Smoke Detector Safety Tips

Lt. Jay Macsata with the Longmeadow Fire Department shares smoke detector safety tips on WWLP video.

Longmeadow Police Log

One of the many things that my wife and I value in Longmeadow is the relative tranquity of its neighborhoods and the lack of serious crime that plagues larger cities like Holyoke and Springfield.

After reading the Police Log which is published in the Longmeadow News each week, I had to chuckle at some of the items that appeared during the past three weeks. According to the Longmeadow News there were a total of 600 calls for service and here are some of the highlights...

Monday, June 1- 12 pm, A dead turtle was reported on Longmeadow St
Tuesday, June 2
1:07 am, A minivan with males looking through the trash was investigated on Plesantview Ave and Longmeadow St
9:43 pm, A dead possum was reported on Frank Smith Rd
Wednesday, June 3-
6:34 am, A Lawnwood resident reported rabbits running loose in the neighborhood.
Thursday, June 4- 10:54 am, Campaign signs reported on public property on Williams St and Dwight Rd
Saturday, June 6
9:35 pm, A Wildwood Glen caller reports males in the bushes. An officer reports a man in the yard with his dog.
10:24 pm, An officer investigating suspicious persons in the meadows found a couple fishing.
Sunday, June 7
1:02 pm, A Kenmore Drive resident reports a neighbor walking around in the nude in the backyard.
8:07 pm, A suspicious man was reported on Longmeadow St. The man was riding his bike home.
Tuesday, June 9- 6:20 am, A deer was struck by a vehicle on Converse St but was gone on police arrival.
Thursday, June 11- 4:35 pm, A caller reports and out of control 12 year old son on Field Road.
Friday, June 12
12:26 pm, A Mayfair Drive resident reports receiving a fake check in the mail.
11:50 pm, A Williams Street caller reports a daughter not home or answering her cell phone. She left her boy friend's house and was found on Crestview.
Satuday, June 13- 9:26 am, A Meadow Road caller reports a German shepherd in the garage,
Sunday, June 14- 11:42 am, A coyote was reported on Tabor Crossing
Wednesday, June 17- 6:43 pm, A dead rodent was reported on Frank Smith Road
Sunday, June 21- 6:10 pm, Police reported to call about a hawk on Laurel Street that was possibly shot. The hawk was not shot and does not have a band.

From the details of some of these calls it would appear that we need to hire a Wildlife Officer and let our Police Department concentrate on more serious matters. :-)

Tigers Capture the Longmeadow A.L. Title!

The Tigers of the Longmeadow Little League's American League fought off a tough Mariners team on Saturday at Strople Field to complete a dream season. The 2008 Tigers finished in last place and this year, with many returning veterans,the Tigers finished first in the 2009 regular season and rode its #1 tournament seeding to three straight playoff wins and a league championship.

The only team in the league that defeated the mighty Tigers this season was the Orioles, who actually did it twice during the regular season. Luckily, the Tigers broke the Orioles' code in the final regular season contest to lock up the number one seed and defeated them decisively in their playoff matchup.

The Tiger front office is eager to keep this squad together for next year. No doubt, the National League coaches will be swarming, but the Tigers coaching staff has high hopes of re-signing its veterans. When asked if he intended to pursue free agency after this season Tiger slugger Jeff Mueller replied,"I like ice cream." After his spectacular catch at a pivotal point in the championship game, Tiger outfielder Chris Scheidecker will no doubt be fielding many endorsement offers. Thankfully, the Tigers have an option on his contract for next year.

Tag Sale Addicts

This morning's Springfield Republican insert contained an interesting article by Maureen Sullivan about local tag sales. For those of you who do not normally engage in this Friday/ Saturday (and sometimes Sunday) hunt for treasure, you might be surprised at the number of people that do it.

Tag sales are a seasonal event starting in early May when the weather turns warmer and ending in late October when leaf raking and colder weather return.

For the past four years, I have been posting FREE tag sale listings on the LongmeadowBiz website and introduced a feature called Tag Sale Map Locator to make the journey easier. It is a map of Longmeadow with all of the upcoming tag sales marked and day coded (Fri/Sat/Sun).

This Saturday (tomorrow) has an abundance of tag sales (12 different ones) in Longmeadow. Many diehard "tagsalers" create their own map so I usually take some time handing out the free computer generated tag sale maps in an effort to teach these "diehard" addicts. Don't count on me being there to give you one. Take the time now to print your own copy!

Don't forget.... we usually have the most complete list of tag sales.

Check the new listings every week (usually posted by Thursday night) and if you are planning to have your own tag sale, submit your free listing (and save the cost of advertising in The Reminder or Springfield Newspaper!).

What's the best mix for Longmeadow?

In my opinion, our present situation, in which we behave as individualistic citizens within a form of government designed for communal notions of citizenship, is contributing to ugly local politics and public cynicism. If consistency between form and function is too unrealistic, maybe efforts to transform our town's politics from our present inconsistency to another less destructive one would be more realistic.

