City Council 01/20/2026

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

Thank you.

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we hailed At the twilight's last gleaming Whose broad stripes and bright stars Through the perilous fight O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming and the rocket's red glare the bombs bursting in air They proved through the night that our flag was still there.

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave and the home of the brave.

Roll call. Councilor Bergman? Here. Councilor Bilotta? Here. Councilor Economou? Here. Councilor Fresolo?

Here.

Councilor King? Here. Councilor Mitra? Here. Councilor Ojeda? Here. Councilor Rivera? Here. Councilor Rosen? Here. Councilor Toomey?

Here.

And Mayor Petty?

Here. Approve of the minutes of the December 23rd, 2025 meeting. All those in favor? Opposed? So, ordered. before going to public participation. Third, what people know is I am the hold 13B, which is tax agreement with 401, 409 Main Street. So we need a roll call on that, roll call.

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

And Mayor Petty. Yes. Okay, we have, okay, public participation. The person may speak no more than two minutes on the agenda.

Mr. Mayor, 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 the City Council on any eligible item on the agenda for the meeting both in person and remotely. Any person who wishes to speak on more than one agenda item shall combine their testimony on all items to one appearance at the microphone. The time of speaking shall not exceed two minutes for one speaker and 30 minutes for all speakers. Rule 40 petitions. On the first occasion any petition appears on the City Council agenda, the primary petitioner shall address the City Council for no more than three minutes on the subject of their petition. Thank you.

Okay, is your name, is your residence, name, number?

Yes, Fred Nathan Worcester. All right, first item is 8J, the item about pedestrian crosswalk and signage at the intersections of Colborne and Bigelow. Parkway. Uh-oh.

Do you need to take a moment? Are they happy to talk about the week's count? and Assumption maybe, I think that's the answer.

Wait 10 seconds. We wasted a couple of seconds, could you bring it back?

I'll wait 15 seconds before we turn the clock back on.

So anyhow, going back to what I was saying, I actually brought something similar to this up six months ago and I don't think it went anywhere. But I was asking for the lights and crosswalks, flashing lights down at the bottom of Bigelow Parkway in Lake Ave. I mean, hey. You got to think about the people and you got to stop people from flying down Colburn, I mean Bigelow down there, because they do. In fact, it's so bad, they'll go down there, see the traffic so bad, they'll turn around, come back up the hill and go down Colburn. Something has to be done. People too crazy out there. Items 9A, 10C, 90, 90,

I mean hey a nearer school there should be always flashing lights and as far as the dumping about I mean heck, I would say charge them $2,000, they're caught dumping all the time. and as far as the, something has to be done, like I said, and even though you postponed it, 13B, I think it was, I mean heck, if there is a company that is getting away and not paying proper wages or they're cheating somebody, I mean we're a pro-business but we're also pro-people. Something has to be done.

Okay, next speaker, is his name, is he a resident's item number?

Hi, Martha Cepha in Worcester, 13B. I remember in 2018 when Mankiti got the TIF. I remember being really excited that they were going to come to our city and do really great things. But what I've noticed is that they take their time to do projects. And I also saw that when I lived in Washington DC. They sat on a lot of projects that did not change in Southeast DC. So I am solidly opposed to them getting an additional TIF. especially because I believe it's really important to use TIFs to attract new business, not to invest our dollars into projects that have already been funded before. So I hope you consider that today and use those dollars to support small businesses and other small developers who really are the fabric of our community. Thank you.

Thank you.

Excuse me. Idella has the City of Worcester. I agree wholeheartedly with both the speakers that spoke before me and that's why I want to call attention to the City Council, the City Manager, and the Mayor to 9J. And I want to thank Councilor Mitra for putting that on the agenda. which requests the City Manager provide City Council with a report concerning how the Office of the City Manager processes, prioritizes, and keeps track of the numerous requests received by the office during city council meetings in an effort to guide the city council with best practices for making requests of the office.

I often wondered about that, whether or not we were wasting our time standing before you, making these requests, giving our opinions and taking our time out of our evening. to come and speak before you. We have something to say. And we feel it's important. And we are paying your salary. We voted each and every one of you in, except for the city manager who was appointed. So what we have to say, not only do we feel is important, but it's very much important. whether or not you vote to agree with us or you vote to file it so there should be a report at some point

how you prioritize and process what the public has to say. Thank you.

Thank you.

Idella for president, Sue Mailman Worcester and school committee member. I've talked with council many times over the years about those responsible development issues and want to make some brief points. We as a district and a city invest millions of dollars in vocational programs. The Chamber of Commerce of Commerce, both when I was chair of the board and when Councilor Mitra was chair of the board, recognized workforce development as a number one issue. There is no greater way to impact demand than impact our policies that surround development. That's why I remain a staunch supporter of apprenticeship requirements across all trades and all public construction, not just in the aggregate per project, local hiring goals. because these programs support jobs with living wages so that our residents can work and live in Worcester. One way to solve the issue is to hire signatory contractors for all public construction.

Many more tradespeople become certified journeymen and women through signatory programs. Responsible development is workforce development. Why are we rushing? Let's wait for the report from the city manager. and do the responsible thing as a council. Many of you signed a responsible development pledge. This is a time when that signature is supposed to mean something and these times and these Very divisive days when some of you participated in Martin Luther King programs this past weekend. You listened to Fred Taylor and others say that we have to show people that we stand with them. were willing to take stands that protect them, including on worker rights issues, and also giving people the accountability they've asked for with the Civilian Review Board. Deny the TIF from Mankiti Group,

Also, please uphold the work of the Board of Health and maintain policy around limiting the sale of tobacco projects. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Jahaira Paulino. I lived in the city of Worcester for over 30 years. All of my children were born in Worcester. I purchased my first home here in Worcester. I've worked for both community health centers in Worcester and proudly coached Little League softball at Vernon Hill. I absolutely love this city and have always shown that love through my work, service, and investments. I'm here today regarding my ongoing journey to obtain a hookah license for Namasko Bar and Lounge. This journey began in August 2024 when I approached the building department and Department of Public Health to understand requirements. Unfortunately, I was sent from department to department and was never provided clear or consistent set of guidelines. Despite this, I acted in good faith and completed every step I was instructed to take. I invested several thousands of dollars in equipment and renovations following the direction of the city employees.

Only after making these costly investments did I encounter repeated roadblocks, ultimately being told that a 500-foot ordinance prevented me from obtaining the license. I have met with multiple employees of this city, many whom have agreed that it is concerning that this issue arose after I made significant financial commitments based on the guidance I was given. I did everything right, yet I'm still unable to move forward. Because we're unable to offer hookah, we are actively losing business to establishments outside of the city. Customers regularly come in, ask if we offer hookah, and then leave shortly after learning we do not. For over a year, I've told customers to come back and check back with us while we work through the process, only to face the embarrassment of still not being able to offer what they want. This has caused financial strain.

We have had to reduce staff schedules, eliminate positions, and I now perform work that we once paid employees to do.

Thank you.

Good evening, thank you for allowing me to speak. My name is Lynette Wenchohi and I've been an employee at Numesco for almost three years. I'm here tonight speaking as an employee, someone whose livelihood depends on this place. This job is important to me because I rely on the income like many of my coworkers. This is how I pay my bills and stay financially stable. Some members of our staff are parents and are supporting families as well. Decisions made about this business directly affect real people. Nemesco also plays a significant cultural role. It is the only African-owned restaurant and lounge in Worcester, and that matters. It's a space where people from different backgrounds come together and feel represented and enjoy each other's company. For many in our community, gathering in this way is part of our culture, and it's about connection, conversation, and togetherness. For our patrons, hookah is social and shared. It encourages people to sit and talk and engage with one another, and it's something our community generally enjoys.

From an economic standpoint, Namesco supports more than just the people on payroll. It provides jobs, supports the local DJs, security, vendors, and brings consistent activity into the city. When offerings are limited, the decline is real. Employees feel it immediately through reduced hours and less stability. I've invested nearly three years of my life here, emotionally and professionally. I care deeply about this place, the people I work with, and the community it serves. We would be more than happy to comply with all rules and health regulations and to make sure everyone who comes to Nemesco is safe and having a good time. All we are asking for is the opportunity to continue operating responsibly to grow the city's economy and to keep serving our community. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Good evening. Alex Guardiola, Worcester resident, President and CEO of the Guardiola Strategic Group. Here to speak on item 10A, Councilor Rosen's recommendation that the Board of Health consider changing The 500 foot buffer zone restriction. Last fall, I represented a company who applied for one of the few remaining on-premise tobacco licenses here in the downtown core district. They are women-owned, minority-owned establishment that has a rich culture, diverse clientele that reflects the growing diverse population of the city. They unfortunately were denied because of the current 500-foot restriction. As mentioned in that hearing by a dissenting member, 500 feet is less than 1 tenth of a mile and its intention is not being satisfied but rather hurting small businesses. When the company began their journey to apply for their license, they took all the correct steps. In reliance of the city's direction, they invested over $60,000 to outfit their location to just be denied because, to paraphrase the chair of the board of Health, they are charged with promoting health and well-being of the residents, not economic development. To that I take issue.

Although we all agree the Board of Health has a duty to promote health in the city, it also has a second charge. it's charged with giving a license to a business and that counselors is a duty to incorporate economic development. The fact that the majority of the body dismissed it like it's not their problem is shameful and a travesty to a city that has a downtown with empty storefronts up and down its main street. So Mr. Manager, Mr. Mayor, City Councilors, I ask you to please help our small businesses. If the Board of Health does not want to discuss economic development at their hearings, then remove the power of overseeing tobacco licenses and put it with the License Commission with the Standing Committee on Public Health and Human Services to make a recommendation for the whole Council to make an approval. Learning that a previously approved ordinance does not currently work and making a change doesn't make our city administration look weak. It makes us look forward thinking and business friendly. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Michael Caine from the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, also a resident here in the Vernon Hill neighborhood. Again, I'm here tonight on the resolution we've just heard from are prior speakers of the real world impacts of this regulation, the 500-foot buffer. And it's producing unintended consequences. that conflict with Worcester's economic development priorities, especially those surrounding an 18-hour downtown that we have and that we need, most importantly. Businesses such as the one we heard, Nomesco, create a mixed use of retail, a mixed use of dining, entertainment that attract residents, support established, especially neighboring establishments, and keep our streets active and safe, which are essential to that 18-hour vision. However, when we have a long standing operator such as Nomesco wanting to go in front of the border because there's licenses available,

There's an inflexible geographic rule with this 500-foot rule. And it's for, it's gonna, what it's gonna do, it's gonna cause vacant storefronts, it's gonna lose jobs. We already heard when I spoke at the Board of Health meeting, 18 jobs that was at this business. And unfortunately, they need to continue those 18 jobs, but this rule is not allowing that. So I implore the City Council here to look at this rule and report on it and somehow change it going forward. Thank you.

Thank you.

Abby Mortillero, a Worcester resident. I'll start with 9H. I think it's good to have a dialogue with the people of Worcester and you know have like you know transparency in government and you know specifics measurable attainable revenue all right so now moving along to 13B, no tips for big corporations, people first, profit second. People over profit, okay. 14F, I think.

How's stability is important, you know, to keep people, you know, in their homes, you know, preventing, you know, homelessness, you know, I think that is important. We should have an Office of Housing Stability, yes. 14, aye. The DOJ report, you know, I think it's important accountability in government. on all levels and, you know, to have a civilian review board and to drop the charges on Ashley Spring and Ethel Ajit, you know, They were doing good. They're good people, you know, doing good. And, you know, we need rule of law. We need to hold ICE accountable. And that's what they were doing.

So, yes, the Land Review Board and, you know, putting the people first, you know, putting people of Worcester first. Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. Robert Hardin to Edwidge Street, mister. This is an ongoing issue I've had with the city for what will now be 21 years of snow removal. Mr. Mayor, I contacted you this past weekend. Over the last 21 years, I have had to almost constantly call DPW to have snow plowed from Edwards Street, which also affects Longview, Rockwood, and Jeremiah. These are all dead end streets with grades of 45 to 60 degrees. And at times, as most recently, a plow might come through and just make one strip, leaving about 10 feet on either side of the road. Other times may not get until the next day after I've called. This has been a constant, constant issue. In a few years, I'm going to have a sidewalk in front of my house finally with the Pleasant Street Project. Social contract says I have to clear the sidewalk. If I don't clear it, I get fined.

If I do a poor job, I will get fined. As of right now I have no sidewalk, but I still clear storm drains and the fire hydrant in front of my house to ensure safety. Most recent, a couple storms ago, I posted a video online of the mail truck trying to get up the street and instead drifting off to the side. What if that's an ambulance? What if it's a fire truck may not have that issue. Right now we have contracts with Plow Drivers, if they're not DPW employees, correct? If we're paying for a service, I'm paying property taxes, I should not have to come here again or call again to have my street cleared, to be concerned about sliding into Pleasant Street, which always looks fantastic, by the way. So if I happen to slide into Pleasant Street because my street's not being cleared, is that my fault, the city's, or the plow drivers? Please pay attention to this issue.

I would like to stop calling.

Hello, my name's Gary Hunter. I'm in District 5. And the first thing I want to do is go along with what Sue said and with 13B. I know it's on hold. and I think we should stick up for our workers and we should stick up with the Cognizant Union and don't pass that resolution, please. And we'll go on and on about it, but I think that's only fair. Fair market, give people jobs. What I want to talk about is 9J, about getting the set up so that when they ask for reports for them to come back. And I'm looking at this agenda. This agenda is nothing on this agenda that's that important. than compared to our world falling apart. All politics are local. Right now, we're talking about fire hydrants and not people.

What happened on Minneapolis could have happened at Eureka Street, except some of the brave people that stood between the police and the young woman. We need a Civilian Review Board that may help that situation. We have not heard the final stuff for the DOJ. I see you every week. If you notice, I usually, say something and I stayed till the end of the meeting and I listened to everybody. What do you actually pass? Everything is sent to committee. I, as a civilian, never hear back what happened in the committee. sent to the administration. I, as a civilian, do not hear back what happens with the reports. I would like a more open discussion and talk about the real issues of how homelessness

please DOJ report. Please consider opening your meetings and talk about real subjects. You have a lot of people, 200,000 people in this city that's counting on you

Thank you. Our next speaker, please.

And nothing's getting passed.

Hello, everyone. I'm speaking on 13B. My name is Art Cook, and I'm a carpenter steward and work all throughout Massachusetts. Responsible development requires commitment, sustained execution, and real accountability. It cannot be a roll of the dice, an occasional goal, or just words on paper. I ask you on behalf of all the members of Local 336, please remain committed to responsible development and oppose the proposed tie for 401-409 Main Street. Mankiti and Bozzuto, who they are hiring for this project, are both from Washington, D.C., Why do we need to be bringing in contractors from that swamp of criminal contractors here to Worcester? And why are we going to use our tax dollars to do that? I don't want them bringing those lower standards to our community and I don't want to give them any money. Thank you.

Thank you. Get your name and see your presence.

Nathan Cuffall, Milbury Put them, yeah, there you go Speaking on 13B, I'm a Union Carpenter apprentice. I started very recently, but I wanted to talk about, I don't believe that we have to give McKitty this TIF. I don't see why when they bought the building in 2018 how they haven't been able to get by with what they have. If they're a big corporation that is able to bring people from out of state then I don't see where they don't have their own money to figure it out. Um, I also, I just, yeah, sorry.

That's okay.

I feel like a responsible environment would be just I feel like we need to check up on them more and make sure we have responsible carpenters, responsible tradesmen, and just have more focus on what we're doing. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good evening. My name is Patrick Kelly, 32-year resident of Worcester Mass, Worcester native. I want to thank Mr. Mayor Petty, City Manager Bautista, and all council members for allowing me to share tonight. I'm here to urge you to deny the TIFs to the Mankiti Group because awarding public subsidies requires public trust and serious concerns exist about whether that standard is being met by them. TIFs are intended to support developers who provide clear public benefit while operating responsibly and ethically. When credible concerns are raised about how employees are being treated or how construction work is managed, those concerns cannot be brushed aside. They go directly to whether taxpayer dollars are being used wisely. There are documented concerns from our workers and industry professionals that the McKinney Group relies on subcontractors who are not properly qualified to perform complex construction work. that creates real risks, unsafe job sites, construction defects, project delays, and long-term maintenance issues.

When those problems arise, it's not the developer who bears the cost, it's the workers, the residents, and ultimately the city. Equally troubling are concerns about labor practices. Public money should never subsidize projects where worker treatment, oversight and safety standards are called into question. Cities across the countries have learned that ignoring these warning signs lead to lawsuits, stalled projects, and financial losses. TIF funding is a privilege, not an entitlement. Until these concerns are independently reviewed and resolved, Mankiti Group does not meet the standard required for public subsidy. Taxpayer dollars should reward responsibility, not underwrite risk.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Joe Delgizzi. I am a resident of Worcester District 5, have been for a couple decades now, and I am speaking on 13B. really want to say immediately thank you for putting that on hold. I think this shows the council, this council is dedicated to responsible development and takes the serious Our concerns, seriously, concerns of the citizens of Worcester, I just want to remind the council, if you don't mind, just saying that the Mankini Group themselves and Bozzuto, who's down the street, have had a history of violating the public trust. They asked for a TIF, they brought on a contractor who was a contractor who should not have been on that job. If you look at... The Washington D.C. Lawyers Guild, they put out a public document a couple years ago on wage theft.

