The Winthrop Town Council voted unanimously Tuesday night, November 10, to keep a single property tax rate for fiscal 2027, which the assessors said will come in at about $11.16 per $1,000 of value and put the average single-family bill near $8,100, up from $7,844 last year. The vote took about 12 minutes. The rest of the three-hour meeting at the DeLeo Senior Center, held without a Zoom link and in front of a room the council president said was the fullest he had seen in a while, belonged to the residents who came to talk about the October 27 special meeting and to Precinct 3 Councilor Joseph Romano’s five downtown zoning motions.
By the time the council reached those motions, two hours in, Romano withdrew the one that drew the most fire: the proposal to make the council, instead of the Planning Board, the special permit granting authority in the Center Business District. “After consideration from residents, I would like to withdraw one of the motions,” he said. The remaining four, on payments in lieu of parking, building height and ground-floor apartments, were referred to the Planning Board, and President Jim Letterie said he wants a joint public hearing with the board on December 15. The account below comes from WCAT’s recording of the meeting and the 33-page agenda package; the council’s preview of the agenda is linked at the end.
The tax rate: 94 percent residential
Deputy Assessor Kathy Hickey, with the chairman of the Board of Assessors and board member Peter Gill beside her, walked the council through the four decisions the state requires each fall: whether to shift the levy toward commercial property, and whether to adopt an open space discount, a residential exemption or a small commercial exemption. Sales kept rising this year despite high interest rates, she said, because owners with low mortgage rates are not selling and the Boston area is short of housing. The average single-family value rose from $704,153 to $725,849. Last year’s residential rate was $11.14; this year’s is $11.16 and “may change slightly” before the state certifies it. The average commercial, industrial and personal property bill falls from $5,587 to $5,221.
Winthrop’s taxable value is 94 percent residential and 6 percent everything else, Hickey said, so a split rate would move little. Gill, a former council president, put numbers on it: a shift would save the typical homeowner $20 to $25 a year and cost a business $500 to $600, “passing that on probably to the burden of the consumers of the establishment.” The board recommended a single rate and a no vote on all three exemptions, as it has every year. Councilor at Large Max Tassinari said he would vote yes but objected to the form: “I would have rather received this presentation and these questions in advance as a formal motion for tonight. We’re asking everybody to play by the same rules.” Town Manager Anthony Marino drafted the motion on the spot. Both roll calls, for a factor of one and against the three exemptions, were unanimous, and Marino said the paperwork goes to the Department of Revenue now.
Public comment: “you’re a circus” and “let the experts do their jobs”
The first public comment period ran close to 50 minutes. A Precinct 4 resident who said he has attended council meetings since 2018 called the October 27 special meeting “the most absurd thing” he had heard and said he had considered not coming back. A Precinct 5 resident said the rush to call that meeting, while the president was out of town, and to consider “things that would change considerably the way the town government functions” raised questions about democracy and the rule of law. A Precinct 2 resident said special meetings are for emergencies and asked the councilors who called it “what was so urgent that it couldn’t wait,” then said he opposed every motion Romano filed: “Where’s the due diligence? Where’s the research? Where’s the supporting documentation?”
The chairman of the Zoning Board of Appeals, speaking as a resident and as a land use attorney of 27 years, told the council it is a legislative body, not a judicial one, and that a council that takes over special permits and votes no on downtown projects would lose on appeal and spend town money in litigation, because the standard is whether the board acted arbitrarily. “How many open meeting violation complaints do we have? You guys can’t even get that right half the time,” he said. He said the council’s refusal to reappoint members had kept the zoning board from doing business for two months and cost it a conscientious member who withdrew. Gill, in his own turn at the microphone, said the Planning Board “spent months and years drawing the CBD,” that the legal path for changes runs through public hearings, and that his own reappointment to the assessors had come after three others failed on 4-4 votes and one no vote changed to yes; he had been tempted, he said, to walk away.
A Precinct 2 resident who said the whole council was being tarred for the actions of a “Fantastic Five” identified on social media listed what the time could have gone to instead: the flooding at Girdlestone, Tileston and Pauline streets, the Point Shirley seawall, the Memorial Gym on Pauline Street and the rink at the Larsen complex. Another resident said the council had wasted a year “leveraging for power” and that the majority “will opt to remove oversight, checks and balances, and to ignore the advice of our town attorney.” A mother who said she was leaving early because of a tired nine-year-old told “the five councilors leading this effort” that two of them had never run in a competitive election, one was appointed and one holds a seat by four votes: “You are not the voice of the people.” The last speaker of the period said she had watched the special meeting from home and could not believe no one stopped it: “You’re a circus, and we’re all the monkeys in your circus. Grow up.”
