Minutes of Council Workshop dated March 11, 2015
WORKSHOP MEETING OF THE AGAWAM CITY COUNCIL
The following are the minutes from the:
Agawam City Council Workshop Meeting
Wednesday, March 11, 2015 at 6:30pm
Agawam Public Library
– Peirce Room
750 Cooper Street
Agawam, MA. 01001
The meeting was attended by nine of the city councilors with Councilors Letellier and Perry absent.
The meeting was called to order
at 6:30pm.
This meeting is a workshop of the City Council to discuss the budget review process as well as a detailed review of the City Council Rules and Regulations.
Review of the
Rules and Regulations
We went Rule by Rule to review any suggested changes, comments and/or concerns. Council President will revise a new set of Rules and Regulations encompassing
all of the changes, omissions and additions.
In particular, it was discussed that the Board of Appeals receives paychecks whether or not they attend meetings. One possibility could
be to grandfather in those that are on the ZBA now but change it for the future to omit longevity and come up with a percentage of meetings to attend in order to get paid and possibly
add some participation requirements.
It was also discussed whether or not to keep the wording for the Solicitor to sign all documents as to “form and legality”. It seems now that the
current Solicitor will not sign our documents unless the Mayor agrees with the particular item. That is not his role. Recently an item was sent to him which the Mayor did not agree
with and they amended our item! All his role is regarding this is to sign for form and legality not whether anyone agrees with it or not. Council President Johnson stated that this
process is has been irretrievably broken. Councilor Bitzas doesn’t believe that this is the current situation and said that this would be illegal if we didn’t require the Solicitor
to sign and we would be opening up a can of worms. Councilor Mineo thought it was a requirement to which Council President said no it is only suggested in our Rules – it is not a law.
Councilor Bitzas asked couldn’t we require the Solicitor to sign within two weeks or even one week. Councilor Suffriti also mentioned a time requirement within which to sign. Councilor
Mineo asked if we could use our professional services line item if necessary. Councilor Rossi asked why even send the current Solicitor anything - just take it out of our Rules. The
consensus was to remove this requirement from the Rules and Regulations. Councilor Bitzas said he would vote “Present” on anything not signed by the Solicitor.
Budget Review Process
The proposed dates for the budget workshop are May 18th and June 1st immediately following our regular City Council meetings. Council President Johnson also spoke
with Superintendent of Schools Sapelli and plan to have a school budget presentation during the week of May 18th. Councilor Cavallo strongly disagrees with having this and feels it
undermines his authority as Chair of the City Council School Budget Sub-Committee. Councilors Rossi and Calabrese feel it would be a good idea – the more opportunities to look at this
budget, the better. It actually is found in the Rules and Regulations that a workshop is required regarding the School Budget.
There was quite a bit of discussion and disagreement
about whether there are actually Budget Sub-Committees anymore. The majority thought that when we started doing Full Council budget presentations that we no longer used these sub-committees
and there hasn’t been a budget sub-committee meeting in several years.
The workshop was adjourned at 8:10pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Christopher C. Johnson
President
cc: Full Council,
Mayor, Solicitor