City Council

METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MINUTES MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2023 @ 7:00 P.M. Chair Zeigler called the regular meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. Members present: Finocchiaro, McCarty, Saba, Saffie, Simard, DiZoglio, Faretra, Zeigler. Acting Mayor D. J. Beauregard, Jr. was also present. Acceptance of Agenda MOTION BY: Councilor Simard, seconded by Councilor Faretra to accept as amended. UPON VOTE: UNANIMOUS Pledge of Allegiance/Invocation Everyone stood for the Pledge of Allegiance and remained standing for the Invocation and a Moment of Silence in Observation of friends and family lost to addiction. Organizational Business Update on Audio System in Great Hall Chair Zeigler indicated that MCS is working with a contractor for the equipment which has not been updated in over a decade. Councilor Faretra said any purchase would come out of MCS’s line item not the general fund. The CAFO, Maggie Duprey, said that is what she would recommend, under the Comcast funding. Councilor Finocchiaro asked there has been any discussion as to the type of system so that they do not need to be manned, zoomed in, and changed remotely. That would ensure that we never have a situation where meetings are not covered. Chair Zeigler said the city would see if that is something that we could include in a quote. We need to ensure sound quality. Acceptance of Minutes Reading and Acceptance of Minutes from Previous Meetings: February 21, 2023 Regular Meeting MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor DiZoglio to approve. UPON VOTE: 7 yes, 1 present (Clr. Finocchiaro) Previous Requests of Councilors Councilor Saffie – Req. CAFO provide and update the City’s longevity policy and its impact on pension liability Chair Zeigler said the CAFO provided the information. 1 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MINUTES MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2023 @ 7:00 P.M. Councilor Saffie – Req. Mayor to provide a budget breakdown for the mental health services investment from 2020 to present. For example, direct payments for positions (added, if so, how many) and programming materials and supplies, list of relative programs and service offerings. Chair Zeigler indicated the Superintendent is working on a presentation regarding Mental Health which will go through the School Committee first and then come to the City Council. Vice-Chair Faretra Req. DPW Director. Provide a Status Update on Summer Worker Program Councilor Faretra read into the record a memo he received from Pat Bower, DPW Director, regarding Summer Worker Program (attached). Update on Seasonal Worker Program FY23.pdf Mayor’s Report Acting Mayor Beauregard said Mayor Perry is grateful for the thoughts and well wishes he has received from everyone. Acting Mayor Beauregard reported Sean Cronin sent a congratulatory email today regarding the city’s finances (attached). He also read into the record a memo received from Methuen Mayor City Council Chapter 278-3.6.23.pdf Matthew Gorzkowicz, Secretary of Administration and Finance. Although Sean Cronin is no longer providing service to Methuen, it doesn’t mean he is no longer available. The provisions of Chapter 278 are still in place. This success is a testimony to the work done by Mayor Perry. On behalf of Mayor Perry, he asked for Council consideration and support of items on the agenda, specifically mental health training for first responders. He urged Council to say “yes” for dealing with the crisis head on and mental health services in the schools. Councilor DiZoglio thanked the Acting Mayor for the several emails and phone calls received regarding cost. He wants to see what we can do in the long run. He also asked for an update on the Day’s Inn and if there have been any additional conversations with the state/any funds they owe to the city. Request of Councilors – None Public Service: Grants: None Licenses: None 2 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MINUTES MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2023 @ 7:00 P.M. Contracts: C-23-72 Huntress Associates, Inc. 17 Tewksbury Street Andover, MA 01810 $34,750 MOTION BY: Councilor DiZoglio, seconded by Councilor Faretra to approve. MOTION BY: Councilor Finocchiaro, seconded by Councilor Simard to add language “Landscape Architectural Services Gill Ave to the title” UPON VOTE (amendment): UNANIMOUS yes Councilor Finocchiaro stated for the record this is not based on competitive bids. That is because it is exempt. Under Attachment A, which is halfway through the packet, part one, number one B, they note lighting which is something she believes is important as that is something the city has gotten a lot of complaints about. Section E talks about the “dog park” aspect of this project which she has heard a lot of residents say that they are interested in having a “dog park”. She doesn’t know if it’s been discussed on the City Council level in terms of if anybody feels otherwise. Her feedback has been positive for that. She requested that Council hold a public hearing for that purpose. It is a very new thing for Methuen to have a public “dog park” because some people feel very strongly about not having dogs at parks. It is currently not allowed. We do also receive complaints that people do allow dogs at the parks. 