Councillor’s demand for reconsideration on Kendall zoning is greeted with jeers
City councillor Minka vanBeuzekom has moved reconsideration of zoning fellow councillors thought to be sealed up twice Monday.
The zoning accompanying a 22-story apartment building set to go up in Kendall Square nearly went through Monday, but was pulled back at the last minute by a city councillor seeking “reconsideration.”
The council’s vote to sell 8,556 square feet of Ames Street sidewalk to developer Boston Properties for about $2 million passed on an 8-0 vote (Denise Simmons’ vote is missing while she recovers from an operation), but the creation of Ames Street District zoning became a sticking point. It passed 7-1-0 originally, with Craig Kelley voting no, marking the first time that night most of the council and gathered representatives of Boston Properties thought the issue was settled.
But some half-dozen minutes later Minka vanBeuzekom, for whom this is a second-to-last council meeting unless the numbers change in recount of the Nov. 5 election, asked to change her vote to a “no.”
Councillor Craig Kelley rejected the request, which needs unanimous consent, and the matter seemed settled again. The council went on to other issues.
But another half-dozen minutes later, the city clerk said vanBeuzekom had moved for reconsideration, which would bring the issue back to the council next Monday. Marjorie Decker, who opted not to run for reelection so she could focus on her work as a first-term state representative for the city in the 25th Middlesex District, urged Kelley to change his mind and allow the vote change so reconsideration wouldn’t be necessary.
At first it seemed Kelley wouldn’t go along.
“I am frustrated that the vote came up tonight – we had until February whatever to review it – and I think it was rushed. And that people voted on something and then didn’t know what they voted on is not what we should be doing,” Kelly said. “So no. She voted yes.”
Ultimately, saying he didn’t “want to be a pain in the neck” and make people come in for another meeting, Kelley allowed the vote change. It became 6-2-0 passage of the zoning petition, which the council had until Feb. 5 to vote on.
“I do think we’re rushing it,” vanBeuzekom said.
But then vanBeuzekom said she wasn’t withdrawing her reconsideration – news the couple of dozen people remaining at the meeting after two hours greeted with jeering laughter and astonished exclamations.
Mayor Henrietta Davis thought she had vanBeuzekom at that moment, since Robert’s Rules of Order specify that reconsideration can be called by the winning side, which vanBeuzekom had just left.
That’s not how the council rules work, though, and the bid for reconsideration stood.
It was vanBeuzekom herself who asked May 6 that the policy get a look by the council’s Government Operations and Rules Committee, but a 5-4 vote meant her order failed. It was itself called for reconsideration by councillor Tim Toomey, and on May 20 it was scheduled to be heard again. It was placed on file – but not revoted, apparently, and never heard in committee.
She drew pointed criticism from Decker and comparatively subdued criticism from Davis.
“People were trying to be considerate of one another in terms of there being a whole bunch of people here on this vote, and we’re accommodating you to also try to accommodate others. I believe that’s what councillor Kelley was trying to do, trying to be accommodating,” Davis said. “By continuing to have your reconsideration, you’re putting people in an awkward position.”
Decker noted that the next meeting was the final one for herself, Davis, Ken Reeves and possibly for vanBeuzekom, and “it was my hope that the last council meeting of this body … could [be used to] enjoy the council meeting and focus on wrap-up issues. If the outcome were going to change, that would be fine, but the outcome’s not going to change.”
Davis said options for withdrawing reconsideration would be “looked into.”
Next week is the final meeting of the current councillors’ two-year term because they voted Monday to cancel the meetings that had been scheduled for Dec. 23 and Dec. 30.
The recount deciding whether vanBeuzekom makes up a 13-transfer-vote difference from challenger Dennis Carlone pauses Tuesday for a special election to fill U.S. Sen. Ed Markey’s former 5th Congressional District seat. The candidates are Democrat Katherine Clark and Republican Frank Addivinola. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
When the recount begins again, at the Willis Moore Youth Center at 12 Gilmore St. in the Riverside neighborhood, the Election Commission will pick up where it left off: a 10th round of vote shuffles out of 17 needed last month to determine the outcome. So far the gap in votes has only widened, according to observers at the recount.
Despite the general outrage that greeted vanBeuzekom’s reconsideration, it isn’t too far a stretch from councillors’ various other requests for reconsiderations over the term or invocation of “charter rights,” which delay votes by a week with no explanation necessary.
The zoning is needed because Boston Properties promised a third time to put up an apartment tower in Kendall Square, assuring in March 2012 that it would happen this third time if the council allowed it to take away 42 percent of a rooftop garden. In something of a development Möbius strip, Boston Properties said it needed that much of the garden in part because it was going to attach an apartment building – although that building wasn’t designed at the time and needed the sale of the city’s sidewalk land (decided some 20 months later) to make it happen.
Boston Properties’ need for space was introduced in April and voted only a month later, with only Kelley and vanBeuzekom opposing the deal, which they called rushed.
Arguably a better headline would have been “Confused Councillor votes for zoning proposal, asks to and is eventually allowed to suspend the rules so she can vote against it and then refuses to allow the vote to be finalized until the next meeting even though nothing will change.” I think the rest of the Council, and much of the public at the meeting (few though they were), were visibly and vocally astounded that after being allowed, after a fair amount of discussion about how it could happen, to change her vote on the Ames Street zoning, Minka refused to remove the reconsideration. I’m not sure what that will accomplish other than making a handful of people feel obligated to trudge down to City Hall next week to watch the reconsideration motion fail.
Back in mid-November I registered with the City Council my strong opposition to a small, but significant change in the Zoning being proposed for Ames Street by Boston Properties. The Open Space requirement of the original Kendall Square redevelopment zoning was being eliminated from the Ames Street District.
I wrote: “The resulting change will facilitate the continued reduction of open space in the immediate area, weaken the intent of the original zoning, and will not serve the general public or the residents of the building well.”
Over 30,000 square feet of required open space was just eliminated by the Council. And gone is the opportunity for the City and Boston Properties to show that there are new and innovative solutions to mixing open space with greater density and height.
This was a terrible decision on the part the Council and they should reconsider it.
Asking to change a vote is done all the time at Council meetings. It is allowed under the rules, as long as the Mayor has not declared the final results of a vote. Even if the vote has been declared, the Council could easily have suspended the rules to allow the change (as long as there is unanimous consent).
Vote-changing can have significant impact. The Mayor herself changed her vote on a major amendment to the MIT Kendall Square Zoning proposal this past year and caused it to fail.
This particular vote change would have had no consequence other than to allow van Beuzekom to show her opposition to the zoning amendment, which would have passed anyway.
Reconsideration is another matter. But unless the rules are suspended, the motion to reconsider cannot be made at the same meeting a motion is decided. Councillor van Beuzekom is entirely within her rights to move reconsideration at the next meeting, as long as she notifies the City Clerk in writing. Robert’s Rules do not trump the Council’s Rules.
Finally, as a failed City Council Candidate’s campaign manager and a failed CC Candidate myself, I really find it objectionable when elected officials whine about having to meet and do the people’s business. There are plenty of qualified people who would be honored to do the job, even without the $70K/year salary.
I was there, and I was not jeering. Good for Minka. Maybe next week will bring answers to the questions councillors asked this week and information about why BP is not proposing 15 percent affordable units.
I shed no tears for the Boston Properties executives and their lawyer, who are being paid handsomely to be there. The council has rarely shown as much concern for the members of the public, sometimes referred to as voters, who are inconvenienced by their actions. We’re volunteers. As Tom said above, if these councillors aren’t interested in doing the job they’re paid quite well to do, then there’s no shortage of people who’d love to replace them.