City Council Agenda Preview: June 22
The Worcester City Council meets Tuesday at 6:30pm. The agenda is here.
This week: minor changes to parking regulations and city departments.
Virtual Meeting: https://cow.webex.com/cow/onstage/g.php?MTID=e09efb07b23b489275c66466f30c85af6
Parking Changes: Councilor Colorio will ask the Council to discuss changes the Traffic and Parking Committee wants the city to make immediately, to fix parking problems around the new ballpark. These include things like doubling parking meter overtime fees and minor parking fines (to $30 and $40 from $15 and $20), and extending parking meter hours in the Canal District to 9pm.
Digging Up The Street: Michael Grandone has a citizen petition asking the city to change its arrangement with “all utility companies and contractors” who dig up our streets, with the intention that these projects not last forever and conclude with a nice re-patching of the road.
Irrigation Meter Pause: The Commissioner of Public Works has notified the City Manager that the city is not going to be installing irrigation meters for awhile, because of building material shortages. If you have a sprinkler system, you can have a dedicated meter on the system so you only have to pay the city the cost of the water, not the water and sewage fee both.
Open Space & Recreation Plan: The city has revised its plan for its parks etc. The latest version is here [PDF].
Reorganizing: The city will reorganize some departments. There will be a new Department of Sustainability & Resilience and a new Green Worcester Advisory Committee, and meanwhile we will get rid of the Energy & Asset Maintenance Division. A new Department of Public Facilities will be created and incorporate the commissions overseeing the civic center, historic artifacts, military memorials, and the ballpark. There are also some tweaks to the Lincoln Square Memorial Board, the Memorial Auditorium Board of Trustees, and the relationship between Public Works and the Conservation Commission.
Manny Familia: The Council will be voting unanimously to ask the state to tell the city Retirement Board to provide benefits to the family of Officer Familia, who drowned trying to rescue a teenager. The Board currently cannot award those benefits, because drowning is not currently a qualifying event.
If I Do Say So Myself: The Manager has written a report to the Council evaluating his performance. This report is here. Things are going well and he is doing a great job.
Honorary Street-Name Designation Program: The Council will be voting whether to approve a program whereby the city would name part of a street after someone, and add little signs with their name under the signs for the official street name. Whoever petitions the city for an honorary street will pay for the signs.
Federal COVID Funds: The city will be getting $110,617,389.00 from the feds as part of the American Rescue Plan Act. The city administration are still trying to figure out what we we are allowed to do with the money, and what we want to do with it. They vaguely talk about things like spending $500k on public health needs, $2m/year for affordable housing, $250k/year for the Worcester Arts Council, $1.5m to prepare public facilities for future pandemics, $15m to upgrade our finance IT systems so things can go smoother when people are working remotely, and $250k for a consultant to recommend improvements to local broadband.