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Date: 9/30/2015
EAST LONGMEADOW – The Board of Selectmen voted unanimously at its Sept. 22 meeting to establish an emergency management command center at the old fire house on Shaker Road.
Director of Emergency Management Brian Falk said prior to the selectmen’s decision the center would primarily be an office for emergency management and also available the town’s Community Emergency Response Team and Medical Reserve Corps.
“One of the benefits of having a space specific for that is it will always be there and ready to go,” she added. “It’ll be equipped and ready to go and we’re not transferring or worrying about, ‘Oh, my God, we have to get to the fire station and get it set up and going,’” Carleen Eve Fischer Hoffman, unit coordinator for East Longmeadow’s Medical Reserve Corps, said.
The East Longmeadow Jaycees, which organizes the annual Fourth of July fireworks and carnival for the town, utilized the building as a meeting space; however, the town’s lease contract expired in 2000, interim Town Administrator Greg Moyer told Reminder Publications prior to the meeting.
Board of Selectmen Chair Paul Federici said during the meeting the town would work with the Jaycees to find a new meeting location.
Selectman Angela Thorpe, who initially advocated for the idea, stated, “They are part of our community. We have had an agreement with them in the past, but I think we should do something just to support them because they have had some hard times and they are struggling. Nobody wants to throw salt in [the] wound.”
Selectman William Gorman said the building has remained in poor condition under the Jaycees control. This summer, the outside of the building was overgrown with vegetation. There is black mold growing inside the old fire house building as well due to a leaky roof.
“That place is just a mess,” he added. “About five of us went over there to see what condition it’s in now. You said, ‘They’re having meetings there,’ but I don’t know how you’re having a meeting there in that kind of condition.”
Jaycees member Maureen Basile said the group has been unable to resolve these issues due to lack of finances. The Jaycees recently began raising money to solve the problems.
“We’re kind of reluctant to the money into that building at this point not knowing what’s going on,” she stated before the selectmen’s decision.
Falk said sharing the site with the Jaycees would is unfeasible.
“Based on the proposed use and the equipment that will be in there, unless [there’s] a group like the Medical Reserve Corps or an affiliated group [related to] emergency management, I would find it hard to share with non-town organizations,” he added.
Federici asked Falk if there were other sites at which the emergency management center could be located.
“We’d have to take over [the Council on Aging meeting room] or the fire station on a temporary basis,” Falk said. “Right now it’s in my basement.”
He added that the town is pursuing a grant for the proposed emergency management center and the town would likely have to match that funding with voter approval from an Annual Town Meeting article.
Other grants could become available as well.