2022-03-14 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government
2022-03-14 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
my friend. Nice to see you. Barrett Good to see you so. Okay so we're live now. No swearing, we'll get started to. Yes. Mhm. Senator Kennedy. Good morning, good to see you. Good morning. Good to see you as well, senator. Okay. Mhm. Okay. All right, good morning everybody. I'd like to welcome everybody to this hearing for the joint committee on municipalities and regional government. It's great to see everybody. Um I'd also like to welcome my my colleague and vice chair Senator Ed Kennedy from role Uh and just to briefly speak about the run up show we've got 13 bills um for public testimony today and I'd ask that anybody who is not asking questions or providing testimony remain on mute on zoom so we can um move quickly and without interruption through the docket. Um With that I'd like to pass over to our vice chairman185 um Vice chair paul Tucker to introduce members of the house. Great Thank you mr. Chairman, appreciate that. Welcome everybody and a quick Thank you to our staffs uh Chairman Cronin's and and now former rep Ehrlich they've done some really important and great work um since we lost our chairman to the federal government. Welcome to my colleagues for those of you that are on the committee and here to testify. I see my friend and classmate rep Muratore rep Orrall I know rep Hawkins is here to testify. Rep Philips and good morning to my friend rep win as well. Hello everybody and I see rep Connolly Thank you for joining us this morning and rep Dubois all the way from brockton. so from members of the committee and for those of you here to testify this morning. Welcome and thanks for being with us and Thank you mr chairman as well for all the work you've done this term. Thank you Mr Vice chair um with that Um called the meeting to order and I'd like to invite representative Hawkins to provide testimony on H4355 an act providing for laying out an acceptance of certain ways by the city of brattleboro.252 Mhm I'm a muted yes Thank you,
REP HAWKINS - HB 4355 - Thank you so much for for taking me first actually this is a priority so I was going to wait my turn but I appreciate that. Uh This is Attleboro has more recently changed their way of approving streets but for a long time they didn't, they kept them in some sort of limbo. Uh and there's a whole lot of streets that never got approved including large subdivisions. Uh There's two people that I wanted to have speak because this is kind of complicated. Uh first firts is the DPW supervisor Mike Tyler who is somewhere in the queue who brought this to my attention291 is something that we were missing the boat on uh and the other is the planning supervisor Garry Oration who is out of town today.
So he can't mike can talk about the need and what what's happened. Ah this will affect304 us in the city. Garry might have talked about the procedures for going through city council and so forth, but he can't be here is of course available later. If if you do have questions about that part of the bill, basically there's a lot of subdivisions318 where the, Where the developers have either gone bankrupt, Ayers in one case even died and the roads were never approved and the city is still obligated to maintain them even though they're not eligible to use Chapter 90 funds. So we've gone to great lengths to make sure this. So they did this335 I think in the 90s a couple of decades ago they did a similar thing to catch up on approved roads and we've gone to great lengths since that was approved to follow the same procedure344 for for this bill.
Um It will benefit the city and there may be more miles in the formula for Chapter 90 disbursement and it will also allow the city to use Chapter 90 funds to maintain these roads since they have to anyway. Um I'll defer Mike Tyler when he, when his turn comes up, he's the DPW supervisor from Attleboro to speak more in detail about this. Thank you and Thank you. Thank you rep Tucker Uh and Thank you all the staff on municipalities considering all the shifts in personnel. I'm amazed at how376 good your communication has been, how helpful you've been in getting this bill put in so um my, my hats off to you in a very chaotic year, you've done an amazing, amazing job of keeping us keeping this thing moving, so Thank you so much.
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you Representative and if anybody has a question questions on this bill, I think we can hold them until after we hear from Mr Tyler who I believe is with us. So Mr Tyler Thank you for appearing before the committee today and the floor is yours.
