4.14.25 Special Charter Review

It's April 14th, 2025. It's 5:00 pm. This is the special charter review committee meeting. We are meeting in the hearing room at the One Government Center. I'm Reena Brown, the chairperson. The open meeting law.

Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any media.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you for joining me in the pledge of allegiance. And can I have the attendance, please? Starting on my right, that would be Paul Michel, Reena Brown, Laura Samson, Kathy Novich, Tracy Amina, and I can tell you that Mr.

uh Mitchell's on his way, but Tim did call. Tim cannot make it and Dan cannot make it. And Mimi is uh ill. Here comes John. So, here comes John is here. All right. Right on time. Right on time. And I will be leaving shortly. Okay, that's fine. How's it going? Okay, good. Amen.

And um at this time it we will open up the meeting to any public comment.

It's true.

Seeing none, we will move on discussion and review of the charter report draft. I was just speaking to one of our two clerks and the last updated report that uh Mr. Mash, attorney Mashado has his goes to November, but I didn't pass that out to everybody yet.

We're missing um just a couple entries.

Uh 210, there was no quorum um and today's meeting. So, when that updated report is ready, that'll go out.

Okay. The last one I have goes to June, but he just showed me his his goes to November. And again, that's just the report detail and our meetings, our dates, and what happened. Okay. Any discussion of the report? Can I make a motion? I listened to the presentation to the city council the last time and there was no mention of either chapter 43 or any of the cases that we discussed. Those are included in the

charter report. So my motion would be that when the charter is presented that the charter report, the updated charter report and the outline of chapter 43 be submitted because there were a number of questions um which would have been in violation of chapter 43. I'll second that. Any further discussion about including the statutes and the case law?

Seeing none, all in favor? I. Unanimous.

Anybody opposed? So, the motion to include the uh Massachusetts statutes as well as the case law relevant to some challenged portions of the charter will be included with the report passes. And what I suggested was that just the outline of chapter 43 be included because the chap the the actual chapter is extensive.

All right. And you you want to make any other motions? I make a motion to um what happened was that the November 25th, 2024 minutes um were not um scheduled were not considered on February 10th because there was no quarum. and Attorney Brown indicated that she did not put it on today's agenda. Um, and so I make a motion that we um I make a motion that we ratify the November 25th, 2024 minutes during this

meeting, even though it was not on the agenda because it was on the last agenda. Yes, I second that.

And any further discussion? All in favor? I I will abstain and motion passes to accept the 11:25 2024 minutes and discussion review of the charter. My notes based upon the questions from the council as well as kind of our last meeting was um revisiting the vacancy sections of the charter. That's section 3-8 and section 3-10.

Now, the last uh charter kind of um draft that we have is from June of 2024 and there's my and the November 24th, November 25th, we eliminated section there's 21 days in section 38, right?

So this is not so what you have is not updated. All right. So nove So what did section 38- a 3-8A?

We eliminated the the part of the sentence the first sentence for more than 21 consecutive days.

I had a second this was the draft I was using um November 25th. We which one did we eliminate the in the first sentence of a whenever by reason of sickness or other cause the mayor is unable to perform the duties we took out for more than 21 consecutive days. Yes.

Okay. And then it just reads the president of city council shall be acting mayor. We took out a time frame.

Yes. Okay. And then 3 310 stays the way it is. No, we Oh, we took out the 21 days there. Correct.

Whenever a vacancy occurs in the office of the mayor by death, removal, resignation, or incapacity, we took out for a period greater than 21 days.

Correct. And left in during the first 18 months. Correct. Yes.

All righty. So that was already fixed by us. Okay. Beautiful. And then the only other thing was uh because I got got received comments on it several times enforcement of the charter section 9-14 and that was one that we added to.

Remember we created a grievance committee?

Yes.

leaving it the same. I'm assuming in order to promote enforcement of the charter, a three member grievance committee shall be established. One member of this committee, it it shouldn't be this committee, though. It should be just see that's that was my problem with that is that our committee is no longer a committee.

Well, let's just Tim can edit that. All right. That's just so just be one member of the charter. And you remember that uh attorney Ramsey um told us that the committee could not impose any penalties. Right. Right. So what the committee does is they issue a public report and then it's up to mayor city council to figure out what should happen. Yes. If anything. And it it just

went on to say and the last one is all charter grievances, notice and report shall become public record maintained by the city clerk. All right. Is there anything else that anybody thinks we need to uh review in this?

