RALPH FIGY
WESTFIELD – The Legislative & Ordinance Committee voted Thursday night to bring out two controversial local tax revenue options at the City Council meeting next Thursday on a split vote by the committee members.
The two options are to increase the room occupancy excise tax and the meals tax, both of which were rejected last June by the City Council when it was adopting the current fiscal year budget.
Ward 2 Councilor Ralph Figy, L&O chairman, said the vote within the committee was 1-1 to bring the two tax revenue issues out “for a full floor debates and decision by the full City Council.
“We decided to bring the room tax, which would increase the current 4 percent tax to 6 percent if approved, and the meals tax, which would increase by .75 percent, from the current 6.25 percent to 7 percent, on the spilt vote to get a discussion going and to see how the full councils feels about these issues,” Figy said this morning.
“The state is putting local communities into a position where they need to exhaust all local revenue options before seeking additional state aid,” Figy said.
The L&O voted to give positive recommendations to three other proposed ordinances.
One proposal would establish an ordinance to deal with dilapidated property, typically unoccupied property held by banks after foreclosure, but would also apply to occupied property that is not being properly maintained.
“For the most part these are properties being held by a bank and are creating urban blight,” Figy said. “This ordinance would provide for fines to encourage the banks, or residents, to maintain that property.”
Figy said the discussion Thursday night centered on how the ordinance would be enforced since foreclosed properties are assets that banks package and transfer frequently, so identifying the current “owner” bank is often difficult.
The second ordinance amendment is a recommendation from the city’s Traffic Commission relative to traffic calming measures recently applied to Court Street.
“The Traffic Commission has installed the center turning lanes which requires that some of the curbside parking be eliminated,” Figy said.
The third proposed ordinance is establishing a “nuisance house” ordinance, modeled on an ordinance adopted in Amherst, Figy said.
“A group of city departments is trying to address issues with rental properties,” Figy said. “That group includes the Police, Fire, Health and Building departments which are responsible for a variety of safety inspections.
“It’s a tool, with fines, for those departments to deal with problem houses that continually cause a nuisance with noise, excessive pedestrian and vehicular traffic,” Figy said.
Figy said the nuisance ordinance is the first step in the process of enforcing health, fire and building codes and to enable the community policing bureau to protect the quality of life for neighboring residents and that the ordinance may lead to creation of a rental registry which is part of the Amherst ordinance.
