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Date: 4/7/2020
SOUTHWICK – The Select Board voted at its April 1 meeting to reschedule the town’s Annual Town Meeting and Annual Town Election.
The Annual Town Meeting, originally scheduled for May 19, will now take place on June 2. The Annual Town Elections, which were slated to occur on May 12, will now take place on May 19.
“I think that we’re going to be in a better position to know where we stand budget-wise and everything else to potentially have a Town Meeting in June and it makes sense to have the election a week before the Town Meeting,” Selectman Doug Moglin said.
At the board’s March 26 meeting, Town Clerk Michelle Hill explained the move to reschedule the election was a result of the postponement of the Special State Election to fill the state Senate seat vacated by Don Humason when he was elected mayor of the city of Westfield. The Special State Election was rescheduled to May 19 when Senate President Karen Spika and House Speaker Robert DeLeo announced on March 23 the delay of four votes slated for special election for two Senate seats and two House seats in response to coronavirus concerns.
With the move, voters would cast votes for the municipal election while also deciding their new state senator in a race between Democratic State Rep. John Velis and Republican John Cain.
“The May 19 [date] would be the most ideal with costs with regard to poll workers and so on and so forth,” Hill said.
She said the movement of the Annual Town Election was covered under Chapter 45 of the Acts of 2020. That chapter reads, in part, “The select board, town council, board of registrars or city council of the city or town may vote on any day prior to the date of their scheduled municipal caucus or municipal election to postpone the municipal caucus or municipal election to a date certain on or before June 30, 2020. Such rescheduled caucus or election shall be held in accordance with all applicable election laws except as otherwise provided in this act.”
Hill noted early voting for the Special State Election via mail only is now open as is the application for early voting for the Annual Town Election.
Early voting, she explained, requires a separate location through which those ballots are processed, meaning the town is in need of an extra voting machine. To accommodate the request, the Select Board approved a $5,000 transfer from the Reserve Fund. Moglin expressed concern that the move felt like an unfunded mandate, but still supported the motion.
The Select Board also unanimously voted on March 26 to freeze non-essential General Fund spending as a way to preserve funding that may be needed in other areas of government that may run deficits as a result of the coronavirus pandemic or in the event that state aid is not available. Select Board Chair Russell Fox called the move a “no-brainer.”