A look at the latest news from various municipalities across Massachusetts
Locals Eye Surplus for Extra Road Funding
Between federal relief funding and about $5 billion in surplus tax collections, Beacon Hill is sitting on a pile of cash and municipal officials on Friday made their case to get an additional $200 million this fall to pay for local roadway improvements. In July, the Legislature approved and Gov. Charlie Baker signed an appropriation of $200 million for the state-wide municipal road repair program known as Chapter 90, which delivers funds to all 351 cities and towns. During a Local Government Advisory Commission meeting Friday, local officials lined up to request that the Baker administration include an additional $200 million for the program in the supplemental budget it is expected to file soon to close out fiscal year 2021.
“Here in Auburn, we received $609,000 in Chapter 90 funds for FY22 but we estimate that we’re going to need $2.4 million annually, just to keep up with our 20-year roadway reconstruction and management plan,” Town Manager Julie Jacobson said. She added, “If our Chapter 90 allotment were to be doubled with additional funding from the state budget surplus, we would be able to reconstruct another 2.5 miles. So to put that in context because it doesn’t sound like a lot but as you all know it’s very expensive, it’s about $240,000 a mile … So a $1.2 million contract would yield about four to five miles. We have 90 road miles to maintain.”
Tom Hutchinson, town manager of Dalton, told Lt. Gov. Karen Polito and budget chief Michael Heffernan that his town gets $222,000 of the total $200 million Chapter 90 bucket but that fixing the town’s three most damaged roads would cost $415,000. “We’re not asking for complete state funding of roads but especially in rural areas, towns maintain long roads with sparse population for the use of the general public. While we out in western Massachusetts look forward to leaf-peeping season, we have difficulty keeping up with the rising costs of making this a reasonable experience for the public.”
The Massachusetts Municipal Association and others have pushed the Legislature for years to increase the amount of money authorized through Chapter 90, but this year each municipality also has a cut of $3.4 billion in aid that the American Rescue Plan Act provided to local cities, towns, and counties through the new Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund. Heffernan was non-committal about including a cash outlay for Chapter 90 in the administration’s close-out budget and reminded the local leaders that the Baker administration also wants to use some ARPA money on infrastructure projects around the state. – Colin A. Young/SHNS
Climate Network Ranks Municipal Light Plants
The ratings are in and some Bay State municipalities are receiving high marks for their clean energy efforts. The Massachusetts Climate Action Network recently released its Municipal Light Plant Scorecard, which evaluates the progress of the state’s 41 municipally-owned utility providers in combating the climate crisis. Concord Municipal Light Plant received the highest score, followed by Belmont Light and Holyoke Gas and Electric. The three plants with the lowest scores were the Merrimac Light Department, Chester Municipal Electric Light Department and Russell Municipal Light Department.
Municipal utilities control roughly 14 percent of the state’s energy, according to MCAN, but 31 of the 40 plants evaluated didn’t have any clean energy in their energy mix. And the boards governing these utility providers have begun to draw the attention of environmental advocates, with at least one PAC offering endorsements and support to climate-friendly light commission candidates. MCAN’s ratings factor in how well municipal light plants have transitioned to clean energy, as well as how they score on energy efficiency, transparency and community engagement and the strength of local energy policy.
To improve their clean energy efforts, the MCAN report recommends light plants adopt a 100 percent renewable energy opt-in program, strengthen net-metering policies, increase services for low-income households to transition to clean energy and improve infrastructure for electric vehicles, among other recommendations. View the full breakdown of scores at massclimateaction.org. – Meg McIntyre/SHNS
Brookline Telework Pilot Tackles Space Constraints, COVID Concerns
A three-month pilot of work-from-home options for town hall employees in Brookline is underway, with dual goals of serving as a COVID-19 mitigation measure and remedying longstanding space constraints in the municipal offices. The pilot began Sept. 7, and officials plan to re-evaluate and potentially modify it after three months. It gives workers the option to telecommute up to three days a week, after developing plans with their supervisors. Eighty-six employees from 13 departments are participating. Town Administrator Mel Kleckner said the program “will provide the town with insight into whether or not work from home options are feasible going forward, even after the pandemic.”
Brookline plans to survey participants on their modes of transportation to work, as a way of measuring potential environmental impacts from the change in commuter habits. The pandemic has forced reconsideration of what jobs can effectively be done remotely, a trend that has applied to municipal governments as well as larger public-sector entities and private companies.
A September 2020 telework policy for Brockton city employees allows workers in suitable positions to telecommute as long as their department’s operations are not jeopardized and they physically report at least two days a week. Worcester’s telework policy describes “flexibility” as its key principle, stating that workplace flexibility “supports the City’s goals related to employee recruitment, retention, and sustainability, employee excellence and well-being, and overall financial savings for the City.” In its annual workforce survey, the Center for State and Local Government Excellence — now MissionSquare Research Institute — said the percentage of respondents reporting regular telework for eligible positions nearly doubled from 27 percent in 2020 to 53 percent in 2021. The practice was more common among state agencies (64 percent) than local ones (19 percent). – Katie Lannan/SHNS
Renters, EJ Communities Prioritized in Mass Save Lobbying Letter
More than two dozen local officials from Boston to Pittsfield this week sent a letter to Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito urging the administration to make the Mass Save program more accessible to underserved communities and renters. In the letter spearheaded by the Green Justice Coalition, the municipal leaders said the administration’s next three-year energy efficiency plans, currently under development for 2022-2024 at the Department of Energy Resources, must give renters, English-isolated communities, environmental justice neighborhoods and working-class communities more ways to participate in Mass Save’s weatherization and efficiency programs.
