The Holyoke City Charter and Rules Committee voted to add explicit language routing street vendor licenses to the Development and Government Relations committee, resolving inconsistent referrals of certain licenses.

Committee members said the change is mainly procedural, intended to make the council’s referral practice clearer to the public and to incoming councilors.

Councilor Tessa Murphy Ramalletti, who filed the order, said the measure grew out of conversations between her and the administrative assistant about inconsistent past practice. “I just wanted to make things a little clearer,” Murphy Ramalletti said.

Members described a de facto practice dating to 2016, when then-Chair Rebecca Lisi and other council leaders agreed on shifting some permit work from Ordinance to DGR to balance workloads. Councilor Bartley said the informal arrangement has worked but acknowledged it should be memorialized in the rules to avoid confusion as council membership changes.

After brief discussion about other cross-references in the rules (for example, language listing some permits under Finance and an outdated reference to a “geriatric authority”), the committee approved a motion to insert the phrase “street vendor licenses” into the DGR committee jurisdiction language. The roll-call vote recorded Councilor Linda Bacon, Councilor Meg McGrath Smith and Councilor Murphy Ramalletti as voting in favor; the motion passed.

The committee chair said the committee will review related committee descriptions and clean up inconsistent or obsolete entries in the rules at a later date.

Votes at the meeting included routine approvals such as passage of the minutes from Jan. 27, 2025; the minutes vote was approved by roll call prior to the substantive items.

The rules-language change will be reflected in the council rule text once clerical drafting is finished; staff indicated other clarifying edits may follow to remove outdated references and to map home-occupation and marijuana establishment provisions consistently across sections.