EAST LONGMEADOW – The East Longmeadow Town Council met for a regularly scheduled meeting on Oct. 22 to announce the screening committee for the ongoing town manager search and further discuss other town issues, including talk of a potential moratorium on the development of solar arrays in the town.

Town Council President Kathleen Hill announced the seven members of the committee as follows: Larry Levine, Richard Freccero, Mary O’Connor, Christine Williams, Richard G. Beau Jr., Andrew Fraser and Connor O’Shea. Of the committee, Hill said, “Their charge will be to work with Bernie Lynch, our consultant with Community Paradigm, to look at the applications he brings and vet those applications down to about eight for face-to-face interviews in the latter part of November.”

Hill added the screening committee will have its first meeting on Nov. 15.

A proposal to renovate the small bridge on Porter Road over the South Branch Mill River, which is right before the Pine Knoll batting cages, was discussed at the town council meeting. Bruce Fenney, the superintendent of Public Works, said the DPW initially filed for a grant to begin renovations back in December of 2018. He said, “It’s a $260,000 grant, if there’s any overages the grant will fund up to $500,000 for any unforeseen issues.” He added all of the costs will be reimbursed by the MassDOT as long as its stays under the $500,000 cap.

He explained that the timetable for the project includes a 25 percent design due by December and a 100 percent design by March. Fenney added the project wouldn’t begin until the summer but it must be completed by December of 2020. However, he did not commit to a specific timetable for the construction. The council approved the request unanimously.

The proposal to rezone the property at 330 Chestnut St. from industrial garden park to mixed use was further discussed later in the council meeting. Council member Donald Anderson said the committee did its first pass through of the final document but explained they did not yet go through the table of uses. He said the biggest issue currently is to find someone to take the minutes for their meetings. “It’s going to become a real issue to us because the minutes we have, we hope it doesn’t but it could go to litigation, and minutes are important for that,” he added.

A temporary moratorium on the development of solar panels in East Longmeadow was brought up by the town’s Director of Planning and Community Development, Connie Brawders. She explained that in many cases, solar development is growing faster than communities can keep up with as a result of the solar incentive program, Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target.

“Solar development is now a pressing local issue because of a perfect storm of regulations, incentives and state sponsored programs, which do an excellent job of promoting solar development but did not recognize the pressure on local volunteer boards in smaller municipalities and planning boards,” she said.

“By June we should have something in place that will allow us to invite solar array into the town but have it better managed so we’re not overburdened,” she added. Brawders also explained that local utility providers are taking a look at their infrastructure to make sure they can handle more solar arrays.

While the council passed a motion for a moratorium for a year, Brawders initially brought up the idea of a moratorium until June 30 because she, along with the planning board, thought it was “doable.” The council voted to approve a year in case they needed extra time. Hill added that it didn’t make sense to unnecessarily reduce their timeframe when they could have a full year to sort out the town’s solar arrays.

Brawders also requested that the town council and planning board host a joint meeting to discuss the next steps, but Hill said the earliest that could happen is January because of the ongoing Town Manager search. Although the motion did pass at the meeting, it will go back to the planning board to further develop a plan of action.

The meeting wrapped up with a motion to approve the extension of the town’s current voting machine contract. The proposal, brought up by Interim Town Manager Mary McNally, asked the council to extend the current contract from three years to five years.

Discussing the proposal, McNally said, “The contract calls for a two year warranty, a third year of software maintenance and license fee, and then two years beyond that which brings the whole term out to a five year contract, and we can only accept a contract up to three years without specific approval.”

After the motion passed, Hill added that the council had to find a way to make the procurement process easier. “I think it behooves a closer watch by this council that this procurement process is not as arduous as it seems to be for our department heads,” she said, “There’s always a landmine in the procurement process.”

The East Longmeadow Town Council will host their next meeting on Nov. 12.