Was there some in one of your emails today? Did you talk about ward councils?

We did the it was one of the things that I made notes on my copy when I went before the council and I think I don't know I forget I want to say it might have been in seat one talked about did we discuss ward elections revisiting term limits in staggered limits staggered limits like Sean brought that up I I want to say I think it was either one but it was either council Kadim or

councelor Pon I know somebody on the council um not many people said much I think it was mostly only a handful and that was one of the uh suggestions and that's why I suggested we attached the outline of chapter 43 which specifies that all city the nine city councils in under a plan a form of government are at lodge and they their term is two years. And the only way that that could be changed is not

this committee, but we'd have to file the citizens would have to file a petition pursuant to chapter 43 and that's voted on by the I think question, right? Right. I think that they weren't they didn't know about being plan A and I don't think they understood what 43 really meant that the charter didn't really establish the manner of you know ward versus at large plan a the bash general law did so

and that's what we're adhering to correct that's what we're adhering to yes yeah the statute and that that that really we just need to in give them that informed informed before we move on from 914.

Can you just walk me through what that would look like? Um we talked about the grievance committee. So somebody's not following the charter. Who who files the complaint and who organizes the grievance committee? Like what happens there? Um it said this is so a says it's the duty of the mayor and all elected officials to see the charter is faithfully followed and that all city agencies and city employees comply

whenever it appears that a city agency or city employee is failing to follow the charter. The mayor shall be notified in writing. So I I think we discussed this. Any citizen who thinks anybody violated it sends a written notice to the mayor first. The mayor shall in writing cause notice to be given to such city agency or city employee directing compliance with the charter with a copy of the notice provided to the

complaintant. If it shall appear to the city council that the mayor is not adhering to the charter, the city council by resolution will direct the attention of the mayor to those areas they believe is a failure to comply with the charter because we did discuss it.

We felt that citizens themselves should be able to file a complaint somewhere because I think the it was public input and comments made by people that often said, you know, uh they're not following charter. What do we do? Because the old charter is silent to it. It only had that first paragraph. We added the sec this the second and third stuff. So, I'm a citizen and I feel like somebody's not

following the charter. I can write to the mayor to say, I feel like this person's not following the charter. It's the mayor's duty then to follow up on that complaint. And how does the grievance committee come in now after does the grievance committee is that assembled by the mayor? Can the mayor just make a decision within a reasonable time period upon receiving a written complaint of an alleged charter

violation? We didn't put a time frame in there because I remember we were like should it be 30 days? Should it be 60 days? And we were like you know what the way people certain committees only meet so often and the availability.

So, we didn't put a time frame in there.

Um, reasonable time. The committee shall schedule a meeting to discuss the violation. At each meeting, there'll be an opportunity for public comment and the committee shall produce a written report concerning the alleged charter violation with a copy of the report provided to the complaintant. Um, and and that was it.

ultra that that's the rest of it because we sought from Allen uh an opinion can we put in the charter penalties for violations and he said we couldn't so right now without that committee the mayor just it deals with it unilaterally I think so and that is problematic I can read the old charter I can read that from the old one they pretty much been settled by people going to court, right,

Paul? I mean, what do we have those three or four decisions since was adopted? But it's expensive. 914, the old charter enforcement of charter provisions. This is the only thing it says. It shall be the duty of the mayor to see the charters faithfully followed all city agencies, employees comply.

Whenever it appears to the mayor that somebody isn't following the charter, the mayor shall in writing cause notice to that person directing compliance. And if it appears to the council, the mayor isn't. By resolution, they can direct his attention to where they think he's not complying. And then it goes on to say the procedures made available in chapter 231 of the general laws may be used to

determine the rights, duty, status and other legal relations arising under this chap charter including any questions of construction or validity and chapter 231 I think is summary judgment. Right? So maybe we should attach the that to the charter report as well.

Um, and are we going to note somewhere in the charter report C attachment or an addendum so that it can direct appropriately like when we were going through even at the city council meeting I felt like okay what what am I looking at where am I going right a table of contents yeah if we even after that that paragraph put C addendum A you know general law blah blah blah just for the

purposes of the council meeting, right?

