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Longmeadow Select Board sets Feb. 3 Special Town Meeting date to address Longmeadow Shops

Date: 12/18/2014

LONGMEADOW –  The next Special Town Meeting is officially set for Feb. 3 at 7 p.m. after the Select Board at its Dec. 15 meeting voted 4 to 1 to approve the date.

The upcoming Town Meeting would be a revote due to voting irregularities that occurred during the hand counts on Article 13 during the previous Special Town Meeting on Nov. 18.

Article 13 called for a zone change near the Longmeadow Shops from residential to business, which would allow the shops to move forward with an expansion project.

The initial vote on Nov. 18 required a two-thirds majority vote to pass and failed by a vote of 280 in favor to 142 opposed.

Following that vote, a motion to revote was put forward on the floor of Town Meeting, which was also defeated by a vote of 240 in favor with 144 against.

The Planning Board set its public hearing for Jan. 7 prior to the vote by the Select Board to approve a date for the upcoming special town meeting. As a law requirement, the Planning Board is required to host a public hearing 14 days prior to a town meeting.

“I appreciate them getting out ahead of the curve but I think that’s the cart before the horse in terms of my understanding,” Selectman Mark Gold said.

Town Manager Stephen Crane said the Planning Board could choose to reschedule its public hearing but must remain within the 14-day period.

Selectman Alex Grant voted against the Feb. 3 date for the Special Town Meeting.

In other business, at least a half a dozen resident business owners also spoke out against the recent tax classification vote by the board at its Dec. 1 meeting.

The board previously voted 3 to 2 to approve a split tax rate, which would lower the residential tax rate and increase the commercial, industrial, and personal property tax rate by 10 percent.

The residential property tax rate for 2015 is set for $23.62 per thousand of value and commercial property owners will be taxed at $26.13, Assessor Robert Leclair stated in a press release. The fiscal 2014 single tax rate was $23.15.

Under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 59 section 23, the last paragraph states, “No city, town or district tax rate for any fiscal year shall be changed after it has been approved by the commissioner and returned to the assessors.”

Select Board Chair Richard Foster told Reminder Publications that the tax rate has been sent to the commissioner and approved.

“Why did you go for the minimum?” said Robert Barkett, a resident of Plymouth Road who represented White Hut Kitchen.  “In other words, why did you go for the minimum amount of input from the business community? You had an opportunity to have forums, reach out to the business community, collaborate with the business community, [and] figure out what the business community does for this town for all the different groups.”

Gerard Nolet, a former selectman and resident of Frank Smith Road, said in his opinion the split tax rate could negatively effect all businesses within the town.

“Why are we trying to drive our customer base out of town?” he added. “And this surely could. It is a [small] amount of revenue for each resident. To me it means less than one dollar a week in tax relief. It’s inordinate; it’s not complicated.”

Selectman Paul Santaniello originally proposed a 50 percent tax split for business owners during the Dec. 1 tax classification hearing. Gold motioned for amendment to reduce that number to 10 percent, which was passed by the board.

“There’s no pot of gold here in Longmeadow for the shop keepers,” James Moulton, a Riverview Avenue resident and owner and operator of the UPS Store at 785 Williams St., said. “Many of them are just scraping by making a living and something like this is only going to hurt.”

Gold said the tax classification hearing was advertised for an open and public hearing and described it as “not being in the back room.” A representative from the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield was in attendance.

“A pubic hearing is a public hearing and I guess our mistake is that we didn’t take a public hearing and call every business owner in town, but we don’t do that any of the hearings,” he added. 

Gold said he has received more emails from residents applauding the split tax rate for 2015 than business owners at the meeting speaking out against the 2015 tax rate.

“There’s two sides to every issue and my side is that I don’t think enough information went out to the public,” Selectman Marie Angelides said.

Foster said he has contacted the state regarding information about potentially changing the 2015 tax rate.

“I’m awaiting that call back,” he said. “We’ve got two stories; one said that there’s a possibility that the board could reconsider and there’s another story that says ‘No, if the statement’s official, it’s official for that year.’”

In other business, Crane said the traffic humps designed to calm traffic on Quinnehtuk Road would not be completed this winter because the asphalt cannot be placed on the road during cold conditions.

“The specific timeline is going to be really dependent on the spring time,” he added. “We do recommend that in the interim, the board does consider looking into a traffic calming policy similar to the city of Holyoke.”