City Council 09/30/2025

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

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, one nation, under God, indivisible,

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? At the twilight's last gleaming Whose broad stripes and bright stars 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 Gave proof through the night That our flag was still there Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave

and the home of the brave. Roll call. Councillor Bergman. Here. Councillor Colorio.

Here.

Councillor Haxhiaj.

Here.

Councillor King. Here. Councillor Mero-Carlson.

Here.

Councilor Nguyen, Councilor Ojeda? Here. Councilor Pacillo? Here. Councilor Russell? Here. Councilor Toomey? Here. And Mayor Petty?

Here. So we have approval of the minutes of September 9th, 2025. All those in favor? Opposed, so ordered. Public participation, Mr. Clerk?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So rule 39, items of public interest. At every meeting of the city council on the public participation portion of the agenda, the chair shall recognize any person seeking such recognition for the purpose of addressing the council on any eligible items 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 the testimony on all items to one appearance at the microphone. The time for speaking shall not exceed two minutes for any one speaker or 30 minutes for all speakers. rule 40 petitions also says states that on the first occasion any petition appears on the city council agenda the prime petitioner may address the city council for no more than three minutes on the subject of their petition thank you thank you does your name see your residence in the item number

Yes, Fred, Nathan, Worcester. Items number 8.3 A, B, and C. Let's face it, we had a tough winter with the plowing and the sanding and sometimes not sanding because they think it wasn't going to be much of anything and it turned out to be a lot more than that. Well, we got to do something because I'm sure there were a lot of accidents and a lot of people got hurt. A lot of people, it wasn't good. Items number 9B on the safety committee. We gotta do better here. and I think for anyone to criticize the police on a shot spotter, we gotta let them do their jobs. I got a whole bunch of stuff here. All the stuff dealing with the cable. The cable has been pocketing all the money and especially off the seniors. Buy right, you reach a certain age, I think it is incumbent upon the cable company to give a break to the seniors because basically we're getting ripped off. And there's no one that can dispute that we're getting ripped off. but the monopoly that they've had, I'm very, very happy to see Verizon Fios making a big time dent and if things keep on going the way they're going, Spectrum will probably be out of Worcester within less than five years which would be a good thing for everybody.

Did your name say your residence and item number?

Andrew Marsh, 212 May Street, Worcester. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, I rise in support of Resolution 13B. We've all seen the wanton destruction ICE has gleefully caused both in and out of our city. People are disappeared without even their families or lawyers knowing where they are. communities and families are torn apart. State-sponsored gangs and mobs now roam our streets at the drop of a hat. We, the city of Worcester, cannot tolerate it. We must put our foot down and tell ICE, you are not welcome in our city, and we will not have our own police do your dirty work. Even without this order, our police department has shown through their actions that they support ICE's lawlessness over their own constituents. In order for this resolution to have any teeth, the police department must vow to not engage in ICE-related incidents since they've made it perfectly clear that they cannot be trusted to prevent harm and protect the innocent. I yield back the balance of my time.

Is your name and residence an item number?

Dr. Bennett Vogt, resident in Worcester, Massachusetts, item 13A. I stand here today representing the 700 resident and fellow members of the Committee of Intern and Residents at UMass Memorial. CIR has over 40,000 resident members across the country, and we're currently in our contract bargaining process with the medical school and the hospital. I am here today because we spend every day of our career committed to this community and working for the public health and betterment of our community and our patients, but we deserve more support and more from our contract with UMass. In the middle of our bargaining process this year, they canceled our health reimbursements, which supported our members with their personal as well as their children's and their loved ones' financial co-pays. and other health related matters. Myself, I'm a patient as well as a physician. I have high blood pressure. I have anxiety. I have acid reflux. I have reasons that I need to go and get my own self cared for to best be able to care for this community. And what we're asking for all of the counselors here today to support is the reestablishment of our health care benefits. and to encourage the best faith negotiation possible in our ongoing contract so that we can best serve this community that we love and cherish. Thank you, I yield my time.

Thank you.

I'm in total agreement with 13A. and I'm also wanting to, Ojeda, Hazzard, City of Worcester, sorry. Also 13B, it was my understanding that the city felt that the Worcester police should not assist the ICE police unless there was some kind of need for crowd control. and I hope that that remains the same. I think it's a shame that ICE comes into a city and acts like they're the military and that they're here to run people out of our city who have been living here and working here contributing to this city paying taxes, raising families, sending their kids to school beside our children. And if they remove these families and take the children out of the schools, how are the parents going to explain to their children why their friends have had to leave? It's not just a population thing or a political thing. It's a social issue and it reminds me of what was going on in Warsaw. It's a disgrace to all the cities in the United States and I hate to see it happening in my neighborhood.

Thank you.

Is your name see a residence item number?

Hi my name hello hi my name is Sankir I'm also a resident like Bennett at UMass so thank you everyone for standing with us tonight day in and day out we are the frontline workers providing essential care to the community your constituents we great we greet patients every day with a smile and we do so genuinely but it's been hard recently The high student debt working hours that we have leads to severe burnout and it takes a massive toll on our mental, emotional, and physical health. Additionally, management has ended our mental health platform and stopped funding our health benefits as well. These are both programs that we heavily rely on. They did this simply because we are showing up at bargaining sessions, asking for support and resources, and we need to be our best selves in front of our patients. First year residents are some of the most qualified people in the hospital studying a minimum of eight years after high school. Yet our pay does not reflect that expertise. We are expected to conduct research, lead quality improvement initiatives, and pass grueling board exams all outside of our 80 hour work weeks. We are here to tell management and to remind you all that we are respected and we are heard in a vital part of this community and asking for the rights that we deserve. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, my name's Gary Hunter. I live in District 5. The first thing I'd like to talk about is Charter Spectrum. There was promise to have a discount for people over 65. It has not happened. I just got my new bill, and it went up, and it's over $300 a month. It's ridiculous. We need to take control of our cable system. The next thing I would like to talk about is 13B. we saw what happened in Worcester with ICE. There was no reason why police would take action and support ICE. This has to stop. The first thing we should do is approve this message and then we should back the people that were there at the time. There should be all charges dropped against people that were in the system and it should be done immediately and we should back that up by the city council. it's not gonna go anywhere unless we stop ICE because the federal government's not stopping and the next thing you will know, like they did in Chicago, in Washington, Los Angeles, Oregon, the troops will be here to take care of us. We need to stop it now and please pass that resolution and they even come up with something even stronger because we don't want them in our city.

Good night. I think out of all the things I've spoken about, I'm most qualified and equipped to speak about 13b as I was locked up in ICE for six months. I came here as an international student, spent $40,000 being an international student and I'll say it because you pay four times the amount if you're not from the country and or outside. I was picked up on the Greyhound bus coming from a party in Miami while I was going back to Fort Myers and they told me they had no record of me. All right, so this is not about right or wrong. It's a numbers game. The more people they deport is the more money they can collect from the embassies in overseas countries. So regardless of how we want to play this, they are going to rack their numbers up. So just use your resources to educate people who are immigrants, because regardless if you want to agree with them or not, they're going to get their numbers. That's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Good evening. I am here to speak in support of 13B. Not a surprise, right?

Just your name and City of Worcester.

My name is Morales, City of Worcester. I really appreciate Vice Chair King bringing this to the table for discussion. It is time that some of you stand up for the people of this community and not give in to intimidation. The mayor said Worcester Police Department will not assist or work with ICE. The chief of police said, right in this space, the Worcester Police Department will not work with ICE. The city manager said Worcester Police will not work with ICE. Why not just put this in writing? It is time to put it in writing. It is time to put words into real action and let all of our neighbors know that you see them, you hear them, no matter where they come from, no matter what languages they speak. It is time to do the human thing. It is time for families to stop suffering. Families are being broken apart. People are afraid to go outside and access food, schools, and essential items. It is not difficult. Did we not see the Lemon Star Police Department last week? We turned a child to their fearful parents. That is what standing with community looks like. Let eyes know, not in our city. You said it, now put it in writing.

My name is Fiona Jatan Singh, 37 County Street, Worcester, District 3. I am also here to speak about item 13B. We should have an agreement that we do not support ICE. ICE has not only been a rogue organization that has people masquerading as ICE without showing identification, without showing their faces, without showing any warrants, but they have been abusing our children in the city. They have called on the police to support them in abusing the children in the city, and that should not be acceptable. We need to have an agreement that we will not support ICE. Also, I support 13A, what some of the other college students were speaking about from UMass Chan. I don't understand why their benefits are being cut, but we should definitely support them if they're the ones supporting the health care of our community. Thank you.

My name is Sue Mailman, City of Worcester, and I'm here on 11B, which is I appreciate having some accountability for our small dollar spending and making sure we're working with women, veterans, small contractors across the city. We have this on big construction projects, and it creates accountability, and I hope that we... We go through with a system like this. I would think most of you would agree with it. 13a, think about this shutdown that's happening tonight. Think about the horror that this administration is causing nationally with federal dollars and all the cuts that have already come through the system. And that's why these agreements aren't getting passed. And so it's only going to get worse from here, and I feel for you. And 13b, I will never forget being on Eureka Street. I will never forget, to me, I guess, the beginning of the horror of this administration is all the meetings that we had here in front of you, acknowledging the mess that this country is in right now. And this is one thing that we can do to stand up. Thank you for filing it, Councilor King, and I hope that all of you will support it. This is a no-brainer. Put it in writing, as my days said, and thank you for listening.

Good evening. My name is Margo Barnett, a resident of Worcester for 36 years. I'm speaking on item 13B. I want to thank Councilor King for his leadership in bringing this resolution to the city council floor. I call on all of the rest of the councilors to support it. Over the past several months, we've seen many times a day unspeakable cruelty visited on our immigrant neighbors. I wish it was possible to dismiss such a statement as alarmist. But the Trump, Vance, Miller, Homan, Noem regime who are perpetrating this are awash in lies. and cruelty is their point as well as instilling terror. They tell us that they are apprehending criminals, but masked ICE and HSI agents are marauding our streets and snatching anyone who meets a description to fulfill quotas imposed from above. Over 70% of the people detained by ICE have no convictions, and there is no due process. What is that description? Anyone who has dark skin, who speaks with an accent, who is engaged in particular professions, which only a few years ago we characterized as essential services. The majority of Trump's Supreme Court has recently allowed such blatant racial profiling. Agents have tricked people to tear them away from their families. They have smashed car windows. They have assaulted residents and even elected officials who have demanded accountability. Detainees and some deportees are held in unspeakable conditions, which is vehemently denied by immigration officials but authenticated by detainees who have been released. Some have died in ICE custody. There are corporations reaching huge profits from these atrocities. In the face of such immoral and unconstitutional behavior coming from the federal government, what must be our response? Quoting Boston Mayor Michelle Wu at her press conference last month, silence in the face of oppression is not an option. and she went on to say we are prepared to stand up for our city's rights if we need to and that we should never bow down to tyranny. Mayor Petty, you stood with Mayor Wu that day. I ask you to affirm a comparable commitment here in Worcester. You can do that by voting for this resolution and bringing your council colleagues along with you. It matters because it would give the city manager clear direction Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Hello, I'm Dr. Alicia Ding. I'm a family medicine resident at UMass here in the city of Worcester, as well as a union delegate of the Committee of Interns and Residents. And today, I am speaking in support of Resolution 13A. Before I start, I also would like to express my support of Resolution 13B. As a woman of color in medicine, I see myself and I see my patients in the folks who are being victimized by ICE. And there needs to be action to protect all the people that are in need in Worcester. and so I've worked at UMass for over a year now and when I reflect back on this time I realize that I truly am grateful for the opportunities I've had to learn and grow while serving the people of Worcester as a primary care physician and it's given me a sense of belonging in this unique city and makes it feel like home. This is in spite of the fact that the residency system helps hospitals profit by relying on resident labor at a fraction of the value we provide. As a family medicine resident, my hours are considered more reasonable than those of my surgical colleagues, but when I'm in the hospital, that still means working 80-hour weeks across six or seven days of the week, and yes, you noted correctly, that is every single day of the week. It also means working outside of my scheduled hours to be available to answer patient calls at any hour of the night to help triage medical concerns. And it means being ready to step in and cover for my colleagues when they fall ill. All this takes a toll on us as residents when we hardly have time to process our struggles, much less exist for ourselves. Despite this, UMass management has cut mental health support and other benefits for residents during bargaining. When factoring in our hours worked and the rising cost of living in Worcester, UMass is actually falling behind our neighboring programs in Massachusetts and Vermont in offering fair wages and benefits to residents. Although this could be a point of frustration and discouragement, I recently felt more hope than anything. When programs like Boston Medical Center and the University of Vermont set wages and benefits that more accurately reflect the amount of care that residents provide, it becomes possible for UMass to do the same. and I know that raising the standards for resident and fellow physicians will only help us to provide the best possible care for our beautiful community of Worcester.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Carol Coutinho, and I'm a first year resident doctor at UMass Medical Center in psychiatry. I'm here to support Resolution 13A. I'm one of 700 resident physicians who works on the front lines to care for our Worcester community, and many of whom who couldn't be here today because they are currently caring for patients working long hours in the hospital. However, despite the deep care that we have for the work that we do, we are the lowest paid resident physicians in the state of Massachusetts. This is despite the rising cost of living, which is painful for many of us living paycheck to paycheck to pay for our basic needs like rent, groceries, childcare, and student loans. For many of us, which is over $250,000. Management at UMass has also abruptly stopped funding our health benefits. This is a program we rely on greatly to cover our out-of-pocket health expenses. For me personally, this was a huge attraction coming to UMass for training, knowing that they cared about the health of us resident physicians just as much as their patients. I moved here from out of state and had to transfer all of my care to providers here, which required me to pay many copays and other expenses. However, with the stop in funding for our health benefits, I'm unable to get reimbursed like I had originally planned, which has put an even bigger strain on my finances, as well as taken away my ability to focus fully on my patients. This is not just the case for me, but for many of my co-residents who relied on this program. I hope you see that Resolution 13A is essential for us being able to take care of ourselves and thus being able to take care of the Worcester community. It shows the UMass management that we as resident doctors are not alone, that we are valued and deserve to be fairly compensated for our work. I would also like to support Resolution 13B. Everyone else has said what I believe too. Thank you.

Thank you. Steve Hart, District 1. Yes, there are scary times, there are horrifying times. I have a device in my pocket that's probably reporting to some server that I'm here tonight. Okay? This is the nature of the world we live in. But I'm not here for 13B. I am here for 11M. The item requesting a feasibility study on drones as first responders. This will set the technology in place to surveil citizens of this city. It's intended, I'd say well-meaning by the police as part of their technological equipment, but this would create a technological infrastructure that with a few keystrokes or clicks of a mouse would make it a surveillance tool of the public. So how do you stop that? Well, in the pamphlet or the flyer that goes with this item on the agenda, it emphasizes transparency and accountability. Where would this city provide that transparency and accountability? I've witnessed a public safety committee, two-thirds of which is the police policing the police. When you look at the feasibility of this, any item such as this that cannot guarantee the citizens of transparency and accountability is not feasible, and I would reject that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Frances Anthes. I'm a resident of the city of Worcester. I came here tonight to offer support for item 13B, but I also want to address 13A before I'm finished. I appreciate very much, Mr. Mayor, that you and the other city leaders have long celebrated the diversity of our community. the way in which immigrants have come to form Worcester for years and years and years for centuries. And I appreciate that when we had the issues after Eureka Street, the leaders in Worcester continued to express that support for the immigrant population. And since then, what have we seen in terms of how ICE operates across the country? It's astounding and it's scary. And so I really urge you to continue the kind of leadership that you've shown us so far in terms of keeping Worcester being for Worcester and not being agents of ICE. I also did not know about 13A, but as somebody who has spent a long time in healthcare, we really depend on those 700 residents. We will not have good healthcare if those 700 residents aren't working in our hospitals and in our health centers. I didn't know this was an issue today, but I urge you as somebody who knows healthcare and knows where the gaps are, that we cannot afford to lose those residents. Thank you very much.

Good evening, Mauro Di Pasquale. I'm in reference to pages 10 and 11 in your agenda, items 9E through 9M. 9E, WCCA daily welcomes humble donations from the public, but it's not enough. I know we're being asked to think out of the box, but maybe out of the box might be the city or charter doing more to encourage donations, maybe tax credits or cable discounts in exchange of donations to maintain public access. I don't advise starting from scratch to start a new cable advisory committee. The better solution would be to put us at the table. We're on the same great consultants, and rather than share the bus key report recommendations, the decision was made to keep it in draft form, veiling it from public eye. Leaving out the best practices seemed to be antithetical to renewal process, and it raises questions of transparency. items nine, G, H, L, and K are all about ensuring just conditions for exchange of rights of way and ensuring Charter's compliance to the existing franchise license. Why and if the city had failed to audit Charter makes no sense. giving an item nine J, giving WCCATV a seat at the table makes absolute sense. We're on the same side, the cable division gets to participate. Why not the community through WCCATV, the people's channel? WCCA has more history and experience in this field than anyone in the building right now. 9M, public access is suffering from a decline of cable subscriptions. This catastrophe is a result of Spectrum Charter exploiting legal loopholes. People unsubscribe to cable, but not to TV. The delivery system has changed from analog to digital, but it's still delivering TV while conditions for an exchange of rights of way still exist. Senator Moore has done a great job moving Bill S-2556, an act to modernize public access funding. We must collectively push to make it happen. The bill can be very helpful in restoring our capacity to elevate voices in the community. Thank you, have a good night, and thank you to the Cable Committee for doing that.

John Edward Keough, City of Worcester. As the former chairman of the Cable Television Advisory Committee, I have to refute a couple of things that Mauro just said. One, we did make the bus report public. I voted on it. I handed him a paper copy. So that was just an open lie that he just talked here. Number two, 9J is illegal on its face. You cannot have a person who receives tax dollars be part of the negotiation team for tax dollars. It's literally illegal at every level, local, state, and federal. The fact that it made it to the agenda when the 715% more public petitions are being denied access to the agenda is frankly ridiculous. Who reviewed that? That shouldn't be there. It is tax dollars.

Thank you.

It is tax dollars. That's part of the reason why we call it the cable franchise agreement. That's why the city manager has the right to negotiate it because it is a tax, 100%. That's why the lawsuit that could potentially come for the seniors would lead to a reimbursement because that means that they misappropriated tax dollars. That's the leverage that the city manager was given by the former committee that doesn't exist anymore for lots of different reasons. But anyways, the point is that I support WCCA receiving additional funding. It should be funded separately. We've talked about this a bunch of times. The school channel should be funded by the school budget. WCCA should be funded by the general fund, and we shouldn't rely on a tax that's going away. in the five-year plan for Charter Spectrum, which was filed in 2023, guys, they are sunsetting cable as a service. Cable will not exist in 2028 from Charter Spectrum. It's literally gone. So signing a 10-year deal is a bad idea. It's just a bad idea.

Thank you.

Tom Reno Worcester on 9J as well. I have a degree that seems to be unlawful on its face. And I have the same question. How does it get to the agenda? What is the process there? Because I read all 133 of the petitions that have been rejected this year in nine months. And spurious legal arguments just invented out of thin air. presenting practices of the city council that are, again, just made up and not a power delegated to you, like abdicating the power delegated to you to create and pass ordinances as legislature. Just invented reasons, invented reasons, spurious reasons, reasons that just make no sense. And then this makes it to the agenda. I don't blame the committee or whoever presented it from the committee. I'm not sure who that is, but odds are they're not an attorney. But how does that happen? How are we systematically denying people of this city from petitioning their local government a core American principle, but we get illegal orders come out of committees that make it to the agenda? That seems like a really screwed up priorities list. It's almost like you don't want to vote on tough stuff in an election year, shockingly. On ShotSpotter, Here it is in a nutshell. It's intangible. It has valuable intangibles. That you've had this thing for 12 years or so, what, 10 years, 12 years, and you still haven't even, I don't even think, had a substantive conversation about how you measure its effectiveness is crazy. off the deep end crazy. What we shouldn't do is in no way should we be paying, what, maybe $600,000 a year now when it goes up in the next contract because it makes some people feel good. We should do it based on an objective analysis, not how people feel about it in the abstract.

Okay, we'll go online.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The first speaker is David Coyne. I'm trying to meet the resident now. Can you please say your name and city of residence and the item you're calling on?

My name is David Coyne. I live in Worcester. I'm speaking on agenda item 13b resolution proposed by City Councilor Khrystian King that would if implemented remove our local government and its resources from the immoral business of abducting and deporting some of our neighbors without due process of law. In this country, at this very moment, people are being kidnapped by armed, masked, and often unidentifiable agents of our own national government. Every day, the Trump regime is causing thousands of human beings to disappear. and people being made to disappear overwhelmingly trace their roots to Latin America and the Caribbean, to Africa and to Asia. They are selected for abduction because based largely on their skin color, clothing and appearance, on their language and accent, and on indications of their economic class and political views those abducted are often held without access to a lawyer without a phone call to a family member without any semblance of due process they are sometimes deported directly to prisons in other countries countries where there is no pretense of due process countries where they have never lived sometimes they're deported to a continent where neither they nor any member of their recent family has ever lived, and again, where they may not speak the language. Passage of this resolution may or may not be binding on the city, but its passage allows the city council to take a moral stand against the lawless actions of the Trump regime. It allows the voters to assess the moral convictions and courage of the incumbent members of the council. I urge you to vote against any motion to table and to vote yes on this item. Thank you.

Mayor, the next speaker is Ashley Spring. Please state your name and city of residence.

Good evening, Ashley Spring calling from sunny Palm Harbor, Florida. First, I want to speak on item 13b. Aside from the obvious ethical concerns of working with an agency who's committing horrendous human rights violations on live air that my fellow community members have already mentioned here, and as well as disrespecting local authorities, including the chief of police in Broadview, Illinois, Many departments in other states have come to regret their 287G agreements because of the job losses it's been causing their departments. I hope that the supporters of carceralizing community care can see how problematic this will be for a Worcester Police Department who is apparently already understaffed and overtasked. I also wanted to speak a little bit on 11F. You've all heard of hostile architecture, but the city of Worcester would like to introduce you to the concept of hostile e-architecture. It has come to the attention of residents local to Green Street that a mysterious Mozarious machine has been erected in their neighborhood. Mr. Roboto has been caught on a widely viewed video blasting classical music through all hours of the night. Upon investigation with the city manager's office, concerned citizens have been made aware that this musical menace has been tasked with the exceptionally important police officer job of deterring drug deals. I know this sounds crazy, but it's true. Classical music is widely used by police departments as a crime deterrent. This may not sound like a problem unless, of course, you're one of the very vulnerable houseless individuals that rest their weary bodies near Green Street Bridge every night. While I'm excited that Worcester has noticed the housing problems made worse by widening wage gaps, lacks of social supports, and community outreach initiatives, it remains concerning to me that this crime deterrent is nothing more than a maliciously marginalizing misfortune maneuvering around real solutions that uplift our misrepresented neighbors from the real root causes of crime, homelessness, and poverty that plague them and instead punishes them and their nearby neighbors. by breaking Worcester's own noise ordinance. In short, please allow Worcester to consider following its own ordinance and get rid of this monster. Thank you.

