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Montague’s Special Town Meeting on Tuesday was attended by 79 members. -
Town officials at Montague’s Special Town Meeting on Tuesday. -
Town Administrator Steve Ellis sorts through meeting materials at Montague’s Special Town Meeting on Tuesday. -
Town Meeting member Ella Ingraham speaks at Montague’s Special Town Meeting on Tuesday.
MONTAGUE — Although there was no shortage of discussion during Tuesday’s Special Town Meeting, all 16 warrant articles were passed unanimously by the 79 Town Meeting members in attendance.
Tuesday’s meeting, which began shortly after 6:30 p.m. in the Turners Falls High School auditorium, lasted about two hours. Among the 16 items discussed were improvements to Montague Center Park and the funding of professional consulting services to conduct analysis and reporting in support of collections system regulatory compliance, and for the development of updated local sewer regulations.
Approval of Article 8 appropriated $500,000 from the Capital Stabilization Fund for upgrades at Montague Center Park.
The project, considered a priority in both Montague’s Community Development Strategy and Open Space and Recreation Plan, was first discussed at a public meeting hosted by the Recreation Department in 2017. A project committee that later formed enlisted the Conway School of Landscape Design to facilitate a master planning process. The students completed a conceptual design in spring 2019 after meeting with the project committee and hosting a series of public workshops. The plan, presented at a public discussion in April 2022, includes baseball field improvements; a relocated, covered picnic area; additional seating; a walking path; a pollinator garden; new trees along School Street; a new shed; a parking lot; and a renovated playground with new play structures.
While summarizing the project at Tuesday’s meeting, Parks and Recreation Director Jon Dobosz noted that the park — particularly the playground — is “rarely used by the community.” Those in attendance concurred, responding with sentiments centered around making Montague Center more enjoyable for its youngest residents.
“A lot of us elders are going to be moving on and selling homes, and we want this neighborhood to be attractive to families to raise their children,” resident Ariel Elan said. “A really nice park certainly helps.”
While the town is currently looking to appropriate $500,000 toward the project, in July, it applied for a fiscal year 2024 Parkland Acquisition and Renovations for Communities (PARC) grant to help fund design and construction. The PARC grant is a reimbursement grant where communities must appropriate the total project cost and will be reimbursed based on their “community reimbursement rate,” which for Montague is 68%. The Recreation Department applied for $500,000 for Montague Center Park upgrades, which will include design in FY24 and construction for FY25. If awarded, the town would be responsible for $160,000 of the project costs.
Dobosz said Tuesday that the town could learn by the holiday season whether it received an award. Prompted by interest from residents in attendance, he confirmed his intentions to pursue installation of a new parking lot, conditional to Montague receiving grant funding.
Approval of Article 14 appropriated $99,900 to fund professional consulting services to conduct analysis and reporting in support of collections system regulatory compliance, and for the development of updated town sewer regulations.
“We are, by necessity, making a number of different investments to ensure that we are wholly compliant with all regulations and we are intending to work on the maintenance of our Clean Water Facility, our pump stations and our collection systems in a proactive fashion,” Town Administrator Steve Ellis said.
He continued by explaining the town received a letter of noncompliance from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in May, which “defined a rather broad set of requirements that they would like to see as enhancements to the reporting that Montague is doing.”
The Selectboard initially recommended that services be funded with Clean Water Facility Retained Earnings, a prospect that two of seven Finance Committee members opted not to recommend.
“The Selectboard, in consideration of a conversation the Finance Committee had subsequent to that 5-2 vote, actually moved to change the source to free cash,” Ellis continued, adding that this would leave the town with about half a million dollars heading into the next fiscal year, “which is a strong, typical position for our town to be in.”
While the article was eventually approved unanimously, discussion spanned about 35 minutes, due to both clarifying discussion and expressions of concern from Town Meeting members. One such member was Francia Wisnewski, who revealed that she was also one of the two dissenting voters on the Finance Committee.
Wisnewski said she later rescinded her “no” recommendation upon the change of the proposed funding source, but she still maintains concerns. She described a lack of clarity as to which departments are responsible for collections system reporting to the DEP, and which responsibilities each department is responsible for.
“Those reports originally used to be done [by the Clean Water Facility] back when it was the Water Pollution Control Facility,” Ellis later clarified. “Ownership and responsibility for … all collection system reports that do not involve the pump stations or the treatment facility are now in the purview of the DPW.”
Wisnewski also described having a “hard time” rationalizing why the town would pay so much money to outsource an engineering firm when perhaps the Department of Public Works could perform the necessary services.
“We want this consultant to do that work for us and establish a model,” Ellis said. He noted separately that Montague would not have the technical savvy to remedy related issues if the article weren’t to pass. “I’m actually quite optimistic that once we have that model and we can just plug-and-play numbers into this component of it, that this is something we can maintain ourselves in the future.”
Other approved articles involved allowing the town to take ownership of the former Farren Care Center property, allowing longevity payments for personnel, increasing the cost-of-living adjustment base for Montague Contributory Retirement System retirees from $18,000 to $30,000, and appropriating $12,885.56 to increase the Opioid Settlement Stabilization Fund.
Reach Julian Mendoza at 413-930-4231 or jmendoza@recorder.com.