City Council hears plans to take private ways

June 10, 2020 | Dennis Hackett

WESTFIELD – The Westfield City Council hosted a public hearing for layout orders for several city roads and accepted a motion to pay Emergency Management Director Jim Wiggs $16,000 for his extended hours during the pandemic at its June 4 meeting.

The first order of business at the meeting was a motion to transfer $1.5 million from free cash into the school budget, which the council unanimously approved.

The council then ran through the next seven items under the communications from the Mayor portion of the meeting and unanimously approved all of them with little discussion. These motions included approving a Lighting agreement with MassDOT, accepting an opioid prevention grant, and transfers from free cash to the Health Insurance Benefits account and Snow and Ice budget.

Along with the budgetary approvals, the council also appointed Sarah Scott to the Westfield Cultural Council. During the discussion around the motion Councilor Bridget Matthews-Kane gave a glowing review of Scott’s work. “I just want to say she is a consummate professional, she does her job well and thoroughly. She is just a joy to be around, I think she would be a really strong asset to the Cultural Council, and I give her my strongest recommendation.”

The next order of business at the meeting was a public hearing about the layout order for Devon Terrace, Gloria Drive, Hillary Lane, Nancy Circle, Frank Circle, Rachael Terrace and Hillcrest Circle to change from private ways to city roads.

While the report for the order says that potential repairs would cost around $500,000, Councilor Bill Onyski explained that would not be the case. He said, “All the roads are in very good shape but this cost doesn’t mean at all that we’re going to spend $200,000 on the roads six months from now.”

Councilor John Beltrandi then explained that the city was already taking care of the roads, but the layout order would make that change official. He said, “We’re maintaining these roads already. What this does is getting the roads accepted, get some Chapter 90 money, and it will help us moving forward. We need to get these things done.”

After the hearing, the council unanimously approved a motion to accept the layout orders.

One of the orders of business under the Committee Reports was an appropriation of $16,621 from free cash to the Emergency Management director’s salary after his hours jumped from 20 hours a month to 70 hours a week as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Councilor Ralph Figy explained that the appropriation could also be reimbursed through grants.

Councilor James Adams voiced his support for the appropriation and said, “This gentleman probably kept many people alive, and I may be one of them. For $16,000, with the time he put in, and the lives he saved, it is a no-brainer to me. This is a thank you for running this city during a pandemic and I think he did a wonderful job of it.”

Council President Brent Bean said he was not in favor of appropriating the money to Wiggs. He said, “I am very concerned about the precedent. In my mind because someone did a good job, we’re paying them more money. That’s not the way the municipality works even though I do like that idea. There’s plenty of people in this city that worked more than 20 hours, 40 hours or whatever it is.”

With the exception of Council President Bean, the council voted to approve the transfer to the Emergency Management director’s salary.

After a brief discussion about creating a Special Purpose Schools of Westfield Stabilization Fund at the May 21 meeting, the council once again brought the motion forward. Adams explained that in the most recent L and O Committee meeting, the committee unanimously voted against the fund. He said, “We decided this wasn’t going to be a good idea because we didn’t think it was fair to the other departments and the city and superintendent didn’t think this was a good idea either.”

Ultimately the council once again voted down the School Stabilization Fund.

The council closed the meeting by quickly approving five motions including ones to accept the layout orders to adopt the private ways as city roads and to allow Councilor Bean to review ordinances and licensing matters in regards to outdoor dining as a part of the State’s ongoing reopening process.

The City Council next meets for a special meeting on June 12.

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