Thank you. Just take a quick vote. We got a few more people, so let's take a quick vote to extend it for another 30 minutes. All those in favor? Roll call.

How many people you have, Mr. Chairman?

We have about three or four.

Why don't you do 10 minutes?

Okay, let's go.

Motion.

Motion for 30 minutes.

Okay, first motion's for 30, roll call.

Councilor Bergman? No. Councilor Colorio?

No.

Councilor Haxhiaj? Yes. Councilor King? Yes. Councilor Mero-Carlson? No. Councilor Nguyen? No. Councilor Ojeda?

Yes.

Councilor Pacillo? Yes. Councilor Russell? No. Councilor Toomey?

No.

And Mayor Petty?

Yes. Vote for 30, vote for 10.

Well, Mr. Chairman, just a note, because I hear a lot of comments from the audience. If we vote in favor of 10 minutes, we can always vote for additional time if there are more people online. So since we allow two minutes per person and there's three or four people online, I think 10 minutes is about right.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm trying to meet you now. Please state your name and city of residence. Can you please say your name instead of your address?

Hey, can you hear me well?

Yes.

Hey, thanks everybody. My name is Javier Luengo. I'm the Deputy Field Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, and I'm here tonight to support 13B, which is the resolution related to the 287G agreements and that the City of Worcester should not be part of it and also I'm going to sort of comment about it. But first I want to say thank you, I'm going to give thanks to Councillor King for leading on this. The ACLU of Massachusetts has worked with many municipalities including Boston, Somerville, Cambridge, Springfield, Hampton, Pittsfield to pass municipal ordinances that involved codifying the role of the local police and making clear that local police should not be involved in federal enforcement of immigration law. As a first step, this resolution 13B pushes the city of Worcester in the right direction, making clear that agreements such as 27G, which is the training and deputization of law enforcement as ICE agents, it's negative and destroys the trust of the community. What we want nowadays is for community members from the immigrant community to trust their elected officials, to trust their police department, that if they are victims of a crime, they can approach the police department and make a report. We want our immigrant communities to feel safe in their own communities. This resolution, which is Western in the right direction, where the trust is being built through...

Ten seconds.

I would also say that the ACLU would be more than willing to keep working with the city council to codify this and go beyond a resolution but a codification at the municipal level. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Natalie, I'm gonna try and mute the resident now. Please state your name and state your residence.

So I'm speaking on an item I put on the agenda. Do I get three minutes?

Yes. If it's a petition, correct.

okay so I'm speaking about petition 7b it's about the resurfacing of Parker Street between Mayfield on the sidewalk resurfacing between Parker and Mayfield Street In 2020, I put on this agenda before the former council that I asked for the Parker Street to be resurfaced. It had not been resurfaced in well over 30 years. It sat on the list where it was supposed to be resurfaced in 1996. I saw that it was supposed to be again resurfaced in 2013. I did not receive this street resurfaced until 2022. I also asked for additional street lighting because it is dark over here and it's scary and it should be lighted over here. There's no street lights on this part of the street. both both petitions were approved when this street was resurfaced in 2022 they did one sidewalk one sidewalk one side that was it they didn't even attempt they put a curb on the other side and did nothing with the odd side where there are no longer any houses over by the empty field. I would definitely encourage this council to look into the process of resurfacing and making it publicly known how it works. These are tax dollars being spent and wasted. Was this I don't even know if the tax dollars were allocated for one side of the street is that normal that this happens that only one side of a two-sided street gets a sidewalk um and then I'd like to also speak on 13B and this will be quick. The Worcester Police Department is not paid from any federal budget. They are paid wholly from the taxpayers here in the city of Worcester. Your city residents have spoken up and want their tax dollars used properly and want the police department to stay out of the federal ICE issue. I think that it is definitely something that the police department is already taxed to the max and should not be a part of. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Eric Stratton. I'm trying to read the rosary now.

Yes, can you hear me?

Yep.

Wonderful. Eric Stratton, City of Worcester. I am calling in support of 13b. As others have said, the city should not be entering into exploring or considering entering into agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As others have already said, Worcester police should be focused on Worcester issues. They should not be helping ICE in any way, shape, or form to terrorize the citizens of the city or the residents of the city under any condition. I think it's very interesting that while we have a number of counselors who say we should focus on Worcester issues this is a Worcester issue because this is impacting people who live here people are fearful people are afraid to leave their homes and frankly we should not be supporting them we should be focused on having our police focus on city issues and what we need to do here, looking at safer driving practices, helping with other issues that we need addressed. And I think this should be an easy one for all of our city councilors to support if they actually care about the residents of the city. It's very frustrating to me that it seems that there's a double standard amongst some of our councils that they don't want to deal with national issues, unless it's an issue that's personal to them, in which case it's okay. So which is it? You have to pick. You can't have it both ways. Lastly, I'd just like to say thank you for extending time so that the rest of us could speak. You know, I'm a little concerned that it feels like public participation needs to get chipped away. it would have been just as easy to extend time by 30 minutes and then just not have that many speakers. But I think that was a very petty move, thank you.

Thank you.

So the next speaker is Danielle.

I'm here, can you hear me?

Yes.

Danielle Killay, City of Worcester. I'm echoing a lot of the supports that I'm hearing for Councillor King's resolution 13b regarding prohibit or opposing assisting these ICE agents that come into our community to spread nothing but fear. As a community member, as someone who sees the results of their presence in our city on a weekly basis, as a mother, I am absolutely offended at the thought that we would even be considering having our Worcester police officers participate in something that would so thoroughly and irreparably damage the remaining trust that so many community members are desperate to hold onto right now, actually. They'd really like to have someone in our corner. And I have to go ahead and lift up what Eric said before me, because this entire evening I have been thinking to myself how convenient it is that when we come to you with our concerns as your constituents we are told that we are looking too broadly that these are federal and national issues that have nothing to do with the city of Worcester even though we live here and they very much have much to do with our lives but now that we have a federal issue that is making problems for citizens in our City, the idea is that we should get involved, that this is something we should do. And it just seems it's so convenient.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Motion to suspend the rules and give the public another 20 minutes. I understand that's an inconvenience to some people.

We still got about four minutes or so. We'll do it at the end of this.

Mr. Chairman, point of order. We said 10 minutes. Yeah, we give extension for the three minutes. There was, I think, four speakers that did two and one that did three. There's one, two, three, four speakers left. So we got five. So we suspend the rule for 10 minutes. Motion to suspend the rule.

We haven't got to the 10 minutes yet. So I added three minutes on to some person who spoke for the petition.

It's been nine minutes, I've been collecting the time, Mr. Chair.

Right, but you added the petition on, it should have been done separately, so I didn't add her to the ten minutes.

Motion to suspend the rules, Mr. Chairman. Okay, another ten minutes, roll call.

Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Colorio?

Yes.

for the record there's one two three four five speakers on line okay and there's one speaker at the podium so let's go the next speaker is David Webb

is your name, city of residence?

So I'm not hearing from Mr. Webb, can you hear us? I think there's a microphone issue with Mr. Webb.

Can you hear me?

Yes. Yes, please say your name and city of residence.

Sure, bear with me, sorry, let me get to my script. Okay, David Webb, Olympian. I'm calling in today in support of 11A through E as well as 9F through L. On 832B, zero waste, this is too little too late. We're compensating for Batista's priorities and having a so-called quality of life task force instead of solutions for so long. On 13B, I really hope Worcester can take a stand against fascism. Anyone who knows anything about it should support this common sense measure. Regarding item 11Z, noise in neighborhoods. If a person made a quarter as much noise as you subjected downtown to last night, the Worcester Police Department would charge them with disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct. But when you do it to luxury apartments able to be heard from Grafton Street, you call it crime prevention? Classical music doesn't stop crime. Make it make sense. According to Amy Peterson at the city manager's office, this is an evaluation. I hope the city stands against this and you don't just turn it down, you turn it off. Don't quietly fund it for another few years without asking like you did ShotSpotter. Which brings me to 9ABC, the documentedly problematic ShotSpotter Connect program that smarter cities have discontinued, and the new trial software that will eventually cost us another $100,000 a year. This offer isn't a solution for the lack of diversity in the Worcester Police Department, and the officers don't enable their body-worn cameras anyways. even when they do the public records department makes endless reasons to withhold records if they even bother responding don't waste money on this program thanks for voting to end more time but really it shouldn't be this difficult to get allow the public to speak so mayor the next speaker is Christian Fraser try to meet the resident now

Hi, Kirsten Frazier, City of Worcester. Got a long list here. 11, A through L, definitely support because as far as A through E, we definitely need to make sure that we do a diversity audit for our city contracts. And we also then need to make sure that we enforce that and that we are uplifting our historically marginalized communities. For 11Z, it is ironic to the extreme that in light of that lovely little noisemaker down there by the Green Street Bridge where our own police department is violating the law that we are even talking about enforcing the noise ordinance. Let's enforce it on ourselves before we start worrying about other people. For 11M, we don't need drones going around and surveilling people. That's just absolutely absurd. We don't need to turn ourselves into a 1984 world, please. Let's not waste our money on that. For 13A, listen to our good doctor residents. We need them. We need to urge the University of Massachusetts Medical School to support their residents and to start paying their health care again and actually negotiate in good faith. And for 13B, the last one on my list, We've seen how non-transparent our police department is and how the trust that we have in our police is eroding in the city. Don't make it worse by signing a 287 task force agreement. Support Councilman King's ordinance, please. We really need to make sure that we can start to rebuild the trust within our city and protect our residents. Thank you for your time.

So, Mary, the next speaker is Natalie Gibson. Do you want to meet the resident now?

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Natalie Gibson, District 5. So, I am in opposed to 11M. Thank you for the gentleman for bringing this up because I wasn't aware it was on there. I oppose drones because we are... even though we are in a world where we have a lot of cameras this specifically could be used to invade our privacy in our spaces like our homes and vehicle windows they could be peering into those they can even be watching you as you're outside on your own property and use that information for whatever they might want. 13A, I support UMass Chan's house staff in getting and also their medical students in getting their health benefits fund back. We could end up losing a lot of doctors because of this because they need to be able to care for themselves in order to care for us first. Think of a plane, you put on your oxygen first before you put on someone else's. If the hospital has enough money to buy properties and break ground, then they should have enough money to do this for them, for the people who are actually part of the backbone of their institution. 13B, ICE. I support Councilor King's order or resolution. Since ICE can hide their identity for their safety, 10 seconds. Thank you. So no to ICE being helped by Worcester Police. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, the next speaker is Sheila.

Hi, this is Sheila Brenner. I live in Worcester District 1. Go Keith Linares. I can't be as eloquent as the speakers beforehand. I want to speak to 13A, support the residents at UMass, and 13B, please give the citizens of Worcester the protection they need. Worcester Police Department should take care of Worcester residents, should never, never cooperate with federal authorities If anyone watched Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump today, we are being led by imbeciles and we need to stand up and reclaim our democracy. Show us fine, Worcester City Council, please. Thank you.

Last speaker is Jillian. I'm trying with the resident now.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

Perfect. Thank you. My name is Jillian Phillips. I live in North Brookfield. I'm the director of the Office of New Americans here in Worcester. And I'm speaking on behalf of 13B. I want to thank Councilor King for bringing this item before the city. As my day Morales said, I hope that the city will put in writing what they have been promising in their work with community and their work with nonprofits. I would like to note that in the last two weeks, we've had a 58% increase of Worcester residents who've been kidnapped by ICE. This includes teenagers. This includes parents of US citizen children. This includes individuals with disabilities such as autism. this also includes over the last six months individuals with green cards who are legal residents who have done this the legal way and yet are being terrorized by this rogue agency that are instilling fear in our community. We have seen a significant increase in the families we work with being afraid to go to work, being afraid to go to school, not attending their healthcare appointments, including women who are pregnant, who will be giving birth to U.S. citizens who are Worcester residents. So I would like to echo what others have said that while we are talking about federal agencies, we are talking about Worcester residents. We are talking about United States residents. For those who may be in disagreement that we should be having a stance against ICE, we are talking about these individuals traumatizing city residents that you all should be caring about. So we need to take care of this community. It is impacting the mental health of the children. It is impacting the mental health of the providers who are working with them.

You have 10 seconds.

Thank you. And I would like to ask all of you to please support this. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Give your names to your residents.

Hi, my name is Jaylene Maldonado. I'm from Western Massachusetts, and I'm here to speak on the unsafe and unsanitary living conditions down the street from here at Skymark Tower owner LLC, also known as 600 Main Street. I was currently homeless with my one-year-old daughter. I apologize for my tardiness today. I'm a single mom who works full-time at Edward M. Kennedy as a dental receptionist. I'm here today to address the infestation that had happened to me when I moved into there on the 12th after leaving Abby's house.

That's not on the agenda, I don't think, is it? Do you have any housing on the agenda?

I'm here to discuss unsafe and unsanitary conditions that are being targeted by low-income families.

Yeah, the manager will take care of that. It's not on the agenda tonight. I apologize, sir.

I did come here straight after work. I work full time and I just want to be heard. I do have a preliminary injunction hearing tomorrow and I am handling the best I can on my own. So I am having an injunction tomorrow at the Worcester Courthouse. I'm just here to address the unfairness and unsanitary conditions that are at the 600 Main Street and that they're not doing anything in order to prevent it. I just left the homeless shelter. I brought everything brand new for me and my one year old daughter to live somewhere safely. And everything has been destroyed, my mental health and everything in between. I have been living in unsanitary conditions and having bed bugs eat my daughter alive as well as cockroaches.

We have the assistant senior manager here. He's gonna talk to you right after this.

I appreciate it, Mayor.

Thank you. Okay, thank you. Hang in there. My name is Zachary Bailey.

I'm at 267 Stafford Street. I'm here about 11-0 and 11-Z. I work directly across the street from that surveillance apparatus that's been up there and 50 hours a week I'm directly across the street from that park and I have observed It's terrible. The homeless people are more agitated than they've ever been before. I have occasion to speak with them from time to time as the manager of a business on Green Street, and it's just like all any of them have to say right now is where are we supposed to go. We deserve constructive solutions, not destructive solutions. We should have a safe injection site in this city. We have a relatively small homeless population and some of the best healthcare resources in the entire country. We could be helping these people instead of just tearing them down. Their lives already suck. We don't need to make them worse.

Thank you. So we'll close this part of the meeting. and that was done in about 20 minutes. Okay, okay, so we are on petitions. 7A, we're gonna refer, if anybody's here for a petition, just raise your hand. 7A, we're gonna refer that to the planning board. All those in favor, oppose, so ordered. 7B to 7F, refer to Public Works. All those in favor, oppose, so ordered. 7G to 7V, refer to Traffic and Parking. All those in favor, oppose, so ordered. 7W to 7Y, set hearing for October 21st, 2015 for condo locations. Okay, all those in favor, opposed, so ordered. And we have on the communications, the city manager. The first item up is transferring information and communication about the appointment of Marissa Robinson to the Community Preservation Committee. So I want to thank you for your service. Motion is to file. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Recommend your reappointment of Mary Weevich and Patricia Austin to the Greater Worcester Advisory Committee. I want to thank you for your service and roll call.

8.34

I have some questions on A, B, and C. Can I take them off? On B and C? A, B, and C. I got questions?

Okay, we'll do them all together. Actually, sorry, A and B. C is separate, I apologize.

so we'll do B2, recommend adoption salary amendments to increase the hourly rate for snow inspector, snow supervisor, winter operations coordinator when assigned in line with salary increases for local 495 personnel and recommend adoption salary amendments to increase the salary grades of deputy solicitor and deputy city solicitor litigation.

Yeah, I ask to take CO because it doesn't.

Oh, for the vote, okay.

just ambig is what I wanted to ask. Okay, you can speak on those. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Through the Chair of the City Manager, I'm just trying to get a sense, and maybe Mr. Bagley is the appropriate person to ask. There's a line in here in line with salary increases for local 495 personnel. Are these increases in conjunction with other increases that have already happened? That's kind of a mystery sentence to me, what that means.

Mr. Manager?

Yeah, through the chair to the Council, one of the things that we've been trying to do is trying to find a way that we can negotiate with the union some of the hourly rates for the 495 employees, and especially also someone that's 170 when it comes to they work a lot of hours in the phones when the snows are happening and answering a lot of them. And so what we're trying to do is we're trying to have some comparable salary structure that provides them an increase understanding and knowing there's some of you know somewhat we've had some challenges and retention in in these spaces and so we're trying to in good faith work with our 495 personnel bargaining managers and the actual 170 which is two separate bargaining units

If I may, Mr. Chairman, also I noticed that the proposals to make these increases retroactive to July 1st. So I'm just wondering, there's been no events that I know of snow-wise in Worcester between July and now. Why would it go retroactive?

Yeah, a lot of the- Sorry. That's all right. A lot of these increases something that we've been talking and negotiating for a while in regards to some of the adjustments that we've made already to $495, $170, and $490. And so this is also falling in line within that. So it's part of the negotiation is trying to find a way to incentivize them, but then also trying to fall in line with the previous increases that the bargaining unit has received.

and one last question through the chair to our city manager. Do you have a estimate or an actual on the budget increase or cost increase if this is passed?

I don't have the overall number in terms of what that overall budget increase, but it's something that we have accounted for in this fiscal year's budget.

Thank you. Just if I could just comment, Mr. Chairman, I certainly was one of the counselors, along with a number of my colleagues, that advocated for the Snow plow operators, snow ice machine operators to get increased to make them competitive. I'm certainly not somebody that's going to say that snow inspectors and winter operation coordinators, supervisors, and others don't deserve you know an increase because of the situation and the conditions they work under but but I will say this that last winter and I know we didn't have a commissioner in place that so this is no reflection on our new commissioner but last winter my opinion others the council have shared their opinions as well snow operations and ice operate were not good they were not good and I just think the timing of this could have been better because we're going into another snow season and one of the incentives I like to one of the reasons I think incentives or salary increases are useful in addition to keeping people in line with what others make and making sure that people want to apply for jobs is kind of to reflect you know the confidence and the success that people have have have done. And I just laughed at last winter. This doesn't give me a game plan on how this winter is going to be any better. So I'm not necessarily going to oppose this because, again, I do believe that people should get fair wages. And we certainly short people in DPW. But I don't like the timing of it because I'd like the taxpayers of the city to see something improve before they're saddled with an increase in costs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Council Member Carlson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Certainly not going to dispute that last winter and quite frankly the last couple of winters have not been great for us here in the city of Worcester. But I also know that the Public Works Committee over the last couple of years working with the manager has been working to fully staff DPW because we know that there's been an extreme shortage. We can pick a number. It was at one point we were down by over 100 individuals and then by last year we were down by 80 something individuals. Part of the reasoning and public works met last week and there was a We had a brief conversation about the dollars that were going to be raised for the plow drivers as well as in-house, as well as, I'm sorry, the outside contractors. One of the issues that we struggle with is the paying of the outside contractors. And there's several contractors, as we know, last year did not sign up to come and work for the city of Worcester. And that was all due to the rates that we were paying at the time. So if we look back to Commissioner Moylan coming before the council and he had raised all of those pay rates on the outside contractors. At that time, they did not raise the rates of the individuals who were working at DPW. So while I agree that we certainly have not had fabulous years with snow removal, there's no doubt about that for all of us. But I will say that I know for myself, I've already begun to get the calls from the private contractors. And again, if we don't have the private contractors, our streets don't get plowed or sanded either so again you can't be paying outside people and not pay our inside folks so this is all part of with several discussions with Commissioner Westerling trying to bring people up to the pay rates that are customary to other communities. So this is certainly something that I support. Thank you. And I'm hoping that this year here we're looking at a much better winter with our snow removal and obviously and the treatments of the roads. And I know even it was talked about at our last meeting of Public Works is all of the programs that we last year, unfortunately, we didn't have access to a lot of the weather channels that we historically had access to. So looking forward to a much better year this year. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Haxhiaj.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Manager, if I may ask you a couple of questions. During budget briefings and when Commissioner Westerling came and met with my neighborhood leaders in District 5, I heard you say very clearly that one of the incentives that we want for our workers to do these jobs is to increase the pay. Is that true, through the Chair?

Mr. Manager?

To your chance to the council, that is one of the strategies to try to retain our staff and understanding and knowing the competitiveness of this work across the state. It's something that even at MassDOT, something that we're also, that they're dealing with as well. So we were trying to be as competitive as we can with our staff in trying to retain them.

And it's my understanding through the chair that when Mr. Ling, Mr. Fink before him, Commissioner Moylehan, Commissioner Fink, they came to this council and asked for the same thing precisely because they were hearing from their workers precisely what Councilor Mero-Carlson mentioned that there are more competitive rates outside, something that we heard was one of the issues why we were understaffed during the snow plow. So I just want you to say for the taxpayers that this investment that we're making towards our workers will result in more people wanting to work for the city. Is that your expectation?

Mr.

Manager?

To the chair, to the council, that's one of our expectations. One of the things that we want to make sure we knew right away that we needed to do to increase our staffing ratios in the city. So we had job fairs. We've had a number of people who've been able to staff with the city significantly. And that has been helped. our garage for example went from four mechanics to eight mechanics and that's through the efforts of the department and hearing loudly from the council that we needed to do a better job in hiring and recruitment and part of that is also increases in and being competitive with the with the wages.

Thank you Mr. Manager and lastly I just want to mention that during our budget briefings which you were very clear about this issue one of the defects of having a not so great snow operation was because we were lacking in mechanics and that put us behind with our response system. So between filling those positions, increasing the rate, and then buying the equipment that we need, we are expected to have a better snow operation, which I'm hoping that you will present to council any and all strategies that you're using right now to make sure that happens.

through the chair to the council yeah all hands off that to make sure that this winter we do not experience some of the challenges that we experienced last winter we acknowledge that and I think you know through the efforts of everything that we're trying to do to enhance the department I think it's gonna be paid dividends great yeah I think this is common sense I'm not sure why anybody would oppose it you certainly have my support and I appreciate you doing that thank you council Toomey

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it's extremely important that our employees are compensated appropriately. I appreciate the work that's been done to increase the staffing and also the equipment that we definitely needed. I have been getting calls also from outside vendors looking for some clarification on that and you know I think what people think they were a little confused some of them but I'm going to I support this but I'm going to ask if there's any way that we can be more proactive or responsive in working with the private contractors and coming up with a contract amount for those private drivers so that we can maintain or increase the numbers of private entities that are working for us as well. So we don't want to balance everything. So the sooner that we get that out, the better. Thank you.

Council King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of questions to the chair. One is, I know that as we have been providing services for snow operations over the years, it does continually come before us. to increase the pay in order to be competitive. And I don't have an issue with that whatsoever. I understand the potential with respect to, you know, really having a full complement, an array of folks providing the service. My question to the chair of the administration is one of the things that we've talked about time and time again with regards to these operations are the strategies as it relates to a lot of the hills and steep inclines and declines across the city. And historically, the places where there's been a challenge. going back to when we got the new treatment pre-treatment that we had paid for that we were doing we could see it in real time as it relates to you know when the pre-treating was initiated and dispatched my question to the chair is regard to technology from what I recall We do have an ability to track in real time the operations of the independent contracted snowplow folks along with city folks. So if you could kind of explain where we are with that, do we have that capacity? And then secondly, what I'm really trying to get to, because I think the answer will be yes, is how transparent can we be with that? as a city. Like in my mind, Magic Wand, folks can look at an app, they can look at something when they're calling on a specific area in the city and they can see the deployment across the city through the chair.

