Southfield Redevelopment Authority Board
Unfortunately at last night’s meeting of the Southfield Redevelopment Authority (SRA) the Board of Directors, by a 6 – 3 vote, voted to offer an employment contract to one of the SRA employees. Why is this important and why bring it up now you may ask? First an article from the Patriot Ledger from last month gives some background on the issue. Essentially under the enabling legislation that was passed last summer, the SRA has the ability to hire employees “at will” but not offer contracts. Now that the Board has voted to approve this contract you’ll likely read about this in the press soon and as much as possible we like to have you hear important news from the Association first whenever possible. In the Patriot Ledger article Chairman Minahan says that they’re changing it from a contract to an agreement. Under Massachusetts General Laws the terms contract and agreement are synonymous, changing from one term to the other makes no real difference.
The second reason this is important is because it represents a real financial risk to the taxpayers of Southfield. The current SRA employees haven’t received a raise in several years and they are certainly due one now. But the Southfield Neighborhood Association Board felt strongly that by creating and entering into a contract with an employee represented an unacceptable risk to the residents of Southfield and both resident Board members were made aware of that point. First, offering a contract is in direct opposition to the enabling legislation which directed the SRA to have only at will employees like the rest of the Commonwealth. But second, and frankly more important, is that should the employee be terminated it exposed the SRA and it’s taxpayers (us) to possible expensive litigation. A terminated employee could file a lawsuit, no matter how frivolous, and the SRA would potentially have to spend tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees or a settlement to fight the lawsuit thus increasing the taxes we have to pay.
What could have been done? The whole situation could have been solved with a simple one and a half page offering to the employee. If the employee had been given the simple employment offer, with the same employment terms as the contract, there would have been no grounds for litigation potentially saving the Authority and by extension the taxpayers thousands of dollars should there be a dispute. Such an offer was on the table at last night’s Board meeting and for whatever reason the six members of the SRA BOD, one of our own resident representatives included in the six; ignored Mayor Hedlund, the Weymouth Town Council, and the Southfield Neighborhood Association Board and voted in favor of a contract. Although the contract is against the legislation and shouldn’t have been offered in the first place, now that is has been executed the SRA is bound by the terms of that contract no matter how detrimental it may be to us. At this point the only thing the residents can do is make sure that all future employees are not offered a contract. Every employee that is offered a contract adds to the potential liability for the taxpayers in our community. Now that the first employee has been completed the SRA will move on to the next employee.
We need to make sure that all future employees are not also offered contracts. Each contract just adds more and more cost to the SRA thus adding more and more tax revenue they need to collect. Our Southfield rate has already increased from $0.50/$1000 to $0.54/$1000 for the current Fiscal Year. If the SRA is allowed to continue to operate in this manner the Southfield rate could potentially because too burdensome to support commercial or resident development.
The Southfield Neighborhood Association Board of Directors will meet very soon to discuss our strategy going forward. We may need resident help to write letters or attend SRA BOD meetings in the future to make sure that the SRA doesn’t offer another contract to another employee. If you have any questions or comments for the Board please send them to: ericjmillersna@gmail.com or reply to this email.
Master Landowners Association
For those that missed the meeting last month with L Star, they are planning on setting the Southfield Master Landowners Association. Initially the Landowners Association will begin charging dues based on the rate plan in place when we all purchased our houses and included in our closing documents. Once the Landowners Association is set up L Star will begin the process, with resident input, of amending the Landowners Association documents to bring them in line with the new vision for Southfield.