MIKE TYLER - ATTLEBORO DPW - HB 4355 - Thank you. Mr. Chairman and members of the state412 legislation um here in Attleboro, we have quite a few as a representative. Hawkins alluded to. We have quite a few miles of road that has never been formally accepted, so in that case they are not chapter 90 eligible for funding. Uh some of these developments go back almost 30 years um of age, the city of Attleboro has maintained them as a matter of public safety throughout the years, um but we really like to see these a blanket acceptance. Um and my running total I have right now is almost seven miles of roadway, so if446 we take kind of the seven miles of roadway, basically, $6500 a mile, that's the chapter 90 kilometers Adam Barrows has been missing out in the tune of like $45,000 a year.
Um that's quite460 significant. Um and I think the most important part of it is Um like I said, most of the developments now we're 20, years old. Um they're starting to need some significant work to be done on them. So without access to uh allowing474 chapter 90 money to put these on that would come directly out of the municipal budget. Um which is really something that waiting, we try to stay away from as much as we can. Um So again, we485 do ask that you take this into consideration, we think, you know, if you take the $45,000 a year and the times at times 20 years after it was basically missed out on almost a million dollars worth of funds that we could have also had in this time. So Thank you very much.
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Mr Tyler um Any questions from the committee? Representative? Dubois
HAWKINS - I'm going to I'm going to offer that. I take this from mice simple being in the 70's I had to take this to be a pretty technical bill. So you're welcome to reach out. Not necessarily today during the hearing, but as this proceeds with anything you need for help. Both mike is available. Garry Oration. Who's who had handled the the city hall end of this? We're all ready and available to help you. So we really appreciate everything you're doing.
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Representative, did you raise your hand with the Question?
REP DUBOIS - I did. I do have a question. Um so I was a city councillor for 10 years prior to being a state reps are very familiar with private roads. I would like to just hear a little bit more about this554 1990 legislation. Um what did it affect because in Brockton were still accepting roads that were um private Prior to 1990. Are you saying that that legislation in 1990 made all the acceptance is that the city council is doing moot or and that that that's something I can I can um update my DPW about. Maybe that's some information. They didn't know what is this 1990 legislation that you're talking about?
HAWKINS -593 Uh huh. Uh And we should we should talk offline because brockton tried to do something similar back then.
DUBOIS - Um I'm not understanding. Is this bill, is this just specific to Attleboro or is..
HAWKINS - This just a home rule petition for Attleboro? It's been through a city council. It's a home Rule petition.
DUBOIS - All right, Thank you so much. I will.
HAWKINS - My understanding612 is has probably got a similar problem and you and I can chat offline. I can tell you what we did.
DUBOIS - I misunderstood Thank you so much.
HAWKINS - Okay.
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
any other questions from the committee? Okay. Representative Hawkins mr Tyler appreciate your testimony here today and grateful for your appearing before the committee. I would now like to invite Representative Tommy Vitolo to provide testimony on S 2684. And I believe he's joined with by a leadership panel from the city of Brookline. So representative. I will defer to you on the run of show for your panel.
REP VITOLO - SB 2684 - SB 2485 - Thank you. I am state representative Tommy Vitolo from the town of Brookline. I know we've got town administrator Mel665 Kleckner on chair of the select board Heather Hamilton perhaps others. I can only see so many at one time at this packed hearing for the joint committee on municipalities. And I appreciate you taking me out of turn. Um I join you to testify in support of two different Brookline home rule petitions. And um if it makes sense for me to testify for both of them at the same time, I can do that if you like me to do one. We talked about it and do the other whatever whatever floats your municipalities boat is a okay with me. Do you have a preference?
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Let's do both. Representative please.
VITOLO - Okay so um the to home rules both filed by my colleague in the senate. Senator Creem are S 2484. An act amending chapter section five of chapter 270 of the Acts of 1985 as amended to authorize delegation by general bylaw of all select board licensing authority and wholly unrelated for that. Except that it's also from Brookline. S.2485. And act exempting the town of Brookline from in person Quorum. So I'll talk about the licensing one first. Uh and and the long and short of it is the Brookline select board meets for more hours per year than any other select board in the commonwealth so far as we can tell.
And one of the things752 they have to do is have hearings for every single license in holders, lodging houses, common Victuals, food vendors, secondhand motor vehicles, open air parking, liquor sales, theaters, and entertainment. And as you can imagine, most of them are very straightforward, but still require a 10 minute conversation. And this ties up a tremendous amount of time, not just for the select board, but for all of the issues coming after those and all of the citizens who want to participate will get pushed to later and later in the evening.