2AH discusses ADA compliance. In the past for our parks, we’ve spent money for ADA compliance and then it wasn’t done correctly. Then the city paid to redo it. the last payment of funds is not done until we confirm that everything was done in an ADA compliant fashion. Section 2C talks about a power point to interested parties. She wanted to find out if that included the City Council because under Section 3 it says they would only be presenting it to Planning and commission boards. Section 5 says services not included which lists other meeting to town officials. To her, it reads that there isn’t going to be a presentation to the City Council but wanted to confirm if that was the case and if that is the case, if Ms. Duprey or department head or the Mayor or whomever could do a presentation on that before that’s completed. The CAFO agreed to do that. Councilor DiZoglio said he has always questioned why the “splash pad” was on the Gill Ave side of the park and why it wasn’t more centralized. He is looking here at the “dog park” and knows the city has been asking for “dog parks” for decades. “Why Gill?” It is not centralized to the community. He’s looking at parks like Milk Street or the High School area. “Why are we going to Gill Ave, which is a little bit further, not a lot of arteries to get there and the roads are all back roads?” Superintendent Stephen Angelo stated that part of the reason they chose Gill Avenue is because they could use the area in that park that is not currently utilized. It isn’t going to impact any of the other areas that we currently utilize for recreational purposes in the city. They also want people to be able to utilize the Rail Trail. People walk their dogs down that trail all the time and to have that Rail Trail be a connection to Gill Ave from different areas of the city. Councilor DiZoglio asked if there has been any consideration for a “dog park” anywhere else in the city or enhancements that would bring the community centralized and not to the far, east, east end of the Central district. Mr. Angelo said people from the east end and west end could come to the central and utilize that area of Methuen. They wanted to keep it centralized. It is currently an area that is 3 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MINUTES MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2023 @ 7:00 P.M. underutilized for recreational purposes. A lot of that neighborhood does utilize that park quite a bit. It is a very popular park for that neighborhood. But to be able to utilize that area more effectively without impacting some of the uses of some of the other areas is kind of how we handled that decision. Councilor DiZoglio understands it is a utilized park, but he doesn’t think someone from Washington Street is going walk or drive all the way down to Gill Ave to utilize a “dog park” there. The CAFO said this is the start of looking at all the parks in the city. It is something that we really haven’t done in the past. This is just the first park that we are considering. In 2023 and going forward we plan to have money in all the Capital Improvement Plans in the foreseeable future to get after all the parks in the city. This is just the start. It may not be in this project, but it may be in the next project. We are going to be looking at all the parks and these types of things will come up with each one of those. This is just the beginning. Councilor DiZoglio said he understands they are working hard to get this up and running for the city with the ARPA funding and grant funding, etc. If we are going to put these types of iconic things that we are looking for, we should be putting it more centralized to a city area that sees a lot of traffic directly through an artery and not back roads. That area at the four corners gets very congested. There have been some instances where people on the Rail Trail are not going any further. He wants to be mindful of where the city is putting these locations and we want to make sure it is centralized to our community so that everyone from all ends can meet in the middle. Councilor Faretra commented, as someone who lives in the neighborhood, it is disrespectful to say people might want to go there because of where it is. He has taken his children there. To say people might not want to go there because of where it is, is disrespectful to people who live there, work hard, and raise their families there. He said he feels as though there have been presentations on this project. Mr. Angelo confirmed there was a public meeting six or seven months ago to have people from the neighborhood give their feedback as to what they wanted to see from the project, give their ideas just before the city was doing the specifications on the project itself and then moving towards the final decision on how we were going to move forward. We did try to bring in some of residents from that neighborhood. It was a public meeting via Zoom that was publicized on MCTV. Councilor Faretra recalled seeing the drawings and how the next phase would connect to the Rail Trail at some point with the basketball court, parking, etc. For