair to the Council. I don't have the specific number, but I know there are over 200 rooms between both.

Yeah, so just reading through the backup, that's how important. These hotel rooms are here in our city. They give us the opportunity to continue to create these jobs, to create these opportunities for the city of Worcester to look as good as it does. So I look forward to the conversation in subcommittee, and I'm sure more will come of it as we come out of that. So thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. There's one quick question, may not be all the answers. Is the DCU big enough to hold an NCAA basketball club?

Through the Chichester Council, yes, it is. And I think one of the things that for us, and that's something that we're valuing right now, is the conditions of the DCU and what do we need to do as a city to make the necessary improvements and enhancements and upgrades to the locker rooms, the bathrooms, plumbing, et cetera, to get it to the standards and the levels that these types of organizations or entities would wanna utilize the DCU for. And so again, that's something that the Civic Center Commission in partnership with the facilities team are reviewing and setting forward a plan to adjust right now. Through the city, with the support of the city council, we've been making improvements to the sound system. We put all new seating in the building. We did the scoreboard. There's some new marquee elements that were added. to the facilities. There's improvements to the front box office area and the lobby.

So there's been significant improvements that we've made. There's a lot more to go. And I think the back of the house is the area that we're right now currently focused on. In regards to the capacity, we do have the capacity to host an NCAA. Not probably the final, but I think we could do the first round or perhaps even the second round of an NCAA tournament.

I absolutely agree with Councilor Economou that how important it is for us to have sports activities in our city. I'd like Mr. Manager to come up with a plan that all these things when to when you're going to be really doing it if you can really make us be aware of it that I know these things have to be done are going to be done but Nguyen. Do you have a plan that you can really provide us? I really appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I rarely say this. I don't know if I've ever said it in my time at the council, but I do think it would be advantageous to wait for the reports to come out of Economou Development only because I've had a preview a lot of the documentation that will be discussed at the economic development subcommittee meeting on the 23rd I believe or 24th and the number of hotel rooms sure is relevant the condition of the building is relevant but there are so many other factors we're going to have challenges with complying with that The full report is going to explain a lot of the challenges we're going to have in hosting. I'm only saying that because I don't want the expectations to be unrealistic. even if we had the building in pristine condition, DCU, even if we had more hotel rooms, we still have other Tournament related challenges that the tournament requires of us that we're going to have trouble meeting. Doesn't mean we can't.

I'm optimistic about trying. but I think the Economic Development Subcommittee meeting will be very revealing as to why we no longer have those tournaments here and it has a lot of factors, some of which we've touched on tonight, but many of which we haven't. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. Bilotta.

Thank you. I might be the lone person on this, but I just want to speak out against bringing this to economic development. This is why we have a Worcester Chamber of Commerce. We have Discover Central Mass. I just feel like it's a better use of our resources as city councilors to focus on neighborhood commerce. I know obviously bringing events to Worcester is going to help neighborhood commerce, but what about the other 350 and so on. And so, you know, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's Is this really a good use of the council's time? So I'm in opposition to this, but thank you.

Thank you. So the motion is to send it back on development roll call.

Councilor Bergman?

Yes.

Councilor Bilotta? No. Councilor Economou?

Yes.

Councilor Frizzolo.

Yes.

Councilor King. Councilor Mitra.

Yes.

Councilor Ojeda. Councilor Rivera. Yes. Councilor Rosen. Yes. Councilor Toomey. Yes. And Mayor Petty.

Yes. Okay, we are on 8.10a. Transmitting Information and Communication for the Summer of 2026 Aquatic Program. Mr. Manager, good job putting that together with the Y again, and Councilor Rosen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Brief but very good report, and I just want to ask one of the sites in beautiful District 5, Coase Pond Beach. Now, when I was the District Council, I always thought the water was much too shallow, for people to actually swim. It seems like it's more, or it had been at least during those years, almost like a wading type of a beach and a pond. So maybe through the chair to the administration of Ms. Antonelli, who I see is in the audience, can he address, have we changed anything over at the coast, Palm Beach, where you could actually teach people how to swim? There must be a minimum depth of water needed to teach Young people had to swim.

Commissioner?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Through the Chair to the Councilor, in that scenario, we will be having swim lessons that are going to be supplied by the YMCA at Coase Beach. but the swim area will remain relatively the same. We've extended it out last year. We may extend it out a little bit more this year. But in general, in those locations, the majority of those are no different than our pool, which is no more than four feet deep. More of a wading kind of thing, and there's very little true swimming side of it.

through the Chair to Ms. Antonelli. So, Commissioner, is there a danger if we extend out the actual swimming area? I guess we have it roped off from what I remember, and you're telling me we expanded it a little So is there some danger by expanding it to a much larger area? I know a lot of folks who use Coase Pond Beach, they can't go to the ocean during the summer and they rely on the local swimming pools and ponds. Lakes, and that's fine. But can we maybe give them a little more area to swim? Because I'm quite familiar with that location, and I've talked over the years to many people there. And that's one of the big complaints, and has been for years. We just rope it off into such a small area.

So through the chair to the council, we've increased that size over the last couple of years with working with the YMCA with their lifeguards that are on site. We'll review it again, but basically you have an island that sort of blocks a good portion of that area towards the right side of the beach area. And we do not have any beach or access points on the right hand side. So we don't want anyone going around the right hand side there. So all you have there is that area. It's not that deep. It doesn't get really deep until after you get out past the island. So we would look to maybe maneuver that a little bit in that area, but for the most part what you see there and what we've had there in the past is what will stay there.

Okay, Mr. Chairman, I just hope that the Manager and the Commissioner of Parks will take a look at maybe expanding the area in a safe way, so we want everyone to be safe over there, but it is very restrictive the way it is now even though the commissioner does tell us that it has been slightly expanded in any way. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Councilor Economou.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To the Chair, to Commissioner Antonelli, thank you so much for keeping the YMCA at the forefront, you know, because they've been tremendous partners at all our local beaches. I won't speak for Councilor Bilotta, but Shore Park at one time was part of District 1, it's now in District 2. and that couldn't function without the Y. So I just want to give kudos to the Y, Commissioner Antonelli for staying on top of that because it does matter. It does matter to the residents and especially the youth in our district to give them options over the summer. So thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Rivera.

To the chair, to the commission, I just kind of wanted to thank Commissioner Antonelli for a great report and Again, also reiterating what Councilor Economou mentioned about working with the YMCA and Central Mass. I think it's very, very important. It's going to be a hot summer to get these kids in the pool already. So I just want to thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay, anybody else? Council Boyle.

I just wanted to echo everyone else and say thank you to the Commissioner. District 2, throughout the city, we have a lot of great parks and we're fortunate to Again, I have this partnership with YMCA. I just had a question about how many lifeguards there are going to be at the beaches or during the summer.

Commissioner?

So through the chair to the counselor, it will depend on the day. So weekends tend to have more because the number of participants we have are more. and so we'll average that out. What also happens on a regular basis is that we'll move guards or the YMCA will move guards based on Baylor load. If we're seeing that there's a larger influx at Shore Park than there is at Indian Lake Beach, then we're going to move guards there. There's always a minimum of two, but for the most part, it's a minimum of three or four because we need to be able to give lifeguards breaks. we need to allow them that time to rest in between guarding. So it's usually three to four is the minimum, but we fluctuate that Daily, just to be able to make up whatever we may need at other sites.

OK, that's great to know it's going to be at all times, at least two. That's huge. Follow up question I had was about the swim lessons. Do we know what hours of that or when that will be? Or has that not been fleshed out yet? I apologize if I missed that in the report.

So through the chair to the counselor, that information will be coming out in the following week or so. We're trying to finalize all that with the YMCA about what that schedule is going to look like. The majority of our swim lessons are in the morning. So they start somewhere, depending on site and location, 9 to 10 o'clock in the morning. They'll run until about 1130, because all of our sites open up at noon time. the majority of it will be between that time. We may have something that may overlap slightly. If you're looking at Shore Park or at another beach where we have a little bit of space, it may overlap into our regular swim time.

but for the most part we stay within that morning hours for all of our swim lessons okay great no thank you it is such a vital program especially for some of the neighborhoods in district 2 Bell Pond and obviously Shore Park and Indian Lake Beach. So it's great to have these resources here for our youth and for residents. So thank you.

Mr. Chairman, if I can just say one other thing. It's important to note that we want all of our residents to swim in guarded locations. If you've seen the news lately, there's been a number of deaths that have been out there in other communities where People either didn't have the capability to swim or went under, and we really don't want that to happen in Worcester. So our recommendation, is to make sure that everybody is one, swimming with somebody else and two, swimming at locations that are guarded by either DCR or the city of Worcester so that we can make sure that they stay safe on that end of it as well. And we have emergency response quickly able to arrive if there is an issue.

Good job. Okay, I'm gonna refer that to Parks. All those in favor of a postal audit? Next up, we have Transmitting Information Communication Road Mobility Action Plan Annual Report. That's 8.11a. And the motion is to defer the traffic and parking. Mr. Raleigh, See you out there tonight. I just want to see if he's there. Oh, there he is right there in front of me. I want to say good report and good update. Appreciate the work and everything you're doing. And it takes time. It takes time. I appreciate it. Councilor Economou.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to say thanks for the report, too, to Commissioner Raleigh. Fantastic report. It shows it really shows where the deficits are here in the city, but also a plan to move forward. And I appreciate that very much. We had a great meeting this morning too in regards to some options coming down the road, which I think will help our city overall. One question I have to the chair to Commissioner Raleigh is the use of the lawn patch program. How does that fit into our plans and how do you see that moving forward? Is it something that we can use more of or do you feel some of these other options would be substituting that program?

Commissioner.

Yeah, thank you. Through the chair and I believe that Commissioner Westerling may have some information to add on this as well on the next item on the agenda here. But in terms of Our toolbox available for pavement management, long patch is an important program. It's one that when we see areas of deterioration that are somewhat localized, It gives us a tool that we can deploy in numerous locations, address those areas in a way that's a longer term permanent fix rather than the temporary pothole patching that you see. and it's a really useful tool to deploy in those places where we're seeing the potholes recurring year after year after year again.

No, I think the long patch Program that, as we once used it, was very instrumental to getting longevity out of our neighborhoods. In addition to that, Mr. Chairman, I just want to ask Transportation and Mobility to to kindly police the no parking in the bike lanes. I've gotten numerous complaints, especially in the Burkitt Street area in the evenings where people are trying to ride their bikes in the bike lane, cars parked. So it's an issue. It causes them to swerve out into now so even further out into traffic, which I think needs to be addressed. So I would leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Councilor Rivera.

Thank you to the chair, to the commissioners. I have a couple questions for the commissioners. Sure. I noticed on your thing, it has on your report, by the way, great job on this report, You had about 13.5 miles of bike lanes. Is that in totality the city has so far or is that just recently?

Commissioner?

Through the Chair, that's what's been added over the past 18 months. We actually cheated a little bit and went 20 months for that measure. But 13.5 miles of new bike facilities, which essentially is just about double the amount of bike network. So the total is somewhere around going off in memory here, but I believe it's 27, 28 miles.

Wow, that's a lot of miles. That's a great job. The question I have to the chair, to the commissioner, obviously we've spoken about this before about the 60 million backlog and and street fixings and stuff that we got to do. To the chair, to the commissioner, do you guys have an annual street paving plan aimed at reducing the backlog?

And commissioner?

Through the Chair, so one of the things that was developed and is mentioned briefly in this report was a pavement management plan that we transmitted to Council last year and that sort of paints the picture in terms of where we are. It involved development of a new pavement management system, which is a GIS map-based database that shows us the condition of all of the city's streets on a block by block level and that's a program that we co-manage with DPW and we update that annually so the street conditions get updated as streets are resurfaced or otherwise improved will show the condition is getting better. And there's a factor that assumes a certain amount of deterioration every year. And then in another two years, we will start re-scanning the streets again. So that information is always getting updated. One of the things that that plan pointed out is that the way we had been addressing and so on.

We would see our street reconstruction wasn't sustainable for the amount of the budget the city's been able to dedicate to it. We would see our PCI deteriorating over time, Pavement Condition Index. So the plan a new proposal for incorporating more types of pavement restoration that look at things as simple as crack sealing to treatments like more preventative maintenance treatments that are intended to get, say, another 10 years out of a road that's in fairly good condition. So to extend the life of those roads that haven't fully deteriorated while also still addressing those most deteriorated streets with, of course, full construction or mill and overlay. Under that plan, we're able to stretch those dollars further and address and treat more streets. So that's the basis behind that plan.

Music to my ears. Thank you.

Okay, Councilor Mitra, followed by Councilor Rosen.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Commissioner, for the report you presented. I'm quite concerned about our city's road structure. We need it to be safer for all the residents. What I'd like to know is I see that some of the streets that's being done, for example, Park Ave, it's being from Chandler to Salisbury, a portion of Park Ave is underway now getting done. Why not do the whole street? Park Ave is such an important street, and I drive by that most every day, and the roads are bumpy and not very smooth. I also like to know if you could provide me a report of what are the major arteries that you consider in the city of Worcester. Because those are the places where I think most of the emergency vehicles are going, people are driving. But I don't know why aren't we doing the whole street and what are the major arteries of our city. If you could please give us a report to the city council, I really appreciate that.

Commissioner.

Through the chair we could certainly provide a more detailed report but just to respond briefly so there is a street classification system that we employ that looks at things from the most major streets are classified as principal arterials down to minor arterials, collector streets, and then finally local streets. So there is sort of this hierarchy that we consider when we look at the street system. Park Avenue is a principal arterial, so one of the most important streets in the city. It serves a lot of different important functions, carries a lot of traffic. Really, when you look at the limits of the current construction project that DPW will be wrapping up this year, What limits us there is that a project like that that involves significant reconstruction, so reconstruction of the sidewalks and then mill and overlay of the street system itself,

It's a fairly expensive project, so it's not really feasible to do the entire length of the street at one time, and you need to break that up into manageable chunks. and so what we do is we look at the pavement condition and we'll identify limits that are in relatively good shape and extend from there so I want to say four or five years ago to the north of Salisbury Street was resurfaced. So that section's in good shape. The current project will extend that down to Pleasant Street. And then in future years, we're going to need to keep going down the corridor until the entire street's in good shape.

So to the chair, one more question. So you mentioned it is an excessive project if you do more than the piece of the street. Is it because of the budget? Is it because of the money that we don't have?

Commissioner, through the chair, I think there's and Commissioner Westphalian may actually have some thoughts on this as well. So I'd invite him to respond as well. But it's two things. One is cost. You know, a project like that existing Park Avenue project. I don't want to misquote it, but several million dollars. for the several blocks that are under reconstruction today. The other is just the act of managing a project that gets much larger than that, and then also trying to deal with the traffic impact. while you're reconstructing a corridor there's significant traffic impacts and you want to try to limit that to a reasonable portion of the corridor rather than taking the entire corridor out of place so to speak because you've got it all under reconstruction for an extended period of time. So it's pretty typical to try to segment these things into segments that are about the size you see for that current construction project.

I understand, but I always feel like that for taking a project, if it could be possible to kind of finish the whole street, major street, there are many others. That's why I wanted to have a report on What are the major arteries that we consider in our city based on your assessment? I'll appreciate that report. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Rosen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I threw the chair to Commissioner Raleigh. In your expert opinion, why does there seem to be so much opposition to bike lanes here in the city of Worcester. And to add to that question, is there the same level of opposition to bike lanes all across the country? medium sized cities like Worcester.

So through the chair, I think it's pretty common to see some people express opposition to bike lanes. I think there's a lot of support for them as well. So I think it's important that we understand that there's the whole spectrum is covered on this issue. And I think one of the Speculating here, and this is obviously somewhat personal opinion, but I think one of the things that we need to work on doing a better job is helping people understand that as we're implementing bicycle facilities, a lot of times that's a component of making a street that is comprehensively better for everyone. So we're not just doing that solely to provide space for bicyclists, but we're also doing it because it makes sense for other reasons on the street too. So whether that's speed management, whether it's properly allocating the amount of space that's out there so that we can size lanes correctly. You have 11 foot lanes instead of these 17 or 18 foot lanes.

out there today that encourage speeding and make it more difficult for pedestrians to cross the street. They really are a piece of comprehensively re-evaluating and looking at a street. And that's an area that I think we can do a better job of helping explain to people. and part of it frankly I don't understand you know a lot of the bicycle projects that we've implemented so far have been out reallocating excess space so I think they're they're stories we should rally behind because we have found better uses for space that were not being utilized before and we're starting to build out a network we have a long ways to go you know one of the things that you hear when you're fairly early in the process of building a bike network is where you have a piece here and you have a piece there and they don't connect together and unfortunately you can't build the whole thing at once.

