At their annual town meeting this week, voters in Longmeadow, Massachusetts approved most of the warrant before them, including an $87.3 million operating budget.
Voters spent nearly four hours at Longmeadow High School Wednesday, considering 38 items.
A number of funding requests were approved, from $435,000 for the First Church Exterior Renovation Project to $900,000 for a new chiller at Blueberry Hill Elementary School.
Also approved was $150,000 for repairing the high school’s pool, inoperable since last year after an inspection found it in need of repairs, ranging from pipe work to an updated sand filter, said Select Board Chair Vineeth Hemavathi.
Multiple speakers, including LHS swimmers, spoke to the pool’s significance, as well as Jennifer Szyluk, coach of the Longmeadow Aquatic Club. Szyluk noted that despite some teams getting access to a space in Springfield, team participation is down by the dozens and no pool has been secured yet for next year.
“Our current pool is in dire need of repairs, and without these improvements, we risk losing access to a space that has shaped countless young lives for the better,” Szyluk said. “I urge you to vote in favor of the budget - it's an investment, not just in concrete and water, but in the wellbeing, safety and future of our town and our children.
It proved to be one of most popular items of the night, with 367-24 in favor and applause amongst voters.
Another top vote-getter was a citizen’s petition calling for changes to the town’s commercial vehicle parking bylaws.
Presenting it was Jesse Cummings who, along with multiple residents and contractors, sought to alter town rules barring commercial vehicles from being parked in driveways overnight.
“I'm very confident that the language that we have here, and what we've collectively come up with, is extremely strong and will allow local business owners to not only live in the town, but also continue to operate vehicles in the town that meet these very strict requirements,” Cummings said.
As heard on Longmeadow TV, Cummings says the town’s effectively prohibited contractors and small business owners from parking different kinds of work trucks and vehicles in their own driveways overnight. Vehicles range from flatbeds to pickup trucks to work vans sporting business branding.
The petition would remove and replace parts of the bylaw – allowing for various kinds of commercial vehicles – such as single-axle, single-rear wheel trucks, vans and cars.
Those sporting “full vinyl coverings” or wraps, flat beds and trucks with dump bodies would still be barred, among others. It would also only allow overnight parking of "no more than one registered Commercial Vehicles" to a "business owned by or employing a resident of the Premises."
Most residents who spoke on the item supported the changes, including Select Board Member Josh Levine, who said the town spends an “inordinate amount of town resources” enforcing the bylaw.
“Right now, we are inconveniencing citizens who live in our town, who pay taxes in our town - probably work on a lot of houses in town - and we are forcing them, every day, to go park their truck somewhere else,” he said. “And I just don't think that that's fair.”
The item did have detractors as well. Ricky Bontempo said the bylaw has been on the books for decades, and questioned the fairness of changing it to accommodate drivers who may have moved in while it was on the books.
“The people with the commercial vehicles: they had to know or they should have known what the rules are in Longmeadow,” he said. “To come later and say, ‘We want to change a five- to six-decade-old rule because we moved here with commercial trucks and now we want to change the rule.’ Well, [they] really should have researched that before they came to town.”
When it came time to vote, the citizen’s petition easily cleared the two-thirds majority required – 308-76.
Charter change-related requests were also approved, including alterations dealing with how the town's Municipal Light Plant Board will be populated.
The board will oversee and manage the Town's fiber internet project. The warrant stated the amendment would give the Select Board "the discretion to either serve as the Municipal Light Board or to appoint a three-member board with staggered terms."
Among a handful of rejected items were a Planning Board recommended-Floodplain Zone bylaw change and several citizen petitions, including one calling for limitations to "certain types of power equipment" during certain hours of the day.
