AGAWAM – The Agawam City Council met for their regularly scheduled meeting on July 13, where the town’s municipal golf course proved to be a significant topic of discussion.

The meeting began with three submitted statements from residents for the citizen speak portion of the meeting which were read by council President Christopher Johnson. The first letter was from resident Corrine Wingard, asking for the council’s assistance on getting the word out about how residents in need of rental and mortgage assistance could request help.

Wingard said since June 24, only about a dozen households had applied for assistance, but according to a recent study, there was likely a significant number of residents who still needed help. “Only 13 households from Agawam applied to WayFinders for referential mortgage assistance during COVID through June 24, 2020. This is of great concern because the recent metropolitan area planning council study found that 494 Agawam households need assistance in an estimated amount of $432,383,” she said. “These Agawam residents are in danger of losing their homes when the moratorium on evictions and foreclosures ends August 18, 2020 or if they do not get help.”

She explained residents could receive help through two state programs: “RAFT, which assists households with up to 50 percent of the area median income and the newly created IRMA, which assists households with income up to 80 percent of the area median income.” She said both programs “are administered by WayFinders and both look at current income.”

Wingard said people aren’t applying for help through the two programs simply because they’re not aware of them. Some recommendations she had for helping to spread word about the programs included “putting fliers up with school lunch distribution and any communication sent out by the town, posting fliers at public locations and asking the Parish Cupboard to help.”

She continued, “Also robocalls and a post, and possible interview on our cable TV with a representative of WayFinders. Another possibility would be to reach out to landlords in town to get information to tenants.”

Wingard finished her letter by asking the council to consider using CPA funds, Community Development Block Grant funds and private donations to set up an emergency rental assistance program.

“As of Jan. 22, 2020, Agawam had $806,667.40 in community housing and $1,434,673.25 in the unreserved fund balance, which can be used for emergency rental assistance for households earning up to 80 percent of the area median income,” she said. “So I ask you to work with the administration and create a local emergency rental assistance program for Agawam people who need help so that they can safely stay in their homes.”

Next, resident William Clark submitted a letter to the council outlining his dissatisfaction and opposition to an item on the agenda. The item, TR-2020-53, called for an emergency preamble to enter a lease purchase agreement with the municipal golf course for $188,563.20 to replace the course’s golf carts. Clark said the item “should take one month of press and meetings, not one day” as he cited this was the first time the item had appeared on the council’s agenda.

Additionally, he pointed out that it was just two weeks ago that the council had approved the fiscal budget for the coming year, and the golf carts had not been a part of it. “Golf carts are not in the fiscal budget, or in the five-year Capital Plan proposed by the mayor and approved by [the] council. With no plan, how did the carts evolve in two weeks,” he asked.

Clark cited several streams of revenue the town had recently seen a shortfall in due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic such as excise taxes, meal taxes, dog licenses, permits and property taxes. He also stated that Agawam still did not know how much state and federal aid it would be receiving in the coming year for schools, and there may be a shortfall in the budget during the fall. To further prove his point, Clark cited an instance in 2014 where  $285,000 was loaned to the golf course to replace golf carts. A sum, he said, they had failed to pay back.

Additionally, Clark said the funds from a newly installed Verizon cell tower located on the same property as the golf course should not be used to pay for the golf carts, but instead be put into “the Agawam general fund, not the golf course.” He said, “Send the Verizon revenue to the general fund, to pay back the money owed by the golf course. Use the cart revenue to pay for new carts.”

The last letter was submitted by Dave Fleury, the owner of the Crest View Country Club in Agawam “on behalf of the ownership groups of Crestview Country Club, Oak Ridge Golf Club and St. Anne Country Club.” He said while the groups “appreciate and understand” that the councilors may want to “continue subsidizing the Agawam Municipal Golf Course, we firmly believe it is a complete contradiction of a city counselor’s duty, which is to represent all the town citizens and therefore the best interest of the town as a whole.”

He said the nature of an emergency preamble states that “it is in the best interest in the town of Agawam to assist the municipal golf course.” This, however, he said, was not the case as there were three other family-run and privately held golf courses in town. “Why would it become in some way more of an interest to assist [the] municipal golf course than the other three publicly accessible golf courses in town,” he questioned.

