Natick Spring Annual Town Meeting wrapped up on May 9 with a tidy sub-50-minute finale. But not before Town Meeting dug into important topics during its third and final week such as adopting a new energy code, weighing Paid Family Medical Leave, and updating the zoning bylaw.
Specialized Energy Code
Most of the first hour of May 7’s session (see Pegasus recording) revolved around Article 18, a proposal to adopt the Specialized Energy Code, which encourages but doesn’t require electrification of new construction. The Net Zero Natick Committee‘s Ann Lentell did the honors of presenting the article, with support from the town’s Sustainability Director, Jillian Wilson Martin.
In adopting this code, with an implementation date of July 1, 2025, Natick would be joining most of its neighbors, and would qualify itself for more grant opportunities from the state. Builders would also have time to ready for it.
The Specialized Energy Code also fits with the town’s plan to get to net zero by 2050, meaning that greenhouse gas emissions produced would be offset by moving to clean energy, growing the tree canopy, and taking other approaches to removing emissions from the atmosphere. About two-thirds of Natick’s emissions come from buildings, so encouraging new ways to construct facilities would address that situation. New construction is a small portion of Natick’s overall portfolio, but by the 2050 target year for net-zero, it’s expected that a quarter of the buildings in town will have been constructed since 2023, Lentell said.
Questions from Town Meeting members focused on issues such as the grid’s ability to support increased electrification (the grid’s already operating at less than maximum capacity and increased electrification from the Specialized Energy Code will be incremental, Lentell said). Some asked about cost, and Lentell said going electric under the Specialized Energy Code is no more expensive than doing so under the current Stretch Energy Code. Also addressed were concerns about whether the town would need to boost inspection capacity to handle more electrification, and Town Meeting was told that would not be an issue.
There was little opposition voiced to adopting the code, and Town Meeting voted 108-11-3 in favor of it.
PFML to wait
For the second straight Town Meeting, member Kat Monahan put forth a citizen petition seeking town acceptance of Paid Family Medical Leave, a state-developed program that began delivering benefits to participants in 2021 through employer and employee contributions.
Municipalities were exempt from being required to adopt it, but Monahan argued that Natick should be a leader here, both to support employees and to make the town more attractive as an employer. As a result of the municipal exemption, Monahan said, “200,000 people in our Commonwealth, including 2,000 people who work for the town of Natick and Natick Public Schools are not able to apply for this benefit.” Natick’s current benefits programs provide limited paid parental leave, mainly requiring use of sick or vacation time to get paid while out, she said.
PFML would support employees who need to take time off from work when a new child arrives, sickness strikes, or a family member needs to be taken care of or is on active military duty.
Monahan knows the ins and outs of PFML not just as a citizen petitioner, but as a PFML administrator for her employer. She broke out how much adopting PFML would cost employees and the town, and said PFML liability for the town would be manageable when looking at its liability for other benefits like Medicare and healthcare premiums. She was encouraged by results of a recent teacher union survey cited during a recent School Committee meeting that found half of those who responded said PFML should be adopted now.
“I really want Natick to achieve its goal of being an attractive, innovative place to work. And I don’t see how that can happen if we don’t give this benefit to our employees or give them access to this benefit,” Monahan said.
(Source: Article sponsor’s presentation)
The Finance Committee referred the article back to the sponsor, and Town Meeting wound up voting in favor of that action by an 86-24-2 count. The town administration was not supportive of adopting PFML at this time, as was the case in the fall, when it said it needed more time to research it. Town Administrator Jamie Errickson said the town has been analyzing PFML, how it would compare to what Natick already offers for benefits, how much it would cost to offer, and how the town might augment its offerings to incorporate aspects of PFML It is surveying collective bargaining units on the topic during open enrollment, and plans to do more of this in the next fiscal year as more collective bargaining agreements are set to expire.
“If this were to be something adopted tonight by Town Meeting, I would have to from a bargaining perspective assume that the entire cost would be borne by the town, which would be about $800 to $1 million dollars for FY25 that’s currently not in the FY25 budget,” he said, adding that the administration would have to come back to Town Meeting with updated budget figures.
Town Meeting looked at many sides of this proposal before making its call during the May 7 session.
Select Board Chair Kathryn Coughlin, speaking as a Town Meeting member, agreed with the sponsor that all town employees should be eligible for 12 weeks of paid family medical leave, but the question is whether PFML is the best way for communities to do this. She wondered what she described as “more progressive” municipalities do, so reached out to Cambridge and learned that they have passed on PFML because it’s less expensive for them to just give the time to those who need it rather than to pay “a tiny little bit” on the city’s whole budget to dole out reimbursements here and there. Further, there are reasons why PFML might work against teachers and the way their time is accrued for retirement, she said, adding that Natick needs to gather data on how much its town and school employees might really need or want such paid time off. In looking at how teachers’ unions in other communities have addressed this, Coughlin found that in some communities paid leave was a bigger priority, and in others, cost-of-living increases were.
Almost all Town Meeting members who spoke on the matter said they would not vote for it this time around. All spoke in favor of the intentions of PFML, but a number of them said more time is needed for discussion with unions and among boards/committees to determine the best way to go forward with ways to support more or more flexible paid leave.
A quiet ending
Spring Annual Town Meeting ended rather quietly on May 9, clocking in at under an hour to weigh and vote on just a couple of zoning articles and their underlying motions. Director of Community & Economic Development Amanda Loomis took the lead in presenting. Less than 100 Town Meeting members out of a maximum 180 attended the final session.
Article 21 included the latest proposed cleanups of the land use regulation schedule in the Natick Zoning Bylaw. “We’re trying to make it so that everybody can understand exactly what we’re doing so that maybe in the future if you want to use the use regulation schedule that you’ll actually understand where things are, how to use it, and where things go,” Loomis said. This involves updating terms and making sure Natick’s rules are synced with state law and case law.
Few Town Meeting members raised questions or made comments on the article, and all motions easily passed.
The same was true for Article 23, regarding updates to the town’s special permit and site plan review rules for multi-family, mixed-use, and other such residential-commercial projects. Goals of the updates include making the development review process more transparent and straightforward, and making sure the town’s rules are up to date with state law and case law, Loomis said.
In ending the session with thank yous to those who made Town Meeting possible, Moderator Frank Foss credited Town Meeting members for voting in “record time.” Indeed, last year’s Fall Annual Town Meeting took six nights; this year’s took five, though one was a formality.
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