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The Annual Town Meeting will be held at Longmeadow High School on Tuesday, May 10, 2022 at 7:00 p.m.
2021 Annual Town Meeting
Moderator's Declaration of Relocation
UPDATE Special Fall Town Meeting
Town of
Longmeadow, Massachusetts
20 Williams Street, Longmeadow, MA 01106
Tel. (413) 565-4110 l Fax (413) 565-4112
For Immediate Release: December 9, 2020
Longmeadow Special Town Meeting Convened and Dissolved
LONGMEADOW (Dec. 9, 2020) – At the Special Town Meeting held at 8:00AM today at the Greenwood Center Parking Lot, 13 voters voted unanimously in favor of a motion, as an emergency measure for the immediate preservation of peace, health, safety or convenience of the town, to take no action on articles 1-23, by consent. This was followed immediately by a motion to dissolve the Special Town Meeting, which also was unanimously approved. The meeting lasted one minute. The Select Board anticipates taking these articles up in the Annual 2021 Town Meeting.
Longmeadow occasionally holds special meetings in the fall; not every town has a fall town meeting; some roll those issues into the annual meeting. The Special Town Meeting was set for Oct. 27. When cases of COVID-19 began to rise in Longmeadow, the Moderator consulted with public health and safety officials, the Select Board, and Town Manager, and issued a Declaration of Recess and Continuance for 30 days (the maximum the law allows) and observed in it that as long as COVID remained an increasing threat, she did not anticipate holding any meetings when they could not be held safely. The Finance Director and Town Manager deemed nothing on the warrant was to be critical. Another Declaration was issued, indicating more were likely to come given the public health crisis.
On November 18, the Massachusetts Department of Revenue informed Longmeadow Select Board/Town Manager’s office that they would not certify our Town’s tax rate while a town meeting with financial articles was pending. The Moderator and Town Manager sought every avenue to address this situation. Ultimately, however, the only viable option open would be to convene and dissolve the Special Town Meeting.
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health strongly recommended that select boards and moderators choose to lower quorums if they must have a town meeting. Concerned that the quorum for our meetings is 50, and concerned that voters had every reasonable expectation, given the previous declarations, that the town would not be gathering people together to deliberate and vote on these issues, the Moderator worked with the Town Manager and Select Board to reach a compromise proposal to reduce the quorum for this meeting and “take no action” on all articles. The Finance Committee unanimously approved this approach. The Planning Board unanimously voted to continue their hearing on zoning articles, meaning no motions to take action on those articles would be legal.
The Moderator adds that “The legislative branch and the executive branch of our local government cooperated to solve a technical problem in a way that did not endanger citizens and preserved their rights to deliberate and vote when it is safer to do so. I am grateful that citizens understood the challenges we faced and did what was necessary to preserve public health. The trust demonstrated in the efforts today is heartening. It’s a challenging time, and I am grateful to our town for rising to this challenge. Please, continue to stay safe, and have a peaceful holiday season.”
Town residents should continue with physical distancing and mask-wearing. Officials will begin planning for the 2021 Annual Town Meeting (to be set for late spring) in January. Longmeadow voters who have questions about town meeting may contact the Moderator at rtownsend@longmeadow.org.
Full copy of press release available here.
3rd REVISED Declaration of Recess and Continuance
The Fall Special Town Meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 27, 2020. The warrant has closed and a copy is available here. There are 23 warrant articles including 2 citizen petitions.
The Fall Special Town Meeting will be held at Longmeadow High School and begins at 7PM. A mask will be required to attend and socially distanced seating will be provided. For a full listing of all rules of procedure for this meeting please click here.
Annual Town Meeting was held Tuesday, June 23, 2020 at 6:00 PM
*A consent agenda is a grouping of articles together under one motion in order to save time in a meeting. When a motion to approve several articles as a consent agenda is made and seconded, the Moderator will call out the article numbers in the proposal. Any voter who wants to consider an article separately will call out “hold,” and the Moderator will remove that article from the consent agenda. Voting will proceed for the motion to approve (or reject) all the articles in the group.
Recommendations & Presentations at Town Meeting
Finance Committee -
- The Finance Committee voted to approve all of the Articles that were previously listed as "Recommendation to be given on the floor of Town Meeting"
- The Finance Committee voted to Recommend Article 14.
- The Finance Committee voted to recommend the budget Article 13, with the explicit understanding that the budget figure would immediately be Amended on the Floor by the Select Board after its reading. Finance Committee’s recommendation on the budget Article 13 will be made after the Amendment is made.
- Finance Committee voted not to recommend Article 30, dealing with CPC funding for a study for a skate park.
"The Finance Committee does not recommend Article 30.