the record, the city has had those meetings about this project. Councilor Saba questioned if the “splash pad” was utilized last year. Mr. Angelo responded, yes. Councilor Saba said the only concerns he has is the city is going to spend some money on updating the athletic field and Mr. Angelo is doing a great job. We have had an issue previously where we’ve spent a lot of money on irrigation and updating fields to just find that nobody ever turned the irrigation on, the fields weren’t taken care of. He asked if a plan is in place and how are we going to protect the investment of the taxpayers. Mr. Angelo said as we go into the budget season, Council will see a lot of request from the Capital Improvement Plan to basically purchase equipment that we have not had to maintain. 4 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MINUTES MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2023 @ 7:00 P.M. We are going to be making these investments in our parks and fields, we have made available the equipment to be able to upkeep everything. It does not make sense to put hundreds of thousands of dollars to the parks if we don’t have the equipment to maintain them long-term. Council will see that in the Capital Improvement Plan proposed to the Council and as we move forward with the budgeting in future years making sure we keep up with all these bigger projects. Each year, Council will probably see a new project coming up. He is grateful to the administration for supporting this and looking into these projects long term. Councilor Saba reiterated if there is a plan for maintaining, who is going to oversee and run sprinklers, who is going to maintain these fields? “Having the equipment is one thing but having a plan that is going to be followed through is another”. Mr. Angelo explained when they did the reorganization of DPW, the intention was having people internally who could concentrate on the parks more than we have in the past. Our DPW works very hard in doing projects. Over the last year, they tried to reallocate some resources when it comes to personnel, trying to make more of a concentration trying to see what we could do long term. It is the first step towards long term. Councilor DiZoglio said his words were twisted a little bit from the Vice-Chair. He does not think someone from Washington Street and/or the east side of Methuen is going to travel four miles to go to a “dog park” or a “splash pad” on the other side. That is the only thing he is saying because centralizing one of the one things that we have we don’t have in other parts of the town to bring it centralized. That is all he is saying. Just like what you did in Stoneham with the “splash pad” there right off the main arteries of the highway and the main roads and the YMCA there. That is sort of what he means for Methuen and that’s all he is saying. There is no disrespect for any of the community members in that area. If you are going to travel four miles to go to a “dog park” he could just take the dog down to the river and walk along the river. That is all he is saying. UPON VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes C-23-73 Innes Associates, Inc. 32 R Moody Street Byfield, MA 01922 $40,000 MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor Simard to approve. Councilor Finocchiaro asked the CAFO to confirm 100% of this expense is going to be through the Fiscal Year 2023 Community Choice Housing Grant. The CAFO stated that was correct. Councilor Finocchiaro referred to page 9 under task 3 where it says interview and focus groups it mentions that when emails are given by the city that they will reach out to solicit feedback. She asked that all our local officials are included on that request. To her this is an issue that spans across all departments and positions. Under 3(2) it says that all focus groups will be via Zoom and that they will be up to five interviews that may be conducted in addition for those who can’t attend the Zoom. She asked that Community Development or the Mayor’s office hold additional in-person groups as not everybody is comfortable or able to use Zoom and might not be included. The way that it is worded it sounds like individual interviews or smaller groups as opposed to large groups for those up to five interviews and that is all that is covered under the contract. She would just ask that something we could do for free is that we have an in- person opportunity for feedback. That could be through a city council hearing which might be the easiest way 5 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MINUTES MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2023 @ 7:00 P.M. Chair Zeigler passed the gavel to the Vice-Chair. She said the process is outlined nicely and the timeline. For someone to participate in the focus group how would they sign up for that? Community Development Director Jack Wilson said once they sign this contract, they will deal with the specifics of all that.in the outreach with the contractor. It is difficult to get any work done until that is in place. It is really an attempt in a short window of time we are already a little bit behind. We are a little less concerned about the early going. We have until July to come