Craig, where are you calling in from? I'm in Chicago. Yeah. Well, I'm in Baltimore. Oh, that's good. I could I tried to get home earlier, but it would have got me home at like like literally now. So I said, you know what? I'll just stay and make it so that I
there was no interruptions or delays. Council will come to order. All rise and salute the flag of the stands nationisible for all. Please remain standing for a
moment of silence in honor of our veterans, service members, and those who have given the ultimate sacrifice. Please also remain standing for the political assa the victims of the political assassination that occurred in Minnesota. Political violence in our in our in our nation in our communities is
not tolerated and should not be tolerated. We are a country that values discourse even when we disagree and there are peaceful ways in which that can happen. Thank you. Add additionally, we as a community are
are working on how to appropriately honor our indigenous communities. Uh we currently um say a land acknowledgement. We're working with the ordinance committee to figure out the exact terms so that and how to really honor our our native populations. So I'm going to read
a portion of that which says we honor acknowledge the Massachusetts Penuk and Pekka peoples whose ancestral lands we now call home on which we gather today. Thank you. The clerk will call the role. Council Hayes here. Council Condan here.
Council Crow here. Council Lahan here. Council McDonald. I know he's here. He's online. Council Sega here. Council Simmonelli. Council Spataphora is with us. Uh, are you able to hear us online? I I
can't hear what's happening in the room. We can only hear you when we are on this screen. Oh, there we go. Flip back presentation from Uma. You might not be able to hear us. Yeah, it was it was muted. Um, we we did the pledge of allegiance. We did our land
acknowledgement and now we're calling the the the role. Um, council Taylor here, council Winslow here, council Ali here. And so just because we've got council sphapor and McDonald coming through video chat this evening, all
votes will be taken via roll call. Correct. Um, under the provisions of open the open meeting law, for those of you in attendance, please be informed that UMA Urban Media Arts will be recording this evening's meeting. Uh, so be aware there are audio and video recordings of this meeting. Before we
take up the first order of business, we need to figure out how to get the presentation back up on the screen. Podium combined. So under guests citizens achievements and announcements, we would like to invite um urban media arts who will perform who will appear uh before the
city council to give a presentation about the new citywide community calendar initiative developed to streamline event sharing and enhance public engagement. Please please state your name and your name for the record. Alicia Ryan and I'm the development
specialist at Urban Media Arts. Welcome. Thank you. appreciate the opportunity. Um so the Malden Events Community Calendar is an initiative that we started last year and we've had um
some fairly widespread acceptance of it. Um we had a very nice generous letter written actually by um councelor Winslow, the Malden Chamber of Commerce, the mayor when we submitted to do some under writing for this to the Malden um
the Malden Arts Council, sorry. Um so our big this is sort of like an overview of the calendar. I'll give you a specific view of it and show you actually how in your wards you could use it as featured pages. So the purpose of the calendar is
building a more vibrant, connected, and prosperous Malden. Why is it important? We want to shine a spotlight on all of Malden's offerings. Um at any one time or day, there could be six different events happening in the
city of Malden. That's probably um underestimate underestimate. Um it helps event goers like community members and also people who are organizing and planning their events understand what's falling on what days. So the more community engagement we can
get both from stakeholders as organizations, community groups, ward counselors, um the more that the public would benefit from this. Again, everyone uses it. We have success. It drives um traffic to the
site and people will use it if it meets individual and collective needs. So, people know what time things are happening. They understand that things are child-friendly or they're ward specific or they're it's a fundraising event. Um if it enhances the impact of
community events, we want it to be a dependable source of information and provide comprehensive details. This is our general timeline. It has changed a bit. Um right now we're in the process of um beta testing the
technology. We do want to improve the user ability in the back end of it. Um but we have to be fiscally responsible. So we can't change our technology until we have underwriting for that. Um but we've gone through the process of staff training, gotten some initial
stakeholders on board. um some of the counselors do use it right now and um we're hoping to plan for um a public launch in probably sometime after fall of 2026. Um and at that point we'd also
like it to be um revenue generating so that it pays for itself. Uh these are our users or stakeholders. Creative Malden, the library, the CCC, city of Malden, um the counselors, mayor's office, the rec department,
gaming district, schools. We had um a nice presentation at the Kuanas Club, they've adopted it. The Malden chamber populates their events in this as well. This is your different wards, your different counselors. Why could you use it? You could use it to inform your
constituents about what's going on in your ward. You can also do it for if you're having like Fourth of July activities. That's a really nice way to get your let your constituents know what's happening. So, there's different features that I'll
show you. There's venue pages, resource pages, you can make recurring events. Um, the submission process form is not very complicated. We do have the ability in the future for advertising. You can have ward pages. You can have featured
events. And then we do have some some analytics on the back end. So we'd like the city councilors if you could try sub try using this tool. It's free. It's open. Um anyone can use it. You don't need a login or a password.
Submit some of your upcoming Fourth of July happenings in your community. Uh let us know how you found the tool. If you want um something different, if you want your ward page to include certain information, um we've prepopulated all
of your ward pages at this point with your pictures and your contact information. Um and then please give give us feedback. Um you'd like to see this, you want to change that. Wouldn't it be great if it did this? um just knowing that this is the
technology and the tool that we have now, but we do have plans and hope for something more improved and quicker in the future. And then champion it. Not everyone um is going to use the tool, but if you have the ability to share this on your social media or at
meetings, that's really helpful. Um and this is thanks to OSA, who is a presentation wiz. If we all use this tool, we can put Malden. Oh, please work. Okay. We can put Malden
on the map as a vibrant, generous place to live and visit and a place where children can thrive. And it does, I think, in the future have the possibility of, you know, highlight for Malden. Uh, realtors would be using this. This could be added for tourism
purposes. And then if you have any questions um my contact information felicia umverse.org my cell phone and the site itself is maldeneevents.com. So now I'm going to show you what the
site actually looks like. So this is the splash page or the homepage. We do have um some featured events that scroll through. Right now the sidebar is um only actually shows up on um a desktop view.
So a mobile view is a little quirky what we're working on that technology and we've sort of selected some featured um events on this sidebar. But we have the ability to move things around.
Um so this would be if you wanted to submit event this is the form and it will ask you if it's a recurring event, a title of the event, what category things fall under. They're fairly intuitive, so but if you had a question,
you could always contact me. Every event does need a category, a main category, and a subcategory. Um, and then if you want any tags, and tags are just ways obviously for people to find the event. So, some available tags are already prepopulated like city
of Malden, Creative Malden, and then what age group does this focus on? If it has a specific event date, if you want to upload an image, the event time, if you have a website
you want things to go to. So, and then you can select from preloaded venue information. And then we have prepopulated most of the uh venues in Malden. Um and then you have to submit your name, phone number, and email.
We do approve the events before they go out just to make sure accuracy and information is there and complete information is there. Um but I wanted to show you featured pages, which is where under regions
all of the wards are. So you have ward one and right now there's no events in there because we technically haven't had any submissions from council crow. Yeah. So but it's a great opportunity.
We have some very basic information just your contact information but if you wanted to add anything in there like if you had a subcommittee or another committee that you belong to and you want that on there or if you see something incorrect in your contact information me and I can update that.
featured pages and then I think um word five has a lot going on. Yeah. So, so counselor Taylor has a couple of different events already listed,
her contact information, and then we found today when we were looking through this that it's war two already had some pre-populated ones, but I didn't know if it was because
you had submitted it or it was just something that occurred in your ward. And events can be listed both ways. So the event um the event contact person may have tagged W. So that's something else that may show up in your word page.
Any questions? Anything else I can show you? We do have some lights. Uh first up is councelor Colon. Thank you. Um thank you council president and thank you very much for this presentation. I have used it. Um it's very user friendly. So I will let people know that. I was very
excited to see it because um from someone who does host a lot of events, I I agree that we have such a hard time and we often double book without knowledge of it and then um it makes it really hard and rescheduling and so I
think this is this is great as um a couple of questions too. So I did see so the revenue generating you were hoping do you think that um you would either get sponsors or have people pay to put it on there like how do you think that's going to work? Yeah. So we have to
create a a plan basically. So the grant that we received from the Malden Cultural Council pays for the hosting of it for the first year and then as we're beta testing, we want to sort of make some improvements and then have a clear sponsorship package or underwriting
package to bring up to the community to say, you know, this is where your ad could be. This is where, you know, do you do we want to put ads across the top? Do you want to use a featured page? and have those types of options and have it also be affordable based on community
because it is for the community. But we also need to be fiscally responsible for UMA and know that we are covering staff time to both be help support and um back-end designers. So, and finding improved technology. Yeah, absolutely. I
know we all know we're in like a hard financial time right now. So, I really cross my fingers in anything, you know, that I can do as a counselor at large to help you um find some grants, you know, write support letters, whatever it is, because this is going to be extremely helpful for all of us. Um, we always
appreciate support letters. Yes, exactly. And I do know that others, it's been tried in the past. It's just so hard. Not for any, it it's really hard to get people to use it, right? Because I think it sounds like Okay. And the adoption process really is the
stakeholders first and getting their feedback of how we can improve things and then kind of launching to the general community. Okay. Well, thank you for all your hard work on this. This is a team effort. So, this is, you know, all my colleagues at UMA.
I just get to be the one in front of you answering questions. Thank you, Councelor Lenham. Thank you, Mr. President. Um, I just want to thank you for being here. I know that you weren't originally slated to present to us. And I know that can be really hard, especially with all the activity that we have going on outside. Um, you did an
amazing job and thank you for that. Um, and this is actually really cool. I am ashamed to admit that I have not used it yet, but I definitely will. Don't be ashamed. We're just happy that you might adopt it. Well, I love to be an early adopter and I'm sort of sad that I'm not. Oh my gosh. We're going to go to
Ward 3 and it's going to be empty. Um, I appreciate you prepopulating it at least with my head shot so that it's not totally blank. Um, this is great because I honestly get asked a lot by the community why there isn't sort of one collection point for things like I think people recognize that the city website
can't be everything for everyone. They recognize that there's official meetings and events and then there's sort of everything else and you know like councelor Taylor has a beautiful website that she's built for her ward but that is a tremendous amount of work that um you know even if all of us wanted to we
may not have the technical expertise or the time. So, this feels like something that could really be an in between solution that I think is going to help us genuinely. So, thank you for that. I will definitely commit to flowing my events there. Um, I'm glad to hear you're aware of kind of the mobile
responsiveness and maybe I hope accessibility needs down the line. Those are like the two things that jumped out at me that I'd love to see as maybe a next phase to to add. So, like obviously putting into any images, hopefully
alternative text so that people with visual impairments would have the ability to have those read out loud. Those types of things are on our list. And we're not asking you to put all of your events in right now, but just try putting in a few and then give us feedback like how did it go? Did it
work? Are there things that you want to see improve like you just mentioned? Sure. And do you find that it integrates pretty well with social media? Is it best for us to put things on here and then share from here to our platforms? Okay. Yeah, great. That would be awesome. Yeah, happy to do it. Thank you
for letting us know about it so we can play around. Yeah, please do. Okay, we'll do. Next up is Councelor Taylor. Thank you. All right. Is this better? Yes. Thank you so much. I I just want to say that I
am so excited to see this in its next um phase um and all the work that you've done. And just so everybody here knows, running this website as something that I did for about five years bringing this to light and getting it off the ground
and doing this much work was like a full-time job. Um, and I was so happy when Uma took it over and to see it become this just um, makes me super happy. So, thank you so much for doing this, all the work that goes into it and
keeping the community together and informed and I just really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah. And I I do think it's it's important to recognize that councelor Taylor, you know, you did help bring this to life. And I remember this was something that took, like you said, a
lot of time out of your day and some of our earlier adopters are like, "Hey, wait a second. That was something that Ari Taylor had set up." And I'm like, "Yes, it is. She was nice enough to bring it to UMA and now we own it or managing it." So, so some of our other
adopters have that positive feedback from the previous incarnation. So, it's very nice. Awesome. Thank you. and and councelor Winslow. Yeah. No, I think this is great. I I mean, it looks so very well organized and very straightforward to use, which is great.
And I think, you know, it's so important that um having something that we as a community have access to and can be a central point. I mean, I even got like a some sort of notice about some property in Forestdale for sale and it happened
to be like on Valley Street. So, some company in North Carolina is trying to do stuff uh like this, but it's, you know, you just see how how it doesn't work. And the other perspective I have when we first moved to Malden, I don't know if people remember, but the Malden Observer used to be mailed to every
address and there was sort of and we had three newspapers. um there were these type of ways that we locally could get the word out and with the loss of you know people focusing on newspapers and social media being controlled often by
people outside the community it's often hard to get the word out so I think the fact that trying to establish our beach head I mean this is a great thing that that we can do so that we can work to communicate with each other so I will definitely get some stuff up there so we did have the the I guess Joe and Roa
Gray got something up So that's good. So they're ahead of me, but um they're often there, but we we'll get Fourth of July and some other things up there. Thank you. And we've been trying to, you know, we obviously try and follow everybody on social media. So if we see something that pop pop pops up, we will try and put it in the calendar on behalf
of someone else, but we want to get out of the habit of that. We want folks to be a to use it on their own. So there's other technologies that we're exploring that would allow people to say for instance upload events multiple events at the same time and just we would be
the sort of backend evaluating to make sure accuracy and description was there and and just from the chair is I know that the city has a couple calendars that even I'm still trying to understand. So there's I think like a
public meetings calendar but there's also an events calendar. Is there any way for you to tap into that automatically so that you don't have to manually? So, we have right now all of the city council meetings, all the
subcommittee meetings on here. Anything that we cover as UMA, we've put in here. Um, we did have a couple of conversations with the city and we decided because there's so many internal calendars, perhaps we'd start with something like the recck department,
like would there be summer programs or something that the recck department would be willing to put in and just try this tool and then maybe we could get other departments to sort of adopt. It would be great if there's trash recycling information on here. Um but
yeah, right now the city government stuff is things that we cover that we know are on the um government calendar. Awesome. Thank you so much. Sure. I don't see any other questions. Uh any last statements? No, I just really appreciate the opportunity to present
this to you and thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay. And with that, we'll go to our next order of business, which is public comment. Public comment is allowed under council rules. Each speaker is limited to the subject matter relevant to this
evening's agenda and must keep their comments to two minutes or less. Um, do we have anyone signed up for public comment? We do. We have three people signed up for public comment. The first Welcome. Hello. My name is Sharon Santel. Um 72
Ashlin Street. Um I want to I I look around here and I've worked with many of you. Very positive relationships over the years. And a special shout out to Peg Crow who's my ward counselor. Um, but tonight I came in support of the
presidency of the council, Ryan Ali. I've worked with Ryan uh since 2016. The art line was born at a meeting sitting at his kitchen table and we worked really hard to bring
uh famous Maldonians back to Malden and celebrate them with murals and other celebrations in our city. And I've known Ryan to be someone who asks questions, to be very curious,
um to listen for understanding. And um I'm troubled to think that here in Malden um we can't ask questions and someone could be taken down for asking
questions. And um I don't understand the this issue in any depth, but I love our library and our art gallery and the staff at the library. And um I just um would like Malden to be a place where
someone's not taken down because they ask questions. Thank you. Gregory Zalt, please come forward and state your name and address for the record. Good evening. My name is Gregory Zel. I
live at 51 Myrtle Street. 51 Myrtle Street. Um, in contrast to the previous speaker, I know hardly anybody in this room because I've only lived in Malden for about three and a half years.
However, I'm here in support of the current president, councelor Ali, because he's actually been extremely helpful in, I guess you could say, acclimating me to Malden. He has encouraged me and other
new residents to Malden to be part of the politics and going ons of this city along with some other counselors too, but my focus is on the current president right now. So, it would be very sad to see him no longer be the president. I
feel like I admittedly don't know much about the library and I would love to see everybody just get along in this particular case. Though, I don't see a problem with people asking questions when there are questionable financial things happening at the library. So if
that's what we're coming down upon the current president for, I think that should be reconsidered, frankly. Thank you for your time, council. Have a good night. Good evening. Uh my name is Nicole
Malam. I reside at 64 Essex Street here in Malden. Uh so I'm here to strongly oppose the censure and removal of Council President Ryan Ali. Uh this action is not only unjustified, it's
retaliatory and frankly hypocritical. There is no formal code of conduct or agreed upon behavioral standard for counselors. Yet you're moving to punish a sitting council president without due process, precedent, or proportionality. Let's be honest, this isn't about
ethics. It's about silencing a critic. Leading this charge is the atlarge sponsor, someone with one of the most extensive records of conflict of interest and abusive unethical behavior on this council. His ally in this effort, the ward counselor sponsor, is
not far behind, but with only two minutes, I'll focus on the ring leader. The atlarge sponsor has written and voted on cannabis policy at least 13 times while being employed by and tied to family businesses that sell alcohol direct competitors to cannabis. He
authored zoning so restrictive that it's now being challenged in Middle Sex Land Court, costing taxpayers while costing Malden millions in lost cannabis re revenue. He's ignored repeated warnings, including from a former mayor, and has refused to recuse himself. He directed city funds to his family's electrical
business and voted on issues directly tied to his wife's employment in the school system. These are clear repeated ethical violations. Meanwhile, councelor Omali is being targeted for doing what we claim to want from our leaders, speaking out against entrenched
interests, fighting for transparency, and pursuing fiscal responsibility. For over a decade, he was denied this leadership role. Now that he holds it and is finally acting on behalf of residents, he's facing retaliation. Was
his approach perfect? No. Could communication have been better? Sure. But that is not grounds for removal or censure. He responded to a whistleblower complaint alleging misuse of public funds and took action when stonewalled.
That is leadership, not misconduct. You're you're over two minutes. Thank you. Um I urge you to consider the long-term impact on public trust and reject this politically motivated and dangerous measure. Have a good evening. So we have a number of written public
comments that I will now read into the record. The first one is from Patrick Hogan, 184 Adam Street. Hello Malden city councilors. I'm writing to express my opinion on the above agenda item to remove President Dali. I feel the subject is important enough to include counselors from other wards, but if this
isn't appropriate, I apologize. My name is Patrick Hov Hogan and I live in Edgeworth in Wood 2. I've lived here with my wife for the past 16 years. I have been excited and gratified to see many wonderful changes and improvements that you all have brought to the city in
that time. Malden is an amazing city and I look forward to seeing more improvements for families and seniors such as the spot pond Brook Greenway completed in the future. Thank you for your important work. In regards to the vote to remove council Ali, I ask you to vote against removal. If there was some
procedural mistake made, I urge you to find a less drastic way of expressing your concerns. The library trustees are a public entity and as such are subject to open meeting law and other public disclosures. Residents having information about their public institutions is fundamental to a
functioning democracy. Any attempt to hide or keep information out of view is a slap in the face to the people of Malden and an anti-American act. I urge you to defend democracy and join with President Omali in calling for the library trustees to follow the law.
Thank you, Patrick Hogan. Uh, dear Miss Carolanderio, I am writing in support of council Ali in regards to bill 313-25. I do not see any reason why he should be removed from his current seat as president. Apologies that I cannot attend the meeting in person. Best
regards, Maria Jenko, 11 Wyoming Avenue, W 3. Good evening. I'm writing with regard to agenda item 313-25 and expressed my deep concern over the attempt to remove Council Omali as city council president.
While I'm aware that Council Ali has at times had a reputation for ruffling feathers, I've generally observed that he has done so in service of a genuine commitment to accountability and transparency in city affairs. Efforts to remove him based not on any alleged
misconduct, but seemingly because he has asked the hard questions are extremely troubling and suggest political retribution. Even more alarming is the decision to take such a consequential vote behind closed doors in executive session, removing the council president as a matter of public trust.
It deserves public discussion and public scrutiny to handle it in a way that shields the process from the people of Maldin is frankly cowardly and undermines the democratic democratic values this council is sworn to uphold. I respectfully call on the sponsors of this order and the full council to
uphold the principles of transparency by conducting this process with the openness it demands and that the citizens of Malden rightfully deserve. Thank you. Alicia Gaza, 54 Bowers Avenue. This to whom it may concern. My name is
Rasheed Shakiri and I have had the privilege of living in W 8 with my wife and kids for the past four years as well as another 11 years in W 2 prior. I have always admired the city for its rich history, culture, and diversity. I also greatly appreciate the positive changes
and improvements you've worked hard to bring to Malden. Thank you for your dedication. I am writing regarding the proposed vote to remove Council Ali from the presidency. I respectfully urge you not to support this removal. The right of access to public information, particularly in our libraries, is a
cornerstone of democra dem democratic society. It promotes transparency, accountability, and ensures an informed citizenry. We must support individuals like council Ali and others who work diligently to safeguard public resources
and ensure they are used responsibly. The library board of trustees as a public entity is bound by law to share meeting minutes and other relevant public disclosures. Malden residents have a right to remain informed about developments within our library system.
Ensuring continued access to this information is crucial for maintaining trust in our public institutions. Thank you for your time and your consideration. Considering my perspective, sincerely, Rasheed Shakiri of 64 Davis Street.
And the last one says, "My name is Sean Salazar of 59 Bainbridge Street and I am a W five resident. I'd like to address agenda items 306, 309, and 313-25. I have seen tremendous progress for our vibrant, resilient, and diverse
community, but also a consistent polarization and increasing animosity amongst the members of this council. Though I agree in principle that any legal proceeding brought on behalf of the city council should be approved by the city council, with all of the facts in front of us, there is no
justification for the removal of the city council president. Many have witnessed mean-spiritedness and unprofessional outbursts unbecoming of any public servant often directed directed at council Ali and councelor Cologne Hayes. At the most recent joint
CIC/Malden Youth Council meeting, the con conversation devolved into a display of yelling and insults with our high school is showing more leadership and maturity. I haven't seen calls for resignation of any council members for displays of
insensitive, offensive, and unprofessional behavior through these display though these displays have occurred or a call for the resignation of any member of Malden city government over lawsuits brought by offended by the city. Staying silent in the face of
unprofessional conduct towards colleagues, the internal animosity with caucuses, refusing to work with one another, supporting open meeting law complaints against a youth body, and displaying conduct below the offices you hold are all shameful. You should be
focused on issues such as working with the library on funding, speed, and traffic mitigation, making our community inclusive instead of exclusive, and attracting commercial business to take the tax burden off residents. We are in dangerous times as a country and we look
to our local elected leaders to be compassionate, inclusive, kind, and not fighting amongst each other but fighting for the community. That is it. Thank you. And our next order of business is public I mean is consent
agenda. This evening's consent agenda consists of meeting minutes to be approved, uh, one appointment to be placed on file, two petitions to be referred to license, and one communication to be placed on file. Does any counselor have a desire to remove any of these items?
Seeing none, is there a motion? Motion. Councelor Winsow's motion to approve the consent agenda. Seconded by councelor Colon. The clerk will call the role because we have to take all roll call votes because councelor McDonald and spatterfor are joining us remotely. Council clone Hayes. Yes. Council
Condan. Council Crowe. Yes. Council Lahan. Yes. Council McDonald. Yes. Council Seca. Yes. Council Simonelli. Council Spaphora. Yes. Council Taylor. Yes. Council Winslow. Yes. Council President Omali.
Yes. Okay. That has been approved. 11 to Z. Our next order of business is motions, orders, and resolutions. Paper 303-25, order. The council will vote on whether to sell or retain the property known as 21 Handover Street and by city
assessor's parcel identification number 127435-518 as in accordance with tax title litigation and foreclosure action with the Massachusetts Land Court. Case number 22 TL 0000348. Sponsor is council Winslow.
Okay. So, we are on page 303-2 which begins here and goes on to the next page. And the motion on this would be either motion to sell or motion to retain. Yeah, we have uh our city treasurer Dan Grover who can explain the purpose of
the order and uh his recommendation in terms of what the city should be doing here. So, treasure. Um thank you. Thank you for having me. Uh first, I'd like to recognize the fact that everyone is here to support me today versus last time only person left was Jennifer
Spataphora. So, I appreciate you all being here for me. Much appreciated. Uh So, I've been up here a couple times now related to tax idol and um decisions need to be made related to retaining or selling property in the event that we're
awarded judgments. The last properties we discussed uh the city had been awarded judgments already. Uh these two properties are in land court. Uh the reason why I um asked that we discuss these now and have them determined is uh
one we are expecting a decision in August. I know that the council um breaks for the summer and I didn't want to have to worry about trying to get everyone together in order to make a vote. So, this is uh in to make a decision to retain or sell in the event
that we do receive a judgment on these properties. We are working with the land owners, the property owners through the land court. It is our hope that we do not get to the point of a judgment uh just like it is our hope for the all cases. Um but these are specifically are
inland court. They are the next two likely. One is August 8th. That would be I'm sorry. Are we doing both? That's just the All right. So 21 handover is uh likely November 7th. So that's actually after the break, but where these two are
the um two that are closest to getting a judgment. We could in theory be awarded judgment prior. Um so I'm here to get a preliminary decision. So, in the event that we are awarded judgment, I can move forward without having to come back up here. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have.
Thank you. Any questions from the council? Councelor Winslow? Yeah, I mean, so you're just looking for authorization in the event that you're not successful in negotiating a resolution of the outstanding taxes uh with the current owner. Is that
basically correct? So, we're in land court. Yeah. and the current owner has until November 7th to come up with the money to pay or some sort of solution that will allow the land court to provide them an extension. In the event
that the land owner does not come up with the money or some sort of solution that would the land court would allow them to delay, they would then award the city a judgment which we would have to make a decision within 14 days of that judgment to retain or sell. Um so so
okay I say this just like the previous properties would be something that we would look to sell versus retain right so this is this is just a residential home so that it really makes really no sense for this city to hold it in any way that doesn't have any significant
public value other than selling it and getting our taxes back and then right so I would be supportive of um uh giving the treasurer the authority to sell this property in the event there is a land court judgment in favor of the city. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, councelor
Winsow. Councelor Cologne Hayes. Uh thank you. Um so I have a question about just to have an understanding the last two times I had to recuse myself. So I just want to um ask this vote or you're asking to
if the litigation goes and you feel um that they're not you know, working and and paying their taxes and stuff. It could possibly go to be sold by the city. And would that be open to public bids? So, anyone could um come
like how does that go? Because I'm for everyone here, I am on the board of the um the housing authority, the North Housing Authority. We buy buildings and and trans and we and we make them into affordable housing. So if
this is something that we could possibly buy, I would recuse myself. Yeah. So I would defer to the city solicitor whether you would be required to recuse yourself. Um these properties, yes, if we determine to sell then uh they would
be up for sale through a realtor. It's not through public auction. Oh, okay. Uh the way that the tax settle laws have changed is that remove the public auction per purchase process. And that's one of the reasons why we have a paper that's going to ordinance to review how
we do all of this stuff. So if we're awarded a property for instance uh 26 central a which we were provided a judgment uh we made a decision to sell that uh that will go it'll be listed through the MLS. We'll have a realtor to
you know take everyone's offers and accept the most competitive and reasonable uh offer. So, as far as needing to be recused, I would defer to the city solicitor. But yes, any property that we determined to sell would in fact be available for any person to purchase. I would not purchase
it or be a party of that because that would be a conflict for me directly. Yeah. But I don't know I don't know how that would impact any other person in this body or otherwise. All right. Maybe as a um I'll just ask to recuse myself um just
to make sure future Mot. So motion to recuse. Do we have a second? Second by councelor Wenszel. We need to do a roll call vote. Council Clone Hazes. Yes. Council Condan. Yes. Council Crow. Yes. Council
Lahan. Yes. Council McDonald. Yes. Council Sega. Yes. Council Simonelli. Council Sphapora. Yes. Council Taylor. Yes. Council Winslow. Yes. Council President. So, councelor Colon Hayes has been
recused. Okay. For both. Okay. Council Winsley on the floor. So, I make a motion that we authorize the treasurer to sell um the property in the event there is a land court judgment uh awarding the uh judgment in favor of the
city in this case. Second. Okay. So, a motion to adopt that or we need a roll call vote on that as well. Okay. On the motion to sell. Council Condan. Council Crow. Yes. Council Lahan. Yes.
Council McDonald. Yes. Council Sega. Yes. Council Simmonelli. Council Sphapora. Yes. Council Taylor. Council Winsel. Yes. Council President, yes. Okay. So, that has been approved. 10 to zero vote. Yep. Okay.
Paper 304. Order. The council will vote on whether to sell or retain the property known as 78 Cleveland Street and by the city assessor's parcel identification number 167542273 as in accordance with tax title litigation and foreclosure action with
the Massachusetts Land Court case number 22TL000000340. And the sponsor of this is Council Seika. Councelor Sega, do you want to introduce it? Um it it's just on Cleveland Street and what eight. So I'm going to turn it over to Dan. Mr.
Grover. Okay. So um basically everything I just said about the other property. Uh this property is in land court. They have until August 8th, which is over the summer. So they're the closest to us getting a judgment. Uh we have been working with these people consistently.
We do uh hope and expect to have the matter resolved prior to August 8th, but in the event that we are awarded judgment, I'm asking that we would make a decision here to sell versus retain. Is there a motion? Councelor Seco motion. Is there a second?
Seconded by councelor Condom. Do we want to do we need to clarify what the motion is? So, this is a motion by council see, seconded by council condent to authorize the treasurer to sell the property located at 78 Cleveland Street. A yes
vote would authorize the treasurer to sell. A no vote would not. With that, the clerk will call the role. Council Condan. Council Crow, yes. Council Lahan, yes. Council McDonald, yes. Council Sea, yes. Council Simonelli, yes. Council Spa,
yes. Council Taylor, Council Winsow, Council President Omali. So that has been approved by 10 to 0. Thank you, Mr. Grover. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Paper 305-24. order that the finance committee and controller work with the mayor's office
on a proposal to establish a solid waste enterprise fund at the start of fiscal year 2027 including an analysis of options to achieve financial self- sustainability on the fund on or before fiscal year 2032
sponsored by council wins and McDonald councelor Winsow for the paper yeah um this paper came out of some of the discussions of the budget as we were going through the um you know in the finance committee we're talking about um one of the things we're looking at is um
just all our sources of revenue and all of our expenses and just seeing that um you know over the course of the past 13 years where we have had revenue coming in related to solid waste the blue bag
and the and now the um the tag program um the revenues um are not keeping up with our expenses And the reality is by fiscal 2032 when our current solid waste contract um expires um that will even be
more dramatic. And um we are also you know hearing some uh concern that our um Republic who was our current operator is looking at some potential um clauses in our current contract that might even increase our expenses um now rather than
2032. So um this is just it's it's not saying that we will do this but it will really look to the finance committee and the controller and the mayor's office to um look what you know establishing a solid waste fund would be um and then
also um looking at the options to see what financial sustainability of the fund would be. So this is really just to analyze this and talk about this amongst the council and that way the community will also understand the financial issues here as we're looking at you know
um you know flat revenue and inflation um these expenses is going to go up and we do have to plan as a city for um what our solid waste expenses are. So this is just a really kind of a planning exercise in that. Um but that's really what it is. I don't know if councelor
McDonald has more but um you know that's really where it came from. So thank you councelor McDonald. Yeah thank you so much and I appreciate councelor Winslow you know recommending putting this forward in the finance committee. I want to just underscore
this point that we are looking at a structural deficit for the city and we're going to talk about that with the appropriation order uh the city budget very soon. But I think this is a key piece for the next year. Uh we estimate
we're going to spend 3.6 million, maybe 3.7 million on trash removal and we're going to we're going to take in 1.2 million in uh income from the bags and
the tags. So that's a $2.4 million trash deficit. And that is only getting bigger year after year. Um even if our solid like even if we're not throwing out more trash, the the cost of the fees
to dispose of it keeps going up. Um, so we are really thinking about the upcoming end of this contract um, in a couple of years and and trying to make sure we're on firm footing for for them because right now Molden pays less, our residents pay less uh, and our contract
is less than many of our neighboring cities and that's with this massive $2.4 million subsidy. Um, so I want to emphasize the value of the planning ahead so that we don't see big uh explosive jumps year-over-year um in
people's bills um or utility bills. But I think this is a this is a key thing that we're going to have to take a look at as one of the ways we can close what's now roughly $9 million gap is begin to close the gap on the trash deficit. So, um, I am hopeful that this
time next year, we'll have a a better approach working closely with the with the mayor and his staff. I do want to recognize that, you know, trash is a and recycling it's it's fraught issues in Malden and there's a lot of dissatisfaction. I think that some of that really has at its root the fact that we have these
bargain basement prices. Um, and so having a better system that is more sustainable will give us more options in the long run, but we have to figure out what that path can be. So, um, while, you know, in some ways it stinks to have to deal with this, I do think that it's
the right call and look forward to working with, uh, my colleagues here to figure out a plan for this going forward. Thank you. Thank you. Any other any other comments? Seeing none, is there a motion?
On Councelor Winsow's motion to adopt the order, seconded by Councelor Simelli. The clerk will call the role. Council clone Hayes. Council Condan. Council Crow, yes. Council Lahan, yes. Council McDonald, yes. Council Sea, yes. Council
Simmonelli. Council Spaaphora, yes. Council Taylor, yes. Council Winsow, yes. Council President Ali, yes. That passes unanimously. So before we take up the next order, the next order of business, the next paper,
um I I do plan on on vacating the chair for 30 uh 30625. Um but I would like to receive my or present my communication, which is paper 30925. Um
it's the communication that the council president will provide an update on the matter of Ali as president of the Malden city council vanzoi trustees of the Mald public library at all docket number 2581CV01275 and submits the attached documentation
to support the discussion and for public disclosure. Um so again I'm I'm just presenting this. I'm I'm not going to be debating anything. Um the hope is just for this should just be placed on file. Um the attachments that are included are
a letter that I received on May 5th from the library trustees written by their attorneys at KP Law. Um the the second attachment is a annual report from 1996 and 1997 showing the uh showing exeicial
participation. Uh the third attachment is the complaint uh that was drafted by the city solicitor's office and that's requesting a um
declaratory judgment and permanent injunction. Uh there's also a um a motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction which the uh hearing on that was held last Monday,
June 9th. Uh finally uh the last attachment is the decision from that temporary restraining order uh hearing and for for the temporary restraining order as well as the plain junction. Um and at that
hearing the uh judge in the Middle Sex superior court um denied my motion for a temporary restraining order in preliminary injunction. Yeah. So understood. So, we're we're gonna Is there is there a motion to receive the
committee on or communication on the on council Lahan's motion to receive the communication? I'm sorry. I was put my light on to receive the communication. So, this is correct. We've taken it out
of order and that was seconded by With that, the clerk will call the role. A motion to accept the communication. Council, yes. Council, yes. Council, yes. Yes.
Yes. Taylor, yes. Can I move to place on time? Uh well it if so the thing is so at the last meeting that we had I wasn't able to say much and there was a lot of questions in
the community as well amongst my my colleagues about what was going on and I didn't have a chance to to explain myself. I had wanted to do that in executive session. I'll be honest with you, I'm still of two minds about whether or not to do this on the floor, but I've heard that people want to
understand what's going on. Um, so again, that last attachment is the decision by the judge to deny the temporary restraining order in the plenary injunction. However, um the judge did not dismiss the underlying complaint uh which will go on to a a
more full hearing, but I did hear what my colleagues had to say and I have reached out to the defendants's attorney and have proposed that we uh dismiss the case
without prejudice. Correct. So, I'm just I'm just giving I can think of this. Councelor C, could you have a point of information, a point of order,
I'm not, please, I am not looking to upset you in any way, but this is a communication. I think we should just place it on file. We should have had this discussion before you even initiated the litigation. As far as I'm concerned, this is this is way this is
way late. So, I don't think though you should be doing that as the council president. So, maybe you just I I'm not trying to stifle debate with you or or silence you. I just don't think you should be doing it from that seat. I think you should move. Thank you.
So again, no, you're right. So like, yeah, uh we're we're not going to be debating this. It's really just a communication, but uh you know, out of out of an abundance of caution, I will vacate the chair. Um, I also don't have to do this.
You know, I I I have heard that people maybe don't want to hear what's going on. I do think it's important for people to know. It is in the public record if anyone wants to read it. Um, I'll vacate the chair.
Okay. One moment. I'll give you a light on. Okay. Councelor Ali, you have A show of hands. Who would like me to explain myself? And who would like me to not explain myself? I understand. What is it? Well, I'm I am
with all due respect, it's up to the council whether we want to hear from council or Ali. I y'all. So, just to explain, we we have a motion on the floor. Do we have a second to counsel or seek his motion?
Okay, we need to call We need to call the motion. We need to do a roll call vote to place to place the communication on file. So for folks in the room, the the agenda is posted online. The communications that councelor Ali has
just listed are all hyperl and are publicly viewable. Everything that he has just listed is all public documents that you can view in real time. Now, if you want to navigate to the city website, you can find all of the documents. I just have a point. Yes. One one moment, councelor Winszo, I'll put
your light on. Point of information from council talking about putting paper 30925, those communications on file, or are we talking about 30625? 309. So, we're just simply putting those we we'd accept them and put them on
file. Correct. All right. All right. Thank you. Yep. One second. Councelor Cologne Hayes, you have the floor. Yeah. Clarification. Um, do you mean put them on file without being read? Is that what we're saying?
