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This newsletter covers the following topics: Waban Tree Lighting, winter overnight parking ban, an update on the Zervas area cell coverage situation, the proposed tax override, regulating “Crisis pregnancy centers” at the municipal level, and village center zoning redesign.
Waban Tree Lighting
Tomorrow (Sunday December 3) at the Waban Library Center at 4:45 PM please join the Waban Improvement Society for a family sing-along and holiday tree lighting, our annual tradition.
Winter overnight parking ban returns as usual
A reminder to residents: Just like last winter, the citywide Overnight Parking Ban is again in effect this winter, as of this past Thursday, Dec. 1. It will continue through Friday, March 31, 2022. Parking on city streets is prohibited from 2 AM to 6 AM, and you will be ticketed if you leave your car out overnight. Resident parking stickers for overnight parking in municipal lots can be obtained (first-come-first-serve) from the city (learn more), but the lots (like the streets) can’t be occupied during snow emergencies.
I recognize the inconvenience and hardship that this system creates for many residents. We are continuing to have a longstanding public debate on the policy. (I wrote about it in a newsletter last November.) It is a polarizing issue. Unfortunately I don’t have any major updates on this apparent impasse. Neither the Mayor nor the City Council have proposed for consideration a significant revision (let alone an end to the ban). I do not sit on the committee that would take it up.
Update on Zervas area cell coverage situation
Nearly two years ago, in January 2021, the City Council approved installation of a cell service booster on a utility pole across from Zervas Elementary School in Waban, in an effort to improve the notoriously horrible cell service at the school and the surrounding streets. Unfortunately, this installation never actually happened, apparently due to some kind of disagreement among utility companies themselves. I only recently became aware of this, and my understanding is that the Department of Public Works is trying to figure out an alternative solution to the problem. For now the cell coverage in the area remains unreliable to non-existent, which is inconvenient at best and dangerous at worst. I am as frustrated as anyone about the situation, and I will keep pressing for a fix here.
Proposed Tax Override: What and Why
In Massachusetts, under a 1980 law, municipalities may only increase their property tax levy by 2.5% per year without seeking an “override” referendum to increase the levy by permission of the residents. We do get some additional revenue from other sources like hotels and meals taxes, but without an override the annual increase in Newton’s revenues is usually around 3.5%. There are no provisions in the statewide cap for changes in economic conditions.
Although Newton has benefited from one-time emergency funds from the federal government during the pandemic and put that money toward one-off capital investments, the shortage of ongoing operating funding amid inflationary pressures came to a head during the spring 2022 debates on the FY23 budget, where the City Council gave a negative recommendation to the proposed budget because of the harsh cuts to certain vital services, especially in the Newton Public Schools.
That crisis is on course toward a boiling point next year when the Newton Teachers Association will be returning to the negotiating table for their next 3-year contract – one of our biggest single contracts in the city – and the cost-of-living needs of our teachers will undeniably outstrip the typical 3.5% increase in annual city revenues. This situation is also repeated across many other departments. Everyone is facing cost rises right now beyond our municipal control.
At some point, scrimping and saving here and there in every department’s budget still can’t come up with enough resources to plug all the gaps. As a result, the Mayor and City Council have decided to place a property tax override referendum on the ballot on March 14, 2023, for the first time in 10 years. Only one City Councilor (Lenny Gentile of Ward 4) opposed putting the proposal forward.
As one Newton City Councilor recently observed, the only way you could vote against an operating revenue override at this point would be if you hadn’t looked at the fiscal picture and seen the very dire math on our projected revenues vs our anticipated costs. And the more we pull back on investments in maintaining programs, services, and facilities in order to balance the budget without an override, the more likely we are to trigger a long-term downward spiral in revenues by making Newton less attractive to live, compared to nearby peer communities…
Most residents will only pay a very small amount of additional money in property taxes each year if this referendum passes, and you can check your property for an estimated increase at the online override calculator on the City of Newton website. However, we understand that even a small tax increase can be a hardship for some of our residents with tighter incomes, and so the Mayor proposed and the Council voted to adopt a number of property tax reductions and relief for certain eligible populations. These relief measures, some of which take effect immediately and some of which will require legislative approval from the state to exceed normal relief allowances, include reductions for eligible veterans (and spouses), people with disabilities, and senior citizens, and we also passed home rule petitions or ordinance changes to expand the existing senior tax deferral program and the senior tax work-off volunteer program.
So, what are the actual ballot questions being posed to the voters this coming March?
Two of the ballot questions are simple debt exclusion requests for replacing Countryside and Franklin Elementary Schools. These ballot questions are required by the state as a condition of participating in the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) process to receive assistance (including money) for designing public school renovations and reconstructions.
The most significant ballot question is for the ongoing operating revenue increase proposed. The text summarizing the request and its earmarked uses is as follows:
Shall the City of Newton be allowed to assess an additional $9,175,000 in real estate and personal property taxes for the purposes of funding Public Schools for student needs, street and sidewalk paving and safety improvements, tree planting and maintenance, park and recreational facility improvements and maintenance, improvements to Horace Mann Elementary School, sustainability and climate resiliency actions, and Senior Services programming and operations for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2023?
For the most part, this additional annual levy will not create new programs or expand existing programs, but rather it will simply allow Newton to maintain current levels of services without having to make drastic cutbacks.
