ORDER-2015-73 : Transfer of $9,881.24 from Temporary Debt Interest to Various Accounts as set forth within

Transcript (~18 min @ 19:10)

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▶ 18:38 Peter D. Mortimer: participation alderman ferner has made a motion to open the floor for public participation it has It has been duly seconded by Alderman Wright. All in favor of public participation, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, public participation is now open. We have one order before us this evening. It is order number 2015-73. It is the transfer of $9,881.24 from temporary debt interest to various accounts as set forth. within i would welcome at this time a motion to suspend the rules that we may hear from the appropriate city officials that's our city planner denise gaffey and a member of the zoning boarders

▶ 19:27 Peter D. Mortimer: of appeals rita mercado anyone on a motion to suspend the rules second alderman byrd has made a motion to suspend the rules it is duly seconded by alderman inferno all in favor please say aye Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we are under suspension and we will be elucidated and educated by Ms. Gaffey and Ms. Mercado. Good evening ladies, thank you for coming out on this cold and rainy, about to become cold and snowy December evening. Would you like to proceed directly to questions or would you like to make an opening statement?

▶ 20:05 Denise Gaffey: I'll make an opening statement. name is please proceed my name is Denise Gaffey I'm the director of planning and community development I'm here with Rita Mercado she's the chairwoman of the zoning board of appeals and we're here to speak about the order on the funding transfer um my proposal is to transfer 8 413 from that funding transfer to fund a payroll adjustment to accommodate a reclassification of the zba clerk position in order to better meet the needs of the position and provide increased support for the zoning Board of Appeals and for the planning office the zoning Board of Appeals clerk position is currently a stipend position and it provides administrative support to the ZBA and the as a stipend position there are very limited hours in limited the funds associated with it so a limited amount of support that the clerk can provide to the zoning board of appeals and the need has sort of arisen to provide increased support and more responsibility to to support the zoning board of appeals assistance with drafting decisions to try to create more cohesion and similar to the support that we provide in the planning office to the planning board so the proposal is to reclassify the clerk position to a part-time planning coordinator position and this position would work 24 hours per week it would be roughly two and a half hours two and a half days per week in the planning office currently the clerk position does not have a home in anywhere in City Hall she works works from her home and juggles the hours as best she can so this would more formalize the position provide provide for the possibility for more responsibility and and more support to the zoning Board of Appeals and to the planning office so it's you had in fact I there's a job description that was submitted as part of this applicant in this order so hopefully you've had a chance to see that and you can see the the the types of responsibilities that are outlined in the position so I feel and I know Rita feels this is a this is a great growth opportunity for a skilled professional and many of you have worked with the clerk over the years are familiar with her work and she really is very skilled and very talented and I think this is a great opportunity for her to be provided with some some growth and also to assist better assist with the Zoning Board of Appeals and also provide additional capacity in the Planning Office to help us achieve our goals and I think the other nice aspect of this is it it it creates a closer link between the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Planning Office by by reclassifying this position so I think that's another benefit so ideally if this order is approved the classification would take place in January Jan beginning January 1 2015 and I'll turn it over to Rita comments so I

▶ 23:17 Speaker 10: fully support obviously the reclassification and one of the main reasons of why this reclassification is really integral for my board is one thing that this reclassification will give opportunities for our clerk to do is to actually draft the decisions right now members of my board we volunteer and we round robin and we each take an opportunity to draft the decisions by having one individual be able to draft the decision we'll have consistency and how the decisions are drafted which helps with the interpretation of what our decisions have especially from the building inspector who after we prepare a decision the building inspector has to read it so that way we can be consistent with the information that is included in each decision this is also very important from a risk management perspective I also have the opportunity as long with the planning board we'll be able to review the decisions just to make sure that we hit all of the important aspects in that decision especially for if for some reason that is appealed to the court system so I think consistency is important as well as assuring that we comply with our statutory requirements as well in terms of notice provision that this position being more of a consistent non-stipend position will allow my board to to really support the the

▶ 24:42 Peter D. Mortimer: purpose of the zoning ordinance thank you Ms. Mercado thank you Ms. Gaffey first in queue was

▶ 24:49 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Alderman Wright please thank you Mr. Chairman I fully support this order having sat on the zoning board of appeals for several years before i came to this board i know how much work is involved for the part-time clerk and i also understand the necessity of getting it right and the importance of consistency and i think putting aside the personalities although i will said the clerk they have is uh has been there for a while and does a great job um it's important that you know this be a professional uh function that that we focus on on getting these things right because um as mccarrow states uh we don't want to set ourselves up for an appeal that will fail from the city's perspective and create a situation potentially where a zoning a zoning decision or our zoning generally gets called into question and perhaps a structure or some type of development takes place um because um because of a drafting error or an oversight in putting together a decision so i fully support this as it's it's a small investment for uh as ms mccarroll stated a good risk management decision so thank you I appreciate you coming out this evening Thank You alderman right

▶ 26:19 Peter D. Mortimer: next in queue I saw alderman Inferno thank you very much mr. chairman I also

▶ 26:23 Gail Infurna: want to echo alderman Wright words but I will also expand it a little bit to talk about the planning department I for better for worse have been involved in many planning department meetings of the planning board and I know how busy they are as well and denise's office is one that brings in great revenue to the city and she seems to be involved in almost every aspect of development out there and renovations and things like that so i know this will help free up some of your staff to kind of do some more planning um planning um jobs or you know tasks that they have to do so i certainly support this and i think it's wise that you've brought this forward and and using the um resources for both for both the planning and zoning so thank you and thank you for all the work that both your boards do

▶ 27:24 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you alderman inferno any other alderman wishing to be heard at this time

▶ 27:31 Speaker 5: president Khan please what is the annual salary for this new position going to be

▶ 27:36 Denise Gaffey: so it's established at a level on 12 and it is at 24 hours a week it's roughly

▶ 27:45 Speaker 5: $30,000 and as you develop your budget for next year this order passes what's your funding so it's going to be for this position is it going to be in the budget or do you have another funding source for it so the the current level

▶ 27:57 Denise Gaffey: of the stipend and just so everyone is aware is 14,000 so there is a delta of about 16,000 there that will need to accommodate for the new budget right now the plan is that it would it would become it would come out of the general fund there's no there's no separate source for it one of the things we will be looking at is because we haven't done probably in ten years I looked at our fee structure and reevaluate whether our fees are appropriate and whether there's any opportunities there to to maybe tweak the fees a little bit um the fees for zoning board applications and

▶ 28:37 Speaker 5: planning board applications so the stipend is going to go away and be subsumed by a salary correct and the rest of the salary will be just general budget revenue correct that's all thank

▶ 28:47 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, President Kahn, Alderman Boisselle.

▶ 28:59 Robert A. Boisselle: 24 hours, two and a half days.

▶ 29:03 Denise Gaffey: Plus evening meetings, sorry.

▶ 29:05 Robert A. Boisselle: Well, is that enough time for the work to be done? I mean, you're looking as a coordinator and what you're saying here. Minister supported the office of planning and community development functions of the zoning board and the planning board and the boards of commission. plus direct and assist and coordination of other planning activities and the responsibilities alone is ensuring completely about applications identified deficiencies preparing legal notices coordinating distribution of legal I mean you have a whole series of things here that's all going to be and that's attending evening meetings plus the minutes and maintaining the minutes of the meetings and of these boards and so forth is that individual going to be a super person is there enough time do you need more time it would be great to have

▶ 29:57 Denise Gaffey: more time we're trying to be reasonable you know with creating this position in

▶ 30:04 Robert A. Boisselle: terms of the impact well I'm looking at the impact here of 2015 we're looking for a large number a number of large projects coming into play starting into say the spring of next year and there's going to be probably about a half a dozen major projects going on is this one individual going to be able to handle all this activity in all these responsibilities well speaking to the

▶ 30:27 Denise Gaffey: responsibilities a lot of these responsibilities she's doing today this is nothing new for her she's been doing the administrative support it's just it looks like a lot because there are quite a few tasks right there's quite a few two pages here these are these are tasks that are that are that she's very comfortable with as she's been doing for 12 years she knows in it's right in her wheelhouse I mean I think the difference here is that we're hoping she'll have some time to also pick up some more of the administrative support of the Planning Board so that would free up some of Aaron's time in my time to work on some you know other initiatives but we all we do have this you know we have the capacity in the office to make sure all the applications that are coming in get it get addressed if anything this is going to help us it's just going to increase because we don't we don't have the benefit of the 26 hours today so

▶ 31:21 Robert A. Boisselle: it'll it'll be an improvement are we talking 24 or 26 26 26 hours all right

▶ 31:27 Denise Gaffey: if I'm sorry did I say I said 24 yeah 24 sorry okay so it is 24 24 okay that's

▶ 31:34 Speaker 10: what I just like that I think by also having the connection between the planning board and the zoning board for this position it'll also help with with gathering information because a lot of times some of the applications that come before my board also end up in the planning boards base as well so by being in the planning office it kind of helps get that knowledge as to what are the upcoming developments and upcoming projects so it helps streamline things I think by having an office presence in the planning office from the zoning

▶ 32:06 Robert A. Boisselle: board perspective I have no problem with that logic I'm all for it and so for it a continuation of information throughout the process an individual is familiar with that information so you're not starting with a second person doing something different and good luck and I will be voting in favor of this thank

▶ 32:25 Peter D. Mortimer: you Thank You mr. chairman Thank You alderman boy cell alderman McAteer my

▶ 32:29 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: goal is please oh thank you thank you for coming and being so thoughtful and creating this position do you have anyone currently in the on the planning board staff who acts as your clerk in a similar capacity so Erin who Erin whose

▶ 32:43 Denise Gaffey: worker was the new assistant planning director does a fair amount of administrative work right now to support the planning board so the goal would be to take some of that administrative work off of her plate and allow her to work on other projects we have a you know a backlog of backlog a log of projects that we want to be working on and so this is really going to help help tremendously so we do the function now of course right right but you don't have

▶ 33:12 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: there's not another person who is working in this similar capacity for the

▶ 33:19 Denise Gaffey: no that's correct probably about 12 years ago the the secretary position that had historically been in the planning office was

▶ 33:32 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: eliminated right okay and so is it your so the person will be physically in the planning department and is it your hope that the individual who currently has this position will continue in it at the new yes rate with the new hours yes so you won't have like any kind of a lag with the training or anything like that that no just be able to jump right in and is the zoning board um also all volunteers it is right so will this individual kind of be able to act as a liaison for instance with the public if they call oh absolutely that's on the agenda that they're interested in or need to come yes and so I think that

▶ 34:13 Denise Gaffey: from that perspective there'll be an improvement in the level of service that's being provided because right now people have to leave messages on the voicemail and right she's she's not in the office but she comes in to use our copy machine and in sort stuff occasionally so this way she'll be there'll be more presence and so she can provide better service so with the

▶ 34:34 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: increase of possible projects coming down the line as Alderman Boisselle said this sounds like it would really be a necessary service for the constituents as well to be able to respond in a more timely fashion for requests or concerns that they might have that might be coming to the zoning board I think so

▶ 34:56 Peter D. Mortimer: okay thank you thank you thank you Alderman McAteer-Margolis Alderman

▶ 35:01 Monica C. Medeiros: Medeiros please thank you I just want to clarify and sort of on Alderman Boisselle's point but these are quite a lot of duties but I imagine that there are some backup available from for instance some of these these items were have been being completed by the zoning board members themselves so if if time ran out or if this person had to be out sick or something like that that other people perhaps the planning assistant you know could could help with these

▶ 35:41 Peter D. Mortimer: exactly thank you thank you very much any other alderman wishing to be heard at this time I just like to recommend we have a motion to recommend from alderman

▶ 35:53 Peter D. Mortimer: ferner second seconded by alderman wright uh before i call for the vote uh i'd just like to ask so um ms mitchell will be in your office she'll she'll be upstairs in the planning

▶ 36:05 Denise Gaffey: there'll be space for this yeah in my office correct and um kathy morgan from conservation

▶ 36:09 Peter D. Mortimer: commission's already in there but you're going to have enough space yeah she only works one

▶ 36:15 Denise Gaffey: day a week half a day at that actually and um um we wouldn't be using her space we have enough

▶ 36:26 Peter D. Mortimer: space you got you got enough right rearrange a few desks excellent um a motion to recommend this order for passage at our next full board meeting next week on the 15th has been made and duly seconded all in favor please say aye all right any opposed hearing none the motion for passage does pass the motion to recommend for passage and as you know having been here many times you need not come again next week unless something very very unusual happens between now and then and of course you'd be notified thank you very much for your presentation this night tonight and thank you for calling me this afternoon it's very nice when department heads reach out and uh talk to the committee chair it's greatly appreciated thank you so very much for coming thank you very