Not every comment was about the special meeting. A Precinct 2 poll worker thanked Town Clerk Denise Quist and her staff, who she said worked from 5 a.m. until 2:30 a.m. on Election Day, and said the town’s tabulators take 11 or 12 seconds per ballot, jammed and lost power repeatedly, and need replacing; 7,210 voters cast two-page ballots, 14,420 sheets in all. A hearing-impaired resident said the Senior Center has hosted at least 61 council and committee meetings since 2022 with no captioning or assistive listening, asked the town to install Zoom or similar technology there, and asked that the room not be used for public meetings until it does, citing Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. A Precinct 3 resident said federal immigration agents made two arrests in town on November 4, as reported in last week’s police journal, and asked the council to treat the license plate readers at the town’s exits as a technology that needs rules, as guns have. Correspondence from two residents, one of them a Planning Board member asking the council to reconsider, went into the record.
The golf course and 3A: a 100-year lease
Marino’s report turned into the longest discussion of the night. With the town’s own plan for the MBTA Communities law twice rejected by the council and the state’s lawsuit still pending, he said he and Town Attorney James Cipoletta have drafted an overlay district on 15 acres in the middle of the Winthrop Golf Course, submitted to the state housing office for an informal read. Because the course is town land, he said, the state’s rules require “fee simple” ownership, which the lawyers would create with a 100-year lease to the golf club in place of the current lease, which runs to 2037. The club’s board knows it is an option but nothing has been negotiated, and any lease over three years needs a council vote. He said the state’s minimum is 12.5 acres but 882 units will not fit on 12, and that the state had just filed a motion to dismiss the exemption case Winthrop and five or six other towns are still pressing.
Councilors pulled at it from every side. Precinct 6 Councilor Martin Finn asked whether there is any guarantee the course would not be built on; Marino said no, “there’s no guarantee in life,” and that unlike the Seal Harbor and Governor’s Park plan, which was drawn so no new units could be added, the golf course overlay would be buildable if the club ever stopped being a club. Vice President Suzanne Swope called it “a science project the night before the science fair” after professionals had already drawn a net zero plan. Councilor at Large Kurt Millar, who said he has opposed the law from the start, asked that the club’s tax history be disclosed; Marino said the club had fallen behind on property taxes under a prior administration, has since caught up, and is paying off about $150,000 in water bills over five years. Finn floated zoning Governor’s Park alone on 12.5 acres; Marino and Tassinari said that would mean six to ten story buildings and more units than exist today. Precinct 1 Councilor Patrick Costigan said last year’s election “was a mandate by the town for us to fight 3A through the exemption,” that the exemption case “isn’t looking too good,” and that he does not want to give away the farm with a century-long lease. Letterie, who said he has opposed the law for three years, said that at some point “you can’t win every battle,” that the state will not accept paper compliance, and that if the council cannot decide in a handful of months “it’s time for the town to decide.” He asked for no more comment on the subject until the state responds.
What was referred, created and scheduled
The $980,000 borrowing for lead water service lines went to the Finance Committee. The public works director said the town is under a federal and state mandate to remove about 100 lead services a year and that the MWRA loan is interest-free over ten years. Letterie noted the bond needs six votes and asked any councilor who works for the MWRA to get an ethics ruling before it returns. The council created, on a voice vote, a seven-member temporary AI policy subcommittee, one councilor, the town manager or a designee, the superintendent or a designee and four residents, to report by April 20, 2027; Letterie said applications go through the town clerk’s page on the town website. Swope said her tree ordinance, now 25 pages and about 50 hours of work, was not ready because late suggestions arrived this week, and that the final version will be re-advertised for a public hearing. Romano’s rewrite of the council’s rules and procedures was referred to committee. Millar said the Rules and Ordinance Committee has sent back its drafts of the council rules and of commercial vehicle sticker parking, which return December 1.
The four Open Meeting Law complaints, three from Mark Sennott and one from Birin Martynowicz, were not discussed. Letterie said the attorney general’s office has given the town until November 27 to respond and that the council must deliberate in public first, so he scheduled a special meeting for 6 p.m. Monday, November 16, at the Senior Center, for that item alone; he said he is trying to make the room accessible by Zoom. In the second comment period Sennott said he had not been notified of the extension in writing within 14 days, as the complaint form requires, and asked the council to appoint a parliamentarian; a councilor said Sennott’s address was copied on the attorney general’s November 4 e-mail. Letterie also asked for a presentation on December 1 on the cost of new tabulators and on processing early ballots before Election Day.
Earlier, the council swore in four firefighters, Harry Benson, Adam Lundbergh, Nathan Rich and Jason Rich, all Winthrop natives and public school graduates; the fire chief said Benson’s uncle is a fire chief in a neighboring community, Lundbergh’s brother is a Winthrop lieutenant, and the Riches’ fathers served 29 and 40 years. He pinned another firefighter for helping deliver a baby girl in the back of an ambulance in East Boston on October 12. The council also gave a citation to the co-founder of For Kids Only for 42 years of after-school care, and the Chamber of Commerce drew the winner of a $2,500 holiday light makeover ahead of the November 27 tree lighting in French Square. The tree warden said volunteers planted 27 trees in the rain last weekend and 20 the week before. Letterie closed by inviting residents to the Veterans Day ceremony at 11 a.m. Wednesday on the Town Hall green.
The council’s preview of this agenda, with the text of each motion and the Planning Board chairman’s letter, is at this link. The October 20 meeting, where the classification hearing opened, is here. WCAT’s recording is on YouTube.
