Public hearing Tuesday (tomorrow) on alderman mid-term replacement process

[fefie.livejournal.com]

The Board of Aldermen will hold a public hearing tomorrow night about what should happen when a BOA member resigns with less than a year left of their 2-year terms, as happened twice this year with Bill Roche (ward 1) and Sean O'Donovan (ward 5).

(http://www.somervillema.gov/calendar/hearing-boa-appointments)

Somerville Patch has a thorough article about the history behind tomorrow's public hearing and the proposals being put forward so far.

(http://somerville.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/public-to-speak-out-about-on-how-aldermen-fill-vacancies)

The BOA want to hear residents' ideas too. Many voters expressed their unhappiness with the resignations by voting against the people who were put into the resigning aldermen's seats, but now the question is: How should this issue be treated, going forward?

The School committee approached their vacancy (when ward 1 SC member Maureen Bastardi was nominated by Bill Roche to fill his seat) by holding a public application and interview process to find a replacement. This process could be influenced by the resigning alderman behind the scenes, though. The proposal discussed in Patch to let the defeated candidate in the previous election take the seat if they had more than 40% of the vote is intended to persuade BOA members not to resign unless they have a really good reason to do so.

If you can't make it to the hearing, please email your alderman and the aldermen-at-large (contact info here: http://www.somervillema.gov/departments/board-of-aldermen)

Comments

[keithn.livejournal.com]

What was the misinformation?

Let me see if I can break down what you dislike:

1. Courtney was appointed instead of elected. (True).
2. Courtney brought the concerns of a landlord regarding couchsurfing to the board of aldermen. (True).
3. Courtney is part of the "Good Old Boy network of Curtatone cronies." (Unsubstantiated)
4. One of Courtney's campaign points was that she is a lifelong resident of Somerville. (True).
5. She insinuated that someone made a "dwarf lesbian" comment here (Unsubstantiated)
6. She insinuated that anyone who voted against her was a homophobic bigot (Unsubstantiated)

Did I miss anything?

From where I'm sitting:

1. This would be true of anyone holding that seat right now.
2. This could easily be attributed to political inexperience rather than a nefarious plot to join a secret landlord cartel and screw tenants. It also sounds like she might have confused couchsurfing with something like AirBNB - which IS a serious concern for all residents.
3. I'm not sure why you say this. Also, it seems to me that ward 5 likes Curatone or else he probably would have had an opponent, so I doubt this is why she (narrowly) lost.
4. Is there any lifelong resident alderman, state rep, etc that has NOT campaigned on this?
5. Like cos, I don't see this at all.
6. I don't see this. I agree she shouldn't have brought it up here. I took the point as "I've had worse so this doesn't bother me."

[ron_newman]

I don't see why AirBNB should be "a serious concern for all residents" .. but admittedly this invites another off-topic digression.

[keithn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm sure it is a discussion we'll have eventually. The issue is with the extreme case where people rent apartments or buy condos for the purpose of turning them into a full time airbnb unlicensed hotel, which has happened. I have no problem with people who let travelers crash on their couch for free or a couple bucks while the resident is there themselves, which is what I think of when I think of couchsurfing, which is about meeting people and not about making money.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

IME, many condo association rules explicitly prohibit leasing the unit for anything less than 30 days. Most leases don't allow sub-leasing.

But why does that make it a "concern for all residents"?

[keithn.livejournal.com]

I say "all residents" as opposed to "landlords" because it's a concern for both renters and owner-occupiers as well since most people don't want to live next door to (or above or below) a hotel. I don't necessarily think every single resident will care, but that residents from all classes (renters, owners, owner-occupiers) will care and it is not just a landlord vs. tenant issue.

Example of what most people probably don't want to live next to: http://needwant.com/p/buying-apartment-airbnb/

Besides the noise and random people, this kind of thing has the potential to drive rents and real estate prices up, as you can make more money renting your house out for short stints on airbnb than by leasing it to a permanent resident. Even if people don't turn units into permanent airbnb hotels, residents may be willing to pay more for an apartment knowing they can rent out a spare room or couch on airbnb, which still drives rent up.

You'd like to think this kind of thing is covered by lease agreements, HOAs, zoning laws, and these are enforced, but obviously you can see that it isn't just by looking at listings on the airbnb site. If we want to allow airbnb in some cases, we need to decide on where to draw the line and how to do so.

The case Courtney brought to the board of alderman was silly because it was couchsurfing (or so I am led to believe) which is no different from letting a friend crash on your couch for free while you are home. The owner was also complaining about things like pictures of the inside of the house being posted online, which the tenant obviously has the right to do.