Local Government Update, February 2025
Listen to this local government update podcast where I sit down for a conversation with Tyler Cote, the Community Engagement Specialist for the City of Watertown, and Victoria Weichel, the Director of Government and Education Media at Watertown Cable Access. We discussed what's happened at some recent city meetings and some upcoming city initiatives for Watertown.
(Click here to listen on streaming apps)
Links to things mentioned in the episode:
Special City Council Meeting - January 21st (on winter parking ban)
311
Civics Academy
Capital Improvement Program
School Building Committee Meeting - January 29th
Other City Council Meetings:
January 14th, January 28th
WCA-TV's general Government channel
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Thanks to podcast promotional partner the Watertown Business Coalition, a nonprofit organization focused on connecting local businesses and strengthening our community. Check them out at https://watertownbusinesscoalition.com/.
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.
Transcript
Matt: 0:07
Hi there, welcome to the Little Local Conversations podcast. I'm your host, Matt Hanna. Every episode I sit down for a conversation with somebody in Watertown to discover the people, places, stories and ideas of Watertown. This time, I just sat down with a couple of people to do a new format that I'm trying out, which are going to be local government update podcasts to help keep you up to date with what's going on with City Hall and anything else with the local government. Just want to help you keep up to date with what's going on, what to keep an eye out for, in a nice casual manner. So I'm going to experiment with it as we go forward, but the idea is this will be a monthly thing. So, yeah, take a listen and let me know what you think about this format. Enjoy.
Matt: 0:43
Welcome to our first Government Updates podcast. Here today with Tyler Cote, the Community Engagement Specialist for the city.
Tyler: 0:51
Hey, how you doing. Thanks for having me, Matt.
Matt: 0:53
And I'm here with Victoria Weichel, who is the Director of Government and Education Media at the Watertown Cable Access.
Victoria: 0:59
Hi, Matt.
Matt: 1:00
So this is just going to be a casual conversation about what's been going on in the government, what's to look forward to. I asked you both to come in with some bullet points to talk about, so why don't we just dive right in. Victoria, what's the first thing you had on your list?
Victoria: 1:13
The first thing I have is on January 18th, Watertown held a special city council on a citizen's petition to remove the winter parking ban.
Matt: 1:23
Yes, everyone's favorite topic, right, Tyler?
Tyler: 1:27
Yeah, as a part of the communications team, we hear a lot of feedback about the winter parking ban. We hear certainly a lot of people asking for, as we saw at the city council meeting, some amendments to remove it. However, we also do hear a lot of people that are proponents of it as well, coming in through 311 or through email too. So it is a hot topic. We understand it's a hot topic and I think that became abundantly clear with the pretty impressive turnout at the special city council meeting, mid-January. I'd love to kind of hear what your review was of it, Victoria.
Victoria: 1:59
So my understanding for the winter park ban is really to help if there's enough snowfall, for cars to be out off the roads to allow plows to come through. Many people are advocating for it to be removed. As climate change is happening, less snow is getting falled. So that way people, if they don't have driveways or maybe they have one too many cars for the driveway, they can park closer to their homes.
Matt: 2:24
And why do you think so many people are coming in to talk about this now? Because this has been on the books for many years and there's been little trickles here and there, but obviously not quite this response, right.
Tyler: 2:31
Definitely. I think that one response to why we saw such a large turnout and a lot of attention towards this is we've had a couple of winters in a row where it was light on snow, this winter, maybe notwithstanding. We've actually had consistent snowfall over the last several weeks. And also there was a movement started by a citizen-run group to get people to find a place where they can actually voice their concerns together. I believe the last numbers that I saw was that we had over 100 people in City Hall and then another 100 plus online for that meeting. From my perspective as a member of the city and with the role of community engagement, actually we love to see that engagement coming from the community and actually finding interest and raising concerns and feeling as though that they have a place that they can go and raise those concerns as well.
Tyler: 3:24
Something that I was really happy about throughout the evening and throughout that council meeting was it was very respectful in terms of everybody really listening to one another. It is a very complex issue. I believe that our city manager said it best during that meeting that there are so many elements that go into making a decision to lift a parking ban, a winter parking ban. And it happened just days after we had to hand down a snow emergency, which was interesting timing because we put into place all of our communication methods to share that there was the snow emergency. We have this Everbridge system, which is essentially like a reverse 911, where we are able to give a message and then it sends out to phones, sends out to every landline in the city. However.
Matt: 4:10
It’s a problem in the modern day.
Tyler: 4:11
Yeah, to say the least.
Victoria: 4:13
We did get it here.
Tyler: 4:14
So, yeah, the landlines are getting them, which is great. However, there are several, several, several homes in Watertown that don't have landlines, and what that means is there's the need for our residents to sign up for Everbridge. Of course, we do our typical promotion of getting that out to the community as much as we can, but you're always going to miss some, and what it leads to is some of that message not sharing around. And the complexity of going to a winter emergency or snow emergency only program, puts an even greater emphasis on the idea of getting those messages out. As a communications member, I'm not suggesting that, you know, don't do it just because it makes our lives harder. No, that's definitely not the case. But communications is challenging and that's not even, you know, bringing up into the discussion the DPW challenges that are associated with it.
Tyler: 5:02
Watertown is four square miles, we are a tight city with 35,000 people in it. The roads are narrow in the summer and they can become particularly narrow in the winter. And it's not always a snow problem. Our DPW highway supervisor had mentioned it, I believe, where he said it's just as much of an ice issue. Making sure that they have the opportunity to lay down ice melt, that their trucks are able to get up and down streets. It's a very complex issue, but I think one of the main things, and I'm sure, Victoria, you were going to potentially touch on this, one of the main things that I think came out of that meeting was the council recognized that they were going to review the parking enforcement or parking plans in the city at some point from our comp plan, our city's comprehensive plan. And there was conversation maybe that's something that we bring up, or they bring up, our city council, a little bit sooner. And the opportunity for our residents to come share their concerns, talk about everything from the safety concerns to the accessibility concerns, I think that our city council was really able to learn a lot. I'm not going to speak for them, but I know from our communications team, we certainly learned a lot in the ways that we can be talking about the winter parking ban and give a little bit more insight and share a little bit more perspective into.
Tyler: 6:10
There are several reasons why this ban is in place. We can assure it's not just an arbitrary rule that we follow. And we try and be as understanding as we possibly can around it. But I found it to be a great example of engagement from our residents through the means at which you know municipal governments run. Where there was a petition sent to the city council, they held a meeting, they heard hours and hours of public comment and there was seemingly next steps that will be taken by the city to at least review what the policies are and continue the conversation in the future. So it was a really good example of engagement done in kind of the maybe more traditional ways of municipal government and was really nice to see that many residents in City Hall. And we hope that as a communications team we can keep that engagement and momentum going and getting our residents involved in even more than just parking ban conversations as well.
Victoria: 7:06
Yeah, I was going to say it seems like in the past few years, parking ban usually gets lifted early. During holidays it usually gets lift. So it seems like in general, this is the right time for it to get changed if it's going to get changed.
Tyler: 7:19
Yeah, it's definitely a time to at least have the conversations which I think the meeting in January was a start. And we definitely do, we take the steps to lift it during the winter holidays, kind of between Christmas and New Year's. And it's something that we'll continue to go back to. We'll continue to have conversations about. If you have questions, if I can put a very shameless plug in here, for all of our residents if you have questions about the winter parking ban, just dial 311 in Watertown. Our constituent services director is thinking and talking with our DPW and our police department about the winter parking ban almost every day. She has every answer that you could possibly have a question about to in the winter parking ban and if you have any questions or might need any help around it, that's definitely the best place to go to learn everything you need to know.
Matt: 8:06
Was there any? Just me to add one last thing. Was there any one particular perspective that you, either of you, were surprised to hear during that meeting from someone who spoke?
Victoria: 8:14
For me, a lot of it was new. I grew up down near the Cape so I'm used to always being able to park near my house. And it was always kind of rare for me to need to do street parking until I started working here.
Tyler: 8:29
Yeah, I would say the accessibility piece of it all is something that I know that the city takes very seriously and, as Sergeant Sampson had mentioned, that if there are accessibility needs, that there are avenues to be exempt from the ban. How you can go about that, you can reach out to our 311 department. There are some steps, steps you'll need to take, but there are ways that, if you may have a disability that might impact your ability to go from a municipal lot back home, there are ways that you can, you know, be exempt from that parking ban, which is great. And that's something that, as a communications team, of course, we're thinking about. Like how can we more effectively let our residents know that those that need some accommodation, that there are some ways that we can let them connect them with those ways to get it.
Matt: 9:10
Right, you guys are people who are trying to help.
Tyler: 9:12
Definitely yes.
Matt: 9:13
That's always my thing. Whenever I'm interviewing someone with the government, I want people to know like these are people they want to help. It's complicated, but they want to help.
Tyler: 9:25
Yeah, and if I can say too, a lot of times, us at City Hall and our residents, we really do want the same thing. Us in City Hall, we're keeping in mind a very big picture, everything from the Commonwealth's laws that are involved in any decisions that we make, not necessarily with the winter parking ban, but just in general. We have community partners, like DCR, let's say, that owns some land in Watertown that we need to make sure that somebody can come to my Watertown chats and bring something up that they want to change down near the river. That's unfortunately not Watertown land, that is DCR land. So that's a conversation that we need to have with DCR or do we direct the resident directly to DCR.
Tyler: 10:00
So you know, there's a lot of times that us and the residents do want the same thing and that is, for you know, great services here in Watertown, great programming for us to have great community service, and to make sure that we are always kind of giving the absolute most that we can within the budget confines that we have for our community. I know sometimes it can feel as though that we're working against our residents. I can assure you that is never the intent. We are doing everything we can to try and help out as much as we can. But continuing to work with us, as we continue to try and work with our residents, is something that we always ask for, but yeah.
Matt: 10:32
Yeah, cool, let's move on to your first item then, Tyler. What do you have on your list?
Tyler: 10:37
Yeah, so I think the first item is something that if anybody receives the winter tax bill newsletter which gets thrown into your tax bill.
Matt: 10:47
Everyone's favorite reading.
Tyler: 10:48
Yes, one of the faves of Watertown that black and white piece of paper. We are gonna be doing a civics academy here in Watertown. This is something that a lot of other communities do, and Watertown is really trying to do their inaugural one this year. Something that I'm very heavily involved in, but it's something that's gonna include all city departments, which is really exciting. I am anticipating our applications are going to go live in February, so by the time that you're listening to this podcast, the applications may already be live, which is really exciting for a start time in mid to late spring, which is really exciting. Really, what a civics academy is or at least in Watertown sense, is going to be a six week course where people are going to be able to dive into like an expert level, detailed run at what city government actually looks like and how it runs. Anything you can find on the website is something that we are not going to be touching on. You can get that info online. Anybody can go onto the watertown-ma.gov website, go to the department page, see what it is that their goals are, what projects are going on. What we really want to do is jump into some of those challenging decisions, everything that goes into making those challenging decisions. Things like why is it so hard for a street tree to survive? That's a really complex conversation that is really challenging to just simply put onto a webpage. So, having a conversation with our tree warden, coming in talking about everything that goes into making those decisions and what needs to go in from the community standpoint, how they can help, but also what the city needs to think about when they're deciding on what tree is getting put into your neighborhood.
Tyler: 12:26
Also, getting into just general budget conversations. The budget is, as I'll talk about maybe later on in this chat, is probably the single most important document that exists every single year for the city of Watertown. Every decision that is made is based around, typically for the most part, that budget in some form. Of course we have the high-level planning documents, we have several other things that go in decision-making, but the budget really is the backbone. How does the strategy go into making the decisions as to what that budget looks like? What is being prioritized this year versus something that's been prioritized in five years is a conversation that happens in city hall, happens between departments, happens after listening to the community as to what they're interested in, talking with the City Council. The City Council ultimately makes the decisions on the budget, but these are things that we really would love to loop in the community to really understand. Like some of these really niche behind-the-scenes conversations that we have.
Tyler: 13:28
So over the course of six weeks we'll have two-hour sessions each week. They'll be hosted on Thursdays. They're going to be popping up all over the city. The way that it will work is residents will apply. After they apply, we'll have our inaugural class accepted. Then they'll end up joining those six two-hour sessions.
Tyler: 13:45
Each session will be on a different topic. So some of the ones that we've looked at I've already mentioned, but looking at DPW operations, public safety, health and human services, getting into the financing and budget, like I said, and then community development and planning. In case our residents haven't heard enough about some of these topics from Watertown Square or from the comp plan year before that or the climate and energy plan the year before that, this is a chance to really get to know the people that are working on these projects, but also get to know those complexities, like I had mentioned. So I'm really, really excited to bring this to the city. Our inaugural class is probably going to have around like 10 to 20 students, somewhere in that range, because the most important thing to me is that it's really engaging. We're going to have activities every single week.
Tyler: 14:29
We're going to be hosting classes in different areas, both in City Hall, we're hoping to get into the police department, the fire departments, having them there up at the DPW office up on Orchard. So really excited to bring this to the community. We're hoping that we get some engagement from the community. We're hoping to have a wide, diverse members of our community. Community members that have lived in Watertown their whole lives, to maybe a renter in the city who just moved to Watertown and is interested in learning a little bit more about their city government that is serving them day to day. So we're really excited to bring it to Watertown. Keep an eye out for when those applications go live. And then you can always reach out to me, reach out to our 311, as always. But yeah, it should be really exciting. It's going to be a good time.
Matt: 15:12
Cool. Yeah, I'll get the links from you to put in the show notes here. It's on Thursday morning, evening, night?
Tyler: 15:18
Yeah, thanks. Yeah, it's going to be a Thursday evening. So it'll probably end up running, schedules are still not 100% confirmed, but I can say with like 99% certainty that it's going to be like 6 pm to 8 pm and, like I mentioned, bouncing around to different parts of the city. Accessibility and language needs we can definitely have conversations about making sure that this is as accessible as a program as it can possibly be as well.
Matt: 15:42
And when you say people are applying, because I know there'll be some people with questions if they don't get in, is it just a lottery system if people apply or?
Tyler: 15:49
So the way that it'll end up working is we'll get the applications and priority will definitely be given to members of the community who might not have served on boards and commissions or are actively involved day to day. Because we really want this to be a way to open doors for members of the community who aren't regularly engaging with the city of Watertown. Of course, that is not a blanket we, you know, are always going to reject anybody that's been on a board or commission. That's definitely not the case.
Tyler: 16:18
And it's not a rejection. Really what it is is we are hosting this year, we have a limited number of spots. We want to prioritize some members of our community who might not be regularly engaging. This might be something that we can bring you in next year for next year's program or probably, if we end up running multiple in a year, having them come in the future. So be a little bit of a process to make sure that we're getting a diverse group. Making sure that we're getting a group that has different interests in the city. Making sure that we are getting as many diverse and interesting perspectives in the room. Because, as anybody that's been in a classroom before, as this will kind of feel that way maybe at times, I don't want it to be lectures.
Matt: 16:53
Is there homework?
Tyler: 16:54
Yeah, no homework. No tests.
Matt: 16: 56
No final project, no diorama to make?
Tyler: 16:57
No, no, unfortunately. Unless anybody wants to make a diorama of City Hall, I'm sure that’d be very cool to have. It might feel like a classroom at times, but really what the goal is is to just get people engaging with one another, getting them having conversations. And you know, we're going to put our residents, and our students I guess in this case, to the test. To develop their own budget with a certain amount of resources around and they have all the priorities.
Matt: 17:23
So there is homework.
Tyler: 17:24
This will all happen within the two-hour timeframe, I can assure you. But it should be a really exciting opportunity to get people a little bit more engaged in, maybe a different way than maybe you would just at a standard community meeting.
Victoria: 17:37
Are there any restrictions on who can sign up or can't sign up? Because I'm imagining high schoolers maybe thinking about going to college soon, thinking maybe going into government, may want to sign up.
Tyler: 17:46
Yeah, no, we, I am encouraging our young population to apply to this. In fact, not necessarily timely to this podcast, but later on this afternoon I'm having a meeting with a member of the school department to talk about this specifically to see what are the ways that we can make this most attractive to our student population. Because they're taking civics courses. They are involved in learning, kind of, how their community functions. This seems like a great way to supplement that in some form. I know when I was a high schooler, I wanted to get involved in government.
Tyler: 18:19
I would have loved if my town of 1,000 residents would have hosted one of these things. However, I think we had like three full-time staff, so I don't know if it would have been possible. So, yes, the restrictions will be very, very limited. Priority will be given to Watertown residents. And then, like I mentioned, ideally a priority will be given to our residents who might not be actively engaged all the time and sitting on boards and commissions, things like that. Because they have a little bit of an inside look into, kind of how things work if you are sitting on a board and commission. So we want to make sure that we're allowing people that haven't had that opportunity to get in first.
Matt: 18:52
Cool. Why don't we move on to the next one then? So what's next on your list, Victoria?
Victoria: 18:56
I think from the last couple conversations we were talking about budget, so I think this would be a good time to talk about the capital improvement plans that was just presented at the last city council. So there was a list of items included that have been talked about at the city manager and the council president's state of the city address. One of them is the middle school. There has been previously a school building committee meeting to talk about and pick an architect to develop the new middle school as well. There's also a new senior center, east end fire station. There's two more and I forget what those were.
Tyler: 19:28
Senior center and recreation center. The east end fire station, the DPW staging area, Watertown Square plan implementation, which is a many-faceted long-term discussion and plan and strategy. And then the middle school renovation, which, when not to jump in and cut you off at all, Victoria. But when our city manager and our assistant city manager for finance did their preliminary budget presentation, they presented these to the city council thinking which of this list of priorities should we be giving main priority to and where should they fit within our CIP. Which, when they discussed, yeah, they definitely said prioritize the middle school renovation. But those other items still falling within the capital improvement plan, eventually along that kind of five-year outlook.
Victoria: 20:15
Yeah, I was just going to say, even though the capital improvement plan is for 2026 to 2030, they have already started with the middle school. This past Wednesday they had a round of interviews for architects and ultimately picked AI3, who have built the other schools in town. If I remember correctly, the reason why the middle school was, the primary reason was because we already have the modular schools for the high school. So once the high school is finished, ideally that's when the renovations could start for the middle school.
Matt: 20:42
Yeah, when I had George on the podcast, he talked about that. Like that he was going to bring that up at a meeting because they have those modulars there, you could save potentially millions of dollars by using that now. Even though we might have to figure out how to do the middle school, because we don't exactly have the money to do middle school, right? It's like we're trying to figure out how to squeeze that, right?
Tyler: 21:02
Yeah, there's definitely some strategy that has to go into it. And when the city manager gave his preliminary budget presentation, he kind of presented the middle school as being like five or six different options. There was just redoing part of the school, just continuing with its general upkeep and maintenance, there was tearing down all of it and doing a complete rebuild, tearing down part of it and doing a partial rebuild and a renovation in other areas. So there was like several options for the council to consider, or at least from his perspective for the council to consider. Yeah, where they kind of landed was in this half and half approach, it seemed, of tearing down the, I believe it was the oldest version of the school and rebuilding that up and then renovating some of the other parts, whatever the remaining part of the middle school was. So there's a lot of pieces into it.
Tyler: 21:50
Obviously, that modular conversation is a big one too, because they're currently there. When you take them away, there's costs associated with taking something away and then putting it back in. Where are you going to put the students during that time? So it was definitely a time-sensitive conversation that the council and the city manager had to have. And that’s why right down to the council’s conversation it seemed like that was a big reason they thought that if we were going to do it, felt like a good time to take that step into making that decision.
Victoria: 22:18
During the school building committee that seemed to be a lot of what the architects were presenting, is demolishing some of the building and then just redeveloping some of it. I think particularly it was the gym. I believe that's one of the newer parts of the middle school. And I know right now they are trying to get new bleachers installed so it would make the most sense to keep the gym as it is, or do just light renovations to the gym.
Matt: 22:41
Right. It's like keeping the or lightly renovating the front was like the gym and the auditorium, right? Well, maybe I'm getting my exact geography of that building off, but.
Victoria: 22:49
Yeah, the geography of the building is kind of odd.
Matt: 22:51
Yeah, it's not exactly split evenly.
Tyler: 22:54
Yeah, and I mean that's actually I think was part of the discussion too. The middle school is not built to be a, at least currently, a 21st century learning environment. The way that it's built is narrow hallways, things feel a little bit separated. Whereas if you walk into some of the new elementary schools or the soon to be high school, there are a lot of congregation areas for kind of collaborative learning and areas that kind of connect classrooms in really interesting ways. And just in my conversations with the schools and hearing the superintendent's presentation at that preliminary budget presentation, it's an interesting look into just how learning has changed, especially over the last 25, 30, 40 years. That the way that we build our buildings and build our schools it's changing. We're learning more about what needs to go into our learning environments and I think that also played a pretty significant role into why the prioritization was given to that middle school to try and make it so that kids can start in kindergarten and go all the way through high school, hopefully with 21st century learning environments, which is really cool.
Matt: 23:58
Right, and what do you say about all the people who had their hopes on those other four or five projects that are lower down the list?
Tyler: 24:04
I would say that there's still a commitment to take care of those items, for sure. By no means are they getting like completely left off or ignored. Something that I know our city manager and our city council have discussed, that they still find those items to be important. Of course they do get pushed back a little bit. However, just because something gets pushed back now doesn't mean that it's not something that won't be done. It's still part of five-year plans. I think the only thing with that list of items that I had mentioned that gets pushed out is that East End Fire Station, I think, fell off of the CIP. However, just because it fell off the CIP doesn't mean that it's something that isn't going to be a conversation throughout this year. And we release a new CIP every year looking ahead into that five-year program and it's something that there's always tinkering, there's always conversations that have to go on. So I can understand if there's some frustrations with some of our residents that they wanted to see some of these other areas kind of moved up. But just ask you to bear with us. There's still conversations that are going on over the next several years to make sure that these items are delivered to our residents because they are important. I think with the capital improvement plan, especially the program, the middle school, I think, is getting a lot of attention because it's topical. There's been several conversations with the council about it. We've certainly done releases of information on it celebrating this decision by the council. And I know that families are excited at the idea of having another new school, or at least deeply renovated school, in Watertown, which is super exciting. There are some interesting items in the capital improvement program that I think are going to be of interest that might not be getting a ton of attention that I kind of want to bring some attention to. I've run several focus groups for the library as they're undergoing their strategic plan right now and maybe the number one thing that I hear every single time is that they're looking to get bigger. They need more space. Please give the library more space, might be the exact sentence I've heard the most. In our CIP and FY25, forgive all of my abbreviations thrown at you, but there is a feasibility study in FY29, sorry not 25, FY29, to evaluate the expansion of the library, which is a part of the Watertown Square area plan, which can be found in that plan document that was endorsed by our city council, which is very exciting. That is notably kind of an early step, a first step to really looking at what's possible, where can they go, what are the options here, some potential recommendations, which is really cool.
Tyler: 26:31
And then, you know, there's always the conversations about maintaining our buildings, maintaining our equipment. I think what George, our city manager, and our city council do very well is they don't let things just completely deteriorate so that we have to pay for a full overhaul of something. There is really really effective maintenance, which is a really big fiscal strategy that the city does. That isn't everything, but it certainly plays a role in why we're able to sit here and look at the opportunity of getting another school renovated without having to do a proposition two and a half or a prop two and a half override, or a debt exclusion. Those strategies can really make an impact in the long-term fiscal health of a city, which is really exciting that you're going to see in that plan things to renovate buildings. Ensuring that we're just using our tax dollars to the most effective use that we possibly can. And then also, something that's really exciting is just, you know, the general parks projects that we have ongoing, which are constantly ongoing. Getting new playground equipment into our parks, making sure that dog parks are getting thrown in places, splash pads. We had the opening of the Filippello splash pad last summer and I have never seen so much excitement squeezed into one hour of time of kids running around that space. Like that was so, so exciting to see. That's something that we as a community and we as a city are always looking to think about. Like what's the next thing? How can we bring the best possible service to our community, to our residents, for the most physically strategic way possible?
Tyler: 27:58
And ideally this CIP will clarify that a little bit and give you an idea of what's coming. So I recommend anybody that's listening to this you can read the first six or seven pages or so of that CIP. It's right on our city's homepage. That is very digestible, it's quite easy to understand. It isn't a bunch of tables.
Tyler: 28:19
It's just small blurbs of, here are things that are happening related to the library, here are some things that we're proposing related to DPW. And it gives you just a quick glance at what is going to be coming over the next several years, which is really good. So of course the council still needs to discuss it. This was just proposed to the council. It goes to committee and then they make recommendations and the council makes final decisions. So there are certainly items that might change here and there, but it's an interesting document to really get an idea of what the next five years are going to be looking like and what the city is prioritizing at least. So sorry to go on for a tangent about our capital improvement budget, which might not sound like the most interesting thing in the world, but it is quite fascinating to me at least.
Matt: 28:59
Yeah, and, like you were saying, it's a good look into the priorities of the city and how they're looking towards the future. Cool. Is there anything else on that we want to dig into, or does that lead into your next topic, or does that kind of cover some of that topic?
Tyler: 29:12
That certainly covered several of that topic, so I won't go on for too long. The only other thing that I want to mention, before I throw it back over to Victoria, is that, this is something I mentioned on our podcast, actually, Matt, when I met and sat down with you for just our one-on-one interview, is the city is trying to do a lot more with language access. It's something that was a top priority for me when I came into this role in December of ‘23. And we are at a point now where, if anybody that does not speak English has a question or needs help from the city, they can call our 311 department or come to the city and speak with our 311 department. We can get an interpreter on the phone within seconds in 240 plus languages.
Tyler: 29:54
So really, this is just to mention to anybody listening to this podcast that if you have a friend or somebody in your neighborhood or a tenant or a family that you're aware of, or anything, that might be looking for language services with regards to something that has to do with the city, we can get language access interpretation within seconds of you connecting with us, which is really exciting. And there's going to be more coming down the pipeline to ideally get even more language access, but this was a big first step that I'm really excited that we're finally able to offer to our residents that need it. Because we do have a non-English speaking population in the city and it's growing, and we want to make sure that we are giving just as much accessibility to our programs and services to them as we do for everybody.
Matt: 30:39
Yeah, and when they call 311, do they have to, like do they just hear them speaking a different language and they say hold on, or like what happens when they call 311 speaking a different language?
Tyler: 30:47
Yeah, no, it's a great question, thanks. If you're able, what I would say is let us know just what language it is that you need. Even if you just call and say Portuguese, or call and say Haitian Creole or whatever it may be, our 311 department is trained to know what to do next beyond that. You'll be put on a brief hold and then next time that you hear from our 311 department, we'll be with an interpreter on the phone to have that conversation.
Tyler: 31:12
If you're unable to communicate directly with our team to share what language it is that you need, you'll probably be put on hold again and they will come back with a professional that is trained to determine what language is needed. And then you'll probably be put on hold a second time. It will take a little bit longer, but we can assure you that we are doing it as quickly and as efficiently as we can to try and get an interpreter on the phone. So that would be my recommendation. If there are any questions about it, you can always call our 311 department. They will, ideally, and I know that they will, get all the needs that you have kind of sorted out and ensure that we're getting the interpretation that you need. So it's great.
Matt: 31:50
Great. Cool. Anything else? That hits all your points?
Tyler: 31:54
That hits all my points. Sorry for going so long on the CIP. It gets me excited.
Victoria: 31:59
Well, the CIP is a big moment, every year.
Matt: 32:03
It's the CIP, the Super Bowl.
Victoria: 32:06
I think it goes to budget, and then the CIP.
Matt: 32:08
Cool, and did you have one last thing on your list there?
Victoria: 32:12
I think that was really it. I was kind of questioning bringing up the BERDO regulations. So the BERDO regulations is just Boston's building emissions reduction and disclosure ordinance. It just requires large buildings to reduce their greenhouse emissions. BERDO was voted to refer to the Rules and Ordinances Committee. The Rules and Ordinances Committee are currently taking up quite a bit. They're also going to be looking at the noise ordinance and, at the last meeting, they also talked about restrictions to single-use plastics from takeouts mostly.
Matt: 32:40
A lot of different ordinances in the queue there. BERDO, my son's really into Mario, so when I think of BERDO, I think of Mario.
Victoria: 32:48
That's what I think of too.
Matt: 32:50
But yes, BERDO, is a sustainability, energy efficiency thing. Do you have any comments on that, Tyler, from the city perspective?
Tyler: 32:57
I would just say, as a city, I think we've done really well when it comes to energy efficiency, climate, ensuring that we are doing everything that we can to step in and be a leader in terms of municipalities when it comes to climate resiliency. So, whatever the next steps are with regards to ordinances that are passed or things that are going before the council, I would anticipate that that is just a continuation of what the city has committed to, and that using our climate plan to really be a guiding document when it comes to a lot of the goals that we have with climate resiliency. So I don't have too much to add other than I think that the city has done an incredible job to this point when it comes to being a leader in the space, right down to the schools. Like I said, that climate resiliency plan, there's a conversation throughout Watertown Square process as well. So whatever the next steps might be, I would anticipate that it's just going to be a continuation of what we've seen the council commit to to this point.
Matt: 33:54
And those aren't passed yet. They're just in the queue.
Victoria: 33:57
Yeah, when this does get passed, it's for large buildings, so you'll see changes within all the resource development, lab spaces within Watertown. That's where you'll see the changes really.
Matt: 34:07
Cool yeah, so was there anything else people should look forward to in the coming month or so in terms of government stuff that maybe people should keep an eye out for, or any other general forward-facing thoughts?
Tyler: 34:21
I would say just continue to be engaged with the city in any way that makes sense to you, but also let us know how you want to be engaged. I know that that puts a little bit of an onus on you, but we're trying a lot of different things in City Hall. You have the typical community meeting stuff which we always try and do whenever we have new projects or programs going. But we do a lot of what I like to call kind of proactive engagement as well.
Tyler: 34:45
I do Watertown Chats, which is one opportunity to come and sit down with me and just share your thoughts about something that the city is doing or ask a question. And that's a great opportunity for you to let me know how it is that we are doing as a city. You know, getting information out, engaging to try and understand what the needs or the wants are of the community. Going back to our first discussion about the parking ban, we would really like to take that momentum that we have in the community right now for civic involvement and use that for several other opportunities that we have coming down the pipeline, whether we're looking at new parks or new programs or getting involved in something like a civics academy, like I had mentioned. So I would say, keep an eye out both on our city's website and social, and also feel free to reach out to me at any time, and we can just continue to try and serve our residents as best as we possibly can.
Matt: 35:39
Cool, I think we should just wrap it there then. So yeah, is there any, well, so, 3-1-1, reach out to the city. Is there any feedback that the cable access wants? Do you want anyone reaching out to you?
Victoria: 35:49
So if they have any questions about our coverage of the meetings, they can always reach out to me or call our station. We try to cover as many municipal meetings as we can. Or if we're not covering it, it usually is still getting recorded and the recordings are getting sent to us. So if it's not live, we're probably still recording it. So if you ever question it, you can always reach out to us. Usually the recordings are up on the following day.
Matt: 36:10
Gotcha, pretty quick. Well then, yeah, people let us know what you think about this format. This is an experiment in letting you know what's going on in the government. Yeah, let me know, as well as either one of them, what you think and we'll see where this goes. Thanks everybody for listening. Thank you for your time, Tyler, thank you for your time, Victoria, and until next time.
Tyler: 36:28
Thank you, Matt.
Victoria: 36:29
Thank you for having us.
Matt: 36:31
So that's it for this Local Government Update podcast. Put links in the show notes for stuff that Tyler and Victoria mentioned. Head on over to littlelocalconversations.com if you want to find more episodes or find out events coming up, like the next Creative Chats event that I have going on at the Mosesian Center for the Arts on February 28th with guest Jamie Kallestad. You can also follow along with the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever else you're streaming. I send out a weekly newsletter if you want to keep up to date with everything that I'm doing as well with this project. You can sign up for the newsletter in the show notes or on the website, again, littlelocalconversations.com.
Matt: 37:04
And a couple things to wrap up here. I want to give a thank you to the Watertown Cultural Council for giving me a grant this year to help support this podcast. I want to give them the proper credit, which is this program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. Find out more about the Watertown Cultural Council at watertownculturalcouncil.org and find out more about the Mass Cultural Council at massculturalcouncil.org. Also want to give a shout out to a promotional partner, Watertown Business Coalition. They're a nonprofit organization here in Watertown bringing businesses and people together to help strengthen the community. Find out more about them at watertownbusinesscoalition.com. They’re actually partnering with the city for an event coming up in March. It's going to be a city update from the city manager, George Proakis. That's going to be on Tuesday, March 11th. So go check out watertownbusinesscoalition.com. Find out more details on that. Relates to this conversation, so I thought I'd mention it. So that's it. Until next time, take care.