So you do take the opportunities you have, you build the pieces as you can, and then once you start to see that network develop, then you can start linking those pieces and you get better utility out of it.

So through the chair to the commissioner, you're suggesting that bike lanes are obviously good and safer for bike riders, but they're also good for maybe controlling the traffic in some way and maybe safer for motorists too, even though they may not like the presence of bike lanes and may not realize that they're adding to the safety of motorists and pedestrians. Is that the case? Through the Chair, absolutely. Okay, and through the chair to the commissioner, have these bike lanes encouraged more people in Worcester to, I guess, purchase bikes? I don't know how many bike shops we have. Seems like we used to have more than we have now. are more people riding bikes because we provided this opportunity for them, save for bike lanes?

Commissioner? So through the Chair, I would be speculating if I provided a yes or no answer to that. Just anecdotally, I do see a lot more people riding bikes and using micromobility. So you see a lot of scooter riders in addition to bicyclists today. They aren't always where we've been able to develop the network so far. So you see a lot of those riders downtown. We don't have as much network downtown. We've got some bike lanes on Main Street and a few pieces elsewhere. but there's a lot of the street network that doesn't have infrastructure for it yet and so you know unfortunately one of the things you see then is people are riding on the sidewalk because that's where they feel safe doing it so getting back to your earlier point that that's another case where by building this modal specific infrastructure and giving all users a place that's safe and convenient to

to ride or drive or walk or whatever they're doing, it creates a safer environment for everyone because now we're accommodating all of those users who are out there today and may want to be out there if we did provide safer facilities.

through the chair to the commissioner. I know the bike lanes obviously were built for bicyclists to use. But today, and again I've spent a lot of time on the street corners to observe this, today it seems like maybe two-thirds of the bicycles out there are electric bicycles. They go a lot faster. I've seen some. They must be going close to 40 miles an hour. Parked out, I see them passing cars all the time because they don't have the volume, the space, are taken up by a car and they can weave in and out of traffic even though it's dangerous. So the bike lanes at the City of Worcester through the Chair to the Commissioner are the bike lanes that we build. They made for electric bicycles also.

No. Commissioner? Through the Chair, we're actually going to have a report on this because I believe Councilor Toomey has had an item that's been pending on that and there's some legislature some legislation that's pending before this state that we're waiting to get settled out a little bit before we fully respond to that.

I know Councilor Toomey, if you're the chair, I know Councilor Toomey did ask for that. but every report we ask for, obviously, we've got a couple of thousand waiting over the years, we don't always get a response. So while you're here, I've just asked that question, are they being built also for electric bicycles?

So and just wanted to clarify, we will be providing a response to that report. Yes. They are being designed for what's truly considered electric bicycles. Those are assist bicycles. They have limitations on how fast they can go. a lot of what you're seeing out there today doesn't fit that definition and it's actually categorized or will be categorized once the legislation is completed as essentially a motorcycle. So those would not be allowed in the bike lanes. There is a limit on the amount of acceleration and the way that the acceleration assists bicyclists that will be, once the legislation's finalized, that'll put certain limits on those e-bikes. So you're gonna have a more,

They're certainly in many cases faster than someone can pedal, but there are limiters on it, limitations on it that are different than some of the really aggressively modified bikes that you see out there today.

through the Chair to the Commissioner several years ago, we had the yellow bikes, I'm trying to remember, it was called Ofo, is that the name? and obviously it turned out to be a disaster here in the city which for many reasons that we don't have to discuss tonight but are those days of companies like that providing bicycles all around the city since we are you know, constructing these bike lanes and encouraging bicycle riding, it's very good for people's health too, good exercise. Are those days of companies that provide such bikes, I know they work in some areas of the country, they did not work in Worcester, but I think it was mostly because of the company's business model.

Commissioner. Through the Chair, I'll thank the Councilor for the memories of Ofo. Anecdotal story, the last Ofo I ever saw was abandoned in Turin, Italy. It was crazy to see one there, but I did. So a lot of the problems with Ofo dealt with the model that the company rolled out and the fact that they just absolutely under-resourced managing their products. So they put a lot of bicycles in the street, and then they did next to nothing to manage them. We do see Bike Share making a comeback today. you know mostly in larger cities but there is a small bike share implementation in in Worcester at Union Station we're looking to add a second location at one of the city parking garages so I think

as you see it reintroduced you're going to see much better managed systems and not these just kind of dockless poorly managed they end up all over the place I was in Seattle earlier this year. Lime has very extensive implementations there, something like 13,000 bikes and scooters. So they're all over the place, and they are a serious component of the transportation system there. We're a long, long way from that, but they have made a comeback. They're managed in a much different way. and you see it here on a very small scale now and I think we'll see that grow a little bit. I don't expect anything in the near term near the scale we saw with Ofo.

through the chair to the commission, I would hope that maybe colleges and universities would be interested in expanding our bike sharing program because a lot of those students, you know, they need the transportation, they're health conscious and so on. grew up riding bikes, I assume. So is that a possibility that the colleges and universities, most of which do not pay us a pilot payment, would be encouraged to take on bike sharing here in the city?

Commissioner? through the chair. So currently a number of the universities have their own bike share system. So I think that is an interesting opportunity to think about how perhaps as we move forward those could be integrated into a single system which would have greater utility than just be on the campus.

Okay, Mr. Chairman, my final question. I think we hear a lot more across the country about this issue, and I think even If I remember correctly, the Mass Legislature is considering it. Red light cameras came up many years ago on this city council when I was serving back then. It was voted down obviously by the city council back then, but they are still controversial, maybe not as much as years ago. where do we stand as the Department of Transportation and Mobility have any thoughts about red light cameras which can certainly pick up people going through red lights but that's obviously maybe to some people an infringement on their rights. I guess they think they have rights to go through red lights and it certainly is not a right or a privilege to do that. It's a danger to society. but also there were concerns about, with red light cameras, people jamming on their brakes.

They see yellow, you don't go through yellow anymore because you may be caught by the camera so you jam on the brakes and what happened is the person behind you thought you were going through and they slammed into you. So that was just one of the issues that we faced, but obviously I think the key was people's rights not to be imposed upon by society and government. Any thoughts on that, Mr. Commissioner?

Through the Chair. So the state is currently considering legislation that would enable communities to implement red light cameras. It's something that's not legal currently, and folks don't know that or don't understand. That's one of the things we hear. Red light running is one of the most dangerous aspects of traffic safety in the community. When you do that, you have the potential for very, very serious collisions at high speed. If that legislation is passed, then certainly we'd work with the city manager and the police department in terms of deciding and of course the City Council in terms of deciding whether to implement it and how it's implemented. One thing I would say is that those Cameras. When you do implement a red light running system, they are calibrated so they're not trying to catch you because

you were in there section when it was yellow and you just got there a split second too late it's really looking for folks who are blatantly running red lights and it's a clear violation so there's more to come on that don't really have a definitive

through the chair to the commissioner. So if the red light cameras right now in Massachusetts are illegal, how did the city council several years ago consider that?

I forget.

Through the Chair, I'm not familiar with it, so I couldn't comment on it, but they are not presently legal for enforcement.

And they weren't legal back then. I guess we were considering an issue that was illegal.

Mr. Manager? Yeah, through the chair to the council, any consideration that does not have any legislation at the state level or require some special legislation from the community, from the city, requiring the delegation to be able to support that. And so the Worcester at that time through those conversations was considering special legislation to be able to have the ability to conduct that and have that as a city. But currently right now in the state of Massachusetts it's not allowed. So I think the legislation that's moving through the state right now is to allow an overall for the entire state of Massachusetts and communities will be able to kind of opt in to utilize that.

and that wouldn't require cities and towns to do that. It would just allow us to do it if we wanted to. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Councilor Bergman, Councilor Bilotta, I'm sorry, sorry.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I didn't really intend to get up and inquire anymore, Commissioner, because we had a long back and forth, but some of the questions Councilor Rosen had asked Really, maybe it's my nature, compel me to really ask a few more questions and end with some comments. I also don't have anything against the concept. I'm going to be careful how I say it. The concept of safe bicycle lanes. My wife this time of year takes her bike to work every day. Of course, I want her to be safe. What I do, though, have is a concern that the importance of the bicycle lane in the scheme of all the other transportation challenges we have gets overplayed. So I'm gonna start with, through the chair, to the commissioner, do you really believe, because you said this a minute ago, I wrote that, that the bicycle lanes are better for everyone?

Do you really, truly believe that?

Commissioner. Through the chair. Yes, I do. So.

Just kind of a yes or no. If you want to explain. Yeah, absolutely. I don't have limited time, but.

So bicycle lanes are shown time and time again when when employed in an effective manner to help control vehicle speeds, help provide a safe place for bicyclists, which gets them out of the travel lane and better segregates the different modes. gets them off the sidewalk. So yeah, it's an important component of a comprehensive street system.

So I hate, and I'm really gonna use this word literally, hate to go back to the discussion of Mill Street. One person dead, one person paraplegic after the bicycle lanes were installed. So again, Do you truly believe that bicycle lanes are better for everyone?

Through the Chair, I'm not going to debate the merits of individual crashes that occurred on that corridor. I can tell you that we have seen crashes decrease significantly and the years since since that was installed the post crash rate is quite a bit lower than the pre crash rate and I do think over time we will see that that will continue.

And how about the businesses that are impacted through the chair by the bicycle lanes is it better for them?

through the chair, most research shows that bicycle lanes tend to result in improved economic activity.

So through the chair, Mr. Raleigh, I'm going to be direct with you, and I expect you to be direct with me. We've talked about this before. Your department, you acknowledged to me the last time we had this conversation, never really goes in and talks to business owners before installing bicycle lanes and making major road changes. You even admitted to me last time you've got to do a better job doing that. Is that correct?

through the Chair, your statement was not correct.

Okay, so please clarify.

Yeah, so we certainly endeavor to speak to Hallibutters, whether they're businesses, residents. I'm sure at some point in time I did say that we could have done a better job on certain projects, and we're striving to do that. that's something that is important to do and I absolutely agree with you. We need to talk with businesses, we need to talk with residents, we need to help explain why we're proposing the changes. that we are and we need to seek their feedback on that and that's something that you know in the spirit of continuous process improvement we're trying to do and I think we're doing that.

So on the Mill Street project you through the chair you went and spoke to business owners is that what you're saying?

So the Middle Street project was one of the projects that we did not do as good a job as ideally we would have liked to.

I'd agree with that. OK. So I'm just going to end with a statement and then a few more questions. When you say you didn't do a good job as you'd like to, you correct me if I'm wrong you didn't go into any business and talk to anyone because I went to all of them so if you did they either lied to me or they weren't there when you went in so I don't know the answer

Through the Chair, and we've talked about this in the past, the Mill Street project was a project that was developed Very quickly, because it was a resurfacing project that was not anticipated ahead of time, we didn't have much time to develop that marking plan. So we did not speak with the businesses.

Thank you. I appreciate being upfront on that. Now, with respect to bicycle lanes and the number of miles of this year going forward, I may have misheard you, so I'm going to ask for the chair. How many additional miles are anticipated of bicycle lanes in 2026?

Through the chair, I would need to report back to you on that. It's a smaller number than we've implemented over the past 18 months. So the figure of 13.5 miles was what's been implemented in 2024 and 2025.

Okay, through the chair, during 2024, 2025, there's 13 and a half miles. Did that increase the number of bicycle lanes come from bicyclists' input? Was there like a... through the Chair, an interest in adding lanes? Or what was the impetus for creating 13 and 1⁄2 miles of new bicycle lanes?

Through the Chair, the first impetus is the Complete Streets Plan, which the city's had in place in policy, which we've had in place since 2017. Second was dating back to the the now next plan that economic development developed as well as I believe even the Green Worcester plan and then certainly this mobility action plan that we're discussing here tonight. We did hear from a significant portion of the communities that we need more and safer bicycle lanes and then the third was that recognition that bicycle lanes can help make the streets safer overall for everyone. And that's the purpose for it.

Through the chair, when you said you heard from significant numbers of people in the community, was that public meetings?

through the chair. So each of those plans had a robust public outreach process that included public meetings, engagement at community events, tabling, all sorts of activities associated with them. So that again was in the formation of those plans.

and with respect to the infrastructure you talked to Councilor Rosen about, would it be fair to say that in addition to not having the infrastructure in place to connect the bicycle lanes for an overall and a number of connected lanes, the striping and the lines that tell drivers, motor vehicle drivers particularly, and bicyclists to some degree, where to go which turns to make and who can pass who. Has that been developed with any sort of completeness?

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

Has that been developed? Because I see green lines on some streets. and I don't know what those mean, but I think they have something to do with right away of bicyclists, but nobody's educated me on that and I'm sure people listening to this meeting haven't been educated on it at all. If we're going to create 13 and a half more bicycle lanes, and I'm assuming even more beyond that, how are we educating drivers and bicyclists to coexist without hurting each other? How is that happening?

Through the chair. So that's good input. The markings you're referring to are called cross spikes. It's basically a crosswalk for bicycle lanes. and what that does is it distinguishes between the pedestrian crosswalk and the bicycle crossing when they're parallel to each other. It's a standard treatment across the country. relatively new here in Worcester. We haven't had a whole lot of them until the last year and a half. We do have information on our transportation mobility web page about them. The city did a A social media post about them and a video that got a ton of viewership, so that was great. We obviously still need to reach more people, but you know again the treatments were employing our standard treatments that are that are employed all across the country but we do need to recognize that some folks here haven't experienced them yet and we need to help them understand what they are and how to use

So I noticed through the chair, I'm finishing up with two more questions. You use Seattle as an example. The population there is about 800,000. So we get examples all the time of different communities. but my opinion is that doesn't really relate well to Worcester. I'm gonna finish up with this. Last time during the budget we were going back and forth and you had suggested that we're not gonna solve our traffic congestion problems. by cars and I should have followed up and asked you well how are we gonna how are we gonna solve it because you agreed with me I believe that the WRTA isn't and so on. I'm not sure what it should be. So, other than walking and bicycling, I'm trying to figure out how we're gonna, what you meant by that. So, through the chair, if you could clarify what you meant by that.

Yeah, through the chair, I'd be happy to. And I think I need to reframe the question a little bit because there's two different things. There's congestion, which is something that we are always going to face in a city. It is frankly an unsolvable issue at certain times of the day. There is no such thing as an economically healthy city that doesn't experience traffic congestion during those peak hours. It's just a fact of life. that doesn't mean we throw our hands up and don't try to manage it the best we can. That's why we've invested in the improvements to the traffic signal system that we have. We have a database that's a complete inventory of those systems which allows us to Councilor, Councilor, Councilor, Councilor, Councilor, Councilor, Councilor, Councilor, Councilor,

One of the largest drivers of congestion in the city is when we have traffic signals that are antiquated or haven't been retimed in a long time or have equipment that's not functioning well. So really trying to increase our our efforts associated with that is important we want to make sure we are operating the system as efficiently as we can but we know as the city continues to grow we can't accommodate all that growth just in automobiles particularly if everyone's trying to travel at the same time so you know we see the most traffic congestion here you see it a little bit during the morning commute you see it more from that period of time WELCESTER IS INTERESTING. WELCESTER IS INTERESTING. WELCESTER IS INTERESTING. IT'S GOT A LITTLE BIT EARLIER IT'S GOT A LITTLE BIT EARLIER IT'S GOT A LITTLE BIT EARLIER PEAK AFTERNOON COMMUTE THAN YOU PEAK AFTERNOON COMMUTE THAN YOU PEAK AFTERNOON COMMUTE THAN YOU SEE IN A LOT OF CITIES, BUT SEE IN A LOT OF CITIES, BUT SEE IN A LOT OF CITIES, BUT FROM WHEN SCHOOL LETS OUT UNTIL FROM WHEN SCHOOL LETS OUT UNTIL FROM WHEN SCHOOL LETS OUT UNTIL ABOUT 530, ALMOST 6 O'CLOCK, IS ABOUT 530, ALMOST 6 O'CLOCK, IS ABOUT 530, ALMOST 6 O'CLOCK, IS WHEN YOU REALLY SEE THE HIGH

there's you know there's no magic solution to that so as we see more growth we need to make sure that that growth is occurring in smart ways so concentrating it around transit corridors concentrating it where a larger share can be walk trips with a mix of uses in those neighborhoods is helpful. Providing other travel options to help deal with some of this increased growth. That doesn't mean that that's the only way we're trying to do it, but there are important components of it.