Correct. So, they're they're linked to your agenda so you can read them at any time. So, what we what we'd be doing is not engaging in debate on the papers or giving councelor Ali further discussion on the paper on the communications. Okay. Councelor Sika. Thank you. Really
quickly, Council Lahan, um, two weeks ago, 10 of us up here voted to withdraw this exact litigation case. So, I think it's irrelevant. I I have no problem with accepting these communications and placing them on file. But I think the we
already debated this two weeks ago. There's no sense in in wasting time to do it again today. Whoever wants to read these communications just have to go to the agenda like you just said and click on the link. But 10 of us up here did vote to withdraw this. So I think that
it this is these communications are a little too late to have a conversation for now. We should have had them before the litigation was initiated. So thank you. Thank you councelor Sika. Counselor Ali. Yeah. Again um
no no one has given me a chance to explain myself. you know, I wanted to provide the council an update in executive session that was not possible. Um, but again, the way this occurred and I do think it's relevant. This is a communic usually when we receive a communication, whether it's a letter
from the mayor or whatever it is, we read it into the record. Uh, I'm not going to read it all into the record, but I do think it is important for people to understand how we got here. When I became council president, I wanted to participate in the the library
uh business. I was told that I could not as an exeicio member. Um after six months of working trying to work with the trustees. Um we got nowhere. The city solicitor wrote them a letter in explaining what the
state law said according to the city's position. I reached out to other counselors. I reached out to councelor Spataphora specifically as the longest serving continuous serving me counselor and I asked him hey when what do you think of what's going on here and he said I think you have the right to to
vote too I'd support you in that I was told to not bring it before the council to not do this on the floor councelor Marley you need to really bring this to a much more summary point you're reading the papers essentially yeah which is normally what a communication would be
we we have a motion to place them on file, not to read the papers. Understood. But usually communications are read into the record. But I won't I I'll leave it I'll leave it for maybe executive session. But if we don't go into executive session at some point, I
have to be able to explain myself. But that that point is not right now. We have a motion and a second on the floor. We need to call the question. Sounds good. Okay. Clerk, will you please call the role? Council. No. And again, this is to place on file the
communication. Council Condan, yes. Council Crow, yes. Council Lahan, yes. Council McDonald, yes. Council Sea, yes. Council Simmonelli, Council Spataphora, yes. Council Taylor, Council Winsow, yes. Council President Omali, yes. And
placed on file. So, are we going? So, we on 306. Hang on. Paper 306-25. Order that the council president appoint a committee to clarify the relationship between the city of Malden and the
Malden Public Library through its board of trustees to ensure compliance with chapter 146 of the acts of 1885 through a non-litigation approach. Sponsor Ryan Ali. Councelor Ali for the paper. Thank you. U so this this was the paper that I
was intending on vacating the chair for. Um the the you know I heard what my colleagues had said uh at the last meeting. I was not able to participate because of the fact that there was a hearing scheduled for the following Monday. Um and you know
the the gist of it is I have reached out to the opposing council and requested that the case be dismissed without prejudice. The reason why that is essential, what the council voted last two weeks ago, which was to just dismiss, when the plaintiff dismisses a
case, it counts against the plaintiff. That would have been an a judged an a judge uh a judgment against the city in support of the defendants. Basically saying, exeicio members cannot
participate. You do not have right to access the records. it would have really detrimented the city's interests. I have a fiduciary duty to the city of Malden. I have a fiduciary duty to the assets that are held by the trustees. And so
that is why we took that route. I hope that we can resolve it in a uh in a non-litigation manner. Uh and I just wanted to give you that update. if if we are able to take the offramp and to to address this, I would like to be able to
appoint a committee to do that. Um, so I'm open to any questions, but I would move that we adopt the order. Thank you, Councelor Ali. Councelor Simonelli. Thank you, Madam President. Um, yeah, I you know, I I find ourselves
being in a really curious situation here. Um it's concerning to me that the fact that we had made you know as a body that we had taken a vote um and our vote I thought was heard loud
and clear that we we you know we kind of wanted to put an end to this for the simple fact is that a lot of us councilors up here really didn't even know what was going on and that that still hasn't changed. Um, so we find ourselves uh sitting here again
uh on how we got here and it still hasn't been clear to me yet. And you know there's discussion on whether or not we should go in executive session or not. And you know I think it's clear that um most of this stuff has been done out of executive session. So it's like
kind of putting the c before the horse what we've been doing here. And I I find it to be um somewhat disturbing at this point um because I was always uh of the opinion that you know the council president that
we elect as a body you know every January uh to you know oversee the agenda make sure that the meetings are on time and you know on budget and and and moving the city forward and you know I I
don't really see us doing this right now. I mean, it just, you know, there's a, you know, a lot of people out here in the audience and, you know, it's concerning and and I think one of the big concerning factors here and I had talked to the mayor's office and, you know, I, you know, talk
with Marie Ruiz an awful lot and it's very difficult to get people to come in and volunteer uh for these positions and and we have a u due diligence to protect those folks that we ask to volunteer and
you know um watch out for the city whether it be you know the trustees on the library or you know whether it be trustees at the cemetery and um I you know I just think that I find it
to be disturbing that you know we find ourselves in this position. what you know what did we take a vote here for um previous Tuesday night to stop this from from from I think we were we were you know we were heard loud and clear and I
I'll be honest you know I I you know I don't like to find myself in a position like this I think that I've made this uh concern to all of us that you know we get into politics to help people and not hurt them uh and I think that like
we have an obl obligation to protect these folks and you know we we haven't even got there yet and I find it to be horrible at this point that you know we don't know I I know for me anyway I can only speak for me that you know I only found out about this uh you know on
what's going on as far as disagreements go and look the way to do it common sense wise and I think we're missing a lot of common sense these days and I I think the common sense thing is to say hey look you know How did we get here? You know,
what can we have done uh to to make it easier? what what how could we have cleaned our side of the street uh on our due diligence and you know to um protect these folks that are sitting on these on these committees and I I think we
continue to keep missing that and I just don't understand and you know maybe the city solicitor's office uh can stand up and and kind of give us a bird's eye view of where we find ourselves um legally right now because it's not
clear and And I would like to see that, you know, the the city solicitor's office stay on point and, you know, whether it be whether it be Alli, whether it be Sah or, you know, whether it be the gentleman that that's sitting in that in that spot now. And we keep
getting different views from different folks. I think a as a collective uh body, we need to see like where is the where is the legal department right now? I mean, do we where do we find ourselves at this point, you know, and a lot of there's a lot of unanswered questions
right now that is very disturbing to me at this point on whether or not like, you know, do do we have the right as a body last Tuesday night to put an end to this. I just don't know how we find ourselves. And you know, council melo you know that
you and I we've you know we've I think we've gotten along uh since I came back on the council and you know and I think that you know we have disagreements on things too which is which is normal but I do I just find it very disturbing that like if we as a body say no we don't
want to move in this direction and I think we made it you know elegantly clear that we didn't like going in this direction and we took a vote and then for the next day to double down and continue to go. So what I I I'm very
confused on the body like you know why what are we what are we doing here? I mean you know and then now there's talk about whether or not it's the right thing to do to go in executive session and not go in executive session. I truly feel that it's not the right thing to do to go in executive session right now. Councelor Simelli. We're not talking
about council about executive sites. I know, but I mean, listen, we got to address the elephant in the room here and and we just kind of keep going around. So, I I'm sorry for taking It's okay. We're going to get to that later in the docket. I'm going to take counselor Seika next. Thank you, Councelor Simmonell. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Madam President.
Okay. Council um Ali, if you made a motion to refer this paper somewhere, I would like to second it because honestly, this is what we should have saw before we heard about you initiating active litigation against the Malden
Public Library board of trustees. This is something I could have supported weeks ago. I really wish this was the avenue that you went in the beginning. We can't as a city council we can't sit and talk in a room with more than so many of us. So we have to form these
committees to have these kind of conversations and this would have been the perfect starting point to discuss the relationship with the city and the Malden Public Library and its board of trustees. So, I appreciate that you finally put it on the agenda this
evening and I am in full support if whoever is the council president, if it is not you this evening, I would be more than happy to work with you on that committee so we can come to some sort of a common ground with the public library and moving forward
so everybody can, you know, figure out what how we move forward with what, you know, supposedly is circulating. around the city. So, I I I I appreciate you putting this on. I just wish you did it a few weeks prior to you filing
litigation. So, thank you. Thank you, Councelor Sika. Councelor Winsaw. Yeah, thank you for that, Councelor Seika. Um, you know, uh, you know, I I think it was, uh, very clear that the council did
vote 10 to one to say that we thought councelor Ali had taken a misstep. Um, and now I I asked that people now I think you know I had a good discussion with councelor Ali he listened and and and just be clear a couple
things what councelor Ali has said tonight is that he's making every effort that he can to withdraw the lawsuit and you know what the court said interesting enough we didn't have the authority as a city council to withdraw the lawsuit because it was under his authority as
council president. So, so he is actually taking the initiative that the court even wouldn't allow us as city councelor. So he of his own valition. So give him credit. I mean one of the things I say about democracy and is that the reason why there's a fundamental
thing about democracy is we realize leaders are fallible. And the reason why we have free speech, freedom of the press, and the reason why we have the balance of checks and balances is because to make sure that we can challenge leaders that are being
fallible so that they can listen and make choices. So I give credit to councelor Ali for doing that and let's let that play out. I mean I think also I have the experience I mean I have sat you know in positions like our city
solicitor's office and on this as council president and a little my perspective I mean I remember some of the times when I was a somewhat junior attorney making some decisions um sometimes you look at you're sitting in a legal office and you see a legal
letter you only think that something can be resolved through the legal process um and that's kind of what councelor Mali faced and um you know that is a little bit what our solicitor's office does. But having been uh in the political world too, you realize that sometimes
things are um there's a political dimensions to legal decisions and that's what councelor Ali found out. That's what our city solicitors found out. I mean they're relatively new here. Let's let's let's remember that. So councelor Winsel, I'm I'm going to quickly interrupt you and remind you that we're debating the paper on the committee and
we're not debating council at this moment. So I'm just I'm just saying that the the reason why I think this paper is important is that it's talking about um going the direction that maybe if there had been you know a little step back as
that letter came from KP Law and the trustees that maybe this should have been handled in a political manner. And so I I give credit that um councilor Ali step is is making every effort to step back from the lawsuit and I think this is a good substitute and I'm I'm willing
also to work on this committee and work with the trustees and and look at you know other solutions either through mediation or through um legislation. I mean this is an 1885 statute. Um maybe it's time to to take a fresh look at
that. is this approach that we have towards our library, we're putting a lot more resources in. So, that's a fair conversation to have and we just as we just spent time updating our city charter from 1885, um it took, you know, decades almost to
do that. Um it's fair to have these conversations. Um and that's really it is and and it's it's better to do that in through these type of efforts. So I I I think I I appreciate councelor Seika's open-mindedness and and that councelor Mi listened, councelor Seika's listening, and I think this is a good
resolution. So I'm supportive of the order and willing to work on it. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Winszo. I'm going to take councelor Condan and then councelor McDonald. I do see you were going to take you next. Councelor Condan, you have the floor. Thank you for recognizing me. Uh, I've
just I found out about this thing when I walked in about two three weeks ago and the first my first reaction was well apologize to them. How can you bypass an entire city council and think because you're
president you just move forward with a lawsuit against all these people that have served against all these people that have served for years on that library
trustees board. I was disappointed in the law department that steered him the wrong way because the first thing they should have said to him, get permission from the city councilors to go forward with any kind of lawsuit.
And that wouldn't have happened and you all know it. because you know the people that are on that board and you know that they're going to do the right thing and they've served for years on it. Thankless job.
So, uh I have a I have a problem with this. It should have come out right away the other night, last week, I mean, and it should have been done with immediately before even
anybody went to court. You know, I just thought it was an embarrassment to the city council, an embarrassment to the city. Absolutely. So, I'll just end it there. You know, I've told Ryan how I feel about the entire
situation and uh move forward with it. Thank you, Councelor Condan. Oh, okay. Bear with me. Sorry, I didn't mean to do that. I'm councelor McDonald, you can unmute.
Uh, thank you, uh, Council Pro President Prom. And um I really agree with councelor Sika that I think this is the approach that we should have would like to have been able to have started with.
Uh and so I'm grateful councelor that we're we're you know th this is how we're trying to find some resolution. Um and so I I am supportive of a of a working group about this. I do want to say my perspective is that part of the problem here is that there hasn't been a
lot of good faith negotiation on all sides of this and that includes those of us at the council. Uh from what I can tell, it certainly includes what was happening um between the council president and the library trustees in those meetings. And so I wonder if it
would actually be well I have a question and then a recommendation. My question is whether the library anyone from the library board of trustees has seen this order specifically commented on it or whether you council council president Ali sought any of their counsel about
this because the order is very framed as the council president should appoint someone should appoint a group to decide this and actually I think it would be better to have a joint task force of some counselors and some folks from the library board of trustees who are trying to hash this out and recommend a path
forward in the name of transparency and fiscal accountability and responsibility and serving the people of Malden. Um, and I I think that would be better language to start with and I feel like it would be help more helpful to have some direct conversation uh across our
across our two bodies rather than doing this in this sort of like council president-driven order. So my question is whether anyone has been consulted and if if they have um endorsed that then that's great. If not, I would recommend that we actually just refer this to a rules and ordinance committee and then
invite members of the library board of trustees. Mo I've had multiple members of the board say to me they are very willing to talk about issues and and want a chance to talk through that. um certainly haven't talked to each one of them, but that would give us a chance to
have some of that direct conversation and and see without trying to resolve the issue there, but just see if we can agree on an approach to how we're going to work together to get at that. Thank you, Councelor McDonald. Councelor Councelor Melly, would you prefer to speak last?
Okay, I'm going to take Councelor Cologne Hayes next. You sure? Um, so thank you. I am in agreement. I loved to see this on um the city docket.
Um, I think we also two weeks ago it was unanimous. We voted to withdraw the um the lawsuit. Nobody here wants to sue, you know, sue the library without knowing exactly what was going on. I came here tonight thinking that's what
we were going to hear. Um, we don't know if Council Roi what he would have said because he wasn't allowed to speak. Um, but we all love the library. We all support the library. I had said this before. My kids grew up in the library. I show up to all their events, donate money. Um, it's not about that. It's
about democracy and knowing and trying to work things out before it gets to a point where we're seeking to unseat a city council president. So, I am in full support of this, but I don't know if we can order people from the um um library
board of trustees or the friends of the library to become part of this committee if we can like or just reach out and ask them. I don't want to assume that any of them want to be a part of this, but I would hope if we got together, maybe even hire a mediator um or something um
and try and work through and get uh you know, answers on whether or not they're a public body and what we could do um you know and how how to resolve this. So, I like this and I I am in support of it. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Cologne Hayes.
Councelor Ali. Yeah, I won't belabor the point, but to councelor Sinnelli, like um what I've been trying to do, whether it's in executive session or out here, is to explain myself. Um I don't feel like I've been given that opportunity. I hope I will be given that chance at some
point. Um but I won't belabor the point. Thank you. Thank you. Um at this time, I'm going to invite our city solicitor to join us at the podium. Thank you, Council President Prom. Um, I just wanted to address Councelor
Condan. My name is Alicia McNe. I am the city solicitor of Malden. I wanted to address councelor Condan's comment regarding the city solicitor's office. Uh the city solicitor's office did um
the the agreement was that council president Omali was to come before the city council with this issue. The conversation was that there had been talk in the past about the city solicitor's office filing lawsuits and
how did we go about filing lawsuits and we had that conversation that because there was talk about that that he should address the city council. So I just wanted to make that clear for the record. Does anyone else have any questions? I I
came down because I understand that uh councelor Simonelli had a question for the city solicitor's office as well. Councelor Simmonelli for the second time. Thank you, Madam President. You know, I I you know, the concerning part about going into executive session at
this point and I and I understand council Ali's uh position to be able to explain to us uh on what has transpired. Would I guess my question would be, you know, that being said, would the the peop the people that are being accused
uh of doing of wrongdoing, would they have the opportunity to be able to come in executive session with us so that they can actually tell us their part of the story? I mean, if we got one body that's telling us their part, wouldn't it only be fair for the other body that's being accused to
be able to, you know, at that point face their accusers and and give their part of the story to an executive session? Unfortunately, the law is that executive session is only for the body. Um, it's up to the body. If the body decides to go into executive session, if the body
decides they're not going to go into executive session, then obviously you can be heard in open session here on the floor. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Simmonelli. Councelor Crow, thank you. I just really have a
question. I think building off of um Council McDonald's. So I I I do think this is a good paper and it should have been the first paper that we had to discuss this and and figure out maybe that relationship before a lawsuit. So I I think it is it too late that we kind of already rung that bell and now we're
kind of unringing that bell. Um I I do feel like I'm not sure again with if if both sides really want and what's the teeth of this committee and is it you know just people that you've chosen? Is it again I think a joint committee? Is it something else? And what's the teeth
of this? If they don't come up with the decision on how the relationship is, do they get the voting? Do they not get the voting? is this. So, I'm not sure if I what happens if this nothing really comes that actually puts teeth around
anything that we're meeting and having these frustrating frustrating conversations where it doesn't seem like in a number of areas, not just about the subject, but that no one's listening to anybody. So, I'm just not sure. I mean, I'll
support it, but I'm not I'm not sure that this is going to have the effect that it would have had if this is where we stopped started. Thank you, C. Thank you, Councelor Crow. Um, from the chair, I'll just echo what others have said. I also don't want to
um beat a dead horse, but I do think that, you know, moving in this direction before litigation probably would have been preferable. I think clearly we have to make a move towards some type of reconciliation and clarity. So regardless of how this vote goes, I think we need to get some clarification
on the role for any future presidents um and rebuild this relationship. And I actually see councelor Ali, you are being asked to be recognized again. So I'm going to put your light on. You you can finish your thought. No, I'm I'm fine. I I was trying to be brief because I know we have a long agenda tonight. I
just really want to echo what others have said. I want to be part of a solution here. Yeah. And for the and for a final time just to to respond to what the city solicitor stated, both myself and the city solicitor wanted to address the council. I specifically asked that
the that if the complaints had to be drafted that they be drafted and shared with the opposing parties without being filed. That is a way in which you bring people to the table to settle. And I was advised by the city solicitor's office
that based on prior experience with the board of trustees that they did not think that that would be viable and that the only way the trustees would take this seriously was to file the suit. There was a time crunch related to a vacation by the assistant city
solicitor. Um but I did want to come to the council and I did not want to file a lawsuit. I was advised. I would like to explain this wherever y'all want. Just give me a chance. Um, but I'm not going to belver the point. I'm not throwing legal under the bus. That is 100% the
truth. Thank you. Sounds like it's time to vote the question. Okay. I can read it again if you have to read it again. So, this is paper 306-25 order that the city I'm sorry, the
council president a committee to clarify the relationship between the city of Malden and the Malden Public Library through its board of trustees to ensure compliance with chapter 146 of the acts of 1885 through a non-litigation approach. We have a motion without a
second to adopt this order. I seconded it. I apolog I didn't hear you. You seconded when I said you said if he had a motion you said if he was going to refer it somewhere you would second it. He made a motion to adopt the order. Oh, then I I still I apologize. I still You
have a point of information. Got it. I think the council I'm sorry. I think that council McDonald had offered sort of a an amendment sent it to go to to either send it or to change the words that it's not just the council president that it's a task force has developed. Um
so I'm not sure if he wants to council McDonald weigh in. Um because I thought that would that would actually be a lot better than Council McDonald. Yeah. I I mean I I my recommendation is to refer this to committee so we can have a discussion about the details of what it
is we're going to appoint. It'll take a minute to do this anyways. Councelor Ali, does that seem appropriate to you to be able to have a more of a discussion about the details perhaps with some of the library trustees in the room? One second. Councelor Ali. I think the proper committee would be public
properties which also is the uh library committee that used to be a library subcommittee. So public property because we're dealing with public assets that they manage and trust. So I think public property would be the disc the place to have that conversation. I can I may then I would like to make a motion to refer
that to the public to refer this order to the public properties committee. I'll second that. I need public property committee. the public property committee and it's are we making an amendment on the wording around it being council president or are we leaving that alone? I wasn't going I think we should just
refer it to committee and then we can talk about it there. Great. Fantastic. Okay, so we had a motion and a second correct and we need to call we need a a roll call. Council Cologne Hayes. Council Condan. Council Crowe, yes.
