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Date: 3/18/2021
EAST LONGMEADOW – State Sen. Eric Lesser attended the East Longmeadow Town Council meeting on March 9 to share some economic good news and answer questions.
Lesser told the Town Council that the level of revenue Massachusetts has received this year is “far above even the best-case scenario.” The revenue, combined with the federal coronavirus relief aid signed by President Biden on March 11, is expected to make the budget more generous than previously expected, he said. The Massachusetts House and Senate will each be creating a budget for fiscal year 2022 (FY22) in the next couple of months and it is scheduled to be signed by the governor by June 1.
Town Council President Michael Kane asked Lesser which parts of the economy were improving and producing the revenue. Lesser said that while meals and hospitality are still down, capital gains and income tax revenue are up. He said this illustrates the split in economic recovery in which there were “devastating job losses” among restaurants, travel and other service workers, but people working in finance, law and biotech were seeing “record years.” Lesser noted that a recent study found that 250,000 jobs that were lost during the pandemic are not expected to return. “That’s a quarter of a million people,” he said. “An overwhelming share of those jobs are women and, particularly, women of color.”
In another move by the state government that will affect wallets, Lesser said that both branches of the legislature and the governor agreed to freeze unemployment insurance rate payments. He said that the 60 percent increase in the rate that small businesses pay for unemployment would have otherwise hit East Longmeadow hard. Small businesses will also benefit from a decision to make the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans tax-free income.
Turning to the topic of COVID-19 vaccines, Lesser, who is a member of the COVID-19 Oversight Panel, said that he has “learned a lot about what the state is doing right and wrong.” He called the move by Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration to funnel first doses of the vaccine to mass vaccination sites and away from hospitals and municipal clinics, “absolutely unacceptable” and said it is “in the process of being fixed.”
Councilor Thomas O’Connor asked if the residents in East Longmeadow who received their first doses through the town are guaranteed their second doses on time. While state Health and Human Services Secretary Marilou Sudders has assured the COVID-19 Oversight Panel that they will, Lesser said it has not always been the case. He offered to work with the town to make sure East Longmeadow receives the booster doses they have been promised.
Councilor Marilyn Richards asked Lesser about the status of crumbling foundation legislation. Concrete made by a now-defunct Connecticut company has been found to contain the mineral pyrrhotite, which interacts with water to damage the structural integrity of the hardened concrete. Home foundations in scores of Connecticut and southern Massachusetts towns were unknowingly built with this tainted concrete.
Lesser told Richards that “comprehensive legislation” had been filed by state Sen. Anne Gobi of Palmer that would reimburse homeowners for pyrrhotite testing. The legislation is designed to encourage homeowners to test their foundations so that the full scope of the problem is known. Councilor Donald Anderson told the Lesser about a resident who tested their foundation and found a small amount of pyrrhotite, but not enough that it was in danger of crumbling. They were able to get a small discount on their property taxes because of the test results, but the bank would not refinance their mortgage because of it. Anderson suggested to Lesser that a structural engineering report be included along with an appraisal in such cases.
Lesser agreed that the presence of pyrrhotite caused issues beyond the crumbling foundations. He described a Catch-22 in which homeowners want to take out a loan for the foundation repair, but the collateral for such a loan – their home – has no value because the foundation needs repair.
“We can’t control,” that the company that made the concrete has “disappeared,” Lesser said, “but we can control making it right.” Additionally, many homeowners’ insurance plans only cover a “full collapse,” so it cannot be used unless the house “falls in on itself,” he said. To address this, the state senator said, he has signed onto another piece of legislation that would help homeowners pay for the foundation repair.
The transfer of a liquor license is usually a fairly simple matter, but the attorney for Torito Mexican Restaurant, Jeffrey Oppenheim, had to bounce between town boards to secure the license. The Planning Board had sent Oppenheim back to the Town Council to receive clarification on whether an agreement between the town and the owner of 621 Main St., formerly Fogueira’s, was still binding or would prohibit issuing a new special permit.
The agreement stated that the decks of the property may not be used for food or alcohol service and that the property is defined as a restaurant, rather than a bar or nightclub. Torito would be a “child and family-friendly” restaurant run by a first and second-generation Mexican American family, said Oppenheim. He added that the decks will only be used for smoking customers and not for food or beverage service.
Councilor Ralph Page wanted the town attorney to review the agreement before the council considered dissolving it. Kane said that uniformity among businesses in town is a priority and Councilor Kathleen Hill noted that there were some details in the agreement that are no longer in line with the town’s policies and bylaws. She suggested no action be taken on the matter until the issues were cleared up.
Oppenheim said that the town has been aware of the agreement since November 2020 and he had been told they would be reviewing the situation. The agreement, he said, “was to right some wrongs of the property owner,” and had nothing to do with his clients. He said they intended to run a family restaurant and adhere to the town’s rules.
Councilor Patrick Henry agreed that the agreement between the property owners and the town should not affect the business owner, who is merely renting the property and has agreed to abide by the rules laid out in the document.
Dan Kelley, the attorney for the former owners of Fogueira’s, was on the Zoom call and suggested that the agreement be amended to reflect that it does not inhibit the new restaurant owners. The council agreed to instruct the Planning Board to consider a special permit for the new restaurant, providing that the town attorney finds no issue.
The council approved sending amendments to the Planning Board to address a conflict between a state law that requires dog daycares to possess a kennel license and the municipality, which does not allow commercial kennels and therefore has not sold kennel licenses. Page read the Bylaw Subcommittee’s recommendation that an amendment to the kennel bylaw creating a pay structure for kennel licenses read, “1-4 dogs: $30, 5-10 dogs: $60 and $20 for each additional dog over 10.” It was agreed that the language should be changed to “$100 for over 10 dogs,” as the number of dogs in the care of such a business fluctuates daily and a charge for each dog would be impossible to enforce.
The zoning bylaw Section 7.2 Special Permits, subsection “Criteria,” would also be amended, pending approval of the Planning Board, to read “All required state and local licenses must be acquired and kept current.”