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Date: 11/10/2021
LONGMEADOW – The Longmeadow Select Board voted unanimously to approve the Eastern Hampden Shared Health Services agreement.
The inter-municipal agreement sets up a system in which Longmeadow shares certain health department employees and services with the towns of Monson, Hampden and Wilbraham. In return, the towns pay an assessment based on population size. A state grant will cover the assessments for the first three years.
Select Board member Mark Gold asked Town Manager Lyn Simmons about how benefits for the employees – Health Director Finn McCool, a public health nurse and a health inspector – will be structured. Simmons explained the responsibility for those costs will be split between the towns, but she was not sure where in the budget they would be reflected.
Select Board member Thomas Lachiusa asked if the cost of hiring a health inspector, which the town does not currently employ, could be paid through inspection fines. Simmons explained that fines are a last resort for inspectors and it wouldn’t be a viable revenue source. The position will be funded through the grant in the short-term.
Budget FY23
Finance Director Jennifer Leydon began work on the FY23 budget by presenting the budget assumptions to the Select Board. She expects new growth to be about $150,000 but for revenues to stay flat. The Finance Committee has requested the increase to the property tax not exceed 1.75 percent, which would add $925,000 to the budget. Legally, the property tax can be increased by as much as 2.5 percent, which would allow for $1.3 million to be added to the budget.
Gold recommended starting the budgeting process at 1.75 percent as recommended by the Finance Committee to avoid a “fight” at the Annual Town Meeting. Select Board Chair Marc Strange and Vice Chair Steve Marantz took the opposite view and said they should start at the full amount and cut it down until they reach the lower number. Gold said it would be “hard to scale back,” and “this town doesn’t have the fiscal fortitude” to make the cuts.
Simmons interjected that, in the past, she and the finance director have started at 2.5 percent and worked down to the recommended lower amount and the final product is presented at Town Meeting.
“My intent is to keep it as low as we can,” Leydon told the board.
Cable TV Renewal
Attorney Peter Epstein informed the board that no progress had been made in negotiations with Comcast to create a new contract for the town. The sticking point in the talks revolves around Comcast’s desire to be held to the same standards as any incoming Internet service providers, despite being governed by two different sections of the Federal Communications Commission’s regulations.
Epstein explained that Comcast falls under the FCC’s rules on “Broadcast, Cable and Satellite,” while Internet providers are governed by the agency’s “Broadband and Internet” rules. Comcast is requesting the town provide “a level playing field,” in the contract by not requiring the company do anything that would not be required of, for example, a fiber optic Internet provider.
“I don’t want the town to be in a position where we agree to language that gives Comcast the right to come in and petition the Select Board for relief, meaning they want to get out of a number of contractual provisions because a competitor may not be subject to any of those provisions,” Epstein told the board.
Lachiusa asked about allowing Comcast’s demands for a shorter period than the 10-year contract being negotiated with the provision that the company enhance its services. Epstein told him rate regulation and dictation of programming were prohibited and that a shorter contract wouldn’t be worth it, as the contracts take three years to negotiate.
Epstein told the board that Comcast is unlikely to pull its service if the town refuses to agree to the company’s stipulation. “They’re making a huge amount of money,” Epstein said.
The board voted to send Comcast a formal denial. The town and the company will try again to reach an agreement.
PVTA and MassDOT
Gold informed the rest of the board that the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA), to which he is the board liaison, was considering cutting a portion of the “G5,” the only bus route that travels through Longmeadow.
Four times each weekday, the bus continues on from the Leavitt Family Jewish Home, down Longmeadow Street to the Mass Mutual building in Enfield, CT. It follows the same route back to “The X” in Springfield. This extended route was on the PVTA’s chopping block.
Gold reported that he had voiced opposition to the change because of the Bay Path University students who rely on public transportation, as well as those residents who may have car trouble. A compromise was reached with the bus company to allow the route to continue traveling Route 5 as far as the university, but not all the way to the state line.
Levine asked about ridership numbers for the route, but Gold did not have that information for the extended leg of the journey. He noted that the town pays an assessment to the PVTA and, therefore, needs to advocate for keeping the service.
Gold also mentioned a public hearing Nov. 17 at 6 p.m. on the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) project to upgrade curbing and sidewalks by Blueberry Hill School. The $364,139 project would be funded at 20 percent by the state and the remainder through federal funds. Some town-owned land would be taken through eminent domain, but Gold said, “It’s not really a big deal for the town.”
COVID-19
Simmons said that there were 38 cases of COVID-19 in the town as of Nov. 1, up from 17 cases in the previous week. She explained that the increase was due to a combination of more testing, school related transmission, and a “small outbreak at a local religious establishment that was brought in from out of state travel.” Longmeadow’s mask mandate for town buildings was rescinded on Oct. 26 and replaced with a mask advisory, though this was not cited as a reason for the uptick.
Neighbors
Select Board Clerk Josh Levine checked with Simmons on the status of resident complaints regarding a property on Meadowbrook Drive. A half-dozen residents had complained at a previous meeting about the house and its short-term tenants. Simmons explained that the Select Board had received letters on the issue, but there had been no change in the neighbor dispute.
She reminded the board that a warrant article to ban short-term rentals had been defeated at the 2021 Annual Town Meeting. She called the article “an indirect response” to the issue. Under the town’s charter, that section of the bylaw cannot be brought back to Town Meeting for two years.