City Council

METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE Chairman Saba called the regular meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. via Zoom with all members present. Councilor Simard acted as Vice-Chair. Chairman Saba confirmed with all Councilors that they had been sworn in for this term. Everyone has been sworn in. He noted all votes would be roll call votes. MOTION BY: Councilor DiZoglio, seconded by Councilor Simard to invoke Resolution TR-20-14 Continuity of Government and Remote Meetings. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: 8 yes, 1 no (Clr. Faretra) Acceptance of the Agenda MOTION BY: Councilor Zeigler, seconded by Councilor Simard to accept the agenda. Chairman Saba noted that the Mayor’s report was inadvertently omitted. He was advised by the Solicitor that due to Open Meeting Laws Council should not amend to add it. Chairman Saba stated that he thought because of an emergency situation we would need an update on COVID and that Council can move to add this to the agenda and have a full Mayor’s report. Attorney McQuillan said given the circumstances supplied by the Chair, it would be within the discretion of the Chairman to entertain a motion to amend the agenda. MOTION BY: Councilor Zeigler, seconded by Councilor Simard to amend the agenda to add the Mayor’s report as 7A. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor DiZoglio to accept the agenda as amended. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes Pledge of Allegiance/Invocation Councilor Zeigler led the Council in the Pledge of Allegiance and gave the Invocation for the evening. Election of Council Chairman Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor Simard to nominate Councilor D.J. Beauregard.as 2022 Chairman UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes Councilor Saba passed the gavel to Chairman Beauregard. Chairman Beauregard expressed gratitude to his colleagues. He is honored that they placed their trust in him to lead the Legislative Branch of our city’s government for the coming year. He is excited to work with the Council and the administration to help move Methuen forward and ensure that the best interest of our city’s residents is protected. 1 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE Election of Council Vice-Chairman Councilor Saffie nominated Councilor Zeigler for Vice-Chair MOTION BY: Councilor Simard, seconded by Councilor Saba to nominate Councilor DiZoglio for Vice-Chair. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: 5 votes for Councilor Zeigler, 4 votes for Councilor DiZoglio (Clr. DiZoglio,, Clr. Finocchiaro, Clr. Saba, and Councilor Simard) Councilor Zeigler thanked the Council for their support as Vice-Chairwoman. She looks forward to supporting the Chairman and making sure we have a professional Council moving forward, that each and every Councilor is supported in their initiatives to move the city forward and look at new and inventive ways to bring resources to our community. MOTION BY: Councilor DiZoglio, seconded by Councilor Simard to reconsider to reflect a unanimous vote for Vice-Chair. Attorney McQuillan said a motion to reconsider can only be made by the prevailing side. The votes were negative from Councilor DiZoglio and he would not have standing to make that motion. The motion for reconsideration has to be made by the member of the voting block that carried the motion, the members who voted positively for Councilor Zeigler. Councilor DiZoglio withdrew the motion. Councilor McCarty noted there has to be intervening business before the motion to reconsider can be made. Councilor DiZoglio was trying to put forward a symbolic motion for unanimous support for our new Vice-Chairwoman Councilor Zeigler. It is important for the residents who are watching to show that this Council is united behind our new leadership. MOTION BY: Councilor McCarty, seconded by Councilor DiZoglio to put forward a symbolic vote for unanimous support for our new Vice-Chair. UPON ROLL VOTE: UNANIMOUS vote for Councilor Zeigler Adoption of Council Rules January 2022 MOTION BY: Councilor Zeigler, seconded by Councilor Saba to adopt. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes Meeting Schedule for 2022 MOTION BY: Councilor Simard, seconded by Councilor Saffie to approve. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes Reading and Acceptance of Minutes from Previous Meetings: None PROCLAMATION/CORRESPONDENCE - None 2 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE PRESENTATION/PROJECTS/DEPARTMENT HEAD - None PUBLIC PARTICIPATION - None MAYOR’S REPORT Mayor Perry congratulated the Chair and Vice-Chairwoman and wished everyone a Happy Healthy New Year. The most pressing topic is COVID. We are approaching 1200 positive cases in the week, a factor three times greater than what we typically see at our peak. The numbers are high. The good news is in most cases the severity of the illness is not debilitating and impacting. But there are hospitalizations and deaths. There has not been any, to his knowledge, in the last week. There is a lot that we need to do. Felix Zemel agreed with Mayor Perry. Mayor Perry said they appreciate Council doing this meeting remotely until we see the peak come down. This was “as predicted”. If you are following what the Epidemiologist is saying there is light at the end of the tunnel. It may take everybody to get this second round of COVID vaccine. Around the end of February things are supposed to start looking better. The numbers will probably start looking better towards the end of January. Schools were opened today but, he didn’t have a chance to talk to the Superintendent today. He spoke with her twice last night. They were gearing up to prepare for staff absences and they distributed tests. We have ordered 8,000 tests in partnership with the Town of Dracut and Town of Tyngsboro. There is a limited order of at-home tests that can be ordered. The tests are expected seven to ten days from the date ordered. Eight thousand kits are sixteen thousand tests. That is approximately an $80,000 impact. They are using the health care account. If the city decides to do more, they will come to Council because they would probably have to go to ARPA money to get the tests. He has also reached out to the state today because the testing centers in the city are overwhelmed, which some Councilors have reported that to him. The Health Center on Pelham Street opened early today. People got in quickly in the early hours and then as the regular hours came down, it was a multiple hour wait to get in and get tested. The same is true for the private clinic that is not connected to the city on Haverhill Street. AFC is still doing it and is no longer a “stop the spread” site with the state. There are insurance costs associated. The Mayor said he spoke with Lisa Williams from AFC. She said she was very interested in becoming a “stop the spread” center again and that was the second part of his call to the state today was A) we need more help for the testing and B) we’ve got AFC Urgent Care that could do more and would like to come and stop the spread test center. “How do we get them back in the fold?” It is not like we are sitting here doing nothing. We are trying to address it. He didn’t know if Council had a chance to see the news report that came out about Springfield where the Mayor had to call out the National Guard. They had to disperse people away from the test center. The city has had to put 3 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE police details out on Pelham Street and almost had to put one over on Haverhill Street. The numbers are overwhelming. There is no need to panic right now. Many people are getting COVID. Most people who don’t have underlying health symptoms are seeing mild conditions. It is all the more reason to get vaccinated. There are two sites at the YWCA that are walk in and you can get any of the three types of vaccines: Johnson and Johnson, Moderna, Pfizer, first, second or third shot and then we have a Booster clinic for Moderna only at Sanborn Hall Thursday. One of the most difficult things we are having in addition to getting tests is finding nurses to be able to give the vaccines. Nurses are at a premium now and it is getting very difficult to find them. The city appreciates the ones that work with us and we are going to keep trying to make an agreement with some agencies. It is not on tonight’s agenda, but he does have the camera program for the next Council agenda. They are working on the funding source for the camera program like they did on the software on tonight’s agenda. He and the Chief have talked about it and want extensively. It is part of what we are trying to do with our police force across the community. Councilor Simard mentioned working on extending the hours. When he went down there this past Saturday, he spoke to some of the tech there who are in need of swabbers. Maybe we can get the National Guard to help out. Mayor Perry noted it would not hurt if Councilors called the state as well. He’s talking to the executive offices of Human Services and will provide the number to Council. Councilor Faretra asked if all the information was sent to ANF through Maggie Duprey’s office. The discussion was to have it all sent in by Christmas. Mayor Perry responded, no. Maggie sent information like we did with the rental assistance. She sent one whole week and showed how we tracked employees who were working to the cause they were working on. She took the fire and police and cross referenced them and sent them to Kevin Sweeney who is on vacation. The CAFO said she did not get a commitment, but she did send the sample to try and get confirmation that we’re doing the right things. As soon as she hears back from them, she will move forward with the rest of the information. Councilor Faretra mentioned that Superintendent Angelo sent an email to him earlier about the ARPA projects for the parks. Pretty much everything has been denied. He asked the Mayor if he had an updated list to share with the Council of what was approved and denied. Mayor Perry explained the compliance said “no” to all the parks upgrades. He has tasked Steve Angelo to work with Councilor Faretra and Matt Curran at the high school to take that $400,000 plus a couple of grants that he has applied for, put it all in a bucket, and say “how do we best use it?”