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Date: 6/7/2021
GRANBY – The town of Granby voted against an article that would give the Selectboard control over the Fire Department and several other changes at their Annual Town Meeting on the morning of June 5.
The meeting began by addressing article one. The moderator explained the town was using a consent agenda which allowed for several items to be grouped and voted on together. Prior to each article being voted on, Town Manager Christoper Martin read the article and gave a brief overview of what it would do if passed.
Articles 1A through 1K, which allowed for the town to conduct a number of financial responsibilities and activities, passed quickly and unanimously with no discussion on the matter from residents. The town then moved onto article two, which the town had authorized more than $30 million in borrowing for a project for the East Meadow School in 2016. Once again, town residents passed the article quickly and unanimously with no discussion.
The third article, as explained by Martin, was to fund a settlement agreement with the town’s former fire chief. He explained that the former chief would remain in the position until “he resigns, retires, dies, reaches 65 years of age or can be terminated for just cause.”
“As the town has been in litigation with him since July 2020, it would allow the Board of Selectmen to close litigation and move forward with getting the Fire Department fully operational with the proper command structure,” he said. Prior to the vote, one resident questioned how much the town had available in free cash, to which Martin said as of July 1, 2020 was $1,353,314. Town residents voted to pass the article by majority with two residents voting in opposition. Article four, as outlined by Martin, would rescind a law “commonly known as the Fire Department strong chief law.” He explained the law gave the fire chief “absolute authority” of the department and kept the chief in the position until they resigned, retired, died, reached 65 years of age or could be terminated by just cause. Former Fire Chief, Dennis Houle, addressed the issue and said he believed the law needed to “stay the way it is.”
“As your chief in those five or six years, I had several times when I was being pressured by a Board of Selectmen to rescind an action that I had taken against a town member on the burning permitting. Burning permits are very strict guidelines from the state, and the law states you can’t start a fire without a permit until 10 o’clock,” he said. “That person went and started a fire at eight o’clock after he came in, got a written copy of the laws and went back and started a fire.”
He explained that the department was called to the residents’ house and they were given “a slap on the wrist” and the fire was put out. The second time a verbal was given, and the third time “three weeks in a row,” he said the department put the fire out and rescinded the individuals’ permit for the rest of the year. Houle said each time he got a call from the Board of Selectmen, and this continued to happen each time he dealt with issues regarding town residents.
“If I did not have the strong chief law behind me, we would have had a lot of problems. This cannot be rescinded at all, it has to stay. It keeps the politics out of it, it keeps the personal vendettas away from the fire chief,” he said. Houle added that there was a way to write a contract for the fire chief to ensure they did not end up in a similar position moving forward. In his closing remarks, Houle said he’d had an issue previously with an employee, who he terminated and the Selectboard rescinded. He said the same employee went on to steal “half a million” through the town and ambulance service.
Another resident said he feared that should the act be revoked the quality of fire chief candidates would decrease and he felt it was incredibly important that it remain in place. Selectboard Chair, Jennifer Silva, said the board had no intention of running the department. “None of us are qualified and none of us have the time,” she said. Silva added that state law would supersede any contract the town made and they wanted to ensure they would have a say in the termination of any future fire chief should it be needed. Following Silva’s clarification, Houle once again spoke, stating similar points. Upon his ending remarks, caught on GCAM’s microphone, Silva whispered to Selectboard member Glen Sexton, “I can’t answer to that stupidity.”
Sexton said when the process regarding the chief initially took place people turned to the Selectboard for answers and wanted the board to take action, but they could not. He added that while he had initially been in favor of the strong chief act, going through the process he had changed his mind. Ultimately, after a majority vote the article failed to pass, keeping the law in place.
Both articles five and six were passed unanimously by town residents, both dealing with the allocation of funds for town maintenance. Article five was discussed briefly as it dealt with allocating money to fund tree removal. While some residents expressed their frustration at the process and their own experience with dead trees needing to be removed, Martin said this would be a yearly item to continue to fund the removal of any necessary trees. Article six allowed for the town to fund highway department paving operations.
Moving on to article eight, Martin explained that the article was requesting funds to begin the construction of the Veterans’ Memorial in town as COVID-19 had prevented the committee from any fundraising efforts. Jason Richards, who serves on the committee for the memorial, gave an update and stated the committee had raised $172,000 for construction. However, they had been unable to fundraise and had spent more than $36,000 on plaques and lettering. He said as of the day of the meeting they had “approximately $138,000” for the construction. Residents voted in favor of approving the funds unanimously.
The town went on to unanimously pass article eight which funded the tuition of two students who attend the Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School. Martin explained that the programs these students were enrolled in weren’t or hadn’t been offered at the Pathfinder Regional Vocational Technical High School. The town also passed both article nine and 10 by majority, allowing the purchase of a new Fire Department vehicle and the purchase of a new marked police cruiser for the Police Department.
Martin explained article 11 was to fund the purchase of a new town-wide communication system that would reach areas of town that were currently difficult to reach. He said while the project had been proposed during 2020, it was ultimately not funded due to the uncertainty of COVID-19. Granby Police Chief Alan Wishart said this had been an ongoing problem for close to 25 years and he felt as though they were “bandaiding” the situation. He said the current system made it difficult for Police Department, Fire Department and ambulance services to communicate at times putting everyone, including residents, at risk. Ultimately, the town voted unanimously to fund the new communications system.
