The Revere City Council voted 11 to 0 on Monday, October 26 to authorize a $16.5 million bond to pay the settlement with the former owner of the Wonderland site taken by eminent domain for the new high school, and 11 to 0 to spend $916,000 from the high school stabilization fund on the legal bills from the taking. Council President Anthony Zambuto said he was keeping his word by voting for the bond but that it “doesn’t take away the fact that we made the biggest fiscal mistake in the history of the city.”
Mayor Patrick Keefe said the city “struck a good deal” and that the total, including the land, still comes in under the $493 million bonded for the high school, about half of it covered by the Massachusetts School Building Authority. He said the building committee cut the budget by $10 million and sub-bids came in about $14 million under estimate, for about $24 million in savings so far. Chief Financial Officer Richard Viscay said bond counsel wanted a separate authorization for the land and that the city will rescind the unused portion once the project is done. The original $29.5 million payment is already on the city’s books as a 20-year bond costing about $1.5 million a year, he said, and the new borrowing will cost $1 million to $1.2 million a year depending on rates. Ward 1 Councillor Jim Mercurio requested that future reports separate the land and construction bonds. Zambuto said he had expected the award to reach $75 million or $80 million and had advised the administration to settle for $50 million. Viscay said Foley Hoag accounted for about $730,000 of the legal fees and that a trial “would have been triple that.”
Rental registry draws support and opposition
A public hearing on an ordinance creating a unified rental registry and inspection program, and rewriting the short-term rental rules, drew a letter of support from Fire Chief James Cullen, who wrote that accurate occupancy information “can prevent tragedies and save lives.” An 85-year-old Sigourney Street homeowner who said she had read all 25 pages several times called the proposed fees “outrageous” for seniors who rent an apartment in their own home and said she did not want her name, address and phone number on a public registry. A Rumney Road resident requested a cost-benefit analysis.
Ward 4 Councillor Paul Argenzio said the ordinance replaces one about 50 years old, that it responds to constituent complaints about rooming houses and illegal apartments, and that it replaces the current $75 inspection fee per unit and $75 per turnover with a $25 annual registration fee and no inspection charge, held in a fund to pay inspectors. Councillor at Large Michelle Kelley said she could not support it as written: it makes turnover inspections voluntary, caps the annual fee at $5,000 for owners of 200 or more units so large landlords pay less per unit than small ones, exposes seniors to fines of $300 to $490 a day, and would let owners of non-owner-occupied buildings use up to 10 percent of units as short-term rentals. Councillor at Large Joanne McKenna said a man from either an illegal rooming house or an Airbnb next door entered a Winthrop Avenue apartment with a credit card at 2:20 that morning and was found standing over a sleeping couple and their baby before police arrested him. The ordinance went to the Legislative Affairs subcommittee.
Coolidge Street: 1,700 units on 40 acres
The Revere Housing Authority presented a Coolidge Street Smart Growth Overlay District under Chapter 40R that would let it rebuild its roughly 400 units on about 40 acres into about 790 affordable units, including 220 one-bedroom elderly units, and about 910 market rate units, with buildings up to 85 feet in the middle of the site and townhouses at the edges. Executive Director Dean Harris said Revere’s affordable housing stock is 7.2 percent against the state’s 10 percent benchmark, that the city would be eligible for a $600,000 incentive payment plus $3,000 per new unit, and that the first phase is four to five years out with buildout over 10 to 15 years; residents would be moved within the site and nobody more than once except the first group. Chief of Planning Tom Skwierawski said the plan includes walkable streets, parks and a community building with an indoor pool and track open to the neighborhood. Councillors Marc Silvestri, Argenzio, Anthony Cogliandro, Mercurio and McKenna spoke in favor. The amendment went to the Zoning subcommittee.
Also at the meeting
- The council approved the layout of a rerouted Overlook Ridge Drive at Salem Street, 9 to 1 with Ward 2 Councillor Ira Novoselsky opposed and Zambuto recused, the step the developer said is needed to release MassWorks money for a traffic signal, new bus stops and a trail connection on the west side of the firehouse. Novoselsky said the city had been “given the shaft” on the project, including a hotel promised years ago; the developer said years of marketing found no hotel interest and that a bodega is still the hope for the retail space, with MassDOT and MEPA approvals expected in the second or third quarter of 2027.
- Three weeks after rejecting it, the council approved $125,000 from the capital improvement stabilization fund for Garfield School elevator design, 9 to 1, with Zambuto opposed and Mercurio voting present, after Keefe said the school district’s $5.6 million reserve is for staff and that city enrollment is down about 1,000 students from 2016. Councillor at Large Robert Haas and Councillors Silvestri, McKenna and Cogliandro said the request came with the communication the council had wanted; a letter from School Committee member Aisha Milbury-Ellis was read into the record.
- Cogliandro’s proposal to repeal the ordinance under which police officers hand-deliver council packets to councillors’ homes, with letters of support from the police chief and DPW superintendent, split the council: Argenzio, Silvestri and Zambuto backed it, while McKenna, Novoselsky, Mercurio, Kelley and Vice President Angela Guarino-Sawaya said the deliveries are a valued line of communication with officers. It went to Legislative Affairs.
- The council accepted the CFO’s schedule to amortize the fiscal 2026 snow and ice deficit of $1,022,901, after a $221,992 state payment, at $266,970 a year on the fiscal 2027 through 2029 tax rates, 11 to 0, and appropriated $156,626.90 in ride-share fees, about 1.56 million trips at 10 cents each, to planning for traffic calming. The tax classification hearing is November 30.
- Special permits for The Doggy Port’s dog daycare at 646 Ocean Avenue, which Guarino-Sawaya noted had been operating without one since February, a Turo car storage lot for up to 20 vehicles at 14 Furlong Drive with conditions barring repairs on site, and a 560-square-foot third-floor addition at 1027 Winthrop Avenue all went to Zoning.
- Motions passed to have the Traffic Commission, city engineer and police review the Harris Street pattern change and cut-through traffic on Eustis, Beach and surrounding streets (Cogliandro and McKenna); to convene DCR Commissioner Brian LaChapelle and the city’s legislators on the Revere Beach pavilions and the Winthrop Parkway seawall, where McKenna said the sidewalk has separated six inches from the wall (Novoselsky said a DCR assistant commissioner told him pavilion work is planned for next summer); and to inspect catch basins in Point of Pines, Oak Island and Riverside before winter (Guarino-Sawaya).
- The council honored former mayor Thomas G. Ambrosino on his retirement after 37 years in public service, including 12 as mayor, seven and a half as Chelsea city manager and most recently as administrator of the Massachusetts Trial Court. “I do vaguely recall a lot of shouting in this room, much of it directed at me,” he said. It also honored the Revere Society for Cultural and Historic Preservation.
Novoselsky arrived after the roll call; all 11 councillors voted on the bond. The recording is on RevereTV’s YouTube channel; agendas are on the city’s meeting portal. The council next meets November 16.
