ORDER-2016-7 : Amending Revised Ordinances of the City of Melrose, Chapter 6, Section 6-3.1 (Senior Citizen Property Tax Work-Off Abatement Program)

Transcript (~5 min @ 1:05:40)

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▶ 1:05:38 Speaker 5: That order passes.

▶ 1:05:40 Speaker 10: Order 2016-7, Amending Revised Ordinances of the City of Melrose, Chapter 6, Section 6-3.1, senior citizen property tax work off abatement program so what it comes

▶ 1:05:53 Speaker 5: recommended as amended from the legal and legislative committee motion for

▶ 1:06:03 Speaker 5: passage second as amended Alderman McAteer-Margolis moves for passage as amended the motion is seconded by Alderman Medeiros is there discussion

▶ 1:06:15 Speaker 5: madam clerk there this is a roll call please call the roll well we have a

▶ 1:06:22 Speaker 5: motion that's been properly made and properly seconded and it's been voted yes yes yes yes

▶ 1:06:51 Peter D. Mortimer: yes yes yes yes yes yes yes that order passes well motion for reconsideration mr president

▶ 1:06:55 Speaker 5: Alderman Mortimer being on the prevailing side moves for reconsideration is there a second to the motion for reconsideration second motion for reconsideration is seconded by Alderman Byrd

▶ 1:07:13 Peter D. Mortimer: on discussion on the motion for reconsideration Mr. President I make this motion because procedurally we were in the midst of a vote and no amendment could be made at that time but I just want to make sure that we are not going forward in an improper fashion in light of the memo that we have before us from the city solicitor and the chief assessor and I'd like to hear other people weigh in on that to see if we shouldn't make the amendment before we go ahead and finalize our disposition on this. The chair always assumes that the board

▶ 1:07:46 Speaker 5: knows what it's doing when it makes a motion that's duly seconded but correct is there any

▶ 1:07:55 Speaker 5: discussion relative to the motion for reconsideration alderman bird thank you mr president

▶ 1:08:02 Jaclyn L. Bird: um i believe that alderman mortimer is referring to the memo that we received from um city solicitor van campen that was uh correcting language that we had previously amended in committee and this would change it back to let's see it says the city solicitors of the opinion that the sentence in question is in proper form the original language of the order as the plural quote individuals agrees with the plural their specific qualifications if the intent is to amend to the singular the correct form would be quote individual and quote his or her specific qualifications so I guess my motion would be to return the order to the way

▶ 1:08:50 Speaker 5: it was in its original format well we can't do that unless the orders can is reconsidered I'm sorry and we're breaking new ground here I think in 16 years I don't think I've ever had an issue of grammar that has come up before

▶ 1:09:04 Speaker 5: the board all right on the motion to reconsider do you wish to address the

▶ 1:09:10 Monica C. Medeiros: motion to reconsider Alderman Medeiros well it's it's not entirely appropriately so but I do stand by I made the original motion and I don't think there's a need to reconsider but I stand by my grammatical interpretation in the sentence in question is in each calendar year individuals shall be allowed to participate in this program based on and the original language was their specific qualifications to perform work and I moved to change it in which the committee did adopt at the time to ones o-n-e apostrophe s specific qualifications the reason being that although we're talking about individuals we're talking about each individual's own specific qualifications of that are belonging to that one person even though it is in even though the subject is that i think this is this is really grammatical insiderness but i i believe that i am correct

▶ 1:10:15 Monica C. Medeiros: that each individual has his or her own specific qualifications i think we want i think in my mind i wanted to avoid the his or her qualifications because that just opens up a whole bunch of gender fun so i went with ones so there we go is there further discussion on the motion to reconsider

▶ 1:10:40 Speaker 5: okay an affirmative vote means that you wish to reconsider this order a negative vote means that you do not wish to reconsider this order and that you wish the original vote of the board of aldermen to stand as it relates to this order all those in favor of reconsideration of