Citing a negative reaction to linkage fees from potential new and existing businesses, Councilors on Wednesday night defeated by a 8-7 vote, a request to start the legislative process of enacting a fee.
“We need to be business friendly,” Councilwoman Rosemary Miller told her colleagues.
Melissa Murphy of Mayor DeMaria’s office explained that this was a first step in a process asking the General Court to authorize the establishment of a linkage fee.
The fee is linked to new commercial and residential developments where the developers set aside additional monies for discretionary city use on maintenance of streets, parks, public safety expenditures for the police and fire as well as public recreational facilities. The fee would be assessed if a new development is over 10,000 square feet or if a variance is needed for a project that is greater than 5,000 square feet. The fee would apply not only to new businesses seeking to locate to Everett but also for businesses already in the City.
If the measure was approved by the Council on Wednesday night and then by the General Court at a later date, city officials would then have to draft the document and then the Council and Aldermen would vote on the draft or could offer changes.
Councilors voting to petiton the General Court were DiFlorio, Marcus, Ragucci, Ranieri, Rodrigues, Sarnie and Cornelio while Bruno, Cardello, Hicks, King, McKinnon, Miller, Peter Napolitano, and Smith voted against. � fm`� �� s New Roman”; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA’>Another challenge the mayor faces is that Everett is a changing place with new constituencies who all have special needs and so the mayor must continue reaching out to Everett’s newcomers in order to make their integration into the city seamless, full and complete.
The mayor ran a good campaign. He’s run the city with competence and vigor.
We congratulate him on his victory.
We wish him the best.