WESTFIELD – The City Council will open its first meeting of the 2015 Fiscal Year tonight as it prepares for summer recess after it deals with a number of lingering issues, such as the dissolution of the Westfield BID and two Fire Department labor contracts it has been asked to approve.
Property owners with in the Business Improvement District petitioned the City Council to dissolve the organization because of a recent change in the state law establishing Business Improvement Districts within the Commonwealth which compels membership of businesses within the district.
Many of the business and property owners seeking to dissolve the BID had made a decision to “opt out” when the BID was established in 2006. The original 1994 state law allowed businesses and property owners the option not to participate in the BID and exempted them from BID dues.
Those owners and businessmen feel they were “impressed” into the BID, and its dues, when the law was changed in 2012.
The City Council conducted a public hearing at its June 5 session at which both opponents and proponents spoke, then referred the petition to its Government Relations Commission which met on June 17th to discuss the merits of both maintaining the BID and of dissolving it.
The Governmental Relations Committee members cited that state law change making BID membership compulsory as the reason for their vote to give the full City Council a recommendation to disband the organization. The full City Council is slatted to decide the issue tonight.
The City Council has twice deferred action of the two Fire Department labor contracts recently approved by both sides because it is demand, under state law, the financial information for the first year of the contract packages.
The council did act at the special June 30 session to approve a contract of the Westfield Professional Employee Association after several members appeared before the council to explain the financial impacts themselves.
The cost of the new contract, which has a start date of Jan. 1, 2014, is $21,000 for the 34 association members, all department heads and assistant department heads, covered in the pact. The department heads are receiving a $750 payment for the past six months, while the assistant supervisors, who account for 65 percent of the membership, will receive $500.
Those funds were taken out of money in the 2014 fiscal year budget, so there was no net cost to the city.
The council members agreed to table the two Fire Department packages with the hope that they will be provided similar financial information for the meeting tonight.
