Defend our fire fighters and our voters!

VOTE NO on the Charter Amendments at the Special Town Meeting this Tuesday. They are warrant articles 7, 8, & 13.

Each of the three charter amendments proposed and approved for consideration at this Tuesday’s Special Town Meeting (7pm @ LHS) by the Longmeadow Select Board would make profound changes to our town’s form of government, our constitution, our charter. Each one would also increase the power of the Town Manager and the Select Board and decrease the power of residents to influence local government decisions.

These amendments deserve to be rejected on two distinct fronts; process and content. The process by which they are being put forward amounts to an assault (sneak-attack really) on transparency in government and the integrity of our form of government. The actual content of each amendment not only reduces transparency, but also flatly reduces the power of residents to question the policies of the town government.

To date, NONE of these significant changes to our town’s form of government have been publicly debated. Articles 7 and 8 would completely eliminate the referendum process - the ONLY vehicle for residents to challenge the votes of town meetings - and reduce the Select Board’s obligation to inform the public in a timely way prior to town meetings. Today is October 22nd. The Town Meeting is in 5 days. The only information available to residents on these very significant changes to our form of government are the one-liners that the Select Board is required by law to include with each Article on the warrant. When pressed on this failure to give residents a real opportunity to participate knowledgably in these very important decisions, members of the Select Board have actually said that the board is not legally required to allow the public to participate in these deliberations until the actual town meeting. In other words, they can avoid any public accountability for these sweeping changes until 7pm on October 27th when residents will have a couple of minutes each to argue with them under strict rules of debate. When public officials defend their failure to facilitate meaningful public involvement in sweeping proposals for change by saying that they “haven’t broken any laws,” something is very, very wrong.

The only opportunity for public comment granted by the Select Board, which involved only one of these amendments (Article 13), was an October 7th “Public Forum” at which residents were warned that the event would not be a debate or negotiation. The members of the Select Board present made it clear that they merely wanted the public’s comments on the one amendment, Article 13 (which they already approved and put on the STM Warrant) and would refuse to answer any questions on any subject they deemed outside the parameters of the Article 13 proposed amendment. Ironically, they also refused to answer many questions that were about the Article 13 amendment because they deemed the questions “inappropriate for public discussion.” Among the questions they refused to answer was my question about the content of the other two amendments, which had yet to even be revealed to the public. Additionally, my request for the citations of the “scientific” studies that the board claimed were “the entire basis” for their proposal to take away our fire fighters’ ability to participate in determining their own work schedules was ignored. Based on the board’s 15 minute presentation of this “scientific” evidence, it is clear that members did not properly understand the data on which they were relying.

Having tried to justify Article 13 with spurious data that they refused to make available to residents, the Select Board’s only other effort to inform residents of their proposed amendments are the very brief “summary explanations” included under each proposal on the STM Warrant itself. Which, given their minimalist approach to transparency in government, were probably included only because the law requires it. To justify the elimination of residents’ ability to challenge Town Meeting decisions (Article 7) the Select Board’s entire public argument to date is as follows: “By deleting this section, the Town gains more time for budget deliberations and to enable the annual election to be conducted before the end of the school year.” In addition to being ridiculously brief, this explanation doesn’t even make sense. Eliminating a fundamental element of our democratic form of government for what the board admits are reasons of convenience at best is unconscionable. This Tuesday, concerned residents need to declare it unacceptable as well.

The reduction of required public notice of warrants (Article 8) is accompanied by the following justification: “By adopting these changes, Town officials will have additional time for budget deliberations and can provide more complete information to town meeting. It takes more than two weeks to prepare a warrant after the closing date, and the warrant must be to the printer three weeks before the publication date, so information may be more than six weeks out of date when delivered to the voters.” This explicitly gives the TM and SB “more time.” To obscure the fact that it will correspondingly give residents less time, the SB claims this change will result in “more complete information” at Town Meeting. There are at least two problems with this. First, they have obviously obscured the reduction of public notice intentionally. Second, they have wrongly assumed (or intentionally pretended) that a Town Meeting cannot be given up to date information.

