City Council Agenda Preview: June 8
The Worcester City Council meets Tuesday at 6:30pm. The agenda is here.
This week: preserving a pond, budget stuff, and many delayed items.
Virtual Meeting: https://cow.webex.com/cow/onstage/g.php?MTID=e677a25bc324476031079d61c24992c6f
Boards and Commissions: The Manager has appointed Jorge Lopez-Alvarez to the Human Rights Commission.
Budget Stuff: The Council will potentially move discussion of current city budget stuff from the Finance Committee to the City Council. (I say potentially because everything keeps getting bumped as their backlog of items grows.)
Zoning: Boston Capital Development LLC wants to change the zoning of the Table Talk Pie store and another parcel on that block, from 4-story business to 6-story business. The Council will send this issue to the Economic Development Committee for further discussion.
Street Names: Frank Santa Maria wants the tiny Casco Street(off Shrewsbury Street) renamed Santa Maria Way. The Public Works Committee will discuss this at their next meeting.
Preserving Heron Pond: The Council will vote whether to spend $21,000 (plus I think $13,000 in surveying costs) to buy a conservation restriction on 16.8 acres adjacent to Broad Meadow Brook, including Heron Pond. This is right near Standard Auto Parts. The land cost is closer to $93,000, but the state is providing a large grant, and Mass Audubon is kicking in part of the cost and becoming a co-owner with the city.
Police Overtime: The City Auditor describes some of the changes made as a result of concerns raised last year about the WPD managing police overtime badly.
So Much Old Business: The Council has a massive number of items that have been held over from the past couple agendas, including things related to parliamentary procedure, the Summer Impact Program, vehicles ordered by the Worcester Police Department, response times for emergency calls, WPD diversity, the Shannon Community Safety Initiative (CSI) Grant, whether members of a Standing Committee are allowed to Table Items Under Privilege in Committee, salary allocations for the Director of Emergency Communications, emergency calls during shift changes, gaps in preparedness planning, training and exercising, rules changes for the Finance Committee, public drinking/arson/vandalism at Newton Hill, potential park and playground projects, boating licensure on municipal water bodies, Cliff Rucker’s Becker-area zoning requests, decreasing the use of jet skis on Indian Lake, a proposed honorary street name designation program, Memorial Day activities in the City (I’m not sure they should have delayed this one), funding request from the Massachusetts School Building Authority for Burncoat High School, the City's Financial Integrity Plan, Fiscal Year 2021 financial update, IT Strategic Plan, the city’s definition of white supremacy, School Resource Officers, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, a non-solicitation ordinance, the trial period for parking meter overtime fee warnings in the Canal District, an Esther Forbes memorial plaque, crippling ransomware attacks, and “the Illegal status and danger of backyard fireworks.”