LONGMEADOW – On Oct. 2 the Longmeadow Select Board met and discussed a series of announcements which included the disclosure of a $3.26 million savings over the next 20 years due to refinancing of the High School, as well as a neighboring town’s submission to Amazon to house the site of a new Amazon headquarters.

Town Manager Announcements:
There will be a day with author and speaker John O’Sullivan on Oct. 24 in the Longmeadow High School Auditorium at 2:30 p.m. until 8:30 p.m.  If there are any questions, contact the Longmeadow School District.

“He’s a renowned speaker, especially with regard to sports and youth activities,” Town Manager Steve Crane commented.

Longmeadow Public Safety Appreciation Day will take place on Oct. 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Longmeadow Fire Department.  The event is being put on by Longmeadow residents who wanted to express their gratitude to the town’s public safety personnel.

“This is the second annual, it was very well attended last year, and I expect it to be well attended this year,” Crane said.

The Public Safety Appreciation day will have a Police K9 Unit demonstration, a fire vehicle extrication demonstration, station tours, equipment demonstrations, as well as an opportunity to meet the teams.  Additionally, there will be light beverages and popcorn served.

Converse Street Paving has been delayed.  According to Crane, MASSDOT suggested that the street will not be paved until the week of Oct. 23.

“The reason that’s important is that all the structures have been raised, and so especially at night you run the risk of losing a tire or worse by going that way because of the raised structures.  Once the pavement goes down, it brings up the level of the pavement to the top of where the structures are today, we thought that was going to be happening.  I urge caution to everyone over the next couple of weeks until the paving gets done,” Crane explained.

    Select Board Announcements
Vice Chair Person Mark Gold shared that the town CFO, Paul Pasterczyk , refinanced Longmeadow High School and there was over a one percent reduction in interest rates, which will end up saving the town upwards of $3.26 million dollars.

“That’s real money, and even over the 20 years that it happens, it’s well over $120,000 a year and I just think that it’s something that we ought to acknowledge because it’s not something that needed to be done but it just shows the value of the folks running our town finances, it’s certainly a phenomenal savings for the town,” Gold noted.

Town Manager Report
Enfield Town Manager Bryan Chodkowski spoke with Crane and told him that Enfield was submitting a proposal for a world headquarters for Amazon in Enfield.

“It’s a nationwide solicitation by Amazon, they are looking for communities to submit a proposal that are interested in site a headquarters.  I think the number is 55,000 jobs and a lot are executive-level.  Enfield has put together a proposal, it’s an interesting one, and on paper I think it works, they’re close to Bradley [International Airport], the site’s right next to the airport, it could be available, there’s a lot of acreage,” Crane explained.

Chodkowski asked if Crane would submit a letter of support, to which Crane agreed following a few phone calls.  The Western Massachusetts Regional Economic Development Council wasn’t aware of the Enfield proposal, and they notified Gov. Charlie Baker’s office that if something came up that wasn’t in Massachusetts, that they would potentially endorse it.  According to Crane, local mayors weighed in by email that they supported Crane sending a letter of support.

“I do think the regional economy would benefit greatly from this, including our housing market and we have a small local business population but Springfield has a lot of businesses and a lot of those business people live in Longmeadow.  So I thought it would really be a win for the region.  Do I think it’s actually going to go there? No I don’t, but I think the exercise of going through and having us affirm that we’re a part of a region that might not necessarily stop at the state border, I thought was a powerful statement,” Crane said.