In 1986, Paul Simon partnered with Lady Blacksmith Mambazo and together they sang among the decade’s most iconic lyrics:

“And we are homeless, homeless
Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake…”

No American city has solved yet what to do with increasing homelessness.

The city’s Department of Public Works and other departments are working to keep McNulty Park clean and safe. Several homeless people have set up encampments there, giving rise to a proposal by City Councilor Kocayne Givner to contact DPW to address the situation.

“It’s hard to keep up with, and you can’t force people to do things,” Givener said. “They’re not going in and arresting people, obviously, they’re going in and referring people to services and trying to get them out of that environment and especially before the winter. So, they showed their plans and I guess we just have to, you know, hope that what they’re doing is enough to convince people that being behind McNulty Park is not going to be the best for them this winter.”

City Councilor Meg Magrath-Smith added: “The trash can was removed because they wanted to discourage people from putting their residential trash there. …Ever since then, there have been bags of trash around the sign that people are bagging and placing there. ”

City Councilor Kevin Jourdain added: “Obviously, homelessness, is a very challenging, tricky issue. If people could solve it, we would have solved it. As a society, we really haven’t yet. So therefore we continue to be challenged with these balances….T here’s certain things that we have to do. And the good news is the Supreme Court has recently given us additional guidance on this topic. The first thing I’ll say before I get to that piece is I do not accept the police department’s — and I don’t know if they’re getting this from the mayor who’s telling them what —  but this notion that I’m watching people panhandle in the medians on double yellow lines in the street, that is not legal, that is not protected speech.”

“Nobody can stand in the street and go car to car panhandling like people do over here on Maple Street. And at the beginning of the of 391 and up on Northampton Street, it not only makes the city look atrocious, it’s completely unsafe, okay. And it is not protected (speech). And I’m sick of the police department not enforcing the damn law for everybody. Them, us, all of us. That stuff needs to stop. And it appears that they just say, well, they’re panhandling, so we do nothing and we just drive right by.”

In another matter, the council once again addressed the issue of whether the City Treasurer position be appointed — but by whom:  the mayor or City Council? — or elected.

Both state Rep. Pat Duffy and City Clerk/Registrar of Voters Brenna Murphy Leary said that adding the option as a ballot question in November would pose difficulties for voters and people staffing the polls because such a vote would require that voters state their preferences with two separate ballots.

It is the result of timing — the City Council was off in August as was the state Legislature which led to the complexity of including the question on the ballot.

Said Magrath-Smith: “The reality is that the November option is no longer really even possible, because not only was it, you know, we were told we shouldn’t do it. But now the state legislature really couldn’t move on it in such a way that we even couldn’t do it if we wanted to.”

The end result is that there will be a special election on Jan. 28, 2025 on changing the city’s charter to make the treasurer position an appointed one.

The City Council agenda is here.

The documents City Councilors reviewed are here.

CHARTER & RULES COMMITTEE

After a contentious debate in a previous meeting about the seating order of the city councilors, this week’s committee members took up the matter again with grace and humor.

The end result is that they agreed to table the matter for the time being, with a new idea that the seating arrangement be made based on a lottery.

The agenda for the committee is here.

The documents the committee reviewed are here.