For the purposes of the council reviewing this document, I I think it it would be a good idea to at least attach the relevant mass general laws to the charter, right? Like we have a nice table of contents. Maybe we can put an index, right? And put and and just attach the relevant mass general laws 43 231 right? whatever was whatever is referenced as a mass general law in here like the ethics one referenced I think

some ethic ethic or uh statutes um so I think there should be an index with it with the um relevant mass general laws what do you think I think that these chapters should be submitted to the council, but I don't think that they necessarily need to be attached to the job. What the Mass General laws?

Yeah. Okay.

Just so that you know if it gets approved, are they going to put it online? Because if they do, they can just do a link to general laws. That would be You mean once it's finalized? Are they going to Yeah. Yeah. That way you in the document you can just click on it'll be like a hyperlink right and link right yeah you know I can talk to it and I am I I

should think they would be able to do that right I mean I think we have our own little area online it functions as in the same way if you do it that way you know just to reference the law so if somebody has a question about it and they're not familiar with that particular area as I wouldn't be I could click on it and look and know you know

what what I'm what I'm reading my my um summary of chapter 43. This is what's on our website and it's only one page.

Okay. So, I mean I think it can be condensed condensed and uh yeah, because I think I looked up 231 and I pretty I'm 99% sure that's the like it's a it's it's a civil process. That's the declaratory judgement. That's what I meant to say. It's the declaratory judgement. Yeah. It's superior court only. Um, and it lays out how to It doesn't lay out step by step. Trust me, if you were representing yourself and

you're a non- lawyer, I'm a lawyer. I don't even know how to do it. So, someone like John that does a lot of civil work knows how to do declaratory judgments, right? Uh, I don't. Do you?

Yeah. So that's why all the uh lawsuits have been 10 taxpayers versus whoever it's been. And that's what they they were looking for is a declaratory judgment, a judge to say.

Any other comments about our the wonderful work we've done? No. When can we get to the city council? Uh, I will send an email and first I'll send an email to the members and find out what everybody's available. It's Tuesday nights and um and I'm sure do they do it in finance or at the meeting? They do it right at the meeting. They put it right on the agenda. Yeah. So it could be like two in

the morning.

Um because but finance is better. So, last time we sent it, we thought we we thought we were done with it, right? It went to the mayor and the mayor signed off on it. Yep. It went to city council. Now, city council had copies of it in advance of their meeting. Correct.

Yes. Okay. Hand delivered. Right.

Because it did seem like some of their questions didn't seem like they had seen it in advance. So is there a way this time that it's kind of like okay you've read this I will certainly so this the copy we have has to be fixed and the m and the report has to be finished and once I get those I actually this is exactly what all the counselors got a beautiful bound copy

um and the city makes the copies and binds them for me and I handd delivered to the to the city council secretary and every city councelor was provided with a beautiful bound copy and um the multi-page report.

So um No, they didn't get that the last time. No, they did get that too. Oh yes, they did. Oh, they did. Oh, they got to be read in advance. I will put a cover letter. I can put a cover letter encouraging Right. Um, in the spirit of Well, and I mean because some of the questions were like, did you include blah blah blah and it's like yes, it's in there, right? So,

they wanted us to do their work for them. Well, it might be. I think we had at some point in the scope of this work did a two-page summary of the changes that we enacted here or we could highlight or put in blue or put in red or something in in within this scope exactly what was changed. That way when we're referencing it, we know exactly what was changed. I think that would be

really helpful, too. Um particularly when we're answering questions about, oh, did you change this? No, we didn't.

That's actually in black. That was what was in the former charter or that that would be helpful because in some this has been going on for two years. Yes.

Two plus. And yeah, over two years. You just redlin it, right? Red line. You know, I'll talk with Tim because he does the final charter. You do the final report, right? And Tim does the charter.

What I'll ask him is um like when he gave me a copy, he had yellow he had highlighted in yellow, you know, an area that we hadn't worked on yet. Yeah. It was something like that. Yeah. So, I'll ask Tim again if he'll go back, highlight in yellow, you know, what we changed. And uh you know certainly when it's being presented to the council you know we we made grammatical corrections we made punctuation corrections we

abbreviate you know that stuff we won't changes would be appropriate just to highlight I mean even if we showed the paragraph as it was and how it changed would be an interesting way to I also gave them a copy of the old charter, the new one bound and the report as we had the Paul, you did that report that summarized the changes. We we had that that completed. So that

would be important. It has to get read.

Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And you know that I'll do a cover letter. There's certain areas of the charter that are going to receive more attention than others. And we kind of know what those are, right? It's those that have been litigated, I think, primarily. Um, and and those that talk about term limits, I think, was that was there a lot of questions about any suggestions for changes in term limits.

That was definitely something that came up at the last council meeting. And what we also did was we took into consideration, although we talked about this a long time ago, but we took into consideration um the court decisions that involved the chart because there were I think three or four four that involved the chart. So they're all important areas too. So we took all those into consideration and that's

referenced in the chart report. Okay. Do do you think though the second time this goes to the council that they'll just be addressing the items that they told us to go back and revisit or are they going to I don't think we really know. They'll do whatever they want. It's up it's up for the whole thing is up for review. So they'll probably focus on the areas that they focused on before the first time,

but they may not.

But I thought it was significant when I watched it. Um I didn't hear any reference to chapter 43 for example. Um and I don't think that there was any discussion of the four cases that involved the charter which were all lost. Well, I did start out by saying other than grammatical errors and taking some word words out and punctuation, we added a, you know, a table of contents and the sections that were litigated. We

appropriately fixed them because I figured if I started out with the big things, they wouldn't and I don't think I had any follow-up questions about those. Um, they were satisfied with the revisions. One would assume, right?

Potentially. Potentially. last time they're satisfied. Yes. But they may not be again. So it's up for interpretation.

We should be ready for questions regardless. Correct. Correct. So I will send an email to see who's available. I will send an email first to Tim to see if he can highlight the changes in another color for the counselor's copies. I'll send an email to Paul for the updated report. Then I'll send an email to the body with those and with who can go to the council and you know kind of find out from the council

president you know what he's looking at for a date. I'll send that out to you and whoever can go it would be perfect.

Does it have to go to the mayor though again first? Yes. Yeah. But yeah and I'll do I you know I'll get all that done. Uh, and uh, because it it'll it just take I'm sure it it won't take, you know, the mayor the mayor actually read all of it because my conversations with him about, you know, our changes. He had already, you know, had mentioned things.

So, um, and so I'm looking at the dates for the city council meetings for the rest of the year and I'm assuming we would be on the agenda for one of these dates. So, those would be possibly the dates, May, June, something like that.

July. I I don't I think May's too early, but I I certainly think June would be good. I think June is doable. You know, by the time Tim does that, Paul does his. I get it. Print them to the mayor.

So, June would be perfect. I mean, it only took them a couple days to print them and bind them. And not that I needed them bound, but I thought it was a better presentation. Will you last time I think you mailed them to us or what? We picked them up or something.

Some people picked them up, some I mailed. Okay. You'll just send But I'm going to email you'll email because Tim will email me the finished copy. Paul will email me the report. I'll just email to to the to our members. But for the council, I, you know, took a lot of time to have these things printed up and it was obvious maybe they missed some important parts, but you can't make them read it.

I know it's well and I the the easier that we make it for them to discover the changes, the better the more likely the chance that they'll they'll have good questions and we'll be able to move on from or no questions. or none. Yes. Yeah, maybe there'll be none.

Maybe they'll be so thrilled. All righty. Uh any further discussion?

I just have one issue.

Um today's minutes, I'm going to make a motion um to um ask the committee to u approve the minutes from today in advance.

because we won't have an opportunity to approve the minutes or wave the approval. We'll submit I'll submit them and can you just Yeah, it'll go on the file.

Whatever. Whatever. You that confident this is our last meeting?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Positive positive vibes here. Yes. Move we wave the need for approval. Yeah. Well, how about we move we do it by ratification by email and just send it by email and we can So the mo the amended motion is to ratify by email. Yeah. And seconded by John. Yeah. Okay. All in favor? I.

Unanimous. Minutes to be ratified by email. Okay. Done that every time. Any other motions? A lot of stuff. A motion to adjurnn perhaps. Motion to adjurnn by Kathy. Seconded by Tracy. Tracy. All in favor?

Unanimously.

No oppositions to adjourn. Mr. Mashado.