City Council Agenda Preview: June 1
The Worcester City Council meets Tuesday at 6:30pm. The agenda is here.
This week: old items, Finance Committee rules, Indian Lake.
Virtual Meeting: https://cow.webex.com/cow/onstage/g.php?MTID=ea56a085721b8878d28a9a5e528002b3c
Special Note: In addition to the items below, many items from last week’s agenda were held over till this week, since the Council had a couple long Finance Committee meetings the same evening as the Council meeting, and there was not enough time to get to everything.
Indian Lake Jetskis: Councilor King has a bunch of items about Indian Lake. People are apparently causing problems out on the water? Additionally, the Council will be voting on a proposal from the Parks Committee to restrict use of the lake somehow. The proposal is pretty vague, just asking the Manager for a detailed set of rules that might restrict lake use to those living there, or maybe require small watercraft to be licensed, or something like that. The Council would then vote whether to adopt those rules.
Can We Just Get This Meeting Over With, Guys?: The Mayor wants the Council to adopt a new rule for Finance Committee meetings, that no Councilor will be able to speak longer than 15 minutes per item. At last week’s Finance Committee meeting, the first item, the $52.8 million Worcester Police Department budget, took up two and a half hours of the meeting. Councilor King asked 17 minutes worth of questions, mostly about staffing issues and emergency response times, and the police and City Manager spoke for 38 minutes in answering his questions. I only watched like 2 hours of the 7 hours of meetings, so I’m sure I am missing plenty of the conflict here.
Rules Question: Also a the Finance Committee meeting, Councilor King asked that the police budget be tabled for a week. At full Council meetings, Councilors can do this automatically, without a vote being needed. At the Finance Committee meeting, they were pretty sure he couldn’t do this. The Mayor has asked the city’s lawyers for a report on this question.
Public and Private Streets: Donald J. O'Neil is asking that Hemans Court no longer be an official city street. I haven’t been following this closely, but the same request was made back in 2016. This item will be referred to the Planning Board for further discussion.