So that's where I'm going to end on. My final question, when you say other modes of transportation, that was what I started off asking. What do you mean by that?

In this specific case, I was referring to modes other than single occupant vehicles. So that's walking, that's taking the bus, I think we both agree, you had made the statement that the transit system leaves a lot to be desired. I think we have A transit system that is improving. I think it's doing a lot for the resources it has, but I absolutely agree that if we want to see that transit system play a larger role in our community. Over time, we're going to have to see more investment in it. So that, bicycling, micromobility, those are the other modes of transportation.

Let me just finish by a comment. You and I both agree last time that bicycling is probably less than 10% of how people get around. Probably people use cars 85% to 90%. This is a city with heavy winters, generally. I don't see the walking part, although it's good for everyone when they can, particularly when the weather's nice. I don't see the walking part and the bicycling part. making much of a dent particularly from November to April. So I think that's unrealistic and my comment would be I would love to see your department focus its energy and attention to the proper percentages and I'm not sure you do on how many people drive versus how many people use other modes of transportation because counting on bicycling and walking and the WRTA to alleviate the congestion of vehicles in this city anytime soon. Personally, we can agree, disagree, respectfully, I don't think it's realistic. So thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Councilor Bilotta.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I want to say thank you to DTM and the city manager for investing in all this work. in realizing that any functioning, healthy 21st century city should have this type of infrastructure. Through the chair to Commissioner Raleigh, when was DTM formed? If you can.

Commissioner?

So we were formed in, I hope I got that through the chair. We were formed in August of 22, July of 22. So approved in by the city council and in the budget of fiscal year 23.

Okay, thank you. To your knowledge, towns like cities like Cambridge, Somerville, do you know when they had policies like this or departments like this when they were instituted? Through the Chair.

So there are a whole range of different models out there for how cities govern their transportation networks or implement their transportation networks. Quite a few cities have standalone transportation departments like we do. We did model this department when I was working with the city manager and the former city manager in terms of thinking and public works in terms of thinking about how this department might look. We did look at Cambridge and Somerville as two of the models. So they've been around a while. Larger cities have had separate transportation departments for decades. In terms of the model for the types of infrastructure that we're trying to incorporate really for the first time here in Worcester, You know, 20, 25 years really I'd say is when you started to see this happen in sort of the leaders. No, I appreciate that.

Just to demonstrate how historically behind the eight ball we've been here on this. And again, the mobility action plan, I think it's great to see all the progress that has been made. The top thing, page six, a focus on safety. that's what this is all about. And myself being on the Traffic and Parking Committee with Councilor Ojeda and Councilor Rivera, what we hear from residents throughout the city is how and many others. We understand how unsafe the roads are for children, for families wanting to walk around. We hear, I want to speed hump, I want to speed hump. And we understand that. We're getting to the point now where we can't put them anywhere or everywhere. And we understand that can impact public safety. By public safety, what I mean is response times to fire EMS police. But this is part of Worcester growing. there's going to be more traffic. We want all this development.

Then we have to have the proper infrastructure to back it up. And key to that infrastructure needs to be safety. I'm a big fan of history so we'll go on a little history lesson 290 blew through the city didn't go west of Park Ave it didn't go through Holy Cross it went through the east side and it went through Polish and Lithuanian and black communities and wiped out whole neighborhoods because that was deemed disposable, just like many of the big transportation policies in the mid 20th century. So, and that was done to, and again, Belmont Street too, a highway, I have a highway, we have a highway, excuse me, going through the middle of District 2, separating a park and a school from a neighborhood. That is very problematic and very challenging. So I know this work is going to take some time. But all of these policies that were done over the last 60, 70 years were done to move traffic fast and efficiently at the expense of everyone in the neighborhood.

so it's going to take a lot to do this and as we move forward you know our public transportation network isn't you know up on par with the MBTA but we need to work on getting there and we need to work on putting the infrastructure in place So could you, and again too, safe routes to schools. That's one of the things I'm seeing in the report that's so important. there's and again that's what I hear throughout from all my constituents how unsafe and how people are speeding and I absolutely understand that people on some of these e-bikes and especially young adults young kids that don't realize how fast they're going it is very dangerous for them and for drivers. But we need to make sure that our neighborhoods are safe and that folks can enjoy walking around to the park to different businesses. I think all of that is really important. I appreciate the influence of the ADA curb cuts.

I have a bit of a gripe with how long some of them are taking but I really would love to see again more striving to do things quicker and doing some more of these pop-up projects. I think I noticed the last one we mentioned was 2024. Have there been any new ones?

Commissioner?

Through the Chair, so we are working with the CMRPC on kind of a quick build implementation on Beacon Street. So that's one that started last year and we'll be working through the spring and summer on that as well.

Councilor Fezzola. Councilor Fezzola. Councilor Fezzola. Councilor Fezzola. Councilor Fezzola. Councilor Fezzola. Councilor Fezzola. Councilor Fezzola. Councilor Fezzola. Councilor Fezzola. Again, we have folks that live at the Lincoln Tower that can't safely get over to Regatta because it's a highway. And people are driving very fast and aren't paying attention. But I absolutely agree that I've seen plenty of pedestrians to step out to the road as well. But the whole point of all this network is for people to be more aware and slow down. that's the point of it some of these things are made to the green boxes things like that people might not know what they are but they might also slow down and say well what is this So again, Worcester's moving forward. I think some of the traffic congestion, I know your team's been pretty responsive every time that I've called or have constituents reach out about traffic signals. So I appreciate DTM's work in this report.

Again, I would like to say again, I wish we could do things a little quicker and I'm happy to support any way we can to make that happen. But I appreciate all your work that you're doing in district two and for the neighborhoods that I represent. So thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Toomey.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll try to be brief. The first thing that I wanted to ask about was since we've adopted the 25 mile an hour speed limit citywide since September 24th of 24, it says signage change is completed in January 2025 are we going to have any additional signage because I think that's very important that's that's probably going to Be very helpful in continued usage of this program. So do we have any estimates as to time?

Through the chair. So yeah, the reference in the mobility action plan is to the perimeter signing around the city, which are the signs that have the, you know, you come into the city, it has a speed limit. It says thickly settled in yellow above and then unless otherwise posted. So that was a sign type that was recommended by MassDOT for any of the communities that implemented 25 miles per hour. and we did comprehensively do that. One of the things we've talked about actually in the Traffic and Parking Committee is that, and this is a difficult thing to explain to people because it's so counterintuitive, under state and federal law, it was actually not permitted to post speed limit signs for the statutory speed limit. That was true when it was 30 miles an hour and it's true now that it's 25 miles per hour. So that's why you don't see a lot of the black and white speed limit signs around the city because most of the streets are under that statutory control and we were not permitted to do so.

that finally changed in March of this year. So now we are permitted to do so. There is a plaque that we can put under a standard black and white speed limit sign. So we are now developing plans to deploy those to the major corridors. We're actually working with MassDOT who's developed a new program to make those signs available to communities. and I do think on those corridors where we see a lot of traffic and persistent speeding it is going to be an important tool.

I would absolutely say that. I know coming into work every day, definitely the two roads that I go on the most are Lake Gav and also Hamilton Street and that certainly is needed there. I have people passing me on the right all the time and it's not supposed to. So when do we expect that to be started?

Through the Chair, we'll have some signage that gets in place this summer.

This summer? Yeah. Okay, thank you. And then secondly, you installed 22 new electric vehicles, street charging, station ports. Who pays for the charging, the electricity for the charging?

Commissioner. Through the Chair, I should know that answer. That was a partnership we did with the Department of Sustainability, and I don't want to give you the wrong answer, so I'd rather report back to you on that then.

OK. I'm just curious, is that something that we actually use with our solar fields? Is that where some of that electricity comes from? People pay for parking, people pay for gas, but no one pays for electric.

Through the chair, I believe, and again, we'll get back to you with definitive information, but I believe that when we first did the implementation, the costs were being absorbed by the city just as that implementation was rolled out but I think they are now they are now borne by the consumer. So the user I think has to pay that fee is my understanding. We have, Mr. O'Dell is online.

Okay, thank you.

Through the Chair, yes, thank you. That is correct. The costs are borne by the consumer. Basically, we charge 30 cents a kilowatt hour. Those costs are then recycled to cover the costs of the electricity and the maintenance of the stations.

How do they pay for that?

So there are two options. People can pay via credit card, but most people actually pay through their app. So their app is connected to their credit card and they pay that way.

Thank you very much. I'm glad to hear that. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Toomey.

That's it. Mr. Mayor.

Thank You madam chair and Commissioner I just want to thank you for the report between the mobility report and now next plan the safe streets Green, Worcester. I know some of this overlaps and some separate from your division, but we have a lot of things going on in the city and it's about making quality of life better for everybody here in the city and safe streets is is so important as we've seen the number of accidents, number of deaths, number of injuries occur and people are still, this is why I know it's up to funding and resources the more we can do the better because people are still flying through I get more complaints just going through the neighborhoods talking to people like on Salisbury since there's no sidewalks, people speeding. If there is a sidewalk, there's no real barrier to people and people flying down Salisbury Street. and other streets here in the city of Worcester. So I just want to say I'm supportive of this, been supportive from the beginning.

There's going to be some hiccups on the way, but I think overall, I think it's going in the right direction. I think it's the price of progress. We're going to get there like other cities are sticking with this throughout the country. And this is our size cities and bigger cities, smaller cities. And let's have one quick question we've got in Indian Lake. It's at Morgan Park. and then you allow parking there on Grove Street now. Do we change the signs? I went to look today and I forgot.

Through the Vice Chair, there is one sign that needs to come down. I noticed just today myself. So there's a no parking sign that still remains there that we need to get down. Work with DPW to get that down right away. I did notice some people parking there today, though, so that was great to see that getting used. The other question I have is probably a safety issue.

I know you put a no turn on right coming from After Forest Grove School, he burned around the curve on DeGrove Street in front of the pest control place. Just curious if that's needed or...

through the chair so that that actually that is an important um no right on reddit and it's a little bit debatable whether that's actually a right or it's going straight but the reason it is is we introduced a crosswalk there which didn't exist before so there wasn't a safe way to cross Grove Street previously. So if that traffic were allowed to proceed on a red, there's a chance that they could be doing that during that walk phase for the crosswalk. So that's why that needs to be a no ride on red prohibition. We have adjusted that signal timing. and we've done a before and after study and the delay is actually better at that intersection than it was before now and that movement is on an overlap so it gets a lot of green time There was a period of time where the detection wasn't working, and so it wasn't working optimally at that point in time. We did receive a few complaints, but now that that's been fixed, it seems to be operating quite well.

Well, thank you, and keep up the good work. Thank you. Councilor Economou is next.

Just one last question through the chair to the commissioner. Are we allowed to put Speed limit signs on private streets. Is that in our purview? Is that in our city's purview or is that?

through the chair. It's not something the city can do. We can't regulate how private streets are used. I don't know that I've ever seen private residents put speed limit signs on. Usually the condition of the street Dictates that it's not an issue.

So if there were a speed limit sign on a private street, would it be proper to petition to have it removed?

Through the chair, I don't believe we could have it removed either. It's a private property issue.

It's up to the residents. It's a private property issue. Very good, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Councilor Mitra?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through you to the Commissioner, just wanted to bring it to your attention that Highland Street coming down towards the police station, the Lincoln Street, Lincoln Square area, Generally, there is a heavy blockage of people on that intersection. People get really, it's risky, something, signs that do not block. Some kind of thing that needs to be done because I have myself faced it. Many other constituents have also reported to me to say request them to do something. So if you can please take that note. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

So we'll send that to traffic and parking. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Transforming Information Community Commission, the Construction Progress Report for the month ending May 31st, 2026. I think we're all set there. I guess not.

I haven't spoken, Mr. Chairman, so please don't give me that look. Councilor Fazolo. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, through you. I don't know if Commissioner Raleigh or Commissioner Wesleyan will want to take it, but we had a meeting I would say four or five weeks ago, maybe six weeks ago, about Mass Third Row being done, being resurfaced and from Race Square to Sunderland Road. and at that meeting they were asked when the project might start and they were told a week or two and it's now at least four weeks. Does anybody want to update us and tell us when that project might stop? Because I'm getting asked by people and I can't answer. I thought maybe an email would be sent out to let us know when that might stop. What project was that one? Excuse me? What project? Massasoit Road.

Okay.

Resurfacing. Can somebody answer that?

Massasoit?

Commissioner? through the chair. So the contractor should be doing prep work at this point, but that's something that we can check on if they've started that. A lot of times the very early stages of construction aren't particularly visible because they're getting staging ready. They're starting to do basically deconstruct portions of the corridor. That work should be imminent at this point.

Okay. Through the Chair, Mr. Raleigh, I know we've spoke and I just want to make the Commissioner of DPW aware that we have an Italian festival that is held on Massachusetts Road. The dates are August 13th to the 16th, and they're very concerned that the project will be underway while their festival is going on. I know you have told me you'll work with the contractor and button things up so they can have those four days of participation from the community but if you'd like to comment on that so the general public understands

through the chair. So I'm gonna look at Commissioner Westerling here too, just to make sure that I don't speak out of turn, but we will certainly, Do our best to work with the contractor to help them understand that that community activity is happening. It will be a construction zone at that point. The road will be under construction. But hopefully we can work with the contractor so that they can help minimize the impact. Thank you so much.

One other issue I'd like to bring up. I waited for this because I thought you had said the long patch program might be something in the next item that the Commissioner of DPW might want to be able to respond to. I have spoke of Lake Ave at nausea, nauseam. I was told by DPW that we would use the long patch program on portions of Lake Ave and I was just curious when that might start. Somebody could update me on that. Commissioner?

Through the Chair, I'm going to look to Commissioner Westerly again. I don't know if you have an update on that particular and I'm going to go grab my report while I'm up here too. So I have the data in front of me.

Through the Chair, as you were speaking about Massasoit Road, I was composing an email just to reinforce the need to have Massasoit Road buttoned up and that there's no construction activities that will interfere with the festival. As far as the long patch program, that is something that we are evaluating. There have been several suggestions that were brought to our attention, so we're evaluating all of those to make sure that Number one, that the long patch program is the most appropriate for those areas versus a more intensive approach such as cold in place recycling. So we're evaluating all the different areas that were offered to us.

Thank you, Commissioner. One thing about Lake Ave, the portion of Lake Ave I'm speaking of from Bridal Path to Sunderland Road, the problems are The width of the road and more horizontal than vertical. And I know I've been told by yourself and speaking with the manager that the long patch program is more of center of the road to the curb and probably longer so that is going to be an issue with some of the Spots that I'd like to see addressed with that program. Could you just answer how you would address a problem where the road is completely upheaving from curb to curb?

through the chair that's why I mentioned that there we want to make sure that we evaluate all the areas so that we're sure that the long patch program is the most appropriate and not a different approach for example Colton Place Recycling, which would be more of a curb to curb for a longer length of time. There are other things that we can do depending upon the length and the width. It could be mill and overlay of short sections. but that's why the evaluation of each site is important.

Okay, thank you, Commissioner. If you would just stay there through this question and I'm gonna direct it to the city solicitor. The CSX funds that we take in and portioned out between Grafton Hill, Shrewsbury Street and Canal District. I'm speaking solely on the Grafton Hill portion of those funds. Could you tell me, is there any ability to use those funds? for Street Repair and Long Patch Program. Could we do that? Is that something you have to look into or could you give us an answer on that?

Commissioner?

Yes, we've actually used them in the past for road infrastructure. So the CSX funds, those are actual projects that can actually be used for that.

Okay, well, thank you. So, Commissioner, having heard that for the first time and it's the first time I've asked, I'd like to maybe sit down with you and go over a few spots on Lake Av that maybe you can address how much it would cost and see if we could use some of that CSX funds to handle that.

Through the Chair, absolutely. We'd love to sit down and look at those specific areas. The funding is as important as is the methodology that we would use to approach each one. and depending upon the length, it might be more of an arterial selection for future reconstruction as opposed to multiple small sections one after the other.

I appreciate that. And I would look forward to sitting down with the manager and yourself about looking at Lake Ave being resurfaced in total. But until then, if we could, you know, Be creative. That's where I'm coming from on that. So I appreciate that. And one other thing, Mr. Chairman, before I sit down, I just add to Mr. Raleigh, you don't have to come back, but Providence Street and Waverly Street. I petitioned for the four-way stop lighted intersection to be removed. I'm told it's probably costs maybe $10,000 a year to keep that light going. There is no school there anymore. There used to be a school there a long time ago. It used to be St. Casimir's School. and now the alternative school is closed and it's now housing. So there's no real reason to have that blinking red light there.