. Knowing that we are doing a Capital Improvement Project on the playground at Oakland Avenue do we take that half a million, most of it coming from the Rail Trail and put it all in one place or do we split it up to the various fields across the city. “How is it best used?” He has also asked him to investigate sponsorship from businesses to improve the parks. As far 4 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE as the whole list from ARPA, he has not reviewed that yet with the CAFO she has not reviewed it with him. The intent is to do that. She is waiting on one answer. The CAFO explained she is waiting to hear about the revenue recognition amount. They have to do a calculation to see how much we are able to use of the ARPA funds. That is the piece that give us a little bit more flexibility. It is a key piece to bring forward as part of the picture of what’s available and what’s not available for those discussions. Unfortunately, our consultant had COVID last week and she was out. She is hoping to hear back from her as well so that she can give a cohesive package of what is and what is not available for us to move forward with. It is pending the consultant’s return. Mayor Perry explained everything was submitted, what the city asked for and Melanson will say “yes” this is compliant or “no” this doesn’t comply. Then will sit together and prioritize which ones you want to do. Councilor Faretra noted there is an agenda item tonight once again listing ARPA funds as a “retention”. He asked if the “retention stipends” are an approved item to use ARPA funds for. The CAFO responded, the majority of the cases, yes. There are a few exemptions that she is on top of. She said they are being approved by ARPA. She is unsure about what he is speaking about tonight. Councilor Zeigler referred to the Mayor who said the city has a partnership with Dracut and Tyngsboro to receive 8,000 tests split between the three communities. Mayor Perry responded, yes. Councilor Zeigler asked about the distribution plan for the tests. Mayor Perry explained the city distributed some before with the drive-thrus. The city went to certain groups, Mann, Inc. YMCA, Senior Center, specific targeted areas of the city and then took the balance and went to the drive thru. The city pulled some back because the demand for the drive thru was so great. It is going to take seven to ten days to get those and he will work on a distribution plan for that. He worries that people are using them unnecessarily. He got a call from a resident who was panicked that needed a test kit because a relative had tested positive that morning. You can’t test yourself that day. That is not going to benefit you because the cycle, the window itself, says that up to two days before and three days after. You want to wait a minimum of three days before you test. We don’t want to have people who have been exposed and testing themselves. We want to make the maximum use of them. He doesn’t see this as a one-time purchase. He believes he’ll be coming back to Council saying: “we need to buy more”. We have an action item to come back to Council and say: “this is the distribution plan”. He is comforted by the fact that our distribution plan we used for the ones received from the state mirrored what Haverhill did, what Lowell did, what Lawrence did, what was consistent. We want to make sure that we’re getting it in the hands of the people who need it the most. Councilor Zeigler noted that in Lawrence some of the City Councilors passed out tests and were a point of distribution. She is willing to volunteer to help distribute tests as well. She 5 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE thinks it is important for people to have access. One of the concerns that she heard from the community was there was concern that they had to be symptomatic in order to receive a test. We need to look at that a little bit more because there are several people with this new strain that are “Asymptomatic”. She wants to make sure that there’s education that goes out there and that people who really need it are getting access to it without barriers, economic or otherwise. Mayor Perry agreed. Councilor Zeigler asked Mayor Perry for a timeline regarding Munis. The CAFO explained we are in the process right now of working on our Charter of accounts with Tyler Technologies from Munis. Our CIO starts tomorrow. We are excited to get him on board for many reasons. One of them being he has experience with Munis and all of the background that goes along with that. We have our next meeting with them next week as well as stages of meetings going on. As far as the actual timing of everything, we gave them all of our black out dates, and are still waiting on them to put a schedule together and give it back to us. We are still at that stage working with the Charter of Accounts to make sure that we are still moving forward even without that calendar. Councilor Zeigler said she received a number of questions from the community about the city’s involvement notifying the public on housing lotteries that are taking place. One resident in particular reached out and was interested in the housing lottery that took place for the apartments across from the Loop that told her there wasn’t notification that went out. She didn’t see one and is not sure if there was one. Mayor Perry said the city did the one on Broadway and did a press release. He would have to check on the other. Councilor Zeigler asked if management would be amenable to opening it back up if it did go out due to lack of public notification. She asked for the status of the long-range plan for the Searles Building upgrades, the HVAC, the windows, etc. Mayor Perry said part of the airflow was done using CARES money. Council approved the contract that was $760,000 to do the airflow which was done first. We are working on the HVAC. It is still his intent to sell the windows which Council will see in 2022. He is going to buy the very first one in his mother’s memory. Each window will be priced. The architect went through and said: “here’s what you need to do to these windows”. We are going to price each of the windows and then we are going to run a marketing program that says “buy a window in memorial of a loved one” or remember Tenney High great, for example. His mother was a Searles High Class of 52 grad. He is going to buy the first window and have it donated with a bronze plaque in her name. The window, the heating, the air, the HVAC were the biggest elements that we have to do. There are also some roof elements that the city will address come budget season. Pat Bower, DPW Director, said there were some roof penetrations designed as part of the HVAC system. The city decided to take a step back on that. It was return air. They are now 6 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE going to up through the center chimney so you can’t see it from the ground or the street. There were some penetrations that would take away from the look of the building. They decided to go back to the drawing board on that part of the project. While they were up on the roof, they noticed there was some significant deterioration on that slate roof. He met with a roofing individual who works on historic roofs and will put together a spec. The city will look at that more in the spring. There is a new door going in on the far side of customer service on Friday. That will keep people contained in customer service so they can’t sneak by when it is busy there. The work in the Searles building is ongoing. They will be working on the new Solicitor’s office and some additional work on the third floor starting this week. Mayor Perry explained that all Councilors will be issued badges with ‘pods’ on them to come in. That is something that they planned all along as part of the customer service center. When you walk in the first glass door, it will slide open automatically, stop at customer service. If you have an appointment, you go upstairs. Unless you have a badge, you would have to be buzzed in by somebody in customer service. Councilor Saba noted that test kits were picked up at pick up centers such as the police department. He asked if they were also included in packages that were given out to individuals whether they distributed through different organizations or anything. Mayor Perry said the original intent was to distribute some with CARES meals, but he doesn’t think the city did that. The city pulled them back from CARES. Felix Zemel said they were distributed through the “adopt a family program” at Mann Inc. and the School Superintendent gave it to our English language learners as well through the School Department. The YMCA also gave some out to Methuen families as well. Councilor Saba said we are short and can’t get these tests right now. People can’t find them anywhere. These tests are a little complicated and people have to follow the instructions to the “T”. He doesn’t want tests wasted and people to get them if they didn’t ask for them. They either throw them away or they don’t even follow the directions on the test. He doesn’t have a problem with giving them out at these different locations; but it is almost like he’d rather see a sign or notation just telling people “if you would like a test, ask for one” rather than just randomly giving them out. He is concerned that a small percentage of people are tossing them aside and are being wasted when they are needed right now. Mayor Perry agreed. Councilor Saba asked when the Council is going to see the Melanson Report. The CAFO said she is hoping to get the revenue, the last piece of the picture, from Melanson this week. She was told the auditor would be getting it to the city this week. Once the city has that, they will have the full picture of what is and what is not available to use. That piece is really important because it gives us a little bit more flexibility on some of the projects they may have said don’t fit somewhere else but may be something that the Council, the Mayor, and the administration wants to move forward. Once we have all of that together then they will bring forward the entire picture to the Council. Everything submitted to Melanson will be 7 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE brought forward to Council, whether they said “yes” or “no” and the items that they said “yes” to will also say what compliance they fall under. We are hopeful to get that information from Melanson this week so that we can share it before the next meeting. Councilor Saba said that would be helpful. As he indicated the other day, we’ve lost a lot of time waiting for this report and when he looks at the list of requests he is concerned. He knows that Council was told they would have input and once Council gets that report they will. He hopes the input is not, “okay here is the report, here’s what we want to spend Councilors, “yes” or “no” on this”. There are some very important items that have to be addressed that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to address them. He’d like the opportunity, as promised, to have input before the decision is made. The CAFO had the various departments provide a report and she sent it in. At that point, Council was not included in it. There are a lot of things on the list he would like to see the city get but a lot of it is budget related or grant related. He doesn’t see critical issues on here like the DPW building which is in seriously bad condition and not serving our community well, costing us money all the time by not having a proper facility. Water and Sewer lines that as the cold weather hits, we’re going to have water main breaks, especially on the west side of the city that, he knows some of the sewer lines are included here; but the majority of this money needs to be put into this infrastructure. We are talking about lines that are over one hundred years old. They are brittle and they leak, etc. This is our chance. No Councilor, no Mayor, is ever going to want us to spend money on, that we have this opportunity to do a once in a lifetime upgrade to the city. That is what he is concerned about. He wants to make sure Council gets the report and they do have that honest, open discussion. The Mayor said to him that he could send an email; but he is going to wait until he sees the report and then don’t just do a piece meal. He’d like to have a meeting where we could go through this. Mayor Perry explained before they submit it to Melanson, he had sent an email to Council, which he can resurrect and resend it. Secondly, Council previously brought up DPW. If that is what this Council choses to do, we’ve got forty-six million dollars. We would probably need all of it building a DPW structure. If that’s what this Council decides, that’s what we do. That is at the behest of Council. He hasn’t look at the report from Melanson yet. The CAFO is telling you she is still working with the auditor on the revenue recognition which could allow the city to do certain things, if we wanted to do certain parks things; which may be budgetary items to some