Mr. Manager?

Yeah, through the Chancellor's Council, one of the things that we tried to do to enhance our ability to understand and know where plowed truck drivers are and addressing our streets was to try to implement a GPS system. And so we contracted with Verizon, the company that we contract that has GPS for our vehicles. We've talked about the idea of presenting some kind of mapping on the website where you could see where the truck is going and how does the truck Move, and whether they came to your street or not. And that's an element that we're trying to kind of build so that we can communicate to the public so that people can see when a truck has come or has, you know, in their route or in their neighborhood, the potential of probably coming as well.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to that. As a way of a motion, I would ask that the City Council be reported back to as to the status of such transparency as it relates to this. I don't know if there's concerns with regards to legalities or safety. I'm not sure. of the drivers. But we'll certainly like a report back on where we are with that. I think it would be extremely helpful to the taxpayer to know and be able to see that the complement that's there is in process and moving. We know that there's an exhaustive element to this when folks out there are hours at a time. particularly for the folks that are doing double duty. Second kind of comment is, I don't know the degree to which we have folks from the city of Worcester who are filling these positions, like what percentage. I think that might be helpful too for a committee to review, Mr. Chairman. And then lastly, again, I really get, have pause for thought. as it relates to those problematic areas in the city that we know are pinpoints when it comes to winter weather and the strategies around that. What's getting pre-treated? What's not? What's getting sand? Where are we at with that in terms of an overall operational strategy? I would like a report on that if we've had it before, like an updated one. I think that could be helpful as well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Councilor Russell?

Mr. Chairman, I just want to say I support this item. I think it's important that we pay people competitive rates. In fact, a little better than competitive rates because we need to attract more people. We're always short. But I just, I'm hearing conversations about tracking vehicles. and I understand that the city-owned vehicles you may have information on, but to have that information internally and to use it for your management and to otherwise, but I think that, I think if you think you're having trouble attracting contractors down try putting that online and having people say you know have every member of the public following every turn that people make in a truck yeah people will be running to other towns and they'll be running to the state of state of Massachusetts I'm just throwing it out there. That's just my feeling. I think it's gonna be a real deterrent. That's what you have the management for. That's what you have the supervisors for. You're paying the supervisors a high rate. That's their job to make sure that they're doing what they're supposed to do. But I think we need to worry about going a little bit too far with the surveillance. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, so we'll take, Councilor Bergman.

I just want to be brief. I usually don't stand a second time, but there was an indication that the question why anybody would oppose this. Again, I'm not opposing this, but I want to be clear on this because to me, snow and ice are public safety issues. They absolutely are. And when we hit with a bad winter, there are a lot of accidents and people's lives are endangered. and we do the best we can. I get that. But I've been on this council long enough to remember a time where we more than doubled our snow budget because we were faced with all these challenges and we figured that we'll throw money at it and we'll fix the problem. And there may have been some better years than other years and that may have had something to do with the amount of snow we've had. It may have to do with strategies that different commissioners used. and I'm supportive of people getting fair wages. That's why I'm not gonna oppose this. And I am mindful of the fact we're short of equipment and we're short of people. But that's my point. There's nothing in these raises to inspectors, supervisors and customer service that's gonna get us more operators and more equipment. because these raises aren't for them. They're for other people. And year after year, what I hear from whoever the commissioner is, there's been a number of them, is after a storm in which there's dissatisfaction, I hear we don't have enough people and we don't have enough equipment. And that's my frustration because I don't see a plan going forward except for hope. And hope's not always a good plan in municipal government, that we're going to have enough people and enough equipment to be able to do a better job this year than last year. I'm gonna support this, but I'm gonna continue to be on this issue. And I think the equipment and the people that we need to operate the equipment should be priority. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, so we are going to take game B, Council King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted an opportunity for the city to respond, the chairman of the administration. Council Bergman's not wrong. He's on point with this. And just before we move on, if you could kind of speak to the concern that Council Bergman brought up about moving forward, not having enough equipment, et cetera, and where the money's going through the chair.

Mr. Manager?

Yeah, through the chair to the council, one of the things that we've been trying to do within this budget and we've committed to this council was to increase the equipment and that's something that we have done in the department and we're continuously working on that. The other one is to address the salary structures of our staff, especially the unions. These here are not going to private contractors. The salary increases are going to local staff in the city, 170, 490, and 495. the contractors rates that has not come before the council the last time we brought that forward was with former interim commissioner Bob Moylan but these here are specifically to our current staff that are working in in these equipments and trying to manage and also being able to be competitive within the market

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to an analysis of this moving forward to determine, as the Councilor mentioned, sort of a long-term strategy for this.

Thank you. Thank you. So we'll take A and B together, collectively, and roll off the orders. Roll call.

Yes. Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Colorio?

Yes.

Councilor Haxhiaj? Yes. Councilor King? Yes. Councilor Mero-Carlson? Yes. Councilor Nguyen? Councilor Ojeda? Yes. Councilor Pacillo?

Yes.

Councilor Russell? Yes. Councilor Toomey? Yes. Mayor Petty?

Yes. C, recommend adoption salary amendments to increase the salary grades of deputy city solicitor and deputy solicitor of litigation. Roll call.

Yes. Transferring information and communication about the minimum off-street parking requirements.

I refer that to the planning board. Okay. All those in favor? Opposed? So, ordered. on 8.11A, Transmitting Information and Communication Road to the Vernon Connected Study. You'll file that and we'll say everybody's all set.

Can we refer that to committee, Mr. Chairman?

You can send that to Public Works. Public Works. All those in favor? Opposed? So, audit. Fire Department recommending the adoption of an authorizing acceptance of a deed for real property on Southwest Street in connection with the South Division Fire Station. Roll call.

Yes. Yes.

Yes, I recommend adoption of the Hazard Mitigation Plan under 8.14a. Mr.

Chair, can I speak on that?

Councilor Haxhiaj.

Yeah, just have a very quick question for either Mr. Connolly or the manager. The FEMA National Flood Insurance Plan, do we have a way to let residents know how to participate in it, or anyone in floodplain areas that doesn't know to have flood insurance?

Mr. Connolly.

Have a seat.

Thank you for that question. In short, I am not an expert on the National Flood Insurance Program, but there is, the engagement's ongoing, and I know a lot of work through DSR and the Planning Department.

Thank you, Mr. Connolly. If I could ask through the chair to the city manager, is it possible for us to send communication, particularly to residents in floodplain areas? I have met some residents who are not aware they need to have flood insurance. Is that some sort of communication, that informal communication we could send to folks?

Mr. Manager?

Yeah, through the chair to the council. We can look at options to where we can inform them. I think there's many options that we can try to communicate to them. I know that one of the strategies recently as part of the changes to the floodplain, the planning office played a good role in trying to communicate to folks and also then we had the flood insurance program through the ARPA program as well that we offer people an ability to pay for the flood insurance. But I'll have Peter Dunn talk a little bit more since he was intimately involved in that process.

Mr. Dunn.

Sure. Through the chair of the council, just one thing I wanted to clarify is that we often think of flood insurance as being required or mandated. Often that's coming from a mortgage holder. So there could be several properties out there that are now free and clear of a mortgage where unless they have some other obligation to have that coverage in place, it could be their choice to do it. So I would just caution that we're sending out communications to people saying that they need to have it if they may not need to have it. and so forth, it's probably a good idea, right? Because otherwise that loss would not be covered under a standard homeowner's insurance policy. And as the manager mentioned, when we had the update from FEMA on the preliminary changes to the flood maps happening, particularly with the Blackstone River watershed, we sent out direct mailings to all of those affected properties to make sure that they were aware. I think off the top of my head, if we were to send out are mailing to all of the properties that could be in a floodplain in the city. I think it would be in the thousands. So it could be a worthwhile effort just to make sure that they're aware, but it would be a significant number for sure.

Mr. Johns, if I can just ask another question. In order for Worcester to qualify for the HMP, the hazard mitigation plan, do we need to have a certain number of residents in floodplains to actually have flood insurance?

Mr. Dunn?

Through the Chair to the Councillor, on the hazard mitigation plan, I'd probably defer to Mr. Connolly, but I can tell you that Worcester continues to be an active participant in what's called the community rating system. So when we shared the update, as you might remember on the flood map changes, one of the things that is really and so forth. I think what's important to us is based on the level of standard that we have, our administration of the Conservation Commission, the Wetlands Protection Act and a variety of other initiatives, we are in this community rating system that not all communities have and that gives an automatic discount on flood insurance policies. So it's an important thing that we maintain in partnership with other departments, but I just wouldn't be an expert in terms of the connection that that has then with the hazard mitigation plan.

and we still have dollars left in the ARPA funds for homeowners to take advantage to help pay for some of the insurance plans or no?

No, through the chair of the council that program has closed so we did direct mailings. It was based on ARPA eligibility as well so it didn't go out to every property in a flood plain in the city and it was also specifically to residential properties and based on eligible census tracts and other ARPA eligibility so we did direct mailings to those eligible properties at the time.

So the best way for me as a district counselor to educate my residents around the benefits of having flood insurance would it be to go to the city's website and link to the FEMA map study or map process that we just went through?

through the chair of the council. I believe we do have commentary about what it means to be in a floodplain, both in terms of just existing conditions and certainly if anybody's going to be doing any kind of renovations or additions to a structure in that. And I think there is some commentary there about flood insurance as well. Certainly, for any insurance matter, we recommend folks reach out to their licensed insurance agent to make sure that they're being properly advised about various coverage implications. But we do have general information about it on our website.

OK, thanks.

Thank you.

Okay. All set? So motion is to adopt on the roll call. Roll call.

8.19a, Transmitting Information and Communication of the Pros and Cons of Discussion in the Central Massachusetts Regional Public Health Alliance, referred to Public Health and Human Services Committee.

All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Next item is 8.28a, Transmitting Information and Communication under the Financial Update for the period ending July 31st, 2025. I'm sending that to M.O., Councilor King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just had a couple of questions to the Chair, perhaps to the Chief Financial Officer, Mr. McCarthy, or to the City Manager, whatever's appropriate. In this particular report, it referenced an expected decrease of $2.7 million in budgeted state aid with impacts on the municipality and Worcester public schools. It also indicates there's no issues with expenditure at this time, no issues with enterprise funds, Green Hill Golf Course, water and sewer are stable.

Again, it further talks about in the intergovernmental state aid that, again, decreases in both general government and school aid categories, 0.5 million in general government and approximately 2 million in school aid.

I was just wondering if you could speak to that to the public, what that means, why is that occurring, give some contextualization for it through the chair.

Mr. Mcgrathy.

Through the chair, when we submit the original budget to city council, we work from the governor's draft of the budget. The state budget is not finalized. usually until July if not beyond this year they met the requirement of June 30th but at that point the city budget has been submitted discussed and approved and so what you see here is the difference between the governor's original budget as submitted to the legislature and then the final budget approved and then signed by the governor it's about based on changes within the various lines related to city funds and school funds. As you mentioned, it's about a $550,000 impact on the city, about a $2.1 million impact on the schools. The unknowns of this process is in part why contingency was increased this year compared to some years to account for the unknowns that might come about as we progress.

And through the chair to the administration, are you saying that the contingencies that were set aside by the manager and your team will sufficiently cover the $2.5 million?

Mr. McCarthy?

Through the chair, I think what we do is we look at that throughout the year. So those funds, at this point, each department has a budget. Each department is authorized to spend within that budget. As we go throughout the year, as you know, at the end of a fiscal year, we often have transfers that occur among departmental budgets to try to cover deficits. for something like this that's probably where on the city side we would wait to see if any deficits form within various departments if so are there excesses at the end of the year within some departments and we could cover that cost there if not contingency would be on hand to address any shortfall assuming throughout the year we're not bringing in items for city council approval to move out of contingency County. Contingency would be sufficient to cover this amount at this point in time.

And to date, what have we taken out of contingency to the chair?

Through the chair, we haven't used contingency yet for this fiscal year. And what's the balance there through the chair? Mr. Ngozi. Through the chair, I can tell you it is $5,024,057.

Thank you. As it relates to all of this, Mr. Chairman, we know that we're anticipating, as we move forward, federal cuts, state cuts that impact the city on a number of levels. Through the chair to the administration, can you speak to the intergovernmental advocacy that's going on regarding state aid? We've heard on this council floor some of the challenges that we're having with you know there's another item on here that's coming up related to the relationships between our public health folks the regional Central Mass Regional Public Health Alliance that's that's no more discontinued and there's a lot of kind of intersection between the folks and surrounding places and the city of Worcester. So if you can speak to sort of the advocacy and how you're maneuvering and strategizing as it relates to our state government related to local aid through the chair.

Mr. Mayorger.

through your chair to the council we often have conversations we talk about earmarks potential earmarks and any potential legislation that comes forward or that may have an impact to the city or in a positive way or in a negative way there's always a forth and back and forth conversations there's policies here that are voted by the council any home rule petitions etc that are at the state level and so our government uh government community relations manager spends a lot of time following through those items at the legislative level we file he plays a role in filing them communicating and sending any information but also at the same time trying to understand what are some of the priorities that we may have and try to communicate that as part of our earmark request or community requests that are coming forward that we could work with the delegation

Thank you. And to the chair, to the administration, I brought this up before with respect to the fair share amendment on the state level. As we know, all politics are local, state, and federal. And those monies were to be allotted for public transportation, our schools, et cetera. And one of the things that I had talked about quite some time ago when I filed a motion I was supported unanimously by this council was to try to figure out is there a way to ensure that we as a second largest city in New England get our fair share of those dollars back then when I filed that they didn't seem to pay a rubric or some sort of strategy from the state side as it relates to funding from that those monies so I'm just wondering is there an update on that through the chair as it relates to you know how we get our fair share I guess for lack of a better way to say it from the fair share legislation

through the chair. So in fulfillment of that request that you made, I've looked into how to quantify or characterize the use of the fair share through the state budget. It is essentially incorporated into the state budget. It is not a separate amount that can be tracked independently. I think what you see as part of its results is the increased funding we're seeing under the Student Opportunity Act for education is coming through excess funds that are now coming into the state through the fair share amendment. There are very small grant programs that have been theoretically funded by the fair share amendment, which the city has benefited from, but there's no line item that can be traced from excess revenues under fair share to excess expenses directly attributable to those new revenues. It's just essentially incorporated as a whole into the state budget.

Thank you, and so... Mr. Manager?

Yeah, I just want to add one component. Another additional component as part of the fair share was transportation, anything related to transportation infrastructure. One of the things that we've seen, and it's hard to make that correlation, but I know one of the areas that the fair share has done to communities is increase Chapter 90, and we saw a little bit of an increase in our Chapter 90 allocation for the purposes of infrastructure.

Thank you. And so I'm just going to file a motion. It may be possible to fulfill this or not. But just a motion if we can kind of quantify, if we can, to our best potential assessment or evaluation. What are the benefits that we perceive to be receiving from this fair share amendment? There's billions of dollars there, way more than the state ever expected. I'm proud to support that on this floor. the State House, but I'm just trying to think if there's a way for us to get a little bit more as the second largest city. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Okay, so we're off to motions. We'll send that to motion for the reports and also send the item to M.O. All those in favor, oppose, so audit. We're on 8.32a, Transmitting Information and Communication of the Updated Electric Vehicle on Street Charging Station Project. Senator Chaffin, Councilor Russell.

Mr. Chairman, at the Grafton Street Neighborhood Association meeting, we had a speaker that came in and talked about some of this program, which was kind of interesting. I feel like I should be looking at the camera this way now that the folks up above have been deciding to use my side view. I feel like I should be doing that, and I know, Mr. Chairman, I have to look at you, so I wish they would turn the other camera on. So besides that, it was very distracting to see myself from the side. But the bottom line is, Mr. Chairman, some interesting conversation was brought forward at that meeting about what is going to happen not only with these charging stations and the parking restrictions around those locations. if people will be allowed to park there. And does that mean we have to come up with new ordinances for all these locations? And it also brought up a conversation that I think the administration, I'm sure, Mr. Manager, that you have this on your radar already, but I think that we have to look at some new ordinances going forward about people that put charging stations on their own property, but for vehicles that are parked on a public street. and where there are various restrictions or time restrictions and people would like to, it almost becomes like a, almost like setting up a handicap space where you're saying only that one person could park there amongst all the neighbors because they have One of the people that was at the meeting was talking about something like that off of Shrewsbury Street, you know, one of the side streets where they don't have driveways, but they have one of the people have a charging station. So just asking if those types of things are things that you're thinking about. Is this going to request these stations that are being forwarded where are they in parking zones now? And do those parking zones have to be adjusted to accommodate the charging information? Because obviously you probably don't want people there any longer than the time they would be to charge their vehicle. You want them to move along. So are these things all factored in here?

Commissioner?

Through the chair to the counselor. Yes, we're not looking to, this grant is a state funded MassCEC community clean energy center funded grant. that is targeted for certain areas of the communities that received this grant. The idea behind it is that areas that typically do not have off-street parking readily available where someone could put a charger in for their own driveway or in a public parking lot And so we wanted a few of these targeted in key areas so that people who may not have access to a driveway, for example, could still participate in and purchase an EV and feel comfortable that they could charge it relatively close to their home. the idea that we would be doing this in places where we're not going to negatively impact parking for everybody else potentially was taken into consideration on this this is only we're looking at about 15 spots across the city in total under this grant we're not looking to do any more on under this grant and we don't really know what we're going to be doing down in the future for this but it will be very targeted and very limited keeping exactly those concerns that you brought up to the fore.

Mr. Chairman, I would just ask for a detailed report about these locations and which zones they actually are in now and what the restrictions or pluses and minuses for those locations are because I'm sure they looked at them. But I know Mr. Raleigh has been adamant over the couple of years he's been in the position about having to have an ordinance behind every sign. and I would hope that this would continue to go forward. Thank you.

Anybody else? I'm sorry, Councilor Ojeda.

No problem. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, this was brought up in a Green Island meeting and a lot of the concerns that Councilor Russell brought up was something that we addressed. So we actually had a meeting, a follow-up meeting with National Grid regarding what do these stations look like. And a lot of the residents didn't know what it looked like. So there's actually one of the charging stations up on Hawthorne Street, right off of Main Street. And to counsel Russell's question, it's just identifying with the residents the ordinance that we want to have for parking. And I think it's just understanding and making sure the residents understand what it's about. it's not really gonna take up parking it just depends on what the residents want to have as far as the time of day someone will be able to charge their cars if they live in the neighborhood if it's close by the one I'm talking about is actually we have two in District 4 but the one that I met with is the one over by Crompton Park so it's in that area where not much parking is gonna be taken up no one parks there pretty much throughout the day or night unless there's events going on so it's not gonna take up much parking but again the residents will be able to have some say as far as who'll be able to park there and what time of day they'll be parking. This also depends on the charging station itself. I think they're low level so that doesn't mean, it means it's not gonna take up too many parking spots. I believe one charging station parks, charges two cars so that's four parking spots. But it doesn't, I don't believe it's going to have a huge impact in the neighborhood when it comes to parking but again it's making sure those residents come out and understand and try to get them to those meetings understand it's not going to take up parking spots but have them involved in understanding like okay what time of day do we allow people to come in and like I said they're low level charging so therefore it'll take a much longer from right to charge it could take up to probably six hours maybe eight hours for them to charge but then again it could be at night and then again the ordinance could be in place where they have to get out in the morning or whatever it be and move their car. So I think this is doable. I like this idea. It allows the residents to be involved as well. So I appreciate this and I look forward to continue working with this. Thank you.

Okay, we'll send that to Traffic and Parking. All those in favor, oppose, so ordered. Transferring Information and Communication of the Zero Waste Program. Send that to Public Works. All those in favor, oppose, so ordered. Transferring Information and Communication of the Green Worcester Electricity Municipal Irrigation Program. So a good deal. So we'll send that to Urban Ties. All those in favor, oppose, so ordered. We have finance items, 8.35A, 8.36A through C, and 8.37A through D. Mr. Chairman, did you say 8.35A? 8.35A, yup, and 8.36A through C, and 8.37A through D. I'd like to speak on 8.35A. Okay, the first one, Council King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This particular item is with respect to the co-response model, the alternative deployment of mental health professionals for 911 calls. Through the Charity Administration, I certainly appreciate this pursuit and attainment of almost a half a million dollars from the state for funding. I know that when I was championing this issue, city manager Augustus was able to secure, I don't know, a million, million and a half, something like that in funding. I think it was ARPA funding. through the chair. So if you could just clarify if that was ARPA funding and also is there anything out of the tax levy that's going to this joint venture through the chair?

Mr. Manager?

Through you, Chair, to the Council, the initial crisis response model that was brought forward before the Council and explored heavily with community, there was a community process through the Mayor's Mental Health Task Force and also an RFP that we were able to partner with Community Health Link that initially you are correct it was ARPA dollars that were funded as part of that we then tried to understand the pilot understand what the effectiveness of it and see if we can expand that program on a long-term basis this here this effort here is directly with the police department and community health links in terms of the efforts that the police department does this is just a for lack of a better term, just a little piece of the overall model in terms of what we were trying to build. The model has been a bit challenging to build at a complex overall citywide effort. We actually are working on a report to bring to the council on the current updates in our conversations with UMass, CHL, at the state because it requires state approvals as well. but this year is a compliment to some of that work because it's extremely important as we address some of the challenges in our community and people that are suffering with mental health issues or any substance abuse issues that the way we respond in the address, we do it with a way that presents a warm handoff to an agency or a mental health clinician to be able to serve that individual.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When I was pushing for this some years ago, one of the things that I was able to speak to from other municipalities, other towns, other cities, was they actually had qualitative data tracking the diversion of mental health calls to mental health resources versus Detainment, incarceration, et cetera. And the last I checked some months ago, we were not tracking that. Through the Charity Administration, has that sort of tracking commenced? Because in order to value this, we need to measure it. If we were ever going to delve into the tax levy, we have to measure it I'm just wondering if that's still the case are we still are we able to say these this amount of calls went out this was what the diversion was etc in terms of data and statistics through the chair Mr. manager yeah I know there's been efforts to improve the gathering of data and in the departments so I'll be happy to come back with a report to identify that thank you Mr. chairman I would request a motion to that end

Okay, so we'll take items 8.35A, one off the motion, 8.36A through C, and 8.37A through D, adopting the roll call. Roll call.

Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Colorio?

Yes.

Councilor Haxhiaj?

Yes.

Councilor King? Yes. Councilor Mero-Carlson?

Yes.

Councilor Nguyen? Councilor Ojeda? Councilor Pacillo? Yes. Councilor Russell? Yes. Councilor Toomey? Yes. Mayor Petty?

Yes. Chairman's orders 9A through 9Z, motion was adopted. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to speak on 9A. I have a question. 9A, so on 9A, Council King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With regards to this chairman's order regarding language capacity within the Worcester Public Schools looks like, Worcester PD, body-worn camera software, et cetera, I certainly appreciate this order. It makes sense. So again, very appreciative of that. through the chair to the administration. I know from some of my past reviews of some of the work that Human Rights Commission or whichever commission it was, was making a number of recommendations in the past pertaining to language capacity, policing, and public health, for lack of a better term. I'm just asking if or to what degree have those recommendations been adopted? Have we adopted all of them? We've adopted 50%, six out of eight. What does that look like through the chair? Because again, that was a matter of civilian oversight. It was a matter of a collaboration between the police department and the public and the folks that were appointed by the city manager through the chair.

Mr. Manager.

Yes, we worked in collaboration with the Human Rights. They did a great job in building that program together, including policies that were significant about conversations and partnership between the police department and the Human Rights Commission to be able to put that program together. That program was very successful. and it included an ability to utilize the language line and have a phone number and a phone device that officers could use for the purposes of translating and that worked very well. Well this has provided us with the ability to enhance that. So the actual body camera itself can detect the language and then be able to actually translate that language right on the body camera. and so it enhanced the ability now that without having to call a language sign and have an interpreter or someone interpret for the individual, the actual body camera itself has the technology to detect the language and then also communicate it back in that language. and so that's been a huge success and that's an additional software as part of the software upgrade within the Axon mobile, I mean the Axon camera itself that has given us the ability to expand our languages right on the device of the actual officers.

Thank you to the chair. Is there an AI component to that?

To the chair, to the council. I'm not 100% sure or not. I can find out.

Artificial intelligence, I should say.

Yeah, it's artificial intelligence. I'm assuming it could be because you're listening to a language that then provides you an interpretation in real time. But that's something that I would have to confirm.

And is there any AI component to perhaps the writing of So if you're an officer is there a component by which a report is generated by artificial intelligence and then they can humanize it through the chair?

Do you change the counsel? Yes, currently right now any conversations that happen and the body camera records those conversations, they are transcribed into a report and then the officer has the ability to review that transcription and provide any other additional context that's related to that report.

Thank you. And has that come before the council or to the committee? And I apologize if it has, because I'm not part of that committee.

Through the Chechen Council, yes. That came forward as part of the implementation of the body cameras and the overall policy creation for the body camera program.

Thank you. Could we just get a report back, Mr. Chairman, by way of a motion on the recommendations from the Human Rights Commission relative to are the recommendations relating to language capacity, accompanied with the degree to which there's been a compliance or an accept, not a compliance, an acceptance, or the reasons to go in another direction. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Okay, so take those motions off. 9A to 9Z, motions to adopt. Send the motion to the manager. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. We are on 10, Chairman's Orders 10A to 10F. Those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Orders, request that the manager consider creating a transformative procurement approach that meanfully supports local, diverse, and emerging businesses. Councilor King and Hodgiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to begin by with a short thank you, Mr. Chairman, and that's to the city administration, Peter Dunn, for initiating a diverse business goal-setting analysis by the city of Worcester, which was conducted by the UMass Amherst Donahue Institute of Economic and Public Policy Research, Mr. Chairman. That particular report that was done in August of 2022 outlined the fact that the city of Worcester is an anchor in central Massachusetts' regional economy. It also had indicated one of the biggest challenges that we have for our small business is access to capital. and that's part of the reason that the city and the leadership here commissioned the Institute to do a study to assist us in addressing our goals for contracting with veteran-owned businesses, local businesses, women-owned businesses and minority businesses. It indicated that one of the things that it did not do. It didn't go far enough to complete a disparity study, a supplier diversity study. One of the things that it did not do was an exhaustive review of city contracts, both awards and actual expenditures. and they also did not do a survey of businesses to determine the census of those that are available to provide services and work required by the city. That was beyond the scope of the institution's report, Mr. Chairman. This particular matter would certainly go a long way and be a next step. This is requesting, again, that we take a look of all municipal contracts. We want to make sure, Mr. Chairman, this is reiteration, that we have local small businesses, local jobs, local business entities that are having an access and to be able to evaluate and quantify what that access is here in the city of Worcester as it relates to contracts. Once that's done, There's a potential, a potential for a sheltered marketing pilot program to go along with this, and I'll speak to that in a second. I think I'm on the first order here right now. The scope of this audit, again, review of all municipal contracts and contracts under $10,000. Mr. Chairman, it's my understanding that contracts under $10,000 are no-bid contracts and that per department they have the autonomy to do so. So you could just clarify that through the chair that I'm accurate in my assessment.

Mr. Mayor?

Yeah, through the chair to the council, all contracts in the city that are under $10,000 do not require to be subject to 30 procurement. Anything over $10,000 has to go through 30 which is an open bid or a bidding process.

Thank you. And I've spoken to the Purchase Division. I met with Mr. McCarthy, who's not here, I don't think, right now. But my understanding is that there was not a long-lasting tracking mechanism that we were currently engaged in. I know that we've talked about increased technology and the like. But to the chair, to the administration, if you could share a little bit about what the tracking looks like at this time.

Mr. Manager.

uh through the chair to the council uh right now the tracking is uh is limited is also decentralized where a lot of departments are responsible to request pos and then put forward or select the contractor that they are trying to do business for the purposes of the goods and services of that department so it's a very limited ability for us to have a comprehensive data set to be able to provide now one of the things that we've been trying to do is centralize all of that work under the purchasing department and that will help us to have the ability to have better data and outcomes as well.

So there is a tracking mechanism I just if you could just clarify and to what degree?

Mr. Manager?

To reach out to the council, currently right now our financial system worked that we would have to do a comprehensive analysis to understand not only the vendors that are being selected, but also the amounts that we're paying these vendors. And then also then confirming with the state listing whether they're MBE, WBE, or veterans owned businesses to then be able to put the data together. we internally right now are limited in terms of the capacity of what we have available. We would have to do some real digging and analysis to be able to come up with that data set.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is an opportunity for us as a city to create a transformative procurement approach that minimally supports local, diverse, and emerging businesses. When you think about supplier diversity, again, I want to emphasize veteran-owned businesses, emerging small businesses, women-owned businesses, LGBTQ plus businesses, minority-owned businesses. Those are the reasons for this. What we're experiencing right now is that small business owners are packing it in and they're going into employee status in some instances. Anything that we can do to try to streamline things. And through the Charity Administration, I do want to commend the city for some of the work that they've done related to certification of small businesses, et cetera, with ARPA funding and perhaps with some funding from the settlement. You could speak to that through the chair.

You're in your second five, Mr. Manager.

Yes, through the chair to the council, yes. Over the course of the past few years, we've been very intentional about trying to provide opportunities for not only organizations or companies here in the city to have an opportunity to be certified as an MBE and WBE entity, So we've been able to be successful and partner with minority-based organizations in the city to actually provide that kind of work, whether it's Maywalk or Labo and others, to help and certify some of the folks here in our community. And then just recently, we announced an RFP, again, as part of the settlement dollars with the Attorney General's Office to, again, provide more funding and opportunities for MBEs and WBEs in this community.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In closing, this is a common sense measure that we can take. It's certainly a sort of indication that we are willing to go a little bit more. Again, this is a recommendation by the UMass Donahue Institute of Economic and Public Policy Research as commissioned by this city in 2022. with regards to the no contract bids, 10,000 and under. If you could just clarify, can departments do that multiple times? How does that work? Are we tracking who's doing what and efficacy of service provision as well for all of those contracts with the city through the chair?

Mr. Manager.

Through the chair to the council, yes. A lot of the work of the budget analysts for the budget office under the leadership of Evan Taylor and also Tim McGurthy, they spent a lot of time reviewing the efficacy and the movement of these dollars per department. in addition to our purchasing director who approves all POs. And so there's a number of eyes and hands that are overseeing the transaction of any dollars for any department on a consistent basis. One of the things that they also try to do in terms of encourage as part of the diversity database that we created under economic development where people can be able to go in. The registry that we created for people to go in was to encourage departments to utilize that registry. So when you're selecting a good and service in the city under $10,000, you can then potentially utilize one of these entities in our community. One of the things that's important to know is that you have to be very careful in utilizing a vendor multiple times because it could potentially mean that you're trying to split that bid or that work. And just for the purposes of trying to keep it under $10,000, Our purchasing office is very good at making sure departments are not doing that so that if there's a value that's presented that you're going to use multiple times that is larger than $10,000, the purchasing director typically encourages the department to do an actual bid process because the value, it's more than $10,000. So again, there's a lot of checks and balances from our budget analyst to our budget director, our purchasing director, and also our CFO.

Thank you. For transparency purposes and for economic impact purposes, this makes sense, Mr. Chairman. These orders also ask for feasibility of a sheltered market pilot program. as it relates to the bidding and everything that comes with that. So we'd like to see that also. Mr. Chairman, part of one of these orders also is that we explore not seeking additional appropriations to conduct this audit and that we use, if possible, existing Executive Office of Economic Development resources, if possible. And I know it may not be possible, but I'm sure that's part of the calculus anyway. So we'd like that to occur as well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Council Bergman.

If I may, through the chair to the city manager, Mr. City Manager, were you familiar with the UMass study? It's the first I've heard of it.

Mr. Manager?

Through the Chair and Council, yes. We did that, I believe, a few years ago when it related to some of the policies and ordinances we were trying to move forward in regards to development.

And through the Chair, what's your thought on what a diversity audit may or may not show?

Mr. Manager?

I think one of the things they would try to give us is where potentially some of our dollars on our goods and services are being spent in terms of companies or organizations in our community. I think they would just give us a picture of where they are and where they're being allocated. And so I think that's generally what it would do.

OK, through the chair, would it divulge, in your opinion, whether or not Unrepresented groups or marginalized groups are getting a fair amount of city contracts. Would we be able to decipher that?

Through the chair to the consular, we would have to understand the business entity that has received the good and service from the city. And then we would have to cross-reference whether they are a certified minority or woman-owned business. Now, if they're not certified a minority or a woman-owned business, it's much harder for us to identify how they identify as an entity. and so that's why we've been trying to put a lot of efforts forward into getting organizations or businesses in the city to be able to be certified because it helps us in terms of the tracking but also it opens them up in opportunities at the state or federal levels.

but through the chair of the city manager as well, assuming that Congressman King's proposal on 11C, which seems premature to me till 11B is completed, assuming that there's a request for a sheltered market pilot program, can you envision what that looks like?

I know there's been some different models. I know Boston has different models, but certain communities try to outweigh that actual entity in providing them an opportunity for access to those contracts. We would have to base on what those current models are, what are the best practices, and what really suits us as a city.

So if I may, through the chair, perhaps the last question. One of the things that puzzles me is when you're trying to perform the audit and there's not a lot of identification of which businesses fall under which categories, and if there's a sheltered market pilot program how do you weigh a bid let's say from a veteran's own business that's similar or the same from let's say a another bid from a woman's own business which one takes priority are we running into a situation where we have to kind of create a hierarchy of diversity, who gets first, who gets second, who gets third, on a bidding process that's similar?

I don't know the intricacies related to that potential hierarchy. I think one of the things that they try to do as part of these programs is that if there was a case like that, you oftentimes then look at the actual bid itself in terms of dollar value and determine which is the lowest bidder and you can go with that option. So again, it's trying to understand and create kind of parameters that would help, try to help or guide us in making that decision. All right, thank you.

Okay, so I guess, Counselor King, was that 11A, B, and C you did? Did you send them all? Okay, 11A, 11B, 11C.

Mr. Chairman, would you take out 11B separate, please?

Okay, so 11A, we're gonna refer to the manager. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered.

Sorry, 11C separately, my apologies.

Okay, 11A and 11B, we're gonna send to the manager. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. 11C, motion is to send to the manager, Council King.

Just a respect to 11C for the public. This is regarding the feasibility of developing a sheltered market program. I think some of the questions that were asked here would be answered in that feasibility study. I think we just voted on a feasibility study a few moments ago. and I just want to clarify that's what that is and the feasibility you know there's a certainly a time element to this this talks about a specific time frame and the feasibility of that time frame if at all and I want to clarify that for the public so there's no misunderstanding in terms of what we are voting on this is so important in this time Mr. Chairman in this economy and I want to again emphasize our no-bid contracts, 10,000 and under. We've heard through the months about needing additional help picking up needles and the like in our parks. we should have enough people employed in the city quite frankly where we can do that but in my conversations with folks here in different departments it's a challenge and I know that there have been small businesses that have reached out and are looking to do this work you know, and again, let's take a look at those no-bid contracts as well and see what we're doing and see what we can do to create another economic driver for local businesses and the other businesses that we're recommending here.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, so we'll send that to Councilman Bergman.

I just want to make a follow-up too. I'm going to support 11b because I think there's value in the diversity audit, although I have concerns on some of the answers that the city manager gave. Not that concerns about his answers, but the answers were truthful. That if people aren't self-reporting their category, we may not get a good result from the diversity audit. The reason why I'm going to oppose C is because we haven't had that study completed. So one of the things I notice we do a lot on the council, and I may have been guilty of it from time to time myself, is we put out an item that kind of presumes that we know the conclusion. And the way 11b reads to me is that there's issues with suppliers that fall under various diverse categories. I don't know that. But I do want to say that I think everybody that falls under these categories, whether it's a veteran's own business, emerging small business, woman's own business, LGBTQ plus business, minority owned business, deserves a fair shake. Absolutely deserves a fair shake. and if they're not getting a fair shake then that needs to be changed. But I also think the taxpayers deserve the best apples to apples product for the lowest bid and I also am concerned that once we start dividing each other into categories then there has to be a hierarchy because in the bidding process there's going to be bids that are going to be similar if not the same, especially with $10,000 or less. So I'm going to oppose C and I'm going to support the rest of them but I want it clear that if there are issues with diverse businesses not getting a fair shake, I would oppose that and I would support any measures to undo that. But I don't think we're ready for 11C until that audit is done and until that's proven. Just because somebody suggests it doesn't mean it's true.

Mr. Chairman. Council King.

Thank you.

I just gotta respond to that, Mr. Chairman. This is a report that was commissioned by the city of Worcester, Mr. Chairman. this is the recommendation of that report if we want to get where we need to go. Words like division, separation, we're talking local jobs, talking about the local economy, we're talking about taking the snapshot of something that we're not measuring. Mr. Chairman, I'm open to amending 11C to say and to read that request of city manager with a report regarding the feasibility, including any recommendations pertaining to such from the supplier diversity audit. Because that actually, that sheltered diversity, sheltered approach is recommended in this as well. So I wanna clarify. Diversion is not division. Diversion is not division. This is about making sure local businesses, veterans, women, minorities, LGBTQ+, and again, local businesses in general are measured here. And I wanna be very clear about that. Diversion is not division, thank you.

Okay, so it's amended, as amended from the diversity audit. So a yes vote would be to Senate of the City Manager, and a no vote would not Senate of the City Manager, so roll call.

Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Colorio?

Yes.

Councilor Haxhiaj?

Point of order, I apologize. Mr. Chair, could you please repeat it again? I apologize.

We're just voting to send it to the city manager. A yes vote would send it to.

11C?

Yes vote would support 11C, correct.

Okay. As amended.

As amended.

Okay, yes.

Councilor King? Yes. Councilor Mero-Carlson? Yes. Councilor Nguyen? Yes. Councilor Ojeda?

Yes.

Councilor Pacillo? Yes. Councilor Russell? Yes. Councilor Toomey? And Mayor Petty?

Yes. Okay, D&E was sent to the manager. Those in favor, opposed, so ordered. F, request the Standing Committee on Public Works for the meeting to solicit input from the public regarding zero-waste proposals and potential changes to the city's current trash and recycling program. Further requests at a sudden meeting also include a discussion relative to the results of the Department of Public Works' research in the contents of the city residents' trash.

To Public Works.

Public Works. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. G, request City Manager request the Commission of Public Works and Parks provide a council with a report detailing all planned street projects in District 4, including all sidewalk repairs, lightning improvements, and full resurfacing of the streets, Councilor Ojeda.

Should we take H as well?

Which one? H. I'm sorry. Next one. Request city manager, request city commission, public works, provide council with an equity audit of all department public works projects including lighting improvements, road safety initiatives, sidewalk repairs, and other infrastructure investments broken down by district, Councilor Ojeda.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, yeah, this is coming out of a lot of neighborhood meetings that I've attended. Their concern is the roads, the infrastructure. So I just want them to know that this is something that the city manager and I have had many conversations regarding.

Speak right into the air.

had many conversations regarding some of the concerns and issues that the residents have in District 4. So it's a mix of trying to identify what are those issues and make sure it's equitable across the city. But again, to show that we're working on it with DPW, DTM, and the city manager to address these. So I look forward to getting this information back, sharing with the residents, and showing that we're doing the best we can to move forward, but at the same time, we understand their concerns. Thank you.

So to the manager, those in favor or opposed so record, is 11-9 the same thing, or you want to speak on 11-9? Okay. Provide counsel with a list of all approved park-related projects in district four that are pending and are awaiting funding. So report should include information relative to anticipated timelines for beginning and completing such projects, whether contractors or subcontractors have selected work on said projects.

Thank you, Mr. Manager. Mr. Mayor, sorry. Um, yeah this one's uh interesting because district four has and i try to count and make sure i'm right six parks and then probably another a bunch of other smaller parks so um there's a lot going on in these parks they're all different um i know this year we had two parks closed you know separated from each other give people opportunities to use other parks but then that one park got closed again so i just want to make sure we again get ahead of these things and identify what some of the things are so i can start sharing more information to the residents about projects and things that are coming ahead instead of anyone being surprised or things like that. So again, it's working with parks and the city manager to make sure we're keeping the residents up to date on any projects. And then again, make sure that there's some community and resident involvement. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator. Manager, all those in favor? Opposed? So, audit. I request the manager to provide counsel for the report concerning the subsidized units whose affordability status ends on 2-20-26. For the request to set a report and include any efforts being made to encourage these property owners to utilize affordable housing trust fund dollars to preserve their property affordability status. Councilor Haxhiaj.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to add to this order, if I could, if we could add any communication to all the property owners that are expected to lose their subsidized deed restriction housing properties when that affordability expires. I'd like to understand, first of all, I know we got a table a while back. I couldn't find it today to bring it here. But Mr. Dunn gave us a table of all the properties in Worcester that fall under this category. whose affordability is expiring in the next five years. Once these properties lose this affordability status, their property owners likely will revert those properties to market rate, which means that the residents that live in those properties likely are not gonna be able to afford rent anymore. So I'm trying to figure out if we can have either a convening of these property owners or some sort of communication to let them know that they can take advantage of the affordable housing trust funds like I know some of them on Seaver and Fruit Street for example have so that we can extend and preserve those properties as much as is humanly possible. So Mr. Manager what I'm asking in addition to this order is if we can either have a convenient in person a phone call or some sort of communication with these folks to let them know that they should be taking advantage of this and if they can let us know their intentions whether or not they intend to continue the affordability the deed restrictive housing that they have. Thank you.

Thank you. So we'll send that as amended. Not to the city manager, all those in favor? I'd like to sign on to that. We can sign on, everybody wanna sign on? All those in favor? All those so ordered. The question manager requests fire chief to provide counsel's report concerning the number of residential fires that have occurred in the city from January 23 to present. organized by the date of the incident, the type of the structure where the fire occurred, and the number of residents displaced from the event. The federal request said report includes summary of the staffing structure of the city's fire education, prevention programs, as well as the curriculum offered through the said programs. Councilor Haxhiaj.

Can we take the next one too, Mr. Chair?

Sure, request that the mayor provide counsel with the report concerning the status of the municipal operating emergency fund that was established in 2022 to provide relief for the emergency and disaster survivors. Councilor Haxhiaj.

Yes, so I learned from the fire department that in the last year, in the last calendar year, we have had 165 fires across the city. And when I look at that list, it shows the kind of structures. A lot of these fires are happening in three-deckers. Just a week ago, there was a fire on Stafford Street. and we have had multiple losses of life in in just the last three years so what I'm trying to understand with this report is first of all what is our what do the fires look like what type of structures what's the common cause what's the top a pattern that we're seeing in the fires that are happening, where and what structures they're happening. Is it mostly three-deckers, single-family, multi-family housing? And then I want to understand more about the public ed program. I have had a chance to watch Lieutenant Ushinsky and Lieutenant Melvin in action, along with the emergency communication folks, doing emergency and fire prevention education programs in the district that I organized. I intend to reach out to them again, to have them come back to some of my multi-family units in the district, but also open to every resident, but what I want to really get a grasp on is what the structure of the public ed program is, the fire prevention program, what the staffing structure is, the type of curriculum that we offer. I also, Mr. Manager, want to figure out with you Director Goodwin, if we can add a component, not necessarily through the fire department, but maybe through emergency communications of doing some rental insurance programs, informational sessions for the residents. Because what we're learning from these fires is that the residents are not aware that if they don't have rental insurance, basically they're dependent on the landlord and on the property insurance to cover some of their belongings. Secondarily, connected to that, if you were to remember this council approved a city operated at the time, I think that's how we set it up, emergency fund. and that was as a result directly from what happened on Mill Street, the building collapsed. I know the manager and Director Goodwin have worked overtime to try to set this up and try to get it going. Mr. Manager, if we can get a report on where we are with that status, whether we need another partner to work with, for the public as a reminder, what that is is an emergency fund that would allow residents who either go through fires or catastrophes to tap into things like gift cards, things that they need right away after a catastrophe. So if I could amend 11K to add a component regarding rental insurance information and for 11L to just get a report back on where we are with those discussions.

Thank you. Okay, Council Russell.

Mr. Chairman, I would just ask when that report comes back that it gets real specific with the rental insurance, because I know in my own personal situation as a property owner, I tried to buy rental insurance to cover my tenants, and I wasn't able to find it. So if there is such a product, I'd love to see it.

Okay, so as amended, both counsel King.

Thank you. Just really quickly to the chair, to the administration, with respect to those three-decker structures, if you could just reiterate for the public what our planning is for supporting making that housing stock more stable, just in a couple of words, what's our planning. Rates, fires, yes.

Mr. Manager?

