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Hello again, folks. I did not put out a newsletter last week because the City Council had a pretty light schedule the past couple of weeks, but I do have some updates for you now ahead of tonight’s City Council meeting.
As public officials and citizens, we’re all basically grappling with some combination of the following three things right now: the public health crisis of the pandemic itself, the greatest economic depression of the past century (i.e., likely eclipsing the Great Depression of the 1930s), and attempting to continue as much “business as usual” work as possible to avoid falling too far behind on everything.
I do not personally have a large role on the first of these (the public health crisis), other than passing along guidance from public health professionals and urging everyone to take this very seriously. (I am also available to check in by phone on you or someone you know in Ward 5, if you need me to. I can put you in touch with various resources if you need some help.)
On the economic front, we are in unprecedented waters, not just in the scale and scope of the situation but also because the conditions and accelerants of this recession are so utterly different from “normal recession” conditions. What needs to be emphasized at this point unfortunately is that development of a vaccine is likely to take a year and a half, and it might not be a matter of weeks or even a couple more months before isolation orders are lifted. Lifting them prematurely will likely lead to even more disastrous outcomes than what we are already locked into at this point. This is likely to be our “new normal” for quite some time, unless our public officials are reckless enough to try to “reopen the economy” at the cost of millions of lives. I hope they are not.
What I am working on during this economic crisis is supporting emergency measures to stabilize (or at least provide a safety net to) people’s finances long enough to either get us through this or get us to a more comprehensive federal/state economic response than has been provided so far. The longer we can keep people from losing all their savings, healthcare access, homes, and businesses, the more likely we are to avoid years or decades of economic losses (as well as obviously human losses, which is the primary concern as noted above).
To that end, there are three things locally you need to know about:
Local tax collection has been delayed in the City of Newton under state legislation passed last week:
Last Friday, Mayor Fuller announced the extensions in her newsletter: “I will extend the due date of the 4th quarter property tax bills from May 1 to June 1, the last day allowed by the legislation. I will extend the deadline for filing applications for property tax exemptions and property tax deferrals from April 1 to June 1, 2020, again the last date allowed. I will waive the payment of interest and other penalties on late payments that were due after March 10, 2020 and paid before June 30, 2020, for any excise tax, betterment assessment, water or sewer bill, or other charge added to a tax.”
There will obviously be huge fiscal implications to this (along with our declines in many other expected revenue sources), but as we have been discussing on the Finance Committee and Programs & Services Committee regularly with our city CFO, we understand that many residents suddenly have no income with which to pay their tax bills, and we as your government don’t want to add pain to that if we can figure out how to avoid it. (We also don’t want to make huge spending cuts suddenly either because that would be taking income away from a lot of workers who need it as well. It’s a difficult balancing act.)
The city-approved private relief fund through United Way Mass Bay is now funded to the tune of $300,000 (and counting) and is now accepting applications for emergency assistance to Newton residents: https://unitedwaymassbay.org/covid-19/newton-covid-19-care-fund/get-help/ (If you are in a financial position to help donate to the fund, the information page is here: https://unitedwaymassbay.org/covid-19/newton-covid-19-care-fund/) “The funds will help pay for rent, food, utilities, internet connectivity for families with school-aged children, childcare, medications and other basic needs.”
Request for creation of rental assistance program during COVID-19 using CPC funds (docket item #227-20): I have just introduced legislation, supported by Council President Susan Albright, Vice President Rick Lipof, my Ward 5 colleagues Councilors Downs & Crossley, as well as Councilors Bowman, Ryan, Greenberg, Grossman, Kalis, Kelley, and Wright (and likely others signing on later) asking the Community Preservation Committee and Planning Department to develop a rental assistance program for Newton citizens unable to pay rent during the COVID-19 emergency using Community Preservation funds of other funding programs under city control, using guidelines developed by the Massachusetts Housing Partnership and/or other appropriate guidelines. We should have more details next week as it makes its way through committee.
While some Americans will be receiving federal stop-gap assistance of about $1200, that is not very much money to cover a family’s combined ongoing and emergency expenses, and not everyone is receiving the money immediately. Whatever we can do to address that locally, I’m happy to work on. Much of that, by law, can only be addressed at the state level. Our rental assistance proposal is one unusual exception.
And finally, as I mentioned at the beginning, the other part of my job during this crisis is trying to keep business as usual moving along to the extent practicable. If you need help tuning in to one of our virtual City Council (or Council Committee) meetings by phone or video conference, please let me know, and I will help you out. You can also refer back to my March 16 newsletter for a detailed guide on how to read and understand our Council schedule documents to know what is being discussed when.
Tonight we have a full City Council meeting at 7:45 PM. We expect to be voting on the following matters: four commission appointments, accepting a donation of athletic field light equipment for Newton South (I will be voting in favor!), several state grants to our departments, some minor utility installation matters, and various fiscal transfers (including CPC funds to allow Newton Housing Authority to acquire the CAN-DO portfolio of affordable housing units). We will also be voting on emergency funding for the pandemic (which we hope to recover later with federal & state assistance) and some funding for Horace Mann Elementary School upgrade projects (although due to the crisis we have for now unfortunately had to reduce the dollar amount originally planned, so we can focus on essential projects, but we had a thorough committee discussion on this decision).
Other Ward 5 updates:
Sadly, the Newton Highlands Area Council’s beloved annual Village Day celebration for June has been canceled this year due to the pandemic.
Likewise, the Waban Improvement Society has canceled the Waban Village Day that would have been in May.
One other note: we on the Council have gotten a lot of emails about non-essential construction sites, since there are serious health & safety concerns and we don’t want N95 masks being diverted away from the healthcare sector. Please be assured that I share this concern and have been emailing and calling about it to express my view that non-essential construction should be halted for the safety of the workers and others (as well as to be fair to contractors who have already halted operations), and I think “non-essential construction” should be accurately defined, not broadly defined. Like many municipal officials around the Boston region, I believe Governor Baker made a very poor decision on trying to keep most construction going and ordering cities not to stop it or regulate it. Building non-emergency housing is not an essential function right now, and I have not seen much sign so far of him getting housing-insecure and homeless residents into emergency housing.
Please let me know if you have any questions about this week’s newsletter or anything else. I’m happy to talk any time. I have also seen some of you out and about (from a safe distance away!) while I’m out walking around the neighborhoods of Ward 5, and I’m always happy to wave hello and check in.
If you need to do Virtual Office Hours with me about anything, let’s set up a time to talk. I have been doing this on a more ad hoc basis than I was in the real world in “The Before Times” before the current crisis.