Councilor-at-Large Jaclyn Corriveau recently attempted to reopen City Hall to the public with a motion to bring the entrances back to “pre-pandemic availability.”
Currently, anyone who visits City Hall must use the side entrance where the security desk is. Corriveau’s motion was to allow the public to utilize the front and back entrances, in addition to the current side door, effective immediately.
After some back-and-forth, her motion failed 7-4.
Councilor-at-Large Tom Rossingoll said he felt the motion “has validity,” but he didn’t think it was “appropriate at this moment.”
“I do think having a discussion on it and seeing what safety implications there are from at least the mayor’s point of view, I think that would be a better alternative than having something acted on immediately,” Rossignoll said.
He continued, “In my opinion, if this is put either into public safety or having the mayor come before us and give us rationale of why this continues to be this way, I think that that’s a more appropriate way of moving forward than kind of heavy handedly trying to unilaterally force his hand to do something that there may be rationale and reason not to.”
Councilor-at-Large Anne Manning-Martin said she understood the reservations some of her fellow councilors had, but she reminded them that the mayor has 10-15 days to act upon a council motion.
“He has all that time to receive, generate communication back to the council, or veto it,” she said. “So I don’t think we’re unilaterally doing anything. The power still lies with the mayor, either to acknowledge it, adhere to it, ask for further discussion on it, or veto it, so we’re not unilaterally doing anything.”
She added, “I think the motion is a good one — certainly generating discussion — because I know that a lot of folks in the public have been talking about this for some time, so I think it needs to be addressed in any way of the forms that I mentioned that the mayor may respond to the councilor’s motion. I don’t think we’re unilaterally doing anything, you know, coming across like we’re bossing the mayor around because we don’t have that authority, and this motion doesn’t do that.”
Corriveau then took the floor back to ask Rossignoll what safety concerns he was referring to. To her knowledge, there were no concerns over the past five or six years, but she said, “if that is a valid concern, I’d be open to hearing them.”
Councilor-at-Large Jon Turco took that question for Rossignoll, saying, “Someone could remind me otherwise, but I believe when this was done, it was strictly for health reasons. It was a Board of Health concern to restrict entry for COVID issues, and we’re well-beyond COVID. I don’t think it was ever brought up that there was a public safety concern or anything other than public health at the time, so I really don’t have any issue with restoring it back to where it was five years ago.”
Ward 1 Councilor Craig Welton shared that he doesn’t “have a problem with the motion,” but he was concerned about “unintended repercussions.”
“I know, recently, we did some masonry work to the front. I don’t know if there’s issues like that where maybe there’s upkeep or needed repairs, either to the doors or to the walkways or whatever, so again, I would be in favor of this, but I think it might be helpful to hear a little bit more, whether it’s from the mayor or from a security standpoint or whatever, just so that we have all the information available at once,” Welton said.
He added, “I do understand, Councilor Manning-Martin, that the mayor can choose to act on it, choose to send it back to us, or choose to veto it. I think my personal preference might be to have the conversation, and if the amendment was to call the mayor in front of us within the next meeting or two meetings to address this directly, I would be in favor of voting for that. I’m just a little hesitant to vote for an immediate rescission of the policy that we have in place, but I think it’s a valid point to bring up.”
Gamache asked that “any issues that have been brought up by people coming into City Hall that were not supposed to come into City Hall, whether they were on the mayor’s list, the clerk’s list, or public services’” were provided to the Council.
Corriveau then asked Gamache, “Are you saying that there are individuals that were entering the building that are on a no entrance list?”
He answered, “There’s been instances where people have been banned or barred from coming to the mayor’s office, specifically due to threats. I’m aware of a couple of them, and if there were issues such as that, I’d like them to be brought to this Council’s attention, at least, maybe not by names, but by the number of incidents. That’s what I’m looking for.”
Corriveau additionally asked Gamache how security issues were handled prior to COVID, saying, “I’m assuming security threats weren’t new to the pandemic.”
Gamache said he didn’t know.
As the tension rose, Manning-Martin moved the question, meaning that there was to be no more discussion, and with a vote of 7-4, Corriveau’s motion failed.
Corriveau, Manning-Martin, Turco, and Ward 2 Councilor Wendy Lattof voted in its favor. The following councilors voted against opening City Hall to the public: Welton, Ward 3 Councilor Stephanie Peach, Ward 4 Councilor Julie Daigle, Gamache, Council President and Ward 6 Councilor Michael Higgins, Councilor-at-Large Jarrod Hochman, and Rossignoll.