Bozzuto and Mankiti feature prominently in that document. I urge you to look it up, Google it. These are two contractors, a developer and a contractor, from Washington DC who come from an environment of using this as a business practice to cheat workers, to create a system in which money goes up rather than out. I know they say differently in their public motions and their propaganda. We all have propaganda. Obviously, we talk the best of what we do. We forget about the worst of what we do. And I think this contractor and this developer we should hold them account not just tonight but going forward. I do thank you all for holding this item and I wish you all a great night.

Thank you.

Tom Marino, Worcester. I got to say, some appreciation for some of Dr. Mitra's orders, which I can't say that I expected to say. Apparently, your colleagues haven't filled you in yet. Smart Calls, 9H, that's not going to happen. That might lead to accountability and might begin to establish a system of checks and balances, which the majority of this council is absolutely ideologically opposed to. The rules, though. Let's not send one rule to the public safety, to Ms. Blobs. Let's send the rules and let's get a document that is actually going to be enforced. I mean, pulled a rule out of the sky last week. I mean, when you're citing that it was enforced two mayors ago, That was a long time ago. Let's get a document that represents what's actually enforced here. Do something with Rule 9.

If you're not going to allow residents to bring petitions other than things that go to traffic and parking, just put that in the rules. put other people in the crossfire and let them take the blame for it. And CrimeStats. Could we ask for a closeout report any time in the last two or three years? I don't know what staring at CrimeStats every year is going to do to inform anything about anything. A closeout rate, however, is actually a metric you can make some judgment about. And lastly, tabled item. Are we ever getting this report back on the DOJ report? Ever? I mean, you had 5,000 words come out seven months ago. on all the problems with it, on the campaign to undermine it, the Biden conspiracy to undermine the city of Worcester. Anybody going to take responsibility for anything ever?

Good morning.

My name is Frank Gomez. I'm a business rep for the Carpenters Union. I want to say thank you to the mayor, city manager, and the councilors for holding item 13B. Let this be an example, not only for this TIF, but and many others coming up in front of the city. And thank you for holding the item to all the issues that being raised tonight have been solved and answered.

Thank you.

John Keogh, District 4. I want to talk about 13B and 9O together. I think what you're seeing tonight, Mr. Chairman, is something that you mentioned during the campaign this year, which is that there's a different Worcester that you don't seem to understand about. where we talk about it all the time up at this podium where it seems like there are a lot of secret deals, backroom conversations when all we're asking for isn't that you vote differently, it's just that you talk about it openly instead of not telling us what's going on because we do know what's going on. Councilor Rosen in 9-0 asked about enforcing this sign ordinance thing. The problem with that is that we just listened to the whole last session complaints about not having enough inspectors. So we're going to send inspectors out to inspect signs. for small businesses, windows facing the street.

We're going to have that be our priority when we have major developers not doing their jobs. When we have buildings that are being reported to the city manager on a regular basis, as having low vacancy rates. But then from our eyes, our physical eyes, we can see that they are not Full. Those are the things we want our inspectors to actually inspect. Are these big businesses telling us the truth? Because it turns out in this case with Menkidi, this isn't just the first time that they've done something wrong. they have a track record and we gave them our money. We have to have these conversations robust Public Conversations to actually have an efficient city. And frankly, you can blame the last session all you want, but the fact is this is a track record of decade upon decade of the City of Worcester just not doing the conversations that need to be had in public. Talk about it out loud. Thank you.

I'm here to talk about a few different things on the agenda. Similar, I agree with everything Sue Mailman had said. What's your name and say your residence? Fianna Jaten Singh, 37 County Street, District 3. and Citizen of Worcester. 9J, I agree with Dr. Mitra's request that the City Manager have a report concerning how the City Manager processes, prioritizes and keeps track of numerous requests. Also 9K, having provide a quarterly report about adopted orders. That would be nice to know what actually gets adopted since we never do here. I'll hold my comment until I have attention. I reclaim my time. Can you pause the time since you're not listening to me?

No, just tell me something in the poem B, go ahead.

Okay, can I add back my minute now?

Go ahead.

Thank you. I would like to also speak on 13B. Okay, I'll wait since you're not listening. How rude. 13b, I do not support the TIFs for companies that are not responsible for development. I've read an article that over $73,000 of wage theft has happened by that company. I do not think we should be giving any tax incentives to companies that are not paying the people that work for them. There are many other small business owners that can barely afford to pay their taxes that I know personally here in the city of Worcester. So why give big tax incentives to companies that aren't even Worcester based? This is from a Washington DC company. And there's no reason why, Why a company that already has a property that needs a tax incentive now when they've already not been responsible in the past? So I do not support that. Also 9-0, I agree with what John just said.

There's no reason why we need to enforce a sign ordinance now that hasn't been enforced for so many years just because one person makes a complaint about it. Also 9P, I agree with the senior work off abatement program being able to be continued. I have many neighbors that are senior citizens. they're already volunteering in places but they're not getting this tax incentive or the reduced reduction of their taxes so that would be something that we should expand and look into more also I think it got not put on the agenda, but we definitely need to have a civilian review board. You guys have already had your equity audit, the DOJ report has come out, the Bureau Research Bureau has already had their report and you guys still haven't even put it on the agenda. Like you guys need to be held accountable.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Steve Hart, District 1. And thank you in advance for your attention. I'm speaking on 13B. I came here tonight cynical. I was hoping you'd get around to the yes vote, which was a certainty on the morning of November 5th of last year. through the powerful influence of the Chamber of Commerce in the city. Folks are just fed up with what's going on with this issue. I looked into Mankiti Group. I appreciate the The clerk's submitting a lot of the backup documentation for this project. They don't present themselves as a development concern looking for a retroactive give out from the city after not completing a project they got into acquisition with seven years ago. I read the bottom lines.

over $560,000 development cost per unit of the 48 units. A $5,000 fine, is at the bottom of miscellaneous contingency for this company. And I don't think we should be talking about that. My eyes have been opened tonight. about the fact that there is resistance to this. It is not a done deal. And I think the options that this body has is also very disappointing because if it goes into committee as appointed by Mayor Petty, Economic Development, Bergman, Toomey, and Mitra Municipal and Legislative Operations, Mitra, Rosen, and Bergman.

The Chamber of Commerce has a grip on this city and I think will be a powerful statement. to say no to the Manchini Group.

Thank you, I appreciate it. Okay, the motion is to suspend the rules to allow four more people to speak online.

I didn't do this last week because it was the first meeting after a long pause, but if you have four people on hold, and we allow two minutes each. Respectfully, we should extend for 15 minutes, not 30. I won't support 30, that's what you want.

You can go for 15 then, I'm fine. Okay, all those in favor? Opposed?

In favor of what, Mr. Chairman? He said in favor of what?

He asked for amendments to 15. Did I say 30? I just said suspend the rules. I thought it was just suspend the rules. Yeah. My motion is to suspend the rules, but I'll withdraw it. You wanna do 15? It's gonna be 15 anyways, it doesn't matter. So, those in favor? Okay, we got four people. Let's get to them, okay? First speaker.

Thank you Mr. Chairman. The first speaker is Natalie Gibson. I'm trying to meet the resident now.

Hi, Natalie Gibson, District 5. So I wanted to speak on 9J. Thank you, Dr. Mitra. I actually want to point out through the chair that I have actually sent this same request to City Council back in September of 24. it went to MLO and I heard nothing since many orders as people have said as is mind have gone to the city manager. We have never heard anything about them. And that was what I wanted to know back then was what's happening with our orders. Once they get to him. 9M, that's Councilor Toomey. I actually want to also say that

We should probably be putting the crime stats back on the Worcester PD's Facebook site because all of a sudden they're missing. So we have no idea what's going on, except for if you go to a community meeting and you might find some stats there. To the gentleman that was talking about the snow removal for years, same problem. I've been having the same issue. I also had put that In a petition it went to the city manager notoriously January 22nd of 25. So nothing ever came back to me. I never was told what their plans were. And it's quite frankly disingenuous of this city to have us taxpayers paying so much taxes for so many different things and we don't even have safe streets for cars or pedestrians. Thank you.

Next speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Next speaker is Eric Stratton. Please state your name and city of residence and the item you're calling on.

Yes, Eric Stratton, City of Worcester. I'm calling on a number of them. For 9J, yes, I'd like to see us get some actual accountability with regards to these reports. And frankly, that includes some urgency. in terms of timeline. It is not a reasonable expectation that these items get sent to the city manager's office or to other offices within the city and they linger there and perish or we never hear back. This is something that, frankly, I would love to see the city taking the initiative on to become more transparent and make it clear where things are. We should not have to continue to come back to this body to get updates. To me, that is simply unacceptable. If I did that at my work, I would be let go for not performing properly. Regarding 10A, I'm sympathetic to this business and the workers who are there. However, I would not support this.

The idea behind this 500 foot distance is simply to avoid proliferation of smoke shops in single locations. This happens around the country in lower economic areas where you see proliferation of smoke shops. So I actually support this ordinance as it is currently written. It seems to me that there could have been more homework done with regards to other people who held licenses prior to the business selecting that location. And so I think perhaps the city may want to look at a way of having a variance. but my concern is that we may see smoke shops sort of grouping together in denser areas, especially in places that are lower socioeconomic and that this has a disproportionate impact on those individuals. Last item that I would like to mention is 13b. As others have said, no to this TIF.

This is a group that clearly is a bad actor. While we support economic development and other groups like the Chamber of Commerce want to see business happening here, this is not how it gets done. This instead is a real mismanagement of city funds. Thank you. Thank you.

Mayor, the next speaker is Glenn. I'm going to try to unmute the resident now.

Yeah, I'm here. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can. Is your name and city of residence?

Glenn Pape, city of Worcester. It's a yes on 9H, 9J, and on 13B. On 13B, Merkidi has paid the fine required under the responsible development ordinance. Now that ordinance doesn't say that paying a fine permanently disqualifies a company from doing business with the city. It says the fine is the remedy. they've paid the fine. Let's not impose a second penalty where the law does not require one. And this is not a marginal project. It's a $25 million investment in Worcester, exactly the kind of investment we say we want. It generates substantial property tax revenue. It's a 10-year tie with 30-year deed restricted accessible units and affordable units. It strengthens the tax base. and the Mercini Group actually has a very long and positive history with the city.

They've been recognized, they've won awards for architectural innovation that they've done here in Worcester. So they're not a fly-by-night developer. They're a known partner with a great track record in Worcester. If we turn away this project after the fine has been paid, I THINK WE SEND A MESSAGE NOT JUST TO MERKITI BUT TO EVERY SERIOUS INVESTOR WATCHING WORCESTER THAT EVEN WHEN YOU FOLLOW THE LAW YOU RESOLVE THE ISSUE THE RULES CAN STILL CHANGE AFTER THE FACT That's how I think you chill investment. And I think we'd be cutting off our nose to spite our face. And one word here about the Economic Development Department. They don't bring projects to the council casually. they exercise due diligence, they vet, they select carefully. And when they come to you with a recommendation like this, it reflects a real considered professional judgment. And I think we should respect that work. And Dr. Mitri's motions, you know, I said yes on 9H and 9J.

On 9H, I just want to say I strongly support his call for smart goals.

His time is up. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you.

The last speaker.

The last speaker is Keith Layers, Chairman and President now.

Hey everyone, Keith Linares, 1 Jermaine Street, District 1. I urge City Council to oppose giving the Mankaty Group any additional TIF tie-breaks, period. Worcester residents need to be aware that City Council and City Hall is not encouraging responsible development in general. They're encouraging subsidized speculation. where developers are rewarded for buying property, holding it, and then relying on public tax breaks to finance their projects. In November 2023, this council passed the Responsible Development Ordinance to ensure Worcester residents get something back for these tax breaks that we subsidize. The ordinance requires developers receiving tax breaks to follow labor laws, pay their prevailing wages, prevent wage theft, and hire local workers for their projects. Developers like Mankaty can receive hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions in tax incentives on individual projects from both the city and the state.

In at least one instance, Mankady was found out of compliance with the ordinance after using a subcontractor cited by the Attorney General for serious wage violations totaling more than $73,000 in unpaid wages. The response is a trivial fine of $5,000 compared to potentially millions in incentives from city and state taxpayers. The economic decision-making is clear. It's cheaper for Mankady to violate the ordinance and be fined than it is to follow it. For the responsible development ordinance to be taken seriously, our city leadership needs to show some backbone and say enough is enough when developers break the rules. Petty, Kate Toomey, Gary Rosen, Khrystian King, Rob Bilotta, you all signed the Responsible Development Pledge last year. So I expect you all to honor it and stop the Mankaty Group from continuing to take advantage of Worcester taxpayers. I urge you,

Please stop using my money and the money of my fellow taxpayers to subsidize companies that do not respect our ordinances or the people that work here.

Thank you We are in hearings and orders. The motion is to open the hearing. All those in favor, post so ordered. The hearing is regarded to contact location on Channing Street. and for National Grid, anybody opposed? Seeing nobody opposed, motions to close the hearing and the motions to adopt. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Petitions? I don't see anybody here for a petition. So petitions 8A to 8G, we're gonna refer to Public Works. All those in favor, oppose, so ordered. H to 8R, we're gonna refer to Traffic and Parking. All those in favor, oppose, so ordered. We have the Orders. Councilor Fresolo.

Mr. Chairman, I'd ask that we take number 13A out of order, please.

All those in favor, opposed. So, audit 13A, City Manager recommended adoption of the proposed audit to establish no parking in any time zone on the portion of the... Grafton Street in the 90-day trial basis and the ordinance to permanently establish no parking at any time on portions of both sides of the Grafton Street. Councilor?

Mr. Chairman, thank you. Through you to my colleagues and the general public, I commend the city manager for bringing this item forward. You have to actually see this in person, this traffic nightmare in person to see how serious the situation is on Grafton Street. This is one issue that that I actually got into the District 3 race. Once the seat was vacated, I decided to run for the District 3 seat. mainly because of issues like this. Mr. Chairman, when school is let out at two o'clock you'll see a line of traffic

from Roosevelt School's entrance as far back as, some days, the Burger King, which is at the intersection of Jennings Street and Grafton Street. I'm not being overly dramatic when I tell you there is no bigger public safety issue in this city than from 1.30 to quarter past two on Grafton Street than anywhere else in the city. That is the number one public safety issue on school days when school is in session. You have to see it to believe it. Now, up on the screen, I'd ask my colleagues to look. You'll see a picture that was taken today. And that's a picture that is every day at Grafton Street near Roosevelt. You'll see many violations right there in that picture.

One parked by a fire hydrant, two parked right at the curb cut, State Law, General Law is five feet from a curb cut. Every curb cut other than Batteries Unlimited where the owner justifiably puts cones out to allow customers to come in and out of his business without such a tough situation of being able to see oncoming traffic. So every business that comes from Roosevelt School to Dalton Street, the cars are parked right at the curb cut. People that are exiting those businesses cannot see the oncoming traffic. We have had several accidents over the years because of this.

The accidents have raised from fender benders to total losses. In one instance, a gentleman was coming out of Dunkin' Donuts, The car that was at the curb cut gave him the wave to come on and come through. He did. And what happened was a car who was coming south on Grafton Street 122 on the opposite lane, in the opposite lane because those cars are blocking. Traffic and the road of traffic coming down south from Grafton Street toward Roosevelt. The car hit him broadsided and totaled his car. Gentleman happens to be 80 years old, had to be taken to the hospital. I mean, this is just one instance of what goes on there.

Now, I know the parents have notified us of their concern that they want to be able to pick up their children at release time, but in all honesty the safety of their children will be addressed with this item that we are proposing tonight and not only that but the safety of every driver and every person that takes on that section of Grafton Street each and every day. They the amount of people that have told me they avoid that area they know of the situation and they avoid that area is very numerous who have told me, I don't go near that part of the city, from 1.30 to quarter past two.

So imagine that this is what we have knowing that people try to avoid that situation. In doing this, in putting this item forward, we give the ability for enforcement to take place. Right now General Law is, I'm told, on a state route, you can pull over, but you cannot park. There are people that park at Roosevelt School as early as 12, 1215, 1230. They now leave their cars there. and get picked up and come back around release time just to have their car up close so they can pick up their child.

We're in just like five minutes, too.

Okay, let me just close by saying. You can get five more minutes. I appreciate that. Five more minutes right now?

Yeah, but you can't go a second time.