people. If we did revenue recognition because we lost four million last year. If Melanson came back and said you could take Methuen, two billion, and add that into Free Cash and use some of that to do some of those parks upgrades, that is entirely up to Council. If Council looks at the list and says nothing on this satisfies me, because to your point Councilor thirty-three dollars worth of what is on that project is water and sewer projects (he doesn’t know if it is approved or not). To him, that is infrastructure. Pat Bower submitted an excellent write up for 33.4 million dollars worth of water and sewer projects alone and the one thing that he is aware was the GIS that we didn’t get. The water and sewer still lives. That is entirely up to 8 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE Council. They are going to come in – he is going to get the department heads to put in what they think of the priorities. That doesn’t mean that’s what we do. He will have department heads come to the meeting and make their pitch to the Council and Council will decide what do we do. Councilor Saba said DPW for the most part is the only thing he agrees with. He would have liked to have been a part of this discussion before we spent all this time waiting for Melanson. He has been fighting for the youths and for parks. He did a lot of personal fundraising for parks in the city. He is 100% behind it; but that is where it should be coming from, grant writing, fundraising, other methods, etc.; but when you have once time funds, forty- six million from COVID that we will never see again. The reason why there is so much money in the DPW between the Water, Sewer and the need for a properly built and operational DPW building is because the city never spent money on these upgrades. They never wanted to. Their philosophy has always been, if the voters can’t see it, we’re not going to spend the money. We’ve got a situation that is decrepit, archaic and dangerous. This is our chance. He would like to be involved in that discussion and most of this is budget items. He is waiting for the report and would like to make sure the city spends this properly. Councilor Finocchiaro asked the Mayor about the rapid test and increased testing availability in the community. This past week she wrote a letter to the Governor about the same and would appreciate if the contact information is shared throughout the whole Council and all our elected officials because this is something that her hope is that if we get enough of us calling that we can make an impact here. She asked if there is any other way that we can help with regards to making that happen. “Have you seen any other obstacles that you can speak towards for either private companies outside the staffing who are doing the testing or anything else that the city could be helpful with?” Mayor Perry said there is nothing that he could think of. We are doing everything we can. Felix Zemel agreed with the Mayor. In addition to the Mayor reaching out to the Secretary, Felix said he has reached out to DPH, calling the Department of Public Health in addition helpful although he thinks the call is more from the secretary. Councilor Finocchiaro asked the Mayor if he would have someone from his office send all of the elected officials in Methuen that information and the request which would be helpful. With the last meeting she had some reservations about approving the fee schedule. She likes updates with some understanding of what the update of what the trash and recycling pickup and all of that would be since some of the items are relevant to those fees. She did vote on it this last meeting and Council is going to be voting on it again tonight. For example, residents are currently allowed one large item; but the change in this there will be an additional fee for things like mattresses. “Are we still planning on holding the trash company to their contract of the one large item that we paid for?” Her understanding for the mattresses was there was some sort of mandate that has come down that we haven’t been told about yet and that we’d be working on it 9 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE another way, maybe another source of funding. She asked if the Mayor or Pat Bower could give the Council an update soon. Mayor Perry said when he was in the hospital, Joe Cosgrove spoke. Pat Bower spoke about the mattress program. Councilor Finocchiaro noted the city is still charging the residents to do that. That is additional funding for how we are going to make it work. She asked if we are still going to be able to get back some of the funds for what would be included or are we not doing that. Pat Bower said basically what we are doing with those rates is we are catching up after a long twenty-plus years without updating those rates. The city will be accepting bulk items at the curb; but we are preparing for the new contract which starts July 1st which by all accounts is going to have to eliminate some of those services. The Mayor went to the public, went to the residents to find out what the residents want in their next trash program. If they decide to have limits on bulk items which is going to be a tremendous savings for us, that will be a compromise. But we want to prepare now. What you see are rates that we accept at the transfer station will apply. We still will accept the mattresses in November of 2022, but there will be a waste ban on those. We won’t be able to include them in the waste stream, coming from DEP. Joe Cosgrove got a grant to prepare for that. It pays for a dumpster restoring a service that takes care of that for us; but when that grant runs out that is going to be on the city. We are going to charge a fee for that service for now in order to drop those off and then in the future when the new contracts start July 1st and in preparation for when we lose the ability to accept mattresses in the wave stream, we will be fully prepared for that. We are going to continue the services we have now at the curb. He fully expects that on July 1st those will be dramatically changed so we are preparing for that now. Councilor Finocchiaro noted we wouldn’t be losing anything in the current contract and would just be continuing the contract as implemented. She referred to her request at the last meeting to the Mayor if he would consider a “new hire freeze”, given the number of lawsuits, additional likely lawsuits, and the potential funds that we are likely to owe back to the government and the Mayor said “no”. Council has new positions that are already put forward to us. She wants to understand more about that. Should Council be anticipating that the Mayor is going to put forward more added positions in the next two years or does he believe this is going to be it. Mayor Perry said he is not going to commit tonight that he is not going to add any positions over the next two years. He has the draft of the DPW audit report. They are going to be presented to Council on the 17th. It makes mention of manpower. He will present a graph to Council that shows where we were five years ago for manpower and where we are today. That doesn’t mean we have to have the exact same number; but we have steadily lost people. Most departments have. That was the impedance of moving public health and community development. He doesn’t want to commit to saying he isn’t going to add. What he is 10 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE committing is to say is he is not going to miss a budget. Jack Wilson, Pat Bower, and Ann Drouin meet with him on their finances once a month and then know we are not going to miss our numbers. Councilor Finocchiaro said she is talking about new positions only because we might owe potentially millions of dollars for some of the things that are in effect right now. In addition, there is some economic consideration. We just did a large increase to most people’s tax bills. Long term planning, if we are adding new positions that means that we are signing up for trajectory for a long time. Before this Mayor was here, she was in favor of increasing manpower at the DPW. She voted against the DPW budget because it didn’t do enough to solve our problems. That is a totally separate issue. We’re in a situation where a lot of what we have right now in Free Cash is already being targeted through Capital Improvement Projects, through issues that we have that are unresolved, huge legal liabilities and she is concerned about spending that money before we know what the outcome is. One clarification was we were talking about the updated list from Melanson regarding the potential list of spending your office put together. During the conversations with other Councilors, the Mayor mentioned that he hadn’t read it and he heard some about it. Council can’t receive the email. She doesn’t accept that answer. If the Mayor has an email that’s a public record and it is simply about whether or not certain things would be allowed with ARPA. That should have been sent to Council the day the Mayor received it. It has now been a long time since Council was told it was received for him to say that you haven’t read it yet and have the nine Councilors running around trying to understand, prepare and spend the time that we do have to be better prepared to represent the residents. She wants that information sent to the full Council tonight. If it is in the hands of the CAFO it should be sent to Councilors tonight. She understands there is a part that is still incomplete. That is a public record and should be sent to all nine Councilors. It would be a great thing to show that we are trying to start off on a different foot in the new year and work together. All nine Councilors bring something to the table. Mayor Perry stated he doesn’t have the email. The CAFO has been working with Melanson and he trusts her. He shared the email from the state on November 18th and he basically got attacked. Instead of us uniting and push it back on the state, its look at what the Mayor screwed up. “What’s the intent when there is no ability to finalize that?” As soon as the CAFO gets an answer from Melanson it could change some of the projects on there. That is the reality of it. He doesn’t have it. If Council wants it, they will send it. If one person from this Council comes back and says: “why are we doing this?” We are just making plans. Councilor Finocchiaro requested that the Mayor instruct CAFO Duprey to send Council the email with the results directly to the nine Councilors tonight so they can start working on that. She doesn’t know why the Mayor doesn’t want to read it. Councilors have discussed wanting to read it and start to prepare, speak to a lot of residents and department heads to get a better understanding so that Councilors can make some good decisions. People have talked 11 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE about this being a once in a lifetime expenditure. With regards to whatever the Mayor is speaking about with social media or whatever he is talking about with regards to the letter. That letter the Mayor gave to Council was after an entire year of not telling them full details. We can deal with that another time. She is just asking for the email. PUBLIC SERVICE: A) Grants: None B) Licenses: Billiards Parlor, Barbara Vinciguerra, 689 Prospect Street, Methuen, MA 01844 MOTION BY: Councilor McCarty, seconded by Councilor Faretra. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes C) Contracts: C-22-44 Insight Public Sector, Inc., 6820 S. Harl Avenue, Tempe, AZ 85283-4318 for Permitting and Inspections Software with Unlimited License in the Amount of $127,445.05 MOTION BY: Councilor Zeigler, seconded by Councilor McCarty to adopt. Councilor McCarty said he noticed this is a contract for permitting software in the amount of $127,000 for an unlimited license. This is a lot of money for computer software. He also noticed that the contract C-22-44 is a one-time read. The funding source for this comes later on the agenda under New Business. It is going to be a transfer from Free Cash to cover the cost of that contract. All transfers are two read items. He doesn’t want this contract to go through tonight without that funding is established. That is bad public policy. If the Free Cash falls through, we’re going to be locked into a contract without a funding source. For that reason, he is going to exercise his Charter Objection on C-22-44. (he stood and charter objected C-22-44) Chairman Beauregard noted this will come up on January 18, 2022. C-22-46 Dagle Electrical Construction Corporation, 68 Industrial Way, Wilmington, MA 01887 for Replacement of Standby Natural Gas Generator Archibald Avenue in the Amount of $85,958.00 MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor Zeigler to adopt. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes C-22-47 Bargaining Agreement for Council Clerk – Linda Gagnon MOTION BY: Councilor Zeigler, seconded by Councilor Saba to adopt. MOTION BY: Councilor Saba, seconded by Councilor Zeigler to amend the funding source in language in Section one to strike ARPA funding and insert “to be funded by City 12 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE Council budget”. He noted he spoke with the Solicitor who said the funding source could be amended. Councilor Saba explained there is still uncertainty over the fact Council approved several other collective bargaining agreements that included ARPA funding for the $1500. It is still unclear whether or not that will be provided. Council can take this right out of the equation by taking it out of the City Council budget. It is a one-time payment. This contract simply mirrors what AFSME received. Our Clerk did ask for a contract that mirrored basically what was given to the other group. That is why he wanted to switch it from ARPA to personal services. Councilor Faretra said he has a huge issue with this contract. Many of the contracts that came in front of Council we’re getting rid of longevity and this one is increasing longevity. This goes against what we’ve been doing as a group over the last CBAs. He would be a “no” on this. Councilor McCarty - Point of Clarification on the amendment – He asked if there is a line item identified in our City Council budget. The CAFO, Maggie Duprey, said for the amendment Council should be clear that it is the “City Council Personal Service” budget line just so that it is clear when they do the transfer. There are funds available because of the vacant analyst position as well as the budget for the assistant city clerk that has not been filled either. There is availability. Councilor Saba noted he spoke with the CAFO and it would come out of the City Council’s budget under Personal Services. Councilor Finocchiaro said she wasn’t expecting that there was going to be questions, the amendment and other things. Her understanding is that to Councilor Faretra’s concerns she did read that in the financial impact statement for this item. Her understanding is that this was meant to mirror another union’s contract. She is concerned when you take a look at what it actually says in the language it says under C-22-47 for the CAFO’s financial impact statement, it says “I do not believe this increase is consistent with the nature of the city’s goals for employee longevity”. Her understanding is that it was inline with what we have given to other unions. It is important that we clarify that. Out of respect to the individual that is in this position, it makes sense given to table this so that we can confirm whether or not that is accurate and be able to come back with a better understanding because that was not her understanding from the beginning. She will make a motion to table. Chairman Beauregard noted Council needs to vote on the motion to amend first and then revisit a motion to table. Councilor Saba said the CAFO’s letter, her report, was that while we are trying to get rid of longevity, that was for new hires. But existing hires are getting the exact same increase that the Clerk is getting. She is not a new hire. The existing employees are getting that same calculation. It is consistent with middle management. If our Clerk were a new hire, then absolutely. This based on what was negotiated with another group. 13 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE The CAFO said there were no increases given to any of the CBAs that were negotiated for this round of negotiations. AFSCME does not have this level. The only one that has this .4 of the 1% is middle management. That is not an increase in this contract that was just approved by Council. That was existing language that was already in the contract. No increases were given to longevity. There was an active goal to try and reduce the long-term liability for the city around longevity. Step one was to take it out of as many contracts going forward which they were able to do with a good chunk of them. That was not an increase that was given in this contract. They didn’t increase anyone’s percentages or numbers as far as longevity went. That is what she was saying was being inconsistent. In this language we are increasing it where we did not with anybody else. That wasn’t in the goal on where we were going with longevity. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: (amendment to change ARPA to city council budget line) UNANIMOUS yes MOTION BY: Councilor Saba, seconded by Councilor McCarty to adopt as amended. MOTION BY: Councilor Finocchiaro, seconded by Councilor Simard to table. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: 6 yes, 3 no (Clr. McCarty, Clr. Saba, Clr. Beauregard) OTHER OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE REPORTS Councilor Finocchiaro reported the Substance Abuse, Mental Health, Homelessness Committee had their December meeting where they annually evaluate what progress they’ve made on the goals and objectives they set up to do over the 2021 year, what they could do better, what they could change and got a lot of feedback from the membership on positives plus some new goals that they want to aim for in 2022. There are a few efforts they would like to involve the Council. They are also asking for residents who are watching this meeting to also follow up to her or one of the other members of the committee to give your feedback. Chairman Beauregard said due to tonight’s transition in Council leadership there would be change in membership of the committees. He is ready to announce some membership that we know right now the plan is for Councilor Saba to return to the Finance Committee and the Public Safety Committee. He will provide any assistance as needed for the committees as we proceed and possibly new committees. Councilor McCarty said he has a preference to have the recommendation come from the Chair. There are some committees that have gone stale. There are probably some new committees that need to be created or substitutions. In time he would request that the Chairman could make a full recommendation as to all of the committees and what they look like just so Council has an idea instead of piece mealing it together. UNFINISHED BUSINESS Resolutions: 14 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE TR-21-111 Resolution Requesting Transfer from Enterprise Fund Retained Earnings of $85k to cover the cost of water generator contract MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor Zeigler to approve. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes Ordinances: TO-21-25 An Ordinance to Amend Section 8-10 of Chapter 8 of the Municipal Code of the City of Methuen to Update Disposal Fees MOTION BY: Councilor Zeigler, seconded by Councilor Faretra to adopt. Councilor Faretra asked if the monthly newsletter could be used (if this passes) to make sure all the residents are aware of any other rate hikes that go out. He knows social media is popular but not a lot of people use that so hopefully we can use the monthly newsletter. Mayor Perry responded, yes. Councilor Finocchiaro asked if the changes from the previous meeting that Council updated for disabilities in place in this version or does Council need to amend that or does Council need to approve it as amended. It looks the same as before. She asked the Assistant Solicitor and the Clerk. Mr. Bower said the language on the agenda is the language discussed last week. It is exactly what was submitted for last meeting. Councilor Finocchiaro said an amendment was made on the floor at the last meeting when this was discussed. If it is exactly the same, then it means the changes aren’t reflected. She asked the Solicitor for the best way to remedy that given that it wasn’t posted as amended. Attorney McQuillan said it would probably be appropriate for the purposes of passing this tonight that you can incorporate and make reference to the amendment that was passed at the previous meeting. As long as it was on the Council floor and was enacted that reference could be made and incorporation of the amendment adopted at the previous meeting. It is on the record that the amendment was adopted at the previous meeting. You are incorporating a previously enacted amendment. Councilor Finocchiaro asked the Council Clerk if she had the exact language of the vote from the last meeting. The Council Clerk indicated she did not as she was not present at that meeting due to illness. Attorney McQuillan said absent the exact language of the amendment it might be appropriate to table this matter until Council has an integrated document for the next meeting. Councilor Finocchiaro said the Council got a letter from the Fiscal Stability Officer, who made a note that he was waiting to receive more information on how much we intended, what the goal was, in terms of what increased funding would be and that he was waiting on that information. She asked the CAFO if the information was sent to the Fiscal Stability Officer. The CAFO responded, no. She is also waiting for that information. We have made those requests but haven’t received the information yet. 15 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE MOTION BY: Councilor Finocchiaro, seconded by Councilor Saffie to table. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes TO-21-26 An Ordinance Amending Sections 7-A of the City of Methuen’s Municipal Code Requested by Chairman Saba, Vice-Chairman Beauregard, Councilor Finocchiaro, and Councilor Simard (amended 12/20/21) MOTION BY: Councilor Saba, seconded by Councilor Simard to approve as amended. Councilor Finocchiaro said in terms of language and she doesn’t know if our City Solicitor recommends a change to the version put forward was a version that was amended through discussions of a meeting that took place between some Councilors and our CAFO. Council amended it at the meeting but then we also put forward a new version of it for the meeting. She’d like to make sure that this is what was posted and the information that everybody received. She asked if there is anything else that the Assistant City Solicitor recommends for that or is it all set with how it was stated. Attorney McQuillan said he has no problem regarding with the document as submitted. Councilor Finocchiaro explained what occurred at this meeting which took place between the CAFO Maggie Duprey, City Solicitor Rossetti, Councilor Simard, Councilor Saba, and her. They discussed they would relay a summary of what occurred in that meeting. They discussed how the city was strapped for the procurement process and it has been in the past. We particularly need to procure the additional millions of dollars in CARES funding related expenditures. The CAFO felt that additional staffing, one additional staff member in the finance department, even before the CARES funding was overdue. With ARPA funding at approximately 46 million going to be spent and all of those expenditures also needing to go through this process it was believed that it was needed even more. There will be a small margin of contracts between the $25,000 and $50,000 range that would need to be voted on by the Council per this reduction that was agreed to at the last meeting. But the work in procurement would have needed to be done either way by law with or without the change in this ordinance anyway. But the CAFO told us that she had already planned to bring this request forward for our next budget which she would support. They also talked about the need to approve more contracts and then it would be great to get more transparency around these concerns as part of the process and improve our communication. The CAFO Maggie Duprey said that was a good summary about the discussion. The only thing she would like to add is re-evaluating the process after the budget goes through at some point in the summer or in the fall just to kind of retouch base about how things are going. Councilor Finocchiaro noted they did have that discussion and the idea would be that after the budget process has been completed that we just have it on our agenda for discussion on what it has been like for this time period for this change and process and what are the positives, 16 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE negatives, and if there are any changes that need to be made or if we are satisfied with where we are at. Councilor Faretra said he appreciates that Ms. Duprey was able to meet with the Councilors who put this ordinance forward. It is a good first step. It is only a first step. He understands the need for Council to act as a body as to what’s been going on. But he doesn’t feel like there is a need to jump into this right now. Councilor Finocchiaro just mentioned the difference between $25,000 to $50,000 doesn’t see a lot more contracts; but they put you at the aggregate piece to that. It does bring a lot more to the table because now if DPW is buying three lawnmowers that are under that $25,000 but now need more equipment out of that same item, those need to come back to Council. There are many more people that this would affect before Council votes on this. He would like to table it to the Finance Committee similar to what Council did when they first got the news that when the ARPA funding was coming in, Council tabled that, sent it to the Finance Committee and then the Chair of the committee came back to Council with a report. Council needs to speak with department heads and give them a voice before Council makes a final decision for the city. Councilor Saba disagreed and commented this is a discussion between the Council and the CAFO. The various departments go through the CAFO. The CAFO approves everything. She controls the spending where she only puts before the Council what she approves. Council is looking to have more oversight right now, for the time being, what we are spending by reducing this from $50,000 to $25,000. Councilors in the past awarded $10,000 which would definitely be challenging. Council is not trying to do that. But by going from $50,000 to $25,000 for the time being because he intends to bring this back up, probably around budget time for review. But at this point if Council wants more oversight, we should have the right to get. The CAFO agreed to it understanding Council’s concerns, he is ready to vote. This is a good move for the city. Councilor Simard agreed with Councilor Saba and it is reflective of some of the mistakes made on this past term. Our previous Mayor’s first order of business was to hire a $49,000 consultant for DPW that came in and caused so much strife in the city that we are still paying for now. It is a good oversight for the legislative branch to have along with the Mayor just to have that oversight to avoid problems like that again. He is in favor of voting tonight and is a “yes”. Councilor Zeigler asked if she is to understand that to be compliant with this legislation you would need additional staffing or was that a misinterpretation of the summary of your meeting. The CAFO said our procurement department only has one purchasing director that oversees the city and the school department’s purchasing. We are very thin there. What she had conveyed to the Councilors last week, her intention was already to move forward with a request in the fiscal year 2023 budget to add staffing in our purchasing department in order to provide more support there. This one person would be to support both the city and the school. She was reiterating to the group as we were speaking that that would be an important piece of something 17 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE that she will definitely move forward with and hopefully we will get support for because it is very much needed; but she was trying to convey right now how thin that department is already and that she was concerned a little with the fact she doesn’t know how much this is going to add yet until it is moved forward with, which why she had asked that if we could reassess how it is going later on in the summer or the fall just to have that opportunity to say “okay now we have done it for six months or so and these are the concerns that I have having done it for that period of time or not.” Councilor Zeigler said just as a recap, the CAFO’s preference would be that we entertain this on a trial basis for a six month period and then reassess at budget time. The CAFO said that she doesn’t know that it needs to be documented as a temporary situation. She wanted to make sure that there is an opportunity to have a revaluation informally just to say she’s worked with the Council and understands their concern. We are working together to see if this is helpful. She wants to have that opportunity to say: “this is why its not working”. She is okay with moving forward now it is with the understanding that we’re going to have and informal conversation in case this does become a bigger burden than she is anticipating. Councilor Zeigler said her questions are to understand whether there is capacity to be compliant with this policy. Our job as legislators are to put forth legislation that’s not only going to make us efficient but that’s doable and that’s responsible. She appreciates the CAFO taking the time to answer her questions. Councilor Faretra said after hearing Maggie Duprey answering Councilor Zeigler’s he is not going to make the motion to table as he previously stated. It sounds like CAFO Duprey is on the same page with the cosponsors of this; but he would like to make an amendment that this lapses on June 30th or is revisited after one hundred and eighty days. He appreciates the CAFO saying it needs to be done informally, but he thinks Council needs to put it in writing that Council will revisit this at some point to see the impact on that department and what to do going forward. His amendment would be that this ordinance will be revisited on June 30th 2022, unless renewed by a majority of the Council. Chairman Beauregard: Councilor Faretra just to clarify you are suggesting an addition essentially therefore, be it further resolved, if we were adding to this, the ordinance would lapse on June 30th 2022, unless renewed by a majority vote of the Methuen City Council. Councilor Faretra, yes. Councilor Saffie seconded the amendment adding a sunset provision. Councilor McCarty noted the amendment makes it a little more complicated than it has to be. He would like to keep it simple. We’re all legislators here and all have the ability to revisit this. Councilor Faretra is more than capable on June 30th to bring this back to the body’s attention; but we’re legislators and could always legislate at a later day. Council doesn’t need to make that commitment today. He would be against the amendment. 18 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE Councilor Simard noted he was at the meeting with Maggie Duprey and he was very much in favor of it. The open line of communication was great and if Maggie comes to Council we could. We told her that we would revisit if she came to us and says: “this is too much of a problem”, lets change it. We are going to revisit it based on the open line of communication with Maggie and our trust in the process. He would not be in favor of the amendment. Councilor Finocchiaro referenced a discussion at the last meeting about being roughly on the same page with supporting the measure as it is written which didn’t include a sunset provision as long as we were able to get the support of our CAFO in that we had that conversation and compromise. She believes that is what happened at the meeting. It was a really positive thing that we were able to take the resolution that we had originally, amend that it would further compromise and create a plan in place based on the honor of the full nine members of the Council and of our CAFO to have an open dialogue and to see how this goes. She appreciates and respects that, personally and philosophically. This doesn’t come up often; but there is a very rare circumstance where a sunset provision is actually needed in law because often times its used by Congress in the manner to basically secure a vote when otherwise it wouldn’t able to be moved forward and she doesn’t think that is the case since everybody had said at the previous meeting that they were all on the same page more or less. Since that provision basically means that we don’t trust each other to have this conversation. She thinks because of the fact that we’ve actually had this conversation in public and that we’ve all agreed, she and others have said that they absolutely support us doing this. She doesn’t believe a sunset provision is needed. She believes that if we really do want to assess and evaluate and take this additional oversight seriously, having a situation where people know that it will end at a certain time takes the bite really out of what the whole purpose of this is, which is to have some additional oversight and then take a step back and see how it goes. While she respects the spirit of the amendment, she can’t support it. She does actually believe in all nine Councilors based on this conversation are going to honor the conversations that we’ve had publicly here today and revisit this after the next budget round as was discussed in the meeting that we had with our CAFO and have some really serious discussions from there. She is sure there will be a lot of debate for and against and we’ll have real facts because we will have experienced it for a time. That’s her hope that Council can do and keep building on increased communication and increased trust in 2022. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE on sunset amendment: 6 No, 3 Yes (Clr. Faretra, Clr. Saffie, Chairman Beauregard) FAILED UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: (TO-21-26 as amended at previous meeting) UNANIMOUS yes Consideration of Appointments: None 19 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE NEW BUSINESS Resolutions: TR-22-1 Resolution Authorizing Acceptance of a FY 2020 Housing Choice Community Capital Grant from the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development in the amount of $75,000. MOTION BY: Councilor Zeigler, seconded by Councilor Faretra to adopt. Councilor Zeigler said she is truly excited about the resolution before Council. Essentially the way that it is written is that the city applied for a grant which was granted and was successful in obtaining the grant to hire a consultant to work on a Master Plan. This is something that many Councilors, including her have been looking for, to see come before Council for a very, very long time. Our Master Plan is over twelve years old. It is about time that we spend dedicated resources and structure time to revisit it. It is going to be a really great benefit for the city for us to accept this grant and to move forward and start visualizing what our city is supposed to look and feel like over the next few years. She is in favor of this and encouraging Councilors to be in favor as well. This is what we are here to do, to approve measures like this. Councilor Finocchiaro asked the Mayor to confirm for the residents, to give credit to the person who wrote this grant and received this grant. Jack Wilson explained he was sitting in for Brian Keating for this. He gave him the night off, but he deserves all of the credit on this. There are a couple of things to note about it. One is it is something that is long overdue. It also should be noted that many Councilors have asked him and inquiring about the state’s new one-stop application process and this is the city’s first attempt and the first successful effort in that regard. We are excited for the opportunity. The credit goes to Brian Keating, Kathleen Colwell, and the staff in the planning division. Councilor Finocchiaro also thanked Brian Keating and staff and Jack Wilson on this. This has been something that we and previous Councils have talked about. There is a lot that needs to be done on this. Her focus is that we make this a really impactful process through the resident involvement and engagement. That part is really key into making sure that we have a solid Master Plan that actually incorporates how the general population wants to see Methuen thrive and change or not change over time. Her hope would be that Council would have some increased involvement. She knows that during the time of the pandemic that is harder to do than usual but there are a lot of things that we can do and she knows that everybody here can also help to encourage that. She wanted to ask that at subsequent city council meetings that before the process actually starts, if under the department heads special presentation, if we could be given an overview of the process once that is established with the consultant so we can see a top down overview of what the process is going to be and also bring that to light to the residents who watch these meetings. 20 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE Jack Wilson responded, yes and said not only is that the approach we are taking, it is actually an essential element. There are two words that come to mind. One is robust and one is full participation and that is not only among the department heads the policy makers, elected officials, the city Council, not just the Mayor; but the School Committee as well. All the stakeholders need to be at the table. The only way we can do that is a very robust, open and transparent manner. Master plans, the two schools have thought about it. they are plans with no components and then other will say they are good plans. Councilor Finocchiaro pointed out that 2007 was the last full Master Plan and there was probably another dozen or so years before that that the previous plan was updated. They seem to have a shelf life of a decade or so. What we hope to do is basically quantify and present to the Council and the public the successes that were implemented from the last plan and that will help guide us through the next ten to fifteen years of where the city is going. There seems to be great strides when it comes to housing and build out city residential which seems to be a major component of 2007 and the previous one. We’ll talk about economic development moving forward. It is only done in conjunction with a full, robust dialogue among all the stakeholders, from the neighborhoods all the way up to the Mayor’s office. The short answer to that is yes, he will be back before the Council as will the staff and the consultant that we bring on board. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: UNANIMOUS. TR-22-2 Resolution Requesting Transfer from Free Cash of $127,450 to Cover the Cost of the Insight Contract for Permitting Software (CIP Project funded as “pay as you go”) MOTION BY: Councilor Simard, seconded Councilor Saba to table. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: 5 yes, 4 no Faretra, McCarty, Saffie, Zeigler TR-22-3 Resolution to Submit Home Rule Petition to Amend Section 2-8 and Section 3- 2(a) of the Home Rule Charter of the City of Methuen (Request of Councilors Zeigler, Saba, Faretra, and DiZoglio) MOTION BY; Councilor DiZoglio, seconded by Councilor Faretra to adopt. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes Ordinances: TO-22-1 An Ordinance Amending the Wage & Salary Classification Plan, Middle Management – Administrative Assistant – Council on Aging MOTION BY: Councilor McCarty, seconded by Councilor Zeigler to adopt UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes 21 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE TO-22-2 An Ordinance Amending the Wage and Salary Classification Plan, Unaffiliated, to add the new position of Direction of Crime and Disorder Analysis Unit MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor Zeigler to adopt. Councilor McCarty asked the Chief of Police to comment on the new position Chief McNamara congratulated the Chair and Vice-Chair. Perhaps, you recall during the interview process with him stating that he views himself as a data driven facts- based police manager. This position is really going to help in that regard. He likes to make decisions as it relates to staffing and deployment of personnel based on actual facts as opposed to anecdotal evidence, not necessarily the one or two voices; but actual data that we can call for an adequate records management. We often hear about police accountability; but generally in the context of discipline, he thinks of police accountability in the context of job performance and this is something that is really going to help him gauge performance. “How do we measure our success? How we measure where we have been in the past. How does he measure where we are going in the future?” If we hire a particularly skilled person in this role, we can do all of those things, and do them well. In preparation for our monthly compstrart meetings which he would like to launch in the not too distant future. This allows him to better spend the 11.5 million dedicated to a police budget. That’s a solemn responsibility and he wants to get it right. This is the person that is going to help him do just that Councilor Saffie asked if there is someone within the department for this position or is the Chief starting fresh. Chief McNamara explained there is a sworn police officer in that role right now. This sworn police officer is very skilled at what she does and has a number of other roles in the department as well, essentially a laundry list of administrative duties. He can see that overtime they are going to have to build over some of the specialist that they’ve kind of stripped away from the department over the last couple of years. He is sure what we’re doing is what is needed in the department. We are providing the core functions which is patrol 911 response. We are doing that well; but as we build the department we are going to have to look to where we are best suited to specialize. He is looking to put that sworn officer in another administrative role. The Mayor foreshadowed earlier about the public camera system. One of the things that perhaps is not universally known but the public camera system first and foremost is one the most tools law enforcement has ever seen. He has seen it used in Lawrence. It is really an unbelievable tool and is doing quite a bit to drive down crime rates and beating national average. What that system needs is somebody behind the scenes that is working to extract that video evidence and be a forensic video analyst. The sworn police officer with the IT skills the person has would transition nicely into that role. It is something that is going to be needed and is going to benefit the Methuen police department and the City of Methuen as a whole. But as to whether or not he has somebody in mind, he has encouraged a couple of people to apply. They are particularly well suited for the job. If they do apply, at the end of the day, he would like to hire the most 22 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE skilled person for this position. We are going to do an objectively and fair. If we get passed this part and council sees in their good graces to vote yes on this proposal, he promises there will be a fair process that will be pursued to get the best person for the job. Councilor Saffie noted this sounds like a desk job. The department does a lot of emergency responses. She asked if this job going to be eligible for overtime. Chief McNamara responded this job will not be eligible for overtime. It would be an unafilliated, salaried position and would not be eligible for any overtime. It would simply be what the stated salary is. Councilor Saffie asked that since the title says “Director” does that mean that this person is going to come before Council for a vote. Attorney McQuillan said he would have to review it and get back to Council. He would have to review the matter to determine the actual classification of the position, duties of the position, and review the classification plan as well. Councilor Finocchiaro noted this is first read and asked if the Assistant Solicitor McQuillan could confirm if this would require one or two votes for final passage. Attorney McQuillan responded it would require a second read. Councilor Finocchiaro asked the Chief if this position would be available to someone who is already in a sworn position or it is open to civilians. Chief McNamara reiterated that they already have a sworn police officer doing this function and a number of other functions. He is trying to transition this from a sworn police officer to a civilian performing this function in this role, somebody who essentially went to school specifically for this, who has experience doing this well and working with different management system over years, essentially being able to extract data, put it together and give us the tools to do our job better, give us the tools to deploy or resources better, provide daily bulletins, officer safety alerts, be on the lookout type of alerts, identify crime trends so that we’re making changes and deploying personnel appropriately and when we need to. If somebody was particularly skilled in this role with a track record of doing that, he thinks will be best suited for the Methuen Police Department. Councilor Finocchiaro said one of the concerns that she had is the empty patrolmen positions and is glad there is new leadership to rectify this. That is a priority to her. In reading the fiscal stability officer’s letter for this meeting, he noted the amount of funds that would be needed for this to be paid for the rest of the year. She was hoping the city was planning to fill those positions already. Getting more patrolmen/women on the streets is something that we’ve talked a lot about. She wants to understand both sides of things. She asked the Chief to confirm that language that the fiscal stability officer gave Council and what his intention would be in terms of the unfilled patrol officers. Chief McNamara said that is priority one for him is getting more police officers on the street and filling