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Date: 9/4/2019
HAMPDEN – On Sept. 3, former Springfield Mayor Robert Markel signed a contract with the town of Hampden to become the interim town administrator, effective immediately. The contract is for six months with the option to extend it if a permanent town administrator is not found in that time.
“[Markel] has impressed our board with his background,” Select Board Chair John Flynn said. He added that Markel had received “glowing” reviews from towns in which he had previously served.
Resident Rita Vail asked if Markel's contract would be available online. Contracts are generally not on the town website, but are available at the Town Hall. Nancy Zebert and Mary Ellen Glover, both of whom are running for an open seat on the select board, echoed Vail’s request due to the recent town administrator controversy. Flynn compromised and said the contents of the contract would be included in the minutes for the Sept. 3 meeting.
Lori McCool from the Board of Health sat with the board to discuss the elimination of hazardous waste days.
“It just got to be too costly,” McCool said of the program in which residents would drop off their hazardous waste and a company would haul it away. She said East Longmeadow, Longmeadow, and Agawam had all eliminated their hazardous waste days for the same reason.
Instead, McCool suggested opening an account with NEDT, a hazardous waste disposal company with a branch in Westfield.
Under the new proposed system residents would bring their hazardous waste to the company for processing. The money that had been used for hazardous waste days would be used to offset the cost of hazardous waste disposal to residents.
The board asked for data on the amount of hazardous waste that had been collected in previous years to determine how much a contract with NEDT would cost.
Connie Witt from the historical commission asked for the addition of two associate members. Currently, the commission has five members, however, two were unable to take part in meetings for an extended period.
“It is sometimes hard to get a quorum,” Witt said.
The associate member proposal may be put on the warrant for the special town meeting on Oct. 28 at Thornton W. Burgess Middle School.
Witt also suggested the creation of a committee on infrastructure to survey the town buildings and report to the capital expenditure committee.
Flynn said it was arguably the job of Building Inspector Wendel Hulbert to do that survey and report to a review committee.
Heath Joseph from the VFW asked the board to approve the “turkey shoot.” The VFW traditionally holds the event every other weekend from mid-September to mid-November.
While there had been past noise complaints, Flynn said the VFW had taken steps to mitigate the noise.
The board approved the shoot but held off on approval of a proposed “holiday-themed shoot” that would take place two weekends before Christmas. Flynn had concerns regarding extra parking needs with snow on the ground and suggested the board review the event closer to the proposed date.