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Page 14 THE SAUGUS ADVOCATE – FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021 Beacon Hill Roll Call By Bob Katzen A note from Bob Katzen, Publisher of Beacon Hill Roll Call: Join me this Sunday night and every Sunday night between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. for my talk show “The Bob Katzen Baby Boomer and Gen X Show.” Jump in my time capsule and come back to the simpler days of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. My special guest on Sunday, May 23 at 6 p.m. will be Tony Dow, best known for playing Wally Cleaver on the beloved and iconic television series “Leave it to Beaver.” Listeners are always invited to call in and talk with Tony. There are many ways you can listen to the show from anywhere in the world: If you have a smart speaker, simply say, “Play WMEX on Audacy.com” Download the free Audacy app on your phone or tablet Listen online at www.wmexboston.com Or tune into 1510 AM if you have an AM radio. Visit us at www.bobkatzenshow.com THE HOUSE AND SENATE: There were no roll call votes in the House or Senate last week. This week, Beacon Hill Roll Call reports local senators’ roll call attendance records for the 2021 session through May 14. The Senate has held 28 roll calls so far in 2021. Beacon Hill Roll Call tabulates the number of roll calls on which each senator votes and then calculates that number as a percentage of the total roll call votes held. That percentage is the number referred to as the roll call attendance record. In the Senate, 39 of the 40 members did not miss any roll calls and have 100 percent roll call attendance records. It is a Senate tradition that the Senate president only votes occasionally. Senate President Karen Spilka follows that tradition and only voted on 11 of the 28 roll calls while not voting on 17 of them. Sen. Spilka’s office did not respond to repeated requests by Beacon Hill Roll Call to comment on her voting record. We specifically asked if Spilka was in the Statehouse building for all the formal and informal sessions; how the tradition developed that the president rarely votes; has she ever thought of breaking that tradition and being recorded on all roll calls; and how does she choose on which roll calls she will vote? The vast majority of the 40 senators are not in the Senate chamber during a session because of the COVD-19 pandemic. Most are watching and listening to the session from their home, business or Statehouse office and voting remotely. Senators’ votes are communicated to Senate officials during the session or prior to the session if senators are informed in advance that there will be a roll call vote. If a member wants to speak on an issue under consideration, they do so on a separate “debate phone line” and their voice is then heard in the Senate chamber and by anyone watching the broadcast online. 2021 SENATE ROLL CALL ATTENDANCE RECORDS THROUGH MAY 14 The percentage listed next to the senator’s name is the percentage of roll call votes on which the senator voted. The number in parentheses represents the number of roll calls that he or she missed. Sen. Brendan Crighton 100 percent (0) HOW LONG WAS LAST WEEK’S SESSION? Beacon Hill Roll Call tracks the length of time that the House and Senate were in session each week. Many legislators say that legislative sessions are only one aspect of the Legislature’s job and that a lot of important work is done outside of the House and Senate chambers. They note that their jobs also involve committee work, research, constituent work and other matters that are important to their districts. Critics say that the Legislature does not meet regularly or long enough to debate and vote in public view on the thousands of pieces of legislation that have been filed. They note that the infrequency and brief length of sessions are misguided and lead to irresponsible late-night sessions and a mad rush to act on dozens of bills in the days immediately preceding the end of an annual session. During the week of May 10-14, the House met for a total of two hours and 48 minutes while the Senate met for a total of two hours and 46 minutes. Mon. May 10 House 11:03 a.m. to 11:16 a.m. Senate 11:14 a.m. to 11:40 a.m. Tues. May 11 No House session No Senate session Wed. May 12 No House session No Senate session Thurs. May 13 House 11:00 a.m. to 1:35 p.m. Senate 11:26 a.m. to 1:46 p.m. Fri. May 14 No House session No Senate session Bob Katzen welcomes feedback at bob@beaconhillrollcall.com SACHEM | FROM PAGE 7 the Los Angeles Angels. After negations were through, the Cardinals offered a ten-year $200 million, the Marlins offered a ten-year deal, and the Angels offered $250 million for ten-years. He moved to LA. He struggled in 2012 hitting only .285 and thirty home runs. In 2013 he hit .258 with seventeen home runs in ninety-nine games. In the 2014 season he upped his totals with a batting average of .272. The 2015 season had him hitting 40 home runs while batting .244. It was the seventh tome in his career that he hit at least forty home runs in a season. In 2016 he became the twentieth player to reach 5,000 career bases and was intentionally walked over 300 times. In 2017 his batting average sunk to .241. He had the slowest base running speed of all major league players at 21.8 feet per second. In 2018 he batted .245 with nineteen home runs as the sixth oldest player in the major leagues. In 2019 Pujols hit .244. At the beginning of the 2020 season, Pujols was the oldest player in the major leagues, he batted .224 with six home runs. On September 18 he hit his 661st career home run and passed Willie Mays for fifth place all time. He went on to whack another homer in the game to reach 662. In the 2021 season he was designated for assignment by the Angels after twenty-four games and batting only .198. Pujols became an American citizen in 2007. He married Deidre on New Year’s Day, 2000, and they have five children. Pujols and the Hanon family opened Pujols 5 Westport Grill in Maryland Heights, Missouri and a ten-foot, 1,100 pound statue of Alberto was placed outside the restaurant. He founded the Pujols Family Foundation in 2005, a non-profit dedicated to their “commitment to faith, family and others”. The organization promotes awareness of the Down Syndrome and works to support those who have the disease and provides aid to those with disabilities in the Dominican Republic. He has since aided the Down Syndrome Association of Greater St. Louis and the Albert Pujols Wellness Center for Adults with Down Syndrome in Chesterfield, Missouri. The family has taken several trips to the Dominican Republic with supplies and a team of doctors and dentists for the SACHEM | SEE PAGE 15 MAJOR | FROM PAGE 1 tem “tenfold.” “And we’re getting decades of more useful life because of the capital and infrastructure upgrades,” Crabtree said. “We’re reducing our costs of treating the wastewater by not allowing non-waste water or clean water from getting in our system. We’re in compliance with the ACO and what was regulated under the DEP [Department of Environmental Protection], the AG [Attorney General] and the Environmental Protection Laws.” “We’re light years ahead” Selectman Michael Serino commended the benefits cited by Crabtree, calling it “great news.” “I signed the ACO and I’m hailing its ending,” Serino said. “It’s important that the public see what we have done to the sewer system and how we have saved them almost double the water and sewer bill if we didn’t do anything,” Serino said. “I hope they understand that the improvements were a good thing for the town.” Crabtree said that invitations were sent out to the public – particularly all 50 Town Meeting members – for them to view the presentation, which is titled “Overview of Wastewater Facilities Plan and ACO Closeout.” “We extended the useful life and really have a cost savings for the ratepayer. We enjoy such a low bill because of this,” Crabtree said. The timing of this week’s presentation coincided with the Board of Selectmen’s unpopular vote to support an 8.25 percent increase in the sewer rates for the 2022 fiscal year that begins July 1. (See related story.) Crabtree and other town officials wanted to emphasize that the rate increase was necessary to fund millions of dollars of improvement in the system to stop dumping raw sewage into the Saugus River. At the same time, he also stressed that Saugus is still paying considerably less on its residential and commercial sewer rates than other area communities. “We’re light years ahead because of the work the town has committed over the last 15 years,” Crabtree said. For instance, he noted that while the average residential user in Saugus is paying $351.48 annually, the other three communities hooked into the Lynn Water and Sewer District are paying considerably more: Swampscott ($566.80), Lynn ($652.39) and Nahant ($775.56). But after the consent decree was signed in 2005, the town’s consultants projected that Saugus would need to double its sewer rates within the first five years, with a projected annual bill of $937 by the year of 2022. “The rates are not generating enough revenue to actually pay for the operating, fixed costs and debt service,” Crabtree said. “So, we’re always trying to play this ‘catchup.’ We did the ACO work and the capital work….But we didn’t do the part of increasing the rate to pay for the work that was being done over this 10- or 15-year period,” the town manager said. “It’s time to pay the piper” Selectman Jeff Cicolini agreed with Crabtree that past Saugus Boards of Selectmen put the town in a fiscally bad situation of “it’s time to pay the piper.” “All they did was kick the can down the road,” Cicolini said, referring to the “zero increase” votes on sewer rates instead of voting to double the rates. “Yeah, they looked like heroes back then [by voting no rate increases],” Cicolini said. “But now they put us in a financial position that’s just not favorable,” he added. Meanwhile, Cicolini noted that not doubling the sewer rates as recommended by town consultants has proven fiscally unwise, as “we have no retained earnings to fall back on.” Mike Nelson, Professional Engineer and Principal of the town consultant CDM Smith, said the town has made substantial progress over the life of the ACO. “I would proclaim very loudly, ‘Yes, it’s working,’” Nelson said. “In June, we will be submitting our report to the regulators and formally request release from the ACO. The ACO will be formally dissolved,” Nelson said. “You will no longer be under the presumptive mandates to do this work…. You are now free to do the work how you – the town – sees fit.” Nelson said he is optimistic that state regulators will be able to dissolve the ACO sometime in the fall. “The Sewer Rehabilitation Program in Saugus has been a model of success. Continuing the program at your pace will continue to reduce flows to the [Lynn Water and Sewer District]. At a glance, this is what Saugus got for the $25 million invested in town sewer system improvements to date: 33.5 miles of sewer line rehabbed, 1,100 manholes improved, 3,100 sewer connections installed, major improvements to the Lincoln Avenue pumping station, nine of the worst 26 substations upgraded, and all overflows in a 10-year storm event were eliminated. Public Works Director Brendan O’Regan noted that the work done on the town’s sewer system improvements is significant MAJOR | SEE PAGE 17

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