Monday night’s “Public Hearing” for the proposed Upzoning of the Village Centers and surrounding neighborhoods was shameful. Over 6000 postcards were mailed and the Mayor promoted it as Resident’s opportunity to weigh in. It was advertised as a hybrid meeting in both the City Hall Chamber and Zoom. However, when attempting to log at 7pm, I was met with a message that the meeting had exceeded its capacity. Having prepared remarks. I headed over to City Hall to find a standing room only crowd in a stifling hot chamber and learned a signup sheet was circulated before the start of the meeting and that it was full.
There was no advance notice that a sign-in sheet would be used, and it is not common practice and not something that residents who don’t regularly attend meetings would have anticipated. Additionally it favored those who knew to arrive early. Those who participated via Zoom and were lucky enough to get in, had no such ability to queue up by raising their hand in advance of the meeting
At the height of participation, there were over 500 attendees online and I would guess well over 200 in the chamber. Residents in the queue to speak at 10:15PM were not permitted to speak. If people took the time to come, they should have been allowed to speak. Surely, if the City sent out 6000 postcards they should have hoped and planned for the turnout that we saw last night. Since the first 59 minutes were taken up with a presentation, that only allowed a capacity of 43 speakers.
ZAP needs to schedule more public hearings throughout the summer so more people and new voices can weigh in. As it stands, ZAP is saying that the next public hearing won’t be until September.
MaryLee Belleville
Newton Centre
Ed Note: This letter was corrected to state that comments were stopped at 10:15PM, not 10PM.