“Please reject any energy efficiency plan that does not center the needs of these communities, and fails to clearly outline direct actions and budget commitments that will address the disparities in access to energy efficiency programs. We need to prioritize equity as we strive for an energy efficiency future and design pathways to meet Massachusetts’s emission reduction goals,” the officials wrote. “Underserved communities currently struggle with high electricity bills while wealthier suburbs access the state’s energy efficiency services 6–7 times more. It is a top priority to reach low-income populations, immigrants, people with English isolation, and renters.”
The locals suggested that the plans increase the income threshold to be eligible for certain Mass Save programs from 60 percent to 80 percent of the state median income, direct additional resources to cities that underutilize Mass Save like Worcester, Springfield, and Lynn, and that the plans should expand Mass Save to include housing retrofits, affordable heat pumps, and more efficient appliance standards. “Everyone, including our most vulnerable residents, should have access to weatherization and its benefits. Addressing these gaps will also help meet the state’s ambitious climate emissions reduction targets outlined in the most recent climate justice bill and in your Clean Energy and Climate Plan,” the local officials wrote.
The list of municipal leaders who signed the letter to Baker and Polito includes Boston city councilors Michelle Wu, Lydia Edwards and Julia Mejia, Chelsea City Manager Tom Ambrosino, Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, Pittsfield Mayor Linda Tyer, and officials from Revere, Framingham, Amherst, New Bedford, Burlington, Bridgewater, Marlborough, Newton, Newburyport, Watertown, Winchester, Methuen, Brookline, Franklin, and Becket. The 2022-2024 energy efficiency plans must be voted on by the Energy Efficiency Advisory Council and submitted to the Department of Public Utilities by Oct. 31. – Colin A. Young/SHNS
Virtual ‘Smart Growth’ Series on the Schedule
The COVID-19 health crisis exposed new concerns for municipalities as well as potential new solutions and approaches. With people advised to stay home and work patterns upended, local businesses, transit options and more took on new significance. To learn about how communities can apply pandemic lessons to plans for the future, elected officials and municipal employees can now register for a virtual series called Commonwealth Communities: Smart Growth Strategies for Our Emergent Future.
Presented by Smart Growth America and LOCUS, the symposium includes four webinars scheduled between Oct. 6 and Nov. 17 focused on how municipalities can create walkable communities, support small businesses, improve transit options and budget with equity in mind. Each session will feature speakers from governments, businesses and organizations, such as WalkBoston, the MBTA, and Ballston BID. The first webinar, “Make Way for Walkability,” will delve into how the pandemic has changed our sense of place, as well as the social and economic benefits of walkable development. To register, visit smartgrowthamerica.org. – Meg McIntyre/SHNS
Newton Mayor: Nips Bottles Are Everywhere
Nips bottles are everywhere in Newton — along the Charles River, scattered throughout green spaces and littering village centers, Mayor Ruthanne Fuller told state lawmakers last month as she pressed them to support a “better bottle bill.” “Across the commonwealth, we’re finding those nip bottles kind of everywhere,” Fuller said in her testimony on legislation (H 3289/S 2149) from Rep. Marjorie Decker and Sen. Cindy Creem. The mayor added, “I know this can be complicated, I know it can be political. But this bottle bill brings us up to best practices. We’d love to have you move it forward. It’d be a big help here locally in Newton, and I know in so many other cities and towns.”
The Decker/Creem bill would expand the state’s bottle redemption law that imposes a refundable surcharge on the purchase of many bottled or canned beverages to include “any drinkable liquid intended for human oral consumption.” The “better bottle bill,” as supporters have called it, would double the bottle deposit to 10 cents and bring small “nips” bottles of liquor into the program. Fuller said the Newton City Council, like other local governing bodies around the state, has tried to address the pollution problem on its own but that a state-wide effort is due.
Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll threw her support behind the bottle bill refresh Tuesday when she helped launch a public campaign to build support for the Decker/Creem bill with MASSPIRG. Meanwhile, the Mass. Package Store Association supports legislation (H 3284) to expand the state’s bottle recycling incentive program in a different way — one “that, in our opinion, many retailers can support and help make actually work in the state,” Executive Director Rob Mellion said. “It addresses some core issues that are important to them, but it incentivizes, as well, people to engage in picking up materials all across the state,” he said, adding that his organization regularly sponsors bottle pick-ups in cities and towns around the state, including Newton. In 2014, Massachusetts voters rejected a ballot question expanding the bottle bill, with 26 percent voting in favor and 71 percent against the initiative petition. – Colin A. Young/SHNS