Traffic and mobility had agreed. or at least a couple years ago, and I know we're short-handed, but if someone could go out and take that light down, because it's not warranted, the stop sign is, you know suffice there it doesn't need the blinking red that goes on there so I'm just looking at some cost savings and if I I figured both the Commissioner and from DPW and Traffic and Mobility here. So I wanted to bring that up to their attention. Thank you.

That's not on the agenda, but go ahead.

Through the Chair, we'll collaborate on the appropriate steps to take there. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, all set.

Okay, Councilor Economou. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to touch base. Thank you for the report. All these reports are very helpful and very concise, so I appreciate that very much. Concerns I have on Park Avenue when resurfacing begins is what plans do we have in place to notify neighbors and more importantly, what plans do we have in place to communicate with the businesses, let them know what's going on, when paving will begin, how do we ensure that there is access to their businesses, and how How long do we expect the project to take to complete? I think there's a lot of small businesses along the section of that section that they're looking to resurface.

And I just want to make sure that we have adequate notification more than adequate access to the business and timelines that they can count on, especially during the summer months when traditionally it's slow, people are more away. These are dollars that businesses cannot make up, so it's important that we work cohesively with these organizations and businesses to make sure they have access. and lastly Mr. Chairman I just want to say thank you I'd be remiss if I didn't say anything there was a break again on Norton Drive Friday and I just want to thank the men and women of DPW who were there very quickly, isolated the break. Assistant Commissioner Dival was there on scene as well, directing the men and women of our team. The break was isolated.

Water was back on very quickly. And also I want to thank Ricciardi Brothers for being on site. I think just about an hour, hour and 15, 20 minutes, they were there. getting their work underway. And the roadway was back opened up yesterday. So a great team effort to our team here. and I know there's a plan in place and that's being worked on to repair those pipes in that area because of their failure. So again, I just wanna say thank you to the team. Great job.

Okay, Councilor Boada.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That's a great report. It's good to know where all these, you know, paving projects are at. I sent a few questions to the commissioner for, to DPW Commissioner Westerling about a few of the streets. I noticed like Lakeview Street, it says and so forth. I was under the impression that these projects were and so on. I'm just trying to figure out if I'm starting in the Dates aren't really lining up.

Commissioner?

From what I was told.

Through the chair, we've made our best estimate of the construction period the start of the construction period based on the bids that were put out and contractor scheduling that they've shared with us. So this is our most recent best estimate.

Okay. And with the construction starting in the fall, will that anticipated to be finished before winter sets in? Or I just want to make sure we're on a good schedule for those.

Commissioner?

Through the Chair, it depends on each project. If there are specific ones in question, we can get that timeframe. Fully depends on how many roadways each contractor has under their contract, what the extent of the work is. It's our goal to have the work done in a construction season. So if there are specific roadways, I'm happy to to take those and get back to the council with what that estimated time frame is.

No, I appreciate the clarification. I'm sure some folks at home might have had similar questions. So I really appreciate that. I appreciate the sidewalk being constructed at North Parkway and Davidson Road. that's really going to help park access. Franklin Street, City Hall, another different story. More on that later. I guess I have an order on that, but I appreciate everyone's work. Thank you for the update.

Thank you. Thank you. So all those streets that are being done at the end of the year, those are all locked as far as the contracts are concerned. It's just a matter of timing. The streets that you mentioned, they're gonna start in the fall. those are definitely gonna be done if they can be done. So we have contracts for all those, right?

That is correct. Mr. Chairman, if they are listed here, anticipated construction start, if they are listed with us, with a start date or timeframe, we do have contracts for those, correct?

Okay. Okay, so we'll send that to Council Rosen.

Through the Chair to the Commissioner, can you tell me the status of Sagamore Road? I don't believe it's on the list, but I thought it was going to be done this year because it should have been done decades ago. It's in terrible condition. The whole city knows that. and for some reason the upper half was done a few years ago but the lower half just terrible years ago and got only worse so do we have a status update? Is it going to be done this, Construction Season. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Commissioner?

Through the Chair, as the Councilor well indicated, that should have been done decades ago. The request to have Sagamore resurfaced was just brought to our attention. So we're doing everything we can with the existing contractors we have in place and contracts to see if we can put that into the mix for this year. that would typically be a district counselor selection roadway that's the category that would fall under but it was never selected up through last December so we're doing our best to incorporate that into our program

So through the chair, most of these streets we're looking at, residential streets, are chosen by their district councilor.

through the chair. It depends on the residential streets. Correct.

And this one wasn't chosen, but you seem sympathetic to getting it paved. So why is that? I mean, I'm glad you are sympathetic and you wanna get this paved, but is that something that happens often, the district councilor doesn't choose a street and then somehow, someway, we get it on the list and we get it done? Commissioner.

Through the Chair, I think that we look at the condition of a roadway and if it's to the point where it is impacting Traffic Movement, neighbors, extreme noise requires us to go out and put Mix after mix, I hate to mention the word, in pothole after pothole, then that rises to the level of, okay, we need to do something with this road because it's become unsafe and to the point where it's not easily traveled.

what through the chair what would be the last date that we could possibly get this in under the construct this construction season In other words, if I ask you the end of July, do we still have a chance to get it done? Or I ask you in September, do we still have a chance to get this done? When will you know for sure if this is going to be done?

through the chair as long as the question isn't when will it be done but if it will be done if the question is if it will be done we should be able to have an answer in July

Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay, so send that to Public Works. All those in favor, oppose, so ordered.

We are on 8.32A, Transformation and Communications of the Green Worcester Plan, 25 Annual Report. We're sending that to UTIE, TIE, the TIE Group Committee. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Finance items 8.35A through F, 8.36A through G, and dropped on the roll call.

Bregman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta? Yes. Councilor Economou? Yes. Councilor Zolo? Yes. Councilor King?

What item, can you just read the item? I can't, A3A?

8.35A through F and 8.36A through G. Okay, what are those? Finance items.

are those motions out of the committee?

No, these are recommendations for the manager to be approved tonight.

Okay, can you come back to me? These are the regular finance items. We're in the middle of a roll call, but these are the finance items. All set? Okay, go on.

Councilor Mitra? Yes. Councilor Ojeda? Yes. Councilor Rivera? Yes. Councilor Rosen? Yes. Councilor Toomey?

Yes.

Mayor Petty? Yes. We're on 8.39A, Transmitting Information and Communication for the Worcestersboro, commemorating the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. You can file that. It wasn't a roll call.

Bergman.

Yes.

Councilor Bilotta. Yes. Councilor Economou. Yes. Councilor Rosolo. Yes. Councilor King. Yes Councilor Mitra? Yes Councilor Ojeda? Yes Councilor Rivera? Yes Councilor Rosen? Yes Councilor Toomey?

Yes Mayor Petty? Yes. Transmitting information and communication relevant to the C-Managed Self-Evaluation of Work Accomplishments of the Administration for the Fiscal Year 2026. That will be the first time in business on June 30th, so it gives you a couple weeks. Bergman, yes. Councilor Bilotta?

Yes. Councilor Economou?

Yes.

Councilor Rosolo?

Yes.

Councilor King? Councilor King? Yes. Councilor Mitra?

Yes.

Councilor Ojeda? Yes. Councilor Rivera? Yes. Councilor Fresolo? I'm sorry, Councilor Rosen? Yes. Councilor Toomey? Yes. And Mayor Petty? Yes.

Okay, we have chairman's orders, 9A to 9D, motions to adopt, roll call.

Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta? Yes. Councilor Economou?

Yes.

Councilor Rosolo? Yes. Councilor King?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Mitra. Yes. Councilor Ojeda. Yes. Councilor Rivera. Yes. Councilor Rosen. Yes. Councilor Toomey.

Yes.

And Mayor Petty.

Yes. We have our orders, but we can go, since the Mayor's just staff is here, maybe we can. come to the odds at the end, we'll just go through the rest of the agenda. Reports of the Planning Board, 11A referred to the Economic Development Committee, roll call.

Bergman, Bilotta, Economou, Fresolo, King,

Yes.

Councilor Mitra. Yes. Councilor Ojeda. Yes. Councilor Rivera. Yes. Councilor Rosen. Yes. Councilor Toomey. Yes. And Mayor Petty.

Yes, 11B, we're gonna refer to the Public Works Committee, roll call.

Bergman, Bilotta, Economou, Fresolo, King, Yes. Mr. Mitra. Yes. Mr. Ojeda. Yes. Mr. Rivera. Yes. Mr. Rosen. Yes. Mr. Toomey. Yes. And Mayor Petty.

Yes. 12 A is motion to accept. Mr. Chairman. 12A? Yes. Okay, motion to accept and adopt on the roll call.

Councilor Rosen? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just want to let my colleagues know that the Public Health and Human Services Committee met recently to go through all the recommendations on the block grant funding. the Community Advisory Committee certainly makes recommendations to the City of Worcester and those come to our committee and we bring back the recommendations and we were very happy to see that so many agencies were able to be funded this year and they certainly were very appreciative of all the work that all the agencies do. And they were certainly appreciative to the city council for being able to allocate these funds to them. So it was a very good meeting. We appreciated the involvement. and guidance of the Economic Development Office and their representatives. So just want my colleagues to know that's been taken care of and it went very, very well. And I hope that everyone on the council will support these recommendations.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Roll call.

Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta?

Yes.

Councilor Economou?

Yes.

Councilor Rosolo? Yes. Councilor King?

Yes.

Councilor Mitra. Yes. Councilor Ojeda. Yes. Councilor Rivera. Yes. Councilor Rosen. Yes. Councilor Toomey.

Yes.

And Mayor Petty.

Yes, 13A, motion to advertise the proposed ordinance, roll call.

Bergman, Bilotta, Economou, Fresolo, King, Yes. Councilor Mitra? Yes. Councilor Ojeda? Yes. Councilor Rivera? Yes. Councilor Rosen? Yes. Councilor Toomey? Yes. Mayor Petty?

Yes. 13B to 13E, motion to accept and adopt on the roll call. Roll call.

Bergman, yes, Councilor Bilotta, yes, Councilor Economou, yes, Councilor Rosolo, yes, Councilor King,

Yes.

Councilor Mitra? Yes. Councilor Ojeda?

Yes.

Councilor Rivera? Yes. Councilor Rosen? Yes. Councilor Toomey?

Yes.

And Mayor Petty? Yes. 13F to 13J, motion is accepted to adopt. All those in favor? I'm sorry, roll call.

Bergman, Bilotta, Economou, Fresolo, King,

Yes.

Councilor Mitra? Yes. Councilor Ojeda? Yes. Councilor Rivera? Yes. Councilor Rosen? Yes. Councilor Toomey? Yes. And Mayor Petty?

Yes. 13K to 13V, motions to accept.

Bergman, Bilotta, Economou, Fresolo, King, Mitra, Yes. Councilor Ojeda? Yes. Councilor Rivera? Yes. Councilor Rosen? Yes. Councilor Toomey? Yes. Mayor Petty?

Yes. 14A to 14U, motion to advertise the proposed ordinances. Roll call.

Burgman, Bilotta, Economou, Fresolo, King, Mitra, Ojeda, Rivera, Rosen, Toomey, Petty.

Yes. Okay, we are on 15. 15A through, I believe these are all budget related. 15E, I mean, I'm sorry, 15S. So these are all budget related. So basically the first we can talk about the budget, the operating budget and the capital budget. and the motion is to adopt both those on the roll call. Ms. Chair. And Councilor Mitra.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to express something about the budget. We have been talking about the budget for the last couple of few weeks. I know if I understand it right, the system that we have here is that city manager presents us the appropriation of the budget. I'm glad to see that we have historic I'm proud to be a part of it My issue is that City Manager presents us the budget appropriation and City Council has discussed everything. We have the opportunity to cut If we want to, we do not have the prerogative or opportunity to add, as I understand, by the rules or the charter at this point.

But there are many things probably every one of us have in mind to suggest to city manager to add to or suggest to do few things. that probably would be best for the constituents, for the residents because we hear from them and we have the responsibility to pass it on to him. I'd like to see that we create an opportunity more officially so that we can let the city manager know to add few things based on our understanding. I'm quite concerned about the city's roads, city's potholes. I've spoken ever since I've joined this council to fix, bring safety, making it safer for everyone who's traveling, making it Police presence, you know making our city to be one of the best cities. Decorate the city the best. Our ultimate goal is to see that we promote our city and more people come to our city

Not only to live here, do their business, create jobs, grow the economy, and all that. The end of everything, it comes to that we have a safer city. We just heard from Commissioner Raleigh that if we want to do some streets, sometimes it's excessive. We do a portion of it. just like the power cab. It's being done only from Highland to Salisbury, a portion of it. But if you drive one power cab, it's a major artery in my opinion. It connects you to so many other things. And there are so many other streets which are equally important, such as Lincoln Street, such as Main Street, Belmont Street, Massasoit Road, Grafton Street, which are connecting us to the emergency areas. They're connecting us to 290, connecting us to the business places. I wanted to see that we have a budget for specifically some major arteries Be taken care of. Making the city look good. People come here, they drive, they feel good. That's important.

So I would like to make a motion that if we can, Add to the loan order another $20 million specifically to keep some major arteries be fixed in this fiscal year. Maybe pick five or six. and get that done. So at least it looks like that we have done a full job. I would just like to make that motion and see that it could be done because I care for the cities completion of some project. I care to see that the city is safer to drive. You do the park halfway and not do the whole thing, you drive, it's still so bumpy. It doesn't give us a good impression of the city. So with that in my mind, if you drive on, for example, Burncourt Street, feels good. You go on Newton Ave, feels good, because they're all done and complete and looks good.

So I want to see that I have a report on what are the major arteries and if we can add more to the loan order and get this fixed, specifically meant for a particular project and get that done would be my request and I'd like to see that that happens.

I'm going to have to rule that out of order. You want to have the right to add to the budget. You can ask for a report on how in the future you could fund something like that, but to, I can't, I'm going to just rule it out of order that you cannot add to this budget $20 million. If you want to report, ask how you can.

I'm talking about adding to the loan order.

It's the same thing.

So you're saying that we cannot add anything for this fiscal year?

Correct. It's all built into the budget.

If we cannot, we cannot. I understand that. But I just thought that a motion can probably be taken to see if that could be done. But you're saying it cannot be done.

It cannot be done.

If that's the situation, then it's really, I need to come up with some kind of plan for the next fiscal year or next fiscal budget that City Councilors have some suggestion that we can give to the City Manager before he comes up with his appropriation because we may have something that could help him to come up with his with his appropriation, with his allocation. And from that point of view, I'd like to think separately.

I know Councilor, some of the Councilors have asked for that and I think Councilor Zola brought something up and the Manager's added to the budget already I think you increased it this year, correct, Mr. Manager?

Yeah. Yeah, through you, Chair, to the council. I appreciate the passion and the sentiments in terms of wanting to increase the budget, but there's a lot of things to consider when making that type of suggestion or request. because that then also impacts the debt service, which then impacts the operating budget and our ability to pay that debt on an annual basis. and so the debt service that we have presented to you in our capital budget is something that we're able to manage as part of our debt service, as part of the operating dollars. and so all of that is connected. So if we're gonna extend potentially a 20 million, an additional $20 million to our capital borrowing, that's gonna impact our ability to pay that debt service over the next 20 years or so. and so we need to take all of that into consideration and quite frankly, we may not have the capacity to even do that in our operating budget to pay off that debt year over year over the next 10 to 20 years.

In addition to that, Part of my job as city manager is not only work with my department heads and listen to what my department heads' needs are, is also to do what you all do, is listen to the residents. So as much as you're listening to residents, I'm doing the same thing too. And my job is then to take the collective needs from the residents and the council and come up with a plan and a budget. And I think this budget represents that. First time in 10 years, we've increased the budget of the BW by 66%. It's $11 million more than what DPW has received in the past 10 years. That means that the request that the council has had on better infrastructure, better potholes, better repairs, better sidewalks, et cetera, is represented in this budget. However, all of that comes to now

projects in streets that are either petitioned or requested, et cetera, that will be considered for the upcoming year of fiscal 27, which may also spill into FY28. So you may be requesting, or a council may be requesting today, I need this street, but that street may be a year, two, or three years to actually get repaired. just because it was requested today in the month is not going to get repaired because there is a process and I think that process is important because as government we should not be able to do it that quickly. There's checks and balances and processes in place for us to be able to move through that to be able to get the streets done. So that's why we've talked about the pavement management program. We've talked about the complete streets and everything that we're trying to do but again there's a process in which we select these streets we work with the council the district councillors in selecting these streets.

