Council Hears City’s Proposed Changes to Administrative Code

On Thursday, April 11, the Council convened for its regular meeting of the Committee of the Whole. On the agenda was a single item, a presentation by the administration to amend the City of Everett Administrative Code.

The Council will be voting on the proposed changes at their next regular meeting on April 22.

All councilors were present save three; Councilors Anthony DiPierro, Wayne Matewsky and Leo McKinnon had prior commitments.

The meeting opened with a slideshow presented by Assistant City Solicitor Matt Lattanzi, which provided an overview of the proposed changes to the code. Councilors received paper copies of the presentation as well as the existing administrative code to compare the changes against.

The Council then analyzed the 60-page administrative code line by line and invited Mayor Carlo DeMaria, Chief of Staff Kevin O’Donnell, and City Solicitor Colleen Mejia to answer the Council’s questions about the amended language.

Proposed changes were divided into three groups and included the following:

•General Provisions

Those eligible to serve on a board or commission would expand to include those who own property in Everett (previously residents only). Board or commission members can be removed after missing two meetings (previously three) with permission from chairperson, or four total meetings (previously six). The Mayor would be able request the resignation of anyone serving on a board. All boards and commissions would be required to submit recordings and minutes within seven days. The Assistant City Clerk would be able to administer oaths of office to appointees (previously only City Clerk.)

•Multi-member Bodies

Changes to the Everett Public Libraries Board of Trustees (LBoT) would include the following: the City would take over the human resources duties of the LBoT; the City Treasurer would become the default treasurer of the LBoT; and the LBoT would go from overseeing the whole library system to overseeing the management of the trust left by founder Frederick E. Parlin.

Amendments in this section also reflect changes to multi-member bodies including commission names, alternate members, numbers of required members, term lengths, job duties, and language that could be interpreted as ambiguous.

•Executive Administration

The Department of Public Works (DPW) would rename a number of its departments as well as modify the duties and responsibilities associated with various departments and job titles. The Code Enforcement Task Force would add the Superintendent of Schools or his designee as a 10th required member. The City’s new Department of Organizational Assessment would provide workplace consulting to and oversight of other City departments. Lastly, the title of Risk Manager and associated duties would be added to the title of City Solicitor.

The Council will be required to vote on these changes as a whole rather than on individual changes. For this reason, the Council requested a clarification in the language regarding associate/alternate members, which the Mayor agreed to. The City Solicitor will present the final document with the incorporated changes to the Council on April 22 where the Council will accept or reject it.

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