City Council continues look at casino job ordinance

SPRINGFIELD – Depending upon how quickly the city’s Law Department can issue an opinion answering some questions from the City Council, the proposed ordinance concerning elected officials and job at MGM may come before the council for a vote in the near future. 

Councilors at the Government Committee meeting on Jan. 20 expressed hope to get an opinion within two weeks, although by law, the Law Department has 30 days to write an opinion.

Councilors Timothy Allen, Orlando Ramos, Bud William, E. Henry Twiggs, Justin Hurst, Kateri Walsh and Council President Michael Fenton attended the meeting. 

The ordinance states the mayor of Springfield and members of the city council must wait five years after they’ve left office before accepting a job ay MGM. City Department head and any city employee who makes $60,000 or more would have to wait two years.

Fenton described the ordinance he wrote with Allen as “relatively straight forward.” He added, “I tried to keep it as succinct as possible.”

Fenton said that he  based his ordinance in part on the restriction on members of the state’s Gaming Commission as well as the state’s ethics laws governing municipal employees.

He added, “No other Massachusetts city has done it. It’s a very small universe.”

Walsh wanted to know if the state ethic laws would supersede the ordinance. She also expressed, as did several other councilors support for Ramos’s proposal to change the five year prohibition to three.

 

“I think the years is a long time. I’d hate to deny anyone a chance of a job,” Walsh said. 

When asked about why all department heads and others employees should be part of the affected group, Fenton said it was a good question, but during the host agreement process every city department expressed the impacts that would be made by a casino. 

Twiggs asked how the Police Department would be affected. Fenton said under the ordinance, the commissioner and the deputy chiefs would fall under the two-year waiting period, but no one else unless they report directly to the commissioner. 

How the city would enforce such an ordinance and what the penalties would be was also discussed. If it was made law, Fenton said that MGM would be its own police about the matter as the company would not want to violate any ordinance that could affect its host agreement or state gaming laws. 

“I don’t believe for a second that will be a problem,” Fenton said. 

The  committee did vote to reduce the waiting period from five to three years and to recommend its passage to the full council. Fenton was the only “no” vote. He did say it was a “fair compromise.”