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Date: 10/12/2022
LUDLOW – The Board of Selectmen met on Oct 4. To share their thoughts Special Town Hall Meeting, discuss improvements to town infrastructure and provide an American Rescue Plan Act fund update.
Town improvements
Town Administrator Marc Strange opened the meeting to explain a couple of grants the town received. Both are for the state’s Community Compact Program.
The first grant is $50,000 for succession planning which Strange explained would go toward hiring a consultant to structure town departments so that if someone leaves, they are not left scrambling. He continued to explain that, up to this point if someone leaves there is no succession planning for systems or personnel to make a smooth transition.
The other grant is $45,000 is for downtown economic development planning. It will go to making a guide for Ludlow Mills and what is next to leverage the mills and places downtown.
Strange also said he is in conversation with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission about a Community Development Block Grant application to focus on infrastructure for downtown area. Strange said that it would help set up future construction grants.
He said, “This is like a three-pronged application. The second prong is for improvements to Whitney Park and the third is for support for a Senior Center senior service.”
The application is due early 2023.
Vice Chairman James Gennette brought up that a community member wrote a letter regarding the Whitney Park press box.
Gennette said he is aware of the condition of Whitney Park and that the community is upset about the condition of many facilities in town and that they are doing their best to clean it up.
Strange said he had a meeting with Department of Public Works and the Recreation Commission and there is funding that has already been allocated for a new roof and to miss the section on the back wall in the press box and that work should be starting in the next week or two. They also talked about getting the Department of Public Works down there to pressure wash the bleachers.
Town Meeting remarks
Each Board of Selectmen member had some words to share about the Special Town Meeting on Oct. 3.
Gennette started and said, “I was pretty blown away by the town members last night. I thought they asked great questions, debated well and asked questions when they did not understand. I was happy with the crowd and thought they did what they were supposed to do.”
Board of Selectmen member Derek DeBarge followed and said, “I love town interaction with the precinct members. I don’t think we have enough of it, but I think it also proves on how antiquated town hall meeting form of government is because of how lost we got in the beginning with some simple miscommunication and confusion. It is a great example of how town meeting form of government in this day of age is not working and this government needs to change.”
Selectman Bill Rosenblum followed by agreeing with DeBarge.
He said, “I said it when I ran [for Board of Selectmen] that if it ever got to a point that our charter changed with a different form of government, than I’d be done because that is where my goal is. We can be at a point where it is more efficient. A perfect example was some small things that were almost overlooked like unpaid bills.”
He did end with saying how great the town interaction is and that people ask questions if they have concerns.
Selectman Manny Silva said, “The only thing is I am a little disappointed with the 66 or 67 precinct members. We are voting on people’s pocketbooks and some issues that are very crucial to the town of Ludlow. It seems that each meeting is the same people all the time. We need to make precinct members understand that they run the budgets, run all the money by approving. It would be nice to see the numbers come up but overall, it was done right.”
Board of Selectmen Chairman Tony Goncalves agreed with what his fellow board members were saying.
He added, “Maybe with the unpaid bill section in future meetings we can have a description on things like the website. The average person who isn’t dealing with it may not know what we are talking about. On the flip side I am blown that at a regular annual town meeting we can approve a 75 million budget in seven minutes with no questions but yesterday they were having a difficult time with $24,000 on E-Z Pass bills or costs to fix potholes.”
One of the articles approved by residents of Ludlow included paying for revamping the town website.
Strange was a part of the first website reveal. The town is looking to make it easy for residents to access documents, view agendas, meeting minutes and more.
Strange said, “It is super user friendly. All the buttons are there to check agendas and minutes, notify the town of a pothole or issue. Everything is right there on the front page.”
Baseball field improvements
The meeting ended with the board talking about the Ludlow High School baseball field improvements and ARPA fund updates.
Gonclaves said they did get an estimate for improvements to the baseball field based on the wish list the board put together and in total would cost about $475,000 with the additional engineering cost.
DeBarge said, “This is the kind of stuff we are looking for. Anytime you see site demolition it has to make people happy. It [the improvements] would include covered dugouts, new sod, new clay mixture, fencing, netting and more. This is what a high school baseball diamond that is next to a new track and new soccer field should look like.”
Silva brought up the remaining balance of the ARPA funds after the possible track and baseball field improvements. He said, “We are now at about $3.9 million for total costs. Looking at our ARPA funds we are at $5.6 [million] and that does not include demolition [of Veterans Park Elementary School]. We have expended our funds.”
Rosenblum said after the projects there should be around $1.64 million left in ARPA for the demolition of Veterans Park Elementary but Gonglaves hopes to be receiving another $1 million and that hopefully some costs go down.
Strange explained that the town may receive another $1 million apart of an economic development bill but is still waiting word from the state.
Goncalves explained that all of the projects are engineer estimates based on past projects and they would still have to go out for bids to see who could complete them. He said they will just have to wait and see how much everything officially costs before having to discuss what happens if they don’t have enough funds for all the projects.
The Board of Selectmen voted 5-0 to approve funding of $9,500 to the engineer in charge to draw up the plans to improve the Ludlow High School baseball field.