Special Town Meeting needed for Longmeadow's Converse Street project

July 14, 2016 | Chris Goudreau
news@thereminder.com

LONGMEADOW – A July 26 Special Town Meeting features one article that calls for the town acquiring 34 temporary easements for a $4.5 million reconstruction of Converse Street. However, a similar article was already approved during the 2016 Annual Town Meeting.

Town Manager Stephen Crane told Reminder Publications the July 26 Special Town Meeting is necessary because the wording of the Annual Town Meeting article does not comply with federal standards.

He explained the project is federally funded and if the article is not approved the town would be at risk of not having funds to reconstruct Converse Street. The deadline to comply with the federal standards is Aug. 12.

“If the project was not federally funded, the documentation we have would probably be sufficient to do the project, but, again, the federal standard is a lot more detailed and a lot more rigorous than, quite frankly, we’re used to,” Crane noted. “I don’t think a federally funded project of this scale has been done in the town in many years.”

He added the issue with compliance with federal standards is the easements need to be recorded with the Registry of Deeds, which requires a notarized signature.

“There’s two ways to do that – you could either get notarized signatures from all 34 property owners or you can have the easements be done via an order of taking – and then the Select Board’s notarized signature gets recorded,” Crane said.

The May 2016 Town Meeting article described the easements, but did not call for an order of taking, he noted. However, the temporary purchase of the easements was approved.

“Our first approach was going to be to try to get the signatures voluntarily from the residents, but despite our best efforts at sending out the registered mailing with the package of information, doing door to door follow ups, sending out phone calls … we’ve gotten about half of them back [after] over a month.”

Crane said the town would pursue an order of taking for the upcoming Special Town Meeting. The article would require a 2/3-majority vote.

“Town Meeting has already approved the same easements in principal,” he noted.

He explained Converse Street is in great need of reconstruction. It receives high levels of traffic on a daily basis and is one of the main roadways in Longmeadow.

“They did a mill and overlay, basically [adding] a thin layer of pavement, a few years ago because it had gotten so bad, but that did not address any of the subsurface conditions,” Crane said. “Drainage needs to be improved; sidewalks need to be improved or installed. There are places that don’t have sidewalks that should. It’s a pretty wide roadway, but it’s not really defined with good pavement marking so we need to define the pavement better.”

The town also plans to add bike lanes to Converse Street, he noted.

Crane said Longmeadow has paid more than $100,000 in design work for the project. The easements would cost $20,880.

He urged residents to attend the Special Town Meeting, noting that 50 residents are required in order for the meeting to take place.

“Only Town Meeting is authorized to make these votes,” he noted. “In hindsight, we wish we were clearer on what was required of us. There are a 100 other requirements that are completely new to us that we have preformed very highly on.”

The cost of the Special Town Meeting would be less than $1,000, Crane said.

He added another Special Town Meeting is slated for the fall and would feature normal budgetary clean up items and appropriation requests.

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