And then we go based on lists that are petitioned, that were probably petitioned last year, that now are getting approved and getting part of the fiscal budget. So some of the streets that are presented in the capital budget that are being approved for FY27 were streets that were selected either last year or two years ago. And that's how the process goes. So then the design happens, the contracting happens, and then the work begins to happen. and so again, there is a process in which these happens but I just wanna confirm that I listened to what the council say and one of the things that we did in this budget and I think that's kudos to your advocacy as council is that we increased this budget by 66%, 66%. That's nothing likely. That was a big increase that we did to the budget. that we took on to make sure that we had the ability not only to raise the capital in the borrowing, but also be able to pay it

and through the debt service over the next few years as well. And I think that's kudos to the council in making sure that that voice was elevated to me and for me to take action. And we did took action. So I don't want that to go missing because there is action that the administration took based on the needs of the council that has presented in just the six months or even the previous council prior to that.

I understand, thank you very much to the Chair, to Mr. Manager, that what I was trying to mention here, I thought that there is a provision probably to add on to the loan order, number one, and number two, I know you have increased the budget in the DPW Commissioner or other projects, but I wanted to see there is a specific thing that gets done. So if there is a certain thing that gets done, it's good for the citizens, good for the residents to say that, hey, we have done something. and that's the reason I said specifically can we have certain roads. I requested Commissioner Raleigh to let me know the major arteries which connects us to the important places so we can take care of that fully So it looks good. The city looks beautiful. So roads are safer. People can drive safely. With all that intention, I thought maybe we can take five streets this year, take care of that. Maybe next year, a few more. So that's why I wanted to see if we can order a loan order of maybe, if not 2015, and get this specific project done.

But if that cannot be done by regulation, by rule, I honor that. I'm OK to pass this budget, but I think I wanted to put this if possible to add this on but if this cannot be done then I understand that Mr. Chair through you but that was my whole purpose of doing it so that we we have a safer system and that's all we are all about so Please keep that in mind. And I would like to see that all of us think that how we can come up with a proposal, with a solution, or with a kind of policy that we can Feed our manager what we are thinking that should be done in the budget for the appropriation. I mean, I know I meet with you one-on-one basis. But that's not official. Nobody's going to take notes of what our conversation is. But if I put some kind of motion, that's official. and that's why I'm trying to see that.

Let's all think what we can do to give our manager some suggestions from our side before he brings his appropriate budget to us to kind of look at it and not be able to do any changes literally. That's what, as I see it. But that's what my request was.

Thank you.

I just want to provide a context as an example. Main Street here from courthouse to courthouse was done back in 2018, I believe, 2017 or so. That project in its entirety was roughly $11 million from courthouse to courthouse. It was about $11 million, give or take. That project took, if not three, four years from the beginning to the end. and that's just this quarter. So when we look at main arterioles, there's a lot that goes into it, whether it's catch basins, Water, Sewer, Crosswalks, Lighting, Signalization of the Traffic Lights. I mean, in here we had volts, electric volts, all the way down Main Street. So these are things that, again, they impact an $11 million project just from courthouse to courthouse. Now you take that and you extrapolate that,

to Park Ave, Highland Street, Salisbury Street. You're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars to cover the entire corridor on an annual basis, one is just the impact and the chaos that we're creating in the community will be significant, but also too budgetarily, it's impossible for us to be able to achieve that. and so we have to look at projects in phases and then work on finding ways that we can leverage other resources. On a project like this, it's sometimes leveraging federal and state resources because the city alone 11 million dollars on an annual basis that's more than half of what's allocated for street resurfacing in our community so then the entire budget would be only Main Street. And so that's where we sometimes, if we're gonna do projects like that, we utilize all the resources to augment and offset the cost because they're massive projects that require significant amount of work and significant amount of lead time to be able to get done, design, et cetera, and then also complete.

So that's just an example of why these strategies, like the commissioner had mentioned earlier, they're segmented in a ways to do because There is oftentimes that we're able to do the entire quarter, but then we have to then seek other funding outside of our current budget to be able to support that because it could lead to $8 million. It could lead to $20 million projects. that require significant amount of funding to be able to achieve.

Okay, Mr. Chair, if I could, I agree with you, what you're saying, but there are many states which has been completely done. Not all the streets we are doing in pieces and pieces. There are many streets which have been done completely. And I understand the expense it takes. And that doesn't mean that that's the reason that we should not move forward to try to do that. My goal was to see that something gets done completely. So I hope you understand.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, anybody else? Okay, seeing nobody else.

Mr. Chairman.

Councilor King.

Thank you. Just a couple of questions I have for the manager. I'll preface my comments. by asking for a response from the administration as it relates to what if any adjustments have been made to his priorities and to you know his strategy as it relates to service provision of the city in response to city council feedback during the budgetary hearings. To the Chair.

Mr. Manager.

To the Chair, to the Council, are you referring to just in general or just specific to this, to discussions we've had over the past few weeks?

The discussion over the past few weeks.

Yeah, I think there's been a lot of questions and concerns related to multiple areas. I know that we had some discussions related to the tree inspection process. We've had some discussions related to potholes and how we fix potholes and address potholes. We've had discussions related to even the actual purchasing or the purchasing or and the city's supplier efficiencies. There's been a number of requests. I don't have them contextualized in front of me right now. But what we often do with these information is we go back as a department and we look at ways in which we can continuously improve our efficiency to deliver services. and so we have conversations with cabinet members. We take that. The budget office, budget director takes notes of every motion, every ask, every question that's asked in the meeting. She is

you know, rapidly typing and taking notes. We take that into consideration. We review that as an administration. We work with each cabinet member to understand what are the things that the council have requested. If there are major significant changes to process, We then identify what those processes are. We try to come back with the council with a report to communicate what are those areas that we're going to try to improve. If it requires policy, if it requires an ordinance or anything of that nature, That's typically the process in which we take that information and we go back to evaluate and review what are the things that we need to improve and what are the things that we need to enhance as an administration.

Thank you. Councilor?

Thank you. I understand the process that relates to departments, but specifically with respect to the questions posed, the concerns that were brought forward, have you made any adjustments? And if so, what were they? to your budget priorities or as relates to any strategy to respond to those budgetarily this fiscal year.

Mr. Manager?

Yeah, to the Chair, to the Council. All the suggestions and questions and things that come up during the Council, during the Finance Committee, we take those into consideration for next fiscal year's budget. It is extremely difficult at the point when the city manager presents the budget to the city council to then go back to make adjustments to the actual budget. because every dollar is connected to something and it could impact what those dollars are. And so unless there is a directive or there is a vote or a motion in which the entire council body as a whole is seeking, then that's something that we would immediately have to take into consideration for potential adjustments.

But outside of that, all of the individual requests that come from city councilors pertaining to additions or suggestions, etc., oftentimes and more specifically, that is taken into consideration. through the rest of the fiscal year of 27, hopefully for the FY28 or things that we could probably implement during this actual fiscal year, but not for the purposes of changing the actual budget that was submitted to the council. The expectation is that a lot of the conversations that I have with the counselors, the conversations that we have in this floor, the feedback that I get from the department heads, or the feedback that we get from collective as a city from residents, we utilize that information to build the budget. So by the time the budget is built and presented to the council, In some ways, that's kind of locked in other than the council then choosing to vote to remove something from the budget.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, if you could, to the city administration, could you characterize the budget process as relates to before the council receives the full budget? And the reason I'm asking that question is this. My experience is we get a brief overview of the budget, pie charts, et cetera. and then we finally get the full budget. But we don't get that full presentation that occurs on the floor. We have our individual meetings throughout the year, as mentioned. The manager is responding to constituents, responding to his department heads, responding to the council, etc. But we first see this budget when it's published and produced to us. and what I'm hearing is what I'm understanding you to say is that once that budget comes out

there's minimal to no adjustments that will be made based on feedback during budget hearings a is that accurate and second if you could just explain for the public what the I'm going to call it pre-budgeting briefings look like through the chair.

Mr.

Manager.

Through the chair to the council, as we receive the governor's budget and we start to see what the potential state aid allocation that the sheriff is looking like, We put together and we finalized the overarching revenues and expenditures for the city. And we then briefed the council and we try to brief the council to provide The overarching 30,000-foot view, what are we looking like for revenues and expenditures related to the budget? What are some potential areas that we're going to see some increases, whether this is health insurance, debt service, et cetera? and what are the potential projects that we're gonna really hone in based on council feedback, community feedback, or things that have been planned for many, many years, like, for example, a new high school, a new school, or a fire station, et cetera.

We try to brief the council to provide them a context, an overview of what the overall budget is and what it's expected in terms of some specifics related to the budget where there's adjustments to COLA and the constraints that we're seeing in the budget, the areas that we have to work with, how much money of allocation do I have to work with, to add to additional departments for additional programs or initiatives, et cetera. That all happens relatively between February to the end of April and that gives us the opportunity then to finalize the budget and when we submit the budget at the beginning of May This level of detail in this book that gets presented to the council, it's when it's presented, that's when the first time the council and the public gets to see the level of detail to the actual budget. But what we tried to do is try to give the council an overview of what to expect.

Oftentimes, those are sometimes councilors said, hey, you know, this is something that I had asked. A month ago or a year ago or whenever, and is there something that you can put into consideration there? We look at the budget. We talk to the department heads. We take in consideration what the votes were in the council floor and whether there was unanimous votes or not, or there was strong support or not to be able to move those projects forward. And then that's how we put these budgets together and we move that forward. But majority of the operating budget, and I don't want to misquote the percentage, but a very significantly high percentage of the budget, it's status quo. It's really looking at salaries, salary increase, step increase, COLAs. It's really to address that.

Fixed costs, whether it's health insurance, whether it's debt service, et cetera, majority of the budget, significant portion of this budget, it's really to address the kind of status quo of those areas. and so there's very little room in terms sometimes what we have to actually add to the budget and that's all contingent on the actual expected revenues that we were receiving. And as you all know, once it goes to the House, then it goes to the Senate, we come back to the Council sometime in October or November with a recap. that finalizes those numbers because the governor's budget doesn't get accepted and finalized probably till July or the end of June once this is already approved. And so then if we come back with that recap, which oftentimes in just last year we actually received less in local aid.

So then that impact are actually our actual numbers in terms of what free cash look like for the city. So those are things that We try to so there's kind of two process two prong process to the budget one is now and then one it comes back in sometime in October November where we kind of recap the the previous fiscal year's numbers.

Thank you for that detailed explanation. much appreciated. I do have questions that I raised during the budget process related to some of the capital expenses. I have significant concerns about A lack of facility maintenance on a sort of regular consistent basis. from the city to its buildings and the oversight of public school buildings. And, you know, we have a deteriorated police station. And I've raised question as relates to the loan orders that are being sought.

It was indicated that the full loan order was not used fully this past year. And if the manager could just speak to those numbers. as it relates to the initial loan that was taken out for repairs over at the police department facility and what the new order will be.

Mr. Manager?

Through the chair to the council, the police department's headquarters has been a topic of conversation in the administration for quite some time. because we have seen the significance of this repair and outstanding maintenance, deferred maintenance in that building. One of the things that we started to do is to try to address the major components of that building. For many years we've had issues with the chiller and we've had issues with the electrical system and also the plumbing system. and so last year's FY26 budget, we proposed a little over $3 million authorization and Borrowing to allow us to begin that process of actually improving those major systems. And so that starts a design process. Then there's a bidding process. There's a contracted.

And it requires for us to authorize that full amount to be able to contract that job to that contractor. However, that contractor or depending the amount of the work may actually happen within two fiscal years, not within one fiscal year. it may happen within two fiscal year depending on the level of work that has to be done. And so we've expended over a million dollars, probably about a million and a half already In the police departments in terms of some of the upgrades that needs to be there. The rest of the work is going to be happening in FY27 to complete that initial authorization of over $3 million. What we're proposing in this budget is a new authorization of $5 million because we need to start the process of design

and so the $5 million we have to authorize it because we have to bid it out and contract the vendor which will begin the design phase and perhaps even the construction phase. It may be that the construction doesn't happen in FY27 and the construction start happens in FY28. But the authorization has to be in place for us to be able to bid the work out and contract it out. And so we need to start that work for the roof. because in the roof there's major components, a lot of leakage, but we also need to address that roof that I think quite frankly hasn't been touched probably since we built that place. and so that's why that's the cadence of those dollars and we have to then work that cadence. What I'm asking in FY27, it's a $5 million authorization, not a $5 million spending.

and it's because we need to be able to start contracting or start putting that work in place so that we can be able to bid it out, get it contracted with the hopes of starting to work in FY28 which will then At that time, we'll come forward with an actual borrowing for that roof. Right now, what we're focused on is the major components of electrical, plumbing, and the HVAC system in the building that need significant upgrades as of right now.

Thank you. And through Chair Teague's administration, my concern is borrowing capacity. Also, my concern is on the bond ratings of the city as I know the manager and many of my colleagues are. And so we had talked previously during the budget this year and last year around the amount of monies that we've taken out, bonds that have been attained by the city and the money that doesn't get spent. And my question to the administration is, I've asked previously, what is the what is the Sorry. What is the dollar amount that we're looking at for unused bonds?

Monies that have been sitting there. I know in some instances, 20 years, et cetera. And then subsequent to that, Is it accurate that if we resolve that it increases borrowing capacity potentially to its share?

Your second five minutes, Mr. Manager.

Yeah, to the Chair, to the Council. There's two things here, and I can have the CFO further explain a little bit further, but there's two things here. One is the authorization capacity and the borrowing capacity. on an annual basis, the CFO and I do an analysis of what it is, what amount can we borrow every year to not impact the debt service significantly that puts us in a deficit in our operating budget. So that borrowing, we manage that and we evaluate that year over year. The authorization that we have, that authorization, it's over a billion dollars right now in authorization that we're authorized to borrow. but we have no ability to be able to do that because our budget wouldn't be able to sustain that on a year over year.

And so there might be the authorization there for projects that are moving, that have been, that are were anticipated or that are being anticipated. But the borrowing is what we manage and control on a year over year. to ensure that we're not overextending ourselves within the budget. But I could have the CFO explain a little bit further on that.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to reclaim my time for a second. Again, I'm looking for numbers. I've asked this question a number of times over the last couple of years in this budget hearing process. I would like to know the differential between the borrowing capacity and authorization currently. And if that is resolved, I know some of those authorizations are 20 years old. and if that's resolved, could it potentially increase our ability to have further authorizations and increase borrowing capacity through the chair? Mr. McCarthy?

Through the chair. So as the city manager explained, we have loan authorization and we have borrowing. We have about a billion We have about a billion dollars of borrowed funds right now, or borrowed obligations, debt liability, and we have about a billion dollars of unused authorization. We have not borrowed those funds, we have not utilized that authorization, but it sits. To the Councillor's question, if you look at the FY27 budget, we're doing what we've been talking about of trying to find older unused authorizations to offset new borrowing. You'll see in the FY27 budget, we are looking to borrow $159 million but we're only asking for authorization for 43 million. That's because the majority of the borrowing will be carried by older authorizations that were out there. We do borrow on an ongoing basis.

We borrow twice a year. We pay down debt every 15 days, usually on the first and the 15th of the month. So this is a moving number at all times. But with this budget and at various points we brought to city council, we look to take that unused authorization and apply it so it no longer sits as a liability on the city. It's not a major are all in the same condition in the sense that we're not using it. That's a good thing. However, we want to reduce that, reduce our credit limit, so to speak. This budget actually does that by offsetting the borrowing with older authorizations approved by the City Council in past years.

Thank you. Before the manager goes, I appreciate that. I know it was my order in the past. and so I want to thank you for acting on it and I'll listen to what the manager has to say.

I think he's also, I'm mistaken.

So, you know, I would like to get those numbers. I've already filed an order for that, so I'm not going to do that again. You know, and it goes towards what my colleague, Councilor Mitri, was getting at, which is, is there additional powering Authorization that can be realized based on some of these things. And again, I have some questions about and some of the things that we're doing. However, as the manager indicated, you know, The one billion or so that we're looking at is money that makes sense for our budget. It covers some of the fixed costs. But there is, I think, some movement that could happen, and it does happen during the year.

Through the chair of the administration, as it relates to the city council's authority, I'm gonna ask the clerk if he could pull up, I asked him to pull up previously, I think there was an order last year from Councilor Russell or another Councilor pertaining to expanding the authority of the Council to move money during budget time. I know, and also through the chair, you know, perhaps to the solicitor, I think that the school committee has the ability to do that. I think the Boston City Council has the ability to do that, but to the Chair, does the City School Committee have the ability to move money around within the budget? And also, again, to the Clerk, what was that order that was filed previously and requested by the Council?

