Read Mayor Paul Brodeur's 2022 State Of The City Address

Good afternoon, Melrose, and thank you for tuning in to this 2022 State of the City. Thank you to MMTV for providing this opportunity for me to speak to you today. I am proud to stand before you today confident that the state of our city is strong and our future is bright.

It would have been impossible to imagine when I took office in November of 2019 that within a matter of weeks, we would be facing a global public health crisis.

Today, fortunately, we are at a different stage of dealing with the pandemic.

With the Omicron variant receding, there is a new sense of hopefulness that we are turning a corner and that a return to greater normalcy is in sight.

In today’s address, I will look back on how we as a City - and as a community - responded to the pandemic. And I will share with you our vision for how we can move forward together into our future.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge the losses experienced by so many in our community:

First and foremost, I want to extend my sincere condolences to the families of the 67 Melrosians who died due to contracting COVID-19.

We’ve experienced so much over these past two years, and we have gotten through these challenging times thanks to the tireless efforts of family, neighbors, faith leaders, community partners, and dedicated City staff.

Looking back on the early days of the pandemic, it’s incredible to think about the magnitude of the effort everyone undertook to adapt to what we eventually came to know as the “new normal”:

Our teachers, school staff, nurses and administrators introduced thousands of students to virtual learning, all while coping with pandemic stress of their own, and amid all the chaos caused by school and business closures.

Parents, too, were stretched thin, juggling childcare and work responsibilities throughout the shut-down, helping their children adjust to a new way of learning, all while accustoming themselves to virtual work environments and worrying about their own parents’ wellbeing.

During this time, our IT Department was tasked to deliver remote work solutions for both the schools and the City. That included approximately 700 staff in addition to the 4,000 students who would be learning from home. The City purchased over 1200 Chromebooks which our IT Department put into the hands of all students who needed one in order to work remotely during the 2020-2021 school year.

It wasn’t just our schools that pivoted to a virtual platform.

Under the leadership of our Library Director and her staff, the Melrose Public Library transitioned to contactless curbside pickup and took library services and programming online so residents of all ages could still have access to literature, entertainment, and the social connections of book clubs and story time...reminding us of why the Melrose Public Library is the heart of our community.

Our Council on Aging made it their number one priority to keep seniors engaged and safe during COVID-19. The COA created numerous virtual and outdoor events including a petting zoo and virtual bingo. They helped hundreds of residents without internet access or computers sign up for
vaccine clinics. They connected more seniors than ever before to resources and service providers.

Throughout the pandemic the Melrose Emergency Fund has been there for residents facing financial hardship. The mission of the Emergency Fund is to connect and provide Melrose residents in need with the resources, programs, and financial assistance they require to strengthen our community.

Melrose Helps was a group of volunteers who supported vulnerable residents during the shut-down by making grocery deliveries, ensured elders and people with disabilities got their prescriptions filled, and providing much needed supplies, including face masks, or simply being a friendly voice on the other end of the phone.

I’d like to take this moment to thank all the dedicated City Staff who coordinated Melrose Helps and the hundreds of volunteers who participated in this effort.

And I thank our Police, Fire and our Department of Public Works that adapted to ever-changing conditions and continued to serve our residents with distinction.

I hope you all will always look back with pride and satisfaction on what you did to care for your neighbors during this extremely challenging time. Your efforts will never be forgotten.

To me, you're all superheroes, and I hope you join me in recognizing how much we’ve truly overcome together...how incredibly resilient our community – city and school staff, teachers and administrators, parents and children – have all been.

The wellbeing of our community was also affected in other ways by national events. In 2020, the interconnected crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and the new beginning of a much-delayed conversation on race and equity sparked by the killing of George Floyd and other people of color, presented challenges to every community in the United States.

What did Melrose do? Inspired and led by a Melrose High student Jackson Sourice, over a thousand people gathered peacefully on the Lynn Fells Parkway to ask for change. To ask that we live up to the ideals expressed in our founding documents.

As initial steps, our HR Department provided all department heads and managers training on unconscious bias and best practices in the workplace to promote inclusivity, and broadened the scope of our recruitment strategies.

