LONGMEADOW –  On Feb. 20 the Longmeadow Select Board met to discuss the recent School Committee meeting, the “Citizen of the Year” award nominations, Committee appointments and three new Board of Health regulations.

The Select Board will be accepting nominations for the annual “Citizen of the Year” award.  Select Board Chair Thomas Lachiusa explained that the chosen citizen will be honored at the towns annual Town Meeting on May 8. Nomination letters should be mailed to the Select Board’s office at 20 Williams St. or emailed to dhouse@longmeadow.org by April 6.

During the Select Board comments section of the meeting, Lachiusa shared that he attended the Feb. 14 School Committee meeting where Superintendent Martin O’Shea was the topic of discussion. To read more about that meeting, go to https://www.thereminder.com/localnews/longmeadow/superintendent-receives-support-from/.

“There was just an outpouring of support for the Superintendent of schools. As you know, from time to time the Committee’s or the Board’s don’t always agree with the work being done with folks that they’re sort of watching over,” Lachiusa continued. “The School Committee has had a couple of meetings privately discussing the Superintendent. Most of what I know is from the newspaper; the Board has not been contacted for any reason. There’s no lawsuits, there’s no major complaints or victims coming forward.”

Lachiusa shared that the School Committee hasn’t come to the Select Board with any information, and that they don’t need to.  As a personal comment, he stated he supports the Superintendent.

“When I looked at the folks who were sitting here and two of them started crying, I said, “Well this is a pretty significant day.” Superintendent’s don’t always have that kind of affection from people working for them,” Lachiusa said.

Moving onto the agenda, the Select Board appointed Tassie Plankey to the Cultural Council for a three-year term.  Melinda Cropsey was appointed to the Historic District Commission for a three-year term. Finally, Tim McKenna was appointed for a three-year associate term to the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Longmeadow Health Director Beverly Hirschhorn along with Board of Health Member Mary Patricia Toye came before the Select Board to discuss three new regulations the Board of Health is proposing. Hirschhorn explained that though technically they did not need Select Board approval under Massachusetts General Law, she felt they should keep the Select Board apprised of the goings-on of the Board of Health since it concerns the town.

The first regulation Hirschhorn brought forth to the Select Board concerns raising the minimum age of a person who can utilize a tanning salon to the age of 21 in response to the danger of skin cancer.

“We’re trying to promulgate these regulations in response to a change in Mass. Department of Public Health regulations to protect the public health,” Hirschhorn said. “We wanted to update our local regulations to be consistent with the state regulations, and in some cases, actually slightly stronger.”

Though Longmeadow currently does not have any tanning shops or salons, Hirshhorn said, “someone could call tomorrow” and the Board of Health wants to be sure that the town is consistent with the State.  The Select Board endorsed this regulation.

“These regulations are only confirmation of what’s already a DEP regulation. There’s a ban on recyclables and other materials going into the regular refuse stream, solid waste stream, and anything that’s a recyclable or a solid waste has to be separated out. This is just a local version of this state regulation with a couple of additions to prevent public health nuisance’s like trash coming off of trucks or leaking,” Hirshhorn said.

She continued to explain that this would not affect the town’s current curbside waste pickup by Waste Management.  The issue, she said, is with trash pick-up at private sites like restaurants, shopping malls, and grocery stores.

“We want to make sure they’re a little bit more careful of separating out the different streams such as plastic, cans, and paper to make sure they’re doing a little better job of that,” she said.

The Select Board endorsed this regulation.

The third and final regulation presented is in regard to bees, which Hirshhorn said this was quite difficult for the Board of Health, and they had ten drafts of the regulation.

She explained that they took general good-practices of beekeepers and codified it into their regulations.  In addition, the Board of Health has added several provisions including notification of abutters including recommendations about safety issues concerning the mounting of hives securely and keeping to a certain number of hives per lot.    

Hirshhorn continued, “It was definitely a compromise between public health and the rights of beekeepers and also recognizing as bees are very important in our agricultural environment.”

Again, the Select Board voted to endorse the final regulation.