While waiting for GCTV to post the video of yesterday’s meeting the City Council Committee Chair meeting, I have been reading through the full agenda and meeting materials PDF. As one does. One of my favorite parts of this beat, is when unexpected drama pops up in obscure corners of municipal government. In this case,…
Figuring out which way the ship is headed with the schools
At the August 10 meeting of the Greenfield School Committee, committee member Kathryn Martini asked Superintendent DeBarge a broad question about the general direction that the district is headed: DeBarge’s full response is worth a listen, but the question itself speaks to a general concern I have with this district. I want to be clear…
Where things stand with the Mayor’s fire station budget request heading into December
I watched last night’s Committee Chairs meeting and was able to get a better sense of the timeline for a final vote on funding for the new fire station. When we last left off at the City Council’s regular meeting in November, there was a first reading of the Mayor’s request to appropriate $6 million…
Police oversight and building committees fill the agenda for the Charter Review Committee.
When we last left off with the Charter Review Committee, the plan for their Nov. 23 meeting was to tackle Articles 6 and 7 of the Greenfield City Charter. However, they only got through part of Article 6, which lays out the structure, powers, and responsibilities of the city’s various departments, boards, and commissions. The…
Citizen petitions and initiatives, oh my!
While writing my post about the Accessory Dwelling Unit zoning amendment, I made a note for myself that I should also spend some time digging into the issue of citizen petitions. By my (entirely amateur) reading of the City Charter, there are three types of citizen petitions available to Greenfield residents: Individual Petitions Group Petitions…
November 20, 2020 – The week ahead
With the Thanksgiving holiday, it’s going to be a light week, both for municipal meetings and for posting on this site. There are two meetings I’ll be keeping an eye on: Monday: Charter Review Committee Meeting – This is the group tasked with recommending updates to Greenfield’s City Charter. They are coming down to the…
The City Council hears from GCET, funds Wisdom Way work, and continues to fret about the fire station and the library.
Despite the amount of time they consumed, the DPW cuts, Accessory Dwelling Units, and Greenfield’s tax classification were not the only topics the City Council addressed on Wednesday evening. Wisdom Way Per DPW Director Marlo Warner’s comments to the Council, the project to fix the crumbling sidewalk and embankments on Wisdom Way has been in…
The DPW takes the hit from a $370k cut from the FY21 Operating Budget.
A third major item on the City Council’s November 18 agenda (two others being Greenfield’s tax classification and Accessory Dwelling Unit zoning amendments) was a bucket of cuts to the current year’s operating budget. Per the Mayor’s comments at this meeting and the previous night’s Ways & Means Committee meeting, these cuts are necessary to…
The City Council partially reverses itself on Accessory Dwelling Units.
Also on the agenda for the November 18 City Council meeting was yet another revisitation of Greenfield’s Accessory Dwelling Unit zoning ordinance. What’s the issue? For the full backstory of Accessory Dwelling Units in Greenfield and the ongoing discussion of them around town, check out this post. If you just need the tl;dr1 version, an…
The City Council approves a single property tax rate for 2021.
One of the many items up for discussion at the Greenfield City Council’s November 18 regular meeting was whether city would stay with a single property tax rate. The motion on the floor for this meeting was to adopt a single tax rate—i.e., residential and commercial property owners all public the same rate. Greenfield has…