An order granting police powers to chosen Somerville Housing Authority workers, exempting them civil service and removed from union collective bargaining rights, was tabled by city councilors Thursday rather than being voted on toward the end of a long meeting.
“Passing a home rule petition relating to police that I haven’t read at 10:30 at night, it just doesn’t seem wise,” councilor Ben Ewen-Campen said.
Though it was understood by councilors as a good-faith effort by mayor Jake Wilson’s administration to fix a charter change by getting a request to the state Legislature, and to put armed Housing Authority employees under more direct supervision and control of Somerville’s chief of police, there were too many questions for councilors to move quickly, said councilor JT Scott, who proposed the delay.
City legislative liaison Yasmine Raddassi had asked immediate consideration of the order because members of Somerville’s state delegation had warned that time is running out to make sure of passage this session. She later said the administration was amenable to taking action April 23 – but asked for questions to be submitted ahead of that time to help ensure a vote goes through.
The city’s 1871 governing document got a significant update last year after a process led by a Charter Review Committee that met from April 2021 to August 2022. The committee’s 36 proposed changes went to then-mayor Katjana Ballantyne in 2023 but sat for a year. Then balance-of-power conflicts between the council and mayor threatened the charter’s appearance on the ballot in 2025. With those issues resolved, changes went to voters Nov. 4 and were approved by 83 percent of the electorate.
The former charter had a provision for appointment of special police officers, but the version approved by voters did not include the language, said Matt Sirigu, assistant city counselor and labor counsel for Somerville.
Councilors weren’t ready to act Thursday to change that.
Somerville Housing Authority police officers “have been a sore point for this council for at least the entirety of the time that I’ve been on it,” Scott said. He noted that once under mayor Joe Curtatone, special officer appointments had come before the council and been withdrawn by “the solicitor at the time, saying that they don’t need our permission to do this.”
“Mostly, this is about future-proofing,” Scott said, urging councilors not to “create a loophole large enough to drive a truck through that would allow a future administration with perhaps less noble aims to circumvent both the civil service hiring process and a certain degree of council oversight.”
That it was smarter to take time to understand the details was agreed upon even by councilor Jesse Clingan, who described himself as eager to see reforms – especially around the housing police. Other issues concern whether constables can be empowered as special police, or retired officers, which a previous home rule petition allowed back to work construction details.
Pinning down details was important, Clingan said. considering “we essentially allow [nonpolice] to go out into into the streets armed.”
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