And so the big idea is really simple, allow the select board to appoint a committee to make recommendations to the select793 board and the select board would still take a formal vote and be on the hook for that vote. But they would be able to expedite the process by having these recommendations done by a public body in the public eye, but not during the select board meeting, I spoke with um chair of licensure, Tacky Chan about this idea. And I, what I would relay without being careful to not put words into his mouth is he was very sympathetic to the problem. Was interested in this as a potential solution and was adamant that it's important that at the end of the day, the select board vote publicly on the final recommendation for him.
That was very important, but he did not express that. It was important that843 that deliberation for the technicalities of each licence happened at a select board hearing. And so the idea is just to push it to a different spot in the week in front of a group of folks who can focus on exactly that. And that does in fact require Home rule. And so we're asking for your favorable vote on that. The second one is as 2485 an act exempting the town of Brookline from in person forums. As you know, during the pandemic. Many communities including Brookline, conducted its public meetings fully remotely and found that this approach was effective and convenient for both officials887 and the public and that it expanded access to our democratic process. S 2685. Excuse me, 2485 would permanently exempt Brookline from the in person quorum requirement for public meetings.
Public meetings could occur fully in person in a hybrid manner consistent with 9 40 CMR 29 as promulgated in 2015, hybrid with a majority remote or even fully remote. This Home rule would enable the town to conduct public meetings in a manner that makes sense for its members and its residents, both of these Holmes rules passed town meeting with overwhelming support and I respectfully request that you report both bills favorably and of course, uh don't hesitate to reach out to me anytime, most of935 you know it, but here's my cellphone anyway. 6178728921. You938 can put that in the record. Anyone is free to call me anytime and I'm happy to have a conversation about these or anything else on your mind. Uh and I'd like to sort of hand it over to my town administrator and my select board chair who I know can give you far better information than I can on the nitty gritty details of our town government.
HEATHER HAMILTON - BROOKLINE SELECT BOARD - SB 2684 - SB 2485 - Thank you Tommy, You actually summarized it pretty well. So I'm not really going to add all that much. I will just say that um I've been on the select board for about five years and watching um independent business owners who really are struggling right now and have always kind of struggled because when you have991 an independent shop, you are pretty much there all the time and to force them to sit during the hours that they are open On our Tuesday nights and wait for us to get to their agenda.
And we're always about 45 minutes behind it. Just I don't really see the value in uh in perpetuating that. I would rather have them deal with a separate body. We also tend to get about 30 people on our select board meetings who want to give public comment about something that is on our agenda. And almost no public comment is taken during those licensing hearings. So I really think that this is this is the time to really address that, to free up the select board to concentrate on, on items that are very important to the town. And very important to the people who want to participate and see the town tackle these bigger issues.
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Mr Hamilton, Mr Kloeckner, Mr Kaufman.
MEL KLECKNER - TOWN OF BROOKLINE - SB 2684 - SB 2485 - Uh this is Mel Kleckner. Good morning members of the panel. It's interesting. You know, the the reason why we're going for a home rule legislation is we have a mini charter. It's called the town Administrator act of the town of Brookline, which was passed by the legislature in the 19 eighties. And there's language that says that the town made through its bylaws, delegate any licensing authority and then it proceeds to then accept almost all licensing categories. So, um, you know, I think1090 the intent was that there would be potentially some licensing delegation, but as a, as a select board chair Hamilton and Representative Vitolo has said Brookline is a very busy place for the largest town former government in Massachusetts. And our select board very active and and this is an area that I think is mostly administrative.1116 So would certainly request the committees favorable review of this legislation.
HAMILTON - And if I just may say a few words on the uh, hybrid in person, we've we've seen unprecedented uh participation in pretty much not just select board, but all of our boards and commissions. Um, and because we are a town form of government, we are very reliant on volunteers to serve in all of those roles, including select board. And at least right now a lot of the people who are serving have either full time jobs or they are working parents. And so having the flexibility to not always be required to be physically somewhere really allows everyone who wants to participate to be able to serve.
