Select Board appoints new police chief, approves water, sewer and stormwater fees

June 10, 2020 | Dennis Hackett

LONGMEADOW – The Longmeadow Select Board met for a regularly scheduled meeting on June 1 to appoint a new police chief, discuss the Town Meeting, and to approve new water, sewer, and stormwater rates.

As part of the meeting’s regular business, town manager Lyn Simmons named Lieutenant Robert Stocks the town’s new police chief following John Stankiewicz retirement in February. She said, “Lieutenant Stocks has the experience, intellect, skills, and integrity to lead with the Longmeadow Police Department. I am pleased and honored to submit his appointment for confirmation to the select board.”

After his appointment, Chief Stocks thanked the select board and said, “The men and women of the LPD are truly some of the greatest individuals in law enforcement and to be selected as their police chief is just an honor and a privilege. I worked my entire career to be here and I will continue to work and provide the level of excellence you guys expect.”

The board unanimously approved Simmons’ nomination for Stocks to become Longmeadow’s new police chief.

In his regular COVID-19 report, Fire Chief John Dearborn said the town and its residents have responded well to the guidelines and only had five current cases outside of the nursing homes. He said, “We’re seeing better declines than a lot of the areas around us. I think our residents are engaged in the protective practices and they have been all along, so I think as a community we’re doing pretty good.”

During the meeting the board quickly approved a number of appointments and reappointments to 18 different boards and committees.

Town Moderator Rebecca Townsend also gave an update on the planning process for Town Meeting on June 23. She said, “We’re trying to make sure that this meeting is a safe meeting, a legitimate meeting. The governor’s orders exempt Town Meetings, so we are permitted to have them. We have been searching for guidelines from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, but no help is forthcoming, so we are trying our best to do it ourselves.”

Townsend added that the meeting will be taking place at Longmeadow High School on the practice field between the football stadium and the building itself.

After her report on the Spring Town Meeting, the Select Board then also reserved Oct. 27 as the date for this year’s Fall Town Meeting. Chief Dearborn added that he was already looking at ways to hold a meeting inside in the fall if there is a second wave of COVID. “We’ve looked at a couple different models and we could spread it out more in the high school using the auditorium, the cafeteria and the gym. It’s a little early but we can come up with some options,” he said.

After the updates for both Town Meetings, the board approved two potential change orders for the Adult Center including railing panel revisions and a revised Maple Chair rail.

During the meeting the board also had to review the town’s water/sewer rates and stormwater fee. Town Finance Director Paul Pasterczyck explained that the town needed to raise $2.9 million for the water budget for FY 21 after balancing the costs with different forms of revenue. “I did look at the revenues we were getting and bumped those up a little bit, we are still getting interests on proceeds on some of the bonds and some of the other ancillary things the Water Department does. So, once we subtract those out we need to raise nearly $2.95 million in order to cover the water budget proposed for Town Meeting through the water rates,” he said.

Board Member Mark Gold said that as a result of last fall’s Town Meeting, the town is now able to change a fixed and variable rate for water. He said, “If we went back to our 2011 rates for $15.59 for the residential meters, and the $27.72 for the one-inch meter, we’d raise a total of $107,984 and if you put that in it would reduce the rate from $3.72 to $3.58 that’s only a 8.3 percent increase.”

At that rate Gold said the most people would see an increase in their water bill is by $15. The board agreed with Gold’s proposal and passed the new water rate. With little discussion the board also agreed to raise the sewer rate to $2.66 per 100 cubic feet of water.

The board also had to agree to raise the stormwater fee from $3.39 to $4.43 per month. Vice Chair Richard Foster voiced his displeasure over the fee and said, “I don’t recall there ever being a decision that it would be 100 percent funded by fees. I think that has been something that has crept into the discussion, there is no way we’re spending that much on stormwater. To me it doesn’t seem like we have a well-fined program, we just have a spending program that goes up every year.”

He added, “That fee was originally supposed to be put in effect to offset the cost of the permitting process and legal costs of that. Not to fund the entire stormwater program, which the town should have been putting away money for every year.”

Ultimately the board passed the change for the new stormwater rates.

The Longmeadow Select Board next meets on June 15.

Share this: