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Date: 1/25/2021
GRANBY – The Granby Selectboard met for their regularly scheduled meeting on Jan. 19 where they discussed a number of topics including several public hearings and an update to the police department’s official policy.
The meeting began with a public hearing regarding National Grid’s desire to move a pole on East Street that was now in the way of a driveway. Lisa from National Grid attended the meeting and said the company was just looking to “relocate this pole out of the way of a new driveway for a new home,” she said. She added that moving the pole 15-feet east was the “most logical direction” towards South Street. After closing the public hearing when no members of the public had comment, the board made a motion and approved National Grid’s request to move the pole.
Town Administrator, Christopher Martin, then gave a few updates for the town beginning with Granby trying to once again become part of the Easthampton-South Hadley Veteran’s District. “The town of Granby wants to rejoin the district because we’ve been having issues with being able to get a permanent DSL officer,” he explained. Martin said currently, the director of the district, Mike Slater, “has been kind enough to give time to us to service our veterans.” While the district directors voted to allow the town to rejoin the district, Martin said they still needed “to go back to their governing board, which is the Select Board in South Hadley and the mayor in Easthampton to get their approval to allow us to join.”
He then added that he’d received an email from the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission (PVPC) “regarding a trail.”
“Basically what they want to do is create a map that will be put out on the Pioneer Valley Commission’s website with locations of all the trails in Western Mass., so that people will have a place to go so that they can go out and exercise during the pandemic,” he said. Martin added that the only issue he had with such a project was that the town did not have anybody to go along the trails and give him GPS coordinates, it would cost the town $2,500 to hire someone from the PVPC to do it.
Martin said, “I don’t have $2,500 in my budget, but if the board wishes to proceed we’d just have to try to figure a way of paying for it.”
Selectboard Clerk Jennifer Silva said she felt like it was worthwhile to be involved in the project as it wouldn’t just bring people to the trails, but also to the town and businesses such as restaurants in town. Silva questioned if there was truly no one in town that could assist the PVPC in mapping the trails. Martin said the $2,500 costs would involve “76 hours” of time trail mapping over the course of the year. Additionally, Martin said there was another alternative, which as a cash match, that would “enable PVPC staff to review and update trails information and also would entail up to 18 hours of GPS work on trails or conversion of PDF paper maps for up to six trails.”
Selectboard member Jay Joyce said he would not be in favor of spending the money at this time as neither the state nor the town had a budget yet. Martin said the commitment letter was due the week prior to the meeting, however, he had been on vacation and the board had not met until Jan. 19. Board Chair Glen Sexton said it might be better to get more information on the project such as how long it would take and which trails would need to be mapped before committing the finances to the project.
After deciding to wait on the project, a public hearing was then called for another project regarding the installation of a pole by National Grid on Amherst Street. Then Lisa from National Grid explained that this pole would provide power to a new home. Once again, with no public comment the board made a motion to approve the pole installation, which was unanimously approved.
The board was then joined by Granby Police Chief Alan Wishart and Officer Kevin O’Grady for a public hearing regarding a recent criminal reform bill that would require an update of policies to apply for federal grants. Grady explained that the law was signed by Gov. Charlie Baker recently. He said the law instantly “put a ban on chokeholds, de-escalation tactics prior to any use of force, officers have a duty to intervene if someone is using excessive force and they have a duty to report it and document it.” He said additionally there was also an update on tactics surrounding mass demonstrations, “where you can’t just use pepper spray abundantly,” or “bean bag shells,” which he said the department did not have.
O’Grady said the language in the policy had been approved by the chief and the union, and the board approving the new policy would allow them to move forward with the credentialing process which needed to be completed by Jan. 31 in order to not miss any Department of Justice deadlines. Wishart emphasized that while the policy had not been updated to reflect the current law, the department was following the state law that had been updated when Baker signed the updated legislation.
“Regardless of whether our policy agrees with it or not, it’s the law, that’s the standard we’re held to. We’re just bringing our local policy, our local standards to what the law says,” he said. Ultimately, the board approved the updated policies unanimously.
After approving several warrants, interim Granby Fire Chief Robert Czerwinski and Lt. Gene Os joined the board to answer questions they had regarding ambulance billing at the last meeting. Following the lengthy discussion, the board went on to approve two entertainment licenses, one for Cindy’s Drive In with a waived $25 fee and another for Red Fire Farm with a fee of $50.