Okay, thank you. Getting back to my point, There are people there at 12.30 and 1 o'clock and 1.30 for a release time at 2. And they, again, they're parked right up at the curb cuts. They park all the way back. to an intersection of Dalton Street and Grafton Street and the entrance to Stop and Shop Plaza. Starbucks Coffee, back to Dalton Street, there's the length of two cars. When people park there, they are taking up the full width of the road. And people who have to come around and avoid their cars are on the other side of traffic. forcing people to drive on the wrong side of the road.

And that is where all the safety issues come into play. There were many accidents, there were many near misses, and now people are even parking on Dalton Street, and as the light turns green, they get into that line of traffic to go pick up their child while there are a number of cars that have already been parked for several minutes as far back as I said Burger King and people have actually got out of the car and started arguments and almost blows. This happens very, very frequently. So Mr. Chairman, I would ask my colleagues here tonight to give us the vote to put up the temporary no parking signs

the city manager and the police chief have promised and have committed to enforcement being there, because that's what it's gonna take Right now, we've talked to the principal of the school, and in all honesty, she says it's not my job to go out there and ask people to come up and Parkin. It's another thing I'd like to bring up. City Council last session voted over a million dollars to add 30 plus parking spots to alleviate this problem and nobody is going up there and taking advantage of that parking. The principal, in all due respect, we asked her if she could speak to the parents and she came back to say it's not her job. And in all honesty, it's not. That's why we need police presence and we need that enforcement there.

People are going to be asked. to move up and go park in those spots that we created for this situation. If they don't, then obviously they're going to have to fail the effect of a ticket. I remember last week, one parent saying that, what are you gonna do with the 40 to 50 cars? So they admit, that there's that kind of number of cars that are waiting for their child to go and pick up their child on school property. So if we take 30 of those cars off the street and put them in those parking spots, that again, I commend the previous city council and the manager for coming up with the funding for those spots. That would go a long way.

Again, I'll ask my colleagues to support this temporary enforcement for 90 days and let's see what happens. I hope and I am... I am pretty confident that it will have a dramatic effect. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Council King? Council King?

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I want to begin by thanking the Councilor Fresolo for This item. Certainly, there's been a number of attempts to remedy this matter from the city manager to the mayor, Councilor Toomey, former Councilor Russell. and to take this initiative to push things forward is a good thing. I have some questions on his face. I'm not sure about this, I think that I could be moved, but I stand initially in opposition to this. I have some questions to the administration. And first and foremost, I'm not looking to ticket parents. The term enforcement's been used a couple of times. I'm not opposed to getting to that.

But I stand before you, Mr. Chairman, as the father of Worcester Public Schools student. and I know I'm also a DCF social worker. I actually went out to Roosevelt this morning around 7.30 or so, I think, or 7.15, can't remember. They get there pretty early. And I know it's always a race. It's a race if you're picking up kids from after school programs at the Greendale Y. It's a race at Roosevelt School, Vernon Hill, Flagstreet, you name it. And I've called in the past for safety audits on those schools. which haven't come back. I'll reiterate at some point, maybe next meeting, we'll pull that back out. But there certainly needs to be a plan in coordination with My question to the Chair is this. What gives me pause on this is the establishment of no parking any time on both portions. I spoke briefly to the Councilor. and what he was saying does make sense to me.

But I just want some clarification on this particular item. The way I read it is that this is recommending both an adoption of an order to establish a parking anytime zone on a 90-day trial basis and an ordinance to permanently and so on. So, my first question is, if you could speak to the both sides of the street through the administration, what that might look like, what the purpose is, what's the benefits, and then secondly, Mr. Chairman, the second portion of that would be as a point of order. Would it make sense to bifurcate it and separate out into two different orders through the chair? Thank you.

Commissioner?

Thank you. Through the Chair. So there are, as was noted by the Councilor, there are two aspects to this proposal. One is a 90-day trial. which could go into effect with an affirmative vote by the council essentially immediately. and that would apply specifically to that southbound portion of the street that's approaching the school driveway. where you see the parents and others who are dropping school kids off and picking them up arrive. well before school time and that's also the location where we have this very high frequency of driveways. There's actually 10 driveways in an 800 foot span. So that's a very dangerous situation to have cars parked right up to those driveways on a busy road like this. And then people trying to enter and exit the driveways.

In addition the second aspect is a proposed ordinance to make that permanent. There are portions on both sides of the road that are not suitable for parking. So we have proposed an ordinance that would apply to both sides of the road rather than just the one side. rather than try to perfect that in the initial ordinance, our thought was we identified the whole segment in the ordinance that'll go to traffic and parking committee and give us the opportunity to then perfect those limits and bring it back down to the locations where it's truly necessary.

Yes, I'm just thinking, I'm a little confused. So by vote, we take a vote, we can do the temporary signs as requested. This order also indicates that we would be permanently establishing a no parking anytime zone, which is, for me, it's counterintuitive. So if you could just somewhat clarify. I mean, I don't know if it's a point of order, what it is, but it's not cohesive to me. It seems a little messy.

Well, it's gonna go to the committee for discussion during this 90-day period and see how it works and go, so it'll be like 90 days before the traffic department can come back with it, I would think, right? Through the chair, that's- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but, yeah.

Go ahead. Mr. Chair, that's correct. So the 90-day trial would go into effect immediately. To make that permanent, the city has to pass an ordinance which would follow the normal process. This would be referred to traffic and parking. There would be discussions and a hearing there. then it would have to come back to the City Council for a vote on the actual ordinance itself to make it permanent.

OK. Again, that's not how this reads. And so what I would request as an amendment is that we bifurcate this and that this particular order is separated out, that we have an order adopting a 90-day trial, no parking any time. on Grafton Street, and then a separate order to consider the establishment of a permanent no parking anytime on both portions, Mr. Chairman. The way this is written, it indicates that we would be approving both with this vote. that's how it reads. That'd be my recommendation, Mr. Chairman. A lot of our parents, guardians, friends, folks that are trying to figure out with the lack of opportunities after school and what have you, Worcester Public Schools.

These folks are zipping in and out at 25 miles per hour, zipping in and out. picking up their kids and trying to get to work, trying to get their kid to a relative, to a friend, to someone to care for their kids until they're out of work. and I was able, you know, I've been down there before, as has Councilor Toomey and others, to kind of take a look at this and, you know, when I went this morning, it seemed a little bit improved. I went on both sides. on the Graffin Street side and the other side, Massasoit, it's not Massasoit, but on the other side. you know it seems like there's a little bit of flow but the counselor's right it's not used like it could be but at the same time it wasn't as backed up but When schools letting out, I think there's a different type of flow as well because folks are trying to get back to work. after leaving work versus leaving home and what have you.

So as a parent, I would hate there to be any sort of Replication of this at our other schools without the proper piloting, without any sort of Misunderstanding by the public based on how this reads, Mr. Chairman. So that would be my amendment. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Toomey.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I rise as this is certainly has been talked about on this council floor for several years. I'm a former Roosevelt parent myself. I understand what it's like, but when my kids were there, it was a small neighborhood school. It was not a huge 600 student school building. bringing in the number of vehicles that it does every day with parents dropping off. And so certainly it does make huge impact on the community and safety for children. The one question I have, and I was going to, through you, Mr. Chair, I was going to rise to also make comment that Councilor King did regarding it was confusing and it needed to be separated. I also am just curious about, if we vote this, what is the plan? By saying we're not allowed to park on a certain part of Grafton Street,

What is the plan that's going to be distributed to the parents as to where they're going to go? Because that's part of the safety aspect of this. It's like just saying you can't park there. Great. Well, where do they go? Do we have a plan put forward? And that's through you, Mr. Mayor, to whomever. Administration.

Mr. Raulio. Commissioner.

Thank you. Through the chair. So we have been working with the school to look at ways that they can address the drop off. We certainly wouldn't want to implement this until they have time to notify the parents with a specific start date. We are leaving other portions of the street open for parking so once you get south of the driveway there's actually an extended long section of shoulder that is safer and more appropriate for parking that will remain available. and then another aspect of this is that we're gonna have to work with the school district to adjust and see how parents react. We don't exactly know what people are gonna do. So I think there's going to be a little bit of a learning process here. And I think that's one of the real benefits of having a 90-day trial to start with, is we can observe and learn and adjust as we need to.

Through you, Mr. Chair, I've had an off conversation with the Commissioner regarding the possibility of establishing volunteer parents crossing students and walking down the street for safety's sake, and possibly talking to the owners of the supermarket Plaza, to see if we could use some of those spots. Have we gone into that at all through you, Mr. Chair, Mr. Raleigh, Commissioner Raleigh?

Commissioner.

Through the chair, I can't speak as to the conversations the school district may have had on those. So I haven't personally had any conversations because it's out of our purview to sort of make these sorts of arrangements for how they might park. And I wouldn't want to speak for the school district. So I don't know if those have taken place or not.

OK. Through you, Mr. Chair, I know when I was on the school committee, our school safety liaison would have the police department do the traffic studies. and I mean this is not an unusual issue I mean almost every single school that we have in the city at release time you know are going to school has traffic issues I remember a big to do about May Street and Nelson Place School and all of those things. So traffic has always been an issue. But they would come up with a plan. I remember being at Wistrots Magnet School, which was also an issue. And so they came up with a plan of how to direct the parents in and out of the parking lot the teachers were out there the principal was out there it was highly enforced and you know so I think there's there's got to be a little bit more conversation about responsibility making sure the students are safe and collaborating with the police and at the Traffic and Mobility Department, and making sure that we're all working together to make this seamless.

Make it work, because it can't just say we're going to stop the parking without having something cohesive put in place. So I'm all for doing a trial. I'm definitely supporting that. But I'm asking that we have a cohesive plan put together before it starts.

Thank you. Mr. Manager? Through you, Chair, to the Council, yeah, I just want to kind of add a little bit and provide a little bit of context to some of the comments and questions that Councilor Toomey raised. I actually went and met with the superintendent, the principal, and some of their staff, some of our staff. We met and we had a conversation. We walked the area. We tried to understand kind of what are the challenges. One of the things that the school administration tried to take on was to purchase vests for the teachers so that they can at least be visible as they're outside coordinating the traffic. More specifically within the actual parking lot that they're in. They don't overextend to the sidewalk or even to the street. They try to stay on the actual parking lot. and coordinate some of the efforts. There is a reality in terms of there are days where there's

tens of, if not over 30 parking spaces available on the lot, right? And so the purposes of what we tried to design was could we shift parking spaces further back so the teachers can Occupy those first so that it opens up anything in the front end so parents can park in the front etc and then a lot of teachers and and administrators to help support or guide the students to the vehicles as they're going through and then provide a better access in and out through the lot. that has been talked about quite a bit we're trying to kind of reinforce that with these with the teachers I mean with the school principal and their staff again they're trying to find ways and on their end to manage students coming off trying to be safe that kids are not running behind vehicles and as people trying to reverse it's a complex situation but I think

This is one of the aspects of many different aspects or different ideas that we've brought to the table to try to address this overall issue. It's a real concern. I live in the area. I drive that area quite often. So I see it and I experience it and it's a real concern. And when you see that people trying to navigate and sometimes vehicles occupying that lane. Traffic is either they're trying to move in the yellow lane or sometimes even trying to go around. So I think it becomes a challenge and we're trying to find every tool that we can utilize to provide a better safe environment in the area. I know that I've mentioned about enforcement of police officers, et cetera. Our goal is not to go there and just start ticketing people. Our goal is to reinforce and provide some warnings and let people know you got to move it on. You cannot sit here. But we can't do that right now without an actual ordinance or something in place.

If there's nothing in place, we have no ability to go in there and force people to move. So that's what we want to be able to have so that we have the ability to enforce those rules and those ordinance. And this 90-day trial will give us the opportunity to understand that. Is it working? Is it not working? Does it help? Does it not help? and it gives us the ability then to come back and then provide a better solution. Thanks.

Okay, so we're all set. So we have two votes. The first vote is going to adopt the 90 day emergency preamble. Bergman?

Yes. Councilor Bilotta?

No.

Economou, Fresolo, King, Mitra, Ojeda, Rivera, Rosen, Toomey, and Mayor Petty. Yes. The second motion is to refer the traffic in packing the ordinance. Roll call. Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Bilotta? Yes. Councilor Economou? Yes. Councilor Fresolo?

Yes. Councilor King? Point of order, Mr. Chairman. Is the language I suggested changed as part of that also?

Sorry, I missed it. What was the language you asked for?

You just want to make it clear it's not a permanent. Right, it was like to consider.

Yeah. Okay, cool. As amended to consider it.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Mitra. Yes. Councilor Ojeda.

Yes.

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

Yes. Okay, we'll go back to the agenda. first order is request the manager, request the police chief to provide increased speed and traffic enforcement surrounding the Belmont Street Community School located at 170 Belmont Street. Councilor Bilotta.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, speaking of school safety, I've heard a lot of concerns about speeding on Belmont Street, past Belmont Community School in the area of like Stanton Street. and Mayor of Belmont. So I was just hoping the Chief could help out with providing some additional enforcement. I've heard from residents that traffic, regardless if there's Crossing guards are not like the traffic's just really bad and people fly through there so I was hoping that we could get some more enforcement and you know write some tickets and write some fines to really enforce that so thank you

Thank you, sir. The motion is referred out to the manager. All those in favor? Opposed? So, audit. A second order to request the manager, request the Commissioner of Parks and Rec and Cemetery. Initiate a Park Master Plan for Lake Park, Councilor Bilotta.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I've lived near Lake Park, grown up there my whole life. It's a great section of the city, a great park. I know a lot of people might be familiar with it, but think it's a state park, but everything on the east side of and the West Side of Lake Ave is city property. So it'd be great to develop a master plan for that park. A lot of residents use it. There's a lot of great trails there in the woods and it's really a beloved park by the neighborhood and the city. So I was hoping we could do a master plan because that's really never been done before and it's a great space that could use some some improvements

Okay, so refer that to the manager. Those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Request the manager to provide counsel with a draft ordinance to increase fees for illegal dumping from $200 to $500, $1,000 fines for secondary offenses. In an effort to deter illegal dumping in the city's neighborhoods. Councilor Bilotta?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I know dumping is a consistent issue in the city, not just in my district, but across the city. And it's an issue for residents. It's a real issue for neighbors. And I was hoping that by increasing the fines, this could just help deter illegal dumping. And I really think we need to do more to try and crack down on it. I know TNK Hill and Quality of Life team do a lot of work on that. but I think it's just really really out of control and not that it reflects anything on the city or our staff but it just unfortunately there's a lot of dumping that's happening on quiet streets and in the Harrington Way, Franklin Street, and Bigelow Davis Parkway. So I was hoping we could do more just to crack down on that.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm either going to ask to amend or oppose. I think the order is well intended. The number of years I've been on this council, I can say one thing that I believe to be true based on my experience. And that is that the fines for dumping are by and large paid by the landlord, not the tenant. and by and large the dumping is done by the tenant not the landlord. So the nature of what this is trying to accomplish in an effort to deter illegal dumping in my opinion won't work whether you make the fine go from $200 to $500 or $200 to $1,000 or more because the landlord under our ordinance is paying for the tenant who's, it may very well be, that the tenant is being asked to leave and they have nowhere to put their items. I'm not necessarily faulting one side or the other.

I'm just suggesting the reality, which is this isn't going to motivate anybody to stop the problem. We've talked in this council about having Ballot Street open more regularly to pick up bulk items. We've talked about dropping off tires Mattresses and TVs and other things more readily accessible to households, whether it's a landlord or the tenant to try to avoid the illegal dumping that hasn't yet come to fruition. I would like to see a report as to how many of these fines have been assessed against landlords versus tenants and how frequently certain people are and others not following the law. My sense is that nobody wants to pay those fines multiple times, if not even once. I don't know how they are going to stop it if, as a landlord, a tenant is going to violate the ordinance. it falls on the landlord.

So, I mean, I'd like an amendment to ask for a report as to the breakdown of the fines over the last year. Who's been paying them? Does it go to the landlord? Where does it go to the tenant and how many people have been multiple offenders? If that's possible, then I'll certainly support waiting for the report to come back. If that's not possible, Again, I believe it's well intended. I'm not being critical of the intent, but I don't believe raising the fine based on who pays it is gonna deter illegal dumping.

