Deron Hines is the one new member of the council, and his record is a study in contrast. He has filed three orders, all of them modest. He has made no motions under suspension. He missed three of the first seven meetings. And on June 22 he moved the amendment that decided the most contested policy of the year, and won it 6 to 5.
The amendment
The City Manager’s inclusionary housing rewrite had been through three drafts by June. The version on the floor set the developer buyout fee at $200,000 per affordable unit. Hines moved a substitute table from a council working group: tiers requiring units at 30 and 50 percent of area median income, not just 60 and 80; a schedule that put two affordable units in a 15-unit building; and a fee of $275,000. It carried with Recupero, Jimenez-Rivera, both Garcias and Santagate. Taylor, Teshe, DeJesus, Brown and Robinson voted no. All eleven then voted for the ordinance. The minutes of that meeting were not posted until the September 14 packet. The full account is here.
What else he has asked for
His first order, in January, asked the Traffic and Parking Commission for traffic calming on Summit Avenue. His second, in February, asked for the same on Broadway between number 855 and Webster Avenue. In April he called his own Arts, Culture and Recreation subcommittee into session on the future of the Department of Recreation and Cultural Affairs; the meeting in May drew the City Manager, the superintendent and an interim principal.
How he has voted
No on Recupero’s three-family zoning. Yes to continue the inclusionary meeting in March. Otherwise with the majority. He was absent January 28, March 9 and March 23 and late on April 27; he has not missed a meeting since. He sits on the Charter Review Committee.
The profile
The record shows a first-year councillor who kept a low profile for five months and then delivered the working group’s housing position on the floor with a majority behind it. His district orders are about traffic on residential streets. He beat the incumbent, Melinda Vega Maldonado, 206 to 147, the only seat that changed hands. His biography is here.