WESTFIELD – The Legislative & Ordinance Committee began a review of pending motions made by various City Councilors, some of whom have not served on the council for several years, as it wades through a backlog of proposed city ordinance amendments.
Ward 2 Councilor Ralph Figy, who is the L&O chairman, said the committee is reviewing all pending legislation to either bring it back before the entire City Council or to recommend that several motions be removed from committee without further action.
“We want to do any ordinance amendments correctly,” Figy said this morning following a Tuesday night committee session at which Shanna Reed of the Law Department presented details of the current status of pending motions. “It was a very good meeting, a very good discussion.”
The L&O will recommend that a motion for an ordinance change, presented in December of 2011 by former Ward 2 Councilor James Brown relative to paving, be removed from committee without action. Brown’s motion would require all contractors and city departments to repave trenches and asphalt cuts with a curb-to-curb patch.
Former At-large Councilor John J. Beltrandi had argued that there is no need for curb-to-curb paving if the trenches and asphalt cuts are properly compacted.
“We feel that the existing ordinances are sufficient,” Figy said, “but I would not be surprised if this comes back to the council as a compaction requirement.”
Fig said the problem is that the pavement patches dip if the underlying soil is not properly compacted, opening seams that let water get under the pavement resulting in potholes.
The L&O also voted to send a request from Ward 6 Councilor Christopher Crean to establish a heavy commercial vehicle exclusion on the section of Papermill Road between the intersections of East Mountain Road and Joseph Avenue.
“The proper process is to send anything like that to the Traffic Commission for its review and a recommendation,” Figy said. “That was not done in this case, so we’ll send it to them now.”
The committee also voted to recommend removal of a change to the Animal Control Ordinance without further action. Former Ward 5 Councilor Richard E. Onofrey Jr., made the motion in May of 2013 to limit the number of pets allowed per family in multi-family housing to two animals, with a weight limit of no more than 50 pounds total.
The committee will bring out a motion to review the ordinance establishing the Flood Control Commission without a recommendation to allow further discussion by the entire council membership.
Figy said that Ward 1 Councilor Christopher Keefe, an L&O member, had sought further discussion on the City Council floor to better define the role of the Flood Commission.
“The commission was established as an advisory board, but over the years it has morphed,” Figy said. “The board is now signing contracts and approving expenditures, so we felt that other members should have an opportunity to discuss any action the council may take.”
One option is to have the Flood Commission make recommendations to the Water Commission which would award contracts and approve expenditures.
The L&O will also recommend changing the ordinance pertaining to the city’s Commission for Citizens with Disabilities. That commission was originally a five-member board, but that number has been increased to seven. At-large Councilor Brian Sullivan, now the council president, made the motion to review the ordinance at the Oct. 16, 2014 meeting of the City Council.
“What happened is that the language defining a quorum was never changed with the commission was increased from five to seven members,” Figy said. “In part of the ordinance it defines a quorum as three members from when it was a five-member board and other parts of the ordinance it’s defined as four members for the seven-member board, so we want to clean that language up.”
The L&O will also recommend that the City Council schedule a new public hearing on a zone change requested by Chad Hedges and David Briggs for property at 419 and 431 Russell Road.
Hedges and Briggs, owners of Big Buck Builders, LLC, had originally requested that the property, now zoned for rural residential (RR) use, be changed to business A (BA) usage. The company had proposed constructing a boarding home and was issued a special permit by the City Council last year, but said they abandoned that approach because of the high construction cost.
Big Buck Properties is now planning to build two duplex houses on each of the two parcels as an alternative to the 7,200-square-foot, 30-bed boarding house project.
The Planning Board had reservations about allowing the change to Business A because of the uses allowed in that zoning and recommended that the City Council consider making the change be to residence B (RB) instead.
The public hearing, conducted at the council’s Dec. 18, 2014 session, was advertised for the initial zone change to Business A and not the Residence B as recommended by the Planning Board.
“We want to do the zone change correctly, so it will require a new public hearing,” Figy said.
The L&O will also recommend that the City Council approve a resolution approving an agreement between the city and Twiss Street Solar for financing construction of a solar farm on the cap of the former Twiss Street landfill. The council approved a lease with the solar farm late last year and the resolution is being requested to support that lease agreement.