Is the amendment okay? Yeah, just to follow up. You know, my intention of the order was really to address dumping not just happening, that's not just happening at properties, but that's happening along city streets. There's a lot of times where you'll find Mattresses, Furniture, Toilet on Bigelow Davis Parkway. It's not just about dumping that's happening in front of properties, in front of, you know, homes. And, you know, certainly I don't think it's just a landlord and tenant issue. You know, there's dumping happening all over the city in front of properties, in front of sidewalks. So it's really, you know, Not really coming at this from a perspective of landlords versus tenants or tenants versus landlords. It's just a question of can we do more to discourage people from dumping? So thank you. Councilor Toomey.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the order and its intent. The state has very high fine levels for First offense fines up to $5,500 and subsequent offenses fine up to $15,000. Then there are additional penalties depending upon the type of material. Also, vehicles could be seized, which is also what the state is asking for. I know that local ordinances vary by city, Worcester, Boston, Shrewsbury. So if we could get a report back through you, Mr. Chair, if this is okay with Councilor Bilotta on what's happening in other cities of our size and also

local cities and towns that would be very helpful in terms of determining where and what and I think it's really important that we also take a look at the type of dumping. I know Amesbury They had a company that paid up to $50,000 for illegal construction waste dumping. So there are certainly high bars and local enforcement nature of dumping can lead to substantially higher fines. sometimes in the tens of thousands of dollars plus other serious consequences. So I think it's really important that we come up with a very comprehensive report back. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. So as amended. Pallotta. Councilor Pallotta has amended, it's fine? Okay, thank you. Okay, all those in favor, send that to the manager as amended. All those in favor, a postal audit. Next up is request the manager review current security operations at Union Station to determine whether increased police patrols and or outreach social services are needed to ensure that the station remains safe and welcome to all. Councilor Rosen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, during the long political campaign, I heard from a few people on the campaign trail and recently received an email from a woman who evidently uses the train service to and from Boston, frequently maybe commutes for her job. Just a few things that she said in her email that I had heard during the campaign. She was talking about Union Station and issues, she said, loitering, aggressive behavior, individuals approaching diners. This one was new to me. Diners at Maxwell Luciano's restaurant for money. and she also mentioned teenagers. This was new to me too. Teenagers have been observed riding bicycles inside the building while commuters are moving to and from the main entrance.

and she said the current conditions have created situations that feel unsafe for commuters, visitors, diners and employees who use the station regularly and that's what I heard from the campaign. over the last several years my wife and I have hosted international students. We host two presently and they're both 15 years old and they go to the train station. I drop them off and pick them up. They go to Boston via the train. and I've heard these type of issues and complaints from them where they feel so intimidated when certain people come up to them, ask them for money and so on and I know we do have a what police substation down there. So I would think that maybe the police would be aware of what's going on and I hope they are. And as part of my order though, I did say maybe outreach social services. If folks down there who may be acting out and may be intimidating people and they shouldn't be, if they need some help from the city, some social service help, then I'm fine with that.

I just think some of these activities maybe go on for so long we become too accepting of them and if these things that the woman mentioned in the letter are happening maybe we could just tighten up things down there and make sure that the Union Station is safe for everyone and welcoming for everyone, including people who do spend inordinate amount of time down there, maybe hanging out there, but they shouldn't be allowed to certainly ride bikes there and also to bother diners at our fine restaurant down there. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Motion to send out to the manager. Councilor Toomey, what purpose are your ayes?

for a point of clarification through you Mr. Chair I also received I think we all received the same email and I because of the nature of the issue I reached out to the to the chief and and it's my understanding that over the past two weeks they've had a number of arrests down there and they really tightened everything up so it's underway and there is a station down there but they they did send Send folks down to address this, thank you.

Okay, so send that to the manager. All those in favor, do you want to speak? No, go ahead. All those in favor, opposed. Opposed. Okay, so take a roll call, roll call.

Brueggemann? Yes. Councilor Bilotta? No. Councilor Economou? Yes. Councilor Fresolo?

Yes.

Councilor King? No. Councilor Mitra? Yes. Councilor Ojeda? No. Rivera, yes, Councilor Rosen, yes, Councilor Toomey, yes, and Mayor Petty, yes.

Okay, requesting Manager, request Commissioner of Public and Commissioner of Transportation Mobility review potential options that could be implemented to fill potholes and repair utility patches in the city. including the limited infrared heater repairs and emulation part hole repair. I can't even see it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On this item here, speaking with Commissioner Rawling and Commissioner Westerling in regards to how we handle our potholes and really Doing some research, the asphalt emulsion system seems to work pretty well. Not something that's really doable during the winter, but if it's something that we can stay on during the course of the year, it provides an asphalt base, a consistency similar to a thick clam chowder. How's that? but the good thing about it is the emulsion seals the hole on the sides. So you don't have that crack around the edge, which again is part of the freeze-thaw cycle that we experience here. And then secondly,

I don't know if it's a city requirement or if it's just a contractor and this is their contractor who they use to do some of their patchwork repair. The infrared system where they heat the asphalt that's right there. Reallocate it, tamp it down. That's the premier system. And I've seen that done in numerous areas around the city. and you wouldn't even know the street was patched. It came out excellent. So I just ask both commissioners to give this some consideration as we move forward to try to get a better handle on our streets. Thank you.

Sorry, Senator Mangia, all those in favor or opposed, so we'll audit. request the commission Transportation Mobility organize a discussion with the appropriate representatives from MassD, MassDOT to review traffic pattern changes made to the vicinity of Grafton Street including the removal of Fezzel, left-hand turns of Houghton Street onto Grafton Street as well as removal of access to Rice Square from Atkins Street. Councilor Fezzel.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and through you. Mr. Chairman, back a few years ago, Grafton Street, as we know it, Route 122 was redesigned. and renovated by the state, the Commonwealth MassDOT and they redesigned from Rice Square going south down to the base of Grafton Street, I-290. And in doing so, they changed two traffic patterns, which at the time I was, I'm extremely against and tried to voice my concern and unfortunately it ended up in the final phase of the plan. One of them is at Rice Square. Acton Street is a side street that takes you to the properties of two businesses, JJ's Pizza

and Palmer's Bakery and Deli. And those two establishments receive orders twice or three times a week from companies that unfortunately deliver in tractor trailers in some cases. And they are not allowed back out to access Route 122 Grafton Street at Rice Square. They are forced to go down the narrow street of Acton Street. and what has happened several times, many times through these years that that is the case that one way in, to Acton Street is that these trucks can't navigate the narrow street because it's not wide enough, and they end up taking out side view mirrors of cars. Now, each time they do that,

Our insurance rates go up because that's a vehicle accident that's happening, just as I should have spoke on Roosevelt School. Same thing, every time we have an accident, The insurance companies raised the rates here in Worcester. And this is a case where government is definitely failing the people here with this decision. I want to correct that error that we made a few years back. And I'm told by Commissioner Raleigh that we don't need DOT, that we can change it ourselves. So it's a section of Acton Street from Rice Square to Kenyon Ave, probably 50 to 60 feet that we need to just return back two ways. Very simple, just takes new signage that take down the signage that says you're not able to access

taking a right-hand turn out of the parking lot. And then we have to reactivate the green light coming out of Active Street. And by the way, living there all my life, talking to people that are from Rice Square and Grafton Hill, I can't remember an accident coming out of Acton Street onto Rice Square. It's a separate light. It comes out. A few seconds, you're given the opportunity to leave, and it's right on red. If no traffic is coming, you're able to get out. Very simple answer to this problem that we're having now because of an error in judgment when we were told by DOT that we should have one way there, access. The second one is at the end of Houghton Street when it intersects Grafton Street. Always was able to take a left hand turn

going down Grafton Street toward 290 and DOT put in a medium strip, concrete medium strip and does not allow the access of a left-hand turn onto Grafton Street. What it does, forces people to take a right-hand turn and you're putting more traffic into a very, very congested intersection or roundabout in front of St. Stephen's Church at Building Square. So I talked to the manager, I talked to Commissioner Raleigh about it. Maybe we won't be able to solve the left-hand turn, but we're definitely going to look at the light at Wall Street, which has definitely been an impairment, not allowing and so on. So we're going to look at that as well.

So, uh, at least get the situation on Acton Street corrected as soon as possible. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor King, what purpose do you rise?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have some questions on this so that I may support it. My question to the Chair is this. I understand the turnout of Palmas there. I certainly support that. That makes sense. My concern is Acton Street. I've met with family members there over the years. I believe there was a child fatality on Acton Street. It's a cut-through street. I've had clients and families that have lived on that street. Through the Charity Administration, I just want to ask, do you recall whether or not there was a child fatality on Acton Street?

Mr. Manager.

Through you, Chair, to the Council, I know there's been some public safety activity, I believe it's sometime in 2018, there was some that occurred in that area. But I would have to provide more definitive kind of answer. But I know that there's relatively, during that time frame, there was some public safety concerns in that area.

Thank you. Do you want to report on that? Yeah, I'd like to get a report on that so that I can support this. Without it, I would not be able to. In addition to that, Mr. Chairman, as part of that report, if we could get something regarding any sort of traffic calming that did occur on that street outside of the one way. aspect to it would be appreciated. Otherwise, I'll support this. Thank you.

Okay. So we'll file through those reports. Councilor Fezzola? Yes. Okay. So we're gonna send that to manager as amended. All those in favor? Opposed? So, ordered. Next item is 9G, request to manage by council to report concerning the feasibility of allowing residents to pay for their Community Preservation Act surcharge online on the city's website. Dr. Mitra.

Thank you Mr. Chair. Through you Mr. Chair to Mr. Manager, I think city residents have been able to pay most of the fees and taxes online. I think this Community Preservation Act fee has been implemented almost like two and a half years now from fiscal year 2024. The first time the fee was paid was in 2023 July. and residents have been kind of riding this Preservation Act fee by check and don't have the ability to pay it online. I was just wondering if it could be possible for us in a technologically so high city like ours, if it could be feasible to see that fee could also be paid online. many residents have requested that and I thought that I'll bring it to your attention and see if it could be done.

Okay, so send that to the, what's that? Send that to the manager. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Next item is a request to the manager to provide the council with a report concerning the feasibility of creating a smart, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound goals for the city in the effort to standardize and track residents' needs in transparent and effective Manor said goals should include but not be limited to issues such as the amount of potholes that can and should be fixed in a month, providing services for homeless individuals, determining appropriate speed locations, and improving public safety outcomes. Dr. Mitra.

Thank you again Mr. Chair. Once again Mr. Chair through you to City Manager. I think my point here is that there are a lot of things that we need to do. I was looking at that we have about 33 more meetings that we'll be attending this year. and I've got a lot of works to do. So I thought that every time I come, I mean, this is my second time I see that we have a lot of petitions that residents are requesting. to fix the potholes, surface the sidewalk, or pave the roads. Take care of the homeless people. Take care of the affordable housing. We have a lot of work to do. We have to bring in jobs. Rather than having citizens telling us, is there a way that we can set a goal?

that we can work being data driven, being integrated with our technology system, being holistically approaching with all of the different departments like D.P.W., Department of Traffic and Transportation Mobility, our Police Department, Fire Department, Inspection Department, integrate with each other and make an approach that Can we have a goal set up that we can go and survey and find out how many potholes are there? How many places we need to really put the speed hump? Rather than coming in here every time, which is fine if the residents say that I need a speed hump here, we'll bring it to your attention. But can we, rather than being reactive, can we be proactive? and find out what we need to do and set a SMART goal. SMART in the sense that specific

It's measurable, it's attainable, it's relevant to us, and it's time bound. Let's say we found out that there are in the city about 500 potholes are there. It could be detected if we use the technology. and then we find that District 1 has so many, District 2 has so many, 4, 5 and we decide that okay and next month we will go and fix 20 holes, potholes in each district. kind of it is measurable. It's time bound. It's also done. So I think so many other things that we have to do. you know job bringing the job and the businesses how many jobs you should bring every month or for the year or for quarterly basis how many houses you should build then we have a goal-oriented and so on. We need a smart approach taking care of talking to all the departments that we have who can make it happen. Can they all set up a goal, a smart goal? That's my request, to see if we could do that.

We are here for, you know, time flies. We have a lot of things to do for the city so residents can find that we are one of the smartest cities. These are happening in many other cities like Boston, Houston, Kansas. and New York City and LA. I read about it. So I thought maybe we should be one of the smartest cities as well. using all these technological approach being integrated, being data driven, being working together with our private partners and see that if we can approach it, make it a goal set, smart goal setting approach. That's my request to see if it could be possible for us to do and I think that it should be. We should be able to do it because Because we have the technology, we have the department people who are dedicated to work, rather than waiting for the residents to tell us what needs to be done, can we find out ourselves and proactively take care of those.

Okay, send that to the manager then. Okay, thank you. Mr. Manager.

I appreciate this order. I am a person that loves data, data-driven in terms of who I am. I love technology. I love to implement technology, create processes that are more streamlined. that's one of the reasons why we instituted a strategic plan the city did that through that process established some KPIs for every department that's highlighted in the budget, but also the strategic plan that we've laid out. I think it's something that lays out specifically these goals in every single department. We're building our internal system technology systems to be able to have that data easily available to us so we can measure against it. and so I am extremely excited about this but I highly encourage the councilors especially the new councilors to look at our new strategic plan that was launched last year

That's the strategic plan that the city council evaluated me on during the city manager evaluation. But that's also the strategic plan that I evaluate my department heads. and so we will present the budget to you in the budget documents that each department will be challenged to make sure they achieve those outcomes of that strategic plan that we laid out. that involved community input through surveys, focus groups, you name it. We had a consultant to utilize, to engage community. to provide perspective, to be able to inform these goals. So I'm extremely excited about this, to be able to provide more feedback and also where we're at in some of the outcomes related to the goals that we established. as part of the strategic plan so that not only community but also the Councilor King be fully in tune with the outcomes that we're doing as a city. But I think one of the biggest challenges that we have as a municipality

is our systems, a lot of our data-driven systems that we need are really antiquated. And so we're going through the process of updating them. And a lot of that takes time. when you're talking about data upon data upon data, data migration, the integrity of the data, all that stuff is extremely important. We're going through that process in many different Avenues. And so I look forward again to kind of bringing this report and sharing all the work that we've been doing around strategic planning, especially SMART goals. Thank you.

Thank you very much Mr. Manager. I would also like to say that as we approach statistically we also keep our residents informed where we are, where we are going with respect to all these things. There are so many things that we need to do as I mentioned. Not only the traffic, not only the potholes or the roads, but also homelessness, taking care of that, bringing in businesses in town. So we have a lot of things to do, and if we can keep our residents abreast about where we are periodically, I think that will be a great help. Thank you.

Thank you, so send that to the manager. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Okay, request the Standing Committee on Municipal Operations review the rules of the City Council to consider Amending Rule 3 of the City Council to change the seating assignments in the City Council's members every six months to allow the members to sit and work with different colleagues throughout each item, each term. See attached report, said seating changes should not impact the seat of the Vice Chairperson of the City Council, nor any members seated in specific locations for accessibility purposes. Councilor Mitra.

Thank you again, Mr. Chair. Once again, this is a request I am trying to see that we make it to the MLO committee to look into because, as you know, the Rule 3 says that we all get the seat assigned on the first day as you pick up the lotteries and then we are there for the entire term of our being the city council in this chamber. My thought was that that's great, but I think I'm very much privileged to be able to sit with Councilor Toomey and Councilor Bergman here, those who are quite experienced, and I'm learning from them. I'd like to see that we all get that kind of opportunity. If we can kind of have a movement amongst us, having the opportunity to sit with different other people, it just is a healthy attitude. it's a good way to know each other a little bit better talking discussing and I think bonding as well so we are trying to become a

Good counsel, a model counsel, and that's my thinking was there. It's not much of a work. It's just January we did one, maybe in July we do again, and then the four times in two We sit with different people, make good friends. We are friends. I know that we can also go out and meet, but how many times we can do that? We are so busy with our own agenda items, with so many meetings. This would force us to sit with one another. I'd like to sit next to Councilor Rosen, get his experience, Councilor King, to see what I can learn from them. So I was just thinking that if we could do that, probably Probably it will be a very good gesture, very good healthy atmosphere. I don't want the Vice Chair seat to be changed or Councilor Toomey's seat to be changed at the same time. Bilotta will be also there, but others probably can get a chance to mingle with each other in this two-year term that we are here.

It's just a good feeling. That's what I was thinking to request, if you can approve that.

So send that to committee. Councilor King, this doesn't affect you.

Mr. Chairman, I certainly appreciate the order, well-intentioned, you know, and I just, I'm gonna be the bad guy here. You know, I've been on this council since going on my sixth term. And I've witnessed folks sit right next to each other and not speak for four years. much less four months. And I agree that this body can benefit from increased contact that's not a violation of open meeting laws. There's certainly a lot to be said about learning from one another, which is something that I've done from each and every one I've served with, as well as from the public, Mr. Chairman. There are a number of important matters before municipal operations and legislative affairs as a former chairman.

of that body, and then going way back when it was separated and there was municipal operations and legislative affairs. And in these times, Mr. Chairman, we're dealing with an onslaught of challenges that we're gonna have with state aid, legislative matters. We have a petition on later today on state resolution that could impact the city. et cetera. I would prefer that we focus on other things Mr. Chairman. So I'm going to be the dark cloud in the room. it's not for a lack of camaraderie or anything of that nature but sort of the musical The musical chairs, the dance of this is great in thought, but in reality, I'm not sure we're gonna get what we need. What I would encourage us to do is to reach out

engage as the Councilor mentioned outside of this body and get to know folks political values and leanings Mr. Chairman but I don't think that this would accomplish what we'd like and would like that committee to focus on the important work that's there and that will be coming, Mr. Chairman, so I'll be in opposition.

