Holyoke City Council discusses hen ordinance, Comcast data cap

Feb. 9, 2021 | Danielle Eaton
DanielleE@thereminder.com

The Holyoke City Council discussed an ordinance that would allow residents to keep hens during their most recent meeting on Feb. 2.
Photo credit: Holyoke Media

HOLYOKE – The Holyoke City Council met on Feb. 2 for their regularly scheduled meeting where they discussed the Comcast data cap and the ongoing discussion surrounding allowing residents to keep hens.

After public comment, the council then discussed the salary for the top 100 earners in the Holyoke Public School District. The council, who had requested the salaries, made a motion to bring in the School Committee and discuss the salaries. Councilor James Leahy said he felt as though it was “taxation with representation” as the state was able to spend the money from the city’s fund with no say from the council or School Committee.

Another item of discussion was regarding an ordinance that would allow for residents to keep hens in their backyards for the use of eggs. Councilor Rebecca Lisi said the ordinance committee had been working “to go through line by line to take note of where we’re at” with regards to the ordinance. She said the committee had “come up with amendments to the zoning ordinance as well as the accessory uses.” This, she explained, was where hens would be allowed within the zoning ordinance.

She then outlined the amendments and said residents in zone R1, R1A, R2, DR would be allowed to keep up to six hens. However, in the DR, or downtown residential zone, the ordinance would only be in effect for “up to six unit dwellings.” Hens, she explained, would need to be kept in hen houses or coops with at least three square feet for each hen with the coop in an enclosed run with at least 10 square feet of space per hen.

Additionally she outlined the space requirements for such a run and coop. “The coop and run setup must be eight feet from any side property, 10 feet from any rear line and 50 feet from any neighboring dwelling, as well as 100 feet from any surface water source,” she said. Those wishing to have hens must keep them in a “healthy and safe” manner outlined by the board of health and keep up with food storage and cleaning regulations regarding the coop.

Lisi said roosters would be “prohibited” and any renter wishing to keep hens must show in writing that they have permission from the property owner. Those who wish to keep hens must apply to do so via a special permit through the City Council, something that had been highly opposed by residents in the city. However, Lisi said she felt as though there was significant compromise with regard to the ordinance.

“It is a very large compromise that we feel like we’ve made here in the community, because we believe in incrementalism. We spent a lot of time really getting into the details of the value that hens have and there were some pros and cons that came up along the way, but overwhelmingly public hearings were overwhelmingly in support of moving forward in the keeping of hens on residential properties,” she said.

Lisi emphasized that they “wanted to move forward on something, even if it is restrictive at this moment in time because it’s more important many of us feel to begin to allow hens in residential areas and see how it does go.” She said the special permit process will allow for control of the situation and will result in $300 to $500 in fines for residents to “begin to enter the process.” Ultimately, however, the motion was sent back to the ordinance committee.

Another significant topic of discussion was an amendment to the grant contract that was previously approved by the council from the Community Preservation Committee (CPA) to extend the funding deadline for the Victory Theater project. Councilor Joe McGiverin gave an overview of the meeting of the finance committee and reminded the council of a grant proposal for $100,000 that they had previously adopted specifically for light fixtures at the theater. McGiverin said the total cost of the project is set to be $46 million. So far, the city has spent very little to no money on the project, with just a few commitments in regard to the project.

McGiverin said the committee was in favor of the extension and the $100,000, however, “if the money is not spent on those light fixtures specifically and very detailed designed to the proposal itself, the $100,000 will go back” for the use of another project.

Leahy said while he voted in favor of this during the finance committee meeting, he would “like to see some hard numbers.”

“I’d like to see what they have. They said they have $35 million, and I totally believe them, I’d just like to see it, see what’s happening in the progress of this,” he said. Leahy added that his concern was “this money would be tied up” when it could be used in other ways. Councilor David Bartley said he’d voted against the measure in committee.

 Bartley said while he’d voted in favor of this last year, he “was at wits end.” He said, “I don’t want to put the cart before the horse anymore with this project, so if we’re the last $100,000 with city of Holyoke taxpayer money then count me in. But there’s a $14 million shortfall.” He said while he respected the project, the theater and the management, he felt it was “time to move on” and he felt there were “better uses for the fund.”

Councilor Mike Sullivan said the attitude of the CPA Committee had been “this is the absolute last chance.” He said, “It’s pretty clear it won’t go forward for another year after this.” However, he emphasized that the money would not be spent until the entire amount for the project would be raised. He also said no project would be “hurting or wanting because of this,” as the money was tied up for the next 12 months anyway.

Ultimately, the extension was approved by the council for another year.

The other most significant item of discussion during the meeting was to adopt a resolution opposing internet data caps. Lisi explained this was “a big issue for our Holyoke community.”

“Basically through the contract that Comcast has with the city of Holyoke, they have an effective monopoly on internet access. They have recently created a policy of data caps, which limits users to 1.2 terabytes of data before they would be charged a fee for going over,” she said. Lisi said families and seniors are “doing more and more things online,” due to the pandemic and she felt as though residents should have “some measure of consumer choice.”        

Councilor Linda Vacon said she felt as though the resolution should go to committee before the council acted on it. “If we’re going to be pushed to vote it tonight, I won’t be supporting it because I think there’s more to the matter and I think it’s a matter of –it’s outside of our jurisdiction and a matter of state and federal regulations,” she said.

Bartley agreed and said he would prefer it to go to committee as he wanted to hear from Comcast first. “I think it’s only reasonable that they have a chance to respond,” he said. Councilor Howard Greany Jr. said he wouldn’t be supporting the resolution as he couldn’t support something he “didn’t know anything about.”

However, Councilor Juan Anderson-Burgos said he believed in standing up to bullies. He said he had continuously been promised by Comcast that rates would remain the same, and it continuously went up with opposition and pushback from the corporation.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not going stand there and benefit from a pandemic to a community that we all serve. We have to stand up against them. We are the ones who get elected to do such,” he said. “I don’t need to do anymore research because I’ve already done, I already know what they’re doing. Do your research, but I’m telling you right now the people of this community elected us to do the right thing. To stand up against a corporation that has been suffocating us financially, taking our money, our money and I can’t even say for quality service.”

 Councilor Libby Hernandez agreed and siad she didn’t need to do much research to know that signing onto the resolution with councilors Lisi, Anderson-Burgos and Gladys Lebron-Martinez. She said she felt as though Comcast should have to compete for residents’ business and “if Holyoke Gas and Electric is servicing other towns, why can’t they service us?”           

 Lisi said while she recognized that this resolution wasn’t in territory typically, it would send a message and similar resolutions from other towns had pushed the data cap from starting in February until June. The resolution was adopted by the council during a final vote.

Following the publication of this story, Comcast Western New England public relations manager, Elizabeth Walden, sent the following statement to Reminder Publishing regarding the data cap:

"1.2 terabytes is a massive amount of data that enables consumers to video conference for 3,500 hours, watch 1,200 hours of distance learning videos, stream 500 hours of high-definition video content a month, or play more than 34,000 hours of online games. Our data plan is structured in a way that the very small percentage of our customers who use more than 1.2 terabytes of monthly data and generate the greatest demand for network development and capacity pay more for their increased usage. For those superusers, we have unlimited data options available.”

“We are providing customers in our Northeast markets with additional time to become familiar with the new plan. Customers in these markets now have six months to understand their data usage, and the earliest that the very small percentage of customers who exceed 1.2 TB of data could have any charges due under the plan is August 2021."

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