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Coming up:
Finance Committee Meeting Monday 11/9 virtually at 7 pm: In addition to our regular updates on covid-19 fiscal impact and emergency spending, we will be taking up the first part of docket item #134-20 “Discussion on easing the tax burden on low- and fixed income Newton residents,” of which I am the lead sponsor. (More info in the February newsletter when I introduced the item.) We will probably keep this discussion going over the coming weeks and months as we try to find new revenues from sources that can afford to take on a greater share of paying for the cost of our city services and facilities.
Zoning redesign work will be continuing at the same time in the Zoning & Planning Committee. You can read my first major review of the zoning redesign process and progress in last week’s newsletter if you haven’t done so already. As I emphasized at the Newton Highlands Area Council meeting last week, constituents should always feel free to email or call me with their questions, concerns, or suggestions about zoning reform. We have a long way to go in this process and we are constantly making revisions based on public feedback. However, I am not on the Zoning & Planning Committee, so you might also want to talk to the committee chair, Deb Crossley, one of your at-large Councilors for Ward 5.
Week-in-review:
This was another relatively light week in terms of City Council committee schedules, but we did have a full meeting of the City Council and we finally voted on the Indigenous Peoples’ Day docket item. (You can read my detailed analysis of this item from September here and my memo from October with Councilor Greenberg on our efforts to seek a separate resolution to the question of celebrating Italian-American heritage.)
There was a 22-2 vote by the full Council to adopt an amendment seeking to fix the initial language slightly and to add a point for the Mayor, School Committee, & City Council to designate a new Italian-American Heritage Day to be determined later. (There was a 17-7 vote against deferring the entire thing in favor of a Working Group.) With this amendment secured, the overall Indigenous Peoples’ Day item was approved and the Mayor has announced the change will be implemented on city calendars. Votes against that amendment (and in the final vote) were Councilors Ciccone (Ward 1 at Large) and Gentile (Ward 4 at Large).
Docket review:
#438-20 Request for creation of Trust in Newton to support affordable housing development - COUNCILORS ALBRIGHT, CROSSLEY, HUMPHREY, DANBERG, MALAKIE, KELLEY, BOWMAN, KALIS, GREENBERG, DOWNS, WRIGHT, RYAN, NOEL, LEARY, LIPOF, NORTON, MARKIEWICZ and GROSSMAN requesting the Planning Department analyze mechanisms already in use in other cities and towns, identify funding sources, and create a Housing Trust in Newton to facilitate and foster the development of affordable housing in Newton.
#436-20 Adoption of a Resolution in support of requiring permits for phosphorus discharge - COUNCILORS NORTON, BAKER, BOWMAN, DOWNS, KALIS, LAREDO, LEARY, MARKIEWICZ, WRIGHT and HUMPHREY requesting the adoption of a resolution that the City Council go on record in support of US EPA requiring large sources of phosphorus pollution into the Charles River and its tributaries and streams to obtain stormwater discharge permits under the Clean Water Act.
The City’s Fiscal Situation
In the interest of containing the length of the past few newsletters, I did not write an update about the city finances, but back on October 19, we did hear the annual presentation from Mayor Fuller, the City CFO, and the City COO on the city’s projected fiscal situation and capital improvement plans.
You will not be surprised to hear that the fiscal outlook has worsened as a result of the covid-19 pandemic and associated economic recession, and local governments don’t have the ability to do deficit-spending during a crisis. There were big hits to pandemic-affected business taxes such as meals taxes and hotel room taxes as well as parking meter revenues outside our businesses. Interest income declined, vehicle excise taxes fell, ticket revenues dried up, and so on. Even after increased revenues related to fees, permitting, and levies for new construction and renovations, the drop-off added up to a few million dollars.
But we are in a better position to deal with that hit than we might have been in the past due to some fairly significant re-organizing of city finances since the last recession and preparation for emergencies like this one. That being said, there will still be some fairly immediate consequences beyond the budget and capital spending cuts already made back in the spring.
Some of the major projects now on hold:
Newton Early Childhood Program (at renovated 687 Watertown Street)
Project was ready to bid in Spring when put on hold
Lincoln-Eliot at 150 Jackson Road
Project was in feasibility stage when put on hold
Children’s Room Expansion at Newton Free Library
Project was ready to bid in Spring when put on hold
Countryside/Franklin/Ward/Underwood/Horace Mann Elementary School Renovations
All planning for these projects was put on hold in Spring. Massachusetts School Building Authority submission work continues for 2021.
Unfortunately, the section of Chestnut Street from Route 9 to Beacon St that everyone has very patiently waited through many work delays to see rebuilt is now instead going to get a curb-to-curb patch next spring for that whole length, rather than a full milling-and-paving job, and there will be no changes to the curbs as hoped for at community listening sessions in previous years. The one possible upside to a lighter repaving job next year is that it means the desired curb changes for road safety and improved pedestrian access can still be done several years from now if money becomes available again. In the interim, the City will explore more temporary traffic calming and safety measures with new paint lines and flex-poles as a way of less expensively testing potential curb and crossing changes for the future.
Some people (including me as a freshman councilor) had been wondering whether or not the city would be dipping into the “rainy day fund” we have been amassing over the past decade, given the level of emergency conditions right now. The administration has decided that it will attempt to manage the “known unknown” emergency circumstances with moving other money around (and hopefully getting federal emergency reimbursements as often as possible) and will only resort to using the rainy day fund for “unknown unknowns” outside of the current pandemic situation, such as things taking a dramatic turn for the further worse in some unexpected way or a gigantic storm hitting.
Covid-19 update
The uncontained spread of covid-19 continues in Massachusetts and cases in Newton are rising with that. Over the course of the year, Newton has had more cases and more deaths than the entire nation of Vietnam. While I believe Governor Baker’s latest orders are ridiculously compromised from a public health standpoint in the name of capitalist profits, it is worth knowing what these new restrictions are. If you missed the Mayor’s email yesterday, here’s the latest summary of the directives from the Governor (I won’t get into the schools issue here):
Governor Baker has new mask and gathering orders and a stay home advisory that went into effect [Friday 11/6]:
Wear a face covering at all times in public places, even if distance can be maintained.
Follow the new gathering limits and physical distancing orders both at home and in public settings/event venues. Indoor and outdoor gatherings at private residences are limited to 10 people – keep this in mind for holiday plans. In addition, “All (gathering) participants … must maintain at least 6 feet of distance from every other participant at the gathering, except where participants are members of the same household.”
Stay home between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., except to go to work or school, or for essential needs such as seeking emergency medical care.
[...]
Staying home in the evening hours when social gatherings often take place and limiting the size of gatherings helps reduce the number of close contacts we have. If you’re considering an activity with people outside your own household, think about what you will do and how many close contacts there will be if someone who attends later tests positive for COVID-19. If the activity would create close contacts outside your household, reconsider participating.
As an individual leader and your City Councilor I would add the reminder, which should be obvious to all, that the virus spreads during the day too, and there is no magical time of day or indoor location type where the airborne virus does not spread. You should exercise appropriate caution far beyond these orders. We have lost too many people, including lately some of the people who were believed to have recovered but eventually succumbed later to the long-term complications of the disease.
This has been a tremendously difficult year for all of us, with many hard months still to come, but by working together and putting the safety of the collective whole first, we can contain this pandemic and get to the other side faster.