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Date: 6/3/2020
SOUTHWICK – The Southwick Select Board met for a regularly scheduled meeting on May 26 for a public hearing, to discuss Town Meeting, and to approve several motions.
The board began the meeting by jumping directly into the hearing to consider the reissuance of the Class II Car Dealership license currently held by Landowner Zuber Realty to Mohamad Sadique Abul Cader in order to do business as Silk Road Motor Cars. During the meeting, board Chair Russ Fox stepped down because he was an abutter to the property so Vice-Chair Doug Moglin conducted the hearing in his place.
Cader then jumped into the call to explain his plans to turn the lot into a used car parking lot and reiterated that he had already met with the Planning Board to approve a site plan for the lot. He said that they were planning on using 25 parking spots for the used cars.
Board Clerk Joe Deedy said that he spoke with the property owner the day of the meeting to discuss the differentiation between the parking spots between the used car dealer and Yellow Bear Marketplace, which share the property.
“Existing today those parking spots are in the back and the parking in the front is for Yellow Bear. If the used car lot ever moved to the front that would be a different story for a different day,” he said.
During the general comments section of the hearing, Fox chimed in and said, “The Zubers are great neighbors, they’re very professional. Even before they purchased the property they came in and introduced themselves and we’ve been working well as neighbors.”
With little discussion the Board unanimously approved the license reissuance.
After the hearing the Town’s Chief Administrative Officer Karl Stinehart opened a discussion about the current plans for the upcoming Town Meeting on June 16. Stinehart quickly gave a brief overview of some of the warrant articles for the meeting.
One of the important articles he pointed out was shifting from a semi-annual billing system to a quarterly one.
“That’s going to be a very important thing to have to be under the crunch and pressure of doing semi-annual tax billing but go to quarterly,” he said, “You’ll have the ability for setting tax rates a little later in the fall. Other communities that have this system are taking advantage of it now and it is helping them in their pandemic response.”
Stinehart also clarified that the meeting would be taking place outside in the East Parking Lot at the Southwick Regional School with the Special Meeting at 6 p.m. followed by the regular meeting at 6:15 p.m.
Pending any more cuts from the Finance Committee, the board approved a motion to allow Fox to make any final changes to the Select Board budget ahead of the Town Meeting.
To close out the meeting, the Board quickly approved two motions, one two accept a CARES Act grant, and a second to join the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission Regional Domestic Violence project.