to the first meeting >> of the 2026 session >> ready. >> Okay, it's 7:04, so I think we can get started. >> All right, the council will come to order. I'll rise and salute the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please remain standing for a moment of silence in honor of our veterans, service members, and those who have given the ultimate sacrifice. We honor and acknowledge the
Massachusetts, Penacook, and Pucket peoples whose ancestral lands we now call home and on which we gather today. We express gratitude to the indigenous peoples who have cared for this land for generations predating European colonization and continuing to the present. Moving forward, we are
committed to ensuring that the histories, voices, and contributions of indigenous peoples are recognized and respected in the life of our city. Will the clerk now call the role? >> Councelor Clone Hayes here. >> Councelor Condan here. >> Council Crow is not with us tonight.
Council Lahan >> here. >> I'm sorry, you're out of order. We'll fix that. >> Um, council Lewong >> here. >> Council McDonald here. >> Council Ali. >> Council Seika >> here. >> Council Simmonelli here. >> Council Taylor. >> Council Winslow here.
>> Okay. Welcome councelor Luong. That was nice to hear. Thank you. >> Um, so under the provisions of 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. So, just be aware that there will be audio and video
recordings of this meeting. First order of business. First order of business is public comment, which is allowed under council rules. Each speaker is limited to the subject matter relevant to this evening's agenda and must keep comments to two minutes or less. Um, city clerk, do we have anybody signed up for public
comment? >> We do not. >> Okay. Thank you. Next order of business is the consent agenda. This evening's consent agenda consists of 14 petitions to be referred to license license committee and five papers to be referred to public property
and one communication to be placed on file. Does any councelor have a desire to remove any of these items from the consent agenda for the purpose of further discussion? >> Motion to approve. >> Okay, seeing none, we have a motion to approve from councelor Sika, seconded by councelor Simonelli. All in favor?
>> I Okay. Um, so those are the agenda is approved. Next order of business. >> Paper 22-26. The 2026 council president will announce the appointments of the 2026 council committees.
>> Thank you, Madame Clerk. And bear with us for just one moment. Um, in the interest of making this a little bit easier for the public to see instead of having to just >> listen to things as we read them out
loud, um, I've asked my council president prom to fire up a brief set of slides that I have to go along with the committees. Um, so let's see. Madame Clerk, you said that you had not
brought the list of committees. So, let me actually get my computer up. Sorry, we're just juggling devices here. >> Well, if it's okay with you, I is it appropriate for me to just read the list of committees? >> Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.
>> Oh my goodness. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I know. Well, all right. Well, I'm going to pass around a hard copy to everyone. So, let me see. Slip this down. Pass those that way. I'm not sure if I have enough, but here you go.
Okay. So, if we can go to the next slide, if you don't mind, councelor McDonald. So, I'm going to get started by reading the standing committees for this year. Starting with the community engagement and inclusion committee. I've appointed chair councelor Colon Hayes, vice chair counselor McDonald, and member counselor
Ali. For our finance committee, I've appointed chair McDonald, vice chair counselor Taylor, and members councilors Condan, Luong, Sika, and Simonelli. For the license committee, I've appointed chair SEA, vice chair, counselor Condan, and members counselors Cologne Hayes,
Simonelli, and Taylor. For the personnel and appointments committee, Chair Crowe, Vice Chair Taylor, members, councilors Condan, Cologne, Hayes, and Luong. Public safety, Chair Condan, Vice Chair McDonald, members, Councilors Seca,
Simonelli, and Winslow. Public property, Chair Luong, Vice Chair McDonald, members Lahan, Sika, Simonelli, and finally for the rules and ordinance committee, Chair Winslow, Vice Chair Cologne Hayes, and members Crowe, Lahan,
and Omali. Can we go to the next slide for special committees? Thank you, Councelor McDonald. For the arts and culture committee, I've appointed Chair Taylor, Vice Chair Lahan, and members Crow, Luong, and
Sika. For charter review, Chair Winslow, Vice Chair Ali, Member Simelli, City Clerk, Exeicio Caroline Desidario, and Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer Exeicio Ronald Hogan. Waterfront Access Chair Cologne
Hayes, Vice Chair Crowe, members Omali, Simonelli, and Winslow and Harbor Master Exeicio Neil Anderson. We have a new committee that I've decided to set up this year with Chair Taylor, Vice Chair Luong, and members Condan Crow and McDonald.
And then you may recall that earlier this year we have two new committees that have not actually met with the exception of the code of conduct committee which I think met once but we haven't really gained um as much traction as we would have liked because of the business of the override taking up um the bulk of our fall docket. Um so
I'm considering these to still be new but I'd like them to really have the ability to do a lot more business this year now that we have more time. And those are the library committee with chair Winslow, members Condan, Lahan, and Taylor, and the code of conduct committee with chair McDonald and
members Cologne, Hayes, Crow, Luong, and Sika. The only excuse me, the only change there is to add our new counselor Luong to the code of conduct committee. And then if we can go to the next slide. Okay, give me one second. And finally, our exeicio committees. Um
many of these have statutory reasons for having counselors either because their ward um requires somebody to be from that ward on that committee or we need um a certain number of counselors to be appointed to these committees. So some of these um have a limited scope, meet during the day or have a um finite task
and will sunset once that project or scope is done. Um so some of these you know won't exist after this year. Some of them exist long term. So for these um we have a very few new most notably the municipal building committee to construct a salt shed and
boat house as part of the river works project. Um so you'll see very few changes here on our exeicio committees we have for the affordable housing trust fund lahan climate action and sustainability McDonald complete streets Winslow comprehensive plan steering
lahan and ali library trustee lahan malden riverworks cologne hayes municipal building committee for the salt shed and boat house construction which had our first meeting just this week crow lahan and winslow open space Taylor and Cologne Hayes problem
property Crow sign design SEA and Taylor site plan review RIO MBTA Ali and Lahan site plan site plan review Malden River Cologne Hayes Crow and Winslow and site plan review Rose Quarry McDonald and
SEA. Now I do have some brief remarks that I wanted to read and if councelor McDonald if you wouldn't mind just showing my final slide. I have some overarching goals that I wanted to share how I thought about putting this together. So in forming these committees, I took great care to ensure that we had both
the stability of experience leading our standing committees given the volume of business that we are expected to come through finance and ordinance this year while also making sure to provide new opportunities for growth for our other counselors for additional counselors. I
do really want to thank our committee chairs who have agreed to multi-year appointments because chairing subcommittees requires a tremendous amount of organization and attention to detail and fairness and assigning members so that there's minimal overlap and so that all can achieve quorum to
meet every week is a very complicated puzzle. At the same time, the number of exeicio committees requiring counselor appointments has grown year-over-year. So that many of these committees meet during business hours which makes it very challenging to seat enough
counselors and in a reversal to when I was elected just six years ago um the vast majority of our counselors do now work full-time or part-time and many of us are also caring for family members or have health concerns of our own that also have to be factored in. So, I do want to reiterate just how much I
appreciate the time during the weekdays, during business hours that so many of you have agreed to take away from those additional responsibilities to give to committees that meet um at times that are not at night. I've tried to streamline the number of committees wherever possible. I've created only one
new body that I believe addresses our most pressing need, which is to create new economic development opportunities. My intent is that this committee can meet the need articulated in our December finance committee discussions where we met with the office of strategic planning and community development, which is to identify a
small number of key corridors in the city where we can act quickly in partnership with the mayor's administration to reszone for revenue producing development. I'm very pleased to appoint Councelor Taylor to lead this important committee and I have full confidence in her ability to take on
this charge. By taking up this work in a new committee with a defined goal, it's my hope that we can ensure the ordinance committee may continue to do its additional business unimpeded and that any zoning recommendations that result from the work of this new economic development committee will be properly
referred to ordinance andor a joint ordinance and planning board meeting at such time as they're ready to be discussed at that level of detail. Additionally, it's my sincere hope that now that our council has concluded the work of producing a financial paper sufficient to schedule a March special
election, we can shift our focus in that committee towards supporting the administration in a robust community engagement and public education campaign to help prepare the community for the election and to discuss in committee the relevant budget adjustments that we still adjustments that we still need to
make this fiscal year regardless of the outcome of the election. Separate from those specific committee goals, I'm committed to taking up a long overdue refresh of our council rule book with our city clerk starting effective immediately. And as part of that process, I will seek to codify our land
acknowledgements place on the agenda to ensure that we keep our hybrid technology in place, which has been working so well, and of course adjust it if state law at any point changes. And I'd also like to add some new language regarding our use of AI, working of course alongside our city IT department
who I know has also been thinking a lot about this. And of course, I'll be incorporating the many other ideas that colleagues have already shared with me about our rule book this past year so that it remains a collaborative document. So in closing, I want to once again thank all of you for being willing to serve and I look forward to what we
can accomplish this year together. Thank you. >> Thank you. So I unless there are questions, I think we just need a motion to place on file. >> That is fine. And I think I actually
killed my my room here, my um my view. Okay, thank you. Sorry, I leaned on it. Councelor McDonald. >> Yeah, thank you so much for this, Council President. And I just wanted to ask that we um post the committee assignments on the web page this week um
so that the community members who weren't able to watch this meeting can see them. >> Absolutely. We will be sure to do that. That's a great idea. Any other questions? Councelor Winsow? >> Yeah. No, I I think we should also make sure that that that it gets up to the um
you the city's communications folks so that our website can get updated because that's sometimes lagged a little bit. So, just making sure that those >> it has. Yes, >> we have some formatting that we need to do. There's a little couple issues with the file right now that Caroline and I were just talking about. We'll make sure to get it posted.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Great. >> I also think that um it might be nice if we could have our committees listed under our names on our not just as a document, but I've wondered over the years if sometimes the public I think they go looking for us and they would like to see under each of our head shot kind of what we're on each year. I don't know if that's too much work, but
something that I've been thinking about too. Why did I say >> Oh, was it? >> I feel like we've had that before. >> Okay. Well, maybe we should go back to it. Yeah. >> Okay. Any other questions or ideas?
necessarily something we post in the city, but I think the city coming from the city clerk's office. >> No, people ask all the time where to find it. It's a very frequently emailed question that I get for sure. >> Okay.
>> And I think I heard Karen second. >> Okay. On a motion by councelor Simelli, seconded by councelor Cologne Hayes. We just need a voice vote. All in favor? >> I Okay. Thank you everyone. Okay. >> Unless anybody has any >> I don't want to I don't want to stifle
personal privilege. We do we do have another meeting next week. >> One thing. >> Oh, okay. Helena, hold on one second. Councelor Winslow, you have the floor. >> I I just want to acknowledge um Adam Wy and the Malden Fire Department for their work um at the fire at 49 Bishop. I
mean, Adam literally went into the house to make sure people were safe. Got a few animals out. Um and there is a Facebook page set up for um actually a GoFundMe for the the residents there as well. So um but um you know he went uh above and
beyond what a neighbor or a resident needs to do. So that's a great thing and I appreciate the Malden fire has given him recognition as well. So thank you. >> Absolutely. Thank you councelor Winsow. Councelor Colon. >> Thank you. Um I'm just going to keep announcing this until it's here. So, um
I just want to remind people that we have scheduled the Martin Luther King Day celebration Sunday, January 18th because it's right around the corner. Um it will once again be at the Emanuel Baptist Church and um we have a great keynote speaker, Dr. Carl B. Mack, and
uh we're partnering with Malden Reeds, Malden High School, Love for Kids, the Friends of the Maldon Public Library, City of Malden, um and a few other groups. But um please mark your calendar and I hope to see you there. It's from 3 to 6. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you, Councelor Cologne Hayes. Councelor Omali.
>> Um, I just wanted to let everyone know that there's a tech on your terms meeting happening at the library tomorrow, uh, Wednesday, January 7th at 6:30. This is a community group that's looking to advocate for, uh, how and
when children will be exposed to AI in life, and I think specifically in Malden public schools. Um, so it's being run by parents and community members. So everyone's urged to come out and um at the it's in the Mario room at the Malden Public Library. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Councelor Rali. Any other lights? Okay, seeing none, I lost track of who made the motion to adjurnn. >> And Simmonelli. >> Okay, on a motion by councelor Seika, seconded by councelor Simonelli. All in favor? >> Okay, we are adjourned at 7:20. Thank
you everyone.