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Date: 8/18/2020
SOUTHWICK – After the Massachusetts Municipal Association decided to support legislation that tightened restrictions on police departments in the state, Southwick Select Board Chair Doug Moglin presented a letter he drafted showing the board’s support for the Southwick Police Department during its Aug. 11 meeting.
“These bills pending in Conference Committee contain very significant structural changes to the Police Department for police officer licensure and certification, and rules and regulations that would handcuff the Police Department’s ability to do their job,” he said.
Moglin added that the legislation was agreed upon without consulting the Select Board.
“We weren’t consulted as a member of the MMA and we go to the conference every year. Part of that meeting is to decide what the legislative agenda was going to look like, and this wasn’t on it,” he said.
Moglin also said this legislation goes against the good relationship the town of Southwick has with its Police Department.
“Given the relationship we have with our Police Department, how highly regarded our Police Department is held in our town, and what a good job overall they are doing, I think the legislation flies in the face of that. I don’t want to have the appearance that as a member of the MMA we are at odds with our Police Department,” he said.
The board unanimously approved to send the letter to the MMA.
For one of the first orders of business at the meeting, the Select Board held a moment of silence for Luther Hosmer, a long-time resident who recently passed away.
“Luther was a long-time resident in Southwick, he served for many years as a volunteer firefighter, retiring as a captain. He served over 30 years as water commissioner for the town of Southwick. Luther was a very dedicated individual, a family man, and his family was instrumental in establishing our Volunteer Fire Department,” Board Clerk Russ Fox said.
During the meeting, the board voted to approve four different motions to receive authorization for deficit spending from the Department of Revenue to clean up the damage from Tropical Storm Isaias. The motions included declaring the storm an emergency, approving the town emergency waivers, authorizing the request for the deficit spending, and approving spending from the FinCom Reserve for the Department of Public Works Forestry Account for the cleanup.
At this time DPW Director Randy Brown jumped into the call to explain the cleanup process from the storm.
“Our crews have been going out cleaning up debris on the roadside, today Tynic Landscaping also started that process and so we’re working in conjunction with them and tomorrow Top Notch Tree Service will be in town to remove that tree on Summer Drive and also take care of some of the larger stuff we can’t handle with our equipment,” Brown said.
The board also decided on its goals for the town for the new fiscal year. One of the goals they decided on was to continue to improve technology in the town, especially because of the pandemic.
“Especially in light of this pandemic, we are going to have more workers potentially being remote for extended periods of time and using different devices and moving around, we’re going to need to continue down that path,” Moglin said.