City Council - Ordinance Committee

Easthampton City Council Ordinance Subcommittee Meeting Notes July 16, 2024, 6:00 PM Present: Koni Denham, Salem Derby, Tamara Smith, Homar Gomez, Emily Russo (human resources), Greg Nuttleman (Director of Public Works) (remote) Sustainability Coordinator and other positions Putting sludge conversation on hold until we have more details I. Sustainability Coordinator: Emily- conservation agent was taking on responsibility of a sustainability coordinator. With conservation agent leaving in August, we decided to split job into two positions. a. Conservation agent: 30 hours/week. We will add conservation agent position to this b. Sustainability Agent: We can do more with solar and other grant opportunities that we could get, also working on city climate action plan i. After further review, we think that this role should fall under DPW ii. Grade E: More requirement wise than conservation agent, more accountability with this position 1. Salem: When grade was selected, did the idea of a higher level of green level community grants come into play with specialized code? 2. Emily: Each community has a weird blend of things, we used comparison of other cities and communities to come up with grade. a. Would like to fund it from general fund i. Grades are based on A-H, so anything D,E is going to be a mid-level and mid-authority and writing grants and have more accountability in things. Will report only to Director of DPW 1. Bachelor’s level degree, will make sure our solar contracts are kept a closer eye on them, make sure solar credits are not too much on one site. Someone to have on hand for this. 3. Koni: concern- we are starting in a deficit already. However, we passed the vehicle ordinance efficiency code to give us climate leader designation 4. Will take a motion to amend ordinance classification of employees: sustainability coordinator at level E. a. Salem: so moved; Tam second II. Staff Engineer Position a. This is more of a formality: we previously had diane rosini and dan murphy as our engineers. When Diane was hired, she was hired as same grade and position as city engineer, but that shouldn’t be the case because she was not doing same as city engineer. City engineer oversees staff engineer. When Dan left and Diane stepped into this position we saw it as opportunity to re-name and regrade this position. b. Salem: Do you think that this will inhibit ability to fill this position? c. Emily: Goal is to find a new graduate who we can mentor into the position  d. Nuttleman: Doesn’t have a lot to add- taking opportunity to see things set in the right grade and as city staff organizes into a union this will be a good move to see. e. Koni: I agree this seems straight-forward. Hopefully this will help support with morale. III. Move to adjourn made by Councilor Derby; seconded by Councilor Smith