The published “summary explanation” for the proposed amendment (Article 13) that would prevent fire fighters from converting to a shift schedule considered safe and effective by 75% of the fire departments in Massachusetts was as follows: This will limit regular employee shifts to a maximum of 14 hours, in order to prevent fatigue and adverse effects of fatigue. It is clear that the Select Board’s claim to have “thoroughly researched” this issue by reviewing vast amounts of “scientific data” was exaggerated, to say the least. Unfortunately, their “exhaustive” study did not include ONE SINGLE SCIENTIFIC STUDY that declared, or even implied, that 24 hour shifts, which have shown to be safe and effective all over the country and have been in use in our state for more than 10 years, would reduce the effectiveness of fire fighters or endanger public safety. In fact, the counter-argument that our fire fighters current shift schedule (10 and 14 hour shifts), which the Select Board wants to set in stone in by amending our town’s constitutional instrument, appears to be MORE likely to endanger public safety. For a clear articulation of this argument I would refer you to an essay by a town resident who initially favored the amendment and who, upon closer inspection, now opposes it. Go to Jim Moran’s post “Is the 24-hour shift safety issue a red herring?”

The Select Board’s position on the Article 13 amendment is particularly troubling. They are wrong on the science, wrong on the policy, wrong on the process, and wrong on the law. Amazingly, the board admits this last point. They have admitted to having chosen the charter as a vehicle for this proposed policy change because all efforts to accomplish this by ordinance – undertaken to weaken fire fighters’ collective bargaining rights in the eastern part of the state- have been thrown out by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court as violations of state law. Trying to accomplish this policy change through the charter is a sort of legal “Hail Mary” pass, the enormous litigation costs of which will be paid by Longmeadow tax payers.

VOTE NO
on the
CHARTER AMENDMENTS (ARTICLES 7, 8, &13)
at the
SPECIAL TOWN MEETING
at
LONGMEADOW H.S.-7:00pm- THIS TUESDAY, OCT. 27th


Authored by Longmeadow Resident:

Jerold J. Duquette, M.P.A., Ph.D
Associate Professor of Political Science/Public Administration
Central Connecticut State University
www.jeroldduquette.org

Tough Times Ahead!

I attended the Longmeadow Tri-Board Meeting this past Monday (October 19) to get an appreciation of the current financial situation facing our town in FY2010 and FY2011. The overall message was that things were going to get much more difficult before they get better.

Note: The Tri-Board consists of the Select Board, School Committee and Finance Committee which provide most of the financial guidance for our town.

Here are some of the key numbers that were shared for FY2010 and FY2011….

• There are continuing reductions in state aid for FY2010- not all of which have been identified but there is a high likelihood that the town will receive less state aid money than originally expected. All available free cash including that used at the April town meeting (total = $1.43 million) will be used at the upcoming Special Town Meeting on October 27 to help balance the current FY2010 budget. With an estimated additional 3.5% shortfall in state local aid, there is a projected $197,000 deficit for the FY2010 budget which will likely be balanced by use of the monies from the Operational Stabilization Fund. The actual FY2010 cut to local aid is unknown at this time.
  
  
• Longmeadow faces a projected $2.1 million deficit in FY2011. This projection includes an estimated additional 10% cut in state aid vs. FY2010 projection but does not include any COLA’s for teachers, firefighters, police and other town employees. There are currently 6 town employee unions actively engaged in the collective bargaining process with the town of Longmeadow, as well as the school unions negotiating with the School Committee. Contracts for these groups expired earlier this year. Earlier estimates by Paul Pastercyzk- Longmeadow Finance Director indicated that for every 1% increase in COLA there would be an additional $300,000 in annual costs.
  
  
• There is currently ~ $2.2 million in the Operational Stabilization Fund. This was originally targeted to be 5% of the annual budget and was created as a “rainy day” fund. Rating agencies look at this account in order to rate municipal bonds which determines interest rates. If the new high school project is passed next spring, it will likely be one of the factors determining the interest rate on our bonds.
  
  
• There is ~ $2.5 million in special accounts including Community Preservation Act and ambulance reserve funds. Many of these accounts have defined purposes and cannot be used for ordinary operating expenses. There was general agreement that all of these accounts need to be identified including possible uses. Some of the monies in these accounts are already being used to pay for indirect costs. There was a continuing discussion from earlier this year to use available CPA monies to refurbish the historic exterior of Center School.

The Tri-Board spent a large portion of the meeting trying to figure out how to meet the financial challenges for the FY2011 budget. The Select Board must provide budget instructions before December 1 to the Town Manager who is responsible for developing the Town Budget.

Here are some of the questions (+ follow-up discussion) that were asked during this portion of the meeting.

1. What is the definition of a balanced budget?
2. Will reserves be used and if so, how much?
3. Does a FY11 budget include provisions for collective bargaining agreement costs? If not, is it a balanced budget?
4. Is the budget based on level services? Or level $ budget?
   
   
5. If town/ school services are to be cut, how should the priorities established?
   After some discussion, there was some general agreement that prioritization of services should be set by the individual groups (Select Board- town services, School Committee, school related services). Roger Wojcik, member of the Finance Committee, suggested that town residents should be allowed to weigh in on the prioritization of town services. There was no proposal as to how that might happen.
   