I created a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Taskforce to advise me. Working with Visions, Inc., we have engaged the community through a community survey and focus groups, which will provide the basis for further community engagement and dialog to help guide us to additional city investments in this important work.

For us to succeed, for us to work toward our motto of being one community open to all, we all have to share in the desire and commitment to do this work and to do with grace, openness, and respect.

In 2021, when the COVID-19 vaccine became available, our Health Department immediately began working with our surrounding communities, Malden, Medford, Wakefield, Winchester, and Stoneham to provide information and access to vaccinations to our residents.

With the help of hundreds of volunteers and coordination by the Council on Aging, Memorial Hall, the Health Department, Fire and Police Departments, Department of Public Works, and City staff from several departments, we held a series of vaccine clinics throughout the late winter and spring of 2021.

These clinics were truly an enormous lift and provided incredible value to our
community.

Vaccination efforts continued throughout 2021 with mobile clinics at the Summer Stroll, in the fall for teachers and students, and booster clinics for various age groups later on.

These clinics were well-run operations, and everyone who made them possible and all who attended deserve our gratitude:

Thank you for stepping up, looking after each other, and helping to keep our Melrose safe.

Through your efforts, Melrose became one of the most vaccinated communities in Massachusetts, with 91% of eligible residents having received at least one vaccination and approximately 80% of eligible residents being fully vaccinated.

When the COVID-19 made gathering and socializing indoors problematic, our Office of Planning and Community Development and DPW collaborated with the Ped/Bike Committee to obtain a Shared Streets and Spaces grant to fund the construction and installation of four downtown parklets. These parklets enlivened our downtown, and above all, gave everyone the opportunity to socialize safely outdoors.

The city also sponsored several public art installations as part of our streetscapes initiatives. These efforts, including the reimagining of Central Terrace, enliven our public spaces, draw foot traffic (and customers) to our downtown, and encourage visitors from outside of Melrose to explore our city.

During this same time, our DPW worked with the Mayor’s Office to pilot our Slow Streets initiative that allowed neighborhoods to advocate for and help design traffic calming measures that made the streets safer and more livable for all.

We also closed the Fellsway to cars so that everyone could enjoy what was – at least for one afternoon - largest public park in Melrose outside of Mount Hood.

This emphasis on increased outdoor living was in an effort to improve our quality of life at a particularly challenging time but also serves as a roadmap to a more vibrant future for our walkable, bikeable community.

Looking ahead, the success of our programs and initiatives going forward depends on these same folks whose dedication to our community often goes overlooked or underappreciated.

To our staff, I thank each and every one of you for your continued dedication to public service.

As we look forward to what lies ahead for the City of Melrose, we want you to know we have not forgotten all you went through during the pandemic and we do not take your work for granted.

During this year’s inaugural ceremonies, I designated 2022 as the year of Community Health and Wellness in Melrose.

We recognize the stress of the pandemic is still weighing on all of us.

But we hope this upcoming year can be about gains: regaining our sense of community. Regaining life as we used to know it. Helping everyone feel a little more stable and grounded with every day that passes.

And as I speak to you today, plans are already underway to develop and coordinate programs, resources, and initiatives that will support the social, mental and physical health of residents of all ages.

Today, we are taking an important step towards achieving that goal: I am pleased to announce the formation of a new Health and Human Services Department for the City of Melrose.

This change in name and focus will promote coordination between all the departments that are already on the front lines of meeting the economic and social-emotional needs of residents, including the Council on Aging, Veterans, Library, and Recreation Departments.

The reorganization will expand the reach of the Health Department to better serve Melrose residents by coordinating our existing public health resources and expanding our staffing to respond to the increasing need for access to mental health and social services.

Emily Hatchouel joined our team earlier this year as Melrose’s full-time Public Health Specialist, a role previously known as the Substance Use Prevention Coordinator. Emily will provide substance use support and resources to our youth, and additional health and wellness support to our community members of all ages.

The Police Department also recently brought on board a social worker through our partnership with Eliot Community Human Services. Toni Corcoran joined the Melrose and Stoneham Police Departments early this year as their on-call clinician; she comes to the work with a background in substance use prevention which I know will be valuable to Melrose as we continue to address this critical issue.

I am pleased to announce that we are now poised to hire Melrose’s first full- time community social worker. This new role will complement the work being done by our part-time social worker, Rachael Cordella, who joined the Council on Aging last year to serve primarily our older residents.

In the year ahead, in consultation with our Director of Health and Human Services, we will continue to evaluate the need to deploy additional City resources to respond to demand for access to social services and substance use prevention.

In particular, we know that our children and teens have been experiencing an increase in anxiety and depressive symptoms, including an increase in kids reporting suicidal thoughts. Our children often struggle to find the words or skills to cope with the difficult feelings that loss of life brings. It can be confusing and frustrating for them, and like us, they may want answers to questions that we as parents are sometimes not equipped to provide.

It is clear that there are not enough mental health clinicians available to meet the needs being experienced here in Melrose and throughout the region. There are shortages of resources for treatment and counseling that are beyond the power of any single community to address. However, we can do more to support our kids and families during this challenging time.

In an ongoing collaboration between the City and Melrose Public Schools, we have been consulting with local and regional experts, as well as various community partners, on the best ways to respond to the mental health needs of children and There is clear need for mental health awareness programs and greater clarity of what services are already available.

I particularly want to highlight resources like Hand Hold. Hand Hold was created by a team of mental health and child development experts with a goal to guide parents and guardians in caring for their child’s mental health and emotional well-being. They offer a variety of tips, tools, and resources from health experts, including child psychiatrists, social workers, and psychologists, as well as parents who have experienced similar challenges.

I am also eager to build on the successful Parent University series, a program of the Melrose Education Foundation, another important community partner in this effort. We will work to create a library of resources based on the great work they are already doing, and expand the opportunities for educating parents and care givers about youth mental health.

Finally, we are looking at “soft” approaches, including expanding our Recreation Department offerings to meet the social-emotional needs of more kids, expanding our outdoor recreational opportunities, and finding ways to increase social connections for people of all ages.

There is no one way to “solve” this problem, but I am committed to putting resources towards serving the needs of our kids and families, and I am eager to hear your ideas about meaningful ways to help improve the quality of life for the children and youth in our community.

In addition to all the impacts to the wellbeing of our residents, the pandemic continues to have a major impact on the health of our local businesses.

We recognize the stress that Melrose’s entrepreneurs, workers, and freelancers are facing due to the disruption of normal commerce and the current level of uncertainty of supply chain disruptions, difficulty in recruiting workers and increasing labor and materials costs.

There is much to be done to support our businesses so that our local economy can thrive in the years ahead. I am committed to reversing the economic impact the pandemic has had on our community and creating new opportunities for growth. That’s why I am very excited to announce that we have hired our first-ever Economic Development Director, Lauren Grymek. Lauren is well known to many of us as a past Executive Director of the Melrose Chamber of Commerce. She will be joining the Mayor’s Office starting next month and I know she will hit the ground running.

Lauren’s job will be to support our local small businesses and our non-profit, arts and culture sector and creative economy, by improving communication between the City and the business community and finding creative ways the City can support existing businesses and attract new ones, including building on the success of our Pop-Up pilot program.

I also want to emphasize that there is something important that every one of us can do to help our local businesses recover: commit to buying local.

That is why I will continue my Good Morning with the Mayor tour throughout this winter and spring, featuring a different coffee shop every Friday morning. In a world of email and social media, the ability to meet informally with folks on a face-to-face basis is more important than ever. Please keep an eye out for my next tour-stop and swing by to share your thoughts, opinions or just to say hello.

And please, continue to support our shops downtown and throughout the city: get takeout at least once a week if you can. Try someplace new, some businesses are hurting more than others.

The next time you need a gift, buy an art print, handmade candle, or a piece of artisan pottery made right here in Melrose. Invite your friends from out of town to dine here, to shop here for a day, to go for a walk in the Fells once all the snow melts and the ground thaws. Buy your Mother’s Day bouquet at a local florist.

There is so much we can to do that makes a big difference to our local economy, and every bit helps restore the health and vibrancy of our community.

