WESTFIELD – The City Council approved several appropriations and transfers at its regular meeting Thursday evening with some pushback.
The meeting opened with a request from Mayor Brian P. Sullivan for a moment of silence for former City Councilor Marty Canty, who passed away Thursday. Sullivan called him “a great colleague and a very good friend.”
During his briefing before the meeting, the mayor said he was not going to be asking for immediate consideration of as many items as in recent meetings. The two he did request included approval of an Order establishing a special account to receive donations for the Opiate Crisis Fund. The fund was approved by the Council at its last meeting on August 23, but the Order was inadvertently not attached to the vote. The Council approved the Order unanimously.
The second request for immediate consideration was for the acceptance of a gift of $600 from a “Client Trust” from Paul Aldrich for the Parks and Recreation Department, which the Council also approved unanimously.
The mayor did not ask for immediate consideration of the Assistance to Firefighters Grant of $141,205 for equipment on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security, saying he imagined the item would go to the Finance Committee. He said the grant, which runs from August 11, 2016 to August 10, 2017 has a 10% city share requirement of $14,000 which was not budgeted, but will come from the department’s capital outlay. He also said the equipment that they will get would cost a lot more.
ROBERT PAUL
During the meeting, Ward 5 Councilor and Finance Committee chair Robert A. Paul, Sr. said he saw no reason to bring it to his committee, and made a motion to accept the grant. Ward 4 Councilor Mary O’Connell said they probably should discuss it, because of the $14,000 expense, but she would support it. The vote was unanimous.
More discussion ensued following a Finance Committee recommendation to appropriate $200,000 from the Community Preservation Housing account to the CPA Moseley Apartments account in the former Moseley school. The Finance Committee met immediately prior to the City Council meeting on Thursday.
In bringing forth the recommendation, At-large Councilor Dave Flaherty said the Community Preservation Committee had approved the appropriation, and that it was going to a DOMUS project for appropriate use of subsidized housing.
At-large Councilor Cindy Harris said the entire project is $8.8 million, which she said comes to $320,000 per unit, and which she called “sufficient” for the subsidized housing.
“I vote no,” Harris said.
“It’s very expensive to do this. They are getting grant money. It would sit there empty otherwise. I would recommend passage,” Flaherty said. The motion passed, with Harris and At-large Councilor Dan Allie voting no.
At-large Councilor Matthew T.
MATT VANHEYNIGAN
also brought forward a recommendation from the Finance Committee meeting to transfer $36,925 within the Engineering Department to pay for a FY16 bill for the Columbia Greenway North project.
At the Finance Committee meeting, City Engineer Mark Cressotti had said the funds were for a purchase order for design services on a portion of the Rail Trail on the new bridge. He said the purchase order had been closed due to insufficient funds, but the contractor had not been notified and had completed the design work on the bridge crossing. He also said the project has been advertised and is awaiting the award of the contract.
Flaherty responded at the earlier meeting that he objected to spending the money for a bike crossing on the new bridge, calling it a “nicety, not a necessity,” a phrase he also repeated during the City Council meeting.
“When you cross now, there’s no connection. For the couple of hundred yards difference, we’re spending a lot of money,” Flaherty said.
In bringing it to the City Council, VanHeynigen said there was some discussion at the Finance Committee on the costs of “a bridge to nowhere,” but in the end, there was support for the project as a whole, and to pay a prior year bill. Paul said the committee is getting upset about prior year bills continuing to come forth, and asked whether there was a way to gather them altogether and clear them all at once.
After further discussion, the transfer passed the Council, with O’Connell as the only dissenting vote.