   
6. What should be the level of capital spending?
   In order to help balance the FY10, targeted capital spending was reduced from a targeted $1 million (~ 2% of annual operating budget) to $681,000. The projected FY11 capital budget maintains the spending level at $681,000.
   
   
7. How about the solid waste subsidy (~ $761K in FY10)? Should the town consider imposing a user fee for curbside trash removal? How about increasing water/ sewer fees?
   A number of Tri-Board members voiced opposition to increasing trash/ water/ sewer user fees as an means to balance the budget because it is simply an additional tax on homeowners. In addition, it would shift the homeowner payment from a deductible tax to a non-deductible user fee.
   
   
8. How much of the Operational Stabilization Fund should be used to balance the FY11 budget?
   There was serious concern voiced by a number of Tri-Board members that the Town should be careful about “spending down” the Operational Stabilization Fund or “rainy day” fund since there are likely to be difficult years ahead in FY12 and FY13 as well. For this reason Finance Committee chairman, Mark Barowsky urged the group to consider developing a 3-4 year financial plan for the town.

Here are some additional highlights…

1. Regionalization of local services is being considered for cost reduction opportunities.
2. Other revenue sources are being developed through ongoing discussions with town departments led by Mark Gold, Select Board member. Some of the ideas being considered include: development of a fee based “dog park” for town residents, signage and advertising in ball parks, hiring of a code enforcement officer, use/sale/rental of town owned property in the Meadows.

Overall, this meeting was a good step forward.

Select Board chairmen Robert Barkett summed it up when he stated at the end of the meeting “there is an extraordinary challenge ahead”.

I just hope that our elected town leaders are up to this challenge.

Some Good News!

Press Release from Longmeadow Select Board

The Longmeadow Select Board voted at its meeting on October 19 to not move forward with Article 13 of the Special Town Meeting, concerning limits on employee work hours. Recent developments have fostered renewed optimism that scheduling issues can be resolved through the collective bargaining process.

Is the “24 hour shift” safety issue a “red herring”?

The first indications that contract negotiations between the Town of Longmeadow and the Firefighters Union were not going very well occurred at the Select Board Meeting on September 22. During the comments period at the beginning of the meeting, Robert Taylor, president of the local Firefighters Union read a strongly worded message charging the Town Manager and the Select Board of not acting in good faith during the ongoing collective bargaining process.

Then, there was the Public Forum on October 7 at Glenbrook Middle School regarding a proposed Special Town Meeting Warrant Article. At this forum the Select Board was seeking public input on the question of public employees working scheduled shifts of greater than 14 hours per day. I attended this public forum and found the discussion to be quite concerning and contentious. The Town Manager and Select Board argued that there were safety concerns for both town residents and firefighters with the move to a longer shift schedule. Firefighter representatives and other speakers argued that the move to a 24 hour shift schedule was being successfully used by 75% of the fire departments in Massachusetts and actually resulted in less sleep deprivation and safety issues as compared to the current shorter duration 10/14 hour shift schedules. Threats of additional lawsuits and additional town charter changes for self interest were made.

A statement made by one of the firefighters’ representatives at the forum confused me.

...The Select Board has already proposed a 24 hour work shift but with a longer work week. How can the Select Board now use the safety issue to argue against 24 hour shifts?

I walked away from the town forum with considerably less conviction about my previous support for the Select Board position. From the tone of the discussion it also sounded like this disagreement was going to be settled in the courts at the expense of us taxpayers. The most surprising thing was that this controversy involved a small group of 21 firefighters whose union in the past has almost been invisible to town residents.

In an effort to better understand this controversy, I spent some time last Saturday night at the Longmeadow Fire Station talking with John Dearborn- a long time firefighter about fire/ medical emergency coverage and long shifts. John convinced me that 2- 24 hour shifts can actually result in less sleep related problems than the current 2-10 hr + 2-14 hour shifts and that the system has built-in mechanisms to monitor fatigue and to adapt to long hours.

Below is a schematic outline of the current schedule….

[click to enlarge chart]

You can see from the above chart that on day 6 of a typical 8 day schedule, a firefighter will get only 10 hours time off between 2- 14 hour night shifts and that time off comes during the day which may make it difficult to get needed rest. John explained to me that going to a 24 hour shift schedule was simply running the 10 hr + 14 hr shifts back-to-back into a 24 hour shift.

A firefighter’s schedule seems a lot more complicated than what I was exposed to during my work career. Occasionally, I did work 24 hour shifts on plant coverage and in most cases it was without “house rest”. My work experience was in large part why I originally supported the Town Manager/ Select Board to change the Town Charter and block the move to 24 hour shift schedules because of safety related concerns.

John Dearborn also shared with me that all affected department members are in favor of the change to a 24 hour schedule.

Here is the red herring question…
Are there additional reasons other than safety for the Town Manager/ Select Board to block by extraordinary means (by changing the Town Charter) the move to a 24 hour shift schedule by the Longmeadow Fire Department?

Unless the Town Manager/ Select Board can provide stronger evidence for the safety related issues regarding longer work hours or identify other reasons, I would urge town voters to attend the upcoming Special Town Meeting on October 27 and vote NO on Article 13.

In addition, I would encourage both the Town Manager/ Select Board and Firefighters Union to return to the collective bargaining process where this type of issue should be resolved and not allow it to move to the courtroom wherein our taxpayer money would be spent in a less than desirable manner.

Select Board Seeks to Remove Safety Valve

From the looks of the Town Meeting warrant, the Select Board seeks to make some major changes to the freedoms currently afforded to the public:

Article 6: Change the date of the Annual Town Meeting to an unspecified date to be set by the Select Board.

Article 7: REMOVE the ENTIRE Referendum Procedure from the Town Charter.

The Referendum is a little-used procedure. It is a safeguard. It states, in part: "No final vote of a town meeting on any warrant article, except:(...); shall take effect until after five days from the dissolution of the town meeting. If a petition seeking a referendum vote on any article is not filed with the select board within the said five days, the votes of the town meeting shall then take effect."

What does it mean? If Town Meeting voted to institute Stupid Bylaw X, then 3% of the voters could petition to have that decision placed on an election ballot. Then, if voters who voted at an election decide to scrap Stupid Bylaw X, they can. If they want to keep it, they can.

Without that referendum procedure however, the Select Board removes a valuable and much requested check & balance. As Clerk of the Charter Commission, I kept detailed notes on our deliberations. Among them include the following.

"Charter Commissioners noted that the number [of Petitioners required to start the Referendum] needs to be high enough to prevent abuse, yet low enough as to be attainable should Town Meeting vastly underestimate the will of the non-attending public" (10-29-03)

Two members "expressed concern that the town voters might use the opportunity to reconsider Town Meeting decisions at the ballot box too frequently." (3-9-04; see also 12-17-03). Clearly that has not happened.

Others called it a "safety valve" (10-29-03, 11-5-03, 12-17-03 )

"Reasons for including the referendum in the charter: no one at the hearings indicated that they disliked this procedure; they were asking questions to clarify it because it is something new. Since Massachusetts General Law requires Special Town Meetings be held if only 200 voters petition for one, the town needs a different safety valve that allows for more people to vote, even with absentee ballots. Special Town Meetings do not allow for absentee ballots. The Referendum procedure is in place to “compete” with, or serve as an alternative to, Special Town Meetings. If the town tried to live with this provision for a few years and decided that it doesn’t work as anticipated, the town could remove this provision" (12-17-03, emphasis mine).

How common are referendum procedures elsewhere? "Marilyn Contreas (Senior Policy Analyst for the Dept. of Housing and Community Development) ...said that they are very prevalent." (11-12-03, emphasis mine)

"It is the ultimate check on a town meeting run amok" (7-23-03, emphasis mine).

SO WHY does the Select Board want to REMOVE this important right of the people?

According to the warrant, "By deleting this section, the Town gains more time for budget deliberations and to enable the annual election to be conducted before the end of the school year."

This is NOT a good reason, since nothing in the referendum procedure prohibits the election from happening before the end of the school year. Referendum elections may be held as special elections or as part of a general election. No law requires them to be held with a general election. Town leaders have connected the one time a referendum was used with a general election, but that was a choice, not a requirement. The Select Board's reasoning attacks a problem with the wrong weapon.

The Charter Commission set the date of Town Meeting for "the last Tuesday in April"....Perhaps the Select Board would like to have Elections come AFTER Town Meeting, so they cannot be held accountable by the voters for their actions/inactions at Town Meeting?

Who knows....what does matter however, is that the Select Board would like to take away a hard-won right of the people to protest stupid decisions that do not represent the voters.

In addition to Articles 6 and 7, Article 8 also aims to gut the Charter's protections for access to information. By cutting in half the time requirements for descriptions of items on the warrant, the Select Board shortens the public's time to review the items they will vote on.

What to do? Well, voting NO on these articles SAVES our freedoms.






Respectfully submitted,
Rebecca M. Townsend