Volunteer Government
Boards & Commissions
Where the Real Decisions Get Made
Newburyport runs its wetlands, its liquor licences, its historic buildings, its zoning appeals and its Community Preservation money through boards and commissions made up of residents. Every year seats on them come open, and the city says out loud how to take one. Most terms run three years, and the range across the city is one year to five. Every member serves as a volunteer.
The path is short and it is written down. You apply through the city’s boards and commissions volunteer page, or you email a letter of interest and a resume to the Mayor’s Office at City Hall. If the Mayor sees a fit for your background and interests, you interview with the office. The Mayor may then appoint you, and the appointment goes to the City Council, where your name is read twice and may be sent to a Council committee that can invite you to introduce yourself and answer questions before the full Council takes it up. Section 2-10 of the charter sets the clock: an appointment takes effect on the forty fifth day after notice is filed with the City Clerk unless the Council approves or rejects it first. Then, before your first meeting as a voting member, you appear in person at the City Clerk’s office and take the oath of office.
The Boards, and the Kind of Question They Decide
These are the standing boards and commissions the city publishes on its own index. The city posts each one’s roster, meeting schedule and current vacancies.
- Planning Board. Reviews subdivisions and site plans, issues special permits under the zoning ordinance, and recommends zoning changes to the City Council.
- Zoning Board of Appeals. Hears appeals from zoning decisions and applications for variances.
- Conservation Commission. Administers the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act and the city’s own wetlands rules, and issues the permits that decide what can be built near water. Staffed through the Office of Planning and Development.
- Board of Health. Writes the city’s health regulations and hears variance requests. The Health Department is its enforcement arm.
- Community Preservation Committee. Recommends how the city spends its Community Preservation money on community housing, historic preservation, open space and outdoor recreation.
- Historical Commission and Local Historic District Commission. The bodies that stand between a historic building and a demolition permit in a city whose downtown was saved once already.
- Licensing Commission. Grants and renews the licences a business needs to open its doors.
- Harbor Commission and Waterfront Trust. The river and the waterfront are city assets, and these are the bodies that oversee them.
- Affordable Housing Trust and Housing Authority. Housing that a household on an ordinary income can actually afford.
- Human Rights Commission, Commission on Disabilities, Cultural Council. Access, civil rights and public art and culture.
- Parks Commission, Tree Commission, Open Space Committee, Resiliency Committee. Green space, the tree canopy, and the city’s planning for a rising river.
- Library Board of Directors, Board of Registrars, Trust Fund Commission, Traffic Safety Advisory Committee, Water and Sewer Commission, Redevelopment Authority, Public Art Committee. The rest of the standing bodies the city lists.
What Serving Actually Involves
- Open Meeting Law. Every deliberation of a public body, other than an executive session, happens in a meeting open to the public, with notice posted in advance and minutes taken and approved.
- Conflict of Interest. The State Ethics Commission treats a municipal board member as a special municipal employee, and the online ethics training goes with the seat.
- The oath. Swearing in is in person and by appointment with the City Clerk, and it has to happen before your first meeting as a voting member.
- How to ask. Write to the Mayor’s Office at 60 Pleasant Street, or call (978) 465-4413, and ask what is open.
Two Doors That Do Not Need an Appointment
- The free petition. A petition signed by 100 or more voters and filed with the City Clerk obliges the City Council or the School Committee to hold a public hearing on it and to act within six weeks. That is a right in the charter, Section 8-1, not a favor.
- The citizen initiative. 250 voters, including at least 25 certified signatures from each of the six wards, can put a proposed measure in front of the Council, with ten of them signing on as the petitioners committee that circulates and files it. Charter Section 8-2.
Meetings are public, and the agenda is posted before every one.