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I ended up delaying this week’s newsletter by one day because there is very little happening on my official or political calendar this week. (Not counting me heading back to coaching at the Newton South Speech & Debate Team after a year away while I ran for City Council.) I figured I would include this week’s Finance Committee recap now instead of waiting until next week. Next Monday is a holiday and next Tuesday we have a full City Council meeting, and I’ll have some docket commentary on new filings.
Also a quick reminder from my colleague Councilor Bowman via Twitter that Newton is updating its Open Space and Recreation Plan and you should complete an online survey this week before 2/13 with your thoughts.
Coming Up (Feb 11-17, Partial Calendar)
Tonight (Tuesday) - Not sure if I will be able to attend myself but there is another Riverside proposal hearing at Land Use in the City Council chambers. The meeting starts at 7 PM with smaller matters first up on the agenda.
Wednesday Newton South Climate Day - In addition to my colleague Councilor Norton, I will be a panelist at one of the Newton South panels on a climate change teach-in event for students this Wednesday. I’ll be on an afternoon panel about Political Action.
Waban Area Council Monthly Meeting Thursday, February 13th 7:30 pm at the Waban Library Center - Agenda items include Update on Public Safety and Transportation Committee by Councilor Downs; Discussion on Northland Referendum by Rena Getz; Open Space Initiative and Survey - Bob Jampol
Note: Update for Cogen at NWH, including specs on the plant will be provided in March according to WAC President Chris Pitts
Concurrently on Thursday night there will be a League of Women Voters forum on the Northland Referendum. Info here.
Sunday Feb 16 at 2 PM, 26 Blake St Newtonville: I will be officially kicking off the Bernie 2020 field campaign operation in Newton as one of their local elected official endorsers. The Democratic presidential primary election in Massachusetts (in which I’m also running for Democratic State Committee) is March 3rd. I’ll be speaking at the event about why I’m supporting our next Democratic nominee, Senator Sanders, and then getting people out to knock doors here in Newton. In 2016, one of the strongest Newton precincts for Sanders was Newton Upper Falls (Ward 5, Precinct 1), along with the precincts of Ward 1 (Nonantum/Newton Corner) and the precinct of Ward 7 with Boston College.
Looking Further Ahead: Last week I made a small error in my newsletter note about the upcoming office hours. The corrected info on the first one is that I will be joining my Ward 5-at-Large Colleague Andreae Downs at her office hours at the Waban Starbucks at 10 AM on Saturday Feb 22. Hope to see you there.
My Week-in-Review (Feb 3-10)
City Council Full Meeting Last Monday - This one was relatively uneventful in that we ended up postponing some of the more controversial items to deal with later, possibly with changes in the interim. You can read my notes here. I raised some concerns regarding some natural gas capacity expansions that did not seem to me to be genuinely safety-driven as opposed to inducing demand – and unfortunately the gas company hadn’t responded to committee questions about that until right before the full Council meeting – but I did not have the votes to do much about the situation. Some councilors have argued that this was a routine matter not worth discussing, but I do feel that we should be acutely aware of every single decision made on fossil fuel infrastructure right now, given the climate situation, and that some things that might have been “routine” in the past probably aren’t so banal now. At any rate, I said my piece about the matter, even if some councilors were upset with me about having to stay later than usual.
If you have heard about a recent Open Meeting Law complaint filed against the City Council and had questions, please read the official statement to the public from our Council President Susan Albright. We want to make sure there isn't any public confusion about the complaint or the Council's position on it.
Land Use Hearings on Marijuana Stores - I sat in on part of this committee hearing. Unfortunately, my specific questions were cut off by the Chair, but I brought them to the Council President directly, who in turn brought them to the Mayor. I’m sure I’ll have more to say on this in a future newsletter, if and when these applications come to the full City Council. As a reminder, please email all comments on pending Land Use matters to the entire City Council (citycouncil at newtonma dot gov). And as I noted in a prior newsletter, the process at this point (due to state law and city ordinance) is relatively narrowly focused on specific legally defined special permit requirements, mostly about issues of traffic, proposed site design, public safety, hours of operation, appointment conditions, parking and so on. The Council is unlikely to reject the application based on other grounds as long as those special permit requirements are met. If you have feedback on the overall petition or on ways it could be improved, it is recommended that you focus your public comments or emails on those specific criteria – and not on the issue of marijuana itself or even on overall location (a zoning matter).