Many of our peer communities propose (and pass) a tax override every year or so. We in Newton have been able to avoid seeking a tax override for a decade because of the influx of temporary federal funds and because of the unusual levels of new construction, especially small homes being replaced by much larger homes with vastly greater tax assessments, but we have now arrived at the end of the line in terms of what we can offer without cutting back to the bone. You can learn more at the Yes for Newton campaign website or the official City of Newton override informational page on what the new levy would pay for and why it is being proposed. The Mayor is holding many public engagement sessions to make the case for the fiscal situation and the benefits of passing the referendum, as well as to answer questions from residents about how this might affect them.
Regulating “Crisis Pregnancy Centers”
With the fall of Roe v. Wade nationally, interstate travel for abortion healthcare services is increasing. Massachusetts is one potential destination. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed some new protections recently, but there are still gaps, and it is unclear how quickly these will be addressed in the next legislative term with the new governor. I hope quickly! But in the meantime, Massachusetts municipalities are taking independent action to add some extra measures. I took the lead in October by filing a docket item that would impose ongoing fines for deceptive advertising and false public health statements by so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” that pose as healthcare facilities to try to lure in unsuspecting people (including from across municipal and state lines) for the purposes of discouraging the use of abortion services. Last week I traveled throughout Ohio and saw billboards and advertisements everywhere for these facilities, but it is important to understand that these are also widespread in Massachusetts, including in adjacent cities and towns. Our draft to start to deal with this problem is based on the recently adopted ordinance in Somerville and we are requesting the Health and Human Services Department to take enforcement actions.
This is item #528-22 “Request for discussion and ordinance to prohibit deceptive advertising by limited-service pregnancy centers.” The sponsors are Councilors Humphrey, Noel, Bowman, Ryan, Norton, Leary, Lucas, Malakie, Wright, and Danberg. (Everyone on the Council was invited to sign on when we filed it.) We are requesting “to prohibit limited-service pregnancy centers from making deceptive advertisements concerning pregnancy-related services or the provision of pregnancy-related services, including implementing a penalty for violation of the ordinance.”
The first discussion will take place at the December 7th Programs & Services Committee next week. We might also consider other steps in separate docket items, such as requiring special permits to open such a facility. (This would mean a City Council majority voting on whether or not such a special permit would be detrimental to public health in Newton.) Other municipalities have been considering ordinances on other angles such as a process of reporting consumer protection and safety violations to the Office of the Attorney General and prohibiting the use of municipal resources, staff, and law enforcement in other states’ enforcement actions or investigations against their own residents for seeking abortions in Massachusetts.
If you support Newton taking strong action to regulate and deter so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” locally, please let the City Council and Mayor Fuller know by email as soon as possible.
Your Feedback Needed: Village Centers Zoning Redesign
For several years now, Newton has been working on a significant redesign of our very outdated zoning code. This work has mainly been occurring in the City Council’s Zoning & Planning Committee with help from Planning Department staff. At every stage we have returned to the public to seek feedback and input on what we should be trying to adopt in our redesign and what would work best for our community and specific neighborhoods.
We are currently focused most intensively on our “village centers.” Many of them have empty storefronts as customer revenues consistently fall short of the costs of remaining in business and especially the costs of market rents for these commercial spaces. The village centers vary from one area of the city to the next, but in general I believe they could be more pedestrian-friendly and it would be nice if they had more foot-traffic customers living right there to boost viability of these businesses in our community. So, the question is whether those are our shared goals, and, if so, how we should achieve those goals in terms of policy changes to zoning and permitting?
Recently we finally got to see a first draft of proposed maps for these various village centers across Newton. These were made available to Councilors at the same time as they were made available to the public, and they are already generating a range of reactions, including at our ongoing public feedback sessions on Zoom.
The Planning Department staff has been very open to feedback and constructive suggestions for improvements to the maps. (As the Ward Councilor for Ward 5, I already made extensive suggestions for changes to the Waban map in the next round, because I did not agree on the appropriateness of a number of proposed zones, and I am confident these will be revised.) For certain areas of the city, people seem to agree they got it right, and certain spots in specific village centers either should or should not have been included in the proposed village center overlay zones, and then there are debates over what each village center overlay zone should or should not include as buildable by-right or by special permit (if at all).
For example, should the lowest-intensity (and shortest-height) village center zone include a retail option by special permit, or should it just be apartments? What about multi-unit conversion options for historic preservation of large pre-war homes in some places instead of apartment buildings? At this point in the process, almost anything is on the table, and we’re looking for creative solutions from you, the public.
We’re all expecting that the second round of maps in February will look quite a bit different, but it is nice to have a starting point (finally!) to be able to pin down these debates in concrete terms.
You can check out the draft maps (and watch first-round info sessions you might have missed) at this web page. Then we’d like to hear from you, so that we can make the appropriate overhauls for the next drafts. There will also be an official, very expansive Public Comment period next year when we have progressed through various draft phases and feel ready to present something more definitive. But the best time to make your voice heard is right now, so that we can try to include those improvements well before then.
And just remember, if you see something in the maps or code proposal that really concerns you, please let us know, but don’t assume that problem will end up in the final version, because this is just the first draft, and we need this to be a collaborative process in order to make it as successful as possible.