The City of Somerville City Council Legislative Matters Committee is considering ways to make donations of impounded bicycles to worthy nonprofit organizations.

By Eileen Qiu

Last week’s Legislative Matters Committee meeting revolved around jumping through legal hoops to find a practical way of donating unclaimed bicycles, as well as potential laws surrounding biotechnical jargon.

Sponsored by Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen, the policy would ensure bicycles left on the streets would go to nonprofits instead of sitting in a storage facility and going to auction.

Any useful bikes that go to auction are quickly bought up, he said. Donating the bikes to nonprofits that are community focused, that teaches people to ride bikes, or helps with mobility, would be a better way to use them.

He did not specify which nonprofits would get the bicycles, and said there are some logistic hurdles to overcome.
He suggested Cambridge Bike Give Back, a program started in 2020 that has a similar goal of giving back refurbished bicycles to the community for free.

A policy that notifies the public, stating bicycles left unclaimed for a certain amount of time would get donated to charity, might be a way to overcome the hurdles, he said. However, currently no infrastructure that can handle large numbers of bicycles exists in Somerville.

Assistant City Solicitor Jason Piques suggested drafting a home rule petition to cover all legislative bases. Nevertheless, Ewen-Campen said the policy would open the doors to exciting possibilities for more infrastructure and benefits to Somerville based organizations.

In other business, Councilor Lance Davis said the administration proposed amendments to modernize the city’s biotechnology ordinance, during the second half of the meeting.

The original ordinance governing biotechnical research was established in 1994, however the city added definitions of biological agents, guidelines and clarified the duties of the Biosafety Committee.

New rules for companies applying for a permit to conduct research in Somerville could potentially include risk assesment, proof of insurance contingency plans and an annual renewal process.

However, the committee did not vote on it at the time. Davis said the jargon surrounding definitions of pathogens were not clear enough. There were too many holes that needed to be filled, and the ordinance was too complicated for someone not in the field to easily understand, he said.

Ewen-Campen said he was not sure what type of biotechnical companies were operating in Somerville. He asked if the ordinance was seeking to set meaningful regulations beyond what is required by federal law, or if it was to assure the public that rules were being followed.

The city is outwardly requiring certain documents to assure everything is regulated and meets industry, Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, Lauren Rancaniello said. She is not sure what the federal regulations are.

No laboratories involved in research regarding dangerous pathogens are based in Somerville, the ordinance stated, but definitions for how dangerous pathogens should be contained are still written in.

The city council could not vote on the matter at the time, and an ordinance will have to be reviewed again.