City Council Agenda Preview: May 25
The Worcester City Council meets Tuesday at 6:30pm. The agenda is here.
This week: memorials, finances, racial equity.
Virtual Meeting: https://cow.webex.com/cow/onstage/g.php?MTID=e1560c39252f5bf67edcb85647985b521
Special Note: The Finance Committee meets at 5pm that same day, to begin talking about the budget. The link for that meeting is here. Topic #1: the Police Department. Topic #2: the Fire Department.
Boards and Commissions: The Manager has appointed Kevin Aguirre to the Planning Board and Dara Pazooki to the Off Street Parking Board.
Worcester Ballpark Commission: The Council will vote to approve this new seven-member commission, which will always include at least one representative of organized labor.
Firefighter Memorial: There’s a request for a memorial square for Fire Captain William J. Ormond who died in 1949 in the line of duty. This would be like the many memorial squares we have for those who died in wars, likely with a similar marker.
Honorary Street Names: The Commissioner of Public Works has submitted a suggestion that the city start doing honorary street names, like they do in Chicago. The normal street signs would stay up, with additional signs noting that a small section of the street (a block or two) is named after someone. Petitioners would pay for the signs. Unlike Chicago, we are probably not naming anything after Chaka Khan or Ken Nordine.
The First Annual Paul J. Moosey Employee of the Year Award: Has been awarded to city environmental manager Jonathan P. Gervais. Congrats! This award is for employees of Public Works and Parks.
Stop Throwing Pizza Boxes in the Recycling: At the city’s request, our recycler, Casella Waste Systems, has sent a short letter addressing concerns that not all our recycling is being recycled. They note that 20%-25% of our recycling is contaminated with food and other waste, and thus must be removed from the recycling before it’s sent to other companies for further processing. They do go to the trouble of sorting things, because Massachusetts state law doesn’t give them the option of giving up and throwing particularly contaminated batches in the trash. Previously, Worcester’s contamination rate was reported at 15%.
Budget: As budget talks begin, there are so many financial reports this week. Looking at the ratio of taxes collected to the overall budget, we are doing better as of April 2021 than we were in April 2020.
Rebuilding Burncoat: The city would dearly like to rebuild or replace Burncoat High. We are submitting a “Statement of Interest” to the state to try to get funding this year. We submitted last year as well, and were rejected.
Police Overtime: The City Auditor has submitted a report on police overtime, in response to a report from a couple years back on possible problems with how overtime is handled. One fact that jumped out at me from the new report is that we spent $200,000 on overtime for “election result demonstrations” the first week of Nov. 2020.
Ransomware: Councilor Rosen would like to know how protected we are from ransomware shutting down city government.
Information Technology Strategic Plan: Speaking of security problems, BerryDunn submitted a finalized IT Strategic Plan to the city this week. Critical issues that would be resolved by this five-year plan include “Many manual and paper-based processes are in use throughout the City,” “The HR Department does not have automated systems to track employee files and data,” and “The City lacks a consistent method of taking and making electronic or credit card payments across all departments” (can I get an amen). Benefits of the high-priority project “Adopt and implement an industry-accepted security protocols framework” include reduced “potential for loss of data or control of data via a ransomware attack.”
Define White Supremacy: The Municipal and Legislative Operations Committee has been discussing racial equity audits and the like, and has a bunch of requests for the Manager that need approval by the full Council. These include “a report detailing the city’s definition of white supremacy” and “an update concerning the timetable and process for establishing both the Chief’s Equity Advisory Council and the Equity Cabinet.”
Stop Playing With Fireworks: Councilor Wally asks the Manager to “develop a strong public awareness campaign concerning the Illegal status and danger of backyard fireworks.”