North Adams Finance Committee Finalizing New Fee Schedule
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Finance Committee is hoping to finally complete a years-long effort to consolidate and update fees and fines that have been scattered throughout the city's ordinances.
Department heads have been consulted and ordinances scoured to pull out fees and list them in an appendix. This will allow the amounts to be updated without having to change an ordinance and will clarify the correct fee when in some cases it was not updated or found in more than one place in the ordinances.
"This is probably in the 30 years I've sat on council, definitely this is the biggest ordinance project the council has worked on," said Chair Keith Bona, who had also served on the council in the 1990s. "There were numerous committees working on it, there were numerous departments working on it."
The work had also been delayed during the pandemic and changes in administration and council.
Now all the fees and fines will be located in one place, Appendix D, which will be the reference in all ordinances.
The changes were sent to the solicitor in the fall, who came back with suggestions and recommendations that the committee reviewed on Monday. It will meet again next Wednesday, hopefully with the solicitor and mayor, to finalize the appendix.
The committee also found a couple changes that need to be made, including updates from the city clerk on outdated language. For example, the secondhand dealer ordinance has been repealed so that fee no longer applies.
One aspect that concerned the solicitor was if some of the penalties did not align with Massachusetts General Law.
"I know that the changes are referred to fines for violations as well as fees. In my opinion, the proposed changes to remove the penalties for violations of ordinances from specific sections in congregate them in Appendix D are in proper form," Bona read from the solicitor's communication. "However, I recommend the Council review the following items prior to the proposed change."
For instance, he wrote, the city has the authority to impose noncriminal penalties but state law requires a specific penalty be established for issuing noncriminal tickets to ensure they remain valid. He noted that the city has fines exceeding $300 that he did not think could be enforced because state law has set $300 as a cap for enforcement.
"This is specifically for things that could technically be criminal violations, but instead of going to court, we can issue fines instead," noted member Ashley Shade. "I'm looking at some of these numbers, Chapter 15b 'dumping' fines $500 or maximum allowed by law. That is something that we would want to take out of here or that allow us to go to court for. I think that's where the solicitor is getting at.
The committee discussed whether it would be useful to tier such fines so the city would have the opportunity to take someone to court if it so desires. It was one of the questions they should ask the solicitor, said Shade.
"If it's that egregious they should have to pay $500. Perhaps that is something that should go to criminal court," she said. "Maybe it's not as egregious as we think and we should just cap it at $300."
In another case, the city had set most parking infractions at a maximum of $50 but the MGL law it had adopted in 1981 set the max at $25. The solicitor recommended that the council confirm its adoption of that since amended statute prior to ratifying the fee schedule.
Shade also noted that some the fines were higher for violations of Americans with Disabilities Acts but others that could be construed as violations, such as blocking access for parking on a sidewalk, were not. Bona said it should also be higher for blocking a fire hydrant as well.
"I think we should look at that. If the solicitor agrees with us, I think we should implement something," she said.
The committee, with Council President Bryan Sapienza attending, also briefly discussed some violations that did not have fines, such as failing to clear a sidewalk, and questioned other fines such as leaving your keys in your car.
Bona asked the committee to read through the schedule and the solicitor's communication to prepare any questions for next week's meeting.
Tags: fees, Finance Committee, fines,
