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Date: 6/10/2020
SOUTHWICK – The Southwick Select Board met for a regularly scheduled meeting on June 2 to discuss Green Communities, a food license incident from May 4, and outdoor dining for local businesses.
During the meeting, Mark Rabinski, the regional director for the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources Green Communities came onto the call to discuss the program. He explained that there are five criteria to become a Green Community. Any potential communities would have to have an expedited permit process, as of right siting for renewable energy, creating an energy reduction plan to reduce the town’s municipality energy consumption by 20 percent in five years, adopting a fuel efficient vehicle purchasing policy, and to minimize life cycle costs of new construction.
Rabinksi added that the town could be eligible for various grants under the Green Communities Program. He said, “When a town becomes a Green Community, they initially get a designation grant which can range from $125,000 to $1 million. And as they continue to meet their goals and criteria, they can start to apply for our competitive grants.”
The next order of business at the meeting was a discussion in regard to an incident in the Cove Banquet Hall parking lot on May 4 when a food catering truck was selling food and alcohol and based on their permit, they were not allowed to be serving food.
Jen Nolasco, one of the co-owners of WOK on Water said that she identified the Cove parking lot as an opportunity to make some extra money during the pandemic as the parking lot at WOK on Water is smaller. “We were just trying to make some money during the COVID, and we thought that was the best solution considering the way the parking lot is ran. We made it one way into the Cove parking lot so people could pull in, grab their food, and pull right out,” she said, “We didn’t think we were doing anything wrong and we’re sorry if we did,” she said.
Currently the Cove does not have an active food license and board Clerk Joe Deedy said, “There’s no license for the Cove period, none. And with this COVID-19 there’s no license tomorrow, it’s not in your name.”
Board Chair Russ Fox then jumped in and said that he agreed with Deedy’s sentiments about the situation. He said, “I think everybody should have known better, I don’t think there’s any excuse for this happening in a pandemic when you put lives at risk. I’m concerned about people obeying the laws and where the alcohol came from. Hopefully this is the last mistake because if we have another issue it is going to be extremely painful.”
During the meeting’s regular business, the board also agreed to accept the fiscal year 2021 budget as reconciled with the Finance Committee.
Board Vice Chair Doug Moglin then commented on what the parade for seniors on May 29 meant to the entire Southwick-Tolland-Granville community. He said, “I think that was one of Southwick’s finest hours. With all the stuff the kids had to put up with, the remote learning and cancelled proms and graduations, to see hundreds of people out on their front lawns to congratulate the seniors was phenomenal. The town really outdid itself.”
The board then discussed some of the guidelines they would be putting in place to accommodate for outdoor dining as a part of Phase 2 of Gov. Charlie Baker’s plan to reopen the state. One of the ways Moglin suggested to go about the process was to make it easier for the businesses. “I would suggest that we set up some sort of organized process to do it in a singular visit at no cost to these businesses, they’ve suffered enough and adding an additional fee would just be pouring salt in the wound.”
He added that he thought the board should make it so the outdoor permits would be monthly and automatically renewed for the duration of the pandemic. Southwick Police Lieutenant Robert Landis suggested amending the current one-day liquor license to fit the outdoor dining guidelines. He said, “Our current one-day liquor license application is all set up for exactly what we’re doing here because you have sign offs from the Board of Health, tents, police, and fire. It’s already there so if we just wanted to amend the face-sheet to whatever we’re calling this we could.”
Ultimately the select board agreed with Landis’ sentiments and tasked Deedy with helping Landis to organize the application.
The board also agreed to set up its summer schedule at its next meeting.
As one of the last pieces of discussion at the meeting, Moglin commended Police Chief Kevin Bishop for standing with protesters at a demonstration on May 31. He said, “There was another protest in our town on Sunday and Chief Bishop stood on the corner with those people all day as a show of support for his police department and to protect the people who were protesting. I think he should be commended for his action, he’s a class act and he’s done a great job for our town.”
The select board meets for its next regular meeting after the town Meeting on June 16.