Fleury also questioned why the golf course needed an entire new fleet of golf carts when the course had purchased new golf carts no more than five-years ago “with taxpayer money that was never repaid, with a commensurate service agreement during that entire period.”

He said many golf carts at the other three courses in town were older than the carts at the municipal course and “each of our three facilities maintains and operates them without a professional maintenance contractor in place with no apparent issue.

“To suggest the fact that an entire golf fleet, again less than five-years-old and has been maintained under a professional contractor, needs to be retired in full seems to be absurd,” he said. “Additionally, to consider this proposal to be an emergency need during the current COVID crisis with the future unknown and certainly the town budget and tax revenues in there both, would seem to be shortsighted and of self interest to those involved with the municipal golf course.”

Like Clark, Fleury pointed out that the municipal course had been lent a significant amount of money over the years, and it had not been paid back. Some of the money that had been loaned to the course, he said, had even been forgiven by the town.

“Over approximately the last five years, the golf course has been loaned almost $600,000 with the initial publicized concept that those monies would be repaid to the town coffers, but in fact they were never intended to be repaid and after two years were forgiven by the town of Agawam,” he said.

He, too, agreed that the money from the Verizon cell town should be put into the town’s general fund, rather than paying for the golf carts. For the final point, Fleury questioned why the town continued to “own and operate a golf course while there are three other family-owned golf courses within the same town.”

“Most municipal golf courses are maintained by a town to meet an underserved community need. Certainly in the case of Agawam, there is not an underserved need in regards to the game of golf,” he said.

The council then went on to approve the donation of a clock and temperature unit from the Agawam Lion’s Club. Johnson said the value of the unit “is a little under $3,000” and would be placed on the pavilion at the School Street Park. The council also approved a budgetary transfer of $50,000 from the reserve fund to building maintenance electric and heat.

Next, the council discussed and voted on the emergency preamble, TR-2020-53, for funds and a lease agreement for the golf course. Councilor Anthony Suffrit questioned what made the motion an emergency preamble. He said, “What makes a recreational golf cart emergency preamble, what’s gotta cause harm to have to make this emergency preamble?”

Johnson said the item was presented as under the guise of an emergency preamble “so we wouldn’t have to call a special meeting.” However, councilor Rosemary Sandlin said she didn’t believe that was needed.

“I don’t believe we should do that just not to call a special meeting. We would be following normal rules, and I don’t have a problem with a special meeting and I’m not supporting this tonight,” she said. Councilor Gina Letellier, who attended the meeting via phone, agreed and stated that she thought the motion was not worth of an emergency preamble.

“I don’t think this is worthy of an emergency preamble, I’m not even sure it’s a special meeting. I think we need time to figure out how this is going to affect the budget. I think we need time to determine if there’s enough income every year to repay it,” she said. “I think there are way too many open factors to just give this to us a week or two after just passing the budget. So I’m not going to be voting in favor of this.”

Councilor Gerald Smith agreed that the timing of the request was “very poor,” but said he believed the council should make a decision as soon as possible, as “the offer for the trade ins and the money they’re offering us, it’s not going to be there very long.”

Johnson told the council if the emergency preamble was defeated, then the item would simply go onto the agenda for the Aug. 3 meeting. He said, “And at that point we can make the determination, the administration can make the determination as to whether the proposal, the club car offer is still available on August 3.”

Councilor Robert Rossi suggested the council simply move the item to the next agenda “to salvage the integrity of this motion as a whole.” He said, “This appears to be more of a convenience than emergency.”

Ultimately, the emergency preamble was defeated as it required eight votes in favor to pass. Councilors Mario Tedeschi, Johnson and Smith voted in favor while councilors Cecilia Calabrese, Paul Cavallo, Letellier, Dino Mercadante, Rossi, Sandlin and Suffriti all voted against the preamble. Councilor George Bitzas was absent from the meeting.

The motion will be moved to the agenda for the council’s next meeting on Aug. 3, but will first go before the finance committee to be discussed.