Amesbury City Council Update April 2014

A lot is going on in the next few months for the Amesbury City Council.  Here's a preview:

Tuesday April 8 Council Meeting:

• We have second reading/public hearings on:
• Medical Marijuana Overlay District - sponsored back in January by me + Councilors Ferguson, Kelcourse, and McClure.  This measure has been substantially re-drafted by the Planning Board.  The PB re-draft has also been reviewed by Ordinance Committee.  Several additional amendments have also been proposed.  Several moving parts to this important measure but I fully expect a final version to be approved this week, providing a land use/zoning framework to Registered Marijuana Dispensaries in Amesbury.
  
• Medical Marijuana License Measure - sponsored by Councilor Lavoie.  Originally proposed mainly to collect a substantial fee, the need for this was lessened by the recent signing of Host Community Agreements by Mayor Gray with the two companies looking to cultivate in Amesbury. 
• Water Street/Lower Millyard Property Transfers/Easements/Alterations - there are several city-owned parcels in the LMY that will need to be re-arranged somewhat in order to create the new Heritage park and enable the re-alignment of Water Street, etc.  These are all technical issues to clear the way for lots of work anticipated this year down there, including the creation of Heritage Park.

• We have first readings of several new measures:
• New Standards for Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) program -  We received a preview of this earlier this year.  These standards will hopefully help Amesbury with attracting economic development to various parcels around the City, including non-City owned property in the Lower Millyard.  
• Several requests to Surplus City-Owned Property -
• 22 Water Street: salt shed across from the DPW buildings in the Lower Millyard
• Horace Mann School (Congress Street): this one's big, very significant but also comes with lots of risk and questions, which will doubtlessly be pursued in the coming months.  Significant because of historical nature of property and location in the middle of a densely developed (for Amesbury) neighborhood.  Lots that could go wrong with surplussing this property, but lots that could go right, as well.  I'll have a number of questions on this one before I could agree to surplus.
• Carriage Lofts Condominium (Upper Millyard): the 'Cultural Center'/Gallery Space that the City currently owns but only lightly utilizes.  The City has been looking to sell this for sometime and is now proposing to sell it for conversion into two fully accessible living units.  The development proposition on this seems questionable but I look forward to hearing more; everyone agrees that transferring this property off of the City's inventory would be good.

Finally, budget, budget, budget!!  The School Committee approved a budget recommendation for the Mayor last Tuesday (4/1/14).  The Superintendent and the School Committee have been looking at a 'gap' between what it would cost to provide the current 'level of services' to next year's student population.  This gap as been around $300 - 600K.  Principals and Administrators laid out a number of possible reductions, that included:

• Reduction of kindergarten from 'full' day to 1/2 day
• Elimination of HS music/drama position
• Re-organization of Special Education staffing
• Elimination of MS and HS Tech Ed and MS Consumer Science
• Elimination of tuition support for Early College program
• Elimination of HS French

After an intense month of budget workshops and hearing from parents and students, the recommendation that went to the Mayor took kindergarten and HS music/drama off list and re-categorized the SPED re-org (but it will still be taking effect and will change the way that SPED is approached within Amesbury schools).  The rest are still on (bolded above), to the tune of a $458,000 reduction.

From there, the Mayor will take the school budget and combine it with the rest of the City's budgets, for presentation to the Council in early May.