Programs & Services Meeting - We had a discussion of staff directories and best practices, the 2020 Census, and temporarily moving a polling location (Ward 2, Precinct 1) to the Albemarle Field House for the duration of 2020 due to construction/renovation at the Old Horace Mann. Here are some of my notes:
This is the first year ever that the City of Newton's Customer Service staff (who also manage the 311 request tracking system) has been fully filled with no vacancies, which seems to be helping constituents reach a human at City Hall who can help them with what they need. We discussed the importance of a human response to constituents to get them to the correct department and correct staffer (which is our current approach) rather than referring people to an automated phone tree and having them guess who they should be speaking to.
We also talked during this meeting at some length about the census count process and the critical importance of getting everyone counted to maintain our federal funding. Thank you to resident and longtime activist Josephine McNeil for making sure this got on our docket and for attending the meeting to speak on the issue. Every municipality has its own specific challenges in getting accurately counted. In Newton we especially need to work to be sure college students, people with disabilities, immigrants, African-American residents, and low-income residents get counted. I noted the large Chinese immigrant community & growing community of unrelated adult renters both significant in parts of Ward 5 as something to focus on. Councilor Holly Ryan noted that some activists in the LGBTQ+ community are boycotting the US Census due to the Trump Admin's removal of counting that community, but she also noted that this brings up countervailing pressures to get money brought in for other services, even non-specific services, that LGBTQ people rely on. I also asked about the re-precincting process, which will happen in 2021 (this term!), and which I'll be a part of automatically as ward councilor – which is great because I’ve done a lot of walking around knocking doors over the years and I know the precinct lines pretty well, and specifically which ones don’t quite make sense.
As noted in last week’s newsletter, I did not attend this month’s Newton Highlands Area Council meeting due to a schedule conflict. But I read the minutes so I’m up to speed. I just can’t recap it for my own readers firsthand. Sorry!
Safe Routes Task Force Meeting - I sat in on this month’s Safe Routes to School Task Force meeting at the Waban Library Center on Friday morning, along with a number of my City Council colleagues and School Committee Members. The biggest topic was safety around Memorial-Spaulding Elementary School on the south side of the city in Ward 8, but also about the policies at other elementary schools that affect safety around dropoff and pickup times. The comment that really stood out to me was a parent who said, "We shouldn't feel like we live on an island, 3 blocks away from our school, with no way to get there safely on foot." Safe Routes to School is a Mass DOT project, and we have a Newton task force that meets each month.
Newton Highlands Soup Social - We had another great Newton Highlands Soup Social this past Saturday evening, this year run directly by the Hyde Center for the first time.
Finance Committee Meeting - Here’s what we dealt with this Monday(all unanimous votes of those present):
#115-20: "authorization to accept and expend a forty-three thousand nine hundred and forty-three dollar ($43,943) grant from the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security for the purpose of funding overtime to have Police Officers monitor high accident locations and conduct traffic enforcement through written warnings and/or citations." To get the grant from the state, they submitted 10 specific locations for monitoring. It's possible to add or subtract locations off the list as they go, if conditions evolve, with state approval. I asked a question about enforcement vs design, in terms of street safety, and what happens after the enforcement period ends when the grant money ends (since we can’t just briefly ticket our way out of a long-term design problem). This is really more of an enforcement grant than a bigger picture grant. But once the money runs out, they would try to get additional NHTSA money to keep the enforcement going. 842 estimated patrol hours total in this grant. Some of the locations relevant to Ward 5 specifically are Needham St, Waban Square area (3 intersections), and Washington St @ Beacon St. Others also probably affect residents as well but are outside Ward 5.
We very quickly went through #379-19(7) to amend the funding source for Webster Woods acquisition. There turned out to be no discussion or questions after a very brief presentation from the Planning Dept explaining the change, because everyone was satisfied with the amendment as explained to us.
The bulk of the meeting time was spent going through a summary presentation of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) and external audit reports for fiscal year ending June 30, 2019
An item for additional snow & ice removal money authorization was held instead of approved, at the request of the Administration, due to the recent fortuitous weather not making it necessary quite yet.
#116-20 was from our Treasury Department asking for approval for a 5-year contract for online payment services with the vendor as chosen by the RFP evaluation committee (anything over 3 years requires Council approval). There was a bid process, but in the end the contract was renewed with the existing vendor (obviously it's less disruptive for both staff and city residents to stick with the existing vendor if we're happy with it). We approved this as well.
#111-20 was a reappointment of the director of our board of assessors. And then we adjourned.