Select board meets to discuss unforeseen issues with the special town meeting and tax rate

Nov. 24, 2020 | Sarah Heinonen
sarah@thereminder.com

LONGMEADOW – The Town of Longmeadow is in a predicament thanks to unforeseen consequences of efforts to protect people during the pandemic.

Town Moderator Rebecca Townsend has twice postponed the Special Town Meeting in the interest of public health amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Under MGL Ch. 39 s.10A, the town moderator can recess and postpone a town meeting for up to 30 days, with subsequent postponements allowed.

For example, the first of the postponements read, in part, “The declaration lists Nov. 24 as the new date, however, the law allows for further declarations to be made, and the moderator anticipates doing so as long as the conditions warrant.”

The problem, as the Select Board was made aware in an emergency meeting on Nov. 23, is that the Massachusetts Department of Revenue (DOR) will not certify the town’s tax rate until all financial articles on the warrant have been voted on or otherwise removed from the warrant. Without the tax rate certified, Finance Director Paul Pasterczyk said, no new tax bills can be sent out and the town will develop a cash flow problem.

Town Manager Lyn Simmons explained to the board that she had been made aware of this issue last week and had been in talks with Townsend and Pasterczyk on how to solve the situation. The three suggested the town conduct a Special Town Meeting to facilitate a vote of “no action” on the consent agenda items and for all other articles to be rolled forward into the Annual Town Meeting warrant in the spring.

 Select Board Member Mark Gold asked, “if we’re going through the trouble of having a town meeting,” why the town wouldn’t be allowed to vote on “critical items.” Pasterczyk said that no items are critical or would impede the town’s financial business if put off until spring.

Townsend answered that she had set an expectation in the postponements that residents would not be called to vote until the pandemic has stabilized. She said that to conduct a vote now would be “patently unfair.” Chair Thomas Lachiusa and Clerk Steven Marantz agreed that residents had been given the impression there would be no voting until the Annual Town Meeting.

“It is presumptive to hold a town meeting and tell anyone who shows up that they can’t vote on anything,” Gold insisted.

Simmons noted, “Gathering large groups of people could be problematic.” Therefore, a second suggestion was made to lower the quorum to the legal minimum. Under Ch. 92, s. 7 of the Acts of 2020, a lowered quorum for this specific meeting may be set by the select board at no fewer than 10 percent of what would otherwise be needed. A town meeting quorum in Longmeadow is 50 registered voters, allowing the board to set the lowered quorum to five people.

Gold stated that he is concerned with a possible situation in which “we lower the quorum and 20 people show up and run the town.” Townsend said that she believes Longmeadow residents are “smart enough” to understand that this is a technical move to solve a problem, rather than a traditional meeting and that the lowered quorum is a safety measure.

Beyond that, she asserted that she was willing to conduct the meeting, but only if the lowered quorum is set. Like the postponements, she said the stipulation was out of concern for public health.

The board will vote on whether to lower the quorum at its next regularly scheduled meeting on Dec. 7. Townsend said she will send out a notice to amend the date of the town meeting to Dec. 9, since the issue must be resolved with the DOR by Dec. 15.

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