Also passed by the town were articles 12 through 17 which funded a variety of purchases. Included in such purchases are funds for a truck with a plow, a single person lift, a snow thrower attachment for a mower and a no-turn mower for the public buildings department. Additionally, article 17 funded the purchase of a tractor for the highway department.
The town also went on to approve articles 18 through 20 which moved monies from free cash to the general purpose fund, the capital needs stabilization fund and the municipal buildings stabilization fund. The town also went on to quickly pass article 21 which called for the funding of a pickup truck for the School Department. Also passed by the town were articles 22 through 24 which funded the operations of the Municipal Solid Waste Department, the Sewer Department and the Ambulance Department.
In an update regarding the town’s finances, Finance Committee member John Libera Jr. said the budget had been tight this year as it had the previous year. With regard to the school budget, he addressed the question if the town could continue to offer educational services to elementary and high school students with no tax increase and a declining student population and updates needed to certain facilities. Libera said based on an estimation done several years ago, “it would take a 10 to 15 percent increase to property taxes for a junior senior high school project ranging from construction renovation to a new modern building.”
Another question he addressed regarding the town’s finances was if Granby could attract any large sized business with their limited water and sewer services. He said it would be “exceedingly optimistic” due to the lack of business infrastructure and the cost it would take to update such infrastructure. In closing, he said it was “hard to imagine Granby’s income growth will be able to keep up with its expenditure growth” and it was “essential” for the town to “balance these two trends.”
Discussion then began around article 25 to defray the expense of the town including any debt or interest, starting with the school budget. School Committee Chair Jennifer Bartosz then added an amendment to the article seeking an additional $450,000 to fund the school budget. The $450,000 would fund a deficit the district is currently facing regarding their budget. Bartosz said the department had not come to the town in two years to request additional funds despite decreasing funds. She said originally the deficit was more than $700,000, but they had made the “difficult decision” to cut some positions within the district.
During the discussion surrounding the budget, Libera expressed concern that funds that the school had not been brought to the attention of the town and could have been used to offset part of the budget. He said he had requested information several times regarding the budget but had not received it. Adam Tarquini, who serves as the director of finance for the district, expressed that they had not hidden any money and there were no additional funds that the school had used. He said they had used some money from the CARES Act, but that money had been used to get children back to in-person learning.
School Committee member Jennifer Mallette said the committee had requested a joint meeting between the School and Finance Committee several times and their requests had gone unanswered. One resident questioned if the district would not get the additional funds from the town, what, if any, positions would be cut? She addressed that several positions had already been cut. She said she also wanted to “know where the money is going” and why the town had been in a deficit for the school district.
Bartosz said the cuts that had already been made would not be returning, even if they were awarded extra funds. However, she said if the district would not get the funds from the town they had not yet decided where cuts would be made and the discussion was ongoing. School Committee member, Audrey Siudak, addressed the deficit question and said the budget had remained virtually the same for 12 years. Finance Committee member Richard Jolivet said they had not gotten a specific answer regarding cuts that would be made should the town vote against the amendment. “If we don’t know what we’re going to cut, how do we know what we’re funding with the $450,000,” he questioned.
Tarquini said that programs such as athletics, teacher positions which would “directly impact the classroom,” but added he was unable to give them specific positions. When asked how the Finance Committee would recommend voting on the amendment, Libera said he would recommend voting for the budget that had been presented to the town, not the amendment. Silva added that the town was about $3.5 million away from their tax ceiling, which if hit, would cease the town being able to raise any more tax overrides.
After an official count, it was determined that the amendment passed in a majority in a close vote. The town then went on to vote on the school budget as a whole with the amendment, which passed with a majority. Due to the amendment funds coming out of the stabilization funds, a two-thirds vote was required. After an official count it was determined that the amendment passed by just three votes.
During a discussion regarding budget items, voters in Granby voted in favor of both increasing the town assessor’s budget to allow for the hiring of a part-time employee to ensure there was someone always in the office and increasing the town clerk’s salary to compensate for the long hours she works outside of the 32 she is allocated as an elected official.
After passing articles 26, 27 and 28 the town went to pass article 29 during a two-thirds majority vote that changed the town bylaw to allow for large scale ground-mounted solar powered canopies constructed over a parking lot. In the final article on the warrant, residents voted on a variety of changes to the town bylaws.
Wishart, who also serves as a member of the bylaw committee, said the changes “document how we work now.” After expressing that he felt the need to pass the bylaws by the end of the town meeting, Libera proposed an amendment that would eliminate the need to schedule an additional date for the Annual Town Meeting. After some discussion, one resident made a motion to continue the meeting at a later date as he felt as though it was taking longer than any resident had expected. Wishart said should they postpone the meeting it would simply put off any decision as the committee could not do any additional work on the proposed bylaw changes. Rather than to vote to meet and continue the meeting on another day, Wishart said residents should simply vote down changes.
Silva made a motion to postpone indefinitely, which would kill the article and motion, which would allow the Selectboard to bring the bylaws back at another meeting to discuss. After some additional discussion, residents voted to postpone the meeting indefinitely.