Can you find the order?

Three chairs, so I have to work on finding the order, but I don't know if the solicitor want to jump in in the meantime while I find the order?

Madam Solicitor

Through the Chair. So the City Council's authority on the budget is to reduce or reject any amounts proposed by the City Manager. you can't transfer money from one account to the other account the way that you could do that under the constraints of the mass general laws in the charter is reducing a number of line items such as salaries for a certain department but the Councilor King't then dictate where those funds would go if they would go anywhere.

In order to do that, there would need to be a change in the language in the charter, right? An amendment. Correct.

Through the chair, that's correct. To transfer funds, you would have to do that.

Okay. And just to the clerk, if he's been able to find that item that was looking to do that, I think we voted on that last year.

through the chair to the council. I haven't been able to locate the items, so I might need to do some further research, but as the solicitor stated, the city of Boston actually has a special act that they passed in order to deal with their new process when it comes to the budgetary processes?

Yeah, Mr. Chairman, I would like a report back on that process. I'm not going to belabor this. I would like to see some increased abilities. When I look at the situation with the corresponding of mental health workers with police and in meeting with those folks over the time that they were doing some piloting, you know I think there was somewhere around 600,000 or so that could have been helpful um you know and and looking at um you know the monies that have been appropriated in different ways in the city perhaps we could be looking at increase increasing staffing We just heard from DPW 66% increasing in that budget. I don't know that there's a significant staffing increase, but the ability for the to engage a little bit more, have some more influence on this process is necessary and appropriate, Mr. Chairman.

So my motion would be that we get some information on the Boston Special Act. get a motion to the Clerk to get the language that was previously voted upon pertaining to doing exactly that. And in my motion, that the City Council will thoroughly resolve, the City Council will thoroughly review increasing budgetary influence during this process. I would like to see some things have done differently have been expressed throughout this process but what we're hearing is that basically when we receive and so on. And historically, what's happened, Mr. Chairman, in closing, Historically, what this budget period is used for is exactly that, setting an agenda and sending a message. People are like,

certain councils making motions during this process is because historically as the manager stated previously that's taken into consideration moving forward along with you know evaluations of the city manager and along with you know looking at you know what's going to be happening in the next fiscal year but I would like to see appropriations focused a bit more on safety, traffic, and potholes and the like, but of course, our response to some of the Unsheltered, the Unhoused, and the lack of affordability into youth programming that we haven't seen. So, Mr. Chairman, I would like those motions, and I will certainly end now. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. So we've got two motions. One is look at the authorization motion that was passed last year, and also for a special act that Boston has to get a report on that. Roll call.

Mr. Chairman, there was a resolution that the Worcester City Council supports expanding the ability during the budgetary process towards line items and moving things in the budget.

Thank you. We'll get a report on that too. Roll call. Councilor Bergman?

Mr. Chairman, can you separate the two?

Okay, so with the first two was a special authorization similar to what Boston has and also the file you are from the other. regarding the authorization that was filed last year. Then the third one was to get a report back on supporting and to give the authority to the council to move appropriate money.

So if I may, Mr. Chairman, the third one, I'd like to separate it out because without knowing one and two, I can't support a resolution for three until I know the ramifications of one and two. So that's why I'm asking you to separate it out for me. I don't know if anyone else cares.

Chairman, Mr. Chairman, I'm open to amending that to add the word explore.

and then just, thank you, just take it together.

Okay, we're gonna amend that to explore. Okay, so we'll do the first two together, roll call. Councilor Bregman? We'll do them all. I'll do all together, so all three together as amended, roll call.

Councilor Bregman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta?

Abstain.

Economou? Yes. Councilor Fresolo?

Yes.

Councilor King?

Yes.

Councilor Mitra?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Ojeda. Yes. Councilor Rivera. Yes. Councilor Rosen.

Yes.

Councilor Toomey. Yes. And Mayor Petty.

Yes. Okay, so Council. Bergman, do you have any questions on the budget?

I did, Mr. Chairman, thank you. Very briefly of the Inspector, of the Commission of Code. Very briefly, if he's there.

Which Commissioner?

of Special Services. Thank you.

Can I ask you a question?

Go ahead. We're not in finance. I should stand, correct?

Yeah.

through the chair to the commissioner. At least I'm making it worthwhile for you to be here because you're actually going to get a few questions. I'm not sure who else is there. I'm going to make it very brief. Last time we had a Little question and answer opportunity during the budget I neglected to ask and that's why I'd like to do it today. Do you have a sense of whether or not the number of permits for building applications has gone up or down over the last year?

Commissioner. Through the chair to the council. When we were at the meeting, we had looked at what the budgets were looking at and we have seen a slight decrease in the number of permits that we're receiving. When we look at that though, It's the type of permits that we're seeing now. There's been an overall slight drop. We have had more Repair and addition and minor permits come in for roofing, siding, and maybe bathroom repairs or kitchen. What we've seen a significant drop on though is new construction coming in.

and through the Chair. The reason why I ask that is I hear from constituents and many of my colleagues do and I'm perhaps more sensitive to it given my involvement with the Economic Development Subcommittee of some challenges in the length of time it takes for a permit to be issued. So could you, through the chair, comment on whether or not there's a, like, and so forth. Is there a designated time frame that you hope to get a permit approved or could it take as little as a couple of days and as long as a couple of months?

What's the parameters? Through the Chair to the Council, the base parameter that we have is that if we have the information that shows that a code-compliant design is achievable, We have 30 days to review and approve underneath the building code. We strive to have it quicker than that for projects such as re-roofing windows, siding. We try and get those done. in as little as a few days for the larger projects such as high rises, multi-unit buildings. Those may take a little bit longer going through the process. We have just revamped our building permit review process about a month ago. What that has done is we've and so on. We had a lot of different departments that changed the way and who was seeing the reviews on a lot of these permits.

So before there were different departments that necessarily didn't need to be on certain reviews. Fire and Planning on reviews for changing roof shingles. So we took those off to make those quicker. We've also changed where different departments get the reviews at. So on one item like restaurants, DPW wasn't getting in on the reviews until after the designs were approved and that is not the appropriate spot because they deal with Oil, and Grease from the fog separators. So we've moved DPW to the beginning of the review process so that they are not coming in at the end and then asking people to incur more costs and delay on time. we've made changes and we're hoping to see the fruition of that over the next several months.

Okay, just one or two final questions for the Chair. For the need of approving the permit, building permit, somebody have to physically make an inspection of the property? Or is this something they could do either in the office or remotely from home looking at their computer and making sure all the boxes are checked?

Through the chair to the council, I would say about 90% of the permits that we receive can be reviewed through the information provided on the application. There are some cases where we may need to go out onto the site to understand what we're seeing on the plan and make sure that the conditions are reflected accurately, but 90% of the reviews can be done through the application. Okay, thank you, that's all I have, thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Councilor Rivera.

All my questions were answered. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Anybody else? See nobody else? Council Rosen?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had said this at the beginning of our budget hearings several weeks ago that we all know that A million dollars is a big amount. And our billion dollar budget is 1,000 of those million dollars, which is certainly a lot of money. But I think it's justified. If we look at all of us, all 11 of us get lots of emails and calls and texts from constituents. and I would say, I don't know, 90% of them perhaps, for services, whatever they want, it's services here in the city of Worcester. So a billion dollar budget reflects you know those concerns of our constituents. If you want services and most residents of Worcester do and business owners too and even our colleges and universities that don't pay for the services, they want services too.

but we respond to that need and that's one reason eventually you reach a $1 billion budget, 1,000 of these millions of dollars, $1 million. So services are important. People want them. That's why our budget is so large. And I wonder if we can get Mr. McGorthy up for one second through the chair, because he's answered this question just one final time, though, and he does a good job are doing this. And you can do this briefly, too. And that's it. And the manager talked about it recently, and we've talked about it week after week on the budget. But could you quickly explain to the public Why we cut so little from this thousand, one million, one billion dollar budget? Why we cut so little? Because I just, people I talk to don't realize that. Why don't you cut? $50 million off.

It's a billion dollar budget. And I know you've done it before and you say it so well. Why is it that our hands basically are tied? I mean, we have to pay salaries and so on. So could you outline that briefly? through the chair.

Mr. McCarthy.

Sure, through the chair. Of that billion dollars, about 80% of it are fixed costs. That we can't touch. That we can't touch. about 60% of it is related to education. It goes directly to the Worcester public schools or the charter schools. About 20% of it relates to things like debt service. We're talking about borrowing. Debt Service Obligations, Pension Obligations, Health Care Obligations, Health Insurance, and that leaves about 20% for all other services, the services you mentioned. That's just $200 million. which is about $200 million for all existing services, recognizing too there is that year-over-year growth of obligation as it relates to step increases, the COLA, cost of living adjustments we make. So a significant portion of the budget, the vast majority of the budget is untouchable. When we began the process of looking at the FY27 budget,

We offered the city manager about $2 million to do all the discretionary things that he hears as talked about tonight from the city council, from the public, from departments. So the budget is really just this Annual growth of prior years with very strong limitations on how it can be changed year over year.

I'll throw the chair to Mr. McGothy, but you are not suggesting that the council had the ability to cut $200 million.

Through the chair, we would shut down every city operation except for schools and debt service and pensions.

So any turns through the chair to Mr. McCarthy, can you give us a ballpark figure of what the maximum amount might have been if the council were to cut the budget?

Chair, if we were going to look at cuts, the only thing I could say is that $2 million of new things we were looking to do this year would be gone. meaning it would be absolute status quo from FY26 to FY27 on everything we do.

So we'd be cutting services, am I correct?

I just want to add a little caveat. The $2 million that you could potentially cut would impact the budget because we could, again, you could cut it. We can choose not to allocate it to the departments. But then when we come back to the recap, when the governor and the state and the Senate finalize their budgets, there could be additional cuts coming. and so then now we're in a deficit in our budget and so that also takes into consideration because again that's why I talked about this like a two-part process for the budget process one is now and then two is the recap and and that is subject to what happens through the final stages of the governor's budget.

Okay, through the chair. I think our budget of $1 billion is still more than Springfield. and more than Providence. Any reasons for that? Because they're about similar in size to Worcester.

Through the Chair, I have not done the comparisons to those two areas. I haven't looked from budget to budget. They are very differently constructed. Springfield actually receives a significant amount of its revenues directly from the state. far more subsidized than the City of Worcester as it relates to education. Providence, I understand, doesn't provide the same services that we do. from our new Commissioner of Health and Human Services. My understanding is the state manages most of the health and human services throughout Rhode Island, not just citywide or municipally for Providence. So it's really, in some ways, comparing apples and oranges, because every community builds and structures its government differently, and they rely on different funding sources to carry out those responsibilities.

And through the Chair to Mr. McCarthy, Providence does a better job with getting their colleges and universities to make pilot payments too. So that's helpful. Would you agree with that through the chair?

Through the chair, I would say that they too have about four or five colleges that participate. in a pilot program. Theirs was released to a big announcement. They all collectively agreed to a single pilot structure. Brown University, which obviously has much vaster resources than any of the organizations or institutions both in Providence and here, agreed to more. I think when you look on an institution by institution basis, we're generally in that same area for the institutions in Worcester that are contributing. It's not structured the same way with the exception of Brown. Brown is much larger than anything in Worcester could provide. Hyde.

Through the chair to Mr. McCarthy, I think that Providence is getting the maximum possible from Brown University. We can't match that. We don't have a Brown University. But I still don't think we are getting the maximum possible from our smaller colleges and universities. That would be my opinion. And I think we have an item on. A couple of supporters on the council too. Co-sponsoring that tonight when we get to the orders, so I'll bring it up. And Mr. Manager, you've mentioned, and it's been mentioned several times, that this budget you didn't propose to us in a vacuum. there's been so many things that have gone into forming this billion dollar budget, the thousand times a million, so people again have to realize that. The previous city council, this city council, we make recommendations during the year, and the manager listens and the manager hears from the public too, listens to them. So there's a lot that goes into forming a budget and it's not done in a vacuum.

One question I asked to three departments during the budget hearings, Mr. Chairman, is something that I could tell not any of the three, I didn't ask at all, but not any of the three I asked it to were prepared to answer, and that was the future use of artificial intelligence Here in the City of Worcester. So I hope that maybe when I ask that question at next year's budget next spring, they'll be better prepared to answer that because in many cases that that's the future in cities and towns an important future are there dangers to it yes there's dangers to it too but that doesn't mean we should ignore it ignore it and I just know the department heads weren't ready to respond to that question so hopefully next year. But Mr. Chairman and City Manager, my colleagues, it's a good budget. It satisfies the needs of our constituents for services. They all want that. And that's what we're giving them. So I commend the administration.

Good job on this budget, and I'm proud to be able to vote for the fiscal year 2027 budget. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you. Okay, that brings us to the items. Before we do this, I want to thank Mr. McGurthy and Erin Taylor for putting this budget together and your team. Much appreciated. It was a good budget, as Council Rosen said. and the process is good discussion. I know sometimes we get off track, but as far as we go on the discussion, but I think it's good for people to understand how all the departments work, which is in the public and also for the new counselors. And there's not much, Once you've been here a while, the budget's pretty similar every year. I know sometimes we change priorities, but the numbers are pretty similar, and it's not much of a change. But except for like this year, DPW's getting a little bit more this year, because of what the council has said over the last year and it's just one example but there's I'm sorry, you're part of the budget process. That's right, you're the right-hand man in the office now on the, so good job on that too.

So, 8% fixed costs, school's the majority of the budget. and you get debt service, there's not much to play with and you cut $2 million of the budget, as Mr. McGirthy said, you shut down government, right? So anyways, so we get the first one up is number 15A, upon the communication city manager recommending approval of the fiscal year 2027 operating budget, recommend adoption of the company order. We're going to take that with 15B. Upon the communication of the city manager, I recommend the approval of the fiscal year capital budget. Take those collectively. Roll call.

Bergman, Bilotta, Economou, Fresolo, King, Mitra, Ojeda, Rivera, Rosen, Toomey, and Mayor Petty.

Yes, 15C is the communication of the manager of the adoption of a loan order amount of $43,468,416 and no cents for the appropriation. related to the project, roll call.

Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta? Yes. Councilor Economou? Yes. Councilor Rosolo? Yes. Councilor King? Is this the capital budget? What is this? It's the loan order.

Yes, the authorization for the capital budget, correct?

Yes. Councilor Mitra? Yes. Councilor Ojeda? Yes. Rivera? Yes. Councilor Rosen? Yes. Councilor Toomey? Yes.

Mayor Petty? Yes. 15D to 15N is asking for reports. Roll call.

Bergman, yes, Councilor Bilotta, yes, Councilor Economou, yes, Councilor Zolo, yes, Councilor King,

Yes.

Councilor Mitra. Yes. Councilor Ojeda.

Yes.

Councilor Rivera. Yes. Councilor Rosen. Yes. Councilor Toomey. Yes. And Mayor Petty.

Yes. 15 O and P, it's a recommendation of adoption of the amendments to the salary ordinance to ensure the alignment with the changes adopted in the fiscal 27 budget. and P is communications team manager recommended adoption of amendment to bring the salary allowance in full alignment in the model wage package adopted by the fiscal year 2027 budget. Collectively in the roll call. Roll call.

Brueggemann, Bilotta, Economou, Fresolo, King, Mitra, Ojeda, Rivera, Rosen, Toomey, Petty.

Yes. 15Q is the City Manager, in terms of information and communication relevant to the answers to the questions raised during the fiscal year 2017. Budget Hearings, and 15R is the Communications City Clerk, Transmitting Information and Communication Related to the Historical Efforts to Honor the Life and Legacy of Aries Ann Ward. So we'll take those collectively to file a roll call.

Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta?

Councilor King?

Yes, the order from the city manager, the responses. Is there an appropriate committee that I could go to? I wanted to speak on it, but you went too fast.

Okay, we can send that to M.O. Thank you. Okay, so motion to send Q to M.O. and R is to file a roll call.

Bergman, Bilotta, Economou, Fresolo, King, Mitra, Ojeda, Rivera, Rosen, Toomey, and Mayor Petty.

Yes. And 15S is request to manage request to the Commissioner of Transportation and Mobility to provide the Council with a report outlining the timeline for one Safe Street intervention. will be implemented on Lake Avenue and Beaumont Street. Said timeline should include anticipated actions from 2026 to 2028. Roll call.

Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta?

Sir, what's the motion to file?

Excuse me?

To file? Adopt.

No, it was to adopt.

Oh, I'm sorry, yes.