Yeah, through the Chiefs of Council. There's a number of components. One of those components that I think this council have debated and we've approved and is currently right now active as part of the rental registry, right, is trying to get inspections into the sanitary conditions of these homes and these units so that we could be able to provide better assistance. And also, the fire department plays a role in trying to educate whether you need, I was going to say, smoke detectors and any of those educational materials. So there's a number of efforts happening, not only from the inspectional services department effort, but also as well as the fire department.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regards to 11L, you know, I just want to take an opportunity to thank Councilor Haxhiaj for initiating this for this city council and for the mayor in supporting her initiative to establish this emergency fund back in 2022. We know it came out of tragedy. That's what this was born out of. I appreciate the leadership of Councilor Haxhiaj on that. I've always had questions about the funding mechanisms that we'll have for that, so I look forward to the reports that are coming back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. So I'll send those to the manager as amended. Those in favor, opposed, so ordered. 11M, request manager by council to report concerning feasibility of creating a drones as first responders program in an effort to provide police and first responders with rapid real-time intelligence, enhance officer safety, and increase opportunities for de-escalation. Councilor Toomey.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm hoping that we can come back with a recommendation to possibly do a pilot program to have drones as first responders. Why it matters is fostering emergency responses. An emergency is second to save lives. Drones can arrive in one to three minutes. Far faster than ground units delayed by traffic, geography, or high call volume. That means quicker assessments, faster medical triage, and better informed decisions. It also includes opportunity not only for police but also for fire and EMS support as well. These drones, by the way, would be deployed from the roof of the police station and perhaps one or two other locations in the city geographically located. They would be how they're set off. There were certain 911 calls that come in. and through the real-time crime center. They would be deployed based on specifics that would be put together by the police department and the fire department and emergency communications. Real-time eyes on the scene. DROs can stream live video to dispatch and responders, giving police, fire and EMS instant situational awareness. That translates to safer outcomes for both responders and the public. For instance, I've seen examples where a bunch of cruisers were supposed to go to a scene and the drones were there before them and realized that the issue wasn't even current anymore. So they were able to redeploy those cruisers to other situations. So this is time management, this is making sure that our limited resources are sent to the correct place, and it's safe for outcomes for everybody. It's cost-effective and scalable and improved officer and public safety, whether it's a house fire, a gunshot report, search and rescue, drones allow first responders to gather intel without putting lives at unnecessary risk. They reduce guesswork, deescalate confrontations, and protect officers and civilians alike. For Worcester's dense neighborhoods, urban parks and complex traffic patterns, drones are a natural fit and they can access places the cruises and ambulances can't and do it in a fraction of time. This is something that's being done in other cities and towns. Cities like Chula Vista, California have already shown this works with dramatic reductions in response times and improved outcomes. We can be a leader by piloting a data-driven, community-informed version of this model. Transparency, we heard all the issues and the concerns about transparency. We already have drones, we already have drone policies, but with this, with one of the software programs that I've seen, there's a dashboard right on the police page. When the drones go up, where they went, all of that information is there. All of the flights have to be recorded so people would know where it's going. And again, they don't go out at every 911 call. They go out for specific ones. and I think it's really important that we take a look at this because as the city continues to grow and we're also struggling to maintain the appropriate complement of police officers, this will certainly be a great time management tool for both police, fire and EMS. and I think it will be a well-considered trial for this. And again, I believe Boston might even be doing it as well. I know we've referenced Boston and other things that we want to look at. So let's take a look at this and understand that this is actually protecting people. This is saving lives. It's not going to be used to go into people's houses and look in windows and all of that. This is situational awareness and being able to make sure that we're getting the right tools at the right places at the right time. Thank you.

Thank you. Council King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of things that jumped out at me with this report and some of the comments that were just made by my colleague, one of which was related to what was categorized as a short staffing of law enforcement. As an elected union official, one of the things that immediately jumps out at me is the potential of using this sort of approach to replace the rank and file, Mr. Chairman. that's a concern with this technology as based on what was verbalized I'm not saying that's what actually happened but I have to respond to the verbalization and that's a concern data-driven and community-based was mentioned as well Mr. Chairman this is requested a feasibility study and efficiency. I just requested a feasibility study based on a commissioned research by the UMass Institute, Donahue Institute by the city that went on for some time and had a number of recommendations. The other thing that jumps out, Mr. Chairman, we had a gentleman talk about the need for a civilian oversight for this. When you look at what was provided here as context in this report, although it was verbalized by the file of this order, that this would not be looking into your houses, that this would not be taking those sorts of pictures. Right here, on looks like the fourth or fifth or sixth page, it talks about expanded drone applications in what's been presented to the department. Talks about parks and recreation, using it for public works, bridges and infrastructure inspections, permitting and building inspections, Mr. Chairman. That gives me great pause. I appreciate that what was provided by the filer of the order was that one of the things we gotta look at is efficiency across various city services, Mr. Chairman. Various city service. That's certainly in contrast to using this as a first responder technology, Mr. Chairman. It's contrary to that when you're looking at the details. I'm just reading. what's in this report. Anybody can look it up online. Mr. Chairman, you know, currently my understanding is that our policies related to search and rescue, perhaps SWAT support, I know it's been used when there's been mental health challenges in a response involving people who are barricading themselves in very high risk, dangerous situations where social workers and mental health professionals coupled with police professionals have come to good results when we're dealing with that sort of response. So I just want clarification because I feel like we have already drones to respond to 911 calls and the like. So a couple questions. One is, through the chair, outside of search and rescue, SWAT, perhaps disaster stuff, is there anything else that we're using our drones for? Are we using it for the things mentioned here and what's suggested to the city? Through the chair? These other various city departments?

Through the Chair to the Council, no. Some of the things that are suggested there were not currently. I think there's some other elements that we use it for the purpose of search and rescue, but we don't extend that to the purposes of dispatching it when there's a 911 call.

Okay.

And we have two now? Is it two we have through the Chair? Yes. I believe there's only one that we have.

Oh, OK. Thank you. Transparency and maintaining public trust is a highlight of the recommendations even for what was referred to as drones as first responders even though it's clearly more than that based on this presentation to the council. it talks about, again, much more than one would share. So to the chair of the administration, currently do we have drones that respond with first responders?

Mr. Mayorger?

Do you change the counselor? No, we do not.

Okay, so how do they respond?

They have responded for the purpose of search and rescue. So if you do receive a call that there's a potential child that's missing or some kind of potential disaster, sometimes we've used it for the purposes of fire, if we're trying to see what's happening at the size of the fire, then the request comes into the department and then the department deploys it. but that's that's not it's not a the way this system works is 9-1-1 the dispatch comes and automatically the dispatch goes directly to the drone and the drone goes this the way we try to dispatch our current drone system is depending on this the situation that's at hand an officer is taken at that situation that moves it up the chain of command as leadership and then is deployed for the purposes of use

Thank you. And to the Chair, this particular item would take away that discretion, is that right? The automatic deployment?

Mr.

Manager? I'm sorry? It would take away the discretion in moving up the chain to automatic deployment with 911?

To a degree? It could potentially, depending on how we structure this dispatch of those potential drones. And I just want to clarify real quick, we do have actually two drones in the department.

That's what I thought. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I certainly appreciate the attempts to ensure the public safety here there's some significant you know privacy concerns here that's outlined in what was presented for context as it relates to all of this and it gives me significant pause Mr. Chairman so I appreciate the candid responses of the administration. I have a lot of concerns that how this would be initiated based on what I read here. Thank you. Councillor Bergman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No pause here. I'm excited to move forward with this and I'm looking forward to getting the report back. Can you imagine currently the way it exists now that there's an emergency somewhere and a police officer has to get in a car one end of the city and fight traffic all the way to the other end of the city to perhaps stop a child from being kidnapped? or a domestic situation for a woman getting stabbed. And now you could have the opportunity to have a drone get right out there and relay information immediately. We've had at least one situation in recent memory where there was a hostage situation where the drone proved to be very, very helpful. I mean, I can just tell you myself as a child of somebody whose parent had Alzheimer's and got lost several times before unfortunately had to be institutionalized for dementia, it's a huge tool to find missing people, whether it's a child or whether it's an adult with memory failure. So these are the types of things that the drone can do. So when I hear pause, that's fine. Everybody's got entitled to their opinion on it. But let me just say that if we believe that our privacy isn't already subject to cameras everywhere, whether it's ring cameras on people's doors or business cameras in front of businesses or community access cameras, we're fooling ourselves. In most states, the cameras take pictures of the cars going through the red lights. The cameras are everywhere. and I think when you're balancing the two cameras, the two drones we have with a reasonable amount of additional drones for first responders in a city of over 200,000 people, I don't think the average person has to worry about a drone intruding on their privacy. Let me just say one other thing too, is that there are people that are against this and they have every right to be, but in this room we hear, sometimes one opinion that's slightly biased to the outside of this building. When I'm outside this building at neighborhood meetings, talking to neighborhood community leaders and other people, I mentioned it before, whether it's in the supermarket, the pharmacy, or in the parks, the overwhelming response I get is that they think drones are a useful tool for proactive policing, never mind also preventing harm from the actual police officers themselves on many occasions. So no pause here. I'm enthusiastic to get the report back and I look forward to supporting the idea. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Okay, so Councilor Russell, followed by Councilor Haxhiaj.

Mr. Chairman, I voted to give the police department the drones that they asked for. In fact, I think I voted for every request in the 14 years that the police department ever asked for. but I also have concerns just in general about privacy and the police department has drones so police department already has the equipment to do much of what's been talked about here I've got a couple concerns about this issue of this item number one is it comes to us from the council and not from the administration. If the administration, the chief police, or the city manager came in and said, we need funding because we've done studies, whatever, I'm not in favor of this coming out of the council giving the manager or the chief direction on how to use the equipment that he has now or to add new equipment that he hasn't asked for. I have problems with, you know, how many times have I talked about the assessor's office flying their planes over the houses, you know, and gone off about that. I mean, I'm more concerned about privacy when it comes to that, when we talk about not only the assessor's office, but insurance companies and others that are that are doing this kind of thing. So I'm not gonna support this item the way it's written, but I would support if the manager and the chief came in at a time while I'm still sitting in this desk, I would support whatever they thought that they needed for the equipment. And I also, Mr. Chairman, would like to congratulate the Red Sox. Ben White and I have been monitoring. They did a deal with three to one win and we're very happy about that, but thank you.

Cancel OGA.

I'm fine with getting back a feasibility report. I'd love to see the data. I'd love to hear from the chief if and if and if he he's really requested this of council what the justification is. I have some deep concerns about adding more to our drone portfolio. I pulled up the report that the chief sent to us in 2024 where he outlines the number of times the quarterly drone report update, that's the document I'm referring to, September 17, where he outlines the number of times that the drones have been used. And it sounds like in that year it was used seven times for different reasons, and great. I'm happy to hear that. I am not entirely sure at a time where the Homeland Security of this administration is touting these drones as first responders program as being expanded throughout cities. It gives me deep concern, obviously, for privacy reasons, for surveillance reasons. But I would like to hear the rationale if the chief really feels strongly that he would like us to get more of these drones. how and why he feels that way. I don't really want to see that when a citizen of our city or resident of our city calls 911 that a drone shows up before a human being. That gives me deep concern and deep pause. I am happy to receive a report back. I would like to add to this order to an amendment. I would like to hear exactly how many drones this the division is, if that's the way we're going. What is it going to cost taxpayers if there is a subscription associated with it? And most importantly, I want to hear whether currently the number of drones that we have is not fulfilling the need that the Worcester Police Department or Fire Department emergency communications have. I think we should be very careful about adding additional tools that we're not truly understanding whether they have a rationale behind them. And most importantly, I would like to hear from the chief himself, if he supports this proposal, what exactly does he envision in number of drones, the usage, justification for it, the amount of money it's going to cost taxpayers yearly, and why exactly do we not think that what we have right now is meeting the needs of our residents?

Thank you, Councillor Passillo.

Thank you Mr. Chair. You know I do appreciate it right better safe than sorry and I you know I'm a nervous person so if there's anything that can help a situation obviously that's wonderful and I support it but I do want to echo the surveillance concerns and through the chair to the city manager so we have drones these drones we have cannot be used to do this and how many furthermore how many drones can you use at once?

Mr. Manager.

I'm not even trying to be funny. I'm just like.

Yeah, through the chair, through the council. So I think there's different types of drones. Well, not I think. There are different types of drones out there in the market. The drones that we're talking about here. And the reason I know a little bit about it is because the chief and I have talked about it because he went to a conference. And this is something that's happening across the nation that people are exploring. These drones would be dispatched directly through a dispatch center. It's like a box on the top of the roof. It opens up, the drone goes up, and it goes directly to the site, utilizing AI, utilizing any information that you provide. There's not somebody directly that's managing. The drones that we currently have right now requires somebody to be trained to operate that actual drone. this would be a drone that would be dispatched directly utilizing information to send it to the location and then it would hover, assess what's happening there and provide now data and information to the police to respond or fire department to respond adequately. There are communities that are doing this. City of Boston is looking to launch about 10 of them for the purposes of, again, trying to cut down their arrival times and better assess their dispatch times and their actual response to the incidences.

Thank you so much and you know obviously this is a report and I'm always happy to get more information but may I ask you one more question through the chair so it would just have key words that would pop up and then the drone would like I'm just not understanding and I'm sorry.

Yeah, through the council, the drone would be provided communication like probably perhaps the address, location, any coordinates or whatever of the location and the drone is basically just going to that location and then through the camera lens, the department will be able to see what's happening there and to be able to assess how to dispatch services to that particular location.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Mero-Carlson, followed by Councilor Ojeda.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Certainly, this is something that I support. If there's anybody who thinks that the drones aren't flying over our homes today, which, by the way, the insurance companies are using throughout the country, So they're using them to disqualify homeowners, quite honestly, or they're using them to increase the cost of your homeowners insurance policy. My neighbors have several drones. I can tell you now, they can tell you anything that's happening up and down the street. So for us to think we're worried about our privacy, is really something else because we don't have any privacy. That's been gone the day that they created the cell phone. And for our police department to have the tools that they need, I for one am somebody who supports this. I don't believe that our police department is going to be flying a drone to go and look at what somebody's doing in their own home. Quite frankly, our neighbors have the opportunity with their cameras today. to do that. I can tell you with the cameras that are around my house, quite frankly, I can look into my neighbor's home with my own cameras if I chose to. It's not something obviously that I chose to when those cameras were set up. I mean, somebody like myself made sure that there was no intrusion on somebody else's privacy. But I can tell you that I'm not so sure that everybody else is looking at it the same way that some people do. Again, so for us to think that we'll be intruding on somebody else's privacy, I think, quite frankly, that ship has sailed a very long time ago. And I do believe as we look around this country, we look around the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the different police departments and the type of equipment that they have. In a city our size, we always talk about and boast about that we're 214,000 people and yet for some of our equipment that we have in this city, you would think that we're a city that's the size of 100,000 people. When we look at the towns of whether it's Auburn or Westboro or Southboro and look at all these different police departments I think we should be taking a good look at them and I for one would be very supportive of this item. Thank you.

Councilor Ojeda.

Thank you Mr. Chairman, yeah I guess I just have concerns when it comes to I guess we're all talking about privacy and then also we already have Jones and some of the Jones can do certain things that they can't so you know obviously this is gonna come with some type of cost and every year we sit here with the budget and we talk about you know not having enough money for youth jobs or we'll talk about the cost of ShotSpotter and again, I think this is gonna be something that's gonna continue being a cost issue that we continue throwing into our residents' faces, obviously to pay into taxes and I don't, I just, I don't see a real need for it. If we're talking about we need to hire more police, if we're talking about maybe we can't get to one side of the street faster than the others, then we should look to find better ways, smaller stations. The firefighters always get there before the police officers do because they get to every call out and they're spread out a little bit more than the police officers. So if that's a concern, then maybe that's something that we should be looking from the ground up versus from the top down. We know we already have internal issues when it comes to hiring and things like that. These drones are going to get there. They're going to get there obviously before police officers. Well, probably because we don't have enough police officers. And we have more police officers. Again, we can station them better throughout the city. So when we do get these calls, they're there. So I'm just concerned about those things. And obviously the cost of it, the storage. I think we had storage issues with some of our technology within our own city. Some of the software we're using was outdated and now it's new. So we had a lot of issues with that as well. So I don't know. I don't feel there's a need. I get it. It's just a report. But I think we should be looking at it at a different way where working with the city manager and the chief to figure out, okay, if there's issues getting there in a timely manner, let's look into how we can do a better job in the meantime versus asking for this report. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Toomey, followed by Councilor King.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. How many drones does David Webb have? You know, I mean, it's just like, really, I mean, drones everywhere, right? So it's just a rhetorical question. I'm not really here about that. The reality of it is, is this is a very different type of a drone, okay? It sits on top of a building. It's deployed by the 911 system. It's not sent out for everything, it's emergencies. Specifically, talking about fires. It could save people's lives by being first on the scene within one to two minutes, being able to see where smoke is showing, being able to inform the fire trucks that are on their way there where to stage, where to be. Life saving, okay? Finding people. being able to go after and saving someone's life. There was a recent report where someone was, they called in and said there's a guy waving a gun around and everything. The drone got there, assessor saw the situation, had the video. The guy had a cigarette he was waving around. That saved this person's life. Being able to identify situational awareness, those are really important things. This isn't just a regular drone. It's a whole program, and it's not just some wackadoodle thing that, you know, oh, I think it'd be a nice thing. The Mass Chiefs of Police Association, I believe, had a recent demonstration of it. It's highly regarded. There's a lot of things that I know people have concerns about, and that should all be discussed in the report. Right? All of those good questions. Let's talk about it and make sure that we come back with a really comprehensive, thoughtful report. And it's not a matter of saying we're gonna use this instead of police officers. That's not it. This is taking the resources that we have and actually being able to put them in a position where they can be more effective. If they're not needed over there and they're spending 10 minutes getting to a call and it's not needed, they can be more effective going to another call. It's really simple. And so I think it's really important that the manager and the chief come back. You give them an opportunity to say, hey, look, let's vet this fully. And if it's not for Worcester, then it's not for Worcester. But I think it's important to ask the question. And by the way, this was nothing more than just an article. in a magazine, police one magazine that outlined a bunch of different things. It does not mean that that's what I'm recommending or what the chief is gonna come back, say what the manager's gonna come back and say. These are just things that drones can do. It was an article just for informational purposes. So I'm hoping that people will keep their minds open and say, hey, look, this is a report just like everybody else asked for reports and come back Thank you. Council King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of comments. One is there was a comment about going from one side of the city to the other side of the city to respond to an emergency, to respond to one of these heightened situations as it relates to officer involved shootings, domestic violence, Shots being fired, et cetera. And I just want to state for the record, we have a system of sectors. Is that right through the chair to the chairman? To the city manager?

To the city, to the council, yes. We have 20 routes in the city now where officers are routing their perspective routes for the purposes of policing the neighborhoods.

Did you say 20? Yes. And how many approximately? I know it varies based on the need, but... approximately how many officers per shift, per sector?

Yeah, it depends on the time of the evening. I can't give you that accurate number. I don't have that on top of my head. But it's definitely more than 20 officers.

Right. So again, the idea of having to traverse the city from one end to the other to respond to an emergency is a bit of a misnomer. Certainly there are incidents where someone does come across to the city to assist. I understand that, but I just want to clarify that for the record, that that sort of thing is more the exception rather than routine. Mr. Chairman, I've listened to everyone here. I certainly think that comparing governmental surveillance to the private sector surveillance is separate and distinct. We know that the Trump administration is pushing this sort of drones as first responders. and we know what comes out of that administration and what that means. So there's a lot of trepidation here for me. And again, the context of this regards to civilian oversight and expanding to various departments is concerning, Mr. Chairman, and I don't know that I'm gonna stand in the way of this. I echo the concerns of my colleagues as it relates to the budget, as it relates to privacy, and Shore. Insurance companies are doing their thing. But we are, folks have to remember, for the public, we are government. And it's separate and distinct, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Bergman.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to just respond and add a few additional comments. So several of my colleagues have mentioned what I had said earlier about getting to a crime scene and looking it up and the research has been done and colleagues can look anytime they want online or on websites, the average speed of a drone to get to a crime scene is one half the time of a vehicle. But let me give a better example so that there's no suggestion that we have a lot of police officers that get to the scene quickly. I watched this video a number of months ago and I was actually in awe of what I saw. And the video was a child drowning in a sea of water and there was no way to get to that child except a fisherman had a drone that he was using to drop bait for fishing and he put a life preserver on the drone and he sent the drone out in the ocean, dropped the life preserver and saved the child. When we talk about access to crime scenes, I'm sure there is a plethora, a number of examples that I could give and others on this council could give of why the argument that if we aren't getting to a crime scene fast enough, drones aren't a solution doesn't make sense. But let me also add one other thing. The average cost of a drone, I think, is around $3,000 or $4,000. We're asking to look at half a dozen, a dozen. I don't know the exact number. That's what a report will show. We're talking about $30,000 more or less, the salary of a city council, let's say. We could certainly afford that if it saves lives. We could certainly afford that if it saves lives. So I'll wait for the report to get back. But I felt the need to respond to the premise, which I think is just not realistic, that because a police officer can't get to a crime scene as fast as a drone, something's wrong with how the police officers responding. That's just human nature versus technology. And thank God we have technology to compensate for that. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, can I be recognized for a second time?

What's that?

Can I be recognized for a second time? Yeah. It's really, really frustrating right now to hear members of the city council talk about saving lives. 26i would have cost this city $0. $0. 0 dollars for a simple measure that could have saved firefighter lives and resident lives. Yet we are here talking about making arguments before even hearing a report from the chief of police as to why we need to spend 30 plus thousand dollars on something that we may not need. It is critically frustrating for me to have members of the city council come up and say it's fine to spend $30,000 on technology that we don't even know we need, but we just weeks ago, avoid, weeks ago, couldn't even come to a consensus on a firefighter measure that would have cost this city zero dollars. It is incredible, the dissonance and the miscongruity between the arguments being made about public safety on the city council.

Okay, so we have this order, which is amended by Council High GI, with asking for costs, I think, for a number of amendments, anyways, but costs is the Chief's recommendation, and so we have this amended by Council High GI. Do you accept the amendments?

Okay.

So the motion is to send it to the City Manager as amended by Councilor Haxhiaj. A yes vote would send it to the Manager and a no vote would not. So, roll call.

Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Colorio?

Yes.

Councilor Haxhiaj? Yes. Councilor King? Yes. Councilor Mero-Carlson? Yes. Councilor Nguyen? Councilor Ojeda? Yes. Councilor Pacillo?

Yes.

Councilor Russell? Yes. Councilor Toomey? Yes.

Yes. Okay. And request the manager to consider making the announcement via Worcester prior to any pesticide spraying occurring in the city, including any spraying associated with mosquito control, Council of Colorio.

Thank you. This just came out of the recent spraying, I think it was a couple weeks ago or a week ago, where people were concerned that they didn't know about it and how they were supposed to know about it and blah, blah, blah. So someone had suggested that we make an announcement on Alert Worcester prior to any pesticide spraying, and I thought it was a really good idea.

Okay, thank you. So we'll send that to the manager, Council, what's that? Okay, Council Pacillo.

Thank you. I want to thank Councilor Colorio for this. I don't go on social media. I had no idea they were spraying the neighborhood until one of my neighbors who keeps bees sent me a text at like 4 o'clock and thank you to the city manager's office. They were able to get a hold of the person spraying and opt my neighbor out because the mosquito control project closes at 3.30. So there was no way to get in touch with them. But I would love to sign on to this because there should be more notice that's more than social media. Thank you.

