On April 22, 2025, the City Council voted to approve funding for capital projects, heard from the City Manager about the City logo, heard about the re-organization plan, set limits for revolving funds, and supported a bill on Beacon Hill about Community Media Programming. See the highlights of the meeting provided by Municipal Policy Analyst Doug Newton.
City Council Newsletter
Please see below for the city council’s newsletter for its meeting on April 22, 2025. You can view the video recording of the meeting here.
President’s Report
The council president informed the council and the public that four visioning sessions have been held discussing what might be needed in designing the middle school which have been very informative.
He and other members of the school building committee will be touring three middle schools on Wednesday and Thursday this week for the purposes of reviewing potential designs.
Council supports An Act to modernize funding for community media programming
After receiving a request from Watertown Cable Access, the council voted unanimously to express support for H. 91 An act to modernize funding for community media programming. This bill in the Massachusetts legislature would place a fee on streaming services which mirrors the fee that cable providers pay to provide public access television. Currently, streaming services do not pay for public access. This presents challenges in funding given the decline in cable subscriptions which has taken place in recent years. The bill can be read here.
Before voting, the council emphasized its support for WCATV and gratitude for all that they have done to provide access to government, especially during and since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Council approves annual revolving fund limits
As is required annually, the council unanimously approved annual limits to its revolving funds, which are funds for the purpose of managing fees and revenues received by the city for specific programs. On Tuesday, the council approved the following limits for its eight revolving funds:
Commander’s Mansion: $290,000
Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force: $1,000,000
Senior Center: $35,000
Library Copier: $25,000
Faire on the Square: $65,000
Farmers’ Market: $60,000
Animal Control: $25,000
Public Arts: $90,000
Council approves transfer of funds from council reserve
The council voted unanimously to approve a transfer of $455,800 from the council reserve to various FY25 capital project accounts. These funds are to support the following infrastructure improvements:
Renovation of the auditor’s office to accommodate the new communications team space
Design process for the Parker Building
Replacement of overhead doors and operators at both the main and north fire stations
Replacement of the Zamboni room door at the John A. Ryan Skating Rink.
Manager introduces re-organization plan
The manager submitted a small reorganization plan which creates the Department of Human Services and organizes the community wellness and food pantry teams under the director. This was referred to the Community on Personnel and City Organization.
City logo not moving forward
The city manager shared with the council and the public that the city logo that had been discussed recently will not be moving forward. He noted that the demands on staff time moving forward in the process would be too costly given other priorities. He further stated that the city still benefited from the process and will be using the style guide with blue and green colors moving forward, such as what was used in the manager’s FY26 budget documents. The administration will also work to create higher resolution images of the city seal and update branding material such as business cards and new city vehicles. The city will also be installing wayfinding signs which are consistent with this branding.
Re.: City logo not moving forward.
Thank you for doing the right thing. The city seal has a better chance of surviving efforts to replace it now.
Please apply the same thought process when future endeavors call for name changes [of established public places and the like] with newly imagined versions brought forth by activists. Columbus Delta comes to mind.
“city still benefited from the process and will be using the style guide with blue and green colors moving forward” – what does that even mean? Is the town manager is trying to say he spent $1,000s of $ on something that is not going to happen but that it was worth something anyway? I hope this doesn’t become standard practice.
I write this as a citizen, and not as a representative of any group to which I belong.
As I said at Tuesday’s Coty Council meeting, I think the City Manager did a very good job with the budget, given current circumstances. It is good to see that sound financial planning practices are being used rather than just cost cutting. Managing money goes beyond money in and money out or cutting to the bone to address acute needs or produce a picture of austerity while decimating any opportunities for growth. Pennywise-Poundfoolish is never good.
In order for the city to operate more efficiently, departments and programs need to scale. Right now, there are so many needs not being met because we have several city employees doing the job of 3 due to poor organizational structures. These needs will continue to accrue during the current federal administration because any federal program or state-level one that provides funding to homeowners, schools, vets, the elderly, the disabled, and businesses will be disrupted over the next 3 and 3/4 years. As a result, the needs will stop at the municipality’s front door. This will require for the municipality to have bulwarks that it never possessed.
Growth came from the commercial activity and the residential ones which had a net positive of 1.5% last year. We need to shore up these up so that they continue to grow. Items like infrastructure, education and safety need to be included, but on the flip side preventive services such as meeting nutritional needs, sustaining economic development and addressing mental health issues need to be included in equal measure. One can build several doctor’s offices but if residents only have junk food options, then you continue to treat the symptoms.
This will require creativity and innovation. Taking the Rapid Response Ambulance, for example, can we have an insurance company pay for it in total, especially one that wants to do some damage control? I know companies do this. I had a pharmaceutical refund me 10k for an experimental drug for a family member. What about some of the local businesses that are doing well? Free ice cream, coffees pizza and paper-shredding is nice but how about an ambulance this year? Or how about donating all the solar panels that thee city needs so that reduced electrical costs go offset the price of the ambulance. One idea that may lead to some offsetting is aggressively ticketing cars that don’t stop for ambulances. Regardless of city or town, I constantly see cars not pull over for ambulances, police, fire or school busses! The only thing that people still move over for are funeral processions, which is ironic because there is no life in the balance there. An increase in such revenue could help. If people can start thinking rather than Monday morning quarterbacking, then we’d all be ahead in the game now.