Councilor Economou? Yes. Councilor Rosolo? Yes. Councilor King?

Yes.

That's Mitra. Yes. That's Ojeda. Yes. That's Rivera. Yes. That's Rosen. Yes. That's Toomey. Yes. And Mayor Petty.

Yes. Okay. Brings us back to the orders. We got everything right? Okay, we are on tent A. Request to the Commissioner of Public Works work with the appropriate utility company to ensure that the sidewalk in front of the three ashton trees is properly repaved, that the portion of the sidewalk wasn't resurfaced. After utility work, despite other portions of the sidewalk being restored. Councilor Bilotta.

As it reads.

Okay, roll call.

Mr. Bergman? Yes. Mr. Bilotta? Yes. Mr. Economou? Yes. Mr. Fresolo? Yes. Mr. King? Yes. Mr. Mitra? Yes. Mr. Ojeda? Yes. Yes. Mr. Rivera? Yes. Mr. Rosen? Yes. Mr. Toomey? Yes.

And Mayor Petty? Yes. Request the Commissioner of Parks and Rec Cemetery inspect the trees at Lake Park and East Park They are in the vicinity of the recreational area including playgrounds, pathways, benches, and other open spaces that are used by visitors to ensure safety around certain areas. Councilor Bilotta.

Thank you. Yeah, just wanted to submit this because obviously it's the summertime. A lot of people are at East Park. A lot of people are at Lake Park. I know Lake Park has had a history with that. that's an abandoned road that's kind of behind the basketball court that there's been a lot of trees falling there's some old trees in both parks so wanted to just request that we do some inspections to make sure there aren't trees that are in imminent you know danger of falling down thank you

Thank you. Roll call.

Councilor Bregman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta? Yes. Councilor Economou? Yes. Councilor Zolo? Yes. Councilor King? Yes. Councilor Mitra? Yes. Councilor Ojeda? Rosolo, I'm sorry, Councilor Rivera, Councilor Rosen, Councilor Toomey, and Mayor Petty.

in effort to help the city build a better system so future invasive plant and insect management work is guided by clear standards, professional best practices, and follow-up responsibility requests of management by council with a written update concerning the Um... the tree of heaven management practices being undertaken to the city parkland including whether any trees were cut without treatment and whether follow-up treatment and monitoring is planned who is responsible for implementation and how the city will prevent responding root suckering and plant spreading into adjacent stormwater trail park and watershed corridors. Councilor Bilotta.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to thank Joe Johnson for helping me craft this order. I had a conversation with Commissioner Parks. I know the plan's ongoing, I think, to develop an invasive plant. Toomey's brought it up as well. So hoping this could be folded into that to just make sure we're kind of focusing on one of the main, one of the biggest, I think, invasives besides knotweed is the tree of heaven, which is that I don't know they just pop up in parking lots everywhere so it was interesting to learn how easy it is for them to spread so just kind of learning if we could develop some you know best practices and again roll that into what the plan that's ongoing so that's all this was thank you

Thank you.

Roll call. Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta? Yes. Councilor Economou? Yes. Councilor Zolo? Yes. Councilor King? Yes. Councilor Mitra. Yes. Councilor Ojeda. Yes. Councilor Rivera. Yes. Councilor Rosen. Yes. Councilor Toomey. Yes. Mayor Petty.

Yes. I request that the manager request that he solicit by the council the report clarifying the roles of the mayor, the vice chair, the city councilors, Committee Chair, City Manager as defined under the city charter, including what position is allowed, expected, and disallowed to move forward to assist the body and the public in the understanding of the responsibilities of each position, Councilor Toomey.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's been mentioned before, there's people, different people, different organizations have different ideas of what all of the aforementioned is supposed to do. I think over the years there's been misinterpretation. and I think it's time very timely right now to make sure that we have an updated lexicon really of all of the above so I ask that my colleagues support that and moving forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Mr. Chairman. Who's that?

Councilor Rosen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I found this as a pretty unique order and the positions listed that we're asking the city solicitor to define for us the mayor, the vice chair, city councilors, committee chairs who are city councilors, and the city manager. as defined in the city charter. And that's correct. I think all these positions are defined in the city charter. And I've been a strong proponent after, I guess, 40 years. It's time. to review the city charter. So for those who are interested, I believe that's coming back in front of maybe for the second time of the MLO committee. I believe it's in August and we'll be discussing you know, reviewing the charter of Worcester and it's a whole process that we don't have to go through tonight but maybe that's what we need. But I can't support this.

this order because the definitions of those positions are already in the city charter and I don't think that the City Solicitor is going to give us any different definitions of our jobs other than what is given and listed in the present city charter. So I just can't support this. I just don't think it's necessary. And if I was going to ask someone anyone, what my job is, I'd sit down and I'd read the charter, I would not turn to our very capable, not knocking her, very capable city solicitor, but that's not the person I would turn to to ask what I should do as a city councilor.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Okay, we can have a roll call on this.

Councilor Bergman.

Mr. Chairman.

Councilor Bergman followed by Councilor King.

I mean, I could go either way on this. I mean, I want to support my colleague, but at the same time, Councilor Toomey, through proposing this, but at the same time, I guess through the chair of the clerk. Has it been a lot of people approaching your office with confusion about the roles of the counselors versus the mayor versus whatever else is asked in here? Has it been?

Through you, Chair, to the Council. So we had an orientation back in December for the new members. We offered the same orientation to the current members of the City Council. there is questions that arise in most cases and I do refer councils to the Charter as well as to some in some cases to our you know to the Master General Laws I don't know what the solicitor receives in terms of questions I do get ethics questions sometimes because city councils do file their ethics disclosures with my office so I guess it depends on the body

Depends on the what, I'm sorry?

On the body itself, if they're looking for the clarification of the solicitor.

And I just don't know what clarification's gonna be given beyond what the charter says, but. I really, either way, I'll probably support it, but I don't know.

Councilor King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question. similar take on this as my two colleagues have. mentioned. I'm in alignment with that as it relates to questioning what the solicitor will be providing us outside of clarifying outside of what's already in the charter. We've had a number of times on the council floor where not the current but the past solicitor has attempted on the floor to limit the role and the authority of the council. And, you know, that's documented. That being said, Mr. Chairman, I'm not at all alluding to any potential replication from the current solicitor.

However, in the language here, when it talks about clarifying roles, disallowing, What position is expected to do? What position is allowed to do, disallowed to do? et cetera. It raises some significant questions for me, the wording of this, Mr. Chairman. I certainly won't vote to support this. I would make a motion to file. That's my motion. I certainly think that the charter is something that perhaps You know, if folks want to revisit that sounds like that's coming up in MLO. I support revising our charter. I support a strong mayor as

you know a way to go for a city of this of this size and for more direct accountability from voters in the voting booths when things aren't going the way that they feel it should go. or if they feel there's less of return on their tax dollar to the person who's making a lot of the decisions pertaining to city services, budgeting, etc. And, you know, I certainly respect the work the city manager does. He's appointed by the council as everyone knows. you know in this particular way the mayor is defined is certainly different than what you would have

I'm potentially in a strong mayor, so I certainly support that sort of charter change, but I'm concerned about the wording of this and my motion will be to file, Mr. Chairman.

Okay, so we have a motion to Councilor Mitra.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through you to Councilor Toomey, I believe that our colleague Councilor Toomey must have had some compelling reason to put this order. Maybe there is something that she has heard or reason that she wants to know a little bit more clarification. I'd just like to know, Councillor Toomey, if you would let us know What was that that really came to your mind to put this order, even though I'm sure you know that everything is defined in the charter, but I want to honor to see your thoughts that really put you in a position to get it more clear to address the residents because we are all serving the residents. We are all serving our constituents. So if you have some such things, let us know. I'll appreciate that.

Okay. Okay, anybody else? Councilor Rivera?

I just, The way I see it, I get everybody to see it differently. Obviously, we know through the charter what our job is, and the manager knows what his job is, and everybody knows what the job is. The way I look at it here is moving forward to assist the body and the public. and the understanding of the responsibilities of each position. And that's it. I don't see no harm in that in the public to get more clarification on what our jobs are. Obviously, we know what our jobs are, but I support the motion, petition.

Okay, so we have a motion. Councilor Toomey?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In response to my colleague, Councilor Mitra, a number of times people have been confused about what the roles of committees' chairs are. we've had in the past we've had city councils themselves there was one councillor who actually entered into a plow vehicle because he didn't like the way that the the streets were being plowed and asserted themselves themselves I should say into actually ordering a city employee to do something, which is not allowed. So there are differences. differences of opinions as to what you can and cannot do. And I think it's important also for the public. And I think that's the biggest thing is we're talking about a charter change. People have been talking about that.

And I think this is a good foundation to start that discussion. And so it's all just prep work. and again it's I know what my role is I know what I'm supposed to do but I think there's a lot general feeling out there from the public that they're confused we have a modified and so forth. And I think it's a very important form of government, modified planning form of government. We had discussions tonight about Boston and their role in the budget. form of government, very different from ours. So I think that's really what people are confused about. People don't truly understand what our role is in government. And so I think it's important to lay the foundation, not asking for any creative stuff, just basic facts is exactly what I'm asking for here. So thank you.

Mr. Chairman.

I would certainly be willing to withdraw my motion to file if in fact this order would be amended to do what I just heard is the intent of this, and that is to provide the language in the charter for review. However, it's my understanding that there's something before the municipal operation. So through the chair to the clerk, if you could just share what item There is perhaps that's pending or that's coming before municipal operations that will achieve some of this and before I withdraw.

Mr. Clerk. Through you, Chair, to the council, I don't recall at the moment what's before municipal operations. I know the charter was discussed. There's chairman's orders from, I think, municipal operations. from the last meeting that are going to the clerk for advertise the meeting in August regarding the charter. There was other chairman's orders regarding for the solicitor and I to come back. with, I think, an overview of the charter and some of the changes that are allowed by Mass General Law to be made to the charter via a special act or through a charter commission. So I think that's in the works coming through. Thank you. So that's what I think, I believe, Councilor Mitra, if he knows more about the pending list, or I can pull up the pending list

That's perfect. No, thank you so much. That's perfect, Mr. Chairman. I'll let him stand based on that, my motion to file. It sounds like this is already in process. We've had this discussion on the floor as relates to the charter specifically. There's ongoing education in the committee. It seems a bit of duplication and replication in this particular order. I understand the spirit of it, which is great. to ask for another report with what's already being worked on, discussed, and folks are holding public hearings specifically on is a bit much. So my motion will be to file, Mr. Chairman.

Council Bergman for a second time.

That's my second time, Mr. Chairman. I'll be brief. Sometimes it just amazes me how things get meshed together. I don't view this as a issue regarding the Charter. I view this as a request Take my colleague at a word that people have been concerned or confused at some of our roles. I don't see this as a mandate for charter review or charter reform or anything else like that. So the fact that we've got an item before us on MLO doesn't really impact, at least for me, my decision making on this item. I'm going to support it, but I'm just going to say this, that I really don't feel that the general public is confused about our roles. We had one person here tonight who I'm going to be honest, often the peers kind of confused at what we're doing. So I'm not going to say that that represents the general public.

I'm just going to say that most people are quick to blame us when we take a bad vote and quick to compliment us when we take a good vote so they know what we're doing. and they know, but if it's gonna clarify anything, even remotely, I don't see the harm in it. But I don't think it has anything to do with charter review. Thank you.

Okay, so first, Councilor Rosen.

I'll throw the chair to my colleagues and to the maker of the order. I think it has something to do with the charter because the charter does define pretty well, as the charter sees it, the roles of the city council, the council committee chairs, the City Manager, whoever else was mentioned, and the Mayor, the Vice Chair of the Council. So those roles are defined in the Charter and that's why people are suggesting that if we want to change those roles, then when we do look at, if and when we do look at charter review, then we can consider that. But I'm not tying it necessarily to charter review. We have a charter now. Our roles are defined. I'd be almost embarrassed to have to vote for this because all these years I think I've known what my job is as a city councilor and I think I've known what the job of the mayor is.

The vice chair is less important than the mayor, but committee chairs and I think it's going well. And I've been around a long time as Councilor Toomey and Councilor Bergman and others, the mayor have been, and I don't think, once that anyone has contacted me and said, what does the city council do? What does the mayor do? I've had some interns along the way. In fact, I just hosted two from Bancroft School during the month of May. May. And they asked me the question, so what do we all do? So I told them, they're not familiar with the system, and they're not familiar with the charter in the city of Worcester. And they learned a heck of a lot. It was a good experience for me, and some of my colleagues and department heads worked with them. certainly a great experience for these two students but I just cannot support this and I hope most of my colleagues don't support it. I just don't think it's necessary. To me, maybe no one else, but to me, it's kind of embarrassing for us to have to go to the city solicitor and say,

What is our role? What should we be doing? Then we have to consider, are we doing it? We're all doing it. All 11 of us have been doing this for the years we've been on the council. Maybe five new to the council, four. Economou and I have been on before. So four new ones. And they've been doing this for six months. And I've been doing this for years with different colleagues on this committee. So I can't support it and I just hope my colleagues don't support it. And if it is necessary in the future, to look at the roles, maybe changing the roles of these folks mentioned in the order, then we do that in our charter review. But I cannot and will not support this. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The way I take this, I think it's more for the public to look at what we're doing versus us, so there's no harm to this. Thank you. But anyways, the first motion is to file. So a yes vote would be to file, a no vote would be not to file, roll call.

Bergeman? No. Councilor Bilotta?

Yes.

Councilor Economou? No. Councilor Rossello?

No.

Councilor King? Yes. Councilor Mitra?

No.

Councilor Ojeda?

Yes.

Councilor Rivera? No. Councilor Rosen? Yes. Councilor Toomey?

No.

Mayor Petty? No. So motion to approve, roll call. Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta? No. Councilor Economou? Yes. Councilor Rosolo? Yes. Councilor King? No. No. Councilor Mitra.

Yes.

Councilor Ojeda.

No.

Councilor Rivera. Yes. Councilor Rosen. No. Councilor Toomey.

Yes.

And Mayor Petty. Yes.

Okay, we are on E. Requesting the manager work with the city's college universities to make an investment in the critical infrastructure projects by each making a significant voluntary payment and lower taxes. Rosen, used exclusively for public street maintenance including resurfacing and repairs, Councilor Rosen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I submitted this order with co-sponsors, Councils Fresolo and Economou, because for years we've talked about pilot payments in the city of Worcester. And even during the last six months, it's come up several times, came up during the budget. I know it came up tonight because you know during the budget discussions I did mention that to Mr. McGothy. And while we were discussing Pilate during one of the weekly meetings recently, some of us thought that What is there that's used by all the colleges and universities? What is there? And certainly the roads. The roads are used by their faculty, their staff, their student bodies. Every single college in Worcester, every university uses the roads. And I know now, because I've talked to them a couple times since.

But I know that the city manager is actively working with our colleges and universities to expand the level of their pilot contributions to the city of Worcester. And I support that 100%. and he probably has other things in mind. But if he comes and says, well, we might have another bookmobile, that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for that contribution that Brown University pays to Providence, not the same amount. but the same percentage, the same degree, the same support of their city of Providence that Brown shows, I want that to come from all our colleges and universities. so whatever the manager has planned, I know he's negotiating with them now, I hope he's successful, don't give up Mr. Manager, keep working at it, but something that they might wanna support is our streets, our repairs, our maintenance. We seem to talk about streets every single week. We talked about today, almost every single Tuesday, and rightfully so.

And we talked about it during the budget hearings, rightfully so. So if the colleges and universities care about the city, they ride on the same streets that we talked about tonight that Dr. Mitra was so concerned with. They and their students and their staff all use the same streets. Why don't they support that cause? I think they should. I think maybe they will. But I have faith in the city manager. I know he's negotiating with them. and I'll be interested as long as he doesn't bring another bookmobile forward. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Okay, we'll send that to the manager. To the manager. Councilor Mitra.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, through you to Councilor Rosen, Gary Rosen, and I. I agree that the colleges that we have in our city should be contributing to the community that they live in. But when you say, go to them and ask them to spend their money on our street, on our The projects that you're mentioning, I think their argument will be that our money is to educate our students. I think that's what their main goal is, to see that they give the education. I think we do have to go to the colleges and approach them for this pilot through our city manager in some different way I think having them to feel that for the city take the ownership and make a contribution not particularly probably asking them earmarking it for

Roads or Safety or something because their money is mainly to see that they spend it for the best education of the students that they have in their campus. But I agree that they should be a part of our community. in a very different way. I think they should all be brought together in one room, all the college presidents. And we talked about how you could be a part of it. Let it come from them. Let us not say or define that we would like you to support our streets or support. But they may say, they may come up with the counterargument that this money that we have is mainly for focusing for the education. and I think in a different way it should be tackled, it should be handled, it should be communicated. That's all I'd like to say. But I agree that there should be a part of this community.

