Minutes

Town Council · from the Town's website · 4 pages · 322 KB
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Joint Committee Meeting 
Rules & Ordinance 
Finance 
September 29, 2022, 7pm 
Town Hall, Room 2 
In Attendance: Stephen Ruggiero, Tracey Honan, Hannah Belcher, Rich Fucillo, John Munson, Bill
Schmidt, Wendy Millar-Page (via Zoom) 
7:01 – call to order 
 Subject of solid waste ordinance: re-referred to committee at last council meeting 
 Last met on 8/1 
o Sent to TM: 
 Help eliminate overlap between Board of Health (BoH) & town ordinance 
 Guidance on number of 4 family homes 
 Motion allowing homes that received notice that trash removal would end to
remain in program 
 Stockpile of bins: enough to keep up with broken/stolen ones? 
 Guardrails for non-profit multi-unit homes (i.e. Pleasant st. group homes)* 
 Airbnb – will there be an impact on registered units re: trash fee, etc. 
 Goal of enterprise fund (self-sustain or reduce town allocation) 
 Recommendations for schools, WHA, town buildings 
*Discussion: 
 Coded as 990 (mass code) 
o From Wendy: do not pick up ALL non-profits, need to have a set
distinction between which are picked up and which are not 
Councilor Ruggiero: Goal is to catalog decisions that still need to be made. Next steps would be to
communicate with Town Manager to give directives to DPW on process & implementation. To discuss
tonight: Number of barrels per unit, abatements, overage bags. 
Number of Barrels per House/Unit 
 Wendy: issue is overbuying/overthrowing with no thought for what happens after.
Ultimate goal of program is to reduce Town of Winthrop’s waste – every town in MA
tasked with reducing number of tonnage to 25% of current 
o Councilor Honan: option to buy more barrels should be non-
existent 
 Buying additional barrels goes against goal of the
program 
 Reducing tonnage saves town money 
o Councilor Munson: logistically easier to deal with one barrel per
unit

o Councilor Honan: Previously discussed idea of multiple sized
barrel option is a huge cost, and planning will delay
implementation 
o Wendy: we have SOME smaller barrels – need to have a
legitimate reason that you cannot move larger barrels. Have
given out several 
o Councilor Fucillo: What is the cost per barrel? 
o Councilor DeMarco: people should have the ability to have
more than one barrel 
o Councilor Ruggiero: hard to make exceptions to policy that
doesn’t exist yet – need to enforce/accept policy before we look
at exceptions – hard to write policy on outliers – hears more
about barrels NOT being filled vs. needing additional barrels 
o Councilor DeMarco – Holidays should be an exception 
 Schmidt: reads in BoH regs that outline the approval of
additional waste after holidays 
 Shouldn’t need ordinance when there is already
a trash regulation. Ordinance should be for
financial issues – makes no sense to have
separate regulations from BoH and town 
 Councilor Honan: why isn’t BoH regulation being
enforced? 
 Wendy: Council felt it should be an ordinance,
not just a regulation 
o Goes out most days to look at trash –
many people are in compliance 
 Councilor Honan: do other towns have both or
just one? 
o Wendy: our type of gov’t makes it
difficult to compare 
o Schmidt: overflow bags, budget, finance
should be handled by the TM/ordinance 
 BoH can give violations/fines 
o Honan: important not to duplicate
information between town ordinance
and BoH regulation 
o Schmidt: BoH reg refers fees to TM 
o Ruggiero: solid waste ordinance is out
of date, but exists 
o Munson: this is opportunity to clean up
redundancy 
o DeMarco: diversty issue – only have
state holidays/Christmas – we should
look at other cultural holidays

o Belcher: who enforces BoH regulations? 
o Schmidt: 
 DPW, DPH, ISD, BoH or
designee 
 Got ticket book from ISD for
dumpster consistently
overflowing 
o Wendy: told that regulation oversteps
authority of DPW 
 DPW Needs someone 20
hrs/week to aid with
enforcement 
 With ability to drive around
daily 
o Schmidt: price for employee should
come from enterprise fund 
o STAFFING NEED FOR ENFORCEMENT –
AND to free up Wendy’s bandwidth 
o Need to keep in mind cost with
abatements 
o Belcher: Requests copy of trash contract 
o Munson: is there revenue in trash? 
 Wendy: at town yard, metals bin has additional things in
it – town gets money from selling metals 
 Asked for bin for cardboard boxes only – save
space in trash & bring in money to town 
 Price of recycling/trash price is highly variable 
 Black Earth keeps weight down 
Abatements 
Black earth, financial hardship (tangentially demonstrated), age? 
o Wendy: other city/towns use % of income – 
o Honan: if they qualify for other assistance can apply for abatements 
o Wendy: Federal/state standard poverty level 
 Munson: for small amount of trash generated? 
o Honan: no – we’re one of the LAST cities/towns to pay for trash 
 Wendy: State is not ALLOWING throwing out textiles 
 Belcher: People don’t understand that we’re paying for the SERVICE, not the trash itself 
o Can we bill quarterly? 
 Honan/Wendy: added cost for administrative processing, assessor’s office 
 Munson: ONLY financial hardship abatement; should be able to bring things TO bins that the
town so we can get revenue back for it 
 Wendy: Black earth SAVES town money 
 Honan: not in favor of black earth abatements

Overage Bags 
 Wendy: 2 sizes of bags (January numbers – 45cents/33 gal bag, 30cents/15gal bag 
o Typically sold in sets of 5 
o Minimum order: $14k 
o Company contacts local businesses, sets up contract, collect funds, we get check 
 Fucillo: What happens with overage bags? 
o Wendy: based on BoH reg, bags go in additional barrel 
Schmidt: will talk to TM about BoH vs. ordinance 
Enterprise Fund: 
 Ruggiero: enterprise fund just like water, rink, etc. – we don’t set rates for enterprise funds as a
council, we shouldn’t set rates for solid waste 
o Wendy: should be Wendy, Calla, CFO, TM 
o Wendy: why is it enterprise fund vs. revolving fund 
 Ruggiero: it was compared to water, recommendation out of finance was to do
enterprise 
Next Steps: 
For Tony: 
 Tony, Wendy and/or Steve Calla at meeting 
 Get ANSWERS before next meeting 
o Original Qs 
o Funding for P/T staff 
o Jurisdiction 
o “Rates & fees set by TM” 
o Enterprise vs. Revolving Fund 
Wendy: when we have question/hear concerns in town – direct them to Wendy 
Meeting Adjourned: 8:14