The Finance Committee voted against recommending this article for a number of reasons. First, this expenditure represented the first step in installing a new facility, the expense of which would far exceed the price of the study itself. Second, this would be a brand new facility which would incur a brand new maintenance obligation and ongoing maintenance expenses, rather than the repair or improvement of an existing facility. Finally, the feeling of the majority of members was that unlike the team sport facilities in town, this proposed skate park would represent a niche interest, serving a relatively small number of patrons, too small to justify the expense of installing the facility."
Budget Presentation by Town Manager
Citizen Petition
Article 36 & 37 related to bylaw changes for the installation of ground-mount solar panels on the side or front of a home. Supporting documentation
Educational Videos for the May 10, 2022 Town Meeting
2022 Annual Town Meeting Staff Recognition List
Assessor's Office - Jessica Guerra
Building Dept. Beverly Rose (passed away this year), and Stephen Sclipou
Council on Aging - Patricia Devoto
Dept. of Public Works - Fred Roberts, Bruce Covalli, Wayne Buck, Stephanie Dupont, Karen Shirk, Geoffrey McAlmond, Peter Thurber, Paul Butcher, Jeff McCauley, Frank Harvey, Dominik Bieniasz, Greg Joanides, Kevin Lizak, and Rich Mastrianni
Finance Director. - Paul Pasterczyk
Parks and Recreation - Shameka Drummer
Richard Salter Storrs Library - Christine George, Kat Janeczek, and Rebecca Vitkauskas
Town Clerk and Treasurer / Collector's Office - Stephanie Cummings
School Dept.
Bronwyn Monahan
Susan Bell
Lori Paolucci
Mary Ellen Dillon
Colleen Santaniello
Antrese McColgan
Lesli Pechulis
Maria Skala
Karen Stark
Karen Omartian
Kelly Budjnicki
Paul Dunkerley
Jennifer Lynch
Robert Belmer
Lori Gallerani
Betty Higham
Kerri Lockhart
Kathleen Whitney
Sally Ginsburg
Neilda Henke
Carol Daigle
Lyn Szostkiewicz
Autumn Rodriguez
Christine Fontaine
Angelique Schoorens
Allison Stitsinger
Martin Bobwiec
Nicholas Jorge
Jamie Lacourciere Fonseca
Kelleen Batchelor
Rachael Campos
Carol Dinn Robinson
Tracy Kelley
Karen Auerbach
Brittany Belkin
Christina Milanczuk
Sara Jasak
Megan Smith
Louis Fialho
Elizabeth Monopoli
Rikki-Ann Parrott
Genilson Rodrigues Costa
Mary Walsh
Paul Giguere
Olivia Minardi
Whitney Shortt
For Immediate Release: May 9, 2022
Enhanced Safety Measures at Longmeadow’s Annual Town Meeting to Mitigate COVID-19
LONGMEADOW (May 9, 2022) – The Longmeadow Annual Town Meeting is set for tomorrow, Tuesday, May 10, 2022 beginning at 7PM at Longmeadow High School.
First and foremost, the Town and Town Officials want to acknowledge the grief our community is feeling from the loss of a young-adult resident over the weekend. Our hearts are all heavy and our thoughts are with the family, friends and the entire Longmeadow High School community.
Town officials would also like to take this opportunity to remind all residents that the COVID-19 virus is still active in our Town. While Longmeadow has one of the highest vaccination rates in the Commonwealth, we must also continue to be vigilant in our public health measures to mitigate the spread.
For tomorrow’s Annual Town Meeting the following additional public health measures will be in place:
- The Board of Health strongly encourages that masks be worn at the meeting.
- A kiosk will be set up at the main entrance where surgical masks will be handed out.
- The gymnasium will be set with half of the seating maintaining physical distancing. The other half will have the "normal" configuration.
- Additional ventilation fans have been added, these will be setup to increase air flow in the gym and surrounding interior.
- Doors will be opened to introduce more fresh air.
- The HVAC system will be turned up to move more air than the normal setting.
- The air scrubbers on the HVAC system will be activated.
- Stanchions and "rope lines" will be used to control voting access for entrance and egress
All participants play a role in keeping the community safe. We will be using consent agendas at the start of the meeting to help the meeting focus on what it deems most important for deliberation and electronic voting to ensure quick, private ballot counts for every motion. Town officials look forward to a safe and productive meeting.
Contact the Town Moderator
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Rebecca Townsend
Town Moderator
Email: rtownsend@longmeadow.org
Thank you for reading this information. Anyone with questions about the meeting is welcome to contact Moderator Rebecca Townsend at rtownsend@longmeadow.org. Our work may be physically distant, but it’s inherently social. Our community has faced great trials before, and we shall similarly face this one with as much wisdom about what will permit safety for our democratic traditions to continue.