East Longmeadow selectmen discuss full-time health agent position

Date: 1/15/2015

EAST?LONGMEADOW – The Board of Selectmen discussed adding an article to the Annual Town Meeting warrant calling for a full-time health agent.

“We have 15 that have applied for it so what I’m going to do is look the list over, get it down to three and bringing it back to the board and we can vote on it,” Selectman William Gorman said. “We’re so far behind on inspections; it’s unbelievable.”

Currently, the town has a part-time health agent, Dawn Toon, who was appointed by the board sometime after her interview on Aug. 22. The position is for 15 hours a week at $22 an hour.

Town Administrator Nick Breault said there is a requirement for 10 signatures on article petitions for the Annual Town Meeting warrant and they need to be submitted to the Board of Selectmen’s office before March 2.

In other business, the board appointed Board of Selectmen Chair Paul Federici to the Mitigation Advisory Committee related to the MGM Springfield casino. One person can only be chosen from each community impacted by the casino.

“The legislation calls for that,” Breault added. “The host community and all of the surrounding impacted communities will have representation on this regional board.”

Federici said he volunteered for the position because he is the town’s liaison to MGM. 

Fire Chief Paul Morrissette also discussed this year’s $5,023 state Student Awareness of Fire Education (SAFE) grant with the board, which is an increase from the previous year.

“It is grant time,” Morrissette said. “Again this year, we actually received a little more money for the student version of our SAFE award. This allows us to purchase our [fire safety] literature and any current DVDs, any new banners for the theme for the year and it also allows us to bring in some extra call firefighters to help us with the program.”

According to the Massachusetts Department of Safety, the SAFE grant program is a state initiative that provides resources to local fire departments to conduct fire and safety educational programs for K-12.

Morrissette said the Fire Department also received a senior SAFE grant award for $3,018.

“We’ll be able to do some more programs with the Council on Aging,” he added. “We were able last year; we bought quite a few carbon monoxide detectors and smoke detectors, so if we go to an elderly residence, we won’t leave without a working carbon monoxide detector in the house.”