Thank you. Council King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank Councilor Colorio also for her leadership in this. I just want to reiterate, I as well was contacted by a beekeeper that was harvesting at the time this was to occur and the city council office assisted us in making sure that there was some space and the ability to not be in that area. The question I have, and I guess it's just a motion, if we can get an idea, do we have or is it necessary to have a list of beekeepers, for example, in the city that perhaps, or maybe it's the other way around, make sure we're notifying people in a different way. But I know that they harvested a good amount of honey for the community, and maybe it's a way to kind of keep them in mind every single year. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Senator, City Manager. All those in favor? Everybody want to sign on? Yep, so as amended. Okay, all those in favor? Opposed? So, ordered. Request the manager to provide council with a report concerning updates associated with initiatives to aid and support the city's homeless population. Council Colorio.

yes thank you um this report that i'd like back is really mostly for the public's information i mean i meet with the city manager we talk about things that are happening we talk about the green street bridge the dog park the garnet bridge you know the rvs that are illegally parked and you know he explains to me all the different things that we're doing to help them you know aid the homeless but the general public doesn't get to know all that stuff so if we can get a report back I would appreciate it and that way we can go through you know what has been done what especially now with the colder months coming what are we you know like we could tie it into what are we going to do you know the shelter is it opening up where is it opening up and just kind of tie it into more of a you know an evaluation of really everything that is being done on this thank you

I'm so excited that people all sign on. Okay, as amended, Senator, the manager, all those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Request manager, request Chief Dick of Oss review the feasibility of creating additional housing solutions for seniors, including intergenerational living and home share opportunities. Councilor Colorio.

Thank you. So I'm sure I'm not the only councilor here that is receiving phone calls from the elderly and the seniors and saying we can't afford to pay our taxes, our bills, and what's going to happen. And I know we've discussed different opportunities with senior housing and stuff like that. But one of the things I don't think we're addressing is that what I hear a lot of times is, I've lived in Worcester my whole life. I just want to stay and die in my house. I want to live in my house. I don't want to move. So we can't deny the fact that expenses are increasing. So if expenses are increasing, the only thing I can logically think of is that we have to increase the revenues. so there would be more money available for seniors to live in their house. And one way I was looking into is this called intergenerational living. I was raised in a three-decker and my maternal grandmother lived with us. And there was a lot of benefits of having her here into this intergenerational living. She had decreased isolation, better health outcomes, renewed sense of belonging, especially trying to help me with some of my homework, which I didn't really get. And it allowed her to have some self-worth and fulfillment. So I think that for seniors that want to stay in the house, this would be beneficial. Also, on the other spectrum of things, I was reading some reports. And one of the reports I read was how many rooms have been available in the US, like unoccupied bedrooms, and the potential to be rented. and some of the research estimates that a graduate student can save up to $24,000 a year in renting a room rather than renting a one bedroom apartment. So this is a win-win for the senior. It's a win-win for maybe a college student. And I know that there's some pilots out there that they do align with something. They pick a college and they work with a college to try to get this off the ground. So any kind of a report, anything that we can do to maybe move the needle a little bit more so these seniors can stay in the house, I would appreciate it. Thank you.

I'll send that to the manager. I want to sign on. Councilor King wants to sign on. That is amended. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Senate's the manager. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Request the City Manager to request the Commissioner of Transportation and Mobility to conduct a traffic study on Pleasant Street from Highland to South Flag to determine the appropriate speed calming measures that can be implemented and installed on the street as it reads. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Request that the City Manager provide the Council with a report detailing a timeline of the sidewalk surfacing repairs around City Hall located 455 Main Street, Council King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The condition of sidewalks around City Hall, on the plaza, around the plaza near the entrance by the bus stops is significantly concerning. In the course of meeting with folks in the community, I came across someone who had a significant injury and I'm not quite sure what the reason is but I certainly want to let the city manager respond if there's anything he'd like to add to this order and you know I'd like this address as soon as possible I spoke with folks who are disabled, and what have you. And they're having difficulty traversing that. Folks, a gentleman who I just talked to today at the flag raising, who's walking through, who I know had suffered a couple of strokes that had on short footing, had some difficulty traversing that surface through the chair.

Mr. Manager?

Yeah, through the council, this is actually, this project was funded for this fiscal year's work and so I believe it's either gone out to bid or it already went out to bid and we're in the process of getting a contractor so we're committed to making sure this works happen as quickly as possible and hopefully we get it done before either the spring or summer of next year. but yeah this is something that the City Council and the administration recommended as part of the budget and was voted into the budget to make sure the Parks Department got this done quickly.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, if there's anything we can do in the interim, take a walk outside. I recommend to anybody who hasn't on this council. And if there's something we can do in the interim, this can't wait till the spring. We need to do more, you know, around this location. It's extremely dangerous to traverse. Thank you.

Okay, so that's the manager. All those in favor, opposed, so awarded. Request the manager to work with the police chief and superintendent of the school to utilize the new extra parking at Roosevelt Elementary School located at 1006 Grafton Street. Create a designated parking area on campus for families waiting to pick up students. Councilor Russell.

Mr. Chairman, I first would like to thank Mr. Hacker from the school department for having a long conversation with me the other day. I know he's leaving the school department and I'm disappointed, quite frankly, that he's leaving me because he did a real good job with the various different projects that I interacted with him on. But my concern is there's still a lot of cars in the street. and for what Mr. Hacker tells me that there are 40 extra parking spaces at Roosevelt School but when I go to the lot there in an afternoon and I look around there's got to be at least 25 or more empty in the back of the parking lot and the front part the old part if you will is packed that's where the parents and the families should be waiting. If there are 20 to 25 extra spaces, as I said when we made the announcement at the press conference, that if there are new spaces, if 40 spaces were created, there's gonna be 20, 25 spaces that are empty. And if you go up there, they are empty. but they're in the news section in the back and for whatever reason they're not being utilized. And I want to thank school committee member Diana Bencaria for working with me on this and I know she's working on this on the school side to try and get the message out but we need communication because from what Mr. Hacker tells me there's a hesitation on the school side to go into the public street and to start telling people, what they can and cannot do on the public street. So I asked Mr. Raleigh to get involved. He told me he was going to get there last week, but he wasn't able to yet. And I think this has to be all hands on deck, Mr. Manager, through you, Mr. Chairman. and we spent an awful lot of taxpayer money up there to utilize it. It's a shame that we can't get, that we're not able to get 20 or 25 cars off the street and into that area. There should be signs inside that parking lot that say afternoon or whatever time the car line usually starts that these areas are for family waiting only. And someone, whether it's from the school department, maybe the school department would put an insert and the kids, whatever they're taking home so that folks know that the lot is available for them. We're all going to get together and use this and make it right because this isn't right. After all this money and all this work and all this effort from all of us and it's not being utilized.

Send that to the manager.

Mr. Manager, would you? Is there anything?

Mr. Manager.

Any update on it through you, Mr. Chairman?

Yeah, I've had conversations with the superintendent. He's supposed to be addressing part of the strategy was to utilize the top portion for the staff and then utilize that front section of the turnaround for the people that are parked outside. And so I'll follow up with the superintendent and make sure that that's happening and moving forward.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, all those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Where are we now? I request the man to provide comments with a report concerning developing a quarterly activation plan and timelines identifying and addressing gaps in services for the homeless population in our neighborhoods and business districts, including mental health service provisions, current status of our women's shelters, and a report of the current shelter capacity. Councilor King.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is calling for, as it mentions, a quarterly activation plan and timeline. to identify and address gaps in services for this population. Mr. Chairman, I know we're doing a number of things. Some folks have expressed this evening some consternation with some of the approaches that we're making. as it relates to noise in this population. And we're doing other things. We are connecting with and the managers meeting regularly with service providers to this population along with a number of departments here. so we know that that's occurring. What this is, is again a request to identify and address the gaps. What are we doing in those specific ways and to be done quarterly, every few months so that this body can be appraised. In addition to that, Mr. Chairman, the services, the wraparound services, et cetera, the current status of the women's shelter that I initiated to the council here some months ago. And again, shelter capacity. Mr. Chairman, through the chair to the administration, I do have a question about the RMV site. It's an absolute eyesore over there. I drove by there on the way home. There's trash everywhere. We got boards on the windows. I understand that's a state Building, through the Charity Administration. What responsibility do they have to, A, make that presentable and take care of the property through the Charity?

Mr. Major?

True, Chair, Council, they have all the responsibility to do that. We oftentimes communicate and let them know of some of the challenges that you've talked about in that area so they can address where there's overgrowth or trash or et cetera. I know that our staff sometimes also lends a hand and try to help out with some of those issues in the area of the RMV, but that is the responsibility of the state, and that's something that we work with them on.

I'm going through the chairs. Is that DCAM? Is it someone else? Who's the point person?

It's actually MassDOT. It's MassDOT. So DCAM has nothing to do with that building? No, it's MassDOT. The jurisdiction is solely under MassDOT because it's R&V. And so it's purely under MassDOT, not DCAM.

OK. Through the chair to the administration, if we could report back to the council on the work being done there. It's boarded up. It's just a bad look in between usage and what their plan is. And we want to see what we are asking them to do, Mr. Chairman, by maybe amending this particular order. What's the current of the status of the women's shelter? Is it permanent at this point through the chair? Mr. Manager?

Yeah, through the case, through the case of the council, the current Women's Center is permanent. It's located on the Chandler Street area. That's something that we were able, very successful to work with a provider to be there and have people who are, have lived experience be able to serve as managers. in this effort we currently the shelter is currently full it's being well utilized and it's providing a lot of that that space that was needed that we created as a temporary status in in kind of the West Boylston no the Boylston Lincoln Street area but this actually now is a permanent location right in near the channel street area

Thank you, and I just wanted to give a thank you to the community groups, the women that came here and testified and advocated to many of the counselors, to the mayor, to the city manager for a safe space with regards to a shelter for women exclusively, Mr. Chairman. So thank you to this body, to the mayor, to the city manager, and I was glad to have led on that. Mr. Chairman, I look forward to this report and, you know, looking forward to it coming more than once a year.

Thank you. Okay, we'll send that to the manager. All those in favor of a postal audit, request the manager conduct a feasibility study for establishing a municipal ID program modeled after those in New Haven, Connecticut and Providence, Rhode Island, as always recently passed in the audience in Boston. Councilor King.

Thank you Mr. Chairman. This is a matter that I've been looking at for quite some time. I want to thank Sam Bishop for reaching out and having and myself explore this many, many months ago. Again, a feasibility study. Mr. Chairman, we know through the research that I've done in New Haven, Connecticut, Providence, Rhode Island, and recently in Boston, Boston actually passed an ordinance that I attached to this document that answers a lot of questions of things and ways to identify and verify that this is for residents of the city, Mr. Chairman. That particular ordinance talks about proof of residency even for folks that are in a homeless shelter by written verification. issued by homeless shelter that received city funding confirming at least 15 days of residents. Same with someone in the hospital health clinic social service agency within the city of Worcester for at least 15 days. There's other traditional ways, utility bill, residential property, etc. There's going to be a number of questions about this, Mr. Chairman, one of which is funding, and I'll get to that shortly. But these municipal ID programs are incredibly important. One of the challenges when folks are having their homeless encampments swept is the loss of identification, for example. And while we know that this ID program is developed across the country to address a critical issue, these programs cannot be taken for granted. Identification cannot be taken for granted. It's needed for bank account, accessing healthcare, enrolling children in school, applying for public benefits, reporting a crime, borrowing library books, registering to vote, so much more. But for many, particularly those who are unhoused, formerly incarcerated, undocumented, or the area that I work in, youth in foster care, accessing a governmental ID can be daunting, if not an impossible task. Cities in comparable size to Worcester, like New Haven, which was the first city in the country, to implement such a program in 2007. And Providence, which launched their program in 2017, have seen the positive impact of this initiative for municipal ID. They provide low-barrier, affordable, and excessive IDs to residents who need them most. In Worcester, we've seen firsthand logistical changes can make access harder. When the RMV was moved from downtown to the southwest cutoff, it created a significant access barrier for those without vehicles. I remember working with the state delegation in that regards because we had those concerns. While the WRTA can technically provide services to that site, We all know transit can be unreliable. Having to transfer can make up to a two-hour ride. Showing up without an appointment often means waiting for hours, time that folks simply don't have. The cost of a mass ID is $25, and a permanent address is required to receive it. That's a major obstacle for our unhoused neighbors. By contrast, our municipal ID programs typically cost far less, with many cities absorbing the fee entirely or charging between $5 and $15 depending on income or age. While the unhoused population is often the focus of these programs, I want to reiterate other groups stand to benefit. Foster youth, formerly incarcerated individuals, immigrants, seniors, and LGBTQ plus residents. For LGBTQ plus folks especially, these IDs can provide an accessible, dignified way to obtain identification that reflects their gender identity, something that has become increasingly important as their rights continue to be threatened at the federal level. All politics is local, folks. The federal impacts the municipal. We've also seen that when people lack ID, they're less likely to report crimes, whether they are witnesses or victims. Municipal ID programs help in trust between vulnerable communities and law enforcement, resulting in safer, more connected neighborhoods. These IDs can be multifunctional. Boston's program will double as a Charlie card. other cities have integrated them with library systems or partnered with museums and theaters to provide discounts to ID holders. We can do that here in Worcester. This encourages broader community participation and adds value beyond basic identification. Let me be clear. I am not asking today for a commitment to creating a municipal ID program. Again, I'm not asking for a commitment to create a municipal ID program. What I am requesting is a feasibility study. The first step is to determine whether a program is needed here in Worcester. If so, how should it be structured to succeed? Establishing this sort of a program does not necessarily mean the city needs to run it. Other municipalities have partnered with community organizations or private vendors to administer this type of program. A feasibility study will help us determine whether any existing departments have the capacity to manage it or the inclination or whether a different model would be more appropriate. This is about improving access and opportunity for residents who are far too often left behind. If we do not take this step, if we do not even look, we'll never know whether we're missing a chance to fill a real gap in services. Let's take this step together by getting the facts back to support whether we should move forward with this program, Mr. Chairman.

Okay, I'll send that to the manager. All those in favor, come to council Toomey.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My day job is I do at least maybe anywhere between one to ten RMV appointments setting up for IDs getting birth certificates and that's just our agency I know that downstairs Pastor Richie I meet him at see him at the RMV I know that as far as addresses go I know that people have used City Hall they've used St. John's, they've used the shelters. I know our office has been used as an address. We do everything we can to help people get their IDs. I actually filed an order years ago to have a Worcester ID with a different perspective, perhaps to encourage utilizing Worcester businesses, et cetera, in support of that. I do have some questions. I'd like to know how much a program like this costs. And also, I would like to see as part of the report that they come back. with a list of all other agencies that assist in getting IDs currently. Thank you.

Okay, so we're gonna send that to the manager. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Questing the Committee on Economic Development to invite representatives from the Massport Authority to present the Committee on Overview of the Investments and Management Processes of the Worcester Regional Airport to date. Said presentation should include how the Worcester Regional Airport will be included in the recently announced Massport Strategic Planning effort. Christian.

Mayor Joseph M. Petty.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and co-signor Mero-Carlson will be next to speak, but I think this is pretty important for the city of Worcester. I know it's important for the city of Worcester. You know, Massport CEO Rich Davey stated in a 2024 year review that Massport is launching the first strategic plan in over a decade. Over a decade. and once completed that plan will guide the authority's planning and priorities for the next 10 years. That's why I think it's a point that Councilor Mero-Carlson, Chair of the Economic Development Committee, have a meeting with Massport, the new Mr. Manager, come in here, explain how we are part, and be part, of the strategic planning process. We do have an airport that took over, Massport took it over in 2010. I can't believe that's 15 years ago that happened. But it was really catalyst for economic development here in the city of Worcester, made some differences here, and we must be working, and we just need to work to expand our flights potential here in the city. Now we offer about, four flights on average a day here in the city of Worcester. Massport offers almost 450 at Oregon Airport. So in some of the smaller airports, Bradley International has 69 on average, Burlington International 25, Portland International 34, Providence is about 47, and I think Worcester can expand from four. and we have the potential, we have the gates, we have a lot of room up there and I think it's a great place to go if you really think about it. It's hard to get there and the parking rates save you a whole plane flight and cost of a plane ticket. So what we charge for parking at the Worcester Airport. But I think this is important. We bring maybe the business community in, Council Member Carlson and definitely the manager and definitely Massport, maybe Mr. Davies will come to that meeting. and just discuss how important this is for the city of Worcester and the city of Worcester's residents who use that airport around the county and just share ideas of how we can really expand the airport. We've been on this for right since I've been on the council trying to get the airport going and it's in a good place now, but we can do a lot more and a lot better. So thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Kenny Mero-Carlson, District 2, co-sponsor.

thank you um so back in 2010 um when we sold the airport to massport for 17 million dollars the deal was seen as a win-win opportunity for the city and it was with Massport it would they had shared with us that we would reap many of the economic benefits from this sale and we certainly have not seen this as you look at and there's plenty of documentation and research that I've done on this. When you look at what Massport is in charge of and what we at the end of the day as a city, four flights going in and out of the city of Worcester each day is really dismal to say the least. and Massport, quite honestly, I would love in the Economic Development Committee with my colleagues to have the conversations with them around what is it? that we can do for the city because four flights certainly is not cutting it. And with Worcester itself having a population of over 200,000 folks, I mean, and again, this is all their information about what should be taking place in the city of Worcester. And quite honestly, none of it has taken place So I was happy to sign on to the order with the mayor and look forward to working with the manager and Massport to see exactly what we can do to revitalize our airport because I certainly think that there's an awful lot of opportunities that we're missing out on a daily basis and you know when Massport talks about all their progress and what they're doing they're spending most of their time in other areas and it's certainly is not in the Worcester area. I mean, when you look at whether it's Burlington International Airport has 25 flights a day, Bradley has 69. You look at Manchester Boston Regional, 22. you look at Tweed New Haven Airport seven flights a day Portland International 34 Providence is 47 and there we are at the bottom with four flights a day so I look forward to having this meeting thank you Mr. Chairman

Thank you.

Motion is to send this to committee for the public purposes. It's an order to send to Economic Development Committee to invite representatives from Massport to present to the committee an overview of investments and management processes at the Worcester Airport to date, including how the airport will include the city in recently announced strategic planning roll call.

Councilor Bergman, Councilor Colorio, Councilor Haxhiaj, Councilor Mero-Carlson, Councilor Nguyen, Councilor Ojeda, Councilor Pacillo, Councilor Russell, Councilor Toomey, Mayor Petty, and Vice-Chair, Councilor Kerr

Okay, next item is request the manager request the Commissioner of Transportation Mobility to review the area around 500 Broncos Street for installation of speed calming measures including speed humps. Council Bergman. as it reads. All those in favor? Opposed? So, audit. Request to the Manager, request to the Commissioner of Public Works and Parks to inspect all veteran memorials prior to the Veterans Day, and if needed, perform any necessary repairs at each location prior to that date. Councillor Bergman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think all of us, in our traveling throughout the city, are familiar with the veterans' monuments, and I think many of us have seen some of them. aren't in the shape they should be in. I've talked to Officer Sean Lovely, who certainly we're all familiar with as somebody who devotes a lot of time, his own time. being the historian, so to speak, unofficial historian of these veterans' markers. And I spoke to him today, too, and he agreed that many of them, although are in good shape, a number of them, and he's doing an inventory of them, need some help. So I thought it would be a good idea, before Veterans Day, as a respectful gesture to our deceased veterans, and I'm not aware of us ever doing this before, that we, one, take an inventory of all the Veterans Squares that we have so we know how many we have and where they're located. And number two, perhaps rate the condition of them and prioritize repairing those that need to be immediately repaired. And if we could get this all done by Veterans Day, I think it would say a lot about our commitment to veterans in the city of Worcester. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Send that to the manager. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Request that the C-Manage request Public Works and Parks review the portion of King Phillip Road where water gets backed up and perform any necessary repairs at that location. Councilor Pacillo.

May I just amend it to say in the vicinity of 65 to 85, King, Phillip? Okay.

Thank you. As amended, we'll send that to the manager. Those in favor, oppose, so ordered. Requesting the manager to provide counsel with a report concerning best practices used to ensure the city's noise audience is effectively enforced and clean without limits in situations where property owners play loud music at late hours. Councilor Pacillo.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There's a property on Northern Lincoln Street where it seems as though the city's noise ordinance has been ignored consistently, so I was just hoping to get some clarification around that order. Thank you.

Thank you. So we'll send that to Councilor Mero-Carlson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Couple of questions on this because the location that Councilor Pacillo has referred to, it's an ongoing issue. And for lately, some of the responses we're getting back from the Worcester Police Department is that they have permits. and to my knowledge, do church organizations have to have a permit to have an event at their place of worship? So that's a question, Mr. Chairman, through you to the manager.

Mr. Manager?

Yeah, through the sheets of the council, it depends on the type of event that they're hosting. They may need certain city permits to be able to host those events. I don't know exactly what permits are required as part of this particular issue in terms of the events that they're having, but depending on the event, and whether it's outside as well, depending on what they're offering will require some potential city permits.

so again I would say this because I have a similar issue on Waverly Street and Providence Street and at 2 a.m. in the morning when the noise is basically equal to a band playing outside and the parking lot. I'm not sure a permit would allow that to happen. And I think that we as a city need to begin to enforce the noise ordinance. And this noise ordinance has been an issue for 10 years that I'm aware of. It may have had issues prior to me. but for 10 years, we as a city continue to say, we just can't get it right on that noise ordinance because what is the decimal level who's in charge of that monitoring that my understanding unless something has changed it but nobody has shared with me is the only folks who actually have those noise meters are the Department of Inspectional Services we all know Department of Inspectional Services they go home at 5 o'clock. So it's not like Inspectional Services is going to monitor a noise complaint at 2 a.m. in the morning. So I just feel like we continue just to say to people there's nothing we can do about it. And I'm really asking what is the mechanism for us to finally try to resolve this issue with establishments that are quite honestly they're breaking the noise ordinance on a regular basis but we as a city are not enforcing that noise ordinance we're just not we're not doing it on Lincoln Street and we're certainly not doing it on Waverly Street and on almost every weekend the people on Waverly Street and Providence Street don't get to sleep all night because of the noise that's taking place over there and they continually get told that we don't have a noise ordinance they have a permit or they don't have the meters to check the Mr. Mandra?

Yeah, through the council, you are correct. There's a noise ordinance, not only a decibel kind of range that's required or that's allowed, but also there's a time frame in which you could actually have that noise or what have you. People can't just have a band and party at 2 in the morning and assume that that's allowed. There's an ordinance, and the noise ordinance takes into consideration all those things. which includes sometimes I believe also construction and all the other stuff that happens in that particular time frame. So I'm going to take a further review with the departments to come up and understand what's happening and then come up with a report to the council that delineates whose responsibility is what and what are the enforcement mechanisms related to that. Thank you.