out existing budgeted spots. For example, there are 90 sworn positions in our current budget. We are down two supervisors and eight patrolmen. If he were to fill those 23 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE supervisory slots, the city would be down ten patrol spots. He’s been doing everything he can to get ten police officers, at a minimum, to the next police academy. These ten spots have been budgeted for a full fiscal year. We are more than halfway through that and he hasn’t spent any money on those positions. There is some extra money in the budget that we could use potentially for this position or potentially to put additional candidates into a new academy. It looks like we are going to have nine that will go into the academy January 10th. He thanked Human Resources and his staff for all the work they’ve done. It is difficult to hire a police officer nowadays. The whole process is cumbersome and can take as many as fourteen months to pull a civil service list. First you wait for a test to be offered, wait for a list to come out, and that could take several months. There is a process for how many days they need to sign it. Then we select from that candidate list. There is a medical screening, a psychological screening, background checks that go on sometimes for months because we want to get it right and hire only the best people for Methuen. Then there is what they call a cooper test which is basically a physical fitness agility exam which takes place on a track. They have to do so many sit-ups and pushups and run a mile and half under a certain time. They have to have it done in a certain timeline. After you get through all of that you have to hire. They go to the police academy and are there for six months. We are paying for that, their health insurance, their salaries while they are in their academy in training for six months. In the academy they learn how to be a police officer in the state of Massachusetts. When they get out of the academy, we put them in a field training program in the Methuen police department where they learn how to be a Methuen police officer. That is another four months. You start to add this all together and you are getting close to fourteen months. That is the reason why we’ve been functioning down ten spots. We have ninety sworn positions and are essentially functioning ten down in these last six months and beyond. We are doing a lot to try to fill those spots. He intends to come in front of Council and hopefully in the next month or so picking his spots and there’s a financial concern. He’s come asking money for cars, for management system, money for Crime director and there will be more. There’s more that needs to be done to get the department up to speed. But with respect to those positions, he does intend to fill them, get us up to our budgeted number. The next generation of this is he hopes to come to Council in the next month or so to expand the budget as it relates to budgeted personnel. He would like to over time growth the department to where he thinks it needs to be. National standards suggest Methuen should be closer to one hundred and six police officers, total sworn, supervisors and patrolmen. He is relying on FBI and Department of Justice data. That data looks at police departments throughout the country. They break it down by region. We are part of the Northeast region of the country, break it down further, look at New England states and then they break it down further and look at New England states between 50,000 and 100,000 residents, essentially cities and towns that are similar to the City of Methuen. Looking at those similar situations and cities, you’re seeing an average of two police officers per l,000 residents. If we are at 53,000 residents, we’d be looking at wanting to be closer to one hundred and six 24 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE officers. That is a big jump from where we currently are at ninety. But just two years ago when the audit was in its initial drafting it is reflective in the audit itself done by CAN. At that time there were 98 sworn positions. Because of financial considerations the last couple of years we cut to ninety. He would like to see the department go back to 98 in the next iteration of their budget that will be contemplated in the next couple of months. There is some money to start that hiring process now. There is nothing they can do to get any more candidates into the current academy. He has tried everything and just in the last couple of hours he had a candidate who was ready to, that sent an email and resigned from the process. It is difficult to hear. Another couple of candidates we were trying to get through at the eleventh hour that stumbled and couldn’t pass one of the things they needed to pass for the physical fitness barrier. There is some extra money in the budget, money that was dedicated for the purpose of hiring police officers that if the Mass training were to offer another academy that he believes they will in March. He thinks they have the money to pay for those extra police officers. He’s been reluctant to start the process in this fiscal year without further commitment from the Council to keep those police officers on board for the next fiscal year. The last thing that Council and he wants to do in the City of Methuen is pay to train these police officers only to find out later that we’ll have to lay them off and they’re picked up quickly by other PDs. He is also concerned about police staffing. Councilor Finocchiaro said with regards to the positions she understands that typically when nobody is applying to these positions, then the number one place that you are looking at is training new people. She wants to understand if there are ways that we can be in a better situation with regards to trying to attract people who have already gone through training so we can save ourselves that money. Councilor Simard commented on this wage and salary classification for the Crime Analyst. For the last twenty-five years he has worked closely with crime analysis people. When you want to know what is going on within the department, you don’t call detectives, you don’t call the shift commander. You call the Crime Analyst. They are going to tell you everything that you need to know so that you can plan accordingly, especially at the staffing level. Looking at the classification, it’s about $15,000 below what a sworn officer would make doing the same role. The sworn officer is put in a more important role for less money. That officer is going to get the overtime, but the civilian won’t. That analyst is going to compile where car breaks are happening, stolen cars are happening, quality of life issues and going to get that information out to the shifts because often times the shifts don’t know what the midnight shift is doing and visa versa. The Crime Analysis person is just keeping everybody in tune. You’re getting emails on your phone, getting text messages and you’re getting pictures and it is probably one of the most helpful tools that he has as a police officer and as a supervisor, especially when you are going before the Mayor and the Chief and the City Council at monthly compstat to answer for your accountability. He is totally in favor of it. If we get the right person it is a win for the city. 25 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE Councilor Zeigler said she is a fan of data driven decision making. It is a step in the right direction. With regards to this position, is there an intention to have the data compiled by this individual be made public and disseminated in a way that the community is involved. Chief McNamara responded, yes, absolutely. There will be all kinds of data that we release monthly compstat reports, for example, we will be tracking part one crimes as we report to the FBI. When he says part one crime, he is referring to the eight categories (murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, commercial burglary, residential burglary, larceny plus 1250, and we would substitute auto theft for arson. Once those numbers come out each month, once they are verified, we will be releasing them to the public so they will have an idea of what is exactly going on in the City of Methuen. One of the things he would like to start doing very shortly is start releasing quarterly reports that not just capture what we do in crime analytic but also other performance goals in the department which are related to training and outreach or other goals and issues within the department and of course a year end report that will be released annually. Having someone that is able to pull that data together, present it in such a way that we can release it to the public and people have a universal understanding of everything we do here. It will be beneficial in terms of opening up and being the transparent agency that we want to be. Councilor Zeigler stated her appreciation and noted the community would appreciate receiving that data. She asked if that would be placed on the website. “What is the process there?” Chief McNamara said typically it is placed on the website but also social media where they think it is appropriate. He is willing to explore other avenues where the emails throughout the city and other departments, emails to the Mayor and to the City Council. It is your data, the taxpayers’ data, the City Council’s data, the Mayor’s data. Once we verify it, we want to get it out in peoples’ hands Councilor Ziegler asked what the timeline would be for hiring an individual for this role should this get the approval of the Council. Chief McNamara said he is not sure if he is the right person to speak about the process. He is learning more each day. He is eager to get this person on board as soon as possible but more importantly he wants to make sure he does it right. The former Chairman is a stickler for the rules and he understands that. That is the correct way to do things. He doesn’t want there to be any second guessing down the line. He wants to make sure we get this right, hire the right person and more importantly we get the process right. Councilor Zeigler said the Chief mentioned the intention to go out for software that essentially this role would be managing. “Where are you in that process, at least an RFP and what would be your goal in terms of watching that new system?” Chief McNamara said he’s gone back and forth with his people that are experts of the subject matter in that area and looked at some of the products out there. They got a sense of what they thought would be the best here for Methuen and that formed their decision in terms of 26 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE what should be in an RFP. Ideally they would like to get that out very soon so we could get the whether it is the same vendor or another vendor, somebody who is well suited to serve our needs and have them in place before the current contract runs out, which he believes is the end of this fiscal year. Councilor Zeigler said she they are appreciates having the conversation of ways to bring professional resources to the department to elevate the work that you are doing. This role is definitely a step in the right direction in order to get to where we plan on going. She would be in support of this. Councilor Finocchiaro said with regards to this issue, currently we have the office of the Chief plus four additional bureaus currently in operation. We’ve got Field Operations, Community Outreach, Criminal Investigations, Administrative services and as far as the last update Council received the Drugs, Gangs, and Homeland Security Bureau is not currently active and she believes that’s extremely vital to the city. Her hope is that is