Small quorum votes at Special Town Meeting

Date: 11/4/2011

Oct. 31, 2011

By Chris Maza

Reminder Assistant Editor

HAMPDEN — The Board of Selectmen certainly never thought the Oct. 24 Special Town Meeting would require so much work.

The selectmen were forced to move tables and set up chairs for the meeting in the Thornton W. Burgess School’s cafeteria after a scheduling mishap led custodial staff to believe the meeting was to take place the following day, Oct. 25.

That work proved to be the most difficult task to accomplish throughout the remainder of the evening.

With the room assembled in time for the meeting to begin, a small quorum voted to allow all nine warrant articles requiring action in a meeting that lasted less than 30 minutes.

Among the motions requiring the most substantial amounts of the remaining $189,881 in certified free cash that were allowed by voters were requests for a new vehicle for the Police Department and money for tree removal.

Article 2 asked the town to appropriate $32,000 from free cash to purchase a new police cruiser in order to prevent the town from continuing to perform costly repairs on one of the department’s current vehicles.

One of the department’s cruisers already needed $6,000 in engine repairs after it was damaged while responding to an emergency and since then has been plagued by transmission and electrical issues. Selectman Vincent Villamaino told residents the car is “the lemon of the group” and already has approximately 152,000 miles on it.

Article 5 asked for the appropriation of $20,000 from free cash to the tree warden’s account in order to remove dead or dying trees from town property. With the survey not yet complete, the town has already found more than 100 trees, mostly on the town’s tree belt, that need to be taken down because they are either dead or dying and present a danger to the public.

Residents also approved a motion that allows the town to use $2,000 in order to utilize the services of a special consultant to help the town with its record keeping and storage. Town government has never utilized any off-site storage, which has resulted in a shortage of space for new records. The duties of the consultant would be to observe the town’s storage procedures and make recommendations.

“This is just a consultant,” Selectman John Flynn said. “His recommendations would eventually lead to a warrant article asking the town to do whatever is recommended.”

The Department of Public Works (DPW) also received some funding. Article 6 was approved, allowing money to be spent to repair or replace some equipment, including front tires on the department’s front loader and repairs to a cracked axle on one of the trucks.

The DPW also received $4,500 for the replacement of portable radio equipment workers carry with them in their trucks.

Another $20,000 was placed into the town’s reserve fund after being approved by majority vote.

No action was taken on Article 9, which called for the use of the remaining free cash to lower the tax rate. Selectman Richard Green told Reminder Publications prior to the meeting that such a measure would only be executed if it would affect the tax rate “in a meaningful way.”

Instead, Article 10 was passed, placing the remaining $71,381 that was not spent on warrant articles into the town’s stabilization fund.