A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, July 9, 2019, at 7:30 p.m. in the
Aldermanic Chamber.
President Lori Wilshire presided; City Clerk Patricia D. Piecuch recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Patricia D. Piecuch; Alderman-at-Large Ben Clemons led in the
Pledge to the Flag.
The roll call was taken with 15 members of the Board of Aldermen present.
Mayor James W. Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also in attendance.
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
| have a few items and I'll try to be brief with them. First, you may have noticed that on the annual
Wallet Hub Survey, the City was ranked as the 13" Best Run City in the United States Now this survey
comes out every year and one of their primary measures is what they call the “effectiveness of local
leadership” and they judge the operating efficiency of a City. They compare the cost per resident versus
the quality of services. On that score, the City did very well and we got the 13" place out of 150 cities.
So | think that is a credit to a lot of people who’ve worked on that; certainly the Board of Aldermen and
many others who have worked to make sure that we deliver services as efficiently as we possibly can
within the Budget that we pass every year. So | was very happy to see that.
You will see on the Agenda that the we are accepting money from the Jeff Morin Fund to put a shade
canopy over the children’s playground at Roby Park. This is something that Alderwoman Mary Ann
Melizzi-Golja and former Alderman Barbara Pressly worked very hard on over the years. | would like to
thank the Jeff Morin Fund for contributing the money; Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja for sort of
spearheading this project. In the end we have a very nice playground already, but now we will have a
shady playground where kids can play without getting sun stroke or that kind of thing in the hot days.
So that will be installed later in the year and we will go up and down every summer and should be a big
addition to Roby Park.
Next, you see on the Agenda some hydro transfers, transferring excess revenue in the hydro dam
maintenance as well as the hydro reserve fund. There is considerable extra revenue in the hydro area
this year because the projected revenue is $1.2 million dollars and, in fact, the final accounting is not
yet in because the two dams are managed by Essex Power. But we expect that the excess revenue
over the $1.2 million will be in the range of $550,000.00 maybe $600,000.00 as a result of heavy rain
during part of the year. So that is good news and there is certainly enough money to cover those two
transfers. These are being recommended by the Budget Committee and | hope that the Board will look
favorably upon those.
Another issue that | wanted to mention is that Paul Bergeron is on the Agenda to be confirmed and
serve on the Board of Assessors. We all know Paul very well; he’s been a long-time public servant.
He’s been an effective public servant as the City’s City Clerk for about 15 plus years. He wanted me to
mention to you that another member of the Board of Assessors who has done a very good job is Dan
Hansberry. Dan and Paul are actually first cousins. But they are both well known in the community,
they both can do a very good job on the Board of Assessors. We looked into the legal aspects of this
and the City’s Nepotism Policy does not apply for two reasons. First of all they are not City Employees,
the Policy does not apply to Board Members. And number two, even if they were employees which of
course | am saying they are not, the only problem arises if they supervise each other, which of course
serving as Board Members together doesn’t involve any kind of supervisory relationship.
The Legal Department has issued a formal legal opinion on this, which | am sure Attorney Bolton can
discuss if you wanted to hear about that. But he and | really just want to make sure you are aware of
that before he is confirmed.
