LONGMEADOW – During its Sept. 21 meeting, the Longmeadow Select Board interviewed 11 candidates for its new Coalition for Racial Justice and discussed the Fall Town Meeting set for Oct. 27.

The first order of business at the meeting was to interview the candidates for the town’s new Coalition for Racial Justice.

One candidate, Kathleen Allen, said recent social events and a systemic racism program at MassMutual urged her to pursue ways to tackle social justice issues, especially in schools.

“Whether it is in our towns, in our schools, our housing communities, I feel ashamed that I was not aware of the degree of systemic racism. I really, really, want to be a voice and be a part of the solution in this particular space,” she said.

Mara De Maio, a psychologist with Hartford HealthCare, said that she previously established a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative for her job.

“In my career I’ve worked with many different oppressed groups and seen the impact of systemic and structural racism in their lives. About a year and a half ago I went to my supervisor and said I would like to start an initiative at our hospital and got support to start a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative,” she said.

When asked what she hoped to achieve with the task force, Neena Grover said she wanted diversity to become a natural part of the community.

“Diversity should be part of our life, it should be in our school, our homes. It’s not a task, it requires the involvement of the whole community. I just had an idea that we have a Chinese day, a Diwali day, a Spanish day so the whole town is involved, and we can relate to each other with culture and food,” she said.

One of the resounding concerns from each of the applicants was the issue of systemic racism in education.

Another applicant, Martin Hernandez said he wanted to diversify Longmeadow’s town government.

“I think that there should be a diverse and younger group to also have a voice in town governance, if they are parents, students, or younger residents. Right now, a lot of town government is not diverse and it’s not very young either, I think that for our voices to be lifted and heard there needs to be a greater variety in town government,” he said.

Board Vice Chair Marc Strange, who initially put the resolution together back in July, said that he was ready to work with everyone who applied for the task force.

“I’m very excited for all 11 candidates after reading through their letters. I don’t have any questions, I just want to say thank you and I am looking forward to working with everyone in the months ahead,” he said.

While the board originally wanted to put nine residents on the coalition, Strange said he was in favor of keeping all the applicants.

“It’s a really solid group of people and I’m inclined to keep all of them. We heard from 10 of them, but I’m inclined to keep all 11. I would advocate for us to accept everyone who applied, and I think we’re very lucky to have them available to us,” he said.

The Select Board voted on the applicants for the task force at its Oct. 5 meeting.

After interviewing the candidates, the Select Board discussed the current plan for the Oct. 27 Town Meeting.

Town Moderator Rebecca Townsend said one of the current issues with planning is that the high school can currently only accommodate 365 voters.

“The logistics plan does include a Zoom platform to allow for simultaneous transmission. The legal requirement is for audio transmission. There must be public address that connects all overflow rooms, I don’t know whether the public address system in the school can cover that,” she said.

The board also briefly discussed the warrant for Town Meeting before voting on the final warrant for the Town Meeting at its Oct. 5 meeting.

During the meeting, the board also agreed to come up with guidelines for Halloween, to vote on at a later meeting, after Health Director Beverly Hirschhorn said there was currently no state guidance

She added that she was in favor of leaving the decision up to individual families.

“I would just rather have no larger events and just go forward with individual families make their own decisions if they want to do Trick-or-Treating and having them do it in a safe manner,” Hirschhorn said.