Recap of January 28, 2025 Regular Meeting of the City Council

Video on YouTube

Meeting agenda

We took up Councilor Scarpelli’s resolution (tabled from 1/14) to discuss property tax bills. We had a substantial discussion on the paper and for the most part, all Councilors agreed on a number of points. There was broad agreement there should have been better, more proactive communications from the City to residents to set expectations for the Q3 tax bills (that they reflect the new rate for Q3 and Q4 based on the new rate adopted in December 2024; but also start to make up the difference from Q1 and Q2, because when those bills went out, they were reflective of the old, slightly lower tax rate). There was also a lot of thanks given to the Assessor’s Office, which has been very responsive and worked very hard to meet with residents 1:1 to discuss their individual property tax bills and explore abatements, where possible. There was also acknowledgement that now is the time to start the process of exploring a residential exemption – which is not to say that there is unanimous support for the idea on the Council, but a lot of support for researching and discussing it in earnest. 

Based on our conversation, I offered the following alternate version of the resolution. This B-Paper was approved and the original paper was not. Here’s the text because it’s not on the Public Portal yet. 

“Whereas the City of Medford has currently expanded all tax exemptions for members of vulnerable communities, including our Senior, Disabled, and Veteran neighbors, to the maximum extent allowed under State law; and

Whereas, in the past, state and federal grants have been utilized in the City of Medford to support our local businesses, such as the 2024 MA Vacant Storefront Program and the 2022 Small Business Façade Improvement Grant Program; 

Whereas, implementing a Residential Exemption would decrease the tax burden for some residential property owners; 

Be it resolved that the City Council continue to support the Assessor’s Office and Mayor’s Communications Officer in sharing information about abatement processes with any and all residents who could benefit. 

Be it resolved that the City Council craft a Home Rule Petition to ask the State to allow us to further expand our tax exemption options for these vulnerable groups, so that we may offer even greater tax exemption programs, than what we are currently allowed to offer. 

Be it further resolved that the City Council meet in the Administration & Finance Committee to discuss a potential Residential Exemption. 

Be it further resolved that the City Administration continue to prioritize and pursue any and all state, federal and private grant opportunities targeted at assisting our business community.

We took up Councilor Scarpelli’s resolution to request an update on the Parking Department. As a reminder/disclaimer, parking policy is not under the City Council’s jurisdiction. Nevertheless, many of us agreed that it would be beneficial to meet the new Parking Director, ask questions/raise concerns about the parking ticket appeals process, ask questions about the GLX Zone Parking Program, and make suggestions about how to improve the accessibility of parking policy information for residents. We approved the resolution and resolved to meet with the Director in a Committee of the Whole. 

Councilor Leming and Lazzaro offered a resolution to change the Council rules to take petitions from local businesses before resolutions from Councilors (so that local businesses don’t have to wait through long meetings to get to their permit applications). It was noted that this is current practice according to the current Council rules, but very often papers are taken out of order to move other items or parties up or down in the queue. It was sent to Committee for further discussion on how we can either change existing Council rules, or put existing rules into better practice, towards the goal of letting business owners have a better experience at Council meetings. 

President Bears offered a resolution for City Council leadership to initiate a search process for our next City Messenger. The position is vacant due to the passing of dearly beloved Larry Lepore last year, who served as City Messenger for 37 years. Big shoes to fill! 

Next, we reviewed an Open Meeting Law Complaint filed by a Lowell resident in response to several Medford City Councilors signing onto a statewide Shelter Advocacy letter urging Governor Healey to restore and protect right to access, including shelter resources and services for families experiencing homelessness. The sign-on letter, organized by a Salem City Councilor, has been signed by scores of elected officials from around the state in the midst of MA leadership divesting resources from emergency shelters this winter. We took a vote to accept the response being worked on by Council leadership and legal counsel, which asserts that no OML violation occurred: no coordination or deliberation occurred among the five Medford City Councilors who each individually and independently chose to sign the letter in response to a mass-circulated communication. 

Editorial note: Documentation shows that the complainant is a serial OML complaint-filer and is promulgating similar complaints against public bodies widely across the Commonwealth. Weird way to spend one’s time, filing frivolous OML complaints against officials advocating that the Governor’s Administration stop divesting funds from emergency shelter. 

We approved CPC appropriation requests, which were presented in detail to the Council at a Committee of the Whole last week. 

We approved Stabilization Fund Rescission/Appropriation Requests, so that the Alden Memorial Chambers Window Restoration Project could be funded via CPA funds earmarked for historic preservation (this is a historic preservation project), freeing up the Stabilization Fund monies previously appropriated for this project; and, we appropriated monies from the Capital Stabilization Fund for various repair and renovation projects in City Hall and MFD facilities. 

We approved a legal settlement in the amount of $7,500 compensating local property owners for damage caused by a sewage backflow. 

We discussed and then tabled a paper by the Mayor recommending that the City Council vote to convey two long-unused McCormack Street parcels from tax custodianship, to the City, so that they may be sold to the highest bidder and monies used for other purposes in the City. Several Councilors had questions and concerns that they wanted satisfied before taking votes on this proposal, so we tabled it pending more information and a Committee of the Whole on the topic to be held with members of the Mayor’s Administration and representatives from the Affordable Housing Trust. (One question answered during our discussion last night is that it is not legal to extend right of first refusal to McCormack Street residents, due to state procurement law.) 

Other meetings of note: 

• 1/14: Committee of the Whole to review the Loan Order for HVAC and Roof Repairs at the McGlynn and Andrews.

• 1/15: The Planning & Permitting Committee (which I chair) received a first, preliminary introduction to the next topic in our zoning review timeline – Neighborhood Residential (updated framework for current SF1/SF2 districts). The zoning consultant acquainted the Committee with the general goals and parameters of this zoning topic and presented some jumping-off points for our comments, questions and suggestions. We’ll continue to meet on this topic in future Planning & Permitting Committees, the next of which is tonight (1/29). 

• 1/21: Committee of the Whole on CPC Funding Recommendations. 

• 1/21: Public Works & Facilities Committee met to receive an update on road work and volunteer tree planting program. 

• 1/22: Governance Committee to review and discuss the draft proposed City Charter. Most of the discussion centered on the Legislative branch and methods of ward/district representation. Here is the draft schedule for which sections of the draft Charter will be discussed at other Governance Committee meetings.

A behind the scenes project: There is a lot of collaboration going on between City Council leadership & the Mayor’s Office to streamline the zoning project and better deploy City communication channels to get more and better information about zoning meetings and zoning proposals out to the community. Thank you everyone who has been voicing suggestions of what information you want and where you need to be able to find it. We are working on it! Stay tuned.