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Date: 4/8/2020
LONGMEADOW – The Longmeadow Select Board met for a special remote meeting on March 27 to provide an update on the Town’s fight against the COVID-19 outbreak and to continue discussions in regards to the upcoming Town Meeting.
Select Board Chair Marie Angelides opened the meeting with a general update on the ways the Town is currently fight the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak and thanked the residents along with Town staff and leadership for their efforts. She said, “Longmeadow is in good shape in regards to supplies and organization. The work by Stephen Crane and Lyn Simmons to regionalize our health department with East Longmeadow has been especially timely, we have more supplies and grants coming in.”
After Angelides spoke, the first order of business at the meeting was an update from Fire Chief John Dearborn about the fight against COVID-19. His biggest concern was that residents need to take the social distancing guidelines seriously. “The importance of social distancing cannot be overemphasized, you need to engage in social distancing no matter what age or what you are doing,” he said, “This is for kids, parents and particularly to protect our vulnerable populations.”
Chief Dearborn added that residents must call their primary care physician for their recommendation before calling emergency services if they feel that they may have symptoms, or to dial 211 for information from the state about the virus.
Once the update on COVID-19 was finished, the Board jumped into discussions with Rebecca Townsend, a member of the Mass Moderators Association about postponing the upcoming Town Meeting from its original May 12 date. Townsend explained that because the Warrant had not yet been posted, the board could postpone the Meeting to a date they saw fit, but recommended the end of June.
Town Manager Lyn Simmons agreed with Townsend’s idea of a late June date and said, “I support what Rebecca’s saying, I think pushing it into as late in June as possible is our best bet. Anytime June 23 or later I would support.”
With little discussion, every member of the board agreed that postponing the meeting was in the best interests of the Town and approved a motion to set the Town Meeting for June 23 with the potential to push the date even further back depending if COVID-19 is still an issue at that point.
The next order of business was a discussion around the Town Election. Townsend explained that because the election is currently scheduled after May 30, they cannot postpone it under the current legislation.
Because the election would take place before the new date for the Town Meeting, which also means that there would be a new member on the Select Board at the time of the meeting. Board Member Tom Lachiusa suggested that the Board go to the Attorney General or the Secretary of State to push the election after the meeting. He said, “It would be a mistake to change the composition of the Select Board prior to Town Meeting. To bring a new person into that formula and perhaps change the Select Board’s position on any of the issues would be a mistake. If we’ve always held elections after Town Meeting we should keep it that way.”
Ultimately the Board elected to hold off any action on the election date until the next meeting.
After discussions about the Town Election and Town Meeting dates, Town Financial Director Paul Pasterczyk gave an update on the Town’s financial forecast. He explained that two of his areas of concern as a result of COVID-19 were the meals tax and building permits. “I’m assuming the meals tax impact is going to be $10,000 to $20,000 for FY20 and a little deeper in FY21 depending on the length of the pandemic,” he said, “The other area I would be concerned with is building permits, I think that has slowed down with people not wanting contractors in their house. Again, we’re talking tens of thousands of dollars, not hundreds.”
The next order of business was a discussion about a potential warrant article for the Spring Town Meeting about removing the $25 per $1000 cap on the property tax levy because the current financial crisis as a result of COVID-19 could affect property values.
Board Member Richard Foster quickly voiced his displeasure over the potential article and said, “I’m disappointed that this is the only thing that surfaced from the task force, there was no restructuring plans or talk of doing things differently, it was the only thing that seemed viable to everybody. I think we can do more and we haven’t done it.”
The Board decided to hold off on any further discussion on the tax levy article until its next meeting.
The final order of business at the meeting was a request from several residents online for a trash amnesty during the COVID-19 pandemic over concerns residents could not get the required bags.
While most of the Board was against the amnesty, Foster was in favor of it. He said, “These are exceptional times we’re going through, it’s just one less thing our residents have to worry about. Obviously Lyn said they’re getting more and more phone calls so apparently it is an issue. I’m in favor of having an amnesty for a month or two.”
Again, the Board elected to push further discussions on the amnesty until its next meeting.
The Longmeadow Select Board will next meet on April 6.