EAST?LONGMEADOW – Six candidates are running for one seat on the Board of Selectmen, but that number will be brought down to two finalists after residents take to the polls during the March 15 preliminary election.

The six candidates for selectmen are incumbent Angela Thorpe, former Selectman Joseph Townshend as well as newcomers Kevin Manley, William Arment, Anthony Gentile, and Bruce Fenney.

Town Clerk Thomas Florence told Reminder Publications six candidates running for one elected seat is the most he’s seen in his 13 years as clerk.

He noted the selectmen’s race is the only contested one that will appear on the April 12 Town Election ballot.

Florence said he anticipates a 15 percent voter turnout for the preliminary election and a 20 percent turnout for the April Town Election, both of which are set to take place at Birchland Park Middle School.

“I think there’s going to be interest in this,” he added. “Selectmen is one of the top three governing body positions in the town.”

Thorpe, who is running for her second term on the board, said she hopes to continue serving the community and “fight” to make sure the tax rate “keeps people here and brings new people here.”

She added in her second term she would like to see a five-year plan developed related to the town’s growth.

“I’d like to see where we’re going with our new Health Department,” she noted. “I’d like to make sure that properties taken off the tax roll are used for the purpose that they’re taken off for.”

Thorpe said she would support the construction of a new high school.

“I think it would be money spent that would be recouped in evaluation of homes because if you have a good school system people will come,” she explained.

She added she has “strong concerns” regarding the elimination of Town Meeting, which is proposed in the charter set to come before voters during the Town Election.

The charter calls for the town to change its form of government to a council-manager style, which would also replace the current Board of Selectmen and town administrator system.

Thorpe said she would consider running for Town Council if the charter passes.

Manley, who worked in the corrections field for more than 20 years, said he believes the biggest issue facing the community is the public safety budget, specifically the selectmen’s decision to cut the police overtime budget.

“They did some very minimal comparisons to other towns and one of the towns mentioned in the meeting was Greenfield, which I don’t even think is comparable here,” he added. “You’re trying to hire a new police chief and it seems to me that it’s counterproductive [that] you’re going to put a guy into a position to run an organization that’s behind the eight ball by 70 percent of their requested budget. It’s a budget that hasn’t changed too drastically over the last 10 years.”

He said he believes reducing the pay of a new police chief would hinder the town, but agreed with the decision to go out to bid for the position.

“If you’re going to serve the town, you should live here,” Manley noted in regards to a question posed to him about a residency requirement for a new police chief.  

Manley said it would be in the town’s “best interest” to consider building a new high school and believes a regional lock-up could benefit the community as well.

He added he supports the plan to change the town’s form of government and would consider running for town council if the charter passes.

“I think the current board is a little outdated with only three people on it,” Manley said.

Fenney, who has worked as the town’s facilities manager for the past decade, said his background has granted him knowledge of day-to-day operations in East Longmeadow, which would benefit the board.

He added he believes one of the biggest issues in the town is budgeting related to the Police Department’s high overtime.  

“There was a solution that could have been made versus getting rid of a chief that’s been there for years,” he stated in reference to the selectmen’s decision to seek a new chief due to the police overtime issue.

Fenney said he is not in favor of the charter and believes the existing form of government is a “good system.”

He added, “I just think we need to work on maybe communicating better within the Board of Selectmen. That’s one of the reasons why I think we should stay on course.”

A town manager is something Fenney also opposes in the charter.

“Putting all that responsibly under one person I don’t think is right,” he noted. “I think the individual boards do a good job in dispersing the overall responsibilities.”

However, he said the town administrator position needs more authority, but not as much as what would be given under the title of town manager.

Fenney said he would support the construction of a new high school or a phased renovation of the building.

He noted he recently met with Superintendent of Schools Gordon Smith to discuss the district’s intent to submit a statement of interest (SOI) to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) for the organization’s building reimbursement program.

The district has submitted SOIs to the MSBA during the past several years, but has been denied. In order to submit an SOI, the district needs Board of Selectmen approval. The typical MSBA reimbursement rate is about 50 percent.

At its Feb. 29 meeting, the board approved an SOI for a new high school.

Gentile, who recently retired as a call firefighter after serving for almost 20 years, said some of his goals include bringing “uniformity back to the board” in regards to divisions between the selectmen and other committees and departments.

“I’d like to get everybody back on the same page,” he explained. “It seems like there’s so much division in the town between boards and selectmen.”

He added he would like to see East Longmeadow be a part of a proposed regional lock-up facility.

Gentile, who also works as a dispatcher in Wilbraham, said he believes the proposed Hampden County Regional Emergency Communication Center (RECC) would benefit with smaller communities regionalizing, such as Hampden and Wilbraham.

Five towns – East Longmeadow, Longmeadow, Hampden, Wilbraham, and Ludlow – have entered into a second research phase for the project. None of the communities have agreed to be a part of the final project at this time.

“It would be a challenge at first because each community does everything differently,” Gentile explained. “When you have smaller communities that don’t have full-time police or full-time fire, everything can be done the same very simply. The five communities all have different ways of the police, fire, and [emergency medical services] doing something. It would be very tough to start off from the ground running with something like that.”

He continued, “I think that maybe starting small with say Wilbraham taking over Hampden dispatch and seeing how that works out and then go from there … I think in the long run it can work.”

Gentile said he believes the Board of Selectmen handled the police overtime issue poorly as well.     

“Things are coming to light that are in the police contract that had to be negotiated with the selectmen,” he noted. “I think that the selectmen or whoever was the liaison [to the Police Department] should have talked to [Police Chief Douglas Mellis] and figured out what the problem was and if there was a way to mitigate it. It’s not like the overtime was a surprise. It’s been that way or just a little bit lower from previous years as well.”

Arment, who is a member of the Conservation Commission, said as selectmen he would to help the town continue to “run and govern itself.”

He added he does not have a specific goal in mind as selectmen when it comes to projects in the community.

Arment said he sees “some good” and “some bad” in the proposed town charter.

“In order to really give an educated decision on that, I would have to be more informed,” he noted.

He said he’s worked with his family business – Charlie Arment Trucking in Springfield – since he was 16 years old.

“I worked my way to the top,” Arment, 30, explained. “Over the past two years, I’ve taken over such roles as, besides being the head of job sites, but bidding, I do our paperwork [and] bookkeeping. I help with the hiring of people. I help with the finding of [substitutes and] the day-to-day basis of running our company. I like to say that although at a young age, I’ve learned quite a bit in the business world.”

Townshend declined to comment to Reminder Publications about his candidacy.