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Date: 3/11/2020
HAMPDEN – The Hampden Select Board put to bed the issue of waste hauling at its meeting on March 2.
The board voted to sign a contract with McNamara Waste Services to haul away both trash and recycling for the town. Trash will be sent to a Seneca Meadows Landfill in New York, while the recycling will go to the material recycling facility (MRF) in Springfield.
“We voted to raise the transfer station permit fee from $40 to $50 and from $20 to $25 for senior citizens,” said Select Board Chair Donald Davenport. He pointed out that it is an increase of fewer than $.20 per week and $.10 per week for seniors. The price of large bags was also raised to $3 per bag.
The choice to raise fees at the transfer station was made to avoid a tax hike. Town residents who attended a community forum on Jan. 21 indicated in a straw poll that higher bag and permit fees were the preferred methods of paying for the cost increases.
Erin Hastings, director of the regional dispatch center WESTCOMM, gave a presentation on regional dispatch services to the select board. After the presentation and some discussion, the board agreed to send a letter of interest in joining the center.
Davenport said that joining a regionalized system could potentially save the town $400,000 for three years. Davenport told Reminder Publishing that the savings “could go a long way to solving our ambulance situation.”
The town finalized its contract with Ameresco, a company that will be erecting a solar array on the site of the capped landfill. Ameresco will pay fees and taxes to the town in exchange for the land, leading to what Davenport described as “a significant source of revenue for the [town] for the next 20 years.”