Newton City Council President Susan Albright issued this statement refuting a complaint that the council violated the Open Meeting Law when it set the date for the Northland referendum.
Albright: City Council did not break open meeting law
by village14 | Feb 5, 2020 | City Council, Northland | 9 comments
Can’t speak to the Open Meeting Laws, but do have a related question…
For the past 2 years, in regards to Northland negotiations, all we’ve heard from many members of the Council is they play a judiciary role in this process, can only judge/vote on the facts presented and cannot negotiate.
Yet these same Council Members proudly tout the negotiations they have made in their constituent newsletters urging people to vote, “Yes”. “Yes, for Newton” even has it in their literature.
So did they lie to us to turn a blind eye to public comment/concerns or were rules broken?
Matt, any rules that were broken while the Northland’s special permit deliberations were on-going would have been by city councilors if they have already determined how they will vote and share that info with residents. Only those councilors and the ones they spoke to or made promises concerning their vote know if those rules have been broken.
No one lied to you about not being able to discuss a special permit during the negotiation stage. No one turned a blind eye to public comments and concerns – these comments/wants were deliberated by the councilors and either
incorporated into the negotiations or not. Decisions have to be made and if your particular suggestion among all the others was not included, be assured some of those others’ suggestions were.
Your reference to “councilors not being able to negotiate” doesn’t include enough information to understand what you mean. During the special permit process the city council can and should negotiate with the party who submitted the proposal but not with residents/constituents. Negotiating does not include listening to the community and using their comments in their negotiations
After the city council votes to either grant or dispose of the special permit, the councilors’ duty in that respect is over so they can shout their opinions, their parts in the negotiations, mitigations they were instrumental in obtaining and ask voters to vote one way or another.
@Matt – My understanding is they cannot pre-judge the outcome of the permit before they have concluded their hearing of it. That has nothing to do with negotiating a better deal or recommending changes that would be viewed favorably by a councilor or councilors.
@Matt – I think there is a large misunderstanding of the process. A project comes before the land use committee for review against the appropriate special permit criteria. Councilors are obligated not to prejudge a project before all the facts have been heard. (Imagine taking a lawsuit to court and hearing the judge say during the trial – i think the defendent is not guilty – now go on with your case. Of course that would be unacceptable. )
A petitioner starts off by making the case for the project as submitted. The Land Use Committee, while reviewing the project against criteria, might ask, can you mitigate the traffic impact?can you create more open space?, can you put the parking underground? Can you break up the massing of the buildings? Can you reduce the commercial because the project according to experts won’t support that much commercial? Can you make it easier for residents to leave their cars behind and take the T to work? Are you willing to put a cap on the number of car trips from the site and mitiate anything about the cap?
All of these questions and the responses to these questions are what happens to make a project better over the course of the review. The Northland project like almost every other project reviewed by the Land Use Committee changed over time and became something that would be a benefit to Newton.
This is the same process whether someone applys to add a bedroom addition or a large project like Needham st. Councilors are obligated to keep an open mind during deliberations but that doesn’t ‘mean that each and every member doesn’t work had to make a project that in the end will benefit all – whether it might be mitigating the bedroom addition by providing landscaped screening from the neighbor or much grander mitigation asked for in the conditions for the Needham st project.
You should avoid mixing up prejudging with the review of the project.
To address your blind eye comment – The Council never turns a blind eye to citizens. Citizens bring a critical and helpful eye to the review of a project. I served on the Land Use Committee for 12 years and always appreciated citizen input. The focus on traffic came directly from citizen concern and relates strongly to the most stringent traffic demand management program as a condition arguably in any special permit in the commonwealth. It holds the petitioner accountable for any missteps both through actions to mitigate and financially. Certainly, the agreement to provide 16 hours of continuous shuttle service in perpetuity was something NOT part of the orginal plan and came hard in agreement – but agreement on this we got. Citizens were in no small part responsible for this hard work.
I’m no longer on the Land Use Committee as I switched to Zoning and Plnanning. But I know the Committee did work very had to make this project something Newton can and should be proud of. The council should be proud of how hard it worked to make this project something Newton will benefit from.
Susan, thank you. Thank you for your statement on the council and the bogus open meeting law complaint.
In case anyone reading this post doesn’t know about the complaint, I’ll elaborate. The Open Meeting Law complaint was filed by RightSize through a member of its Ballot Committee knowingly misrepresenting what the earlier agenda change was for and when the vote on the date for holding the referendum was decided. They left out and misrepresented easily obtained, pertinent information, such as the voting date being decided at a January 8 meeting – not at the January 3 meeting – another attempt at voter suppression by stalling the veto referendum vote so it would have to after Super Tuesday when more voters will be present.
Again, thank you Council President Susan Albright for participating on V14 and answering commenters’s questions
You gave an great, easy to understand explanation of the rules governing the special permit process.
Over the years these questions have come up regarding the city councilors duties in the special permit process, although then they were just questions and now they come with venom. Ted Hess-Mahon struggled for his entire tenure to explain to both residents and some councilors reluctant to follow the rules how the process works. He even had, at one time – I cannot find it now – a document on the city website with a detailed explanation.
I have explained the special permit process numerous times on V14 and on the village listservs. Either residents don’t know or don’t want to know because it doesn’t fit with their agenda that after a special permit is filed, city councilors are required to listen to all parties involved in differing ways, negotiate with the developer to get the most they can for Newton in both mitigations and in the best project they can.
While this part of the process is ongoing and during deliberations city councilors cannot talk about the special permit with residents or among themselves (which would be an actual Open Meeting Law violation) unless it is an official gathering for that purpose where minutes would be kept.
In addition the city council can make no decisions until this part of the process is over.
Thank you Councilor. I have written the Council many times in this matter over the past 2 years and can count on one hand the number or responses I got back.
This makes 6, so thank you.
Marc Laredo tried ask for phasing. Northland flat out rejected the idea. Yet Wellesley is doing it just across our border.
Why did we back off so quickly? Would have made a huge difference in not making us residents feel like we are drinking for a firehose of density.
That’s ultimately what this is all about. Too much. All at once. And no safety valve for us residents if things don’t go as planned.
Matt,
The developer probably said they could not get financing for a project in phases… and the council believed then unequivocally.
The reality is that they couldn’t get the financing at the interest rate they wanted which would give them fat profits(ceo, exec bonuses)
Actually it’s more complicated than that. In order to create eight parks and 10 acres of open space (about 40 percent of the project, which of course is pretty close to all buildings and asphalt now) and plant 750 new trees, Northland agreed to place all the parking underground. Building underground parking is wicked expensive and really difficult, if not impossible, to build in phases. Since the parking will serve residents, office workers and shoppers, you have to do that first. Phases just isn’t feasible and certainly getting the financing to attempt it wasn’t feasible either.