DEERFIELD – The Deerfield Conservation Commission has operated with five members for much of the past 33 years. But it shouldn’t have, according to the town.
According to a prepared explanation read aloud by Selectboard member Trevor McDaniel, research has uncovered that the town bypassed Town Meeting approval in 1985 and added two people to the original three-member commission. It has since reduced its membership, but there is now an opportunity to correct this action and add two members, so that’s what the town plans to do.
A motion to raise the commission’s membership to five is on the warrant for the special town meeting slated for Dec. 3. It is one of five articles on the warrant.
Adoption of another article would transfer from free cash $22,000 “to pay for additional landfill wells and monitoring related to regulatory requirements.” McDaniel said this sum is in response to monitoring and testing results at the town’s capped landfill. He said the state Department of Environmental Protection requires additional well installation and other improvements at the site.
At the Selectboard meeting on Oct. 24, Town Administrator Wendy Foxmyn asked Public Works Superintendent Kevin Scarborough if $22,000 was enough and he said it should be.
“Long story short, we’ve got two small depressions on the backside. We’ve filled them in in the past. It’s depressed again,” Scarborough said. “According to their regulations, you’re not allowed to have any depressions on your capped landfill that has the capability of withstanding, or holding, water.”
Scarborough also said ground material was stockpiled when his department was milling Lee Road and it plans to utilize the material to make roadway to the backside of the site.
“We put together a plan, and the theory is to go ahead and run the roadway near the backside along … the wood line on the west side of the capped landfill, which is right next to where the depressions are. It would make it very easy to go ahead and repair those depressions, plus at the same time that gives us better access to our monitoring wells,” he explained. “That way, in the wintertime, when they have to go out and do their monitoring, they’re not trudging through the snow, they actually got a roadway they can go to.”
Another article asks voters if they will raise and appropriate $30,000 for a town buildings study. A prepared explanation read by McDaniel stated the town Selectboard and Capital Planning Committee have determined the study to be critical for long-term program and capital project planning and to assist the newly formed town buildings advisory committee in deliberations. This money would be added to the $25,000 appropriated at the annual Town Meeting in April for a study of the congregational church donated to the town.
Foxymn said Sunderland spent $35,000 on similar work.
The special town meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. in the main meeting room of the Deerfield Municipal Building at 8 Conway St.
It was originally scheduled for Nov. 15 but had to be postponed because its notice incorrectly listed the meeting as scheduled for a Monday, when Nov. 15 was actually a Thursday. Also, the notice was also not sent to The Recorder for publication, which is required by town bylaws. Dec. 3 is a Monday.
Reach DomenicPoli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262.