up with a plan and adopt a plan if the city so chose to do that. It is a short window and is going to be an intense period. To the extent that they were able to reach into all the stakeholders to get to solicit the info we need to have a sound foundation Council can make a decision on if the zoning is something you wanted to pursue. There is going to be no shortage of information being shared on both sides as far as from our consultant to us and to our consultant from the community. Chair Zeigler said this is an important process for the community involvement. She suggested that perhaps there by a Google forum on the city website or an imbedded form on the city website for people to sign up if they are interested in being part of the focus groups and also if there’s a means to put flyers out in local grocery stores, in the community, so there is no missing this opportunity for voices to be heard. She asked if there is an intention to have a bilingual effort. Mr. Wilson responded, yes, they will. You mention the different vehicles and using the website. One of the advantages cited in the Innes Contract is she has a natural synergy with Jenn Golson and her team, who is working on our Master Plan. That is not coincidental that she was chosen because that gave her a significant leg up. She is in the me corridor that Jenn Golson is in, so the information obtained is useful not only in the short term, the issue of compliance with the MBTA law but also longer-term Master Planning focus. There is a nice coming together of resources with this contract entirely paid for by the state. Chair Zeigler commented this is a great effort and she is happy to support it. . UPON VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes. Vice-Chair Faretra passed the gavel back to the Chair. C-23-74 KP Law 101 Arch Street Boston MA 02110 $30,000 MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor Simard to approve. Councilor McCarty said he has been opposed to continuing to extend contracts for KP Law. He lost faith in Attorney Klein’s representation based on previous legal advice he is given such as he had us all in a closed room. Chair Zeigler reminded Councilor McCarty Council cannot discuss Executive Sessions. Councilor McCarty said he is not talking about Executive Session. Solicitor Rossetti cautioned against revealing communications with the Council. That is attorney client privilege. The Solicitor advised against disclosing the contents of communication with the city’s legal counsel. Councilor McCarty said he could waive that. The Solicitor disagreed. It would be the Council body that would have to waive that. Councilor McCarty clarified it was advice given to him not the body. Attorney Klein encouraged him and others to accept the MOU with the Superior Officers. If we would have 6 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MINUTES MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2023 @ 7:00 P.M. done that, he does not think many of them would be sitting here. He does not think the community would be in the spot that it is in now. He also looks at this proposal and it mentions some of the services that they are aiding the city with. The only one that really sticks out to him here is the cable tv licensing. When he looks at Colchester properties post litigation, to him that matter is closed. It has been adjudicated. It has done. There is a binding judgement at this point. We are no longer able to appeal it. Then it says other real estate issues which he does not know what that means. He was looking for some clarification on what other real estate issues are. Solicitor Rossetti explained right now legal is a department of two attorneys. They presently are very busy with several litigations matters and these kinds of issues can pop up at a moment’s notice. There are projects that come into the community development department that often require very specialized real estate experience. Councilor McCarty asked: “but nothing in particular as of right now?” Solicitor Rossetti said there are some projects. This would not be the appropriate forum to discuss this. Councilor McCarty said he is looking at “providing Council to the Mayor and Solicitor as any” He has seen some of the opinions given Mayor Perry such as hiring from legal counsel. Solicitor Rossetti said he is advising not to disclose contents of a communication. That is privileged and protected from disclosure with attorney client privilege. Councilor McCarty mentioned there was the hiring of a School Committee member as Chief of Staff to the Mayor and our Solicitor, prior to you, with the help of John Foskett, had an opinion that said that wasn’t lawful and Attorney Client what looked like text messages but we’re calling it an opinion so that it was not a violation of the Charter. The only other thing he has here that he does not know about is Cable TV licensing. “Do we know what that is about?” Solicitor Rossetti explained the city’s outside legal counsel are working on an agreement with one of the providers. That matter remains open. Since it is open it is still being billed upon. This contract request is made in part to address invoicing that has come in, but we are at the point where we do not have any