LONGMEADOW – The Longmeadow Select Board met for a regularly scheduled meeting on April 21 for a public hearing with Eversource, to discuss the current election date, budget concerns and the upcoming Town Meeting.

The first order of business at the meeting was a Fire Chief John Dearborn’s regular update on the Town’s battle against COVID-19. He said the Town’s COVID-19 Task Force is already looking at ways to reopen, they are just waiting for more guidance from the state. “The COVID-19 Task force has been actively discussing reopening things, the struggle is when and how this will happen. We expect guidance from the state to be based on benchmarks. What these benchmarks and guidelines look like are critical information needed for our planning,”

He added that the town has already started preparing for reopening through acquiring masks for all town employees, installed new service windows for interacting with the public and developed new cleaning procedures.

With the COVID-19 report out of the way, the board moved into its hearing with Eversource over two petitions, one to install new underground power lines and to replace poles and cables around the town. Edward Slysz, an Eversource technician, jumped into the call to discuss the two projects. When Board Member Mark Gold asked why the projects were necessary Slysz said, “The underground cables are very old and we’ve been having faults recently, and we’ve been keeping count of it, so it’s time to replace the old cables underground. They did a load analysis test on the substation and the load growth is growing so we’re going to increase the wire sizes and poles to increase the capacity, so you don’t run into problems in the future.”

With little discussion, the board approved both petitions based on requirements from the DPW.

After the hearing, Town Manager Lyn Simmons then discussed the ongoing idea of moving the town election date as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic but said that it is still a wait and see situation. “I’ve just been monitoring this and everyone that had an election for May has moved it and everyone that has an election scheduled for June is standing by and waiting for the legislature to make a change,” she said.

During his budget report, Town Finance Director Paul Pasterczyk expressed his concerns of losing some aid from the state as a result of COVID-19. He said, “The longer this pandemic lingers, the more concerned I am with the town finances, we’re starting to see a lag in a few of the revenues, but more importantly there’s talk of the state losing revenues and discussion of state cuts coming down the line, including a 15 percent cut to local aid.”

After Pasterzcyk’s report, the board then talked about ways to handle the upcoming Town Meeting, which has already been pushed to June 23, as a result of COVID-19. During the discussion, Gold suggested splitting the meeting into several days. “Short of massive testing or an antidote for the virus, I can’t imagine we’ll be allowed to do it normally.  I think we should split it into two, or three, or four nights so it’s manageable and we can get through it.”

The board also decided to prepare final decisions on the Town Meeting and its warrant articles, including the potential tax ceiling removal article, for its next meeting.

The Longmeadow Select Board next meets on May 4.