North Adams Committee Rejects Changes to Airport Commission Ordinance
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The General Government Committee is recommending the City Council reject a proposal for council approval of appointments to the Airport Commission.
The question had been raised after an appointment to the commission by Mayor Jennifer Macksey had come under fire at a council meeting. Macksey had withdrawn his name and appointed him without council approval, as laid out in the city charter. Prior to that, she had put forward all appointments to boards and committees for confirmation.
The 2-1 vote, with committee member Ashley Shade voting nay, came after a sometimes testy debate on Tuesday over whether the current language aligns with state and federal laws.
The committee also recommended, again with Shade voting no, to not amend the ordinance to prohibit anyone with business at the airport from serving on the commission. Attorney Joel Bard of KP Law, the city solicitor, said state laws were in place to deal with the conflicts of interest on the independent commission that Shade sought to deter.
"There's a whole apparatus at the state level to enforce the conflict of interest law. That's not self-enforcing, so if there is a violation that's occurring, somebody needs to bring it to the attention of the staff of the State Ethics Commission," Bard said, attending via Zoom. "There's a large state bureaucracy that enforces that law."
Shade had put forward the language she said would bring the ordinance in line with MGL Chapter 90, Section 51E that states airport commissioners "shall be appointed, in cities, by the mayor with the approval of the city council, and in towns by the selectmen."
"It's this MGL provision that allowed us to establish an airport commission. Airport commissions did not exist before the charter, because this provision is what allows us to even have an airport commission," she said. "We should be following this provision in MGL to the exact letter of the law, because it is what allows us to even formulate and have the Airport Commission to run and operate."
Bard said the situation was the opposite, no matter which law came first.
"Your charter is the equivalent of the state law, and it overrides that provision in Chapter 90," he said, attending the meeting at City Hall via Zoom. "That's why communities adopt charters, because they want to do certain things that might be different than what's in state law."
Shade said it didn't make sense that existing state law would not take precedence over a newer city ordinance.
"There are a lot of provisions in your charter that may be different from what has been subsequently adopted by the Legislature on any number of topics, but your charter still governed," Bard said. "The important point is that it's controlled by the residents, the voters of North Adams."
But Shade pointed out that KP Law had offered a completely different opinion during the last administration that council approval was required.
"So we've now received legal opinions from your organization specifically on both sides, saying, yes, it's required, and now, a few years later, now it's not," she said. "What's changed, what research has been done to change that opinion?"
Bard said it was a little embarrassing, but the prior question had been "yes or no" and the firm had not been "asked to look to deeply in the question."
Councilor Peter Breen raised the grant assurances for a recent Federal Aviation Administration contract and ordinance language regarding federal statutes and their relation to the commission.
Chair Peter Oleskiewicz said the question was "irrelevant" as the agenda was about who has authority over appointees.
"So we're finding through the opinion of the city solicitor that we're not needed," he said. "Some of the questions that you're bringing up should be brought up at an Airport Commission meeting. They are their own governing body. We're just here on a point of appointing."
Shade, however, said she understood where Breen was going.
"We entered a contract — the City Council, the mayor — entered a contract with the federal government with specific rules regarding the Airport Commission," she said. "In the language of that contract, one of the provisions is that City Council and the mayor approve of Airport Commission members, so long as the contract is active."
Oleskiewicz asked Katherine Eade, the mayor's special assistant and administrator for the airport, if the contract was still in effect. She said it was closed, but Breen later noted that the grant assurance runs "throughout the useful life of the facilities developed or equipment acquired."
Shade asked that the contract be forwarded to Bard for review even though Bard said the issue was "moot" since it had been closed. Eade said she would forward it to him.
Breen and airport user Michael Milazzo tried to speak to the federal issue several times but were called out of order by Oleskiewicz for speaking out of turn and on issues not related to the agenda.
Milazzo said the mayoral appointment, which he and his attorney had opposed at the council meeting in January, put the airport at risk.
"You're no longer in compliance with the FAA and the grant assurances that the City Council signs, as well as the mayor signs each one of those grant assurances you sign on every contract you do with the federal government," Milazzo said. "Now you put somebody in that you didn't follow that process. He votes on something — I will be the first person to file the grant assurance complaint against the city, and you will lose that."
In other business, the committee recommended an amendment to the Zoning Board of Appeals ordinance from Shade that would require the ZBA to adopt rules and make those rules available with the city clerk, according to state law. Language over council approval of appointments and a zoning administrator were removed.
• Council President Bryan Sapienza withdrew a request to change ordinance and council rules to allow president to cancel meetings if there was no agenda. He had proposed it because of timing such as the Christmas Eve meeting last year. Shade said she could not support that because it gave the president, who controls the agenda, too much control but would a change in council rules to postpone meetings.
• The committee did recommend an addition to council rules to allow a time for the city clerk to speak on issues of importance to the council and the public.
Tags: airport commission, appointments, general government committee,