Council Lahan, yes. Council McDonald, yes. Council Sega, yes. Council Simmonelli, yes. Council Spataphora, yes. Council Taylor, Council Winslow, yes. Council President Ali, yes. Okay, that paper has been referred.
We could do that. Okay. So, next order of business, we'll move. Is that okay with you if we move to executive session? Yeah, I'm good. paper uh 312-25 order that the city council will vote whether to go into executive session with legal counsel for the city for the
purpose of exemption one Massachusetts general law chapter 3A section 21A1 to discuss the discipline or dismissal of or complaints or charges against a public officer or individual for the purpose of taking a vote on council
paper 313-25. Okay. But and before we take up debate on entering executive session, I want to um make a note for the public that the subsequent papers 3 313-25, 314-25 and 315-25,
we will reconvene in open session to discuss those papers. So the council will come back from executive session to take up the rest of the agenda. Absolutely. Councelor Sika, you have the floor. Thank you, council president. So,
this executive session paper is actually not one that I had initially asked for. I was um I was informed that we should put it on the agenda this evening in case we were going to be discussing councel or Ali. I do not agree with it.
I think that all these votes, including having a conversation, if we were to have a conversation, um should be on the floor where public officials. It should be held in the public. it should not be held in executive session. Um, executive sessions, we are able to vote whether or
not we want to go in into them for a reason. And I believe that if we were to deliberate, we should deliberate on the floor. I'm not quite sure really what there what more there is to deliberate on this particular matter. I think between last week and this week, we all
know the reason as to why um we are here. So I I have no problem. I I will with I will withdraw this paper if I have enough votes to withdraw it and if not then we can just vote to go into executive session. It's the preference
of the council. Okay, understood. Councelor Winsow for the um speak on the paper. My concern is that I believe that papers 313, 314, and 315 are out of order. Um,
they are not consistent with council rules. So, we cannot take up those matter of business anyway. But if we we can deal with executive session, I'm happy to talk about that outside of executive session. But I don't think we can take any action on those papers
anyway because we don't have a a rule that allows us to remove our council president. Um Robert's rules of order does not allow us to uh do that without proper notice. And I think that the gist of these are essentially amendment to our rules which uh under section uh 53
we have to provide notice and we can't take action on in one day. So I that's I don't know whether we can actually act on the executive session if we can't actually take the action that's called for in that. So um so I I just they're out of order that we actually cannot
take action because we don't have a rule to remove our council president. Thank you. Thank you, councelor Winsow. I'm going to take councelor Simmonelli and then I'll go back to you, councelor Sika. Councelor Simmonelli. Thank you, Madam President. And you know, councelor Winslow brings up a good point and it brings us back to
stop and that's, you know, do our rules, do our Robert rules of order, the parliamentary rules of procedure. I mean, this is something that we haven't really dealt with. I know I haven't in my tenure. Um what is the legal standing when you know
this body has taken a vote um to to put an end um to the proceedings of a lawsuit and it gets overruled
and doubled down and where are our standings on that? I just I'm confused. I'm just like where, you know, do we have written documentation somewhere? Is it can can we get that in writing from the legal department saying that, you know, um we
have the right to councelor Winslow's uh question, I guess, or or statement that, you know, do we have the authority uh at this point to be able to, you know, have this before us? And what what is the
legal standing here? It's it's it's not quite clear to me and probably to everybody that's out in the audience and a lot of my colleagues like we're back to square one here. So I I don't know. I guess that my question would be to legal if we have a legal opinion on where
we're at at this point. Okay. I'm going to take councelor Sika and then we can address that. Councelor Seca. Thank you madam president. I um disagree with my colleagues. I have spent the good portion of the last week researching exactly how these papers
needed to be put on the agenda for this evening so that we weren't called into question. Um, our rule 10.01 says that the city council elects annually a council president to serve to
to lead us into the new year. Every year we we we vote to to to choose a president of our peers that will help. Do what do you have? I just opened it up. 170 nine. Which one are you on? 10.
Yeah. So it's 10.01. That so on 10.01 it says meetings of the city council shall be presided over by the president who shall be chosen annually by a majority vote of the full city council. made by a roll call vote.
We do that every December, sometimes January during inauguration. We it we choose the person that we would like to lead us into the new year. So 1709, let me see 1709 says that we have a
rule. It's disciplinary procedures shall be followed as set forth by chapter 20 of Robert's rules. So, in Robert's rules, it says that we have the authority to remove the council president. So, that's why there's three different papers on here. One of them is
for us to suspend our council rule that we um we can to to suspend the rule for voting on a new president annually. And then we're going to s we're going to vote to remove the council president.
And then we open up nominations to elect a new president. And I think people are forgetting here. I appreciate everybody coming out tonight that did support council Ali. Hell, I seconded his nomination back in December when we elected him as the president for this
year. And while we may have started this issue as a result of something for the public for the library and the litigation with the library, everybody at home has to understand counselor Ali is not up here acting rogue on his own
and he's he's counselor. He's one of 11. He is supposed to be our leader. Okay? And two weeks ago when he sat up here quietly and went home an hour later and sent an email to the city solicitor's
office not even sleeping on what he heard all of us up here explain to him about how we councelor see just keep it to the the whether we can go into executive session not the merits of that that's fine I will wait and do it at the
next paper. So, I make a motion to withdraw this executive session paper. And if I don't have enough votes for that, then I make a motion to vote to go into Can we let councelor McDonald speak? He's been um they've been waiting. I would like to let them have a chance before we take the vote.
Is that okay? Council McDonald. Yeah. Well, thank you, um, Council President Prom. I was just gonna second councelor Sika's motion because I I think there's broad agreement that this needs to be uh discussed in public. Um and I support
that. So yes, let's take the vote on that and then have the conversation. Thank you so much. Councelor Sea, I'm sorry. Did you want to finish your motion? Um I make a motion to withdraw withdraw executive session. Okay. So we'll need a roll call vote for that.
Clerk, will you please call the role? Council Clone Hayes, yes. Council Condan, yes. Council Crow, yes. Council Lahan, yes. Council McDonald, yes. Council Sega, yes. Council Simmonelli, Council Spaphora, yes. Council Taylor,
yes. Council Winslow, yes. Council Romani, present. So that paper has been withdrawn. Um, so how we move forward with this is if the conversation is not going to be taken up in executive session, then we
shall move on to the next paper and debate the merits of it on the floor. If you're in agreement with that, I'm in agreement with that. Are you ready? Yep, I'm good. Paper 313-25 order that the city council will vote whether to remove council president
Ali from his seat as president for the remainder of his term that was to last until the end of the 2025 calendar year. I'm I'm going to level set before we even get into this. I I feel like we've all been starting to veer into this paper in our previous remarks. I'm going
to ask for folks to be respectful both to Councelor Omali and also please no speaking over each other. It's really hard for me to keep control of the conversation but also just to have a tone of respect for one another as we get into this debate and I appreciate that in advance. I'm going to take
councelor councelor see you actually had your light on first so you have the floor. Thank you, madam. Have a point of order that takes precedence. I'm sorry. I didn't know you had a point of order, counselor. The point of order is that this order is not in order because under
Robert's rule, section chapter 20, section 62, it talks about removal of office of any regularly elected officer of a permanent society can be removed um by the bylaws. And there's two ways. Um
there's very specific language. If the bylaws provide the officers shall re serve for years or until the successors are elected, they can be removed. But if there's not that language about um until successors are elected, they have to be
a disciplinary proceeding. So um our bylaws do not provide for removal. And so um so that is the type of thing. And then that that to have removal you have to go through the um uh you know that so
I we this removal process is not appropriate. There has to be and the removal process under Robert's rules is very specific. You have to have notice to the individual. You have to do an investigation and then you have to have votes. So we can't just do that in one
one night. So um and ironically councelor Ali and I have actually done something like this um related to another organization. So um there is a process to remove someone who's an official but it's a basically a trial
process because we our rules do not say they say we have someone who's elected annually but it doesn't say how we elect a successor. So, so my interpretation and I ask for the chair to uh confirm this is that um we cannot act um on
these papers because essentially um and then then I say under section 53 of the rules to change our rules, we also have to notify ourselves at least a a meeting in advance. So essentially these three papers together are asking us to
basically create an impeachment procedure that does not exist and that can't be done tonight either. So um all these papers are out of order and I ask for the ruling of the chair as to whether um or not um she thinks these are in order. Thank you. Thank you councelor Winsow. Because we have a
point of order, I'm going to invite our city solicitor again to come to the podium. My understanding is that the solicitor and the clerk have researched this before the meeting and that they're prepared to address the specific point that councelor Winsow has made.
Okay. Do you It's the same point of order. Okay. All you can come up. I'm going to let councelor Mali make his point of order since it's on the same topic. I just want to confirm that you have uh the 11th edition of Robert's rules. Thank you. So do I. Okay. Thank you. Oh,
sorry. I thought you were done. Go ahead. Council me page page 654. It says, "If however the bylaws provide that officers shall serve only a fixed term such as for two years, ours says annually, an officer can be removed from
office only for cause. That is neglective duty in office or misconduct in accordance with the procedures described in 63. That is an investigation investigating committee must be appointed. charges m must be
preferred and a formal trial must be ha held. I would ask what rule did I break? What law did I violate? Thank you. Councelor Ali, let me just put the podium on. Okay, you have the floor. Um, so I'm going to ask the um clerk to
chime in as well, but um so in researching this issue the same um addition page 651. This is again under the chapter 20
disciplinary proceedings. In this uh and Robert rules, it says removal of presiding officer from chair for all or part of a session. So, if the chair fails to act in accordance with the assembly's decision on an appeal or on a
point of order submitted to a vote of the assembly or otherwise culpably fails to perform the duties of the chair properly in a meeting, the assembly may employ measures temporarily to replace the chair with another presiding officer
expected to act in accordance with the will of the assembly. So, that that's one part. Uh the second part that um council president Omali is reading from it's uh removal from office and that's on page 653.
And so there are two parts to removal from office. And it says except as the bylaws may provide otherwise. Any regularly elected officer of a permanent society can be removed from
office by the society's assembly as follows. If the bylaws provide that officers shall serve for blank years or until their successors are elected, the officer in question can be removed from
office by adoption of a motion to do so. The vote required for adoption of such a motion is uh there three different um sections. A is a twothirds vote. B a majority vote when previous notice as
defined by a certain uh section has been given or C a vote of a majority of the entire membership. So if the bylaws again provide that officers shall serve for blank in our case one year or and
that's the key until their successors are elected. So that's one way for a removal from office. The second way, as Council President Omali was reading, if however the bylaws provide that officers
shall serve only a fixed term such as for two years uh or and uh I'm sorry, serve for two years or if they provide that officers shall serve
for blank years and until their successors are elected, an officer can be removed from office only for cause that is neglect of duty in office or misconduct in accordance with the procedures described in section 63 which
talks about investigation in trial. So, in researching this issue, the key to removal from office is what our bylaws say. And our bylaws are are actually silent totally
as it relates to removal from office. But the difference as to whether it can be by vote or by investigation and trial would be if our bylaws stated um that the officer shows ser for blank years or
until the successors are elected that would mean by vote. Um otherwise if it says that uh the officers shall serve for years and until their successors are elected that would be um
through an investigation and trial. So, so that that's one section and again the first section that I've read is removal of presiding officer from chair for all a part of a session and that is by vote and if you have questions and I can
answer them I will. Um but those are the two sections that we um investigated researched. Thank you. I'm going to open it up to other questions before I ask my own. Counselor see I'm sorry I had put your light off by accident before. I'm going to take you next. No worries. Thank you,
Madam President. Um, I keep hearing remove from office. We are not removing councelor Ali from office. We are removing him as our leader of the city council. It's a rule. It's one of our
council rules. It is not a law. It's a rule that we're allowed to suspend and remove him and and open up nominations to to give us another person to lead us. I think councelor we wouldn't be having
this conversation if councelor Ali never filed litigation. He'd he would be the council president till the end of December. But we are having this conversation because he went against 10 of us up here. We asked him to do
something as a body and he basically told us to pound sand and he did what he wanted to do anyway without any regard for how the 10 of us up here felt that should everybody should be worried if we
keep him in as our city council president till the end of December. He He is not, as far as I'm concerned, he is not trustworthy enough to lead us for the remainder of this this year. He's
not. He proved it two weeks ago when he went completely against us. If if this didn't happen, if you didn't go about this in this way, this has nothing to do with the library. That we should definitely sit down with them. This has nothing to do with you asking hog
questions. Ask away. It's the way you went about it and how you disregarded 10 of us up here and the way we felt about a situation. You You should have You're upset because you haven't been heard. We should have heard you before that suit
was filed, not after the suit. We should have heard you before the suit. That is what I'm upset about. I had to find out from the library board of trustees that I was suing them. I had no idea I was doing them. I had my point of order.
This is I don't think this is related to the point of order. Um heard from the city and then we can debate whether councelor Winslow. Seriously, you didn't say point of order. You just yelled it. I did say point of order. I
asked you not to speak over each other. I've asked Ally to explain the Robert's rules and we're now debating what the understanding of what she has said. I have questions. I'd like counselors to be able to ask questions to confirm their understanding so that we can know
how to proceed. I appreciate the point of order, but we do this is unprecedented for our council. We need to understand whether we're doing the right thing here. Councelor, are you are you're up next? Are you ready to Okay, councelor Seek, are you are you all set?
Okay. Okay. Councelor Ali, Solicer McNeel, page 654. Do you see the fourth line down? I'm sorry. Page 654. Yep. The fourth line, the the this the first bullet.
Yes. It's I guess technically line seven. It starts with the word or. Yes. Can would you mind circling the word or? Do you have a pen? Yeah. only because this is a really important or
I'm not I'm not joking. If however the bylaws provide that the officers shall serve only a fixed term such as two years that is one example our our
rules say annually tick it's that it then goes and says or if they provide that officers shall serve for one year and until their excesses are elected There's two
examples in this bullet point. We fit in the first example under this bullet point. We do not fit in the first on the first bullet point at all because we don't have ore. This is really important. My rights as an elected official, my
rights as a city council president are dictated on this. I have a right to have a investigation done and a trial. I have a right to state my case. I have not been given a chance here or in executive session or anywhere.
Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Ali. Coun uh Council Ali, I just want to say that I'm not saying whether you have a right to or not. I'm reading the rules, Robert's rules of order and what we u
the the clerk and I researched and it was the first part that I read and then what you read. So I'm not saying whether you have a right to an investigation or a motion that's not for my that's not my decision. As the solicitor, you make a
recommendation to the chair. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Uh I do um I do make a recommendation for the chair. Uh this is a parliamentary issue. So I would certainly ask that the clerk also would be included in that decision.
The clerk being our parliamentarian. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Um councelor Cologne Hayes. Oh, I'm sorry. Um I almost forgot my question. I was like looking up the rules. So, I was going to
ask if we had a procedure or process um from what you were looking into on how even our rules of order on how to um vote out a council president and or vote in a new one. I've read them, but I'm a
little confused. Um I'd like an opinion on whether we have a process for that in our rules in the in the council rule books. No, no, we do not have. Okay. He says that if there is no process, then we defer to Robert's rules. Okay, great. So, we have no process on the
books right now on how to do this. So, in my opinion, we should not be moving forward with this at all until we have a process. Thank you. But for for clarity, our rules often defer to Robert's rules when we have a lack of either a lack of clarity or a
lack of a spelled out step by step. Yes, that is correct. Okay. I think what I'm hearing that's confusing here is that it doesn't necessarily spell out a term. Our rules mention a election point per year but not a length of term. Is that
act was that a fair assessment of the difference between our rules and Robert's rules? Yes. Our rules say for a term of one year. Yes. Okay. No, I think I said the reverse that our rules say we elect someone once per year and Robert rules is referencing a term. Yes, that's
correct. The Robert's rules reference a term and we say or or your rules say that you collect you elect a president per year and Robert's rules is referencing an officer which could be a broader term whereas our rules reference
is is specifically referencing the election of the council president. That's correct. Okay. Thank you councelor Condan. Thank you. Uh couple weeks ago, this council voted 10
to nothing not to go forward with the the suit against the Would you say that was pretty clear? Yes, sir. And that he was being directed by 10 council members up here not to go forward and embarrass
the city council any more than he has. Yes, we had in order to withdraw. Did he do that? We withdrew the lawsuit. Yeah, you would do the lawsuit, but he pushed the lawsuit in another direction. Is that correct? I I would despite our
vote. I wouldn't say that he pushed it in another direction. Meaning, council president, what I would say is that he proceeded on that day with his mot with the motion that was filed on that day or the next day? on the day that we went to
court, which was that Monday. I believe it was the 6th. I don't recall, but the day after. It wasn't prior though. No, it was not Friday. I believe I don't remember the date, but the next date that we appeared in court, we did withdraw u make a motion to withdraw.
So, we did a 10 nothing vote not to move forward and he ignored the vote and he moved forward. Wouldn't you say that's a problem? That's not for me to say, Council K.
Well, I think it's a problem. What the hell are we taking votes up here for then? He just ignored what the council voted and he shouldn't have done it. Thank Thank you. Another uh point of information.
Are you Thank you, Councelor Conan. Councelor Winsow. Yeah. Ally, just on section 62, the language about removal of presiding off officer from chair for all or part of a session? Yes. Would your interpretation be a session is basically a meeting that it's it's not
for the remainder of their term. So, so that really that's not what these motions that I'm or these orders these orders are are not just for a session. They're looking to remove councelor Ali for the rest of his term. So, so that
that that provision really wouldn't cover. So, we're really looking at interpreting 6 and 63 then. So, really all right. So, that's was the clarification I wanted. Thank you, Councelor Winso. I'm going to actually um allow councelor McDonald to unmute. Thank you for your patience.
Thank you, uh, Council President Brom. So, obviously this is as an unprecedented and highly consequential discussion. We do want to get this right. And I also want to stipulate that like we could be here the entire night just talking about the procedure of this
and not actually have the conversation I think is important to have. I think it's important to get to the point of this where councilor Ali does have a chance to explain hi himself and and his perspective on how we got here since he is the subject of this. So for the point of order, can I ask our city solicitor
to clarify? Did I hear you say clearly that it is possible to suspend um someone if they uh the the presiding officer if they are not abiding by the will of the of the of the assembly?
Uh yes, councelor McDonald. Um so the section that I read in that council Winslow was just referring to it says that again if the chair fails to act in accordance with the assembly's decision on an appeal or on a point of order
submitted to a vote of the assembly or otherwise culpably fails to perform the duties of the chair properly in a meeting. The assembly may employ measures temporarily to replace the chair with another presiding officer expected to act in accordance with the will of the assembly.
Okay. So what I what I hear there is that the the the most clearly the like the clearest way if folks wanted to uh remove councelor Omali as president which we haven't actually even
discussed yet. I'm just saying would be actually to to try to suspend him and that's pretty murky about what the process would be to formally and permanently remove him. Um and so if that's the case I it would take some time to figure out what that process is
anyways and if there have to be reports and dear god trials and so on I don't know. Um but my my wondering is like could we at least start there and then be able to rather than getting in locked in further procedural this is a question
to my colleagues could we at least consider this as a discussion about a suspension until something is uh able to re be researched or addressed um and if not then how are we going to get to some discussion or how are we going to get to some decision about what conversation we
can even have because I would like to have the conversation um and give us all a chance to actually talk about what is important at the heart of this. Thank you, Councelor McDonald. I'm going to take Councelor Simelli for the second time. Are you ready?