money left on the contract. Councilor McCarty encouraged the Council to go in a different direction in this general legal representation. Councilor DiZoglio asked if the city is at a point/juncture where they could start taking over some of these cases. Solicitor Rossetti said if they are asking his view about a specific direction, he would bring the Council back to the last budget discussion they had regarding the legal department and the Council will recall that in the lead up to the current fiscal year there was discussion regarding the line item professional services The line item for the professional services in the previous year was $175,000. That number was dropped. He worked closely with the CAFO and the Mayor to come up with a figure that would reflect a sharp reduction in recognition of the fact that we were moving away from the intensive labor of arbitration that the city was involved in. At the same time with a view toward taking on as much as can be taken on in-house as possible in our legal department. That line item went from $175,000 to $120,000 and within that $120,000 line item with four months left in the fiscal year they have $95,000 left which means they have used about $25,000. He doesn’t mean to sound like he is trying to brag about being fiscally responsible, but he’s made a concerted effort to minimize how frequently we look to 7 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MINUTES MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2023 @ 7:00 P.M. outside counsel. But there are going to be instances based on our workload where a certain kind of expertise is needed for a particular matter where it does make sense and is in fact more efficient to rely on outside counsel to save our having to dig deeply into a matter that another specialist has expertise to address immediately. They are at the point now where if we are looking to bring on as much as possible, we need to address expanding within the legal department. Councilor DiZoglio asked if this is a retainer or billed out already. Solicitor Rossetti said it is billed out. It is not a retainer. The city does not send a check to KP Law. Let’s assume the Council approves this. The city does not send a check for $30,000 to KP that they draw on. That would be a retainer relationship. The $30,000, if approved by the body, is money that is available in the legal budget. $30,000 would be encumbered on what remains of the $95,000 to pay invoicing that comes into the city for legal services rendered on behalf of the city. Councilor Saba said his concern with this contract is that it is has an open session here where other legal issues could be referred to KP Law and he does share some of the concerns of his fellow Councilor. He mentioned to the Solicitor a short while back (TO-13-2) mandates that any time legal counsel is hired, the City Council must vote on it. His concern is he does not think that has been done. He can provide the Council with TO-13-2. Any time that outside legal counsel is required, it is supposed to come to the Council to be approved and Council is supposed to get regular updates on the process. This would have solved the problem for some of the lawsuits that happened recently that Council did not even know lawyers were involved in. With this particular contract, it almost leaves it wide open to continue to put business into this law firm. It is a $30,000 contract, he gets it; but he is a little concerned that it leaves it open ended. He does not know if the Solicitor has spoken with the CAFO about the potential of adding another person to your staff. Legal is doing a phenomenal job. Outside spending has decreased quite a bit. He gets concerned with some of these open-ended contracts. It takes away from the authority of the Council. Solicitor Rossetti thanked Councilor Saba for his kind words for the efforts undertaken by the legal department. He feels as though now they are at the point where they are reducing their spending on outside counsel, but haven’t looked at increasing the compliment of in-house counsel staff that can take on substantially all the legal matters that come into the city. Until we get to that point where the compliment is added he is asking that there be a modest sum available to fund the services of outside counsel when outside counsel is necessary on a particularly specialized matter or when neither Assistant City Solicitor McQuillan or he are able to directly tackle that matter. He gave his personal and professional commitment that he will not allow KP Law or any other law firm to run a meter on an ongoing basis. He stays on top of these bills and he will make sure the spending is modest and appropriate for work undertaken. Councilor Saba said he still is concerned about the ability to just add more cases to KP Law. He agreed with Councilor McCarty to say that we lived through several cases of mis- advice to Council by this law firm. He is willing to support this contract this time for legal because he wants to support what legal is doing. He cautioned that if legal is going to give a new case to KP, it should come before the Council so that Council knows what they are handling. That would be more in accordance with TO-13-2 which he will provide to the Council. 