The public has opportunities to shape policy this week as various Haverhill boards meet. In the interest of transparency in government, WHAV provides this list of upcoming meetings every week.
Click image for Haverhill City Council agenda.
The Haverhill City Council tonight must again decide between a 1/12 budget or approve the full-year $205.5 million budget, plus water and sewer, as proposed by the mayor.
Mayor James J. Fiorentini, in a Friday letter to councilors, said he doesn’t recommend approving a 1/12 budget, but rather his full spending plan for the year. He said month-to-month spending limits “is challenging for my department heads,” particularly the Highway Department.
“The budget only allows them to spend 1/12 of the amount they would spend at the very time when we need to do the most work. They are unable to do anything other than the bare-bones minimum of sidewalk patching,” he explained.
Just before the current fiscal year began July 1, the City Council voted 6-3 to reject Fiorentini’s original spending, citing the mayor’s then-refusal to commit to buying two new fire trucks this year. Fiorentini’s borrowing request contained only enough to replace one of two 33-year-old Hahn fire trucks.
In his appeal to councilors Friday, the mayor said he did compromise with the body by providing $100,000 extra for a canopy to protect police officers and the public from snow falling off solar panels at the police station. He said he also committed to buying a second fire truck and asks for a vote on a revised borrowing order.
Councilor Colin F. LePage is also asking the administration for an update on plans for a new citywide maintenance department. Specifically, LePage is asking about the Matrix company’s recommended “Organization of our Facilities Maintenance Department.”
Last year, the mayor and City Council agreed to create a consolidated maintenance department to tend to both schools and other city-owned buildings. The original plan called for a director to have been hired last January, but the plan was scrapped in favor of the study.
In other public meetings this week:
Tuesday, July 28
Haverhill School Committee Policy Subcommittee meets remotely Tuesday, July 28, at 4 p.m., to review the schools’ reopening plan, develop a remote work policy and develop COVID-19-specific policies for transportation, building visitors, assemblies and field trips. See related meeting Thursday, July 30.
Thursday, July 30
Haverhill School Committee Policy Subcommittee meets remotely Thursday, July 30, at 8:30 a.m., to review the schools’ reopening plan, develop a remote work policy and develop COVID-19-specific policies for transportation, building visitors, assemblies and field trips.
Haverhill Conservation Commission meets remotely Thursday, July 30, at 7:15 p.m., to review plans to construct a 110,000-square-foot distribution facility on Research Drive in the city’s Broadway industrial park. The building is proposed by Howland Development of Wilmington on behalf of an as-yet unnamed tenant.