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 MINUTES RULES and GOVERNMENT RELATIONS Meeting 08/13/2020 Attendees: R&GR Committee Members: Councilor Thomas Peake, Chair Councilor Peg Conniff, Clerk Councilor Dan Rist Other Attendees: Nicole LaChapelle, Mayor Rachel Phillips, Cultural Council Homar Gomez, City Councilor Meeting called to order at 5:30 pm. The meeting was videotaped. 1. Approval for past minutes. Minutes from 3/12/20, 7/9/20 and 7/23/20 were approved. MO- TION by Councilor Rist: SECOND Councilor Conniff. Passed 3-0. 2. Rachel Phillips from Cultural Council was present to speak to the Administrative Code 20-2 change to Cultural Council. Mayor presented reasoning for the change and recognized that the Cultural Council requested this change. The change requested was to change the name to Easthampton Cultural Council. Explanation was that all Cultural Councils are clearly spelled out in MGL. At some point, this committee was changed to ECA Grants Subcommittee which is not what this group is. Rachel explained that grants from ECA Grants were not clearly identified to grantees in terms of the source. It was also felt that this would streamline the Cul- tural Council interactions and more clearly identify how to understand the scope of grants available in the state. No additional changes to this committee are changing. This administra- tive code will be new. Members can only serve 2 consecutive terms. Current membership is 7 members. Admin code states membership is at least 5 and up to 9. • MOTION to accept Administrative Code put forth by Mayor - Councilor Rist: SEC- OND Councilor Conniff. Passed 3-0 3. Further review of Charter document from Charter Committee of 2019. This review was to present final changes to Mayor. • Continued from last update starting at Article 6. Discussion around DPW and size of BPW. Questions around whether to change Board from 3 to 5 members. Mayor did not agree with increasing to 5 members noting the difficulty of seating more than 3 members based on the technical nature of the members. • Noted change to term for DPW director from ‘indefinitely” to “3 years” • Discussion around how this position will be governed from an HR position. • Discussion around timing of various petitions - changes to the number of days the city council has to act on petitions. • Changes to Charter Review and Ordinance Review timing and committee makeup and approvals • Circled back to Article 5 to discuss the changes to timing of Capital Improvement Pro- gram. Charter committee recommended 150 days before fiscal year. Mayor requested a change after the Charter Committee recessed to 90 days. Councilor Peake recommend- ed that any place where changes were made post Committee be noted. Any amendments can be made by City Councilors. • Discussed when to present for public hearing. September 16 City Council meeting was recommended for the Public Hearing. • Discussion around whether these changes need to go on the ballot. Councilor Peake stated that the only reason it would go on the ballot is if there is a substantial change to how the public interacts with government. Those items were, Ranked Choice Voting and Mayoral term which were voted on and passed in 2019. This document will still need to get to the state legislature. • MOTION to accept draft Charter Review document for review by full council - Coun- cilor Rist. SECOND Councilor Conniff. Passed 3-0 4. Reviewed remaining R&GR agenda: • Hold on committee email discussion as Councilor Zaret had some more thoughts on it and as the sponsor we will defer for next meeting. • Question on the disposition of the PILOT proposal. Councilor Rist believed it had been removed but that was incorrect. Councilor Peake will ensure it gets back on the agenda for additional discussion. • Councilor Peake requested this committee continue to think about forming a new Char- ter Committee. Councilor Rist prefers to wait until the current Charter changes are ap- proved and that new Ordinance Committee should be prioritized over a second Charter committee. Mayor commented that legal services will be extensive for these kinds of committees and we need to be aware that budgets will be very tight going forward. Councilors Rist and Peake commented that a new Charter Committee can be deferred to next term. The public can still petition for individual changes if that is needed. • MOTION to remove the Charter Review Committee without prejudice - Councilor Rist. SECOND Councilor Peake. Passed 3-0. 6:30 pm - Motion to adjourn by Councilor Rist, seconded by Councilor Conniff. Motion passed 3-0 Next Meeting: 8/27/2020 at 5:30 pm