Yeah. Thank you, Madam President. Uh you know, again, I'm just trying to get back to common sense here. I, you know, we just keep muddying the waters more and more here. I just, you know, I I I don't really see us getting a
um a clear assessment from legal on whether or not we have the right as a body after we've taken the vote like council cond said 10 to one. I mean, so you know, where do we find ourselves at this point? You know, this is um
this is unprecedented for us here. But, you know, it's kind of on the on the verge of embarrassment for everybody here. You know, I mean, I mean, I know I would I think my colleagues would agree that, you know, there are so many things that we should
be working on up here uh to move this city forward. And unfortunately, you know, we find ourselves like um uh it seems to be getting like personal with with with people up here and personal agendas. And uh this isn't the city
council that I signed up for three years ago. And uh you know, I mean, we've really got to get to the bottom of this. I mean, we're either going to like take some action on this thing tonight, which it sounds like my colleagues want to do. Um but we got to start moving forward
here. This is just getting chair. I made a point of order and it's it's really on to you to decide. I mean, it's not to the whole council. You're so I agree. I ask you and then the council can hope to decide whether they accept that or not. I I feel we've we've asked our
solicitor's opinion. I don't think she's technically said if the three papers here are in order or out of order. I'm I'm fine with that. Would you be willing to tell us whether you find these three papers to be in order? I have my opinion, but I would like to hear um
from the solicitor. Let me just get I'll yield the floor. I'm good. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Simmonelli. Councelor Sea, please be brief so that we can move on. No, thank you. Um, Attorney McNail, I've had conversations with the city clerk. I haven't had conversations with you, but I think that
she's been having conversations with you about regarding these papers because we were trying to make sure that they were properly before us. So could you just tell us if 313, 314 and 315 are properly before us and if we are able to vote on
them based on your perspect persceptive of the Robert's rules of order because we are able to vote on them even though we don't have a rule in our council rule book because we defer to Rob's rules of order which you have you you've
explained numerous times this evening exactly how we do this. We we have a simple majority vote to elect a council president every year. There should be just a simple majority vote to remove them if they're not doing the duties that we we ask of them. So I would
honestly defer to the city council and the reason for that is because there are two we don't have a bylaw. you don't have a bylaw or a rule as to the removal of a sitting president and on one hand
it can be by a majority vote and on the other hand it has to be through the investigation and I think that depends again as I stated whether it's and uh a a someone who's going to succeed the person or if it's an or you need an
investigation to remove somebody as This is crazy point point of information. Counselor Simmonelli. Look, again, I think we just keep going around in circles and nobody seems to have the answer. I don't know if it's if it's doable or if we have the um
authority to at this point outside council. I'm not getting any answers here. No, look, the the authority sits with the chair. The city solicitor is advising me and our parliamentarian is the clerk. The clerk and I spoke last week when I agreed to
take this part of the agenda so that councelor Ali could step aside because we're talking about him. So the advice that I'm hearing from our city solicitor after speaking with the clerk, I appreciate councelor Winslow's point. It's my judgment that this is in order and that we need to vote the question.
Fair enough. Councelor Taylor, do you want an opportunity to speak? make a motion to uh challenge the uh ruling of the chair. Can we take Can we take the light on before? Now, where do we go from there?
Okay, it's okay. We can take a breather. That's okay. Are you good? Okay. The clerk is just consulting our Okay. So, we have a motion to appeal the chair. Yeah. Okay. So, the motion has been made
by council Winslow. It was seconded by Council Cologne Hayes. The council rule book does not say that the chair needs to vacate. We do have an appeal of council Lahan's ruling. So, we're going to take a roll call vote. A yes vote
would be to overrule Councelor Lahan's ruling. A no vote would be to let the ruling stand. Councelor Winsow, are you in you okay with that? Okay. So, a yes vote is to overrule Council Lahan's ruling. A no
vote will let her ruling stand as is. Um, Council Cologne Hayes, yes. Council Condan, no. Council Crow, no. Council Lahan, no. Council McDonald, no.
Council Sega, no. Council Simonelli, no. Council Spataphora, no. Council Taylor, Council Winslow, yes. Council Ali, okay, so that um appeal failed
by a 3 to8 vote, which means the ruling of the chair stands. Paper um 313 and if needed, subsequent papers 314 and 315 are ruled in order. And so now they'll be voted.
Councelor Ali, I just want to formally object for the record. Thank you. The last paper. Oh, you I'm sorry. You're all set now. So, you should be all set. Thank you very much, uh, Council President. Um,
there is a lot to unpack here and there's a lot to learn. And I think one of the things that I've noticed over the past couple of years is we really need to tighten up our procedures and how we present ourselves and what we're doing here because we can't really represent our communities if we don't we can't be
transparent if we don't even know what the expectations are. Um, since we are so up in the or have been, there was so much discussion around what the next best thing to do is, I'd like
to make a motion that we have a interim president while we do a formal investigation, giving council president Ali the time to defend himself and and speak what he, you know, his truth while also making sure that
we're moving things forward. if that is reasonable. So that would have to be an amendment to a future paper that we're taking up if we can do that. What are we discussing right now? Okay. Councelor Simmonelli. Thank Thank you,
Madam President. Look, you know, I I I don't have a problem with that with fairness, but again, at the same time, what about the people have that have been accused and the people have been served? I think we kind of, you know, they're kind of getting
lost in the in the shuffle here and in the cracks. Uh, you know, because, you know, this there's embarrassment out there. there's there's there's uh people that are trying to do their due diligence and you know like I said I'm going back to it's very difficult to get
people to sit on these boards uh first of all and second you know I mean who wants to live in that kind of fear of you know uh of a body like this you know coming after him for just cause I mean you know
there there's a due process here and you know if we're if we're going to be fair we got to be fair across the board. There has to be parity. You can't allow, you know, um, one side to be a little bit lopsided more than the other. I mean, that's, you
know, that's there's no fairness there. So, I I mean, I, you know, I understand I agree. I think that there should, you know, I mean, I think we had the investigation with the city solicitor's office already. Uh, and, you know, I think that this body needs to start taking some action and and and we need
to take some action. We we need to show accountability here of who we are and you know we need to make it happen and we need need to make it happen soon. These these these people have families. They have lies you know. I mean uh I I don't even know how we we we really got
here man. This is just out of control at this point and and we we seem to be missing that. This is unprecedented uh as a council and we talk about that all the time and I honestly I think we continuously are muddying the waters here, man. and and and and no one's
above it. Whether you're a city councelor, mayor, state rep, I don't care who you are. You know, I think that the you know, the people that are serving on these committees need to be, you know, protected and if
we don't protect it, shame on us. Thank you, Councelor Simonelli. Counselor Cologne Hayes. Thank you. Um, so I think I'm Thank you for bringing that up. I I agree that we do not have
process for this. It is unprecedented. So we should take some time to think it through. Um, let if you want to call it a trial, whatever they called it, but we do need to hear from people. Well, I haven't heard
anything um um about from either councelor Ali's side or um the library side. So, I think giving it some time is a good idea. We have no consensus on how to work this through and um it's always
good to take a little bit time and take a step back. Um I just I just don't think this warrants a removal when we don't even have a process and we don't know what we're doing. It's it's a bad precedent to take. There are people who serve on our
um public bodies. The CPC has gone through major orals. We worked it out with them. Um that committee, you know, has gone through it as well. Do we want that for our committees and our volunteers? Absolutely not. No. But they
do take their job seriously. You know, the um volunteers who are stepping up, whether they're paid or not, not really sure. some of the some some um bodies are and committees, but they know I'm hoping they want to do the right thing as well, and that would be to solve this
and settle it and not be just going to try to the worst case scenario here. So, um I hope we can figure something out and maybe taking some time is is is the right thing to do um and to spend. So, that's good. You have
you need to rebut councelor Cologne Hayes. You've spoken three time. Council Councelor Simell, you have you I know we were speaking on the point of order before, but you have spoken three times. I'd like to give others a chance first. Thank you, Councelor Cologne
Hayes. Councel Councelor Winsow. Um I you know I appreciate the thought of of having some fairness but I mean that was really why I was pressing the that route. That was a route that was offered in Robert's rules. The council's made a
decision not to do that. So let's get on with it. That's kind of what I'm feeling. You know, hey, you know, I pressed it. Um you know that uh you know that is you know there was that process the council's ruled. So I, you know,
let's not I I bel labored it enough. So helps if I put my mic on. Thank you, Councelor Winsel. Councelor Seika. Thank you, Madam President. And this will be the last time I'm going to speak on this paper and every other paper. I feel like the next three are all the same
discussion, but I just want to remind everybody once again, this is not a library issue. This is a city council issue and who we have leading us for the remainder of the year. I'm going to leave this with everybody because I'm
not sure if if everybody is aware of this, but the council president takes is the leader of the council, but god forbid if something happens to the mayor tomorrow, the council president takes over as the mayor. Okay. So, would you be
comfortable with this council president being the mayor? Cuz I wouldn't. If he can go against 10 of his fellow counselors on a decision that we made as a collective body, then he will do anything as far as I'm concerned. And he
should he he should not be excuse me. There's no yelling in the council chamber and I did have the floor. So he he needs to be removed. There's no need for an investigation. Let's just vote on this the next three papas, please.
Thank you, Councelor Seika. Councelor Simelli, I'm going to take you. I apologize. I misunderstood that you were trying to react to councelor Taylor's motion that you disagreed that we were that that was out of order. Do you want to have an opportunity to speak? Just No, I Madam President, I appreciate
that. I I everyone knows how I feel. You know, I don't like to be in this position and and you know, it's a tough situation for everybody, but I think we need to really move forward with this thing and decide on this thing tonight where we're going. This is Look, we're heading into recess. We've got the Fourth of July coming up for all of us
that that do it. It's a big deal. I I just think that again, not to keep beating a dead horse, but we've got an obligation to protect those people who we confirm to sit on these boards. And uh like I said in the whole manner and
the way it was addressed like I said I didn't know anything about it until I see I saw the docket uh that we were suing the library doesn't even sound right but anyway that's my point. Thank you. Thank you councelor Simmonelli
Councelor Crow. Thank you, Madam President. And you know, there's been a lot of debate, but the one thing that I've heard that clearly I think was um that when the he gets suspended or removed when he defies the will or the
the officer defies the will of the assembly. I think that is the clearest thing how that's why we're moving forward is because there was a vote. There was a withdrawal from the city solicitor's office, but then he still took it. So he still very clearly says
it can be removed because he denied the will of the assembly and that was the will of the entire assembly. Thank you councelor Crow. Councelor Ali. Yeah I just I I want to you know
reiterate what councelor Taylor said about the process. You know as you've seen this this is not clear. There are very different ways in which you can view this even when you ask legal and even when you ask the city solicitor or even when you ask ourselves. Um the the
procedure was not clear and I sought advice from the legal department. Everyone I talked to was said this was the right step to go about and to inform the the council as soon as possible. I was told that the entire council did not
have standing. I was told that I was the only person that had standing in the exeicial capacity aside from the mayor. This has been going on for 25 years or more. I I just handed out a list of all of our active litigation. We have never
voted to affirmatively sue before. What the the standard that you're applying to me did does didn't exist. In the 10 years I've been on the council, we have never had to affirmatively vote to take action. It was always the decision of the city solicitor. I went to the city
solicitor with the problem. They advised me and I said in agreement with the city solicitor, I want to inform the council as soon as possible. I also said and I don't actually want to file this. I would really like to first go to them and and show them what we've drafted and
see if they'll settle because of the time. I'm not throwing them under the bus. It was my decision in the end, but because of the timing of a vacation, it had to be filed on Thursday. I I apologize to the council for not informing you more. The one counselor I
did go to, councelor Spataphora, I I did I I addressed with councelor Lahan at one point. These were real concerns I had. I was putting the city's best interest at heart. I was putting this council's best interest at heart. I apologize for making a political mistake
and not letting you all know. I do apologize to the council when you voted to have it dismissed. It It's not that simple. And I don't know if the city solicitor or any of the attorneys in the room can try to explain this because I'm learning as I go too,
but if you dismiss a case just without any other words, it's considered that the opposing party wins when you're the plaintiff. that would completely detriment the city's position.
This the the the city the city solicitor withdrew, left me in in that in that hearing and I have now reached out as the council has asked as you said the 10 people I've heard and I have reached out and said I
am willing to dismiss this case without prejudice so that we can work towards a political thing. Give me a chance to take the offramp, please. I think that there is a misunderstanding out there that removing me from my seat will remove my standing. There are two
things going on. There is a backwardslooking declaratory judgment asking a court to look at the law and to to decide whether the library board of trustees has violated my rights. That looks backwards. There's also a
prelim preliminary injunction basically asking the library board of trustees to not violate the council president's right, whoever that is. That's forwardlooking. Whether I'm removed or not, the case can still move on. I would like to dismiss
this case. I would like to be given a chance. Give me a chance to have an on-ramp, an offramp, please. Thank you, Councelor Mali. I'm going to take counselor McDonald and then councelor Spataphora. Counselor McDonald, you can unmute. Yeah. I just wanted to let counselor
spat go first if he wants to because he hasn't spoken yet in this sequence of papers and I can go after him. Is that fine? That's fine. Can everybody hear me? All right. Can everybody hear me? Yes. Okay, I can hear you. Great. Go ahead.
Thank you. Thank you, councelor. Um, thank you everybody. I appreciate it. I appreciate the audience uh and all the public interest. I will just say this, Councilman Mali is absolutely correct. He reached out to me as my opinion on the on the city on the um library committee. Um but there was never any
discussion. It was really about his ability to vote, bathrooms, and some concerns there. And I just said to him, just proceed cautiously. Um, and some of the the things you have there about bathrooms, it's a public bathroom and if they if they need to do it over or they need more service, guess what? They're
going to have to ask for more city resources. And that's something we don't have. But the idea that I had some type of advanced notice that he was going to sue to be quite frankly that is just whether he was applying it or not, that's not true. The other thing I would say is there's no discussion here and I
think council sim tried to say anything is he sued our li our head librarian. He sued our head librarian who's not a board of trustees. This was person and the idea that it was a an an
administrative mistake again is not truthful because again most of this council if not all of us found out Memorial Day weekend. The email went out I believe on 5:23. So there was no there was there was no
mistake about holidays and anything. An email went out to the trustees about the lawsuit. I then emailed from my perspective the city solicitor and asked her opinion. Council me then Tuesday had them served
on the 27th. Again, there was no mistake on on the Tuesday night meeting. The 10 to nothing vote to council Marley to stand down. Council Melly went into court
and fought on the he sat on the same side as our city solicitor and fought for an injunction. And the question I have to this council is if that injunction was successful, I can guarantee you the tone of this council of the president would be much different. He lost. And and the judge
answered pretty explicitly. If you took a chance to read that lawsuit, he actually said regarding the injunction, nor is there any discernable likelihood of its merits. So the judge was pretty swift to his action. The the other piece there is
he wasn't going to give it up. He wasn't giving up. He went in even after council told him to stand down. He didn't do that. And now we're told today that he's willing to drop the lawsuit. I know there's a couple members I think of the library trustees there. So the
question is and I'll ask Mr. Ali directly, did he drop the lawsuit or is he willing to drop the lawsuit? Because that tells me two different things. What we're debating here is about a city councelor who's the president who went around the back of the city council and
initiated a lawsuit without anybody knowing. And did he throw the two city solicitors under the bus? Yes, he's Yes, he has. Yes, he did. Because I've talked to both of them. So either he's lying or they're lying and I'm not going to put their reputations on the line. I think
he's lying. I think he's lying about it. Thank you, Councelor. Can I give counselor Ali a chance to respond to your question? Yeah, it's a yes or no question. I still have the floor, Madam President. It's a Did he Did he drop the lawsuit or is he dropping the lawsuit? Two different things. Okay, I'll like to
give him a chance to answer your question. Okay, that's fair. Councelor Spaphora, I I'm not a litigator. I'm I'm and I was left to the sharks by our city solicitors department that day and I was and and when we dis Did you drop the lawsuit? Did you drop the lawsuit?
Listen, it's not when the rules of civil procedure in Massachusetts require a 9A conference where I have to first before filing a dispositive motion re reach out to the other party and ask if they we can reduce conflict and file a stipul a
stipulation to dismiss. I did that. I asked if I could meet last week. He the the opposing council could only meet on Monday morning. We spoke. I let him know that I'm willing to dismiss this case. I'm drafting the motion to dismiss. If the library board of trustees will
agree and stipulate to the dismissal, then yes, it will be dismissed. If they will not, then then it won't be dismissed. Whether or not I have standing though is irrelevant. Yes, your answer is yes. Councelor Spataphora. Thank you, Councelor Ali. Councelor Spataphor, you have the floor. Yeah, I I was just saying I think when you spoke
earlier, you made it seem like that lawsuit was dropped. That lawsuit is not dropped. And I and if the trustes there want to speak anything because again, I think this is just it's a good it's a good narrative right now. Council Mi, the problem is is you knew last Tuesday after that vote, you knew it was pretty
clear it was a 10- nothing vote. And the whether if you want I'm not a lawyer, you know that. But the idea of standing, you went to that meeting asking for an injunction. You were not going to change your mind. You were not. And the injunction came out and and this is why you're at this position right now.
Because if the injunction was positive, I would guarantee council, you would not be sitting there saying it right now. You'd be saying you won because the court didn't go with you. Now it's I want to work with the library. We told you last Tuesday, we we all agree there might be some questions there. Okay. But
one thing I will not stand for is when you are you are putting in the minds of people you want to use the word fiduciary responsibility. You're absolutely right. You have a fiduciary responsibility. There's also a whistleblower law in this commonwealth of Massachusetts. So if you do know that
if you do have a whistleblower that there is theft of money or art and you are holding that from the trustees that is a problem because you do have a fusary obligation to that board. If the if you don't have that information or it's just hearsay, then stop saying it because what you're creating in this
city is a divide saying that there's there's theft, there's money missing and it's a whistleblower. Well, there's laws to protect the whistleblower and you have an obligation. It's it's also the you have a care of duty standard as a trustee. You should be reporting that to the library trustees, but you're not
willing to do so. So, that's not what the issue is here. So all I would just ask this council is we we sent a clear message as a body last week 10 to nothing. Council Mali didn't care. He went to court supported the injunction. The injunction now lost and that's why
we're here now. Thank you madam president. Thank you councelor Spataphora. I'm going to council McDonald before I give you the floor. I'm going to have our assistant city solicitors here take the podium. You have the floor here. Thank
you madam chair. So, I want to clarify a couple a couple of things. When the city council president came to the city solicitor and they both met with me and he explained the situation, the dispute he was having with the trustees
and that we tended to agree that this dispute was not resolvable. Uh but we assumed that as when the city council president comes to our office saying that a lawsuit is is necessary, we assume he has the
support of the council. That was obviously very wrong and I will never make that mistake again. But that was the understanding that he had the support or he was going to get the support of the city council for this lawsuit. That was obviously wrong. Once
it became a apparent very shortly that this council was ordered was totally against the lawsuit and voted to order that it be dismissed. My office and I personally was faced with a completely
irreconcilable conflict of interest. On the one hand I in my office represent the city and the city councilors as a whole. However, we were also representing President Ali in this particular lawsuit. There was only one thing I could do as an attorney and that
was withdraw. So I went into court that day. I notified the judge, Judge Camille Suf, that I had to withdraw and I couldn't do anything else and that the city council as a whole had ordered the dismissal of this lawsuit, but
Mr. Ali did not want it to be dismissed. So I couldn't do both things. It was absolutely impossible for me to satisfy one client and satisfy the other client and follow both directions. So, I withdrew and the judge allowed me to withdraw. That was my duty as an
attorney to avoid any further conflict of interest and I withdraw. I didn't leave anyone to the sharks. Okay. Second, before an answer to a lawsuit is filed, a plaintiff can dismiss the lawsuit voluntarily without
even consulting the other side. A plaintiff can dismiss it without prejudice, which means there they can if they decide to file the same lawsuit at some future date, but they can dismiss it entirely. It doesn't count against the person who
filed the lawsuit. They don't need the permission of the defendants to dismiss the lawsuit. They can do it voluntarily before uh before there's an answer filed. So, that's just a correction I want to make for the record. procedurally, a plaintiff can dismiss a
lawsuit voluntarily without any prejudice or anything without anybody's permission uh before the defendants file an answer. Those are the things I want to clarify. I want to clarify that the withdrawal our our offic's withdrawal was because
there was irre an irreconcilable conflict of interest. It wasn't to try and thwart either Mr. Ali or the city council in any way. We were required under the ethical rules governing lawyers to withdraw and I'm happy to
address any questions. Thank you Zahir. Councelor Winsow just here um to clarify you mentioned about you can dismiss without prejudice before the answer. When was the answer was the answer answer was filed before this week. It was filed this week a few days.
Was was filed before or after the um hearing? It was filed after the hearing. It was f the answer was filed very recently like within like this week within the last few days. All right. Thank you. Just clarify. Thank you. Councelor Ali um
it was our hearing was the the 9th. My understanding is the answer was filed the 12th. That's my understanding. So it was last week. Excuse me. Today's Tuesday, but it was filed after the hearing. But again,
I'm not a litigator. I'm never intended to do this on my own. I'm just trying to represent the best interest of the city and this council. I did make a political mistake. As as the attorney stated, we thought that the council would support
this. We thought that we were doing what was in the best interest of the city. Literally, no one I talked to said, "Don't do this." It wasn't until we filed that I heard that. So again, Maya Kulpa, but everyone
I spoke to said this makes sense to go this route. That was a mistake as was stated. I'm not blaming the city solicitor for that. Let me take the offramp, please. Thank you, Councelor Ali. Um, Council McDonald has been so so patiently waiting. Council McDonald, you
can unmute. You have the floor. Yeah, thank you. actually uh assistant city solicitors to me just very quickly. So this point about this feels like a key point to me about the ability to unilaterally dismiss a lawsuit. Are you
saying that councelor Ali had that ability or still has that ability to dismiss the lawsuit unilaterally without pre without pre prejudice? So there's there's a timeline. Before a
defendant answers a lawsuit, a plaintiff, including Council President Omali, can dismiss the lawsuit voluntarily without prejudice, without consulting the other side. In fact, I've done that before. Um, you know, you file a lawsuit, things change suddenly, and
you just dismiss it. You don't even have to notify the other side. Once the defendants file respond to that lawsuit by filing an answer and I forgot it was Tuesday, so it was it was last week that they filed an answer and it was a few days after the injunction hearing on the
9th. Once they file an answer, then the plaintiff cannot unilaterally dismiss it. Um, in that case, the the plaintiff has to either consult with the other side or file a motion and get the court's permission to dismiss it. But
before a lawsuit is responded to under the civil the court rules, a plaintiff can just dismiss it unilaterally. Okay. So, we're no longer at that point in the case. That's right. Once once the once the defendants, the trustees uh filed an answer to the lawsuit, then it
can't just be unilaterally dismissed. You have to either file a motion to dismiss, which uh I I I imagine the trustees wouldn't oppose if if they did that. uh if the counselor did that, he could file a motion to dismiss, voluntarily dismiss, and I can't imagine
the trustees would oppose that. Um and I can't imagine why the court wouldn't be happy to, you know, remove another case from its docket either. And and that motion to voluntarily dismiss effectively enters a judgment on in favor of the defendants.
No, not necessarily. That depends on the terms of the dismissal. um if the dismissal is without prejudice, um then it's it's as if it's sort of as if the the lawsuit had never been filed and there's no there's no decision one way or another as to who won or who lost. If
the decision is with prejudice, what that means is um that plaintiff that particular plaintiff can never file the same lawsuit again. Now, as a practical matter, you know, Coun Council Ali is, you know, currently the president. Um,
even if he dismissed with prejudice, I don't know if that would bind a future city council or a future city council president. But that's what, you know, the dismissal, the voluntarily dismissal, usually it's without prejudice. And that's like nobody's won and nobody's lost. It's just sort of
like the lawsuit goes away. Okay. So the the 9A conference that councelor Omali was referencing is that necessary for a it's actually a rule 9 C conference but 9C conference then thank you but I I know what he's talking about. So the
rule 9 C conference is you know when a party wants to file a motion um they're obligated under the court rules for most motions to actually reach out to the other side and confer. And the purpose of that that conference is so that
sometimes the lawyers or the parties can actually uh bring an issue before the court because there's a dispute or a disagreement. But if they confer beforehand, you can narrow the areas of disagreement that makes everybody's job easier, including the court's job. Um, so that's what he's referring to. So,
you know, if he wanted to file a motion to dismiss, you know, he could have a rule 9C conference with the lawyer for the defendants. And I can't imagine that the lawyer for the defendants is is going to say, "No, I disagree. I don't want you to dismiss the lawsuit." Um, he'd probably say, "Yeah, sure. You know, just we'll dismiss it." And it
could just be an ascented to motion. In other words, it wouldn't be uh contested. Um, so that procedurally, that's how that's one way now to dismiss the lawsuit uh if it were going to be dismissed. Thank you very much for that clarification. Um, I don't have any
other questions for you. Um, but if I can speak to the underlying motion. Is that okay? Uh, Council President, that's fine, Council McDonald. Okay. Um, so I I I I think I understand a little
bit of the ins and outs of how we got here. Um, and what I want to say is, you know, the word that stuck out to me, um, in the in the description of the Robert's rules, whole discussion of removal of officers was the word
misconduct. Misconduct is behavior that's beneath an office that is um not in keeping with the office. Uh, it's really, I think, an abuse of the office and an abuse of trust. And what I want to say, councelor Ali, is that I count
you a friend and I think that you really broke the trust of your colleagues in this particular uh in this particular situation and and the trust of a lot of other leaders. Um that's not a legal issue. I think it's
it's more than a political issue. I think it's a leadership issue. And so I am somebody who wants to give people additional chances. I do want to create the possibility for um a an appropriate and amicable resolution with the leaders
of of the Malden Public Library, beloved community institution. But in order to do that, I need to be able to believe that you fully understand that gap in trust. Um I think you worked
really hard to build up the trust to be the council president. That's why I was excited to support you. And I think that in order to be able to continue the rest of your term, you'd have to show that you can in fact rebuild enough of that trust to proceed. And that's just different from the legal standing questions. It's just a
different question. And so my question to you is whether you can give us your word that you understand that trust gap that you can work to repair it and that you will um be prioritizing
that restoration of relationship over the first over the resolution of the issue. I do not believe that we can resolve this set of issues with the library until we reestablish some of the trust that is necessary for a working relationship. And do you believe that
you can do those things? And I and I feel like my vote on this uh motion hinges on on whether you believe that you can deliver on that leadership challenge. So I I would like to ask you to respond to that question if you would be willing. Thank you, Council McDonald. I
am going to give councelor Ali a moment to respond. Uh thank you councelor McDonald. Um you know we spoke last week and I committed to you that I would move forward with dismissing the case
and that's exactly what I did. I I am trying to take the offramp and rebuild trust with my with the council. I apologize. I'm telling you I I I did not did not see any of this coming. I ne never would have decided to go down this route had I thought this was going to
happen. I never wanted to go down this route. I really wanted this to be resolved. So yes, I look and promise to rebuild the trust. I do want to just inform you that I handed out an email communication between myself and the
opposing council. We received the answer on June on Thursday, June 12th, just a couple days after the the last hearing. I responded back the next day on on Friday saying, "Good morning. I'm in
receipt of the answer. I would like to request to confer over the phone and discuss a motion I intend to file. Does today, Friday, or Monday the 16th work for you?" The opposing council said that he would be
willing to meet at 11:00 a.m. on Monday. We spoke after the email. Um, I I followed up basically saying to the opposing council, "Thank you for taking the time to confer yesterday regarding the potential settlement and
the filing of a motion to dismiss to resolve the matter. I'm still preparing the formal motion, but here is the highle proposal. One, that the plaintiff file a motion to dismiss without prejudice. two, that the defendants agree to work with the city of Malden in good faith, in including providing
access to relevant records to clarify the relationship between the city of Malden, the Malden Public Library, and that both parties agree to give weight to the legislative legislation chartering the library as well as the past pattern and practice of the library board of trustees. And three, that both parties neither admits wrongdoing or
admits any weakness in their underlying positions. If you think there are any other relevant terms, please let me know. Please suggest them. So yes, I I am trying to do exactly what you all have asked me to do. I I am learning as I go. I hope I can rebuild your trust.
Thank you, Councelor Ali. Before we go back to the room, um councelor Spataphor, do you have your hand up again? I do. I do. I'd like to he had to come back up to the the the uh podium, please. Can you repeat that? I'm so sorry.
attorneys are here. Can you come back up to the podium? Understood. Thank you. Yes, councelor Satform. Councelors are here. I I believe um you know when you came when you came up there, I don't I don't I don't want to put words in your mouth, but council
Mali said you threw him to the sharks. Is that true? No, I I didn't throw anybody to the sharks. Well, no. I'm just repeating what he said. I'm asking you the because he just said it. So, my question is, did you throw him to the sharks? Yes or no? No. Okay. Okay. I was
duty bound to withdraw. Okay. And I believe I believe in Council Mali's statement, he said he said, "I had no idea that no no one I talked to told me this was going to be a problem with the lawsuit." It's a very good statement. That's how
smart council me is. The problem was he didn't talk to anybody cuz nobody knew about the lawsuit. So, Zahe, you sent an email out, I believe, to the library trustees on the Friday before Memorial Day. Is that correct? Yes. Who told you to send that
out? Well, nobody specifically told me. That was just when you when you sue somebody, you got to notify them. Um, and did did did Council Melly tell you he talked to the council? No, not specifically.
Okay. So, so he didn't tell me he talked to the council. No. Okay. So, so nobody knew about the lawsuit. You sent the you sent it out, right? On the on the I believe the 23rd, correct? That sounds right. Okay. And then and then the council met the following Tuesday, which
was a 10- nothing vote, and council me then went to court, and you sat in the same side, right? Because you had to because you had that conflict. Is that correct? Repeat that. So, so after Council Mal, we had the Tuesday meeting which which it was a 10- nothing voter. You were not here,
correct? That's right. Yeah. I hadn't returned yet. Okay. And then you went to court. I don't know what day you went to court. You you you you took the the the will of the council and dismissed that lawsuit. Correct. Yes. And I went to court and explained to the judge the uh that I was under a
conflict and I that I needed to withdraw. And I explained to the judge that um the reason I was under a conflict is because the city council wanted this lawsuit dismissed um and councelor didn't want it dismissed. So I couldn't do anything and I just had to
withdraw. All right. So I just want the council to hear that. So now all of a sudden we're going to work with council and he's going to work with the libraries the trustees. Tuesday night he gets voted 10 nothing. He goes to court and files an injunction.
Not because we we told him to do so. He didn't care. He didn't care. Let's be very honest. He didn't care. He understood our wish and we we and and I talked to every library, most of the library trustees. They've always been willing to talk to us. Okay. Now, let me
ask a question because I'm not an attorney. Um, council Ali mentioned a couple things that uh he he asked their attorney uh to agree to as part of dismissing the lawsuit. If the library trustees are or their attorney or collectively
disagree on all those items, what happens? Well, then the lawsuit's not dismissed. Um, I mean, typically typically what happens is based on everything that the city I've heard from the city council tonight, it
makes sense to have a dialogue with the trustees of some sort, whether it's, you know, through the paper that you just uh referred to the public properties committee or however that certainly makes makes sense. Uh it's
it would certainly facilitate dialogue if this lawsuit were dismissed without prejudice. But typically when you dismiss a lawsuit without prejudice, it's literally like like one sentence saying, you know, the parties agree to dismiss this lawsuit without prejudice, filed with the court, the court, the
judge looks at it and goes, "Great, less work on my desk allowed." and that that would allow the city council uh and the trustees and the library if they want to to have a dialogue without this lawsuit hanging over them. Um in you know it
doesn't make sense to have a dismissal but I demand that you do X Y and Z you know that's not you know that's not really necessary. I appreciate it. So I want to say that Council Lenny I'd like to ask Council Mali uh direct question. Council Mal, will you agree to drop the
lawsuit right now without prejudice and no agreement? With nothing else than that that one sentence. Do you wish to respond? Yeah, without prejudice. Yeah, I'm willing to do that with no other demands. Yeah. And correct. Because since I now have the documents that show
exeicios can participate. I was a I went and I did my research in the old section a after another whistleblower sent us stuff. I think you all received it. So, I knew what to look for. That's all I was asking. Again, again, you keep on saying whistleblower. I haven't received anything at a whistleblower. I haven't received anything. And I would tell you
if I if I get a whistleblower, I would tell our attorney. So, I don't know. But you you Hold on, Council Mie. One second. I have the floor. You just said four minutes ago, and by the way, Zahe came up there and basically I'm going to be very honest with you, Council Mie,
you lied. Because you lied. And that's why I think Zahe got up there because you lied. Well, however you want to put it, you lied. So the second thing is you just said that you sent the attorneys this long docket. Now you're willing to drop this docket down. This is the challenge. This is the challenge. We met
with we met on Tuesday and told you no. You go in there anyways and file for an injunction. I keep saying it. If that injunction was successful, I can guarantee you you would be doing the same thing you did that that day in court and saying, "I don't care. I have
standing. I'm going forward." And at the end of the day, we have a library board of trustees, which we know is possibly private, spending their legal money defending a lawsuit that we never started. We have a city librarian who's who's been named in it, who doesn't have
an attorney because there's a conflict. Okay? And the and and you're suing the librarian. There's no cost to you. There's no cost to you. And the board said, "Stand down." That's why I have a challenge believing that all of a sudden next Tuesday you're going to go into the
library and say, you know, I made a mistake. The council told me, you never talked to anybody in the council. You never talked to anybody about this. That's why we're here. I appreciate council McDonald's willing to work, but I just feel like this has been a series
of of of constant and deliberate attempts to circumvent the council. When we told him not to do it, he continued to do it. And when the judge said no injunction, he still didn't stand out. And the idea that this is going to change is ridiculous. And and I I I'll
be honest with you, my friends in the on the council and the colleagues, you know what? Don't sit there and say your friends the library when they when they're using money that should be good for programming and buying art, but they're they're defending a lawsuit. You can't have it both ways. Everybody knows
this is nonsense. And we have a librarian that nobody wants to talk about. doesn't doesn't have legal representation and we're a community about building up minorities and women. We're shooting her down. She doesn't have an attorney. Is anybody here willing to be I mean
there's a couple attorneys on the on the is anybody willing to be an attorney for the for the Liberian because all we care about is how council me feels right now but we're spinning our wheels with hey we told you last Tuesday and you still went in and asked for an injunction. So, I I app I mean I apologize for
ranting and raving, but I've seen this. I've seen how this movie ends. I thought it was pretty clear Tuesday and I even thought about maybe council me will drop it and we'll move forward. I don't think he's going to move forward. This is just another way for him to buy some time and
then you you heard what he asked all the the lawsuit to happen with the with the libraries. This is a personality thing. He's not willing to work with people. He has trouble working with people. We know this. We know this. So, I think it was very clear that 10 nothing vote. And if anybody this
council thinks it wasn't clear, um, then we should have a sidebar. But let's be honest, he went in there with the intent to stop to continue that lawsuit. He didn't drop it. He just drew our two two city solicitors under the bus. He said that he says the timeline that just it's broken. There was a holiday. Again,
nobody knew. And then served them on on on the Tuesday. So, we knew what the intent was. We knew what the intent was. And we're now we're just going to forget let bygon be bygones. I'm sorry. I'm willing to move forward. Thank you, Madam President. I appreciate it. Thank you,
Councelor Spaphor. Councelor Omali, I'm going to give you one more chance to respond if you'd like before I go to the other lights. Yeah, ju just to clarify, councelor Spaphor, yes, I am willing to dismiss this case without prejudice. Um, as I stated, you know, I've I'm I've
since been re received annual reports from 1996, 1997 that show Mayor Howard participating and being the vice president. And I did my own research in the historic section where I found an annual report from 1960 and 1961 showing both the mayor traditionally being the
vice president of the board as well as the count the council president serving on committees. This was what the whole dispute was about and I now have it. I don't need to see the books. I I don't need to see the books and records to understand this. I'm willing to dismiss without prejudice. Thank you. Thank you,
Councelor Mali. Councelor Winslow. Yeah. Um I guess say one of the things of having served as a public attorney, there's often uh confusion about who your client is and um and that that is one of the challenges that um you can
find yourself in. So I think that is the uh the challenge here of interpreting um was councelor Ali the the client or was the whole council. I think we made clear that um that the whole council really is who the the city solicitor's office
should be uh responding to and making sure that is that the council has that backing. Uh I mean I do have to say that you know council Mali has put on the record that a lot of the the momentum here was because of a letter that came
from the lawyer of the trustees um you know that saying that they were were did not agree with um disclosing some records. So I think it is um you know I've listened to councelor Ali. I'm able to work with them. I know he's not
infallible. um neither am I. But he has listened and you can he is here saying that um he's willing to um both you know with you know withdraw this to you know have it dismissed without prejudice and
set up a committee who will work with the the trustees. So, um I I just think that um you know that that is something that it's an unusual situation um and that I think that um you one reason we
have a council is to um to help make group decisions and to have people listen. I think that council has listened. Um he has um someone who cares deeply about his community and uh you know it's working with the relationships
there. So, I um I like I say, I have um I worked with them to get that order and get him to focus on trying to rebuild trust with the trustees. I'm willing to to work on that. Um I just think that um it sets a bad precedent in the future
that um one misstep and suddenly you're you're you're toast as a council president. That was why I was so insistent on having a more substantial process. It's not even clear if we if we somehow vote on something tonight. We we need eight votes to even decide the next
step. So, um so I just think that um that uh you know, Council Ali has listened. Um I I think the other thing just related to litigation, you heard um you know, attorney uh Sammy talk about the details of the procedures and um you
know, one of the things that I never really did um as an attorney and if if you're an attorney, you respect uh attorneys that are who are litigators, it's the most difficult job because you have sometimes immutable time frames and you have to you could you're not you
could be um violating your code of ethics. if you are not responding to the time frames of a lawsuit. So, it is the type of thing. So, you have to really respect that and I think it is something that unless you've been through the fire like our solicitors have been um and
council has not you don't really it's hard to understand that. So I just think it is the type of thing that um you know I I think it is uh councelor Ali has you know in a course of relatively short time come around and um apologize to the
council um and is reaching out to the trustees to mend this relationship and focus on on going forward. So I I see no need to just have someone that is you know going to come in for three months. Um, let's get on with business and um
and councelor Mali is who we vote on in January and we can go on from there. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Winsel. Councelor Simmonelli. Thank you, Madam President. You know, I just again I'm going to say that um legally, I mean again referring to the
legal department, do we have like any precedent anywhere else on something like this happening, taking a place and and how did they handle it if we don't know? short answer. Okay. All right. Thanks. Okay. Thank you, Councelor
Simelli. Councelor Sika. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, okay. So, really quickly for everybody at home, the emails that Council Ali just passed out, he didn't send till Friday after the agenda was posted and after these papers
were posted for the public to see and for council Ali to see that his actions had consequences. Okay. and councilor Ali has come around, but he has only come around and listened since this agenda's been posted. Okay. And while I
appreciate councelor McDonald looking to try and find ways for that we can move forward, I do not think moving forward with councelor Ali as the president of this council is the right thing to do. Why would the board of trustees of the Malden public library want to work with
him moving forward if he if this paper that he just presented that said we should have all received which I did not like council spatora and I checked my email today I've not received anything about from any whistleblower regarding anything about the public library the
only thing I received was two um public comments um I I don't know how we can move forward and trust that you're going to work alongside of the public library, the board of trustees at the public
library. So, I I think that, you know, maybe again in the in the future, we may want to vote to elect US council president again, but I think right now the right thing for us to do is is vote on these papers. It's it's quarter past
10, almost 20 past 10. We haven't even passed the budget yet. And I think we need to move on these papers. And unfortunately, I think that we need to I I make a motion that we remove councelor Ali as the president of the city
council. Thank you, councelor SEA. Councelor Crow, thank you. And um so kind of building off of that a little bit and I understand that council Mali tonight says you know that he wants to work and he wants to listen and he you know wants
to dismiss but you know two weeks ago when we get the agendas on the Thursday he knew at that point he might not have had any idea before it was filed but he knew at that point that this was not going in the right direction but then again he waited till the next Tuesday as
council spat pointed out to have the the trustees he served and the director of the library served at the library in front of her staff. So, he knew that this is not going right and still had them served on the Tuesday. And today, as he's talking
about um having dismissed the emails that he sent out to the um the defendants's a um attorney was from today at 1212 and yesterday in yesterday, but today at 1212 and he's putting together a formal motion, but
the high level, so he sounds like he's going to dismiss as long as he gets his way. And this is the high level things. So to me that doesn't say I'm going to dismiss without prejudice. Let's try to figure this out and go back to that committee that you know working group.
It says at 1212 is I'll dismiss as long as you give me what I want. So I don't think that that says he might say it right now and unfortunately maybe we should have said that two weeks ago but we didn't. So, we're still at
the same spot that you know the the will of the body was not to move forward. We moved forward and the only reason right now it seems to be motion to dismiss is as long as he gets his way.
Thank you, Councelor Crow. Councelor Cologne Hayes. Uh, thank you. I'm just going to keep this brief. Um, I wanted to respond um to something I think might have been directed at me. So, I just want to be very clear with the um the uh Malden Public Libraries and how much
I've always supported them. I did vote, just to be clear, um to withdraw the lawsuit. That was never an issue. Um my issue, what I have right now is to vote on um as a council president on my colleague um whether or not to remove him from the council president, which I
do not believe. Um, I believe him when he says that he's going to, well, I see it here that he's going to with withdraw the lawsuit. And I am also going to say that I've never found it hard to work with him, but that's just my We all have different opinions. We all have
different work styles. Um, so I um won't be supporting this, but um again, just wanted to make it sure has nothing to do with the library. Everybody there knows that. Um I go to all the library events. Sometimes I see some of the other people here from my council, you know, at my
counselor, sometimes I don't. Um, but I'm always there. So, nothing to do with the the library. Thank you. Thank you, councelor Cologne Hayes. Councelor Ali. Yeah. for the final time just to clarify the timeline that
councelor Crowe and councelor Sika mentioned. The reason why I sent this email on Thursday is because I received this email on Thursday from their attorney Mr. McBride at 1:42 p.m. He
said, "Dear attorney Sam and Omali, please see the attached email that I have eiled today on defend on behalf of all of the defend on the defendants." And it's also important to know that this attorney represents all of the defendants, including the director of the library.
This statement that the the library that that people are unrepresented is not true. I responded based on the fact that he sent that at six o'clock. I wrote the email at night, but it's inappropriate to send
emails late at night. And I had it sent at six o'clock in the morning. It's the the the oldest emails on the last page. The the original email came on Thursday. The most recent emails at the at the
front. Got it. I've been I'm trying I've been trying to take the offramp, y'all. Thank you. I appreciate the chance. You're You're all set. Okay. Quote of information. Board of information. Yeah, you have the floor. Councelor Spataphora. Council Mali, you sent an
email to the library trustees 11:30 at night after a trustee meeting when I did my open meeting when I did a freedom information act. So don't say you you wait. You do not believe sending emails late at night. You sent an email to our librarian saying she did not do a good job at 11:30 at night after a meeting.
So don't don't build a narrative and then not have the facts to back it up cuz I can show you the email. 11:30 at night after a meeting. You sent that email. Let's call the question. Are we ready to call the role?
So, a motion to remove um councelor Ali from the seat of the presidency was made by councela, seconded by councelor crow. So, a yes vote would be to remove. A no vote would allow Council Ali to stay in the
presidency. Council Cologne Hayes. Yep. So, a yes vote would remove councelor Ali from his seat. A no vote would allow him to stay in the chair.
Motion to remove. No. Council Condan. Yes. Council Crow. Yes. Council Lan, I'm sorry, Ryan, but yes. Council McDonald, no.
Council Sega, yes. Council Simmonelli, yes. Council Spataphora. Council Spataphora, would you unmute? This is a motion. I'm sorry. Yes. I'm sorry. Yes. I'm sorry. Councel Taylor,
Council Winslow, Councelor Omali, so that motion passes by a 7 to3 vote. Councelor Spataphora. I make motions to I make I make a motion to open up nominations for city council president for the rest of this term for
this year. So that is paper 315. Second. But we also have paper 314 before that. Oh yeah, we got to do that one. We have to do paper 314. Paper 314-25. Order that the city council will vote whether to suspend council rule 10.01
for the purpose of opening nominations to seat a new council president to fulfill council's term for the remainder of the 2025 calendar year. Councelor, sorry, councelor Sika for the paper. I make that motion. Second.
So, we need a we need a roll call. My my apologies. Any discussion on the motion? Yeah, counselor. Yeah, I just I also just want to point out that, you know, as councelor Winsow stated, the the last vote that y'all
took is likely not valid. I I likely will be appealing that as is my right. Um and so I'm gonna object to taking up the rest of these as invalid. motion to suspend. So,
you can't do that. You still have the floor. Oh, sorry. I don't know. And so, I would ask that we do not suspend the rules is what I'm saying. Which means which needs a super majority. We have a motion. Do we not have a second on that? Okay. So, we have
a motion and a second to sus to suspend the rules. So, do we have enough people? We would need eight votes in order to suspend. So, a yes vote would be to suspend council rules.
Um, Council Cologne Hayes, no. Council Condan, yes. Council Crowe, yes. Council Lahan, yes. Council McDonald, yes. Council Sea, yes. Council Simmonelli,
Council Spataphora, yes. Council Taylor, yes. Council Winslow, no. Council Ali, no. So, the rules have been suspended by an 8 to3 vote. Oh, okay. Councelor Spataphor, you have
just made that motion. I want to make a motion to open up nominations. Second. There's already to do that. So we um paper 315-25 order that the city council will open nominations to vote on a council president for the remainder of the 2025
calendar year. So I am hearing that Spedaphora and Sega have made the motion and um seconded. Council Clone Hayes. Oh, sorry, Councelor. I actually have councelor Taylor first. I was going to make a
nomination. Oh, okay. Councelor Ali. Yeah. I just want a point of order that this is out of order and that I object to the the taking up this matter. Your objection is noted. Did you No, just reread what you want me
to request to reread the paper. No problem. Order is that the city council will open nominations to vote on council president for the remainder of the 2025 calendar year. Council Cologne Hayes, yes. Council Condan, Council Crow, yes. Council
Lahan, yes. Council McDonald, yes. Council Sega, yes. Council Simonelli, yes. Council Spataphora, yes. Council Taylor, yes. Council Winslow, no. Council Ali, no. Okay, so that is a 9
to2 vote. Um, now nominations are now open. Correct. Got his hand up. No, I'm going to defer. I'll wait, I think. Does anybody else get the hand up? Yep. Councel or Taylor? I'll wait. I'll defer to council Taylor. Thank you. Thank you.
Um I would like to nominate council on a hand. I'll second that. Okay. Craig, did you want to speak to the motion? Yeah, I seconded it. Council,
it's okay. Okay. discussion. Are there any other nominations? Okay. Move to close nominations. Is I'll make a motion. I don't think I can make that motion. No, you can't. I'll make a motion to close nominations. That's what councelor Taylor was moving. Okay. Okay.
On a on a motion by councelor Taylor, seconded by councelor Seika to close nominations. We'll call the roll. Yes. Council Condan. Yes. Council Crowe. Yes. Council Lahan. Yes. Council McDonald.
Yes. Council Sega. Yes. Council Simelli. Yes. Council Spaphora. Council Lan. We're closing nominations right now. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yes. I'm sorry. Yes. I'm sorry. I council Taylor. Yes.
Council Winsow. Yes. Council Ali. No. Okay. So nominations have been closed and there is a motion on the floor to have Lahan as the next council president. Cler will call the role. Council Cologne
Hayes, yes. Council Condan, yes. Council Crow, yes. Council Lahan, yes. Council McDonald, yes. Council Sega, yes. Council Simonelli, yes. Council Spataphora,
Council Lahan, Council Taylor, Council Winslow, yes. Council Ali, no. Okay, so that is a 10 to1 vote. Council Lahan is the new council president for the remainder of this 2025 calendar year.
Congratulations. Thank you. I think we should take a recess. I think that's a good idea. Councelor Sika. And I can only hope that nobody up here is going to reconsider the vote and we have to do this all over again next
Tuesday because the vote will not change. Trust me. Think you just jinxed us. Yeah, you said it. Well, I'm just putting it out there. I'm pretty sure I think it is too. Yeah, I'm going to call a fivem minute
recess. Nauseous. Nauseous. Hello. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I wasn't feeling stuff, was it? Sorry,
Craig, you were unmuted there. Thanks. I was I said I was feeling nauseous on the phone. Sorry. council will come to order. Okay, next order of business going back to 307-25.
I think we're going all the way back to P. Yeah, pretty much. Are we really? 307. It's on page three. This one. Yep. Okay. Paper 307-25. Council Simelli.
Council Simmonelli. Didn't even get to eat my potato chips. Paper 307-25 be it ordained by the Malden city council that the code of the city of Malden 12.12 use regul use regulations is hereby amended to add
12.32.030e certificate of registration for short-term rentals. Okay. Councelor Cologne Hayes for the paper. Oh, thank you. Um so just a recap of what happened
uh a couple of weeks ago there um you know we've been exploring um strategies to boost revenue and looking at like complex uh challenges and we were looking at creative out of the box thinking. So, the intent of this ordinance is to create a framework
within the city of Malden that permits short-term rentals in a way that carefully balances private benefits um with public interest. It aims to protect the city's housing stock from being converted solely to short-term rental use, preserve the uh residential
character of neighborhoods, maintaining housing availability for long-term residents, and ensure public health, safety, and welfare are upheld. Um, so I had truly hoped uh that this would be a first for Alden and that this proposal
um which was created by residents um and brought before the council that that would happen. Um but unfortunately we did find that there was a $1,500 fee which would fall upon the residents. So uh we came together and agreed that I
would sponsor this ordinance. Um, even though I want to make it very clear to anyone watching tonight that the credit belongs solely entirely to those who put the hard work in to develop it. So, I'm just opening it up and and looking probably to refer it to a joint I think we discussed referring it to a joint
ordinance. Um, community engagement and inclusion I think we were talking about joint planning and joint planning. Okay, go. Yep. Okay. Okay. Thank you, councelor Colon. Any any discussion? Nobody wants to discuss anything right now is what I'm guessing. We'd be
looking to do joint planning and ordinance. Yeah. So this was a councelor Cologne Hayes had refiled. And then we've got 14 days to ref agenda. We have to send it into the planning board within 14 days. So I
think the way it goes, Michelle, you can help me with this if I'm wrong, the ordinance committee does have the right to do their own meeting and hearing independent of, but we also do have to send it to a joint session at the same time.
Is that one more? Um, yeah, it doesn't. So I think I go ahead and answer that. But I mean I would just encourage you given the magnitude of this issue and the complexity that you do discuss it before you send it for hearing. In the
past when things are sent immediately for hearing without the council in the ordinance committee having really a good understanding it often gets delayed at that point. So we did it with the affordable housing the ordinance with
the Malden River ordinance. It was fully vetted before it was sent for hearing. I agree. Um I understand and I've seen the paper. Somebody did spend some time with it, but I don't know who's really uh familiar with it now that it's a count
it's being proposed by councelor Hayes. So yeah, I would recommend it be discussed, but it is true what the clerk is saying. If it's not referred for public hearing within 14 days, you will need to re-refer it. It will need to come back
in and be referred. So, um you know, the issue is with the summer coming up. So, um we're already if you refer it tonight or next week, you're looking at a a midsummer hearing. Okay. We'll have to do the hearing in the middle of the
summer. So, how about if so, you know, what if we did um referred it to the community engagement committee to have community discussions before? Yeah, I'm not familiar with that committee, but I mean, I just I'm saying
with a ordinance this complex, um it's and if you push it forward for hearing, it's just historically you do see some issues with it. So, if it goes to a hearing, um it has to be referred within 14 days of tonight. It's being
introduced tonight. Does that mean it has to be taken up? So, I'm concerned. My concern is um that you're right, we're not going to have enough time to discuss anything um within a council and if it fails or it's just a hearing, right? So, there's nothing that I I want
to avoid. What I'm trying to avoid is that whole thing where it doesn't you can't come back again for either six months or two years. Right. Right. And that will right that that's the those are the future steps that could possibly happen. If you send it for hearing and then you want to make substantive changes you you can't do that. That's
when you have to go back. The idea with discussing it and understanding what you're proposing yeah is you may want to make substantive changes now. What you send for hearing should be what you could possibly vote on, possibly ordain
or at least largely not need to make any substantive changes because you wouldn't be able to do that. You need to do another hearing. So that's why Okay. You know, I know you're in a tight schedule. Yeah. I mean, it's not any time. Yeah.
You know, it's not urgent, but um yeah. Um, I guess I'm going to wait to hear like what So, it's not like an urgent matter. So, I would rather have it discussed before it goes somewhere, you know. Okay. Thank you, Councelor Colon
Hayes. Councelor Winslow. Yeah, I know. I I I know last week when this came up as the as the uh petition, um, you know, this is a complex issue. It's going to be some controversy and I think it's we should have some sort of community forum
before it goes to I mean it can happen if we have to just schedule it and do what we got to do but I think it's important that we have a community forum where people can raise some issues more directly to the council before we have the actual hearing. So um so that that's
just my concern because it is um you know there's there's issues about impacts on affordable housing um quality of life issues. Um so it's not uh something that's you know you know I think it's something we need to make
sure there's uh some opportunity to have uh a more informal discussion with the community. So, I mean, I'm happy to start out with a joint community engagement rules and ordinance committee meeting so we can, you know, get that feedback and we might even be able to come up with a alternative proposal or
whatever that can be shared with the planning board or whatever, something like that. So, so that's that's really I just think it's important. It's it's a complex thing to have the first community input come at a planning board rules and ordinance here. I think it's tough tough on the planning board and
it's it's just a tough process. So that's my suggestion is we try to I mean it's going to have to happen in the summer probably that's just the way it is but Okay. So but thank you councelor Winsel. Um councelor see you had your light on before. Okay councelor Sika. Um
thank you madam chair. Um, really quickly, so if there isn't any urgency to this matter, if we if Council of Colon Hayes was to withdraw this paper till September, could it be rewarded and
not changing the zoning to allow us to send it to her citizen engagement committee so we can just have talks about potential Airbnb instead of it saying us to amend zoning? Like is that
a way around this? Because this paper is actually regarding zoning. So if we don't refer it within 14 days, then we can't discuss it. But maybe if we withdraw this and we come up with different language for September to be able to send it to CI CEIC, have some
neighborhood uh community engagement meetings on this to see if the interest is there. And then then she put forth the paper that goes to joint planning and ordinance because this is a topic that probably should not be discussed in
the summertime. Nobody's paying attention to what's going on in the months of July and August, I believe. And I don't know about anybody else, but the majority of the calls I get in Wood 8 are about rooming houses, Airbnbs, like this type of thing. people keep
coming in and out of my neighbor's house with luggage like you know so I think I think this is going to be a a pretty hot topic for our residents whether they're for them or against them and I would hate to have it fall in the summer months when nobody's paying attention
and when we may not even be able to get a quorum for for one of these meetings. So I I don't know if those are some suggestions to withdraw this one, come up with wording that allows us to send it to CEIC and then once we figure it all out in
CIC, then she can resubmit this paper to a joint planning and and ordinance when we get back. And just to be clear, tableabling it does not stop the clock on the hearing. So it would have to be withdrawn and then even next week refile something to send to CIC for like a like to councelor Winsow's point like a
community meeting or forum at some point. Yeah. And she could do she could do her CIC meetings over the summer if she wanted to. Yeah. You could even record them so people stop the clock. You know what I mean? Because they'll be on Teams now because our meetings are
now on Teams. But um I just just to make sure that we do have a deep discussion on this before we just send it right to change that zoning. Okay. Thank you, Councelor Seika. Councelor Ali, uh yeah, I think sending it both places.
Um it probably makes sense. Um and they can always open the hearing in the summer, but they don't have to close the hearing. Um but yeah, state law requires it get referred within 14 days to a hearing. The hearing doesn't have to happen in 14 days, but it has to be
sent within 14 days. That's state law. The hearing can be opened and not closed. It has to be, if I may, it has to be referred within 14 days if you want to move it forward for public hearing. If you don't want to move it forward for public hearing, it doesn't need to be
referred within 14 days. So that that that time clock starts if you're starting the zoning amendment process. If you're saying you're not ready to start the zoning amendment process, you you wouldn't refer it. Um the concern I have, if I may, one of the councils
brought up about the quorum over the summer. We've had issues with getting a quorum to do a joint public hearing with ordinance committee over the summer. That happened I think the last two summers honestly. So um you know once the clock starts ticking we have to you
know move forward. That's all I can say. So if for zoning amendments I will also offer um I don't know that you need to withdraw this. I think you can send this paper for discussion by one of your committees. I don't think it needs to be
changed. I think another committee can discuss a proposed amendment. it doesn't have the impact of amending the zoning, but so I I I don't know that you need to withdraw it. I I just think that um you know, you could discuss any idea. We did
that again with the inclusionary zoning. I think we did it with um and again this is like the third version of inclusionary zoning. One of them is one of the councils is familiar was sent immediately for hearing and it blew up, right? So then we took a different
process, lots of meetings, lots of discussion till we got the final paper. Then that well the final what we thought was the best version, let's call it that was sent for hearing. No. Yeah, that's exactly. So that's that's what I thought you were maybe trying to do. I um No.
Oh, hang on. Let me put your light on. Councelor Clone Hayes. Thank you. Uh you're good now. It was again my I really wanted this to work where the residents came forward because that's a wonderful thing. But now that um I'm sponsoring it, I would like it to go
somewhere that we could still discuss it over the summer, but maybe um if you're saying that we can just refer it to the um the CIC committee, I think that'd be great. we can have some um discussions over it, rework it, come back, you know,
um in SE or just refer it to when it's ready and when we have public feedback. Yeah. Yeah. I guess Michelle, my only question is if we're refer if we're referring this to a different committee, we then
can't really reward the zoning language, right, Michelle? Sorry. you're asking. Yes. I apologize. So, if we if we send this exact paper to a different committee, we can't really change the zoning. We'd
have to file a new paper if we change a lot of the wording, right? Oh, yeah. You Okay. Yeah. Or if no wording's changed, you'll just come back and file the same paper. I guess I'm confused how it doesn't need to be withdrawn. If it's going to potentially change a lot, it it
procedurally feels like we might as well withdraw it. If it's if we anticipate right now that it's going to change a lot, I mean, you you can withdraw it. I'm not saying you can't withdraw it. I just thought, you know, to save time, you know, any of your committees can
discuss anything that's proposed, right? So, you would be discussing a zoning amendment knowing that you're not making any decision on a zoning amendment. We were just getting feedback in to form, you know, revise the potential to revise
the draft of the zoning amendment. Okay. I I think that's what it would be. That's what I would like to do then. Refer the clock wouldn't be ticking on the zoning amendment process. If you don't refer it, councelor McDonald, or I uh felt like you were trying to interject on that point. I I was just a
point of order about this. So, the paper as I read it is not necessarily a zoning paper. Now, I think that the you have to change the zoning clearly to try to move this forward, but other cities and towns do not necessarily put short-term rental
regulation in zoning. They just put it in other ordinances. Now, our zoning does contain a piece, and I actually emailed the sponsors about this when they had emailed me, um, councelor Cologne, so I'll share this with you, too. I I'm excited to have this discussion. I think we should refer it. I'm just saying it doesn't actually have
I don't actually think we need to put licensing around short-term rentals if we were to move forward with that in zoning, which is a more complicated process. We could put it where we put other types of business licenses, which is in another part of the code. But then we definitely do need to address the parts of the zoning that pertain to
short-term rentals, which is in the use table. And I think there's something in um accessory dwelling units, maybe somewhere else. So, my point is just we're going to have to do that anyway. There's going to have to be an amendment anyways because the paper as written doesn't repeal the part of the use
regulation table that prohibits short-term rentals in zoning. So, I think we should just go ahead refer the paper as it is to a joint CIC rules and ordinance committee. Folks can meet over the summer and discuss and then we'll figure out procedurally what it takes to
be able to move forward with that uh in the fall. Yeah, I'm good with that. That's what I wanted to to do. I'm sorry. Say that. Councelor Colon Hayes, say that again. I said, "No, that is what I was thinking would
happen. Um, and just to talk about it before it goes out maybe to a hearing would be the CEIC. If we want to do a joint ordinance, I think that's great, too. Um, but to talk about it during the summer and not refer it over to a hearing until we have feedback and it's
really ready. Yeah. Um, all right. I'm going to take counselor Crow and then I'll come back to you, Councelor Spataphora. Thank you. Um, I just again I'm kind of confused if it's on here now and we have 14 days to refer it. So,
does it need to be I mean maybe not withdrawn, but because I agree with having these long conversations. I know a lot of the petitioners and they live in my ward and we've had this conversation a lot over the years and it's it's much more complicated
um uh than what meets the eye. But it can do we should we amend this that doesn't have because then I'm not sure what the triggering factor is if it's on here and then it has to be referred in 14 days.
I can only I can only speak to what I know. So if a paper is filed it introduced to you as a zoning amendment and you don't refer it within 14 days the the process didn't start. Okay. you didn't complete the the procedural step.
Just like if we don't hold the hearing within 65 days of receipt, we didn't complete the procedural step. There's pro procedural error in that. So if you feel more comfortable to withdraw it, I I was just trying to, you know, help you move it along. But I I you just if you
don't refer it within 14 days, you that there's a defect in that zoning amendment process. So you don't refer it. We don't schedule it for hearing. It's eventually going to expire. And it sounds like if we got to make some amendments on this, you mean then we can
we you you just put the paper on the docket again and then send what we have a final you'd introduce the paper or introduce a new paper, right? Yeah. So right now we would just refer this to the CIC committee um for discussions um
which I have no problem with and then resubmit later when we you know get feedback and and then just let this run out because we did not refer it to the planning board. Okay. Yeah. And I mean I defer to you know your your parliamentarian if you're familiar with a rule of the council that says
something different. I'm just telling you what my experience has been over the years. If a paper doesn't get referred, it the process doesn't start. That's happened on a couple petitions, not a lot. It's happened because occasionally you it gets introduced and you realize,
hey, we don't want to change the zoning. We don't want to change the laws. We don't want to start this process. So, and it it either ends at ordinance or it just doesn't community inclusion engagement to have discussions. I get that. But councelor C. Yeah. Hang on one
second. You're good. My question just is we at the beginning of this conversation we didn't want to send it to ordinance because the clock was going to start ticking. So what's the difference if we send it to CEIC because she I thought it was because it was the wording because this stipulates
that we're looking to change our zoning. No, what she So, I'm just a little confused by what I heard. Um, coun what I heard Romero question. I just don't want to do the wrong thing. 1120
just the qu the question. Well, the question is where are we referring it? If we're referring it to CICO to refer to CIC if the clock doesn't stop though. That's not what we just heard. Is council colon? Is that where you want to refer it to to CIC? Yeah. if the um
unless the city solicitor wants to step in with this, but I'm trusting what um Miss Romero just said about the we can also follow up on this tomorrow and we can change we can Okay, correct. So, let's refer to the CIC.
Okay, let's take the vote. Let's take the vote to refer to CIC. We can also we can check on that tomorrow. Does that sound okay? Point of order. That is that only the CIC not jointly with the rules and ordinance to begin with to get some feedback and then I'm sure like after a meeting or
two we will join. I'll invite them actually like every everybody would be welcome to attend. Right. Absolutely. Yes. Let's just start it simple. All right then. Let's do a roll call vote. Okay. Council Clone Hayes. Yes. Condan. Yes. Council Crow. Yes. Council Lahan.
Yes. Council McDonald. Yes. Council Sega. Yes. Council Simonelli. Council Sphapora, yes. Council Taylor, yes. Council Winslow, Council Ali, yes. Okay, so that's CIC. Next order of business,
paper 308-25 resolved that it is the sense of the city council that they wish to express their gratitude and admiration to his holiness, the 14th Daly Lama, in celebration of his upcoming 90th birthday. His holiness was born on July
6, 1935 to a modest farming family and enthroned as a spiritual leader in February 1940. His holiness has devoted his life to the principles of universal compassion, non-violence, and environmental sustainability while advancing the cause of human dignity and
freedom. The members of the Malden City Council extend their heartfelt wishes to many for many years to come of continued health, happiness, and wisdom and encourages Maldonians to engage in acts of service to others as a way of honoring his holiness's profound legacy.
And this was sponsored by Council Winsow and Ali. Okay. Councelor Winsow for the paper. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Uh yeah, Carolyn, thank you very much for drafting up the language. Um, I did receive um an invitation from the Boston
um uh committee um on of the Tibetan Association of Boston who's planning an event July 10th at the state capital to honor the Daly Lama and really feature Tibetan culture uh event. And so um I shared that with because I think it was
maybe should have been directed to councelor Ali at the time and but I they I did reach out they did say that the whole council was invited to go to that event. I think it's July 10th 11 a.m. at the state house. So that was really just to put this resolve there and that way we can vote on it and then people could
sign sign it and we can hand that out at the um uh the event. I'm I'm planning to go definitely. So um but um that was just really the intent of it just um to you know respond to the invitation from Tibet
community and uh and be able to give a a resolve um on behalf of the council. So that's all. Thank you councelor Wenszel. What was the date? You said July July 10th July July 10th sorry
July 10th 11 a.m. at the state house. So um so everybody's invited. Okay. And um so I just wanted to be able to hand a resolve and uh love to have anybody come out for that. So um but I just uh you know we do have uh many people from that
part of the world um in Malden that uh do follow the Daly Lama and these in inspirational people for a lot of a lot of people. So Okay. So I make a motion that we adopt the resolve. Thanks. Council Ali, do you want to speak? Okay.
Okay. Council on a second by councelor Cologne Hayes. We'll take a roll call vote. Council Cologne Hayes. Yes. Council Condan. Council Crow. Yes. Council Lahan. Yes. Council McDonald. Yes. Council Sega. Yes. Council Simmonelli. Council Spataphora. Yes.
Council Taylor. Council Winsow. Yes. Council Ali. Yes. Okay. So, unanimously pass that resolve. Okay. Fantastic. Next order of business. Um, three ordinances. paper 153-25 beained by the Malden city council that the code of the city of
Malden title 12 chapter 12 section 090 subsection B offsite off streetet parking lots and title 12 chapter 20 section 02 subsection I general off streetet parking requirements is hereby amended okay do I have a motion to ordain
okay clerk will call the role council clone Hayes yes council London. Council Crow. Yes. Council Lahan. Yes. Council McDonald. Yes. Council Sega. Yes. Council Simmonelli. Council Sphapora. Yes.
Council Taylor. Council Winsow. Yes. Council Mali. Yes. Okay. Unanimous vote. That paper's been ordained. Paper 172-25 be to ordained by the Malden City Council that the code of the city of Malden 12.08.040
4 flood planes 12.12.110 flood plane districts 12.32.060 definition zoning are hereby amended to include new regulations as required by FEMA so that referenced areas will remain eligible for FEMA sponsored flood insurance programs. Okay. On a motion by
councelor Winslow, seconded by councelor Ali, the clerk will call the role. Council clone Hayes. Council Condan. Council Crow. Yes. Council Lahan. Yes. Council McDonald. Yes. Council Sega. Yes. Council Seminal. Council Spaphora.
Yes. Council Taylor. Council Winsow. Yes. Council. Okay. Ordained unanimously. Paper 186-25. Be it ordained by the Malden City Council that the code of the city of Malden, title 12 zoning is hereby amended as follows to be considered in
conjunction with paper 153 series of 2025 to clarify and update existing usable open space requirements and regulations regarding paving of yacht areas of residential properties. Okay. On a motion by councelor Winsow, seconded by councelor El Maui, the clerk will call the role. Council Cologne
Hayes, yes. Council Condan, Council Crow, Council Lahan, yes. Yes. Council McDonald, yes. Council Sega, yes. Council Simmonelli, Council Spaphora, yes. Council Taylor, Council Winslow, Council Ali, that was unanimously.
Paper 310-25 committee report. The standing committee on finance to whom was referred papers 236 series of 2025, having considered the same, make the following report. Committee recommends this paper favorably as print presented to the full council.
Um, a motion to I'm so sorry. I was trying to get a bottle of water. Motion to accept the committee report. Do I have Okay, clerk will call the role. Council Colon Hayes. Council Condan. Council Crow, yes. Council Lahan, yes.
Council McDonald, yes. Council Sega, yes. Council Simmonelli. Council Spaphora. Yes. Council Taylor. Yes. Council Winslow. Yes. Council Ali. The committee report has been received for paper 236-25.
236-25. Order. The mayor will submit the fiscal year 2026 annual appropriation orders for the general fund water sewer enterprise fund community preservation fund and cable access fund. This is our budget. Okay. Councelor McDonald for the
committee report for the paper. Uh for for the paper. Yes. Well, friends, it's not early. Um but let me just say that this vote comes after really a lot of discussion uh in
the finance committee about the uh about the budget plan for next year. The fact that we're uh you know making very few changes uh based on what the mayor has proposed. We did not make any changes in committee. We did have a very good
discussion with the schools um about their budget realities and how they're managing some some of the increasing costs around special education and transportation and so on. Um but this is really a status quo budget. And so what that means is that, you know, as soon as
this vote is done, our work begins to be able to be prepared to have a vote this time next year that um has the fiscal prudence um to make sure that we're on a sustainable path for our budget. That means more income and less expense in
one way or another. So I think we've all said that. Uh, I hope that we can um show our support for this budget that will give us the time to um dig into these things. We did two resolutions last year about the need to grow the tax
base, about the need to tackle the school funding formula. There's some slow progress on some of those items, but we'll need to continue. Um, I really appreciated councelor Winslow uh putting forward the resolution specifically about um the uh about the trash deficit and our solid
waste income and expense. So, those are the kinds of things we're going to have to look into carefully. So, you have my commitment to do that over the summer. I I said I would get you a couple of data points and and summaries from conversations we have. Hadn't have the chance to do that yet, but we will do that over the summer. Um, and just my
commitment as finance chair to be in good communication and collaboration with you all and with the mayor's team as we really dig into um, what it's going to take over the next year to make sure that our budget, our city budget is on a firm footing to support our staff and support our community. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Any discussion? Do we have a second? Second. Okay. Second by councelor Sika. Everybody fell asleep. I think just go without them. I personally did. Council McDonald's motion to adopt the budget. Council
Colon Hayes. Council Condan. Council Crow. Yes. Council Lahan. Yes. Council McDonald. Yes. Council Sega. Yes. Council Simmonelli. Council Spaphora. Nope. Council Taylor. Yes. Council Winsow.
Yes. Council Romani. Yes. That's been passed 10 to one. Okay. Next order of business. Paper 311-25 committee report. The standing committee on personnel and appointments to whom was referred paper 193 series of 2025.
Having considered the same make the following report on councelor Crow's motion to accept the committee report. You're up motion. Council Clone Hazes. Yes. Council uh Condan, Council Crow,
Council Lan, yes. Council McDonald, yes. Council Sega, yes. Council Simonelli, Council Spaphora, yes. Council Taylor, yes. Council uh Winsow, yes. Council Ali, yes. The the committee report has been received for
paper one. Well, actually, who wants to tell us what the committee report is? Councelor Crow. in the world. It was an easy one, right? Okay. Councelor here, sorry. Councelor Crow for the committee report. So, the
um personnel and appointments um met this evening to um confirm Robin Foley, Bobby Foley to the redevelopment authority board. It's actually was supposed to be in the consent agenda because it's a reappoint and um Mr. Foley has been on the um housing author
I mean the redevelopment authority board for quite a long time and has done quite a lot of work and has worked with um council Linham when she was serving on that board and so it did go to committee but then we spoke about it and now we make a motion that we confirm this
appointment second okay second by councelor Taylor uh we'll call the role Council Clone Hayes. Council Condan. Yes. Council Crow. Yes. Council Lahan. Yes. Council McDonald. Yes. Sorry.
Council Sika. Yes. Council Simmonelli. Council Spataphora. Yes. Council Taylor. Council Winslow. Yes. Council Ali. That has been confirmed unanimously. Okay. So where
um We have something else at the end. We've got two things at the end. Um, just personal privilege. Do we have some Do we have to take anything off the table? What? I don't know. Council Cologne Hayes, um, because you
resubmitted the short-term rental ordinance. Did you want to untab and place on file paper 27825? No, not I. You want to leave that right where it is tonight? Okay, then that's your agenda. Okay. Then does anybody
have personal privilege? Okay. Councelor Simelli, who's listening first? I think you did it on purpose. Is that how it's going to be, Mr. President? So, uh, anyway, I just wanted to let
everybody know, uh, I had a little mishap with my phone. Fell in the water while I was shaving. Uh, so I had to get a new phone number and yeah, just letting everybody know and I wanted to give the phone number out to everybody. I know people have been worried about me and I really appreciate that. Uh, so my
new number is uh, 857-214901. Um, call me anytime. It's out there. Uh we're going to make the necessary changes. Uh and uh I I actually might be able to get the other phone back. Uh the phone number or something. It's very complicated. But anyway, in the meantime, you can call me on that. I got
a couple of phones running. I know. I'm collecting everybody's. And the other thing that I I I wanted to say was, you know, sometimes um I don't sleep at night. Somebody's calling me already. How's that? So, I don't sleep that well sometimes. And I just want to let everybody know that, you know, a couple
of times I had went out uh last week around 2, three in the morning. I usually go for a ride, grab a coffee, and I just want to say that, you know, while everybody's sleeping in their beds, you can have confident in the Malden Police Department to let them to to know that they are out there. Cuz
when I went riding around, they were everywhere. And I, you know, I called the chief and you know, sometimes we don't always give compliments where we should. Uh we complain a lot. uh we don't always give compliments. So, I just want to say that every step, every corner I went around throughout the
city, uh there was a Malden Police cruiser uh at every corner. So, while you're safe at home, sleeping at 3, 3:30, 4 in the morning, you can rest assure that the Maldon Police Department is on their job and we are protected and we are safe. Thank you, Madam President.
I appreciate that. Thank you, Councelor Simelli. Councelor Winsow. I I actually want to thank uh Bob Knox's crew. Uh we had a few uh maintenance issues at Trafton Park and they were out of finally we got our tree pits redone and
uh there was um the he padded the tennis uh po post that someone a kid got hurt on. So just uh thank thank you Bob for taking the initiative there. Thanks. Great. Okay. And councelor McDonald, do you
have your hand raised? I do. I'll be very brief. I just wanted to thank councelor Ali for the months that he did serve as president of this council. I think we were able to accomplish some great things um with his
leadership. Um and I wanted to thank you council president Lahan for agreeing to serve in this very complicated and and difficult transition. But I really appreciate the leadership that you're bringing to this role. So thank you both.
Thank you councelor McDonald. Um, seeing no other lights, I just want to remind folks that Thursday this week is Junth. There is a celebration of course that the city is hosting at the Salemwood School. Um, I think a lot of city
services including city hall is also closed. So, just want to let the public know just as a reminder and then also for ourselves that does push back our filing deadline. So, have to get anything in for next week by 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. Um, just
the the and do you actually Karen why don't I just put on your lights so you because I know you're really involved in that are you sure okay just want to give on behalf of on behalf of councelor clone hay she's reminding me that the malden junth committee is hosting the events at the Salem wood and it's at 11:00 a.m. It starts right with the
city. With the city. So, always a fantastic event. Encourage anybody watching to stop by. It's always a load of fun. Anybody else? Last call. All right. Um, seeing none, do I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to Okay. On motion by councelor Crow, seconded by
councelor Taylor. The clerk will call the role. Council. Council Crow. Yes. Council Lahan. Yes. Council McDonald. Yes. Council Sega. Yes. Council Simmonelli. Council Spaphora, would you like to adjourn? Council
Speedaphora, I'm sorry, I had on mute. Yes, I'm sorry. I was on mute. Yes. Yes. I'm sorry. Council Winsow. Yes. Council Mali. We are adjourned at 11:38. Have a great night, everybody.