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you very much. And I appreciate I don't see Mr Kaufman here, is he on, on somebody else's screen? Okay, great. Um I want to thank everybody and Representative Vitolo on everybody on the panel for their testimony. And now I'd like to open it up to the committee for any questions1182 on either. Uh that's 2685 or 2684. Mr Chairman. A brief question if I may please and
1187 REP TUCKER - Thank you for coming in this morning, reputable. Thank you. Just a quick question on the public participation piece, just to make sure that everybody has a chance to weigh in. I know that are not specific to your home rules, but there's been some concern raised during the pandemic in some of the fully remote situations that not everybody has access to the technology to zoom in or teams or however they're they're getting in on both of these. Have have they been discussed to make1221 sure that the public will be able to fully participate in in if both of these are able to go through.
VITOLO - You know, the the Home rule petition was filed by uh citizen petitioners, not by the select board. Uh They didn't the petitioners didn't reach out to me until really. Their language was was fully cooked. I raised this1241 very question. I said what about um people who for a variety of legitimate reasons simply can't access zoom and it's not just they don't have a computer and we can just get them a laptop. Some people have cognitive impairments that make it really hard to you zoom their just better in person. Um We had we had a representative town meeting where the power went out in part of town.
And their laptops worked fine but their internet routers all went down and they were excluded from town meeting .Uh and town meeting continued without them. Uh If we were in person they could have actually gotten in their cars and driven to the meeting but there was no in person option and they were in fact included. So um you're absolutely right that the home rule as proposed would allow for fully virtual meetings with no physical location and that might in fact I have the I'm sure inadvertent effect of excluding some residents.
TUCKER - Yeah my concern is that in and we all want efficiency and we all want expediency but I just hope it doesn't come at the cost of accessibility. So we'll take I'll1315 just deep delve a little bit further into this. I appreciate it.
VITOLO - Thank you.
TUCKER - Thank you. Mr Chairman
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Mr Vice chair. Any other questions from from the committee for the panel? Okay seeing and hearing none. Um I want to thank everybody for for their testimony on those two bills and appreciate you appearing before the committee today. Um I am not tracking that there is any other bills that people are here to provide testimony for. Um So if that is the case I'd like to read into the official record the bills before the committee today um which we are not hearing public testimony on the matter. Yes. Mr mr
SEN KENNEDY - HB 4483 - HB 4484 - If I could just um I would just Like to register my support for House 4483 and House 4484. Both of those home rule petitions filed by Representative Garry Um and 4483 merely changes the the name of the board of Selectmen to select board 4484 um changes the name of the town administrator to to town manager and and also does other things as well. Both of those received favorable votes from the boards of of the board of Selectmen and also from town meeting and in the interest of time we decided to file a written testimony which will be submitted a little bit later on today.
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Senator. Are there any any other outstanding bills that anybody would like to provide any testimony to? But seeing and hearing none. Um read the following bills before the committee today into the record uh H 4316 and act an act establishing a Beech Woodland Stock Maintenance District in the town of Stockbridge, H 43 to 7. An act relative to private street betterment assessments in the city of Worcester, H 4355. An act providing for the laying out an acceptance of certain ways by the city of Attleboro, H. 4474 and act authorizing the conveyance of easements by the city of Pittsburgh to the town of Westminster, H 4475. An act relative to revere in Son Heritage Trust Corporation, H 4519. An act providing for the disposition of certain land in the town of West Brookfield, H 4576 and act amending the charter of the town of Born, S. 2618. Enact relative to indigenous representation on the Martha's vineyard commission. S 26 to 8 enact relative to the town administrator in the1476 town of Milton, S. 2684. An act amending section five.1481 Chapter 2 70 of the Act of 1985 as amended to authorize delegation by general bylaw of all select board licensing authority and um to 6 8 five which should not be on this list but is in the record. Here we go. Um So with that I'd like to um wrap up this Hearing of the committee on um municipalities and regional government and motion to adjourn our all right, Thank you all so much. I appreciate it was great to see everybody again.
© InstaTrac 2025