brought back asap. She is trying to understand because she doesn’t know all of the conversations about the bigger picture. She wanted to get that understanding because that position is something that she thinks is really vital to the city. She asked the Chief for clarification. Chief McNamara said this organization has to grow. Right now they are providing the core function of a police department which is essentially to answer the calls for service, the 9-11 calls; but that’s largely a reactive function and he’d like to get back to some of the other things that a department of their size should be doing, whether it be a narcotics unit, gang unit, domestic violence. Having police officers dedicated to specific neighborhoods could have a huge impact. Having an appropriate amount of investigative detectives, there’s a number of functions that we really need to build on. Specification has almost become a taboo word and it came up time and time again in the audit. Specialization when done right can have enormous impact on crime numbers. Councilor Simard did all this and more in his career. In regards to specialization, Lawrence went through something similar to what Methuen went through in terms of a complete retraction of the agency. They went from 106 officers to 110 over a period of two years. Everyone got rolled back into patrol, not unlike what Methuen is dealing with right now. But as the department was built back up over time the then Mayor and Police Chief kind of came back to some of the Captains like himself and said we’re finally at a position where we can start carving out police officers to do specialized functions. “What do you think we should tackle next?” At the time he looked at the crime in Lawrence and as he mentioned those eight crime categories and said last year we had 2400 part one crimes, but 800 of those or more were auto theft. One third of all the crime in the city was auto theft yet we didn’t have any specialized investigators looking specifically at that crime. One of the first things they did, they took the first two officers they were able to carve out of patrol and made them specialists. We had them look at that crime category specifically. That is all they did. They looked at auto theft specifically all day and scrutinized the reports. Over a period of three years they saw 800 auto 27 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE thefts drop to 150 and an enormous impact was made just by having specialization, by doing it right. He looks at patrol officers as generalists and that’s not a criticism. The hardest job in the department is to be a patrol officer. But you don’t have that nuance expert type of approach to an individual crime only because a traditional patrol officer responds to a call. Almost before they are done writing their report, they are getting another call for service and then another call for service. It is really hard to circle back and really look at one particular crime category from a holistic perspective. Specialization is something that the Methuen police department needs desperately. We need to grow the department and we need to start attacking some of these prime categories from that perspective. That is a way to do things. He has waited because of some of the things going on in the background. He intends come before Council with a whole reorganization plan on how the department will look as it grows over time with iterations of the org chart which shows what the department will look like in a couple of weeks from now when everybody shuffles around with their shift bids, what it will look like July 1st if they don’t add any additional staffing, what it will look like if we do add the additional staffing. That is a cost benefit and analysis to Councilors and the taxpayers have to make. He has to make his case on why he thinks it will be effective and worthwhile in terms of investment in the city and the police department. He fully expects to put all of that in front of Council so they can see where all those moving parts will land and how he thinks those extra personnel can best serve the citizens of Methuen. Councilor Finocchiaro asked if the Chief is saying he does intend to bring the drugs, gangs, and Homeland Security bureau back in the future and that this isn’t to replace that position in any way or using that funding for that position. Chief McNamara said that is correct. He does not intend to use funding that could be used for that position. You’re using the term bureau. When you see the org chart you will see that he might use these terms different that she has used them in the past. For example, he might want to have two bureaus with a number of divisions under them. Whereas his predecessor wanted to have four bureaus. There are different ways to organize a department. He has a way that he thinks best serves the citizens of Methuen and he intends to present to the Council and the Mayor when the time is right. Councilor Finocchiaro said given that this is first read, she is willing to vote in favor the first time around. But she would like to speak more to the Chief and also our financial leadership regarding some concerns she has with new positions and gather some new information, including from residents, hopefully that are watching this and can give feedback to the rest of the Councilors about new positions and she wanted to be upfront with the Chief that she reserves the right to vote differently second time around based on some further discussions about this. 28 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE Chief McNamara thanked the Council and noted they obviously want to make an informed decision. Anything he can do to make that happen, including having individual meetings with each Councilor, he is happy to do that. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes TO-22-3 Amending the Wage and Salary Classification Plan to Create a New Position of Assistant Clerk of the Council (Request of Councilors Zeigler, Saba, Faretra, and DiZoglio) MOTION BY: Councilor DiZoglio, seconded by Councilor Saffie to approve. Councilor McCarty asked for an update from the committee regarding bringing an individual in. Councilor Zeigler explained in order to move forward with this position Council is now voting on the Wage and Salary classification. Council voted on the Home Rule Charter amendment. It requires a second read. If it is the pleasure of the Council and this passes this meeting, the next January meeting, if it passes then as well, the intention is to post the position the following day and to have the position out on the street for a little over two weeks. Our goal is to have interviews in the month of February and hopefully have a candidate to bring before the Council for approval in early March. Councilor McCarty noted it sounds like the committee is following a similar process they had worked together on for the City Solicitor’s position. That is good to hear and he looks forward to staying updated on it. Councilor Finocchiaro noted for the record that this position was put into the budget already. The City Council used to have more staff in the past and was cut repeatedly over the years. This is one step to bringing one back and currently our fiscal analyst position is also not filled. She thinks that it should be filled but that is another discussion. She has one concern about the way that it is written. She will put forward an amendment and is just making sure that we are covering all of our basis. This position includes filling in at meetings and other duties including executive sessions and potentially passing along or being in possession of confidential information including employee records and other highly sensitive information. She read through the whole thing a few times and that’s one key that she would like to make clear so that we have a clear guideline moving forward for the person who applies and ultimately gets this position that they understand that they will be in and surrounded by that highly sensitive information, potentially legal updates, negotiations, and other things. MOTION BY: Councilor Finocchiaro, seconded by Councilor Zeigler to amend under “minimum qualifications” section “must be able to maintain strict confidentiality as needed in the course of discharging your duties and must conduct responsibilities in an ethical manner”. Councilor Saba asked for clarification of the amendment. Councilor Finocchiaro repeated the amendment “must be able to maintain strict confidentiality as needed in the course of discharging their duties in an ethical manner”. 29 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes MOTION BY: Councilor DiZoglio, seconded by Councilor Saba to adopt as amended. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes REQUEST OF COUNCILORS Councilor Simard suggested in the near future being a new Chair and a new Council starting a new year, if they could revisit the need for the Police Chief at meetings and for the Police Chief to possibly have his designee at a meeting and allow the Chief to do more pressing things with his time, unless there is an agenda related item that he needs to be. It would be beneficial to do that. Chairman Beauregard: sure Councilor Zeigler reiterated a request that she made earlier to the Mayor during the Mayor’s report for Council to be more involved with the tax distribution plan. She wants to ensure that there is ample access to the self-test when they are available in the next few days or so. Councilor DiZoglio said this is a request to our Assistant City Solicitor. Councilors all received a letter about the Wheeler Street incident with the Town of Dracut sending a letter. He was hoping the Council could get an opinion from Attorney McQuillan on his next steps and if there are any next steps needed from the Council. Attorney McQuillan agreed to do so. Mayor Perry said DOT had previously issued the ban for the section of road that we approved the resolution for. This is not really that we did something new. The residents that live in that end of town agreed to accept it. They wanted it all the way back to Rt. 110. They have it from Lowell Road. Attorney McQuillan clarified it is an extension of Lowell Street and is presently pending before Mass DOT in light of the adoption of the resolution by the Council. We are waiting for the permit. All the necessary paperwork has been submitted for the purposes of prohibiting commercial vehicles from traveling the designated area as designated in the resolution itself. He had contact with Mass DOT today and it is his understanding that hopefully we will be getting the permit for the purposes of installing the signage to effectuate the resolution. Councilor DiZoglio said he assumed if this was Methuen, we would be doing the same thing as what the Town of Dracut is doing. This is them saying “hey okay Methuen you got one up on us, there’s no more action we’ll accept going forward.” Councilor Saba – Point of Interest – “Are we supposed to be discussing this at this point?” Attorney McQuillan noted this is not an agenda item and we really shouldn’t get into depth. He will provide an updated status. But that should be the extent of the conversation. 30 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 3rd, 2022 @ 7:00 P.M. VIA ZOOM CONFERENCE Councilor DiZoglio noted the opinion letter would be fine. ANY OTHER BUSINESS FOR THE GOOD AND WELFARE OF THE COMMUNITY ADJOURN MOTION BY: Councilor Simard, seconded by Councilor Saffie to adjourn. UPON ROLL CALL VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes I do hereby certify that at a meeting which a quorum was present, the foregoing minutes were approved by a unanimous vote on February 7, 2022. Linda Gagnon COUNCIL CLERK 31