Thank you, so we'll send that to the manager. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. Question, may I provide counsel with a report concerning rules and regulations relative to the use of generators on public ways? Council Member Carlson.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. Again, this is, this order is put here because there's been several complaints throughout my district about RVs. Parked on streets and they're using generators and now again my understanding is that there are some city folks who said well we're going to need to meet with people to figure out how we're going to handle this and If you look in inspectional services and you look in the sanitary code ordinance, clearly generators are not allowed on public streets. So there are several different sections about generators. and I would just ask for the administration given the fact with the very little research that I spent on this, there are things that are there that prohibits generators and basically RVs from being lived in on public streets. There are certain spaces for RVs where they're supposed to be parked so I would just asked the administration to take a look at this because there's several folks over in the Indian Lake area that are questioning how this is continually happening. And there's also all of the folks from the Poet Hill Neighborhood Association who are asking about how is this taking place right here in front of our eyes and we are saying somehow there's folks from the city that's been there saying that we basically don't have any laws against that and I would quite frankly right now I would stand here and I would challenge that answer. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

I just want to answer quickly to that. The city of Worcester has a city ordinance about generators in the public. That's why they're required to secure a permit through the fire department to utilize a generator, and that could be for an event, that could be for whatever purposes, et cetera. In regards to the RV, there's also, my understanding is as a city owner as well, that RVs, even in your own personal property, are not to be a place of, and many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, I guess trying to figure out how to manage the situation where some of these folks could potentially be homeless and they are utilizing these vehicles as such. And so again, that's something that I understand that's brought to our attention. There's some concerns in the neighborhoods. I've heard about them. And so I'll review this with the staffing and make sure that we have a protocol on how to address this moving forward.

Thank you. One case, send that to the manager. Councilor King.

thank you mr. chairman it's a couple of things on one is is it in fact police that we're sending out with regards to noise ordinance complaints I heard it stated that inspectional services has the devices how does that work operationally for the city

Yeah, through the chair to the council. I think one of the challenges that's happening right now is a lot of these noise ordinances are happening late at night. And so the people that are being called through 911 is police. So the police show up, and they try to enforce some of the noise ordinance. and it seems to me there's some potential breakdown here in terms of who has the equipment and what the enforcement looks like so that, again, part of this report, I'm gonna come back with a report to the council in terms of what that looks like, who's responsible for what and what are the mechanisms that we're gonna utilize to enforce the current ordinance.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, I've called for audits of overtime from any departments over the last few years. I know it's been in municipal operations as well. I'm not sure what they did with it. I think it's out now. of that committee, I believe. So I'm not a person that's careless with overtime. I know we're going to need to tighten the budget given the stuff that we've been talking about earlier. That being said, we asked an awful lot of our police officers. I've said this a million times. We asked them to be AAA, helping people with their tires. We want them to be mental health professionals. We want them to play basketball with kids. I want them to enforce the law. This is another thing that I don't know is necessarily within the scope of their work. It has been. Should it be? I don't know. But it's a question that I'd like to have answered. and with regards to the overtime that I was referencing, I mean, I'm not opposed to having some sort of on-call system like we do in other agencies where there's an on-call fee. It's 50 bucks a night, whatever it is, to be standby. Maybe you go out for something like that. Maybe it's not necessary because I don't even know to what degree. I do know that I've been reached out to recently again regarding an issue up in the Bernco area, one of the churches, and they're reporting the same sort of thing. and I'm just wondering through the chair, A, if you could explain the scope of the responsibility for the police versus inspectional services. If you want to get a report, that's fine. Just say that when you respond. But I'd like this to be ironed out. I really think it's an operation outside of the city, outside of the police department. And in addition to that, what's the consequence for violating the law's ordinance? Are we talking about locking people up for the disturbing of peace or are we talking about a fine that's issued by the city through the chair? Mr. Manager?

Yeah, through the chair to the council, again, this is something that I'd be happy to come back with a report to refine what the process is, what are the protocols, who's responsible, who are the entity and what department should be involved, and what are the potential budgetary implications, if any, at all. And currently right now, if there is any violation to the noise ordinance, there's an associated find out that would be associated to that.

There's no law enforcement there in terms of, it's an ordinance which is a law, but if you could just clarify for the public.

Yeah, through the chair to the council, depending on the severity of the situation, that entity could be brought to the housing court for the purpose of litigation.

Thanks. If that could be included in the report, Mr. Chairman. You know, and I'd also like to report back on the Burncoat Street situation. I know that the councilor here has been working on that, you know, earnestly. I know that the office of the mayor and the manager have been contacted about it. But I'd just like to report back to the council on what's been done with regards to the church up there down Lincoln Street. I can't recall the name off the top of my head. I'm sure Councilor Pacillo knows. St. Jones of Arc. If we get a report back on what the you know how many calls have gone out there what the responses has been something we can look at and maybe send the public safety so they can see if there's some things that we could do perhaps better or differently in regards to those citizen complaints while balancing you know the usage of that particular location. I'm sure there's a way we can work through this together. Thank you.

Okay. Council Borgman.

Thank you Mr. Chairman. This has come up a number of times in my time on the City Council. I know at times there's the explanation that the machinery to measure the volume isn't easily accessible or we don't have enough. And then of course there's always the issue of these noise issues invariably happen late at night when we don't always have police on the force available to go in a priority situation. There's a lot of other things happening. Loud noises aren't necessarily the top priority. However, since the subject came up tonight and since I've had a few moments while this discussion has gone on to look into it, there is amazing technology out there called the drone, which some municipalities are using to hover over loud places and actually record the noise and then report back and eventually a ticket gets sent to the location. Imagine, you don't have to get a policeman out in the middle of the night, you don't have to prioritize a policeman from not going to a dangerous situation, yet going to a bar or a house that's making a lot of noise. So through the chair to the manager, I know he's, He's multitasking, but when you're doing the analysis of how we can do better in monitoring and perhaps enforcing the noise ordinance, please look into what other municipalities are doing with drones because they're using them to enforce noise ordinances. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, okay, so we're gonna send that back, we're gonna send that to the manager, all those in favor of a postal audit. On 13A, that the City Council see a wish that he does hereby urge UMass Chan Medical School to reinstate contributions to the House Staff's Health Benefit Fund, a collectively bargained degree on an equitable contract that assists House staff in their ability to live in the city and encourages medical students to rank UMass as a place to complete their residency, requirement of labor harmony, Council King.

Mr. Chairman, our hospitals, our residents, our interns, the folks who come in the city, the residents of the city, those who have passed through are continually challenged by this entity that exists. We have hospitals closing. We have all sorts of challenges here. We've had our community hospitals closing in Plumlee Village and in other places and locations. In this particular matter, Mr. Chairman, this resolution was inspired by Councilor Mero-Carlson's petition a few years ago in support of the M&A and the St. Vincent's Hospital folks. for a number of reasons as it relates to the public health and the public safety. So I appreciate her leadership for that. That inspired this in addition to those folks reaching out to me. Mr. Chairman, this is a public health matter for the betterment of our community, better health outcomes. And you heard about the need for physicians to be well as they provide Health and Medical Services. That impacts their efficacy, impacts them as practitioners, Mr. Chairman. We've heard that over 700 folks who are residents and clinicians and interns at UMass have been impacted. We know that the patients that they serve, the disparate, disproportional outcomes of health that we've been dealing with since COVID and with ARPA funds and the like continue. And these folks are our frontline folks that are fighting for patients that have the highest barriers to care. working with various classes, the folks that are impoverished, the folks that have lack of access to treatment. This workforce is extremely important. Again, 700 staff, many of whom live right here in the city of Worcester with their families and with their children. And they are working for low pay. We know that these folks have had their health benefits stopped being paid into for the residents and the fellow physicians by the UMass management, and that's a significant risk, Mr. Chairman. We know that the high rates of housing here in Worcester, inflation, increasing student debt, impact so many folks, including these folks, Mr. Chairman. They are dedicated laborers who stretch themselves thin and fill gaps also in staffing and resources. Mr. Chairman, we know that these parameters here are important, again, for our health and well-being as a city. Mr. Chairman, there's a collective bargaining that's occurring, and we know that doing so in a way that's fair becomes an economic driver for the city of Worcester with all these folks that come in and out of the city and the folks who want to live here and get good, healthy treatment. Mr. Chairman, a good bargaining agreement will attract medical students from across this country right here to be residents in the city of Worcester. Mr. Chairman, there is a physician shortage here in Massachusetts and across the country and in our local hospitals as well. Mr. Chairman, 40% of Massachusetts residents report struggling to find a primary care physician. We had a family physician, family come and testify today. We had a number of folks. I apologize for my sneeze, my allergies are getting to me in this heat in this building. But again, there's 40% of mass residents are struggling to find a primary care physician. and the number of primary care physicians has barely increased in recent years. We know that a physician is more likely to stay in a community where they conduct their residency, which is why it's so important. It's been recommended by the Mass Health and Policy Commission that we strengthen the primary care provider pipeline, particularly for underserved areas and populations. And we know what the parameters are for us here in Worcester. And we have to make sure that we are contributing to increasing the primary care provider pipeline. It saves lives simply. We cannot have this labor dispute result in the disruption of life-saving medical treatment. and overall patient care in this city. Mr. Chairman, we know that this resolution urges the UMass Chan Medical School to reinstate contributions to the house staff's health benefit fund and collectively bargain to agree on an equitable contract that assists house staff in their ability to live in the city and encourages medical students to rank UMass as a place to complete their residency and live and drive economics here in the city as a requirement of labor harmony, Mr. Chairman. It's an honor to bring this forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Carlson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it's a sad day, to be honest with you, in the city of Worcester when we're talking here about, again, the largest healthcare institution in the city of Worcester. and Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, time and time again, we are faced with supporting those who work at UMass. All the work, Mr. Chairman, that you have done repeatedly at UMass for Labor Harmony. And it's really disappointing that the physicians, and think about it, the physicians are not covered by health care from the largest medical institution in the city of Worcester. And that is a very sad day for the city of Worcester, for UMass to think that those who take care of the sick in our community, that they don't need to make sure that they're not taken care of. Mr. Chairman, I'm very happy to sign on to this resolution as I have been, whether it be with the nurses or whether it be with UFCW at the hospital or whether it be with the Teamsters. and now my brothers and sisters from SEIU down at UMass. Mr. Chairman, again, I know all of the work that you've done with the labor folks throughout this community and I especially know the work that you've done at UMass for our brothers and sisters in the labor community and so, again, for those reasons, I'm very happy to sign on to this and I certainly hope that UMass wakes up and says that they need to make sure that they're taking care of those who are taking care of our sickest in the community. Again, to hear them tonight, say that they are the lowest paid. Again, I think that's a sad day for us here in the city because they should never have to stand up from an organization, and I certainly get it. I come out of the healthcare industry, so I certainly understand the healthcare industry. And I know that there's a lot of hits from the federal government, but there is no hit that is that great that you need to take away people's healthcare from them. So I appreciate the resolution from my colleague. Happy to sign on. Thank you.

You gonna do a roll call? Councilor Pacillo. Councilor Pacillo first and followed by Council Toomey.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won't belabor it. I want to thank Councilor King for this item. And I'm going to echo him and Councilor Carlson. Not only is this short-sighted, it's insulting. It really is. If we want to build a strong physician pipeline in Worcester, we need to recruit and retain the best doctors. And these people are at UMass working 80 hours a week with a starting salary of $70,000. So I would also like to stand with UMass tonight and CIR and I urge UMass leadership to return to the table and negotiate a fair contract. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Toomey.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I echo my colleagues. I think it's absolutely abhorrent that these folks who work in health care don't have health care. It's ridiculous. And I do have a procedural question, and perhaps the city solicitor could answer it. I'm wondering about potential conflict where this is an SEIU bargaining unit and my colleague is a union member of the SEIU. I'm just curious if he needs to recuse himself. I'm voting for this, so that's not an issue. That's one of transparency.

Thank you. Madam Solicitor.

Through the chair, we defer to the individual for conflict. So if the councillor has a conflict, he could recuse himself.

Okay, thank you. Okay, so we are gonna vote this. Roll call.

Councillor Bergman.

What's that? Yeah, that's why we're doing the roll call, but everybody wanna sign on as amended? Roll call.

Yes. Yes.

Okay, 13B, the City Council, City of Wichita, does hereby oppose the pursuit, exploration, or entering into a 287G task force model agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or any other agreement or arrangement that gives the federal immigration powers to Wichita officials, Councilor King and Hajiaj?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate Councilor Haxhiaj signing on to this. Hopefully others will as well. I want to begin, Mr. Chairman, by stating the facts. There is a written executive order from the city manager in regards to our engagement with ICE and Worcester Police Department's engagement with ICE, etc. I want to acknowledge that this body, the mayor, myself and others have voted on policy to produce a policy related to all of that, that that has been rendered in writing. So I want to make that clear to the public as well. This is not an assault on that whatsoever, Mr. Chairman. I also want to state that I've had the opportunity to engage with the city manager, Chief Saucier, and his representatives, Deputy Chief McGinn, Deputy Chief D'Andrea, over the summer after the Latino Festival was canceled with the leadership of the Worcester Caribbean Association for their event here, including Representative Casey and a representative from Boston. And we engaged a number of times over a period of meetings where we established a few things, one of which was mentioned in the first release that we let out, which was at the the manager and the chief were in agreement that the next time there's such an engagement and the police are present they will request that ICE identify themselves that's documented that's in writing as well as I proceed I want to make sure that folks know this is a this is a preemptive shot for lack of a better word but it's a preemptive measure I guess is better that the city council of the city of Worcester does hereby opposing the pursuit expiration or entering into a 287 task force model agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or any other agreement or arrangement that gives federal immigration powers to Worcester officials. We've heard tonight testimony that here in the city of Worcester from our local community folks that are fighting against lawless, unconstitutional acts by the Trump administration. Here, federal, in the city, for folks who got their head in the sand and think that federal don't impact the city. And once again, that we have in Worcester, closing in on 60% of more children being detained by ICE, minors, many of whom should not be in that situation. Mr. Chairman, I want to take a few moments and say why it's critical for us as a city to take a clear and public stand against 287 , Mr. Chairman. This is not a time to turn a blind eye. Nor is it time to tend to bend the knee to these attacks. We know that the National Guard is being deployed by the Trump administration. We know that folks are taking more and more encroachment upon people's constitutional rights. And it's time for Worcester to stand. Mr. Chairman, the 287 program allows ICE to collaborate with state and local law enforcement to arrest and remove undocumented immigrants. I want to thank the ACLU for our ongoing communication. I want to thanks to the folks in the community that are working so hard, Luce, Neighbor to Neighbor, Friendly House. I'm going to miss some folks, all of our state delegation that's working on this issue. While the program is often, often, presented as targeting criminals, we know that in practice, that's rarely the case or not always the case. Instead, it separates hardworking families, Mr. Chairman. People have been contributing members of our neighborhoods and tearing apart communities. One specific version of this program, the task force model, allows local law enforcement officers, our police officers, to enforce immigration laws during their routine duties with ICE oversight. These officers are given training, resources, and tools to essentially act as ICE agents. This model doesn't just overextend our local police. Again, we keep asking them to do more and more. It damages trust within our communities and often leads to racial profiling. That risk is even more alarming now in light of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Vasquez v. Perdomo, which essentially legalizes racial profiling and immigration enforcement. And that, Mr. Chairman, is unacceptable. Mr. Chairman, let me be clear. Entering into a 287 task force agreement would be a step in the wrong direction for the Worcester Police Department. I want to add to that, I've had discussions with the city manager. I have no inclination that that is something in the works. To the contrary, this is again, a preemptive measure. While this isn't certainly under consideration at this time, I've introduced a resolution to make our position clear. Worcester is not going down that path. Right now, the only 287 agreement in Massachusetts is with the Department of Corrections through the jail enforcement model, which allows them to screen individuals in custody to determine their immigration status, potential to be detained and deported. However, we're seeing real pressure from federal authorities to expand this program. In fact, as of September 17th press release, from the Department of Homeland Security. The number of local and state agencies partnering with ICE has skyrocketed from 135 agreements during the Biden administration to over 1,000 today. That's a 641% increase. We need to stay vigilant in the city of Worcester and firm in our stance against policies that put our residents, immigrants, and communities of color at risk on site. The ACLU has released some deeply troubling statistics about the 287G program. especially during Trump's first term. When many of these disagreements were at the county level, 59% of all participating sheriffs had documented histories of anti-immigrant and xenophobic rhetoric. 55% made public statements, according to the ACLU, public statements advocating for inhumane immigration enforcement policies often based on misinformation. 65% had records of racial profiling other civil rights violations, including excessive use of force. And 77% operated detention facilities with severe undocumented inhumane conditions. By partnering with these facilities, the federal government especially condones these conditions. Despite calls from the ACLU and others to end this harmful program, we've seen this expansion now backed by legalized racial profiling. That should alarm all of us. Today, we have an opportunity to reaffirm our values and stand with our immigrant neighbors. By passing this resolution, we are making a clear statement. Worcester will not be complicit in a program that criminalizes families, undermines public trust and disproportionately targets communities of color. Let's be the kind of city that leads with compassion, justice, and inclusion. Let's pass this resolution, stand firmly as a council in letting the manager know that we are against the 287G program. Mr. Chairman, I want to reiterate the U.S. Supreme Court issued decision on Monday, September 8th reversing the judgment of lower courts that barred immigration agents from stopping individuals without reasonable suspicion and from relying solely on four factors, alone or in combination, including, and this is from that decision, one, their apparent race or ethnicity, two, you can be stopped whether you spoke Spanish or English with an accent. The type of location at which they were found and the type of job they agreed to work, Mr. Chairman. As such agreements become more common nationally, again, we should stand in opposition. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Council Hyjia.

Thank you, first of all, Councilor King, for bringing this forward. Before I share a few words with the public, Mr. Manager, may I ask you a couple of questions? Your executive order, prompted by what happened on Eureka Street, outlined what city employees and anything that happens in city buildings, there is no collaboration, sharing information with ICE agents.

Through you, District Council, you are correct. The executive order also combined was a policy for all our employees. The solicitor also put together a brochure that we trained our cabinet members and also encouraged them to train all employees. it also included the chief they gave a directive as part of this policy and executive order to all of the department the entire all personnel where they were required to sign off on that directive and also we we provided know your rights training to our staff and also provided know your rights training in partnership with ORI to the public so We've been very adamant, very strong in our position in terms of not providing any resources at all costs. I'm going to give you just an even brief example in the purpose of transparency. There was a moment where we were notified that there was someone being taken by ICE here in the city. They reached out to the police department asking for assistance for the potential of a tow truck or anything to tow the vehicles. We refused to provide that service to them. and we basically told them not to reach out anymore on that issue. So again, we've taken the position, the chief has taken that position, the department is fully aware and again, we have all documentation to provide that and that we've provided our staff and our community that we as a city took that strong position that we would not provide any resources to these agencies.

Thank you, Mr. Manager. I do want to publicly thank you and I want to publicly thank Chief Saucier for taking the opportunity to also meet, as I understand it, with leadership, people on the ground, folks who are doing the work on the ground. That shows that the open line of communication between the chief, yourself, and the people who are doing this work needs to stay open. I would like to ask you, are you and the chief committed to keeping that line of communication open with organizers on the ground?

To the council, yes, absolutely. We are more than welcome to have any further conversations with the community. One of the conversations just recently that came about, even with the mayor, we've been participating in conversations across the state with state leadership around this topic. and the importance of continuously opening the lines of communication to community, sharing information that we're receiving at the state level to community as well. So anything that we can do to continue to stay engaged is extremely important because ultimately for us as administration, we want to make sure and ensure that our residents feel safe. and that they know that there's an administration and a municipality that's going to do everything that we can to support them as our neighbors and not take part in any of these kind of activities.

Thank you, Mr. Manager. I do want to say a few words, and these are directly to our community and our immigrant neighbors, brothers and sisters, and those who are coming from refugee communities that are experiencing a lot of trauma. It is a good day because Rosanne, the mother that was torn apart from her children on Eureka Street on May 8th, by ICE agents was just granted asylum this afternoon. But the trauma, the indelible trauma that this family has experienced is not going away. Her two children are now in Brazil. Her youngest child is in foster care. This mother has lingered unconstitutionally in deportation proceedings after being torn apart by federal agents wearing masks and guns on my street, on my constituents' streets. and I take that personally. That story is very personal to me for many reasons. But I do want to remind the public that the first and last line of defense is our community. And while I appreciate the manager, I appreciate the chief of police and his people for committing to defending and not working with ICE as a bare minimum, I do want to say to the community that it is upon us It is upon us to make sure that we are taking care of our families. Mr. Manager and Mr. Mayor, I met with an African leader in the community last week. I met with a District 5 constituent, a leader in the Canyon community, and with an asylum seeker from the LGBTQ asylum. and in all those cases walking into a restaurant and seeing an empty restaurant and that business owner saying it is because of what is happening in our city. that I am losing business. To watch an asylum seeker who escaped his country with horrific death threats against him be like, I can't go outside because I am afraid. To watch a co-worker and someone I deeply respect who does work in the Kenyan community say that that church has to move now from Lowell to another town because ICE agents are outside our places of worship. They're outside our schools. They're outside in the streets. They're at Gala Foods on Main Street. They're coming back on Stafford Street. They're coming back on Webster Square. No corner of this city is safe from federal agents that are snatching people off our streets. And the bare minimum The bare minimum that this Councilor King do, like Councillor King mentioned, is make a strong statement of support, backing the city manager and backing the police department and its chief, to say that we will absolutely do more than just not agree to cooperate with ICE. We will stand firm like Mayor Wood did in Boston and say, get the hell out of our city. You will not harm one more resident in our city. And lastly, I will say a lot of people ask me, what can I do right now? What can I do right now, Etel? How can I help? And I'll tell you how you can help. You can talk to Gillian Phillips and Maide Morales. You can help the folks at the Friendly House who are seeing an increase in families not able to get food. You can help our families in our shelters that are afraid to go to work and construction workers afraid to go to workplaces because they have people hunting them like vultures. This is happening in our city. And the bare minimum that each of us can do is throw a couple of dollars and donations to those people on the ground who are doing the work. That's the bare minimum we can do. There's more we can do because this fight isn't over. This fight isn't over. We have a criminal in the White House that is intent on racially profiling our black and brown communities, our refugees, our asylum seekers, and our immigrants. and as the only immigrant born counselor in this council, I will say to my community, and every District 5 resident that I will never, ever, ever back down from having the backs of our families and our neighbors because Worcester families now and forever belong together. Thank you, Councilor King. Thank you, Mr. Manager. And thank you to the Chief of Police for taking this important commitment to our city.

Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I'm going to support this resolution because I think it's important. When I first met this lady who came to my office probably several months ago, she came to this country when she was 19 years old, 19 years old, and she's in her 60s. She has a professional job here in the city of Worcester. She asked not to be identified, so I'm going to say where she's working. and she came, she went out of the country for a women's conference and came back and spent four days in the ICE office building, no bed, nothing. One day up in Vermont at the, whatever they have in Vermont, the center there, then she spent 30 or 60 days in Texas. And her words stuck with me, she goes, I thought I was in the United States of America. How does this happen? She's crying in my office. I had no real response for her except apologies and that we have you back in the city of Worcester. We'll do our best. and to make sure that you get the services you need, the protection you need under the law and it's a shame. I go to a number of meetings, a number of churches I attend and other community events where they're talking about know your rights and et cetera and I spend a lot of my Sundays there and telling people and going over the know your rights, what you do Mr. Manager and understanding what the law is and what you can do and can't do I've been in meetings with the Attorney General's office and along with the Lieutenant Governor, other mayors throughout the Commonwealth on a regular basis and just talking about what they're doing, sharing ideas and best practices going forward. No, we've always been a welcoming city here in Worcester and from going back over 100 years, 200 years ago. With the immigrants accepting them, they're a big part of this community. They make this community better and stronger. And that's why I filed that law probably back in January of 2025, asking what the policies regarding ICE would be. And I know that you issued the executive order where you said the police don't enforce immigration law. and also we had a policy that we did internally for the employees and I know I met with the chief and community members and yourself to talk about protocols going forward and I know you had other meetings with community leaders and chief and I know we're working on the document and I think the community's in the hands of the community that we're waiting for them to get back to us on what we'd like to see in that document. I know we've worked on this since I think Eureka Street and so this is important to the community. I was just curious, this is more curiosity because I don't support this but I wanted to know Under this, I'm sorry, Councilor King, what was this? I didn't understand the argument. It was first filed, but I get it now. But what was... Under Massachusetts law, could we actually pass this law? I'm just out of curiosity. Has any Massachusetts city passed this?

