Longmeadow Select Board closes Special Town Meeting warrant

Date: 11/7/2014

LONGMEADOW – The Select Board decided to add an article related to the Blinn Tennis Courts reconstruction prior to closing the Special Town Meeting warrant on Nov. 3

The board voted 4 to 1 to close the warrant with Selectman Paul Santaniello issuing the dissenting vote. 

The board decided at its Oct. 20 meeting to not add the article to the warrant due to a legal question of whether the Community Preservation Committee (CPC) could add articles to the warrant of its own accord.

“Basically the intent of the law was that [the CPC] would actual go to the warrant,” Select Board Chair Richard Foster said. “But, when you get down to it, they still have to get through the Select Board.”

Article 8 calls for a transfer of $200,000 from the CPC Undesignated Balance Fund for the Blinn Tennis Courts.

The project was approved for $375,000 in Community Preservation Act funds at the Annual Town Meeting in May. The total projected cost was $675,000, however the project exceeded initial costs when it went out for bid.

Article 5 of the warrant addresses a proposed new Department of Public Works (DPW) facility by a transfer of $250,000 in the treasury for a site evaluation and analysis, a programming study, a schematic design, and design developments of up to two sites for a new DPW complex.

The article was approved at the board’s Oct. 20 meeting by a vote of 3 to 2. Selectmen Alex Grant and Santaniello voted against the article.

“We will be able to have a schematic design, we will be able have facilities sized out and then we’ll be able to go to for the final design money,” Foster explained.

If residents approve Article 8 on Nov. 18, an article pertaining to the construction of a facility would likely appear on the warrant of the 2015 Special Town Meeting in the fall or the 2016 Annual Town Meeting in the spring, he added.

“The [current DPW facility] was built in 1931,” Foster said. “Literally, the facility is falling apart. The walls are cracked, the floors are cracked, [and] and the foundation is moving. It was built on an old dump so the sub soils are just terrible. It’s not quicksand but you might as well be building on quicksand because there’s no load bearing capacity for the soil.”

A new DPW facility has been an ongoing discussion in the town since 1987, when a feasibility study was completed for the current site, he noted.

In 2008, an additional study furthered the 1987 findings, Foster said. The 2008 study recommended that the DPW facility be moved to another site.