The BERDO saga will head into overtime.
The ordinance to require building owners to report energy use and reduce emissions, recently approved out of the Zoning and Planning Committee, hit a snag on the City Council floor Monday night when Councilor Leonard Gentile called for the question to be “chartered.”
That refers to the City Charter, which says any councilor can stop discussion on an item and automatically push it to the next scheduled full City Council meeting.
That would be on Dec. 16.
The proposed ordinance was recently updated to include large residential buildings in the reporting portion of the ordinance but not the emissions reduction part.
Councilor John Oliver, vice chair of the Zoning and Planning Committee, opened discussion by emphasizing that right now, building owners will only have to report energy use and the emissions reduction requirements won’t kick in for a while.
“Every building that is going to be impacted by this ordinance has several years within which they are going to be reporting their energy consumption and use, for several years, before the first possible changes or alterations to the building—whether it be their HVAC systems, or the building envelope itself, whether it’s windows or insulation or what have you—all of that is subsequent to multiple years of reporting,” Oliver said.
The Newton-Wellesley Hospital compromise
Councilor Joshua Krintzman had offered an amendment to exempt Newton-Wellesley Hospital from the ordinance, as per hospital representatives’ request, because federal regulations require hospitals to have natural gas as a secondary energy source.
But that blanket didn’t pass the Zoning and Planning Committee’s vote. So on Monday night, after discussions with hospital and city officials, Krintzman offered a compromise amendment that offers some exemptions as well as a specialized process for the hospital to receive additional exemptions as needed.
“What this essentially does is exempt existing buildings where patients and medical facilities are today and creates the process that, in a nutshell, the city could live with, to grant them that ability to continue to comply with the other regulations imposed on the health care facilities,” Krintzman explained.
That amendment passed.
Councilor Randy Block offered two amendments to clarify a few words in a line regarding the hardship relief application process.
“This legislation will almost certainly be the most important legislation we adopt during this session,” Block said. “I had not spent a lot of time examining it while the Zoning and Planning Committee was considering it. And then when I heard that there was a straw vote 6-2 to include residential buildings over 20,000 square feet, that got my attention to read the legislation and to think hard about how I thought it might affect people on fixed incomes and people below the area income.”
But Councilor Lisle Baker, who chairs the Zoning and Planning Committee, cautioned against changing regulatory language on the City Council Floor without the Law Department present.
Block’s amendments were rejected by Council vote, and Block said that if the ordinance is to be chartered (as Gentile had said he might do), he’d want to take it up in committee.
Procedural scuffle
But after that, Councilor Bill Humphrey motioned to call the question—seconded by Councilor Susan Albright—which shut off debate and brought the ordinance to a vote.
The motion also brought a moment of drama to the City Council floor when Council President Marc Laredo accepted comments from other councilors despite Humphrey’s motion being non-debatable, and Humphrey objected and reminded him what “non-debatable motion” means.
“It’s against the rules to recognize people while I have the floor,” Humphrey said.
“Councilor Humphrey, you’re done for the moment,” a visibly ruffled Laredo said before moving on to other councilors’ questions. There was confusion about what the vote meant, what was allowed, and a host of other issues that Humphrey—known for a mastery of parliamentary procedure that would put Robert’s Rules to shame—turned out to be right about.
“I appreciate Councilor Humphrey’s obviously deep knowledge of these procedural issues,” Laredo said.
But Humphrey’s parliamentary prowess was met with sharp rejection, as his motion to call the question (to a vote with no further discussion) failed to get the two-thirds majority in favor and, in fact, didn’t even get a simple majority. Adding to that sting, Laredo was among the 12 nay votes.
And that’s when Gentile stepped in with his call to charter.
“After that lowest of blows by my colleague, Councilor Humphrey, I’m going to charter it now and not take any chances,” Gentile said.
You can watch the full meeting here.