Northampton is a quaint city for the most part, but it is not without its ironies. For instance, during the public comment session of its last city council meeting on December 18, former mayoral candidate Gene Tacy pointed out that the current chair of the city's conservation commission, Paul Wetzel, is not a city resident. Mr. Tacy further added that Mr. Wetzel moved to Williamsburg from Northampton in 2005 yet listed on his application for reappointment in 2007 that his address is 170 West Street in the city. Mr. Wetzel has been on the conservation commission for some years now, and has played a role in the creation of Northampton's controversial wetlands ordinance as well as in the creation of its equally controversial water supply protection district in Ward 6, where the landfill expansion proposal is percolating. Currently Mr. Wetzel and the conservation commission is petitioning the city council for $10 thousand in Community Preservation Act funds which if approved could be expended at the discretion of the commission.
Apparently the mayor's office and the city's committee on appointments and evaluations, as chaired by Ward 2 city councilor Paul Spector, did not perform due diligence in determining Mr. Wetzel's place of residency and it appears that Mr. Wetzel erred in filling out his application. In short, how could city officials not know that Mr. Wetzel no longer resides within the city and hasn't for nearly four years? All applications for committee appointment are filtered first through the mayor's office and this gentleman has worked closely with the office of planning and development as directed by Wayne Feiden for years. If the $10 thousand funding request is approved by the city council in January next, Mr. Wetzel will preside over the use of Northampton taxpayer dollars.
These monies, which are to be deposited into a conservation fund, will permit the conservation commission to move quickly should it come across a parcel of land that it wishes to acquire, though I think that the funds could be used for a variety of conservation purposes. While I support land conservation personally, there are members of the community that question the wisdom of taking property off of the tax rolls, which sometimes occurs when land is purchased outright. Here the council has thus positioned itself to transfer its discretion over the use of CPA monies to a subcommittee not answerable directly to the public. How long before other agencies expect similar treatment? (In fact the nonprofit Valley Community Development Corporation has requested CPA monies for a predevelopment loan fund which passed on first reading also. It is not clear whether this loan fund can be used for projects outside of Northampton but if so, Northampton taxpayers would be subsidizing projects in other municipalities.)
While CPC chair Jack Hornor stated during the council meeting that the statewide CPA coalition (not a government agency but rather a membership organization) approves of such uses of CPA funds, former Ward 5 city council candidate Kathy Silva stated during her public comments that state officials at the department of revenue frown on using CPA monies in this way. At-large councilor Mike Bardsley abstained from voting on this allocation and Ward 4 councilor David Narkewicz voted in favor but reserved his right to change his vote on the second reading. The balance of the council however, voted in favor of this proposal. (I have not checked with either agency to verify the claims of Hornor or Silva.)
CPC chair Jack Hornor
If Mr. Tacy's assertions regarding Mr. Wetzel's residency are found to be true one could argue that a misappropriation of authority has occurred which could potentially expose the city to litigation should it be determined that Wetzel's appointment violated the city's code. Moreover, if Mr. Wetzel's appointment is in violation of said code (and I don't know that it is), what does that say about all of the decisions made by the conservation commission under his watch? Ironically, during a meeting where the city's best practices committee presented its draft report to the council and was thanked for its work by everyone on the council and its chair mayor Mary Clare Higgins, the possible appointment of an out of town resident to a city committee was not addressed, questioned, or acknowledged by the sitting policy makers in the room and has been reported on only here on Northampton Redoubt.
During the meeting Ward 5 city councilor David Murphy warned the other members of the council that if they are not careful in their allocations of CPA funds that the CPA tax surcharge could go away. He is alluding to the fact that the CPA can be rescinded after five years by a majority vote of the city electorate via referendum. The CPA passed by only 175 votes in 2005 and it will be eligible to go on the ballot again in 2010. If the same people were to vote again, which is doubtful, only 88 of them would need to change their votes in order to remove the CPA from Northampton's books. For those like myself who worked to pass the CPA and find in it value, this is an unfortunate circumstance indeed.
