City Council - Rules & Government Relations Committee

CITY OF EASTHAMPTON OFFICE OF THE CITY COUNCIL Easthampton Municipal Building 50 Payson Ave., Ste. 100 Easthampton, Massachusetts 01027-2260 Telephone #: (413) 529-1460 7/23/2020 MINUTES RULES and GOVERNMENT RELATIONS Meeting 7/23/2020 Attendees: R&GR Committee Members: Councilor Thomas Peake, Chair Councilor Peg Conniff, Clerk Councilor Dan Rist Other attendees: Homar Gomez (joined at 5:06pm) Meeting called to order at 5:00pm. The meeting was held remotely via Zoom and was recorded. 1. Approval for past minutes. Minutes from 4/28/2020 approved. 3-0 Conniff made motion for approval, Rist Second. 2. Discussed the prioritization of Rules and Government Relations Committee. Chair Peake suggested Committee email request would be handled in the next meeting 3. Discussion around proposed City Council Rule 11L - filing of committee minutes. REVISED WORDING FOR RULE 11L: 11L - Final and Approved minutes of all committee meetings shall be sent to the city clerk for public availability within 3 meetings from the date of the meeting for which the min- utes are documented. MOTION to recommend to City Council approval of Rule 11L: Rist, SECOND: Conniff Approved 3-0 4. Continued discussion of City Charter starting with Article 6. Reviewed changes made by Charter committee and the suggested changes by city attorney. • Section 6-3 - phrase added - “or a combination thereof”  • Section 6-4 - Discussion around language in Department of Public Works. Notable changes: removal of outdated language; legal clarifying language; Committee suggested adding 2 members to the Board of Public Works - Mayor preferred keeping it at 3 mem- bers. Mayor was not in attendance and Councilor Peake thought there were solid reasons for having 5 members and wanted to hear her perspective. Councilor Peake suggested we take the recommendation to the City Council and if the Mayor at that time has objec- tions, the City Council can create amendments. Another change was to limit the term of the Director of Public Works to 3 years. Discussion around whether and how the De- partment of Human Resources has purview over the Director of Public Works. • Section 6-5 - Changed the department name from Personnel to Human Resources; minor revised wording in a few sub sections. ‘ • Section 7-2 - change “district” to “precinct” • Section 7-7 - wording changes by attorney that were not material; increase timeframes for attorney to respond to Citizen Petition from 15 to 30 days; Action on petitions changed from 30 days to 90 days. Also changed wording from “the measure has been deemed to have been rejected” to “ the measure has been deemed to have been ap- proved”. • Section 8-4 - wording around the use of gendered words. • Section 8-6 - Charter Review: Changed the number of people and the makeup of a fu- ture Charter Review Committee and extended the term from 1year to 15 months. Includ- ed the ability of the council to veto any member of the Charter Committee recommended by the CC president. Ordinance Review: changed the timing of review and added legal clarifications. • Section 8-8 - minor wording changes. Lengthy discussion around the definition of the word “certified” as it pertains to minutes from committees. • Section 8-15 - Changed “conterminous” to “concurrent” • Article 9 various changes to outdated language and removal of sections that do not apply to Easthampton today. Next steps - create a clean copy (by Tom Peake) for next meeting. Invite Mayor to next meeting and call out areas where we differ from thoughts of the lawyer. Tom Peake suggests that the City Council be very clear on those changes that came from the Charter Review Committee and those that were attorney changes or changes that come from this committee. 6:09 pm - Meeting was adjourned (MOTION - Conniff, SECOND - Rist) Next Meeting: 8/6/2020 or 8/13/2020 based on the schedule of the Mayor.