The Winthrop Town Council engaged in a prolonged standoff, with newly elected member Joseph Romano leading a revolt against the council’s president, Jim Letterie, in an apparent bid to consider joining a citizen lawsuit aimed at defying the state’s 3A housing law.

In arguably the most heated confrontation between town leaders in more than a year of debate over the housing law, Mr Letterie repeatedly rejected Mr Romano’s call to discuss and vote upon the 3A matter. Mr Romano, when denied, led the council in extended discussions and voting to prevent Mr Letterie from adjourning the body.

The theater at one point included the removal from the Town Hall meeting of one citizen, Jack Dowd, by a town police officer, after Mr Dowd, in backing Mr Romano’s efforts, talked past Mr Letterie’s warnings demanding public silence.

The battling began as the council neared the end of its regular meeting without having discussed the 3A matter, which was listed on the agenda for the event as a planned closed-door session. Mr Romano then asked for a vote on the topic, and Mr Letterie told him that the language of any proposal for a vote would have to come in writing.

“I’m telling you you have to,” Mr Letterie said of the requirement for the written language to be submitted in advance. Mr Romano insisted that no such need existed. “That’s fine – you can disagree, Councilman Romano,” Mr Letterie said. “But respect my opinion, and by the next meeting, I will have an answer for you. As of now, that’s the way it’s being done.”

Romano persists

That touched off a showdown in which, among other things, Mr Letterie said that Mr Romano was out of order, and Mr Romano accused Mr Letterie of breaking the law. Mr Letterie told Mr Romano, “You’re not running the meeting,” and chided the Bentley University student, elected in November and inaugurated in January, for having “been on the council for a month.”

Yet Mr Romano persisted with his demand for a roll-call vote on the matter of adjournment, with council members Suzanne Swope, Patrick Costigan, Paul Reardon and Martin Finn joining him in the vote preventing the meeting from legally ending.

When the clerk asked for the adjournment vote of Mr Finn, who joined the council as an appointee just last month, Mr Romano indicated to the newcomer that he should support the denial. Mr Letterie exclaimed in response: “You just told him how to vote – this is incredible.” Mr Romano denied the allegation, saying, “I just grunted.”

The impasse stretched the council’s expected adjournment for about an hour, mostly consisting of quiet document reading punctuated by occasional moments of verbal jousting.

February backdown

The overall situation reflected an attempt to reconsider the Town Council’s refusal, on a 4-4 tie vote in February, to expand the town’s defiance of the 3A law by joining the citizen lawsuit against the law. With Mr Finn giving the body its full nine members, the council’s anti-3A members have been seeking a new vote on the question.

The council meeting finally ended, about three hours after it started, with an understanding that the 3A debate would be resumed the following night, during a special meeting that already had been scheduled for that topic.

The 3A law requires nearly all cities and towns in eastern Massachusetts to add zones allowing multifamily housing. Winthrop could comply without adding housing by rezoning areas that already have multifamily units. But some opponents of the state’s pro-housing efforts, including Mr Letterie, have argued that Winthrop needs to stand up to the leaders of the Massachusetts government, even though courts have agreed the state has the right to set zoning rules.

The 4-4 vote in February had stood as a sign that the council had some limits on its 3A fight, as Mr Letterie and two new council members who also campaigned against 3A compliance – Kurt Millar and Kim Dimes – joined him and at-large council member Max Tassinari in rejecting the idea of joining the private anti-3A legal case.

Legal cases

The private case may have limited effect, as the state attorney general already is suing Winthrop and eight other non-compliant towns in a bid to force them to accept 3A’s requirements. And in a separate case, the town of Marshfield is pursuing a legal claim on the grounds that the law is an “unfunded mandate” that overrides local voter choice.

The overwhelming majority of the 177 cities and towns affected by the 2021 law have accepted it, and the non-compliant towns are facing an increasing loss of state aid, given that 3A afforded the governor leverage to withhold grants from them.

Earlier in Tuesday’s Winthrop Town Council meeting, the town manager, Tony Marino, said that Winthrop appears to have lost or been made ineligible for some $2.5 million in state aid.

The 3A matter was listed on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting – a fact that Mr Romano described as giving him the legal window to insist on a vote. But before the meeting, the planned convening of a closed-door session on Tuesday was described by town officials as canceled, and the special Town Council meeting to discuss the housing law was set for the following night.