Okay, okay. Okay, so anybody else? Would you like to speak for a second time?

I still think that it's a great idea. It's not going to be that we're not going to be looking into other matters. We're still going to be serious about the matters we have. In our hand, this doesn't take so much time to take away from anyone. I think it's just a good gesture, just a good way to know each other. I know we can meet outside, but it doesn't happen that often, practically. My request would be to kind of take a vote and recommend it to the MLO committee.

Okay. Thank you, Dr. Mitra. All set? Okay, so it's so clear then. So we have a motion, I believe, Councilor Kings has a motion to file. I didn't make a motion, I just said I was in opposition. Okay, so we'll just do a roll call on the item, up or down, the Senate, the committee. Okay, and we're good. Is that Dr. Mitra?

Okay.

So the motion is to send to the standing committee. And the yes will go to the standing committee, and the no vote will not go to the standing committee, roll call.

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

Yes. Okay, next I'm requesting City Manager to provide counsel with a report concerning how the Office of the City Manager processes priorities and keeps track of the numerous requests received by their office during the City Council meetings to guide City Council for the best practices for making requests of the office. Councilor Mitra.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Once again, to you, to Mr. Manager, Mr. Manager, this is not to put you on the spot about how you process, but I think I was trying to make it probably find out that last time when we were in the meeting, I remember you said you have about 1,500 I was trying to say that we need to be more practical. something that we can really afford to do. If we are giving you, we're 10 of us, if we come here every week, and on the average have three orders each or four orders. We're giving you about 40 orders a week or 30 orders a week. That's about 2,000 orders almost in 50 weeks and that's overwhelming. So I'm seeing that if that's the situation, can one person handle it? And how do you process it? Can the residents know that

How did all these orders get processed? Is there a track that we do this, we pick up these orders and have a visibility of how it is moving and then finally the order is given back to the council reported as you move forward. So is there a tracking process? But if it looks like that it is way too much than a person can do, We are all human beings. We can only do so much. We all have other things to do. We have family. We have other things. So can we then, in that case, think that, OK, There are orders we can bring, but can we then restrict it to maybe two orders per week so that you can handle it? My question was that is this really getting a process? Is there a way that we can help that

If you say, no, that's okay, I can handle all these, look to me like it's overwhelming to have that many orders to kind of process, and then people probably don't know how it's getting processed, which one is getting picked and which one is not getting picked. So I thought that maybe you can let us know how your process is so we councillors can think that do we need to make a change in this. Is it too much? Can we really do it? And from that point of view, I'd like to request you to kind of give us your way how you handle this.

Mr. Manager.

through the Chair to the Council. I'll touch a little bit on that, and then I'll be happy to be able to provide a report. The process of answering Council orders. I'll take that specific, just council orders, because I know that tonight some folks made reference to petitions, to other items, and that's totally separate. I'm looking at specifically orders that come from the councilors. on the council floor, not excluding committee orders too. So not only do we receive hundreds from this council throughout the year, but also committee submits orders as well when committees are having discussions and want further information, et cetera. What I do is I oftentimes what I have done is I have tried to engage with, that's why I do one-on-one meetings with the councilors. And so I try to discuss those orders with the council that put them forward and say, what are you looking for? Do you want me to submit this? Is this a simple email?

Is this a simple thing that I can just get an answer to you, et cetera? Oftentimes, that's simply what they're looking for. They just want an answer. So I'll provide the answer, whether it's a text message, a phone call, an email, or verbally communicated in a one-on-one meeting. But it doesn't generate a report. to the council. They are reports that then sometimes we put together because they're very important not only to the council but also to the public that people need to know. So we'll put reports together to inform everyone. And sometimes those reports, there might be multiple councilors that kind of alluded to that kind of report at different meetings, so we try to compile that and answer that collectively. but you're right, we got hundreds. So when I think about my three years as current city manager, thousands, right? And so we look at that specifically for every councilor and I try to work that through with every councilor. And some councilors say, well, that's not a priority right now. This is my priority. Can you work on answering this one? So we'll do that.

And so I try to do that through our one-on-one engagements with the councilors. Understanding and knowing that sometimes depending on what community wants and what community needs in terms of their advocacy, it could be something that's a little bit more pertinent that requires our ability to put a comprehensive report that does take time. and want to provide something comprehensive for the community and the public to digest. So it all depends on those reports, but that's typically how I engage specifically only to the council orders. the petitions that go to oftentimes those petitions will go to the respective committees the committees that all of you counselors report to and conduct business. You then make decisions that then comes to the departments and the departments will then put it on the list of things that have been adopted to be able to do or to rectify.

and so again that that's kind of how you typically the engagement goes but most often than not there's some of these orders that are coming forward are answered through just conversations that we're having and rather than just submitting a full report because otherwise a report could be simple a simple paragraph but should I be submitting a simple paragraph report to the council on answering one Question? I don't know. But again, the way we've done it is not only I do it, but probably predecessors of mine as well has probably been through that effort in engaging in conversation directly with the councilor.

Thank you, Mr. Manager. The point is that it's not only the petitions you have committees. It gets distributed. So but the orders are most of the time it is a request to the manager so it comes to you so you get too many orders and that's what my point was that how it is processed and people out there when you bring in the reports It's not only for the council to give the report. We're working here for the residents, for those people who are out there who are looking how this process is done, how is this All these orders are being picked and done. If you can just have a sort of like your way of doing it, that we pick it this way and then we talk to the councilors and we pick the Do it based on their priority. I think people will be happy to know the process I think that's what they are looking for and I was think that let's be transparent on that and

See that we are here to serve the community, serve the residents and their needs. So that was my request. Thank you.

Thank you. So we'll report back on that. So that's the manager. Chairman. Councilor King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I rise initially in opposition to this. I could be moved. And, you know, The act of filing an order conveys the will of the council to the city manager. In addition to that, at times when the council's in alignment with the people, it conveys the collective will of the people and this body, Mr. Chairman. And I don't want anyone to leave this conversation or this presentation with any sort of notion that this falls on the city manager individually without resources. So as this is written, I would not support it. If we wanna include the 8,000 employees, that assist in executing the manager's will and the manager's direction. We want to include the multiple departments and divisions across the city as part of this.

I will support it, but on its face, I would not. I would recommend by way of an amendment Mr. Chairman is that included in that report is the workforce and the capacity. Now we know that there's always staffing issues and the like. I've called for a staffing analysis of various departments, HHS for example, reorganizations, so that the work can get done. But there's nothing more important. then this body conveying the will of the people and of this and in terms of legislation and in terms of direction to the city manager we've heard time and time again from folks in the political sphere, in the public sphere, about how does the council, how does the manager know what the council wants? You've got 11 different people. 11 different values and priorities. And you've got the chair, the mayor, and what he wants. And then we appoint the clerk and the auditor.

So how does that all work? that flow. And so my amendment would be that all of that be included in this. And I could support this item if that was not accepted. Mr. Chairman, as a friendly amendment, I'd be in opposition. And if not accepted as a friendly amendment, I'd make a separate motion.

Thank you. So we have an amendment to ask, also include the workforce and the capacity of the manager.

As long as I think the process needs to be known to the people. So that's what I'm asking for. We have probably 25 orders today. We had about 30 orders probably last time. We just want to see how it is processed. That's all. It was through the workforce. I know city manager has a lot of workforce to work with, but that's what we want to know, how it is done. And that's what it's about. Thank you.

Okay, so as amended to the manager, all those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Next item up, request the city to correct by the council with a quarterly report outlining the various city council orders adopted over the previous three months. Councilor Mitra.

Yeah, this is kind of tags along with the previous one that I thought if through you, Mr. Chair, to the city. Clark, if I could request that, you know, if he has the last three months or the orders, how it has been processed, I think City Clerk can provide us that. I think that would be That would be a good idea for us, all of us, and also for the residents to know how it's getting processed for them. We have some idea in that way. So that's my request.

Okay. I'd like to sign on to that, Mr. Chairman. Okay, so I'll send that to. Thank you. The clerk has amended. All those in favor, postal audit. Next item is. Of course, the stand committee on public health and human service hold a public hearing for the purpose of making a recommendation to the city council concerning the advisability of endorsing and supporting H1370. and act relative to the Massachusetts primary care for you. Filed by Representative Rich Haggerty. And also as a relative to the primary care access filed by Representative Greg Swartz. said bills have already been endorsed by the Worcester Board of Health, the City of Springfield, Cambridge, and Mass Medical Society, and UMass Memorial Health, among several other major medical societies, advocacy organizations, both regionally and nationally,

said historic primary care legislation known as primary care for you will increase access to primary care, making it free for the patients of practices that opt in, no co-pays or deductibles. It will dramatically decrease health and Equities of Massachusetts. Councilor Rosen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this order came from my recent stint as a member of the Worcester Board of Health as it mentions the Worcester Board of Health along with other local agencies, hospitals, and agencies, hospitals, boards of health, Councils, Boards of Selectmen, all across the country have been talking about the crisis in primary care. A lot of doctors in their studies, in their learning areas are choosing not to go into primary care. They want to specialize in areas they're more interested in and areas that are more financially lucrative to them. So we have a crisis in primary care all across the country, including here, of course, in the city of Worcester. A lot of folks who want to get a primary care physician aren't able to find one, let alone one that they choose and they'd like to have. Those days seem to be behind us.

I know I was with Reliant Medical and I am and have been for decades and my a long time primary care physician retired and I was worried about getting anyone and they assigned me to someone, there was no choice, take this person or you're done pretty much, you don't have primary care. so I took that person and it's not the way it was years ago but we do have that shortage. Now there are bills in the legislatures all across the country and these are three that deal with primary care. It's called Primary Care for You and they mirror the legislation that's being talked about and passed in different states, cities, and towns supporting it across the country. I'm not going to go through all the separate bills, but I've I've asked for this to go to the Public Health Committee, which I chair, and we'll take a look at this, and obviously there's so much here. but we'll come back and make a recommendation to the city council.

So I'm not asking for anything tonight. will advise the city council, should we endorse these? Is it worth doing? Will that help? the legislators who are sponsoring these and support these, will that help them get these passed and through the legislature? So again, primary care, Crisis, what can we do in the city of Worcester to help things in our Commonwealth and in our city? We can take a look at some of these bills and see if they're worth our support. I know the Board of Health, I've already voted on it with the Board of Health. we are supporting these strongly supporting them and what came out of that meeting months ago when we decided to support these was let's lobby the Worcester City Council and see if we can get their support too just like Springfield City Council and Cambridge City Council did the same thing.

So here I am in a way lobbying you tonight, but just asking for the Public Health Committee to take a look at these and see if it's good stuff and if they should come back to the Council for endorsement. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, I'll send that to committee. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Okay, next. Request Manager, request Police Chief provide counsel of the 2025 Annual Report on Crime Stats. Councilor Toomey.

As it reads, Mr. Chair.

Set out to the manager. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Next item requested by the council to report concerning the number of vehicles owned by residents in the city that are not registered at the owner's current address. as Massachusetts state law requires owners to update their address with registry of motor vehicles and 30 days at any time they move and also require residents to update their address with the assessor's office, Councilor Toomey.

Thank You mr. chair this has been an issue especially with a large city such as Worcester with a lot of people moving in and out not really recognizing It's come up a lot of times when people are dealing with resident permit parking. And I know, especially with the colleges, the residents Massachusetts law says if you've moved you've got 30 days as if you're living in Massachusetts to register your car at the address that you are at and I think it's very there was a recent and they came up I think it was on social media where there was somebody talking about that as an issue and I think it's something that we really need to take Take a look at it certainly does impact the community. I look forward to that report and seeing what we can do to get that going.

Thank you. Okay, Senator Manger, all those in favor of a postural audit. Next item of request, manager requests Commissioner of Inspectional Services to notify owners and managers. of several city businesses, especially along Main South Corridor, from Federal Square to Webster Square, that they're in violation of city sign-ons, that prohibits signage from covering more than half of the window area of the business, in order to put aside, publicize and seek corrective action and to endorse the city's sign-on without saddling any small business with fines. Councilor Rosen, Ojeda.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the last phrase, several words of this is what's important. Enforce the city side ordinance. or get rid of it. Some people don't want to enforce. I understand that. Then maybe if we're not going to enforce it, we shouldn't have it. So maybe that's something that we should look at. but without saddling any small businesses with fines. I'm not looking to hurt any businesses along Main Street, District 4 from downtown Franklin Street up to around Clark University and beyond, not looking to hurt businesses. That's why I have this on there. I don't want to saddle them with fines, but I've heard from a few sources that the city might be close to enforcing this sign ordinance which says, Businesses cannot cover all their glass windows with signage. They're not allowed to do that. And that's a common ordinance all across the country in cities and towns.

It's common. maybe it's enforced in some, maybe it's not. I think it was originally implemented especially here in the city of Worcester because we had some businesses that were involved in some illicit activities and they didn't want people looking in, so they felt they would cover their windows. I'm not saying that's what they're doing now, I'm just saying that's why there's that sign ordinance here in Worcester and maybe in other locations across the country. This, I think someone tonight, one of our speakers talked about this item and said this hasn't been discussed or enforced for decades. I was on the council the last time it was discussed, 2019. April, I think, less than seven years ago. Not only was it discussed, there were several businesses, especially in District 4 along Main Street, that were fined. They were fined. And they were told to take down the signs, or you're gonna pay a fine. It was enforced.

The District Four Council, I believe at the time, also supported it because she heard in many of the neighborhood meetings, that this is, they didn't like that. They didn't want windows being blocked. They had some problems in certain streets and certain areas and certain neighborhoods when the kids were walking to school and so on. We had this discussion. It wasn't decades ago. It was 2019, not even seven years ago. if there's going to be some enforcement, I would just like to see the city notify the managers and owners of the business, you can't do that, take the signs down halfway, half the window, that's fine. I don't want them fined. I know, as I've heard from some people, they're against this. I don't know how you can be against it when I'm trying to warn the businesses. Do you know what might be coming? Maybe a hefty fine. If you're going to have to remove them anyway, then don't take the fine. Let's just do it now. Some people said we shouldn't have that ordinance.

That was hinted at earlier during the public comments. That's a whole different story. The idea is we do have the ordinance. I've heard the city is close to enforcing it. I'm trying to help the small businesses. Take down the signage, keep it at 50%, and let's not fine them. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Bergman, Councilor Hayter. Councilor Ojeda. You haven't seen him.

Well, yeah, thank you, Mr. Chairman. So yeah, I mean, there are definitely throughout the city some businesses. So I guess I just have a couple of questions of clarification to the chair, to the city manager. Is it 50%? I want to start off at that. Is it 50% of the windows are to be covered or not covered? I think that might be incorrect. There isn't a number.

Through the chair to the councilor. It depends on the establishment, but we would have to verify that through the law department in terms of our ordinance. We would have to look at the ordinance. This is currently something that's currently being enforced by the License Commission. Our purpose here, and I think what the council is trying to ask, is there an ability for us to continue to enforce or provide more proactive enforcement with the businesses? Because there are often times where the License Commission is going in, they see these things happening, and then there's further violations that are happening in the business because literally from top to bottom, the entire windows are covered. and so we're seeing more of that. I'm hearing from some folks in community, it's come up in some neighborhood meetings. So again, this is something that we've tried to, it's part of inspectional services you know, thought about finding other ways that we can try to enforce that and also have engaged businesses as part of that.

But right now, especially to the specific of the 50%, I would have to verify that in the ordinance. I don't have that at the top of mind right now.

Okay, thank you. And do the chair to the city manager. Do we know when businesses start up, do we know if this information is shared with them so they understand what percentages? When they register with the city, do they have, is that part of, you know registering for the city and understanding some of the policies of signage and things like that I know when there's sales of like the liquor store they have to put the signs on how old you are tobacco and all that stuff but are there shared information on what's allowed when it comes to signage?

Mr. Manager. Due to the change to the council, we provide the information publicly. We don't provide that as a package for any business that's opening up a business. to tell them these are the ordinances that are pertaining to your particular business and what you are required to do. We don't have any kind of system set up that way. But currently, right now, all of the ordinances are available. and so when we engage the businesses, we try to encourage them to pay attention to the ordinances that are pertaining to that business in terms of how they operate. because some businesses are required to as part of the site owners because of the establishment and what they do. Some may not require that. So again, it's something that we encourage, but there's no thing right now as a kind of welcome package or something that we give them for them to be able to have knowledge of that.

Okay, no, that's fine. I think, you know, I think the most important thing is that I don't want businesses being fined or hit. I think they should be, you know, The same thing when I did a drive-thru with the tobacco unit. We went in and they notified them first, reminded them expectations of signage and things like that, what they can sell and what they can't sell. So I did appreciate that drive-thru with them. I think that's something that we just make sure we focus on so they know going forward and if they don't then yeah a fine needs to be put in place I think we talked a lot about fines all day today so I think we should make sure that we're at least sharing that information with the residents because it's important. And again, I think it looks better when you're driving down the street where you can see into the stores and see people interacting versus not being able to see and know what's going on. So thank you. I appreciate it.

