Remarks by Jefferson Thomas (J.T.) Scott
25 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 1
Before moving on to committee reports, I'd like to request that we can take item 10.1 out of order so that I can introduce it before committee reports and or I go to sleep.
Thank you, Mr. President. This is one that, oh, I'll wait for him.
All right, so no introduction to the item tonight, Mr. President?
Thank you very much, Mr. President. just to make it again for the sake transparency I appreciate this I am proposing in this item a new transit oriented overlay which aims to increase the amount of housing that can be built and in particular provide more permanently affordable housing to some of the most expensive and transit accessible areas in the city This is something that has been, I will take all the criticisms and flaws that exist within this on myself, but it is something that has been worked on by a large group of community advocates for over a year now. The effect of this overlay…
To make up for my previous speech, I'll make this very short. We had a very efficient two-hour meeting on October 13th where we handled a great many ordinances. First on our agenda was a public hearing that was requested by the mayor on his civilian oversight presentation and a blistering display of community engagement. There were zero speakers. We did then have a discussion of the ordinances to establish a rental registry. The update from the administration being that they're going to work on that soon. The discussion of short-term rentals and our ordinance that whose enforcement has been…
thank you mr. president just as a way of explanation as a reminder to everybody who may have forgotten about these these are policy reports that are submitted by the mayor they are basically at this point they are transparency documents the vote to actually authorize these that these technologies was already taken by this council I believe in the middle of our summer recess So this is part of the administration's continuing commitment to refine these documents in response to various counselors, like Counselor Hart and Ward 7, request to add further clarification. I would leave it to Counselor…
Thank you for my colleague from Ward 1 for bringing this moment. I Teresa Ozzie was an incredible individual, very well known in Somerville, but for anybody who didn't know her, really just exemplified the strength that I associate with Somerville. She's one of the few people I know to sue the city twice and win while working for the city. When I talk about how nobody knows their blocks better than the people who live on it, I'm talking about Teresa Hussey. When I talk about the generational knowledge that we lose out of water and sewer when the people have been working on it for so long go…
Mr. Chair. Councilor Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to be recused from this one as I appear on the list of abutters on page seven. All right, very good. Councilor Scott is recused.
Thank you, Mr. President. I don't have any questions. I very much appreciate being provided with the lease so that I can review it before the meeting. I also want to say thank you to... Director Scherf of Arts of the Armory for providing the city council with a letter giving us a heads up that the lease had been finalized and conveying their continued concerns. I'm grateful for the work of staff to try to get this thing buttoned up and put away in a satisfactory manner and for being responsive to those concerns and making edits to the lease. And it's my fervent wish that the city can manage…
It is a very subtle thing, the difference between the stabilization fund and the salary contingency account. I just had one question, just to be perfectly clear about this. This is not a request to ratify a new contract agreement. This is simply a funding appropriation to pay the prior year balance of an agreement that's already been reached, correct?
All right, thank you, Mr. President. Any further questions, discussion?
Thank you, Mr. President. I have reviewed this, and as much as I would tend to want to only include the discretion of the Council President as the way to conduct this particular review, I don't have a problem with it as submitted. I'm fine with having it approved tonight.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. President. Everything my colleagues have said is spot on and obviously all support. I'd love to sign on to this resolution as well, but the scale. Really gets to me. Mr. President, the scale of wealth accumulation is a problem that we have throughout our society. The operating profit, I mean, there was a $750 million number mentioned there in terms of revenue, but the operating profit of just this one property has been reported at $230 million a year. $230 million a year, even if you divided that up across every one of those 1,400 employees that they mentioned, that's…
Thank you, Mr. President. I think this is kind of an awkward discussion given that we started it and then went into executive session and then came back out of executive session. So it might be helpful just for the public to understand that we as a council, we as a community, have been demanding a civilian oversight function for a very long time the first council demands back in 2020 which were riding along with the community demands of justus Somerville and And with that said, all of this impacts a contract with employees that have a union. And we are not the ones who negotiate those…
I'll save some for your shared part of the brain, sir.
With that I ask the committee report be accepted can see a captain moves at the critical except this committed discussion on the report has gotten thank you on the motion for approval committee report... I just want to say thank you to the... Committee for engaging as you described in a very long and thoughtful conversation about these... I'm excited to see the active in place I think this is... Better than doing nothing And I look forward to more that we can do, hopefully between now and the end of the year. That said, I also just want to applaud the pushing forward on making it more…
Mr. President. Councilor Scott. Before we proceed, I know there is gonna be a lot of waving of the readings and referring to committee coming up here. I did wanna point out something that I think might have been an oversight in the agenda this evening. There is no committee report from the legislative matters meeting, which we held on Tuesday. So given that it was a meeting that had three public hearings generated its own set of minutes and also Had the action of approving a previous set of minutes that was amended I would ask that a committee report be generated and added to our next council…
Mr. President, I also have a late item. Using exactly the same language as my colleague with the same timing, irrevocably resigning my position as Ward 2 City Councillor, effective December 31st, 2026. and also likewise request that you put in an order at the next meeting for a special election.
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Yeah, well, hey, at least there's no double poles on Allen Street, sir.
Thank you Mr. President and I thank my colleagues for bringing this forward. Hopefully this is indicative of an intention from the executive to change city policy. I know previously our response to homeowner requests about rat control is to dispatch contractors who place out that rodenticide rat bait so I'm hopeful that we'll hear from the administration about a larger systemic change. I know there have been multiple Multiple efforts called for over the years to support the raptor populations. You know, I had a falcon nest just above my house last year with three fledgings and haven't seen…
Yes, Mr. President, on the motion, I just want to congratulate the mayor's team and, of course, the union. We've approved a lot of these, and there's a distinctive difference between somebody saying thank you, the process is concluded, and somebody who was really actually pleased with the process. So this is all credit to the new administration taking a different approach to labor negotiations, apparently. So thank you. I'm looking forward to voting for it. Further discussion?
Thank you, Mr. President, and I want to thank my colleagues for bringing these two items. I'm happy to sign on to both of them. I think our short-term rental ordinance is something that this council is very excited about as a way to actually make sure that housing stock stays in the rental market as opposed to in the short-term rental market. And it's one of those few things that we could do directly to impact housing availability as a city council. Unfortunately, it has entered the Hall of Fame of unenforced ordinances right up there with the vacant property ordinance, which does the same…
Yeah, you know what? Send them to Legislative Matters. I was just thinking about mending the agenda for that public hearing night to include these just so the reference materials are in one place. So sure, please refer that to Legislative Matters, and I'm sure it'll be discharged with work completed.