City Council meets briefly to approve items on city’s snow day

Members of the City Council, like many other Walthamites, were snowed in after this weekend’s storm. Still, the council met virtually on Monday for less than half an hour to approve committee decisions from last week.

Councilors unanimously voted to accept a grant from Eversource for public streetlights; approve a secondhand-car sales license; authorize loans to move the Consolidated Public Works Department and to turn the former Woerd Avenue dump into a revitalized Koutoujian Park; accept toys from the U.S. Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots program and historic Waltham memorabilia donated to the city; and file a number of older motions.

The City Council also accepted a list of new business items from Mayor Jeannette A. McCarthy. All of McCarthy’s requests were forwarded to committee meetings for next week. One item — appointing former Councilor-at-Large Kathy McMenimen to the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals as an associate member — met with some resistance by a couple of viewers in the comments section of the meeting’s YouTube livestream. 

“As a concerned resident, I would respectfully request McMenimen not be appointed to the zoning board,” wrote a viewer under the handle MetalFinger24, identified on their channel as Jack Holder.

McMenimen, who held a seat on the City Council for 50 years, was voted out by residents in November. Next week the Committee of the Whole will discuss her potential appointment to the Zoning Board of Appeals, a board responsible for interpreting and enforcing the city’s zoning code by determining certain types of special building permit and resolving construction cases that do not meet the city’s zoning code.

Council President Robert G. Logan also specified that this year’s Kevin M. Ritcey Service Award Committee will be chaired by Ward 3 Councilor Bill Hanley and this year’s Cable Access Committee will be chaired by Ward 2 Councilor Caren Dunn.

Also at the request of the mayor, the City Council’s committees will next week discuss:

• Appointing John J. O’Connor to assist the city’s Veterans’ Services and Licensing departments. (Committee of the Whole)
• Accepting two state grants totaling $7.5 million as part of the Community One Stop for Growth program for the city’s Green Street connector project. (Finance)
• Allocating $106,872.50 in funding to resurface Pine Vale Road. (Finance)
• Allocating $143,000 in additional funding for water and sewer work in the city. (Finance)
• Approving a salary increase for an employee in the Auditor’s Office. (Finance)
• Purchasing a new ice surfacing machine costing $152,129.27 for the Veterans Memorial Skating Rink. (Finance)
• Authorizing a $940,000 loan to design the interior of the Howe Building at the former Fernald State School. (Long-Term Debt and Capital Planning)