An economically healthy community is also a community that invests in its infrastructure.

One of the most satisfying accomplishments of the past year was securing a $10 Million grant from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners that is allowing us to move forward with renovating the Melrose Public Library. With the City Council’s approval of the project’s financing, we’ve begun the final phase of design for the library’s addition and renovation, and we aim to break ground later this year. A great library supports a great community, and I know we will be reaping the rewards of doing this project for generations to come.

And despite the pandemic, thanks to prudent financial planning by our CFO and the City Council, we have been able to make significant investments in almost all of the top capital priorities in the 2019 Capital Improvement Program. Since the release of that report, the city has funded the following projects:

• A generator for City Hall to bolster our resiliency;
• Repair of the rear apparatus floor at Fire HQ;
• New SCUBA gear;
• A new ambulance, pumper, and ladder truck for our Fire Department
• Library renovation
• Memorial Hall building envelope repairs
• Almost a half-million dollars in playground upgrades and improvements
• Needed capital investments in our schools, including roofs

I want to build upon these accomplishments:

That’s why I just sent an order to the City Council asking them to authorize an additional investment of free cash to fund restoration work to complete all needed exterior repairs to Memorial Hall.

And that’s why I am proud to report on the significant progress we are making on the critical task of advancing the Public Safety Buildings project, which had been dormant since 2018.

I have convened a talented and highly motivated group of citizen volunteers for our reestablished Public Safety Building Committee. Led by Jeff McNaught and Eugenia Gibbons, the committee is are hard at work assessing the 2017 consultant’s report with a commitment to developing via a robust public process viable options and costs for a project that would provide the updated facilities that our police and fire departments need to do their jobs effectively to serve the Melrose community.

We’re also committed to addressing long-standing accessibility issues in Melrose. We recently applied for and received a grant to conduct an ADA Accessibility Self-Assessment and Transition Plan. The goal of this plan is to evaluate the City’s services, policies, and practices, including physical access to City-owned buildings and facilities, and provide recommendations that result in a more usable, inclusive, and welcoming environment for all members of the Melrose community.

Ongoing investments in our roads and sidewalks continue to make our streets safer and more attractive to people of ages and abilities who want to walk or bike in the City. We will continue to pursue funding to support our ability to address traffic concerns in neighborhoods and make intersection improvements to promote safety and speed reduction.

I’m excited to share that our DWP Engineering Division is in the process of developing a traffic calming tool kit that will serve as a best-practices guide for dealing with traffic concerns in our neighborhoods.

Once this tool kit is finalized, we will be able to make data-informed decisions about where to launch the next stage in our efforts to slow traffic and improve transportation safety for people who walk, bike, drive, or use public transportation in our City.

We will also continue to make investments in parks and recreation, including improvements to the sports facilities near the high school and Ell Pond, improved playground equipment, and additional courts for pickleball and basketball, including constructing the Amazing Grace Basketball Court on the High School campus.

All of these infrastructure initiatives support our community goals of health and wellness for people of all ages and abilities, and I’m excited to be moving them forward.

In thinking about our community character, it is clear to me that Melrose is a City rich with diverse opinions and perspectives, and all of us certainly don’t always agree on every issue.

However, most Melrosians share a couple important things in common: we all want what’s best for our city, our kids, our parents, our community, and we’re not afraid to wear our pride and love of Melrose on our sleeves. In the weeks and months ahead, I am committed to increasing our ability to bridge our differences through community-building events and conversations that promote understanding. I look forward to consulting with professionals who help communities like ours develop the skills we need to engage in productive and civil dialog, so we can find new ways to listen to each other when we disagree, especially when we are dealing with challenging issues.

Community-wide events will continue to be an important way that we promote civic engagement, build community spirit, and provide enjoyment of our beautiful City to residents and visitors alike. These events are also a great source of pride for all the dedicated volunteers who organize them. For the first time since the onset of the pandemic, I’m thrilled to announce that the Melrose Reads Program has just launched a Community-Wide Book Reads Program in collaboration with the Melrose Public Library and Melrose Public School.

The goal of the program is to promote community education and engagement through a collective experience of literacy.