Mr. Manager.

I appreciate that and actually one of the spirit of this order is exactly what we want to do we want to make sure that we inform people We go out there, we let them know kind of what the side notice is, give them some warnings, some opportunity to course correct, and then after multiple times where they have negated to correct the action or course correct or change, and remove some of the signage, that's when we would then apply the fines. So again, we're trying to be proactive in this effort. There's a number of businesses in the city in different pockets where from top to bottom the entire thing is covered. That also presents a public safety issue. If there was something that would happen, we would have no visibility into the business entity. And so again, it's something that we want to make sure that we're consistent and I appreciate this order because it falls in line with what we're thinking and what we want to do as a city.

Thank you, Councilor Bergman, followed by Councilor King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate, this is one of those orders tonight that I will say that I appreciate the sentiment of it. I'm also happy to hear that the intent isn't to saddle, and I think, that word's been used or a word similar to that, saddled business owners with fines. However, and I'm gonna oppose this for the following reason. It is saddling the code department. it sat on the code department to go out, make inspections on something. Quite frankly, I've personally never heard one person tell me, Councilor Bergman, I've got a problem with such and such a business. They have a sign that takes up more than half their window. I mean, we take a vote every year on tax rates. And I am a part of the group that always supports the lowest residential rate. And I know what happens to the commercial businesses, how difficult it is. for them to survive. It's a choice I make. But when it comes to other ways to support small businesses, I do my best.

And one of the things I think is incredibly prohibitive when it comes to small businesses is when you start inspecting these types of issues. Now if there is a true public safety concern, I stand corrected and perhaps there should be letters that go out through the assessor's office to everybody that pays a commercial tax rate reminding them of the ordinance. perhaps if they have to get a permit if it's a liquor store or another type of business or a lottery store or whatever that condition of their permit is that The checkbox is checked that the windows aren't covered, but we're going to go with a tape measure and measure the windows and the size of the sign. Maybe they're going to get a different size window. Maybe they're going to get bigger print signs. I mean I just think it's not a best use of the inspectional services. We've got residential units

that are unsafe that we're doing our best to keep up with. And now we're going to go take the resources of the inspection services and have them go measure the signs versus the size of the windows. I personally think We can do better public safety-wise by using the inspectional service personnel to go into residential units where people's lives are in danger. If the case is made that this is a public safety issue, I could stand to have my mind swayed, but at the moment, I don't see it.

Councilor King?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I happen to agree with Councilor Bergman on this one. I'm opposed to this. I know for a fact the impact this will have amongst Some of the business corridors in the city are small businesses. You think about Maine South, that's actually, this is targeting. When you think about, like it mentions, Webster Square, Lincoln Street, et cetera. I certainly know that I certainly have not heard about concerns for the sign ordinance as Councilor Rosen mentioned since he last brought it up. and I remember he's brought up more than one time when you were in. So it was a number of times, but that's the only person I've ever heard it from, Mr. Chairman.

And the one thing we know about sign ordinances as we heard tonight, there's vagueness. attached to it. I certainly appreciate there's going to be communication. I agree that it will tax. for lack of a better word, the ability and capacity of code. I'm still waiting for my 110 report on those inspections. There's a lot to do there. I'm opposed to aggressive enforcement, Mr. Chairman. Targeting our small businesses isn't it. Through the chair to the administration, is there any sort of ordinance about pulling down dark Shades in the business where you can't see in through the chair? And what is that ordinance? Mr. Manager. And are we enforcing it?

Through the chair to the council, yes. That is. Sir, if you wanna. I do want to correct, I do want to confirm, Councilor Ojeda, that the percentage is 50%. The current active ordinance, we have a current active ordinance, the City of Worcester,

Chairman, can I reclaim my time?

I have 50% of the time.

I have to reclaim my time.

Through the Chair, yes. You told not to enforce. The dark shades are primarily for liquor establishments and nightclubs, and it's a safety issue, so there is license commission regulations, and that's... That's for those, for the clubs and for... Liquor Establishment.

Specifically?

Yep.

Okay, outside of that, is there any ordinances pertaining to that? To those shades?

Yes. No, the sign ordinance is different than that.

Thank you. So Mr. Chairman, thank you. I'm aware of the ordinance for the clubs. I know that they've been enforcing them on a couple of them. as has been communicated to me and rightly so. But nothing prevents these same businesses from shading the business up. And the idea that there's something perhaps nefarious going on or what have you, is concerning to me. I don't want to cast that light on it. I was certainly proud to bring forward small business tax reliefs last term that we were able to realize with the support of the city manager that will impact close to 3,000 small businesses but this sounds also a little bit about perhaps Government overreached in this way.

I heard the comment that when we see this sort of violation that they go in, and there might be other violations that they find. the tentacles of the government is reaching out. And I personally have some reservations that way, Mr. Chairman. So for all of those reasons, I will not be supporting this item and perhaps they're right maybe the sign ordinance does need to go and I'm certainly willing to explore that and again you know this being set upon and pushed on the small businesses resulting in fines and the like is not something I think we need to go to right now, particularly with the challenges at hand. and how we see these businesses floundering and some who are successful here in the city.

So it's a no from me, thank you.

Thank you. Okay, Council Rosen for the second time.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this came up, we talked about it at length, in 2019 when I was on the council, and it wasn't Gary Rosen's order as you remember okay right it was john kelly who was commissioner of inspectional services brought in a report to the council i think we all spoke about it and he was saying that i have the figures i think here somewhere He had, if I remember, it was 19 fines. They had fined 19 people. The inspection services was already going in. and that's what I've heard. I've heard now that inspectional services and or license commission have been looking at these signs and they're ready to go in and find businesses. my colleague said, I won't say which one, my colleague said tonight that we don't want fines given to these small businesses That's unnecessary fine.

That's what it says in the freaking order. A signed ordinance without saddling any small businesses with fines. I'm trying to help the small businesses. I'm not trying to hurt them. I'm trying to strike first. Some of you are saying that I want them to catch these businesses, you don't think you're saying that, and fine them. I'm saying no. Let's educate them. Let's tell them what the sign ordinance is. Let's not fine them. Let's help small, Businesses, my colleagues, and you see a resolution coming up which is to help small businesses. So when you start accusing people, all right, they're against small business. They want to hurt small business. It's certain neighborhoods. That's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. I'm just saying we have an ordinance. It hasn't been enforced since 2019, I guess. It's about to be enforced by colleagues.

It's about, I can't look certain ways, you gotta tell me which angles I can look at this command.

No, you know the rules, come on.

It's about to be enforced and it might hurt small businesses with fines. Why don't we take a vote tonight to let them all know that you probably shouldn't keep 100% of your windows blocked. OK, you probably shouldn't do that because a fine might be imminent. That's all I'm saying. I'm not trying to hurt small businesses, as some of you have been accusing people of for several years in the City Council. Come on, let's change the attitude. Let's change the attitude of the Worcester City Council. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Councilor Rivera, followed by Councilor King,

Just for clarification purposes, is there a way to make the businesses aware without getting fined? I mean, I understand the order says without getting fined, but I obviously know the fine eventually is coming. So from the chair to the administration.

To the chair to the council, yes. And that is the purpose. And that's sometimes the action that the current license commission takes. They go in. They verify and they let them know, hey, you can't have that. Now, sometimes the License Commission goes in, not because of the windows that are covered, They're going in because of other inspections that they have to do. And then they see the windows and say, hey, you're not supposed to have that. You should rectify that. And if we come back and you don't have, then there could be a potential fine. So again, they're trying to advise the business owners. But again, this is something that residents and neighborhood, they may not have come to some of the councilors, but the neighborhood meetings I've gone to, those are the things that come up, right? there are neighborhoods here where they're really concerned about that small business that always seems to have some traffic in and out and everything is covered and they don't know what activities in those business. So they just want to be able to encourage us to fulfill what the ordinance says.

50% is the ordinance. Now, if the Council, the will of the Council is for me not to enforce the ordinance, then should we have an ordinance or not? That's a decision that the Council has to make. I don't think we should remove the ordinance. What I think is we should enforce the ordinance like every other ordinance that we have that the council and the public wants us to enforce. Again, this is something that it's come up that, again, the council is bringing up. and the council has brought it up for the sake of us providing some education, some warnings, so that they can begin to remove those things from their windows.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Through the chair to the administration, before I get to that, I just wanted to respond to some of the other comments. Look, it's clear, we know where a majority of these businesses are located. and those are in business corridors throughout the city. Again, I'm concerned with any sort of aggressive enforcement. I can certainly appreciate educating folks but Again, there's a lot of things that we're asking, as Councilor Mitra mentioned earlier, for our city to do through the charity administration. is this, because the way it seems based on this particular order, that there is a new focus on this. So to the administration, is this part of business as usual?

or as the Councilor mentioned, he's had some discussion with some stakeholders and this may be a new point of emphasis and that's my interpretation of it, not necessarily his wording through the Chair.

Mr. Manager?

Through the Chair to the Council, the License Commission actively enforces this ordinance. What we're seeing is we're seeing an increase in this in many different business quarters across the city, small businesses, smoke shops, et cetera. And so because we're seeing that increase, we want to be able to get ahead of it and provide information, warnings, let people know that you can't do this. Tell them what the ordinance is so that we don't see that continue to escalate in the business quarters. and so what this order is trying to ask us is basically asking us, I'm just taking interpretation of the councilor, ask us to provide some information outside of an actual violation or an actual citation.

Bureau Chair, so you're saying to not enforce it and take some other action, is that right? Mr. Manager. Is that what you just said?

Yeah, through the Chiefs of the Council, I think part of the enforcement is education. You have to provide your education up front. You provide the warnings. You let people know so they understand the ordinances. but if they don't then rectify or mitigate the issue, then we then can come back to say, hey, you haven't done it, you're gonna be fined. and so the this my understanding from the spirit of this is to do exactly that educate tell them what the ordinance is tell them that these are the things that are that within the city owners with it for their establishments and that if they don't remove that or pivot or rectify the issue, then we would then come to enforce.

Thank you. To the chair, to the administration, can you speak to the uptick that you mentioned? What are the dimensions of that? Mr.

Manager.

Councilor, it's just we've seen in different quarters of the business quarters in the city that we've seen some businesses we've seen an increase in number of businesses with that we don't have and actual data to sit here and tell you this is X amount of businesses that have covered the entire their entire windows. But again, we're seeing that. And so we want to be proactive. And so if the inspectors are seeing these businesses that are covering their windows, we would then go in and provide some education and information on the ordinance.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Borgman.

I don't mean to rise a second time on an issue like this, but I just want to kind of clarify one or two things. I certainly not suggest anybody here, particularly Councilor Rosen, as opposed to small business. My concern in this item is the fact that it has to involve code enforcement and there are other ways I believe you could spend code enforcement's time and resources better. When Worcester Worcester's downtown was probably thriving the most it ever was. We've all seen pictures TNG puts, you know, then and now column. We have books in Facebook. You can see pictures all the time in various Facebook posts of downtown Worcester in the early 1900s, bustling with people, markets everywhere. There are signs covering front windows. everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. Go to New York City, go to Boston, go to Brooklyn, New York, go anywhere where there's major Business.

There are signs everywhere. I just think it's a bad message to say that we're going to go around with a tape measure, measuring the size of your sign, versus the size of your window unless and until it's proven to me there's a real public safety issue. If it's a question of criminality, then there shouldn't be a backdoor way to get in there. There should be some other way. to go in there and see if there's some illegal activity going on. But it's not the nature of this ordinance that bothers me. It's the fact of the unintended consequences and the resources being employed by the code department. Rosen mentioned an order coming up a resolution. I'm going to support the resolution because I don't believe we should be like a nanny state in a nanny city. Let people function and operate their businesses within reason. There's nothing proving to me that this is a problem. What if before the election somebody put up signs for us in their front windows in their business and left them up to the appropriate amount of time which I think is two months.

Are we going to say, oh, something illegal is going on in there because we can't see in there? That's permissible. So I don't buy the argument that because somebody's windows are covered, there's necessarily some illegal activity. If there is, then police department and others should have the evidence to form probable cause to go in. But it shouldn't be based on the size of the sign. Again, I'm gonna finish by just saying this. I think the resources of the code department are better spent making sure stairways, fire escapes, means of egress for residents are clear and free of debris and are up to code that people can exit and enter buildings safely than it is measuring windows and signage. Thank you.

Thank you. Ojeda.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll just be real quick. I don't think it was mentioned that illegal activity is taking place, or there was concern for that. Maybe it was mentioned, maybe I missed it, and I apologize. But I will say that I've received many text messages and phone calls regarding Signage on a lot of the businesses covering most of the storefronts and stuff like that. And just doing the work that I've done on Pleasure Street with some of the TDI work. that's what the focus was on it was opening up those windows and letting people see the different businesses and bringing them more alive taking off the gates or the grates in front of the windows and putting up newer windows with some signage, but also having an opportunity for businesses to showcase what they have inside.

If you're walking down the street, you can see what's going on. Not just what's going on, but what they're selling. Maybe there's a network center that's having an event. If you're walking by and it's all covered up, you really can't see it. But it's also opportunities for making it more inviting. when things are closed up and bottled up they don't seem as inviting. So that's the work that's been done on Pleasant Street with the TDI and I really appreciate that. Now Again, I think this is, we're kind of getting sidetracked. This is to help the small business understand that this is coming down the road, right? And we want to support you. I understand Councilor Bergman's what he's saying, but this isn't attacking the businesses. This is letting them know, hey, we're not happy about it. But we're letting you know, this could potentially happen.

So I guess my question to the city mayor, to the mayor is, How often have you been experiencing this? And how many times have an inspector gone in? and how many chances or how many times have they been notified? Is it, we see you next time we come, you get fined? Because I don't think that's been happening as often. But again, it's just to notify them Hey, this could potentially happen. But again, this is a good conversation because it's like, what other things can we do? How can we notify our business owners? And I think we're all mentioning that. you know what better ways as a city can we do that and that's honestly as as as district councillors to let them be aware start knocking on their doors meeting with some of the businesses and say hey these are the things that going on how can we help you how can we help you a better signage

what can we do as a city to help you you know with your marketing and more signing so I mean there's always a positive twist of things that we can do as a city not just to try to knock things down so sorry but can you answer that question if you remember it Mr.

Manager

I can't answer to the specifics of the data that you're asking for right now. I would have to provide a report. We would have to analyze that. I understand what are the work orders that has been established or some of the violations that the license commission I would have to compile that and put that together because right now off the top of my head I don't have that

No, that's right. I mean, I wouldn't want that. I think for me as a counselor, I would probably maybe work with inspectional services to figure out you know at least in my district how can I support these businesses understand you know what's coming down the road how can I support them and then again what other ways of advertisement we can we can help whether it be Signage on the walls of the business, A-frames outside. Think of creative ways to help these businesses versus just regulating to 50% of the windows. So I would love to maybe set up a meeting with them as well.

Thank you. Thank you. Council Rivera.

Officer had asked a question, answered it. Okay, I'm set.

So we're good. Thank you. I guess this is up or down vote that we're doing? Okay, so a yes vote would be to support Councilor Rosen, and no vote to support Councilor Bergman. Okay. And Councilor King, too.

No, it's just on the item. It's not about supporting anybody, Mr. Chairman.

I'm just trying to get everybody's news, so I just want people to understand how they're voting, that's all. That's how it works. Roll call.

Councilor Bergman.

No.

Councilor Bilotta?

Yes.

Councilor Economou? Yes. Councilor Fresolo?

Yes.

Councilor King? No. Councilor Mitra? Yes. Councilor Ojeda?

Yes.

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

Yes. Okay, 9P, request the manager to consider expanding the city's senior work offer abatement program to allow for taxpayers aged 60 years or older to volunteer their services to the city for a reduction in their taxes, Councilor Bergman.

Thank you. Hopefully this is less controversial, Mr. Mayor. It was a program that's been working well. I don't think there's a limit to the number of people we can put on the program and help seniors work off their taxes. up to the maximum amount, which I believe is $2,000. If they want to, it's not forced upon them. It's simply a question of trading off the cash that would come into the city coffers. versus the work that would be put out by the senior residents. Being over 60 now, I don't like to use that word senior, but I guess that is the cutoff. so hopefully we can expand it and work with city manager can work with perhaps the assessor and the treasurer figure out I think we had 20 people last year that sounds right I would like to see if we could double it, but I'll certainly open to any suggestions within reason. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Rivera, what purpose do you have?

I just wanna sign on to it soon.

Okay, so we'll sign on as amended. Say that to the manager. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. 9Q requests the City Management Council to report reviewing the large number of streets with permanent winter parking ban signs, determining if such signs is needed given. how few snow days have recently occurred, and the challenges associated with on-street parking, Councilor Bergman.

