While Annual Town Meeting in the spring traditionally does the heavy lifting on town business, the fall session of Town Meeting tends to function in more of a “clean up” role.
Fall sessions typically address town bylaws in need of revision, make mid-year adjustments to the town budget and generally practice good housekeeping on non-controversial topics that statutorily require Town Meeting approval. And this year is no exception.
When they convene Oct. 20 at 7:30 p.m. at Powers Hall, members will vote on 11 articles. Four that stand out are: two articles on the Stephen Palmer relocation proposal (see separate story); a new approach to licensing the town’s nearly 4,000 dogs and establishing rules for licensing dog kennels; and amendments to the town’s stormwater regulations.
The Select Board prepares the Town Meeting warrant and the Finance Committee then offers its recommendations on individual articles. The two boards seem mostly in sync this year, with FinCom already having voted in favor of adopting all nine articles it has reviewed to date.
State law opens door to tidying up dog regs
This year’s Article 10 would amend multiple dog regulations and was included at the request of Town Clerk Louise Miller. She was prompted to act by a new state law that requires municipalities to revise their bylaws to provide oversight to any location that offers commercial dog kennel services or has a private kennel.
“We have to have a way for the town clerk to implement Ollie’s Law,” Miller said, referring to a state law passed in 2024.
The law was spurred by the death of a 7-month-old labradoodle named Ollie, who was fatally mauled by other dogs at a boarding facility in East Longmeadow in 2020. Ollie’s death exposed a gap in state law, as Massachusetts had no statewide regulations for commercial kennels, boarding and doggie daycare facilities.
Municipalities are now required to have a system in place for a licensing authority — in Needham’s case, the town clerk — to issue, suspend and revoke kennel licenses. It also requires the clerk to submit a list of Needham’s kennels, which begs the question “what constitutes a kennel?”
The state’s definition includes “commercial and training kennels, establishments used for boarding, holding, day care, and overnight stays or training of animals that are not the property of the owner of the establishment, in exchange for consideration and in the absence of the owner of the animal.”
Also, a kennel requires five dogs at a single premises.
Needham’s first kennel list contained five licensees, but Miller believes that list could grow.
“If you’re keeping a dog and the owner is not there, that’s really what the definition is,” she said, noting that dog groomers are required to have a kennel license. Miller also said the town receives occasional calls from residents not thrilled about seeing packs of dogs in their neighbors’ yards, suggesting doggie daycare may be something of a cottage industry.
Miller took advantage of the bylaws already on the Town Meeting warrant as an opportunity to tweak the town’s dog licensing procedures as well.
Under the current system, the clerk has no authority to issue a late fee, meaning unlicensed dogs can be subject to $100 fines issued through the Police Department, which responds to more than 200 dog-related calls annually and would prefer to defer to the clerk on unlicensed dogs.
This also places any appeal process in the state court system, which Miller says is a bad fit. Courts also don’t really want to be bothered with these cases so they’re frequently dismissed..
Under the new system, the clerk could impose a $50 late fee instead of the police issuing a $100 fine.
“I don’t want a bunch of people to receive a violation, and then they all go to court. Now, the ACO (animal control officer) is tied up going to court because all these people are saying, ‘Oh, this should really just be a late fee, I was just late in renewing.’”
And because one can’t discuss dogs without giving cats equal time, Miller was asked if any of these changes affect our feline friends. “Cats do not have to be licensed, but they do have to be vaccinated,” she said.
Stormwater reg changes focus on construction activity
The final article on the warrant consumes more than half of the document’s 26 pages and represents 15 months of work by the Stormwater Bylaw Working Group on bylaw changes that affect stormwater retention requirements for new construction.
The Aug. 8, 2023, storm that led to flooding of hundreds of properties across town provided the impetus for the town to examine its stormwater management practices. While the working group’s effort was extensive, this article is relatively narrowly focused on how construction practices may contribute to stormwater issues.
The article “proposes amendments to the existing Stormwater By-Law to strengthen the management of stormwater runoff through water quality and quantity controls.”
At the Select Board’s public hearing on the article, concerns were raised that the bylaw could dramatically increase the cost of both new construction and significant renovation projects.
It has also been suggested it could have the unintended consequence of increasing the incidence of teardowns, so this article has the potential to produce a robust debate.
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