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Date: 12/16/2021
BELCHERTOWN – With construction finished on Maple and State Streets, the Belchertown Select Board discussed installing additional streetlights along the street during its Dec. 6 meeting.
To start the discussion, Department of Public Works Director Steve Williams said he received a request to investigate installing additional streetlights on Maple and State streets.
“The Maple and State Street project came together really quickly this fall and things moved rapidly to get it wrapped up before the winter season. Now that we have a new roadway and expanded new sidewalks, there has been an informal request made to my office for additional streetlights to illuminate the business corridor,” he said.
Because of the additional sidewalks created as a result of the construction on Maple Street and State Street, Williams said businesses were in favor of adding lights for walkers.
“The majority of our businesses generally support additional lighting for our sidewalks. I took a close look knowing that we should support our businesses and I felt it would be worthy to have a conversation out of the normal budget cycle just to see what the flavor of the board would be,” he said.
Williams said installing the streetlights would result in a relatively small addition to the town’s yearly payment for streetlights.
“If we were to illuminate that entire corridor, we would need to add about 18 streetlights. Using a 48-watt streetlight and the cost associated with that, we are looking at about $3,400 a year to illuminate that stretch. That is the rental of the streetlight plus the electrical usage. They would be LEDs and they would be in harmony with other areas in town,” he said.
Because the streetlights are rentals from National Grid, Williams said the town would not need to cover the costs of the installation of the lights.
Were the board to agree to adding the lights, Williams said they could be ready in January.
“If we were to submit a request now for these streetlights it is probably going to be a month or so before they are installed, which would put at about a half a year expense so realistically we would be looking at about $1,700 to get us through to July,” he said.
Board member Ronald Aponte said he was in favor of the streetlights but was unsure about the timing for the request.
“From a long-term perspective, I think this is a great idea and we certainly want to illuminate that area and make it more marketable. The question I have is whether or not we should take it on mid cycle, it is a smaller dollar amount, but it could put us on a slippery slope,” he said.
Board Vice Chair Jim Barry said he was against opening the budget in the middle of the cycle.
“We probably do not need them in January or February for workers and the concern about opening the budget in the middle of the budget cycle for something relatively expensive makes it harder to say no to the next one that comes through,” he said.
Ultimately the board agreed to wait on making a decision on the streetlights until the budget season kicks off in full swing.
During his regular board update, board member Nicholas Pucel said the Board of Health announced the current mask mandate will continue.
“The mask mandate will continue now and in order for the Board of Health to feel comfortable dropping the mandate, they are looking to have an 80 percent vaccination rate in town and also have hospitals be allowing elected surgeries once again. If those two criteria are met, they would feel much more comfortable removing the mask mandate moving forward,” he said.
The Belchertown Select Board next met on Dec. 13 and coverage of that meeting will appear in the Dec. 23 edition of The Reminder.