Of course, I put it on, and now we've had a number of snow days, but in general, over the last four or five years, we've had, I think, I checked, Last year we had on average about four or five snow days. A lot of the streets are permanent, no parking, winter parking bans. and I recall being on traffic and parking and I had an order a couple years ago similar to this where it seemed to me that many of the streets where they no parking both sides of the street were not major arteries. They were streets where easily it could be parking on one side, or we could remove the winter parking ban altogether, understanding that it would be a declared parking ban would still require them to take the cars off the street. The problem with the winter parking ban, either on one or both sides, is it's automatic. You cannot put your cars there all winter. Now, if we're only having four or five or six snowstorms a year, it seems to me problematic that where parking is limited on many of these side streets, we're telling people, find other places to put your cars.

because there's a permanent winter parking ban. My understanding, and I remember having this conversation with DPW at the time, was that many of these streets were added to the list many, many years ago and clearly we had more significant numbers of storms and types of storms than we do now and I just think it's a time to revisit and look. I know there is public safety issues. Some of the streets really can't afford to have a car on either side. but I recall looking at the list of some of them and many of these streets you'd be surprised the fact that how minimal traffic goes through those streets and nevertheless is permanent parking bans on both sides of the streets And lastly, let me just say, with those permanent winter parking bans come tickets. And if we can take some of the cars off the street, not jeopardize public safety and avoid the consequence of people getting tickets, I think it's a win for everyone. Thank you.

Okay, so I'll send that to the manager. Those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Next, I'm requesting the manager to work with Mansport to repair or replace the existing signage in the vicinity of 411 Chandler Street. Rivera, Director Morales to the Worcester Regional Airport as the sign has become illegible. Councilor Rivera.

Pretty much as it reads. I just put a picture of the attachment so you guys can see it.

Okay, gotcha. So that's the manager. All those in favor, opposed, so audit. Request the manager, request the commissioner of public works. Repair, Replace, or Upright the post was knocked over in the front of 39 Indian Hill Road. Councilor Economou.

As it reads, Mr. Chairman.

all those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Request manager, request commissioner, Parks, Recreation, Cemetery, cut down two dead trees at Roosevelt Park on Indian Hill Road, Councilor Economou.

As it reads.

All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. C. Councilor C. Worcester does hereby recommend and encourage the Worcester Board of Health consider reviewing and changing the 500 foot buffer zone restriction passed in 2023 that prohibits New Retail Tobacco Licenses within 500 feet of other tobacco retailers. An effort to promote economic development to support women and and to retain and create jobs and promote the city's vision of the 18 hour downtown. Councilor Rosen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this came recently, a few months ago, in front of the Worcester Board of Health when I was a member of the Board of Health. And as you heard from, I believe, one of the owners of Noemesco, and one of the employees and you heard from Alex Guardiola who represents them. And we heard from the Chamber of Commerce representative too. And Noah Mesko, is located right next to Creed in Lower Pleasant Street, down towards Harrington Corner. Been there for a while, they have live music, and... It's been a struggle downtown, struggle of downtown business. And next door, the Creed has a smoking bar. And the city of Worcester, through the rules of the Board of Health,

the rules of Department of Public Health, allows about 15 smoking bars in the city of Worcester, 15 of them. And I think we're at 12, we have 12. Noah Mesko said, boy, we're having trouble. We're struggling. We're a downtown business. We're minority owned. We're female-owned, just what Worcester tries to help out these businesses, all businesses, especially if they're minority-owned and female-owned. So they said, what can we do to increase our business so we can keep our 18 employees stay in business? And they said, well, let's try to add a smoking bar like our next door neighbor, the Creed has. they came in front of the Board of Health, had nothing to do, the discussion had nothing to do about the evils of nicotine and tobacco. We all know that, everyone on the Board of Health, everyone on this council, we know about the the evils of nicotine and tobacco. That wasn't the discussion.

The discussion was, does the Board of Health maybe adjust its rules, take a look at its rules, see what it can do, because it has a lot of authority, has a lot of power, the Board of Health. It's not advisory. Noah Mesko said, we talked to the city about opening a smoking bar, because there's still two or three more openings. We didn't ask to be the only smoking bar in Worcester. That might have been a different story. I wish we didn't have any cigarette sales, smoking bars, but we do. We do. It's legal. We have that. Fine. So they asked the city, and evidently someone from the city said you have to put in a ventilation system. If you're gonna have a smoking bar, you gotta have the right ventilation for health. And I guess they did that. Now, I don't know the figure. I didn't hear it tonight from the speakers.

But I thought it was close to $60,000 they invested in a new ventilation system for Noemesco to get their smoking bath. No one said, well, you're right next to the Creed. They have a smoking bar, so you can't. So they come in front of the Board of Health and they make their case and they had probably 10 out of the 18 employees that all spoke and said we want to keep our jobs and so on. And the Board of Health, and they're good people. They're good people on the Board of Health. The Board of Health said, well, you know, our business isn't economic development, it's health. And they turned the whole thing around, the whole discussion with Dr. Castile, who I highly respect, Dr. Hirsch, who I highly respect, they said, we don't want another smoking bar. because the creed is there and nicotine and tobacco and smoking are unhealthy. We know they're unhealthy. But you can have it if you move 500 feet up the street.

It's all you gotta do. even though it's unhealthy, even though we don't want it. Just take the no mescal business and go 500, it's less than two football fields. So that makes it okay. So I started to think about the 500 foot buffer zone and I said, this is ridiculous. I said, people now can go to the Creed right downtown, a legitimate, good business. for our 18-hour downtown someday. We don't have that many businesses downtown. Let's keep them all, the ones we have. They can go to the Crete and do the smoking. So why should Noamescu have to go 500 feet away? It's not that far. It's less than two football fields. They've invested money. It was a five-member Board of Health at the time. Mike Parato, former city councilor, Gary Rosen,

at the time former city council, who have learned here in the city of Worcester that economic development is always important to everyone. It's always important and we've always supported it. So we couldn't vote against Nova Mesca. We said let's give them the permit. We wanna keep the 18 jobs. We wanna keep business downtown. We wanna support minority owners. We wanna support female owners. If they move up the street, what's the difference 500 feet? Let's keep them open. Three to two, the Board of Health said, nope, economic development's not our bag. It's anti-tobacco and nicotine.

You're in your second five.

Okay, and I'm almost done. The Board of Health gives out hundreds of tobacco licenses Smoking Bars, retail, cigarettes, whatever else we do. They give out hundreds of these licenses. Their business is economic development. We work with businesses all the time. and the good thing we got two letters that night the Board of Health from this City Council supporting the Board of Health understanding and supporting economic development in downtown Worcester. And those two, during this difficult political campaign we were going through, those two letters of support came from two candidates for mayor. They agreed. Mayor Petty, Councilor King. They both agreed. And I said, had the letters in hand, and I brought it up that night. and I said, here's two people who have opposing ideas running against each other for mayor.

I said, but they both got it right. Let's support businesses in downtown Worcester. This council does not have the right to overrule the Board of Health. Okay, we don't have that right. But we can make recommendations and they're reasonable people. There's two openings on the Board of Health too. My opening and another person moved out of Worcester so she couldn't continue in the Board of Health. So there's only three members now. but soon there'll be five members and maybe they can take a look at the 500 foot buffer and in the case of Noemesco, give them a chance. Give them a year chance. We did something else early with 90 days, right? Let's give them a chance. They've invested in the expensive ventilation equipment Okay, let's support them. Board of Health, if you're watching tonight, and I know at least one is Please reconsider the 500-foot buffer.

You're hurting Noemesco, and that could be hurting businesses in the future. I know tobacco's evil. I know nicotine's evil and unhealthy. That isn't the question. That's not what this order, this resolution, pardon me, this resolution is addressing. It's addressing economic development and help for business here in the city of Worcester. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, next up we have Councilor Carmo, followed by Councilor Bilotta, followed by Councilor Rivera, followed by Councilor King. I just wanna sign on to the item Mr. Chairman. I just wanna sign on. Thank you. That was easy enough, Councilor Bilotta.

Yeah, I'm opposed to this because what's going to happen, and this might not happen on the west side of town, but it definitely happens on the east side where you have tons of these little smoke shops that are unsightly. They have terrible lighting. There's one on Hamilton Street near my neighborhood. They'd light up the whole block at night. They sell to underage kids. A lot of these businesses, I'm not talking about Namesco and bars, I'm talking about Little Smoke Shops and if I'm correct that will also that includes these little smoke shops to the chair to the city manager is that correct?

Mr. Manager?

Through the Chair to the Council, I think that's what we want to do as part of I think this conversation or this resolution here is to address them separately. I think currently right now we address this but we want to also move forward address this 500 rule and address the business and what the use of that business what they're doing differently because right now they're all being assessed the same way and so no matter if it's a small shop, no matter if it's a lounge, no matter if it's a grocery store, no matter if it's a gas station, they're all being assessed the same way. right now the only decision is the 500 foot kind of parameter not the actual business itself and that's an area that I think we're more interested in is in addressing the actual King. Councilor King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just have some questions here. Certainly, I support this business. Nomesco and Creed. I believe Creed's also in support of Nomesco having this opportunity. They certainly invested a lot of money. Julius Kuma over at Nomesco has been one of the most reputable proprietors of this sort of business bar and lounge that we've had in the city. One of the things that I wanted to kind of note was, you know, when you look at these sorts of establishment, the lack of distinguishing between the various types, you know, Nemesco's is over 21 states. Club. It's not a store where you can go in and purchase things without proper ID.

And again, they've been very responsible that way. My understanding as well is that Creed and Pleasant Things were grandfathered in as an exception to the 500-foot rule. And all of that kind of plays into this. part of what was supposed to occur from the Board of Health was recommendations as relates to this ordinance. So I have two questions to the administration. has the Board of Health provided any recommendations with regards to any amendment or anything pertaining to this 500 foot restriction since Nomesco came before that. Two, is there an appeals process for Nomesco for a variance? Is that possible? And then three,

if you could share for the public's purposes the difference, what influence you have or don't have. on the Board of Health. My understanding is that's a separate entity that you do not have control of because it was a statement made earlier. I don't want any misperceptions that we would like this to happen. We would like them. to do this, that, and the third. And I just want to clarify for the public's purposes, my understanding is that that's an independent entity through the chair.

Mr. Manager?

Yes, through the Chair, through the Council. To answer the last question, the City Administration has no authority in providing or creating regulations for the Board of Health. The Board of Health creates their own regulations. The city administration has the ability to recommend, and then they have to vote it on. They're a regulatory body, and so they have the ability to make those regulatory decisions. even outside of the council floor as well, they can make those regulatory decisions. In answering your first question relative to... I apologize. The first one was... Oh, the recommendation, yes. The recommendation, yes, yes. Recommendation of Border Health. So the Border Health, specifically the Border Health, has not provided any recommendations.

The Division of Public Health has been working with the Law Department in creating a set of recommendations that we will put forward before the Board of Health for them to react to. but the Board of Health specifically, they themselves had not created or provided any recommendations. They have supported this 500-foot rule. and so in my conversations with the board chair we have communicated that we we would like to change the process and that we're going to be putting forward a recommendation to the Board of Health to change some of the regulations or the way the regulation is being enforced currently.

Thank you. Is a variance allowable? And if so, how much time must pass before it's revisited by the business through the chair?

Yeah, through the chair to the council. Actually, one of the challenges that we faced in this situation is we as an administration in advocating and trying to support some of our small businesses is that there is no variance process. once they make a decision, the decision is made and that's it. And so there's no opportunity for the business to actual appeal that actual decision of the Board of Health. And so again, and there's no kind of seek of a variance where the entity itself is trying to seek, hey, I am just doing hookah, it's very different than retail, could that be a special permit or a variance based on the condition or kind of the business model that we're trying to achieve. And there is a process for that. and so once they make a decision the decision is final and again that's something that again we want to evaluate as part of our recommendation to evaluate so that there is a process.

currently like there is processes in the License Commission for Liquor Licenses. There's a whole plethora of ways in which you can either appeal hearings, you can There's a whole bunch of series of different processes that happen through the legal license process. So again, that's something that currently right now does not exist.

Thank you, and through the chair to the administration, with respect to the communication with the board, Chair, could you share a little bit more about that? Because as the Councilor Rosen mentioned, those are folks that are very focused on public health. We haven't heard a lot of that tonight in this discussion. There was concern back then, I'd spoke to folks about politicizing this. Some folks pointed out that the folks that voted for it were former counselors. And then you have myself and the mayor looking to support these folks. So if you could speak to the public health aspects of this from your perspective as the city manager, Worcester.

Mr. Manager?

Yeah, to this chair, to the council, I think one of the things that we try to do in the administration, we try to balance the needs of the community but also taking consideration some of the aspects in terms of promoting business and supporting them but also at the same time supporting our public health. some of the regulations and the protections that public health officials want us to adhere to. I think the... where this order or this ordinance started was that there was a number, a series of numbers of businesses where young individuals were attending or being sold items, tobacco items, that they were in violation. And so the idea was to create an ordinance that would One, a cap the number of businesses in the city that provided or sold these types of tobacco products.

And then two, try to have a little bit of better enforcement and separation so that it's not completely segregated in one particular neighborhood, where you have X amount of tobacco businesses in one particular neighborhood, but it's spread out across the city. and so that was the nature or the essence of what this was created but I think there was unintended consequences that we as an administration have seen in terms of balancing the interests of businesses like we're seeing here with Namesco as a clear indication of is a challenge where you're in a downtown business quarter or you're in a downtown quarter where there's the nightlife is in downtown, right? And this business has been operating for many, many years. Great work in terms of the stuff that they're doing there. They've invested. They want to expand their ability of offerings. And then now they're faced with this challenge.

and so I think us at administration we want to be able to balance that and have regulations that have better processes and better direction for the small businesses when they're trying to operate a tobacco license here in the city. and so in addition to that I've met regularly with the board chair we've shared some conversations about this and what our position is as a city and what we think we should recommend and what we think should come forward for them to consider um uh they're they've been open uh to that conversation um sometimes they're you know they're they've shared their positions with me but right now we feel as though that there's a better process and so we're going to try to recommend that to them.

and hopefully that's something that they can be able to see that there's a benefit and that businesses and supporting businesses and supporting public health is not mutually exclusive. You can do both. And I think this is what we're trying to achieve here as a city.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think with that explanation, I definitely can support this. You know, I'm interested to see what we can come up with regards to adult establishments here in the city as relates to the 500 foot buffer. and I don't want anyone to make any mistake about it. This is not to undermine the authority of the Board of Health. I've had folks reach out to me and ask me to file this because it's outside of our purview. I don't think that's the answer. I agree with giving Nomesco's a chance and similar situated businesses in a way that does not have an impact on folks underage and related public health matters. And I also don't want, again, just to reiterate, anyone to think that this body

is attempting to undermine the public health interests of the city. So I will be supporting that with those clarifications. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Councilor Bergman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, support this. And since it's a resolution, I rise to support it without amending or asking for any other authority to rise. tried and believe I have been consistent. My time on the council, I think there are times where regulations are warranted, but they, by and large, should be done by the state. There was a vote taken on this floor regarding flavored tobacco. There was a vote taken on this floor regarding new gas stations, all of which I said at the time. And many of those votes, I was in the minority as far as the number of voting. and perhaps on the losing side of some of those. I said on all those occasions that if we're gonna regulate anything, it should be done through the state, not through the city because invariably people go elsewhere. Flavor tobacco being an example. They may not be able to buy it in Worcester, so they go to the surrounding towns and do business there.

If it was banned statewide, that's a whole other story. I never liked this, not because I in favor of tobacco. I am one person that can honestly say something similar to Bill Clinton. I don't think I've inhaled it. If I have, it was infrequently. So I don't smoke. Nobody in my family smokes, although my children, despite the fact I advise them otherwise do like to take a vape. But I'm not a smoker, and nor is my wife. But I do think it's unfair. to have these arbitrary requirements like 500 feet. And I say arbitrary because why not 1,000? Why not beyond that? Why at all? This isn't going to stop people from smoking. or using a hookah bar. They just go to the one that's already there that's grandfathered in. So I don't think it's really helping solve the problem. at all. And I also say it's inconsistent because we allow marijuana facilities.

We don't worry about the dangers of people under 25 using marijuana. probably one of the biggest abusers of public health nationwide and City Worcester is no exception is fast food restaurants which do a terrible Service to people that eat there. And we don't choose to regulate fast food restaurants. And I'm glad we don't. But I'm just saying that there are many things We can choose that aren't in the public health as far as what they sell or what they produce. So I do support this. I don't think there's any harm in relaxing this rule. I think there were a lot of things done over the last 2, that to me bothered me because they kind of mirrored in my mind, others may disagree, kind of the nanny state mentality that we're going to tell you what's good for you. And I think people always find a way on whether they smoke or whether it's alcohol or whether it's hookah or whether it's flavored tobacco to find what they want legally elsewhere if we regulate it in Worcester.

Again, I'm all for doing certain things statewide. but I'm not for doing things selectively, city by city and as a representative of the city of Worcester, I certainly support the resolution, thank you.

Okay, Councilor Toomey, all set, okay. Oh, okay. Well, you're on Mac. Everybody's okay. Councilor Rivera?

