Gardner City Council adds Committee on Economic and Community Development to council rules

The Gardner City Council voted unanimously Monday to amend its rules and create a Committee on Economic and Community Development to provide legislative oversight of community development matters.

The change, adopted by a 9-0 roll call, adds a new subsection to Rule 13 establishing a three-member standing committee whose first-named member will serve as chair. The amendment also removes “Community Development” from Rule 13, subsection 4 and adds an item under Rule 15, subsection 10 (F. Economic Development) to the council agenda order of business.

Councilor Brooks urged caution about creating another permanent standing committee during an earlier exchange, saying the council could continue to rely on special committees appointed for specific tasks. “Each special committee shall end when its work is complete, but not later than 2 years after creation,” Brooks said, offering language that would let the council form temporary bodies when needed.

Councilor Hegland said the Finance Committee had unanimously supported the measure at its meeting and argued the new committee would improve oversight of the Community Development Department under a new director. “With all that we have been going on in our Community Development Department, and Economic Development with a new director at the helm, in the wake of issues like the CDBG fund, the Mackey Park project, and the department generally, I really do fully support this establishment of another committee,” Hegland said.

Councilor Harder also spoke in favor: “I don't think we should be too reluctant to add or remove committees as needed…. The point of this is to do better going forward and I think this will help.”

After debate the council took a roll call vote with the clerk calling the names of members; the tally recorded nine “yes” votes and the motion passed.

President Torres later praised the rule change as improving transparency and legislative oversight, saying the Finance Committee’s review of a recent MSBA-related school roof request demonstrated the new rules’ value. Torres announced she would appoint Councilor Kacinskas to chair the new committee.

The new rule specifies the committee’s size and chair selection; the council did not name the two additional members at the Feb. 3 meeting.