This year’s book is American Like Me: Reflections of Life Between Cultures, by America Ferrera.

Through this program, we hope to promote excitement around reading in Melrose and engage all of our community members, especially those who are continuing to experience isolation and feelings of loneliness, in a shared experience of reading.

And reading the book is just the beginning. There will also be a program of events, projects, and community initiatives centered around the themes of the book. Make plans now to read the book now so you can join the fun later.

In April, we are looking forward to this year’s Earth Week celebrations, building on the incredible success we had last year with programs such as our Electric Vehicle Parade and Keep Melrose Beautiful Litter Letters.

And in other exciting spring news, I’m pleased to announce the return of Healthy Melrose on May 7th:

Healthy Melrose will look a little different this year, and in the best of ways. Last year, this was a virtual event, but this spring we will be back in-person on Fred Green Field. And the focus of the event has been expanded.

In addition to the traditional activities and vendors, we will be focusing on promoting mental health and wellbeing across all age groups.

We’re adding activities that will aim to provide a sense of relief and community, maybe even spark healing. There will be yoga, massage therapists, exercise (for those who partake), and our library staff. We have also asked the Department of Mental Health, Project Bread as well as other non-profits and agencies that support community health and wellbeing to participate.

While we look forward to a full return of Memorial Day in 2023, we will continue to find ways to acknowledge the sacrifices made by our veterans and their families, including honoring Vietnam Veterans Day this March, when we will dedicate the Bill Forbes Path along Ell Pond. I’m also very pleased to note that the Veterans Roll to Washington program will resume this year for the first time since 2020. Roll 2 DC gives Vietnam- era veterans from Melrose, Wakefield and Saugus the chance to tour Washington, D.C. in and finally have a “Welcome Home Experience.” Please look for ways that you can support this effort and make a difference in the life of a veteran.

In June, we will once again have Pride and Juneteenth celebrations, and of course, will look forward to another successful Summer Stroll and Victorian Fair later this summer and fall.

We know just how much all these events mean to Melrosians, and they will be all the more meaningful because of the years of absence.

Finally, over the past several months, our administration has been in the process of collecting and evaluating proposals from City departments for the use of the funds Melrose will receive through American Rescue Plan Act (or ARPA). To-date, we have received millions of dollars of proposals, reflecting a wide range of important needs.

Later this week, my office will release the Melrose Community Needs Assessment Survey. We will be asking residents and business owners (many of you are both!) to put a series of community needs in order of priority and share your ideas for how to invest these funds wisely

To be truly reflective of the community priorities, we need feedback from everyone - our residents of all ages, and our local business owners, entrepreneurs, artists and performers. So please, when you see the survey, please take it and share it with your friends and neighbors.

We will use the results of this survey to help prioritize the use the funds we have received through American Rescue Plan Act, as well as any other additional resources provided by the state and federal government over the next two years.

In conclusion, I want to say how proud I am of our City, for the incredible spirit of volunteerism and resiliency of our residents, and for all the great talent, artistry, and entrepreneurship that thrives here. Melrose is the city I grew up in, the City I’ve raised my family in. To this day, I’m amazed at how lucky I am to be the Mayor of this wonderful City.

I wake up every day grateful for the opportunity to serve the community I love.

I am grateful to the colleagues I see every day at City Hall and in every department. For my partners on the City Council and the School Committee, the members of our boards and commissions, and for every person I get to interact with in the course of a regular day...folks who live here, run their businesses in our downtown, and the inspiring students who come to talk to me about the issues they care about.

Over the past two years we have had to deal with unprecedented challenges, and I know we all are more than ready to help Melrose close the COVID-19 chapter.

I am eager to help move Melrose forward, building on all the lessons learned we have learned and using the City’s resources to meet our needs, not just to recover but to become the City we want to be.

Ultimately, all these accomplishments and plans are about is helping people and making things a bit better than they were. Whether you your family goes back several generations or you just arrived here in Melrose, this is your home and you have a stake in its future and we all have a stake in each other’s well being. Together, we will continue to reinforce our shared values of compassion, empathy, and care for others that shone brightly over the past two years, and to move Melrose forward to an even better and brighter future.