8 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MINUTES MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2023 @ 7:00 P.M. Councilor Saffie agreed with Councilor Saba and Councilor McCarty. She has an issue with the language. It says providing services to the Mayor and the City Solicitor as authorized. She asked why the City Council is left out of this. Solicitor Rossetti said he knows that the Council has a relationship with Attorney Foskett’s law firm. There was no intent to carve out an exemption to freeze out the City Council.at all and that is not at all how he has practiced with the City of Methuen. All the Councilors, the Mayor, the department heads are one client. It is not A vs. B, legislative vs. executive, or one department against the other department. It is one client. Councilor Saffie asked if the Solicitor gives Council an opinion and she vehemently disagree with it she could go to them to get a second opinion. Solicitor Rossetti said if she wanted a second opinion, keep in mind that is going to run the clock, then Councilors could do that. KP is under engagement to provide counsel to the city. He does not see any prohibition on that. Councilor Saffie said she would hesitate because it is expensive. Councilor Saba said as the Solicitor just pointed Council has a contract with Attorney Foskette. Councilors have in the past, gone to Attorney Foskette in that law firm for advice to the Council when we have hit a roadblock. That was recommended strongly in 2018. That’s why it is important for this Council and any future Council he would strongly recommend that we maintain that type of an agreement so that Council has the ability to quickly go to an outside law firm for advice to the Council. Councilor Simard agreed with his fellow Councilors. He feels there has been some overly cautious bad advice from that law firm in the past that could have cost the city money. He is glad the Council did not follow the advice and went with their gut instinct there. It will be part of the legacy of this Council. He appreciates what Council did. Moving forward he is happy to have John Foskett on retainer because the incompetence of our former Chief in regard to Civil Service, legal will be inundated with Civil Service lawsuits and the like because of all the mistreatment of officers that are currently on that. They are going to be looking for their time back, looking for back pay. Legal is going to be quite busy. He is glad the city is going to have an alternate law firm when we do delve into the more pressing issues that they might be experts in. He is in favor of it (John Foskett). Councilor Finocchiaro agreed with the concern that her fellow Councilors have with the large issue the city dealt regarding the Police Superior Officers and that was disappointing advice. Prior to our current city solicitor we had many discussions and this is also with a different City Council where we had concerns about saying, okay with this individual law firm we haven’t actually gone out to review bids and put it out in a very long time. It has always been extended, extended and that was a concern years ago, a concern that she said and that others felt as well. She understands that some felt it made sense for us to maintain what we had going through the variety of differences that we had. Her thought on this is that it makes sense to continue things that are currently in action, things that are currently ongoing items that are either in litigation they are currently giving advice for us. It does not make sense for us to change that mid-stream. Her concern with moving forward and some of the language that has a very wide berth for us to start new issues makes it so that is seemingly cyclable. Right? If we leave it open that we are going to receive advisement and going to receive their help for certain items. Now we are starting that cycle. In all farness their rate is a n exceptionally low rate, and they are quite 9 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MINUTES MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2023 @ 7:00 P.M. a large law firm that is frequently used by many municipalities in the state. Everything is relative but she would like to see the city go to additional general counsel and have that discussion, go out and put what we are looking for, what kind of expertise we are most seeking, and see what the results are, whether that is through a full RFP process or more on proposals is something the finance department should co-ordinate with the city solicitor. Personally speaking she would like the city to have an end point and a start point and whether or not this firm was hired in the future would be based off of the results of that search and how the Council voted on that new step. She cannot support this based on those issues. If this was tabled and a smaller scope was entailed, she is okay with the amount. She is not okay with the verbiage of the scope. She does not know that it is necessarily healthy. For example, the Mayor’s office to be able to go out and ask individual counsel from outside law firms without necessarily having Councilors looped in. Her concern for this is, in the past, speaking from experience of over five