By John Lynds
While there were no public hearings at Tuesday night’s Lynn City Council meeting the council did take up a few agenda items.
First up, Council members unanimously approved the Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy’s appointments of Leah Warren, Nicole Rim, and Annette Sykes to the Lynn Public Arts Commission. Their appointments will be effective immediately with Warren and Rim’s appointments expiring on October 10, 2019 and Sykes expiring on October 10, 2018.
The Council also voted unanimously to set down public hearing for the Council’s November 14 meeting. The Council approved a petition by the Lynn Downtown Cultural District to host open air stands and licensed food trucks on site for community events at 1-15 Exchange St. from Mondays through Saturdays from 11a.m. to 11p.m. The Council will also hear a petition of 138-144 Union LLC for permission to convert 4th floor office space into a residential unit. There is also a petition from Walnut Street Cafe, 157 Walnut St, to amend existing sign permit to include a video sign.
Lastly. Cingular Wireless PCS, LLC submitted a petition proposing to install 6 new small cell sites within the city to help deal with coverage and capacity issues on the network. All six sites are planned to be mounted on existing National Grid utility poles within the public right of way at 108 Alley St.; 5 Carolyn Rd.; 83 Neptune St.; 12 Chatham St.; 43 Eastern Ave.; and 240 Western Ave. The petition will go before the Council’s Utilities Committee before being voted on by the entire Council.
Ward 5 Councilor Dianna M. Chakoutis reported on some unfinished business regarding a petition before the Council during the Sept. 26 meeting. The proposal by Zachary Andrews calls for the development of a six unit apartment bulling in the Central Business District at 38-44 Andrew St. Councilor Chakoutis ask for the proposal to be tabled until she had one more meeting with the developer and neighbors.
Reports from City Council Committees included the recommendation to begin to advertise the job posting for a new City Solicitor so the Personnel Committee can begin to conduct interviews and make recommendations to the Council by mid-November. The Ordinance and Rules Committee made a recommendation to amend current regulations and require door to door solicitors to obtain a permit from the City of Lynn.
At the end of the meeting At-Large Councilor Buzzy Barton made a recommendation that the Lynn Economical Industrial Corporation to submit an application to site Amazon’s second headquarters (HQ2) on the Lynnway. Amazon announced a deadline of October 19 for interested parties from across the Commonwealth to submit bids to the company for the HQ2 project. If Lynn could somehow win the bid it could mean an economic boon for the city as the company’s HQ2 development would bring 50,000 full time jobs to the area.