(WMassP&I)

SPRINGFIELD—A quiet quick meeting for the Springfield City Council dispensed with numerous housekeeping measures.  However some items sent to committee portend either broader conflicts or a healthy helping of grandstanding.

Still recuperating from injuries sustained in August, Ward 3 Councilor Melvin Edwards was absent from the meeting.

Before the formal meeting, the Council, in a special sitting, approved next year’s residential tax rates.  The Council accepted Mayor Domenic Sarno’s recommendation and set the 2013 rates as $19.71/$1000 of value for residential properties and $38.98/$1000 of value for commercial properties.

The Council received its monthly financial update from Comptroller Pat Burns.  No variation from the quarterly report was found in the October report.  The November report is due at the next full meeting.

Not listed on the agenda, but acted on the by Council were orders attached to two committee reports.  One presented by General Government committee Chair John Lysak was a contract for regional animal control between the city and nearby communities.  It had been sent to committee at the last meeting in order to wait for the other communities to approve it first.  With that done, the Council approved the measure unanimously.

Councilor Clodo Concepcion (WMassP&I)

More controversial, however, was the pulling of a report from the Elder Affairs Committee.  Ward 5 Councilor Clodo Concepcion, that committee’s chair, called up the item, a revision of senior discounts on the trash fee.  Ward 2 Councilor Mike Fenton objected and recommended the item go back to committee.  He said that a discussion over the trash fee, particularly the impact of the discount and commercial pickup, had not been addressed.  The motion to return it to committee, seconded by at-large Councilor Kateri Walsh, failed 7-5.  At-large Councilor Tim Rooke, Ward 4 Councilor E. Henry Twiggs and Ward 7 Councilor Tim Allen joined Walsh and Fenton supporting the referral to committee.

The item, an ordinance, needs three approvals by the Council before enactment and only the first was then undertaken.  By request, that step was taken by roll call and it passed 10-2.  Rooke and Fenton were in dissent.

The Council also cleared out liens on a piece of property the city sold.  Four separate impairments on the property’s title had to be removed, but all were by unanimous vote.  An authorization for a purchasing agreement to upgrade dispatch equipment was also approved.

Councilor Michael Fenton (WMassP&I)

Administration officials told the Council that the current equipment had outlived its useful life by ten years.  Fenton praised the effort as an upgrade of city infrastructure.  It, too, passed unanimously.

Also approved unanimously were an expansion of the city’s tobacco control program.  Health and Human Services Director Helen Caulton-Harris said that a grant to facilitate checks that ensure cigarettes are not sold to minors was expanded.  The Council also approved authorization of spending for Union Station and a residential tax incentive program without dissent.

Reported earlier in the week by the Republican, at-large Councilor Bud Williams proposed a home rule petition to waive applicability of Mass. Gen. Law 71 Section 38 to Springfield.  That law exempts school employees from any community’s residency ordinance.

The measure came after last meeting where a proposed measure to revise the city’s residency ordinance was sent back to committee.  Williams opposed the measure then for a variety of reasons.  At the time, however, his complaints about the ordinance’s non-enforcement seemed to ignore the complications for the city were it to just start enforcing it again.

Councilor Bud Williams (WMassP&I)

The exemption of all school employees below the rank of assistant superintendent is disliked generally and it is frequently used as fodder for other employees’ opposition to residency laws from Springfield to Boston. Still, this measure appeared more a political document than a policy.  If it passed the City Council, it would surely die in the legislature.  Unexplained is what legislator in Boston or elsewhere would support Springfield getting a free pass from a law his or her own community remains bound to.

While Williams’ point about other urban centers maintaining residency laws is valid, especially in light of Springfield’s effective abrogation of its own ordinance, he may have showed his hand accidentally.  He appeared to suggest that Boston enforced its residency ordinance against teachers.  A Boston Public Schools spokesman confirmed to WMassP&I that Beantown, too, is subject to the school employee exemption.  Its teachers and related school employees are not subject to the city’s residency ordinance.

(WMassP&I)

Williams’ measure was sent to committee at his own request in the hope that it might be considered with the residency ordinance revision.  Beyond that and the trash fee discount revisions, the small agenda aroused little controversy.  The calm may be ironic with the looming Council Presidency battle coming.

Some Highlights from the last meeting on November 11, which we did not report:

• The Mayor’s revision of the qualifications for Fire Commissioner were sent to committee. That committee meeting is tonight.

• The residency ordinance revision was also sent to committee.  It received heavy criticism from several councilors.  Most appeared to oppose the idea of incentives, but many also appeared to approve of the concept.  Still, it appeared that the appearance of support for some councilor was more important than the policy itself.

• Defeated was an attempt to transfer money set aside back in June to pay for the state’s share of Quinn Bill money for police officers.  The state stopped funding its share over the past few years and many communities were making up the difference.  The measure, a cash transfer needed a 2/3 vote of the whole council and was defeated 7-2.  Fenton and Allen were in dissent.  The measure appeared to be a blind side as Human Resources Director Bill Mahoney said that the city had to pay the Quinn Bill money under the terms of the city’s expired contract with police officers.  Mahoney said the city had already paid out some of the money.  As is typical under labor law, the existing contract remains in force pending a new agreement.  The money was originally sold as merely a show of good faith by the city during contract negotiations, since the Council appeared under the impression that the city was not obligated to pay the state’s share.  The Supreme Judicial Court ruled earlier this year that communities participating in the Quinn Bill program did not, as a matter of law, pay the state’s share if the state failed to appropriate enough money.  A community could be so obligated if its contract with the police specified otherwise.  No indication was made back then that such a provision existed in Springfield’s police contracts.