years of being a Councilor many times over several administrations, Council doesn’t know about a lawsuit until its announced in the newspaper. These conversations are happening that we’re not looped in on. She wants to keep that in mind because she does think Councilor Saffie’s concern is valid. She just wanted to explain that from their point of view because the solicitor is always in the know, she would hope and cc’d and included in a lot of this information but for the rest of this Council when they are being asked to pay for additional counsel it is easy to feel uncomfortable with it when we are seeing things like news articles, things that Council didn’t even know were being litigated. That is an understandable concern that Councilor Saffie and she and fellow Councilors had concerns with this law firm. She is fine with the amount and fine with us moving forward in a more limited scope. She will put forward a motion to table so this language could be updated for a future meeting since its noted that more than a quorum Councilor Faretra said this Council, about a year and a half ago, passed legislation asking for regular updates on pending lawsuits against the city. He does not think Council has been getting those updates or kept abreast about what has been going on when it comes to legal proceedings against the city. Councilors seem to be the last ones to find out when things are going on when it comes to legal actions against the city. When things happen, unfortunately, it is usually from our former Chief, but he agrees with what a lot of his fellow Councilors have said. He would like to see this language brought down a bit where newer cases aren’t being given to this law firm and we start looking at going in a different direction where they are going to finish out what they have here and like you said go out to bid and maybe look at the possibility of bringing someone else on board. Solicitor Rossetti said he needs to speak up. It is unclear by some of the comments as to the time frame keeping the Council in the loop. He does make an effort to keep the Councilors apprised of important matters and matters of litigation. He does provide updates in executive sessions on a particular matter. He recalled back in November he gave an overview of every single case the city is involved in and he felt he needed to speak up. As long as he is solicitor, he is going to be providing the Council with updates on how matters are going and to Vice-Chair’s point about Councilor Saffie’s resolution, Councilor Saffie has followed up with him on that. He has given her an actual plan they are doing in concert with the CAFO to get that information published. There are not many cases that fall within the resolution, but they will get those published. That will be a supplement to what the CAFO publishes for everyone here on all disbursements made by the city. As long as he is solicitor all Councilors will be in the loop. 10 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MINUTES MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2023 @ 7:00 P.M. Councilor Finocchiaro said she appreciates the solicitor’s updates. MOTION BY: Councilor Finocchiaro, seconded by Councilor DiZoglio to table. UPON VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes Unfinished Business Resolutions TR-23-12 Resolution Declaring Surplus Equipment and Authorizing Granting of Surplus Equipment from Methuen C.A.R.E.S. Center MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor Simard to approve. UPON VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes Ordinances TO-23-2 An Ordinance Amending the Wage and Salary Schedule of Chapter 6 of the Methuen Municipal Code, Unaffiliated, to create the position of Finance Director (remove from the table) MOTION BY: Councilor DiZoglio, seconded by Councilor Faretra to remove from the table UPON VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes. MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor Saffie to approve. UPON VOTE: UNANIMOUS yes New Business Resolutions: TR-23-11 Resolution Authorizing Transfer from Free Cash for funding of unanticipated police department expenditures MOTION BY: Councilor DiZoglio, seconded by Councilor Faretra to approve. MOTION BY: Councilor Finocchiaro, seconded by Councilor Simard to add the amount of $100,000 to the title on the agenda. UPON VOTE (amendment): UNANIMOUS yes UPON VOTE (as amended): UNANIMOUS yes Ordinances: None Any Other Business for the Good and Welfare of the Community Councilor McCarty wished everyone a “Happy St. Patrick’s Day”. He announced the grand opening email invitation for Aria’s Place (formerly 1859 house) for Thursday, March 16th, 2023 at 11 a.m., 12 Hampshire Street, Methuen. The Chamber of Commerce is going to be there as well as local officials. ADJOURN MOTION BY: Councilor Faretra, seconded by Councilor Saffie to adjourn. UPON VOTE: UNANIMOUS. 11 METHUEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING MINUTES MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2023 @ 7:00 P.M. I do hereby certify that at a meeting which a quorum was present, the foregoing minutes were adopted by the Methuen City Council by a unanimous vote on March 20, 2023. Linda Gagnon COUNCIL CLERK 12