The Annual Longmeadow Fall Town Meeting will be held on Oct. 25. Longmeadow Citizens to Save Our Parks are asking residents to vote “No” to Article 7 for the reasons outlined below.

Article 7 of the Town Warrant asks residents to appropriate $200,000 to fund a study to build a new 12,000-square-foot senior center on land that may be protected under the Massachusetts Constitution, Article 97, or subsequently legislated interpretations of that article. Article 97 would prohibit development on a conservation or recreation open space site. The town has not perfected their “right” to develop this land as the opinion of the Town’s counsel on this matter is not yet available.

Purportedly, town counsel's preliminary findings have not located a deed on this parcel. It is speculated that the land may have been part of a “block transfer” from Springfield to Longmeadow when the Town of Longmeadow was incorporated. Lack of any deed seems preposterous. It has also been suggested that the land, now known as Bliss and Laurel Parks, was part of the Springfield Water Works Department. If so, this may confer upon it some rights under Article 97.

It is important to also note that even if the land is not protected under Article 97, there is also a remedy under Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 45, Section 7, which gives no less than 10 residents a right to petition the court to file an injunction to stop development of a building in excess of 600 square feet if that building is on parkland. A recently formed group, Longmeadow Citizens to Save our Parks, has discovered that Bliss and Laurel Parks were conferred park status by Town vote at the Longmeadow 1934 Fall Annual Town Meeting. At the same meeting, funds were appropriated to hire a landscape architectural firm to develop it as such. It has operated as a park for over 82 years.

The town has failed to acknowledge or respond to this independently researched information other than to say there is no turning back now and it will be decided on the floor of the Town Meeting. This situation will create an unnecessary and divisive split within the community between those who want a new senior center at this site but don't realize that the site may not be viable for such development and, those who support a new senior center but will vote “No” to Article 7 because of their awareness of the park status of the land proposed for development and their desire to protect it as parkland.  

Residents deserve full disclosure on this property. Town officials have breached their responsibility to citizens by failing to appropriately inform them of the potential park status of the land being considered for development. The town should be compelled to withdraw Article 7 from the warrant before Town Meeting to ensure that the land in question has been legally “cleared” by the state for such development before asking residents to appropriate funds to do so.

Fran Cress
Longmeadow