At the last full City Council meeting, the Council voted to put all of the override-related questions on the ballot: the general override, the two debt exclusion overrides, the exemptions, the date of the election, and the cost for the election. Councilor Gentile was not able to attend the previous discussion due to job-related responsibilities. He wanted to let constituents know that he is a solid “no” on the need for this override for the following reasons (watch video on NewTV beginning at 1:39:17):
- State of the economy. “I can’t see how we can ask people to pay more with the state of the economy now and the expectation it will get worse. There are times when you need to establish a budget that reflects what you have to spend and stay within that budget.”
- Revenue (received plus what we have “in the bank”). He noted that the City has received just less than $93 million of COVID relief money and has “just under $42 million sitting in the bank.”
- Revenue going forward: For Councilor Gentile, this is “the more important issue.” Newton has approximately 2,378 residential units approved and another 1,252 were in the pipeline for a total of 3,630 units, so the City will realize a substantial amount of revenue. Trio has 140 units and retail space and has paid over $1 million in building permit fees plus property tax revenue of over $600K, and that is equivalent to less than 4% of new units coming online. “We don’t have a revenue problem — if anything we have, at times, a spending problem.”
Several Councilors (Grossman, Leary, Danberg, Crossley) disagreed with Councilor Gentile. Councilor Grossman referred to the most recent budget process and said that it was made clear “what our operating needs are and what we are going to need to do as a community to maintain the level of services that our residents want and deserve to say nothing about the many needs that we have that we couldn’t begin to contemplate without going forward with this.” Councilor Danberg said even with new growth, Proposition 2 1/2 has ensured that no city or town can keep up with inflation. She said she would be voting to put this item on the ballot and has every confidence that the voters in this city will agree that “our coffers need a boost.”
The Councilors voted to put the override on the ballot: 21 yeas and 1 nay (Gentile), with 2 absent (Greenberg, Markiewicz).
Councilor Gentile was most concerned that the date of the special election would be March 14, 2023 because that gives very little time for robust discussion. He said that the override election should have been scheduled for either last November or next November “if you really care about what your constituents thought.”
Councilor Bill Humphrey noted that the turnout for March 2013 special election was 17.9K voters — more than for the November 2013 mayoral election’s 13.3K voters. Councilor Bowman pointed out that the previous override election was also in mid-March.