To the chair, to the council, no, no city or municipality in the state of Massachusetts. The state law prohibits any municipal department in working with ICE.

okay so I understand that but this is important this is bigger than that though this is uh this is sending a message to the immigrant community that we care about you that uh you're part of this community I spent eight years going into the communities going to churches and immigrant groups especially under the first administration back in 2000 was it 16 through 20, but before President Biden came in and making the same cases, going in and listening and trying to comfort people. And I'll continue to do that. I just want to also correct, and I think a number of people said there was nothing in writing. We do have the executive order. We do have your policy. We're working on the policy with the community. I know you're doing that. I was doing that. So hopefully that will come out soon. And hopefully they get back to us soon so we can have a protocol going forward. and I'll continue to meet with, I talk to other mayors of major cities, what they're doing and it's pretty sad some of the stuff they tell me. Some of the plans they have, you know. And I have someone sitting there going to me and it's a conversation, well if I get arrested as a mayor, I already have protocols in place. Imagine that. I went to the fish show saying, I have protocols in place if I get arrested. Imagine that. When did this ever happen? it was bad enough eight years ago, it's just getting 10 times worse today. That's why whether we agree, disagree, I think we have to stay, as a community, stay strong and stay together as we move forward and making sure we're doing the right things. And I know some of the ideas that came out, I know a lot of people who have been detained and get out, don't want to use their names, don't want their pictures shown because they're afraid, right? But I think the Lieutenant Governor and other mayors talking about the idea, we should put that story out there. the lady that came here since she was 19, detained when she was in her 60s. Now how do you put those stories out there so they tie terms? Because in the United States of America, people are good people here in this country. Whether you're on the right or the left, you want to do the right thing. And you know this is the wrong thing. and that's why we need to get this message out of the people who have been detained, whether it be a youngster, two kids in Menden, I forget the town, but two teenagers, teenagers here, and they'll be detained. It's not right, it's just not right. It's not right for anybody to be detained, really, in my mind, unless you're a real criminal, you know? And then some nasty, bad things, but if you're just a normal working person and you just came to this country for a better life and we're forcing you out of here, It's the wrong thing. It's not the message that I brought up in my beliefs as a Christian, as a Catholic, that we work out after one another. So anyways, Mr. Manager, Mr. Chairman, I do support this measure going forward for the reasons I just stated, knowing that hopefully no city of town passes this. Thank you.

Thank you, we're gonna go Morris Bergman, Councilor at Large, followed by Kate Toomey, Councilor at Large. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I will say that no matter what I say, on this item will invariably be twisted and churned by some people as me being opposed to immigrants or in favor of what ICE is doing in general. But I will say that I do, maybe it's because of my vocation as an attorney, pay attention to language. this isn't about deciding whether or not ice is bad or good this is about opposing the pursuit exploration or entering into 287 task force model agreement the Worcester Police Department opposing them from pursuing 287g requires the Worcester Police Department to enter a letter of intent that they intend to pursue engaging in this program unless and until I hear a fact from the Worcester Police Department that they intend to engage in exploring or considering entering into this program. This is somewhat what Counselor King referred to it as preventive, but I look at it as hypothetical and, in fact, imaginary. It's a misleading premise. The Worcester Police Department has never filed a letter of intent to enter into a 287 program. So the comments about whether or not ice is bad or good, what they're doing or not doing, to me is not the issue because the resolution doesn't ask about our opinion about ice. You want to make a resolution about my opinion about ice and all of our opinions? Go ahead. I'll share it with everyone. But I don't have to justify my, and I won't justify my vote, which I intend to do on this, by my own family's history. Because there's no other person on this council that can say their family has suffered more. They may have suffered equally. And I'm not going to get into debating who suffered more or less by being treated as a stranger in their own country. But I'm not here to debate whether or not my family, your family, someone else's family got treated better or worse. I'm here simply to vote on an order that's asking me to oppose something the Worcester Police Department hasn't done. And if Chief Saucy was here, maybe we could have a different discussion about this item. But when I hear colleagues of mine go off, and I'm going to say go off on the track, about ice is bad, ice is good, so on and so forth. I'm kind of blown away by how can we not be focusing on what the resolution asks us to. And then I'm reminded, I'm not so blown away anymore, the season we're in, and what this may or may not be about. There is not one city of Massachusetts, according to what I've looked at, and it's an ACLU report, that is now involved in a 287 program. Councilor King referred to one. Maybe there is one. I could have missed it. But there certainly isn't a deluge of cities and towns signing up for this. We've been talking about ICE for months, and this item is on the agenda, the meeting before the last meeting before the election. So I am going to vote on what this order is asking, and it's asking for a resolution, asking the police department, opposing the police department pursuing, exploring, or entering into its 287G agreement, which Councillor King, by his own words, has indicated hasn't happened yet. I'm not gonna vote on a hypothetical or an imaginary premise. I'm gonna vote on what facts are before me and the fact is there's nothing to oppose because nothing has happened. yet and if something were to happen I'd be happy to get up again and discuss my position regarding this and again as I finish I know what I've said tonight's going to get twisted in turn that somehow I'm in favor of one thing or against another but if Councilor King wanted my opinion on ICE He could have put a resolution and asked about it. He's asking me to oppose something that doesn't exist, and I don't oppose or support things that don't exist. That's not my job. We have plenty of things that do exist that we can spend time on, not imaginary items before an election. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Councilor Toomey.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On the Worcester Police Department webpage, There is a section in Worcester Police frequently asked questions on immigration. It's available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Twi. Question, can I be detained or deported by the Worcester Police Department because of my immigration status during a general police encounter such as a motor vehicle stop, a call for service, or a request for medical aid? Answer, no. Worcester Police Department does not have the authority to enforce federal immigration laws. You will not be arrested or detained by Worcester Police Department solely because of immigration status. Question, can I be detained or deported by the Worcester Police Department because of my immigration status if I report a crime or am a witness to a crime? Answer, no. The Worcester Police Department does not have the authority to enforce federal immigration laws. We are committed to equal enforcement of the law and equal service to all members of the community, regardless of immigration status. Question, can a Worcester police officer stop or detain someone solely to check on immigration status? The answer is no. Worcester police officers cannot stop or detain someone to check immigration status. Question, does the Worcester Police Department enforce federal immigration laws? No, local police, including the Worcester Police Department, do not have authority to enforce federal civil immigration laws. Local police may, however, cooperate with federal law enforcement on criminal matters unrelated to immigration status. Question, does the Worcester Police Department detain people based solely on immigration status? Answer, no, Massachusetts case law The Commonwealth versus Lund prevents local police from detaining people based solely on immigration status. Question. Do federal immigration officers have enforcement authority in Worcester? Yes. Federal immigration officers have full authority to enforce immigration laws anywhere in the country, including Worcester. The Worcester Police Department does not have the authority to prohibit federal immigration officers from coming into our jurisdiction, nor are federal officers required to obtain Worcester Police Department approval before taking action within the community. Question. If I am arrested by a Worcester police officer, will they ask about my immigration status? No. The Worcester Police Department does not inquire about immigration status during the booking process. However, once fingerprinted, Other law enforcement agencies could be electronically notified that you are, God bless you, in police custody and for what charges. Question. Will the Worcester Police Department accompany U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, otherwise known as ICE agents, when they're acting under their authority within Worcester? The answer is possibly. The Worcester Police Department does not participate in civil immigration enforcement or detain individuals solely based on ICE detainees, detainers. However, Worcester police officers may be present during a federal enforcement action to maintain public safety and protect bystanders. Question, does the Worcester School District communicate student immigration status to the Worcester Police Department? Answer, no. Officers do not ask about immigration status during encounters with students. How do I find out if someone I know has been detained by ICE? There are a few ways to inquire about a specific ICE detention. Check the ICE online detainee locator. They have the link. Contact the Boston ICE Enforcement Removal Operations Field Office with the link and phone number. Submit a FOIA, Freedom of Information, request to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with ICE. And then four, check with your local police department. Please keep in mind, federal law enforcement agencies may check in with and request assistance from local law enforcement as it relates to federal law enforcement action taking place in a specific municipality. However, they are not legally required to. This means your local police department may or may not have knowledge of the results of any federal law enforcement activity within their jurisdiction. Again, that's on the front page of the City of Worcester Police Department website for anybody to get answers to questions that they have and I think that those are all very good questions. One thing that was brought up and I think is a legitimate concern is What would the chief want? And what would he say? And so because he's not here, I'd like to have the opportunity to be able to have him answer questions. So I would like to hold this under privilege. Thank you.

Anybody else? Councillor Passillo.

So I want to begin by appreciating the work that is being done by the city manager and his administration, my colleagues, Chief Saucier, members throughout the community, and the Human Rights Commission. ICE has no place in Worcester. Our city is built on neighborhoods where we look out for each other and families that step up in times of need. all ICE does is spread fear. They keep people from going to work or a doctor's visit. They keep people from sending their kids to school. And that is not who we are. We are a community and we stick together. I reject the idea that our own government should be grabbing people off the street like some kind of dystopian novel. I am absolutely horrified by videos of kids being torn from their parents, Conditions and detainment centers and even the constant stream of commercials on TV and the radio offering people tens of thousands of dollars to join ICE. Elected officials across the country have been speaking out against ICE. Mayor Wu's demanded transparency. Mayor Johnson in Chicago vowed that they will not cooperate with ICE. and I am really happy that Worcester is following suit. And let's be clear, the current administration spent nearly $100 million on a military parade. If a government can spend that kind of money on a parade, I don't think they need to take a cent of our local resources. There is no place in our city for a federal agency that is terrorizing families throughout the country. I look forward to passing this resolution tonight or our next meeting or anytime. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Russell.

Mr. Chairman, when Councilor King passed this around, or the Clark's office, I should say, passed it around on his behalf, and I asked if folks wanted to sign on to it. To be honest, which I had never heard of it before. I contacted the law department city solicitor and asked just what it was. And she gave me some references and things to look at to explain what the item was which was very helpful and I appreciate that. You know, My concern about this is, first of all, Mr. Chairman, I got up and while there was some public testimony going on tonight, I got up and I went over to the rail there next to the manager and I said, are you listening to these folks? Are you listening to the folks calling in? And I said, because they think that this is something that this city is actually considering doing. If you listen to the voices of the people that called in and some of the people that came to the microphone, those voices and those concerns were at least to me as someone listening and I like to think that I've listened a lot over the last 14 years and I'm pretty good at listening. and many of them had a feeling, they were expressing that they thought this was something that the city of Worcester was actually considering or maybe even doing. And the manager said, you know, absolutely not. So I think that what I'm concerned about and what I want to make sure that the public hears from this council tonight and going forward that this administration and this council never has and never will. They never have and they never will take part in this, what is it, 287G, and that this administration and this council will never do that. and I would make a personal appeal, Mr. Chairman, through you to Councilor Toomey to move this item tonight and to withdraw her hold on this item. and to take this because I think the message needs to be clear in the community. If there needs to be a report or if the counselor wants a report from the chief or from the administration, ask for the report and let's get it back as soon as possible. The manager has already given everything in writing. but if you want more, ask for the report. But let's take the vote tonight. Let's get this, let's move this on. Let's let the community know that this city government never have and never will. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Councillor Mussoheda.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Sorry, George, Council Russell. Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I don't understand why why we need to go back and forth with this. You know, it was said that, you know, let's let's let's hear back from from the chief. You know, there was a item brought on earlier that the chief wasn't here for. And the item still passed. Right. So we agreed to pass it, although it was amended. We still pass it at the end of the day. the way I see this is written and we all see it differently obviously and we're entitled to that what I what I'm getting from this is we let's just not venture into exploring or entering in the 287G or, you know, or pursued it. It's letting the city know, letting the chief know, the city manager, everybody know that don't even bother, right? Because we as a council do not agree. We as a council will stand together and I'm hoping tonight we do because we're seeing this time and time again. You know, everybody's been probably, someone from your community someone from your district has reached out to you for support regarding this you may know someone that knows someone that's actually dealing with this as we speak right now and it's really tough that we can't do anything to help them where they're at but as a city we can say we just don't support that we're not going to allow it in our city I think we need to continue to try to take a stand as a council to make sure that these things like this do not happen in our city thank you thank you council Toomey

Mr. Chair, I will accept a request for report. I'm just curious, and I will withdraw my hold, but I'm just curious where this came from. I don't recall anybody saying anything about entering into any agreement before, so I'm just curious where that came from. So we find out where this came from.

Yeah, through the chair to the council, I'm not aware. This is an order, a resolution by Councilor King. The first time I ever and so forth. The first time I saw what this was was when the agenda came out and I read the agenda and I saw the orders and then I called the counselor and we had a conversation because I didn't even have a clue what this was either. The chief didn't have any clue what this was either. He'd never heard about it and him and I are locked in step that we're in disagreement of this. We're not going to do that as a city. We've made our position through our executive order and our policies and our directives to the department I don't know where it came from. It came from the counselor who put it forward. But we as a city, we had no knowledge of what this is. We had no understanding. We learned about it through our solicitor who kind of explained to us in my conversations with the current council that put it forward. And we don't support it.

OK. So the bottom line is it's almost like it just seemed to have come out of nowhere. And certainly, you're saying that we would never engage. you said that the chief said that we would never engage we've been very clear about I just read what was on the police department's front page of the website right very clear about the rules and regulations right so I just don't understand where this came from uh again I'll withdraw my hold and uh ask for a report

Mayor Joseph M. Petty.

Okay, it's getting late. But Mr. Chairman and I want to thank Council Toomey for taking the hold off. I appreciate that. And the reason I'm just getting down again because this is more than just words and we can say this doesn't mean anything because under state law you can't do this anyways. But there's a community out there that's suffering. We're scared, they're scared, and they're scared. and they're afraid to go out to the doctor's appointment, go up to any of the community hospitals in the city and the outreach. They don't go to their appointments, their hospital appointments, their doctor's appointments, they don't go to their churches, they don't go to their jobs, they're afraid to send their kids to school because of what's going on in this country. And nobody deserves to live like that. Nobody. And these aren't criminals. I think we all agree that if you're a bad person, a really bad person, and you're a criminal, I have no problem with people being taken away. But these are just people who came for a better life because America promised them a better life. And we're not the failures here. They're blaming the cities. We didn't cause this problem. The federal government caused this problem going back 40 years. They haven't solved it, and they're pinning it on us, saying the cities, whether it be Boston, Chicago, Worcester, this is our problem. We didn't cause this problem. We took people in because the federal government allowed them to come in, and mostly for the right reason, whether it be refugees, whether maybe they're just seeking a better life here, We didn't cause this problem, but they've twisted this to say the cities are the problems. How well run was this city over the last couple of decades, this accepting people? Why do people come here? Why do people come here? Because we know you're gonna be accepted here. They know, they know. Not just the immigrant group, but all the other different groups. They come here because they feel safe to come to the city of Worcester. and they feel safe enough to let their kids grow here, get educated here and live the American dream. So I think it's time, you know, we balance this back and forth. We say, you know, should we speak out? Should we attract people to come here now as we speak out? People are nervous about that. But you know, some of the end of the day, I see Michelle Wu up there. I stood with Michelle Wu a few weeks ago at her press conference, you know, and she stands up strong. And we all just need to stand up strong because we didn't cause this problem. We didn't cause this problem. and we can fix the problem but that's why I'm voting for this tonight because this sends a message whether you disagree with the wording or whatever it just sends a message to this group of people who just want to live a better life and we offer them that better life here in the city and we'll continue to do so. Thank you. Councilor King for, I guess, the final word.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank Councilor Toomey for withdrawing the motion. And I respect the request that you made for your order that I will support. Mr. Chairman, the voices I hear tonight were please don't voices. As mentioned, folks are hurting. Folks aren't reporting crimes. They're not going to school. They're staying hidden. Even folks who are here legally. I stand before you as the son-in-law of a political refugee from Laos, my wife's father, who moves differently now. I talked many weeks ago about a gentleman from Worcester from Liberia 30 years here permanent asylum who was taken at gunpoint in front of his eight-year-old daughter and five-month-old child kept in a room for four to five days where no one could reach him. He was in Burlington, Vermont, in Plymouth. And during that time, pressured every day in like an office, wasn't putting in a cell or anything, pressured to repeatedly throughout the day sign voluntary deportation documents, even though they have their documents. I had to reach out to Congresswoman Elizabeth Warren's office and her chief, a head of immigration affairs, while that wife or girlfriend, her significant other, was crying daily. They wouldn't accept the paperwork. They finally accepted the paperwork. That man is still locked up from this spring. I bumped into his daughter at Gates Lane and her mother two weeks ago. still waiting for a court date. Still, loss of job, loss of dad, children traumatized. There's real fear there. We take an oath when we're sworn in, Mr. Chairman. We take an oath to uphold the Constitution as elected officials and an elected body, whatever that means. That's meant for some folks to put their body, their actual bodies in the way of constitutional violations. We've seen people again picked up kids here in our city. No due process based on your look. Do you have an accent? Are you a person of color? All of that stuff is going on. Mr. Chairman, I received a phone call three days ago that I wasn't going to talk about telling me that in the Boston area there's a hotel where 200 agents, 200 ICE folks checked in. for the Commonwealth of Mass. We don't know where they're going. We don't know what they're doing. And I take personal umbrage at any suggestion this is a political stunt. This is the result of people, Mr. Chairman, children, families, folks like us who are in the churches, folks like us that are in those communities hearing this was not something filed likely. I look forward to a unanimous support of this item, Mr. Chairman. Our police department, city manager, the mayor of this council, we've been pretty good, but what folks are looking for is the resolution of this elected body to reassure them. We appreciate the school committee and the superintendent and all the work that they do.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Councilor Bergman, your second time.

Thank you. Through the chair, I'd like to ask city manager, very briefly, just a couple last questions before I wind down and let the vote happen. Through the chair to the city manager, you've indicated there's an executive order. You've explained it. I think we all support the executive order. Is there anything that this is asking us to do at that executive order? Is there anything for us to oppose in this that hasn't already been stated by the police chief he's not going to do?

Mr. Manager?

Through the chair to the council, I think if you were looking at specificity, this calls into action a specific task force model agreement. The executive order doesn't speak specifically to that task force, but it does speak in general about the relationship between the municipal department and ICE.

It speaks to that relationship, but not specifically to... All right, but through the chair, you said you spoke to the police chief about this. where it came up. Yeah, yeah, we spoke today about this issue. And you indicate he knew nothing about it.

Him and I were not aware of anything. We've never discussed it.

We didn't even know what it was. So does that indicate to you that he submitted a letter of intent to try to explore or consider doing this?

No, we've never sent any letter of intent, because again, we didn't even know what it was. We never discussed it.

Thank you, thank you. Chairman, as I said when I started, this was, and I gotta give credit to my colleague, Councilor King, this was worded in a very, very clever way that there's almost no way to oppose this without somebody saying, and I will say it, I said that in the beginning, that you're a racist, so on and so forth, by not supporting this. But again, I'm gonna go back to my responsibility, which is to vote on the language. Now, Mr. Chairman, you indicated that the community is looking for us to support them. I agree. but this could have been done in a way that would have been 100%, all 10 of us, in agreement. That's support for the community, wording that all of us agree on. This unfortunately is wording in a way that not all of us are gonna agree on. I can tell you, I can't support it, I just said that. It's not gonna be unanimous. So it's disappointing to me disappointing to me that this could not have been done in a way, words matter, in a way that we all could have been supportive to the community without us asking to vote on something that is imaginary. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

Point of order, Mr. Chairman. Can we have a vote? I guess, I'll just ask a quick question, maybe we can, is the word pursuit the only word that's, and this is that, your objectionable to?

I'm objecting to the premise that there's something to oppose when there's nothing that exists to oppose. So I don't know how you changed that wording, but there are a number of ways this could have been worded in a way to support our immigrant community so that they don't feel threatened, but that didn't happen.

Okay, so we're gonna take a vote on a roll call. Roll call.

Yes. Motion to reconsider Mr. Chairman. I guess, yeah.

Motion to reconsider?

Sure. 16-A to 16-D.

Motions to accept and adopt on the roll call. Roll call.

Councilor Bergman. Yes. Councilor Colorio.

Yes.

Councilor Haxhiaj. Yes. Councilor King. Yes. Councilor Mero-Carlson. Yes. Councilor Nguyen, Councilor Ojeda. Yes. Councilor Pacillo. Yes. Councilor Russell. Yes. Councilor Toomey. Yes. And Mayor Petty.

Yes. 16 E to 16 Z. Motions to accept and adopt. All those in favor, oppose, so audit. 17A to 17I, motions accept and adopt. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. 17J to 17U, motions accept. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. 18A to 18C, motions to advertise the proposed ordinances, roll call.

Councilor Bergman? Yes. Councilor Colorio?

Yes.

Councilor Haxhiaj?

Yes.

Councilor King? Yes. Councilor Mero-Carlson? Yes. Councilor Nguyen, Councilor Ojeda? Yes. Councilor Pacillo?

Yes.

Councilor Russell? Yes. Councilor Toomey? Yes. And Mayor Petty?

Yes. 18D, motions is accepted to adopt. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered. 18E to 18P, motions to accept. All those in favor, opposed, so ordered.

Motion to adjourn.

Mr. Chairman, I have a suspension of rules. Full Haxhiaj. Suspend the rules. Okay, roll call.

To suspend the rules, Councillor Bergman? Yes. Councillor Colorio? Mr. Chairman, I came across Dr. Castile today.

I believe that today is her last day, I could be wrong. I thought it was last Friday and I was glad I got the chance to bump into our champion and she was someone that you know was integral in the formation of my governing in the beginning I don't know if we came in at the same time or she had just been here for a bit and her commitment to the city and public health on so many levels, Mr. Chairman. And just by way of a motion, I would have filed it. I don't know when the next meeting is or whatever the case might be. just a motion asking the city administration to publicize what the next steps are for the division that she was commissioner of Mr. Chairman and you know I with what's the city's being confronted with with public health and sheltered the lack of resources for mental health etc our youth division, if we can get a public transparent process and what that will entail. If the city manager wants to speak to anything or any plans he has already to do that, I would certainly defer to him, but that would be my motion, Mr. Chair.

Okay, so I want to thank Dr. Castile for her service, and she was dedicated. Will you agree or disagree? She was a dedicated public servant. And we'll come forward to the report. All those in favor, opposed, so awarded. Motion to adjourn. All those in favor, opposed, so awarded.