Thank you. Councilor Economou. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I 100% agree with Councilor Rosen on this, and my colleague, Councilor Fresolo. The importance here too is, When the parents bring their kids here to visit these schools and they're going down Salisbury Street, College Hill, just pick a street, they're a disaster. if this would be a great opportunity for them to take ownership of our city too and put into the kitty to improve these streets. As we were talking earlier, as Councilor Mitra was mentioning about doing Park F, The manager said that's going to be hundreds of millions of dollars to do the whole street from one end to the other. With the help of the colleges and universities, maybe that could be attained. So I would support it, as I've signed on to, anyways. and I just wanted to bring that forward as well. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman. Councilor Fusso. Mr. Chairman, through you very quickly, I just wanted to rise to explain my support. As My colleague, Councilor Economou, just stated so many streets in and around our colleges, not to mention all throughout our city, are in need of repair. and no other item has come up more in the five months I've been here than street repair. So when Councilor Rosen brought that to my attention, I wholeheartedly, 100%, said I would support it, and I hope everyone else on this council will, and I encourage the manager to do his best to have them commit. to some type of pilot program that goes to our streets. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Councilor Bergman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've been on the council long enough to see this request. It usually comes up around the budget time and it usually comes up again around tax assessment time. and I support it. I'm not being negative about it. But unlike some of my colleagues who say they don't use social media, I do. And one of the things I get concerned about is that the message that a lot of people will get is, oh, the council's getting tough on the colleges. Now they're going to pay up. And the reality has never changed in all my years on the council. They don't have to do a darn thing legally. Fiduciarily wise, I'm sure their trustees tell them don't spend a dime because you don't have to. In my opinion, the only way this ever gets changed to favor contributions by our college universities towards our city is at the state and at the federal level. I don't know if Council Rosen would consider this a friendly amendment. I certainly hope he would.

But in addition to the manager, I'd like to see our stakeout delegation. get involved in part of the conversation because that's the level where there's leverage. Because if our college universities snub their nose, not just at the city council, but people at the state level, then maybe there could be some potential legislation. I recall a number of years ago, I forgot the gentleman's first name. He was running for governor. I believe his last name was Gonzalez. And one of his featured positions, was he was going to change legislation so that colleges and universities would have to contribute to the tax base in Massachusetts. He lost, of course. Otherwise, we would have more conversation about it. but it was a good idea because I've never heard anybody speak about it at the state level. We can kick it around all we want at the local level and I encourage and the City Manager to do so.

And I support Councilor Rosen, Councilor Fresolo, Councilor Economou and other colleagues who may want to join on. but I'm simply saying that when I was new to this council and this issue first came before me, I spent untold hours tearing whatever here I had left in my head out, trying to figure out a way that the City Council of the City of Worcester could gain leverage to get colleges and universities to actually contribute. And at the end of the day, it's my conclusion that we can talk the talk, but we're toothless tigers because the law doesn't help us. The only way the law will help us, if we get our state delegation on board to flex a muscle. They may not want to, I understand that, But we can't do it alone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Okay, thank you. Okay, so we're gonna send this.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to sign on.

Sure, Councilor King. And I know last year we, before the new councilors came on, we passed a... a .5% endowment annually and funds, something similar to what you're asking. It's another avenue, but I know the manager's working hard on this and so we're working with the colleges and universities and hopefully we'll come up with something soon.

Mr. Chairman, what was the vote on that? What was the 80%, 90%? You mean for the ballot question? Yeah, on the ballot question last year. It was over 70% I think. Okay, so that answers the question that people would support pilot payments and to respond, briefly to Councilor Bergman, this does say a voluntary payment, so we're not telling the colleges anything they don't have to do we're just asking again and I know the manager is actively involved our suggestion is you know what are you asking for Mr. Manager and you might get something this time and maybe this is a good cause let the manager decide that

Okay, so as amended to, okay, as amended roll call.

Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta? Yes. Councilor Economou? Yes. Councilor Zolo? Yes. Councilor King?

Yes.

Mr. Mitra?

Yes.

Mr. Ojeda? Yes. Mr. Rivera? Yes. Mr. Rosen? Yes. Mr. Toomey? Yes.

And Mayor Petty? Yes. Request C, Manager will work with the Superintendent of Schools, King, Appropriate Representation at DCU to ensure Worcester Public Schools graduations are at the DCU Center Arena in order to increase inclusivity and accommodate the attendees and the participants, Councilor King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to amend that. I should read high school graduations. All Worcester Public School high school graduations occur in the arena. There's been a number of occasions this particular year and preceding years where folks are discluded due to the lack of tickets that are allotted per family. I'll give you an example. There's family out there, blended families, six, seven kids, three, four kids, two sets of parents. Two sets of grandparents, et cetera. And this year there was children that were left outside and would switch places with adults. And certainly, you know, In my experience in other states that I've attended, they do exactly that. They have a rotation of all the high schools

through their local arena, and there's a way to do it. So I would just like to see if that is possible here, if there's any fiscal impact on the city side as well, Mr. Chairman. So, Azarich, thank you.

Councilor, yes, the DCU has already agreed to move all the high school graduations into the UCEDD Center for next year. In fact, they suggested it, and they're working to negotiate it now.

They suggested that to whom?

The superintendent.

Okay, so yeah, this is the city side responsibilities as relates to that. That's great news. You know, but again, a number of constituents have brought have also requested this, and this is reflected in the order. So great that that conversation has occurred. I would also like to, as I indicated, know if there's a fiscal impact on the city side as well. Thank you.

They're going to give us a deal. Councilor Ojeda.

Yes, I'd like that included in the report.

Thanks. I don't know the answer. Go ahead, Councilor Ojeda.

Yeah, no, I just had a question. Thank you to the Chair, actually to Councilor King. Is he pushing for all schools?

Right now there's five high school graduations at the DCU Convention Center. Two were in the DCU Senate already and South, and the other three were in the Convention Center. So those three now next year will be moved into the DCU Center. in the big arena, all five will be in the big arena.

Okay, all right, no problem, thank you.

Okay, okay, roll call.

Bilotta? Yes. Councilor Economou?

Yes.

Councilor Zillow?

Yes.

Councilor King?

Yes.

Councilor Mitra.

Yes.

Councilor Ojeda, recuse yourself. Councilor Rivera. Yes. Councilor Rosen. Yes. Councilor Toomey. Yes. And Mayor Petty.

Next item up is Request to Manage. Request to the Commissioner of Transportation and Mobility to provide City Council with a report detailing a plan to reduce speeding, improve traffic safety on the section of Chandler Street between Tadman Square and May Street. that can be implemented in or following the completion of the Chandler Street-May Street Improvement Project. Councilor Rivera?

As I read.

Roll call.

Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta? Yes. Councilor Economou? Yes. Councilor Rosolo? Yes. Councilor King? King?

Yes.

Councilor Mitra? Yes. Councilor Ojeda? Yes. Councilor Rivera? Yes. Councilor Rosen? Yes.

Councilor Toomey? Yes. Yes, request to see a manager, request to see a commissioner of parks, rec and cemetery install two new park benches and shade trees at the Belle Hill Park. Councilor Bilotta?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, just wanted to say that new benches are needed at Belle Hill Park. And I noticed visiting it the other day that there's kind of a lack of good benefit from some shade trees. So that's all that is about.

Okay, so send that to the manager, roll call.

Burgman, Councilor Bilotta, Economou, Fresolo, King, Mitra, Ojeda, Rivera, Rosen, Toomey, and Mayor Petty.

Yes, next item up is a request to manage, request to Commissioner Park's Rec and Cemetery install a security gate at the Lake Park Basketball Court, which would be locked overnight, Councilor Bilotta.

As it reads, just looking for additional security.

Okay, roll call. Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta? Yes. Councilor Economou? Yes. Councilor Zolo? Yes. Councilor King?

and I think we lost him. He's not mine.

Okay, Councilor Mitra. Yes. Councilor Ojeda. Yes. Councilor Rivera. Yes. Councilor Rosen. Yes. Councilor Toomey. Yes. And Mayor Petty.

Yes, request the manager to request the Commissioner of Transportation and Mobility to provide City Council with an updated report concerning the handicapped parking spaces installed on Franklin Street a year ago without proper curb cuts forcing individuals to travel In traffic at Franklin Street to access sidewalks, curb cuts, Councilor Bilotta.

Yes, thank you. Through the chair of the city manager, just really hoping for some clarification on this. It's taken a long time to get it done. I would hear different timelines from from DTM, from your office. I know things can be fluid sometimes, and I appreciate everyone getting back to me, but it's really... I'm frustrated to see that this hasn't been done yet. It's really unacceptable. So I'm trying to figure out what's going on. Is it a hold up with the contractor? Are they not doing their job? I'm trying to figure out what's going on here.

Okay, Mr. Manager.

Yeah, to the Chair, to the Council, I don't know the details of what's happening here. This is extremely important. I'm actually surprised to hear the confusion that's happening so I'm going to get on this as quickly as possible because part of the whole security plan and the transition of the parking was to be able to have that and do that as quickly as possible and so I will definitely take a look at this.

I appreciate it because again if I park there or friends that park there that use wheelchairs it's really dangerous to and I think would have been beneficial to have that done in the first place but I understand the Security things last year happened pretty quickly. I think even with going back to the curb cuts on Park Ave, we're gonna really make sure that accessibility and making sure it's safe for everyone is Not an afterthought. And that goes to the contractors as well. I think we need to do a better job of holding them accountable. I don't know if Riccardi Brothers, what they're doing, why they're not getting this done, but it's really been frustrating to see it not happen.

I'm sorry, Councilor, you all set? Yes.

Okay. And Councilor Mitra? I'd like to sign on to this.

Okay. You are already on it. So we will send that to the manager. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Okay. Request the Manager, request Chief Equity Officer, work with the Chief Development Officer and the Worcester Redevelopment Authority to develop a plan to improve accessibility at the Union Station, Council Bilotta.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, we did a tour with some of your staff and council staff a few back in the spring after a concern from a resident who was visually impaired. And I think there's some great ideas that using technology, using I know for lack of a better term, like some of the mini billboards that have audio messages for folks to let them know where they are and to guide them. But I know that's part of the ADA transition plan, but wanted to just highlight this and see if we could maybe move something along to minorly improve it or incrementally improve accessibility at Union Station. So thank you.

You should get what we're doing now and what we can do in the future. So people will know what we're doing now.

There's some great assistive technology. There's these QR codes that an individual just using a phone, they can just move their phone around. and it'll pick it up and it'll announce to them. You can program it to tell you where you are. So there's some cool assistive technology that I think would be relatively cheap and easy to implement and we could be a great proving ground for some of it. isn't there a phone number down the MBTA office some of the call and some will meet them on the train to guide them out is that I believe Union Station has it but I don't believe Worcester does we did have a good conversation with WPD and they said that anyone can just give them a call at that People should know that. But it's still some challenges, so I think it's important we work on it.

Okay, so we'll send that to the manager. All those in favor, oppose, so ordered. Request the same manager, request the police chief provide increased patrols at East Park to deter illegal use of the dirt bikes. Councilor Bilotta. Mr. Bezzer reads. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. And it is sort of out of hand. I'll just say, I was down in Shrewsbury Street just to watch them all go by. And into the park at night, then right into the park. And yeah, so go with all of them, Councilor. And request city manager, request police chief provide increased patrols at East Park to, oh Carrie, did that one? and City Manager renegotiate the city's contract with CSX where the city currently receives an annual gate fee of $1 for each loaded revenue container or trailer that enter and Leaves CSX facility from fiscal year 2012 to fiscal year 2032. This negotiation should increase the gate fee to no less than $2 per loaded revenue container

Trello, Councilor Fezzola.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Through you, there's no question in my mind the harm that the independent truckers have caused going to the facility at CSX to our infrastructure and not only our infrastructure but and the City of Worcester. And I see that the agreement goes to 2032. I'm asking this city manager to call maybe the attorney or people at CSX and ask them that this council has, I hope I have the support of the full council that they would consider at least, at the very least, going to $2 a truck that comes in.

Again, I know they did a lot of streetscape initially and, you know, did a lot of things for the city, but it pales into comparison what we did to accommodate CSX to move here. Again, we closed down a street, Coral Street, and we added over a minute response time Fire Response Time to Union Hill, a neighborhood that is completely, in my opinion, saturated with three-deckers that are over 100 years old. and when they catch fire they go up like you know balsam and we know The fires that we've had on that hill and the consequences. So again, all they have to do

is added to the independent truck charge. Okay, they're passing it along. Again, a dollar increase. is nothing, they'll just pass it on to them. And in turn, in my opinion, the Grafton Hill funds that would come in, I would use it. to invest in our infrastructure that, again, those added truck traffic trailers that have hurt the infrastructure immensely in the

It could be David.

14 years that CSX is located here in Worcester. So and then, you know, Mr. Chairman, I'll just add the traffic flow has been severely negatively impacted and affected. And I had a colleague call me last week that was stuck in traffic in front of St. Stephen's and told me that they hadn't moved in two minutes. And what are you going to do about it? He was trying to give me a little tickle, but I said, that's what I'm talking about every time I take the floor and talk about CSX. Nowhere has a company, you tell me, a company that has come in and negatively affected a section of the city like CSX has, well, the independent truckers that come to CSX. has done. So it's pretty simple. Mr.

Manager, I would hope that either you or someone in your administration would call them up and ask them. I don't want to wait six more years. to renegotiate. The harm they've caused, I think they should fess up and say, you know what, we should give more money. And again, I would take that money and make improvements as I asked the city solicitor and the manager confirmed that we could use that money for infrastructure repair. That's what I would do with it. Maybe Councilor Bilotta would feel the same way. But I'll leave it there, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much.

I'll hand it to the Manager. All those in favor? Opposed? ordered Quest City Auditor to provide the Council with a report detailing a full financial audit and counting of both the completed and currently underway work being done at the Beaverbrook dog park. Councilor Rivera.

Mr. Chairman, I want to hold this item because Commissioner Antonelli and I are going to be meeting with the residents next Wednesday.

I'm just going to hold this under privilege. Next item, request city manager request the police chief provide increased enforcement and unreasonable noise audiences as it relates to authority. of the City. Automobiles traveling throughout the city in an effort to ease neighborhood concerns incurred the modification of cars purposely designate to such an excessive volume.

So we just heard. As it reads. as you read.

Okay, all those in favor of postal audit. 10P, request the City Manager work with the appropriate parties to ensure that the Grass along the west post and street along I-190 interchange be mowed. Locations by mowing should be include. Brooke Street to New Bond Street, as well as New Bond Street to the Wicked Wings Company, and Two Chefs Italian Restaurant. and Bar area. Located at 321 and 317 West Boston Street. Councilor Economou.

Thanks Mr. Chairman. Basically the corridor from Brook Street to just as you go over the bridge to down towards the 190 interchange. It's all overgrown. It's a mess. I don't know if we're responsible for it or if the railroad's responsible for it or who's responsible for it, quite frankly, but it's probably table height now. and it just looks like a disaster.

Okay. Thank you. Senator Mandrell is in favor of postal audit. Requesting Manager, request Commissioner of Public Works and Commissioner of Transportation and Mobility for the council to update Timeline to the street repair work on Vassar Street will be completed when the SOAR great work on Grove Street near Forest Middle School will be completed. and when the street resurfacing work on Cheyenne Road that was started at the beginning of the last construction season will be completed. Councilor Economou.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. This really has to do a lot with whether it's our process or the contractor's process or our contracts and how work gets done. By Vassar Street, there was, I think, a water main break there that was repaired and has still not been completed. On Grove Street, they replaced or were working on replacing a sewer grate near the school. and it's easy three weeks, it could be going on four weeks that it's just coned off. And Cheyenne Road, again, this is a complete street redo that was started last spring, over a year ago, and here we are in mid-June, and there's no evidence that everybody's shown back up to that street to finish the job.

I find that completely unreasonable and I think it needs to be addressed and whatever pressure needs to be put on the contractor should be put on them and I think that also shows how we create our contracts. and maybe we need to look at how we create some teeth in our contracts so this does not happen. This should have been done April, May. It should have been done by mid-May. It's just the top coat. cutting out the driveways, top coat, finish it off. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You can send that to the manager. All those in favor, oppose, so audit. Motion to adjourn. All those in favor, oppose, so audit.