I just want to know, I don't know if it's an amendment or anything like that or a suggestion, but is it possible so they can, remember, I know this is going for the Board of Health to review, maybe even possibly if they don't want to do this is a 500 buffer for Remember, this is 21 and over. How do you tell adults you can't smoke? You know what I'm saying? I don't know if it's a 21 and over establishment, although smoking should be anyways. they don't meet those 500, they don't need those 500 buffer zones.

I think that's what we're trying to do, I think, with this resolution, right, Mr. Major?

Yeah, through the Chichester Council, yeah. We're trying to create, the resolution is basically trying to support some of the discussion that has happened on the Board of Health and some of the discussion with the small businesses about that we need to kind of rethink the process of the 500 feet because again the If you have a lounge that has hookah, should that lounge be treated just the same as a gas station that sells tobacco? Two completely different, right? One of them you can actually potentially have someone go in and buy a product that might be underage. it's very unlikely you're gonna be underage or 15 or 16 years old and walk into a hookah lounge because there's gonna be a bouncer there checking IDs and et cetera, right? And so right now we treat everything the same. and we say the 500 foot rule is the rule no matter what business is what. So you could potentially have two smoke shops that are on 500 fleet.

Is that the best for that neighborhood? Is it diversity of businesses, et cetera? And also, what we're trying to think about is, I understand sometimes the concentration of certain businesses, but hookah lounge is more so in the nightlife area. Do we want a hookah lounge all the way up Burnt Coal Street or Massasoit Street? I don't know. and those are the things that if it's for downtown and we're trying to create a nightlife or 18 hour downtown in the city so that all of us and anybody can enjoy and go out to eat and enjoy all the things that downtown has to offer, you know are we are we saying no because of the 500 foot road and moving businesses at different spaces of the city or may not be the right place for that because it should be in the downtown area

so again we want to look at that differently and I think the best applicable kind of process that we have is the liquor license process it's a very thorough process it's highly regulated and there's different mechanisms that people can utilize and and not every business is treated the same because of those things that I've mentioned. And then also there's appeals process, there's hearings, there's things that allow the businesses to come back to a liquor license. And there's also enforcement. that the License Commission has around legalizing. So again, this provides a little bit better process that I think right now currently does not have.

Yeah, I agree. Obviously, I'm not a smoker, but I think hurting small businesses or bringing business to the city of Worcester is what's important as well. So it's a good balance, but thank you.

Councilor King for a second time.

Mr. Chairman, just real quickly through the administration, some of the concerns again have been upon this body infringing on the autonomy of public health. you have some recommendations you're working on can you kind of once again reiterate and speak to sort of the parameters around your administration and the board. I think folks understand our, we stated we don't have jurisdiction. So if you could just speak once again. Mr.

Manager.

So the folks are not being misled at all that this is a vote. that's changing anything.

Yeah, through the chair to the council. So the Board of House of Regulatory Board, they have the ability to set regulations and then the city creates and enforces those regulations. Just like the council body, you have the ability to vote ordinances. the city manager recommends that right and so we'll submit a recommendation to the Board of Health but it's up to the Board of Health to decide if this is a recommendation that they want to take forward they can choose not to and they can continue on the 500 foot rule and that's something that again we would have to then work with our businesses and our community but I think right now I think what the resolution is speaking to is I think the council body wants to share their thoughts like it was shared in letters to the Board of Health as a body to say, hey, maybe there's an opportunity to look things differently. from the regulators, the legislators of the city, which is the council body, and then the city administration to provide some recommendations. So I think that's the kind of the nature of what we're trying to do.

But again, at the end of the day, the Board of Health has the right to make that decision.

And lastly, I know that once again, I know that Creed established it right next door, was in support of this. as well but in terms of the competition that might occur if this is lifted in a way you know I know there's a cap maybe that's gonna change the cap I don't know how you would do one without the other but I don't know that's I guess something that we'll see but would certainly be interested in a report around how buffer zones impact economic vitality of small businesses that are closely situated. I think it says a lot that you have two minority-owned businesses that are in support of one another here, but would like that in the form of a report to inform. this body and go to committee because I think that's also a critical component in addition to what you mentioned about a proliferation in the past we've had proliferation of

Alcohol establishments, these smoking sorts of businesses or places that are selling tobaccos that's similar to the sign ordinances are in certain locations in the city. and that's part of the reasons as you mentioned that we put the cap on it. So I certainly support this one and leave the small business alone with the signage.

Okay, we're going to roll call the resolution. Yes, we support the resolution. The no vote would not support the resolution. Roll call.

Berglund, yes, Bilotta, yes, Economou, yes, Fresolo, yes, King, yes, Mitra, Yes. Mr. Ojeda? Yes. Mr. Rivera? Yes. Mr. Rosen? Yes. Mr. Toomey? Yes. Mayor Petty?

Yes. Okay, we are on 12A, motions to advertise the proposed ordinance. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. I'm sorry, do a roll call on that, roll call.

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

Yes, 12B, refer the traffic and parking. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. 13C is held under privilege regarding the ordinance of 2008 to modify 15-minute parking, 30-minute media parking, two-hour media parking. King, and Commercial Road Zone on portions of Water Street. The motion is to Councilor King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I held this. I was in opposition without the appropriate. I didn't have enough information. I have spoken to the Fresolo, and I've spoken with Traffic and Mobility, whatever it's called. and Mr. Batista. And I spoke to some of the businesses down there over the weekend. And I just wanted to be clear about how this would play out. So I'm just going to ask to the chair, to the administration, If you could just clarify that this is in support of businesses and kind of moving people along. We know we have significant parking issues there for folks that are working in that area. as well as folks who are frequenting the businesses. So if you could just like in 45 seconds just explain the sequencing of this, how we're moving from 15 minutes to 30 to, I don't know if it's an hour or two, whatever the case might be.

Yeah, through you, Chair, to the Council. We've heard from a lot of the business and residents in the area in terms of some of the challenges when we first instituted some of these ordinances. when we were looking at overall the parking in the Canal District in relation to the Polo Park. and so one of the things that we wanted to do here is we're kind of changing some of these elements in terms of the 15 minute, 30 minute to provide more opportunity for the businesses so there's flow and opportunity for more parking. More time, but also in areas where there is too much time, reduce the time because it's impacting the business in a negative way. So we wanted to support some of the work that they're doing there.

Thank you. And I think one of the most important, one of the important aspects of this is also for loading, commercial loading zones. Adjusting that, that's been a huge challenge there. It's caused a lot of Traffic Impediment, Pedestrian Impediment. So I appreciate the time that I had to review this. Thank you.

Okay. Some motions to advertise, roll call.

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

Mr. Chairman, motion to suspend the rules if we're almost done. Yes, motion to suspend the rules, roll call.

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

Yes. Councilor King, followed by Councilor Fezzola. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's come to my attention today that there are some needs and some communication that might be helpful to our students over with the public schools. We know that There are financial challenges on the city side and on the school side. This motion is simply just to request the city manager explore with the Superintendent, any additional city revenue streams that might be available in the interests of extracurricular activities for Worcester Public Schools, Mr. Chairman. I know that there are currently ongoing conversations between the city and schools. And I just would like to add that this council supports that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Can we maybe amend that in the future? Council came to say that we should develop some fund that maybe in the future, maybe not on the city side, on the school side, that if we have these extracurricular activities, we have this money available. Sure.

Sure, yes, thank you. I don't know if there's a way to get something to committee on this, to my education committee, but maybe. You wanna move this quickly, though. No, I want this to move. I'm just wondering if I can add to the motion. Yeah, maybe an update on potential sources or communication because we know it's always a battle between money.

Thank you. Okay, all those in favor as amended. Opposed, so ordered. Councilor Fezzola.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Through you, in the last week or so, we've had a few snowstorms and I've received phone calls from many constituents regarding snow removal and ice and sanding and salting of their streets and this weekend it increased several calls this weekend. So with that, I would ask the City Manager to request the Commissioner of Public Works to provide City Council with a report concerning the department's performance during this past weekend, January 17th and 18th, 2026 snow events, including but not limited to One, why pretreatment of roads did not occur. Two, the timing of the start of snow operations. Three, the sufficiency of the number of snow equipment operators.

And four, the sufficiency of the number of pieces of equipment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Okay, that's all going. All those in favor of a postal audit? I'm sorry, Councilor Economou?

If I could just ask on that item, and then I'd like to comment, if I may. As for a friendly amendment to even just put on there on that report the amount of calls from Police, Fire, EMS for service, sanding services or plowing services, especially this past Saturday. Things seemed to be delayed in getting out there and it was an issue. You could see some streets look right, it's down a bare pavement, look left. We got issues. But I would ask that in the form of a friendly amendment of my colleague here. In addition, Mr. Chairman, I had the pleasure this morning of being with our

and probably the majority of the Snow Force team up at Skyline Drive, many familiar way, on an educational class on brining. and I can tell you right now the city has not been brining of late. What we have coming down the pike and the city manager can certainly elaborate on this is probably gonna be the state of the art system that I think will change the way we handle our snow removal, our salting operations here within the city. and I can tell you this, being in that class this morning for three hours, the men and women of DPW are dedicated. They want the help too. they're the ones who on Saturday or Sunday who are being getting phone calls from their inspectors or their superiors, I need you to run up here.

I need you to run there. They want to be able to do a superior job as we all want them to do as well. And I can tell you the commitment from the staff is there. Commissioner Westerling was there as well. And I feel in the next week or two, maybe three weeks, we're gonna see some tremendous impacts here in the city.

Thank you. Thank you. So we're also, Councilor Bergman.

I know the hours late. I'm just going to help try to wind this up. But I felt compelled to add a few comments on the last topic, which is snow and ice treatment and snow removal. it's no secret the last few years I've been particularly inquisitive about what's happening at DPW and one of the things that concerns me most you know when I hear comments from my colleagues and I certainly had some calls, not as many as the district councils I'm sure. I do follow social media and saw a number of people that had difficulties. this weekend and my own street is a is a hill quite treacherous at times and I noticed that I certainly don't expect to get treated any different than anyone else that the snow removal and the ice treatment comes very late doesn't seem to come when it's needed. It seems to come almost after the fact. What concerns me most about all of that and that's why I'm rising, is that we've had it pretty good as far as mother nature.

Last week we had maybe two, three inches on Saturday, maybe four inches on Sunday. There's some talk, and it may go out to sea, of a pretty significant storm coming this weekend, but whether that happens or not, we're due. for a pretty big storm one of these days. And if we're not doing well with two and three inches, I can't imagine what we're going to do with a foot plus. I have reached the point, maybe this point happened a few years ago, where I just can't accept the excuses. I hear them all the time. can't do this, we can't do that, this, that, and the other thing. I was here and some of my colleagues were here too. When we increased the snow removal budget, I think we went from We added, I think we went from $4.2 million, I could be off a little bit, to $6 million. And a lot of constituents say, oh, I expect the snow removal and the ice treatment to be really good now that we increased it by that much. Since that time, the storms haven't gotten worse.

They've probably gotten better. And in my opinion, the service in treating the ice and removing the snow has gone downhill. and I just can't explain, I can't make excuses for it. And when I hear somebody from Edwards Street who spoke earlier talk about history, what really, really drives me over the edge is that history isn't getting done well. We've got supervisors and inspectors, double layers of people getting paid. to make sure that Edgeworth Street and other streets like that are getting done well. And we've got three layers of something not going right. and I just can't justify to constituents how we're spending money for the snow plow operators, the inspectors and the supervisors and we still can't get it right. I just can't explain it to them. I'm going to not explain it to them in the way of making excuses anymore. The explanation I'm going to give them is that I'm going to bring it up like I expect my colleagues to,

until we get it right because there's no reason why we went from that $4.8 million to $6 million and we've gotten worse, not better.

Council King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We've been at this for a long time with regards to the snow. I just wanted to ask the city manager for some clarification regarding the snow operations as it's been presented. It was stated that they haven't been brining, et cetera. Can there be some clarification from the administration on some of the comments that were made tonight on behalf so that the public can be informed?

Yeah, through the chair to the council. I think one of the comments that was made is about brine. Brine is basically A solution which is basically water and salt mixed together and you go down the street and it provides that material onto the road and you see kind of some lines, some stripes into that. We pre-treat our roads. We do salt in our roads. We haven't been brining probably in the last two to three years. There's been differences of opinions that have occurred at the administration level at DPW, and that's something that we're addressing right now. also the equipment was outdated. And so we are creating where we've purchased a brand new equipment, state of the art equipment, probably one of the best out there.

for particular for brine and so we're going to be putting that forward we purchased it already our hope is to get that live and going right now all the staff is going through the training That's what the counselor earlier alluded to. All the members of DPW that operate and are involved in the operations are going to the training right now. A hope is to activate this brine system for this upcoming storm that we're anticipating this perhaps this weekend. But again, this is something that we have tried to manage and address because again, we haven't been using that in the past couple of years. but that doesn't mean we haven't been pre-treating our roles. Our roles have been pre-treated and we spend significant amount of time pre-treating and so that's important to notice or to confirm that we have been pre-treating It's a different type of pretreatment. But brine in itself, when you talk about the solution of brine, is simply water and salt mixed together.

There's no magic potion about what brine is. It's literally water and salt. that goes into the streets that provides a little bit of kind of pretreatment. But we do pretreat our roles with salt. I think one of the challenges, and I've been very frank and open about that in the discussions here, when we talk about the overall DPW challenges has been staffing. Staffing is the number one issue when it comes to operations. not just in the city, but across the state. You look at MassDOT, you look at any other community, staffing becomes a number one issue in terms of capacity, having the number of staff to be able to operate the number of equipment having the right number of contractors. We're losing contractors. Not that the city is losing contractors in terms that they don't want to work with us. Losing contractors in the sense that they're no more longer in operations. They've chosen to leave the snow plowing biz industry in its entirety.

So we've come to this council floor in providing some suggestions and recommendations of increasing the stipend for the snowplow operators because that's been a challenge. we try to increase some overtime opportunities for our union labor force to be able to have access and opportunity to do that as well because they're being called at midnight at all hours of the day 24 hours 36 hours of operating we're doing that in a very comprehensive way. The last, I believe, budget, if not the last two budgets We recommended to shift the $6 million. We actually reduced the budget to five and a half because over the past five to 10 year span, we saw that we were not spending the $6 million overall. And that was something that was communicated here in this council body during the budget sessions. And so we reduced it to 5.5. and a million.

In the additional $500,000 we put it for capital expenditures for more equipment. So the $6 million is being used 5.5 is for operations and $500,000 for capital so that we can continue to buy more equipment. We've purchased over, I believe over 10 equipment, 10 pieces of equipment in the last year. So we're doing everything we can. We're bringing new trainers. Like I said, this training is happening. This person goes all statewide and nationwide to provide these trainings. We're doing a little bit of everything. Yes, sometimes the conditions and what's happening on the road is a problem, and we acknowledge that. We hope that this brine pretreatment is gonna provide better management of the pavement. as we move forward but we also acknowledge and I haven't shied away from this that we also have a capacity issue when it comes to not only the staffing to operate it but also staff willing to do the overtime hours.

staff willing to do overtime and that's sometimes a challenge as well and that's something that again we're working with our labor partners to incentivize or find ways that we can get our staff to be able to take on these hours and operate these equipments.

Thank you for that. Sorry for that long window. No, it's necessary for the public. And I'll just, Mr. Chair, make a motion that we get the proper stakeholders so they can speak to the strategy of snow operations. to the appropriate committee, Public Works, for a discussion forthwith so that committee can take it up and there can be some more Transparency, because I think because of this order by Councilor Fresolo, we've educated the public a bit. maybe we get a little bit of patience, maybe not because as Councilor Bergman said, we've been increasing the fees and the rates and buying equipment, et cetera, for some time. But I think that the more transparent we can be, and they can speak to operations and where they focus on first in terms of priority would be helpful for the public consumption. Thank you. Thank you.

All set. Councilor Rivera.

Yes, the city manager already answered the question. I will also like to sign on. And the last thing I'd like to say is in the last storm, because I had a lot of 311 complaints, and a lot of residents calling and needed issues but in the last storm only two so we're moving in the right direction so I'm hoping.

So Mr. Manager.

Just quickly before, I think it's important to notice. One, I want to acknowledge the men and women of the department who are literally sometimes 36 hours nonstop working. We've done a great job thus far this year in our main arterials. I think over this past week, I remember driving into the main road and I was like, wow, this looks great. but the side roles I know has been a problem. The department acknowledges that as well. They acknowledge it and they're trying to come up with solutions to do that. One is capacity. is to try to introduce this brine system that we just acquired to try to see if that way we can address our side roads. They acknowledge that, they know that, they talked about it today in our training that the Councilor was there, myself, I was there as well. So again, we're hoping that there's better outcomes, better solutions to address, but we acknowledge and we know that we could do better when it comes to our side streets.

Thank you. Motions as amended to the manager. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Motion to adjourn. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered.