The Medford City Council voted 7 to 0 on Tuesday, October 27 to cut Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn’s request to restore the law department budget by $297,553.44, leaving enough to carry the department for about one more month, and to demand that the mayor produce the engagement letter and timeline for the outside review of the city’s legal practices that she agreed to in an August email. No one from the administration attended the meeting to present the request or answer questions.
The mayor’s paper requested roughly $340,000 for fiscal 2027, the cumulative amount the council has cut from the law department since the June budget. The council has been funding the department a month at a time while it waits for answers about legal spending. Councilor Justin Tseng, who prepared the figures, moved to cut $127,803.44 from the salaries line and $169,750 from the ordinary expenses line. Council President Zac Bears said he would not vote for anything that funded the department further: “No one’s even here. They didn’t send us any responses. They didn’t even show up.” Councilor George Scarpelli said the city has been “absolutely destroying our community financially” on legal fights and cited a fire union report of 19 wins in 20 arbitrations. Councilor Matt Leming said he did not want to fund another month, and Councilor Liz Mullane said the monthly funding “has served us to not get any of the answers that we’ve wanted.” The final motion by Councilor Anna Callahan, seconded by Vice President Emily Lazzaro, also requests a supplemental appropriation reflecting the cut.
Charter memo called “rude and unprofessional”
Bears’ resolution requesting an update on implementation of the city charter voters adopted in November 2025 drew a response the day before the meeting: an October 24 memo from KP Law attorney Lauren Goldberg to the mayor’s chief of staff saying the charter took effect as a matter of law, that the city clerk and council are responsible for filing certified copies with the state archivist, the housing secretariat and the attorney general, and that “the mayor has no role in these matters.” Bears called the memo “rather rude and unprofessional” and said the council still needs the certification from the Department of Elections. “This entire document says the mayor has no responsibility here,” he said. Tseng said the city lacks an organizational plan for the charter, which expands the council to 11 members with ward seats, and pointed to disputes over a line item veto and board appointments. Leming said the chamber “does not work for 11 councilors” and that renovations are expected in summer 2027 with no budget identified. The council voted 7 to 0 to refer the resolution to the Department of Elections and the mayor.
McCormick Avenue parcels go to committee
An order by Bears and Scarpelli to declare two city-owned lots on McCormick Avenue surplus and authorize the mayor to sell them, with proceeds intended for the Affordable Housing Trust, went to the Committee of the Whole 7 to 0 after councilors and neighbors objected to taking up one street without a citywide inventory. The lots, about 3,600 square feet each in Fulton Heights, have been in tax title since the 1950s. A similar order failed in April 2025 with only Leming and Scarpelli in favor. Callahan said “selling public land is rarely smart for a city” and requested a list of every unused city property, alternative uses and the status of a community land trust. Lazzaro said she remained “confused about why these parcels keep coming up and no other parcels have ever been discussed.”
Kevin Duffy, a McCormick Avenue resident, retired police officer and veteran, said he learned of the item hours earlier and that no neighbor had been notified: “It seems to be so haphazard.” Scarpelli apologized and said McCormick was “just that placeholder to start that conversation over again.” Bears said any sale would require a public bidding process and that the committee will invite the assessor, the trust and the planning department to review all city-owned parcels. Another resident urged that abutters be given a right of first refusal; Scarpelli said the council was previously told that is not legally possible for city property.
Sewer overflow letter passes 6 to 1
The council voted 6 to 1, with Lazzaro opposed, to send a comment letter drafted with the Mystic River Watershed Association to the MWRA, Cambridge and Somerville combined sewer overflow project team, objecting to a long-term control plan that would still allow discharges into the Mystic River, Charles River and Alewife Brook in larger storms. Public Works Commissioner Tim McGivern, who sits on the MWRA advisory board, urged the council not to reject the plan outright. He said the current draft, built for a typical year in 2050, costs $1.29 billion, while a plan sized for a five-year storm would cost about $3.4 billion, and that stormwater is a larger pollutant than overflows in many storms. Medford has no combined sewers and would benefit most from the plan because it has the most Mystic riverbank, he said. Bears replied that “what we consider a typical year now” may be a five-year storm in the future and that the letter puts the council on record for a stronger plan. The comment period closed October 30.
Tufts resident assistants
A resolution by Leming and Bears supporting the United Labor of Tufts Resident Assistants in contract talks passed 7 to 0. The union’s president, Karly Hope, a junior, said the university spent six months proposing a 50 percent cut in compensation, including a housing credit of $2,242.50 against about $5,000 a semester in on-campus housing costs, a reduction from 80 to 40 meal swipes and a $200 stipend cut, before reaching a tentative agreement on the first year of a contract. Bears said he had walked the recognition picket line three years ago. Lazzaro advised the union to “find a trustee” and tell donors what the university is doing.
Black plastic takeout containers
A resolution by Leming and Callahan to develop an ordinance banning black plastic takeout containers passed 7 to 0 as amended by Scarpelli to seek input from the Chamber of Commerce and the administration on enforcement; it goes to the Public Health and Community Safety Committee once the Energy and Environment Committee returns a draft. A committee member said a subcommittee surveyed about 32 restaurants, sent a letter recommending clear plastic instead, found several had switched, and gathered more than 260 signatures on a petition. Bears noted the city already bans styrofoam after a West Medford resident reported receiving takeout in it.
Also at the meeting
- Scarpelli’s resolution under suspension on the vacancy in the veterans services office, after director Veronica Shaw left for another community and the office’s second employee went on leave, was referred to the administration and the next regular meeting 7 to 0, with a request that someone be placed in the office and residents be notified in writing.
- Comcast’s petition for a grant of location for about 273 feet of underground conduit, two manholes and a vault to serve 75 Riverside Avenue was approved 7 to 0 with the engineering division’s conditions; the company said it could do the work over two weekends while the building’s demolition proceeds.
- A common victualler license for LSM Limited doing business as Pavement Coffeehouse at 177 College Avenue, the former Starbucks on the Tufts campus, was approved 7 to 0. The owner said it is the company’s tenth location and that it will open without delivery apps at first after Scarpelli raised double parking by delivery drivers.
- Leming’s rewrite of the linkage ordinance, which adds an affordable housing linkage fee that he described as $4 per square foot for projects between 10,000 and 30,000 square feet and $8 above that, was referred to the Community Development Board 7 to 0.
- Two legal settlements of $5,000 each, the maximum under Chapter 84 for sidewalk defects, were approved 7 to 0 for pedestrians who fell at City Hall Mall and on Holton Street; the city’s outside attorney said the DPW confirmed both defects and repaired them.
- From the capital stabilization fund, which holds $11,428,450, the council approved $45,470 for a second set of turnout gear for the 10 newest firefighters, requested by Chief Todd Evans by letter, and $200,000 to finish soil remediation at 448 High Street, a former laundromat site in the West Medford Square parking lot, through 2028. It also moved $57,870 from the Roberts Elementary accelerated repair project to the Brooks and Missituk studies.
- The mayor’s request for police chief search funding was tabled again, 7 to 0, with no one present to explain it; Lazzaro said her only involvement has been a calendar invitation for late November.
- Three board appointments from the mayor’s September 15 letter were approved 7 to 0, and Leming’s resolution requesting a cost analysis of one and two extra weeks of vacation for new city employees was referred to the Administration and Finance Committee with a report due by the end of December.
- The meeting opened with a resolution honoring the Congregational Church of West Medford, Sanctuary United Church of Christ, which held its final worship on October 17 after 154 years; a member who was born into the church in 1958 submitted a letter tracing its history from an 1872 founding and the 1903 fire to the granite church at 400 High Street.
All seven councilors were present. The recording is on the city’s YouTube channel and the agenda is on the CivicClerk portal.
Update, November 2: At a special meeting on Monday, November 2 the council voted 6 to 0, with Lazzaro absent, to approve a revised request of $52,507.63 to fund the law department’s ordinary expenses for November plus $10,000 for legal services tied to the November 4 election, after Bears, Lazzaro, Mullane, the mayor and her chief of staff met that afternoon. The mayor’s letter says the administration will report quotes from five organizations able to audit the city’s legal spending before December 1; Mullane said posting the city solicitor position was also part of the agreement.
