Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 2/5/2020
EAST LONGMEADOW – The East Longmeadow Town Council met for a regularly scheduled meeting on Jan. 28 for three public hearings, the town’s quarterly budget report, continued discussion about the Bylaw Review Committee’s updates to the town’s general code project and to negotiate and approve the new town manager’s contract.
One of the biggest orders of business at the meeting was three different public hearings, including a zoning change at Rear Pease Road, a change in ownership at the Countryside Store on Somers Road and a second reading of the new liquor license rules and regulations.
The first public hearing was the continued discussion about the proposed zoning change at Rear Pease Road from Resident AA to Industrial Garden Park. However, the petitioner did not attend the meeting and the planning board was still looking at a proposed site plan to vote on at its Feb. 4 meeting. The council elected to delay the hearing again until its Feb. 11 meeting, after originally discussing the issue back in September.
The second public hearing was in regard to an ownership change at the Countryside Store on Somers Road to Arman Shree Inc. During the hearing, the lawyer representing Arman Shree, Brian Fitzgerald, explained the rationale behind the ownership change. Ultimately, the council unanimously approved the license change with little discussion.
During the final public hearing, Councilor Donald Anderson read through the proposed changes to the liquor license rules and regulations. With little discussion from the council or the public, the council unanimously approved the motion.
During Town Accountant Sara Menard’s quarterly budget report, Councilor Ralph Page asked about a sewer discharge meter project from 2003 that was just going out to bid in 2020. This sparked a conversation about cancelling projects if they aren’t moving forward to use that money elsewhere.
“We’re talking 17 years, we’ve had all this money sitting there and now the cost has probably doubled and they haven’t even started. If the money’s sitting there for this entire time, there’s other projects we could’ve done,” Page said.
One of the orders of new business at the meeting was a request from the Department of Public Works (DPW) to use over $28,000 from the free cash fund to replace the motor for DPW truck 72 after it was damaged during the Dec. 17 snowstorm. Darrell Keane, the DPW’s Highway and Utilities manager, said that the issue stems from the manufacturer. He said, “We have stepped away from International, we no longer buy vehicles from them. It’s unfortunate we had a stint there from 2009 to 2010.”
DPW Superintendent Bruce Fenney chimed in, stating, “We do the maintenance twice a year, we’re changing the oil twice a year, so our services and everything else are excellent so I don’t think it has anything to do with that.”
The council agreed with the doubts levied against the truck manufacturer and unanimously approved to transfer the funds to replace the engine.
As part of the meeting, Councilor R. Patrick Henry provided another update to the General Code Project after previously discussing it at the last meeting, and said the Bylaw Review Committee is getting closer to submitting the final document.
“As of today we’re about 95 percent complete with this step of the project. We’ll continue to fine-tune and clarify questions with the department heads and Town Manager and hope to finish that by Friday,” he said. The council unanimously approved the updates and to submit the updates to general code.
Under new business there were four orders, including discussion about a new policy for renaming parks and deciding the polling location for early voters for the upcoming election in March at the library. The council quickly discussed and approved both issues.
Next up under new business was a discussion about the town council’s goals for 2020. Council President Kathleen Hill explained the rationale for setting goals and said, “We choose or identify goals that we know we can achieve with a reasonable success in a short amount of time while also speaking to our obligation as a legislative body.”
Ultimately, the council decided to come up with a list of goals prior to the next meeting, and then they would subsequently discuss the goals and decide on them.
The final action item at the meeting was to negotiate and vote on new Town Manager Mary McNally’s contract. During this time the council broke into executive session before coming back to vote to unanimously approve her contract.
The East Longmeadow Town Council will next meet on Feb. 11.