Maybe we'd be better off with a form of government designed to provide "public services" in an efficient and professional manner that is consistent with our dominant behavioral assumptions (i.e. that taxpayers should get a fair deal), and a renewed townwide commitment to encouraging citizens to see the town as a family and to be active family members who put the interests of the town family on at least the same plane as the interests of their nuclear family.

I think behaving like communitarians (each citizen considers himself a legitimate policy maker whether or not elected to office) in an individualistic system (professionalized municipal government) may be more productive than the reverse, which is our present condition.

One of the reasons my family left Springfield to come to Longmeadow was that the imposition of the Finance Control Board exacerbated and further legitimized an individualistic-consumer mentality among citizens, reducing community membership to a financial arrangement in which residents come and stay because the city provides a "good deal," and reducing political activism to competitive special interest advocacy. The destructive flip side of this approach is that residents, like consumers, have less incentive to maintain civic (read brand) loyalty when times get tough. Rather, the "rational thing to do" is find a better deal elsewhere. Those who stay, on the other hand, are drawn into a political competition for resources, rather than a deliberative democratic debate about the public interest.

The Duquettes came to Longmeadow because of the schools and because of the opportunity to live in, and even help shape, a community held together by a shared identity and spirit. The opportunity remains, but it requires a renewed commitment by our community's leaders to be more fully realized.

Priorities reveal competing notions of citizenship & community

Our dedicated and talented webmaster, Jim Moran, wrote a post in this space prior to our local election in which he argued for a "balanced" approach to leadership and the distribution of town resources, as well as to the consideration of our town's priorities. The argument was reasonable and fair minded, and it also reveals the dominant notion of Democratic citizenship and community in Longmeadow today.

Despite our founding as a classical democratic community where citizen participation in politics was embedded in our community's institutions and culture, we are now a thoroughly liberal individualistic "community" that expects elected officials to govern in the interests of voters. The classical notion of citizen governance alive at Longmeadow's birth lives on in the laments of the few active members of our community, and more importantly, in our form of government - the town meeting. Unfortunately, the present incompatibility between our operational theory of citizenship and our form of government has caused considerable harm our politics. Frustrated by (and unaware of) the conflict between our behavioral and theoretical assumptions about community and citizenship, many townspeople become angry and bitter. The result is more acrimony in our politics and more townspeople opting out of politics to avoid the bickering. This leaves us often with the worst of both worlds; elite participants operating in a system designed for mass participation. One need only look at the Masslive Longmeadow forum to see how this arrangement deranges the perceptions of some residents.

Longmeadow's politics has too often been reduced to a competition for scarce resources; a competition that pits different constituencies in town against each other. The most enduring rift seems to be between those for whom our schools are most important, central to our town's character and identity, and those for whom our schools are important, but no more so than other town "services." Our language clearly illustrates both this division and the reigning individualistic assumption that this dispute requires "balance" and a "fair distribution" of resources between "competing priorities/interests." We talk about the "town-side and the schools-side. We seem to agree that notions of our town's priorities should be clearly articulated by leaders and should be funded according to their order of priority. These linguistic themes are treated as common sense and we are thus thoroughly entrenched in a liberal individualist political culture, without any consciousness of how this liberal approach clashes with our participatory governing institutions and communitarian aspirations.

If the people of Longmeadow wish to live in a liberal-individualistic political community that sees politics as a competition for resources between disparate visions of the public interest ("ambition v. ambition") it can and should do so, but it cannot continue to be operationally Madisonian and institutionally and rhetorically Tocquevillian. Either we must change our institutions and expectations to fit our present liberal-individualistic behavior, or we must seek to re-invigorate the more communitarian notions of democratic citizenship and community upon which our town was founded and our form of government was designed.

Should we define the public interest of our town the way every place else seems to in America, as the result of compromise between competing and distinct interests? Or, should we try to re-build the notion of citizenship and community that made Longmeadow distinct from other places; a notion of community in which members equate their self interest with that of the community, much like family members. An effort to revive "self interest rightly understood" would be my personal preference because, among other things, it would help mitigate the disconnect between the standards by which we judge politics in our town and the institutions and procedures through which we conduct it.

Election Day is Tuesday, June 9

This will be a very important town election for Longmeadow.

The voters of Longmeadow will be electing the leadership for the executive branch of our town government. They will be choosing 3 of the 5 members of the Select Board. In addition, there will be the election of a new member of the Longmeadow School Committee.

If you have been reading the "Buzz", you know that the financial crisis that has affected the rest of the world has had a direct impact on Longmeadow. The town's revenue sources have decreased significantly while at the same time the cost of operating our schools and delivering town services have increased. In addition, the town infrastructure including our schools, DPW facility and equipment, water/sewer systems, etc. are in critical need of repair or replacement. There will be important choices to be made and we will be electing three people who will be key players in the decision making.

Below are my choices for election day. You may not agree with some or all of them.... all I ask is for you to be an informed voter and get out to vote next Tuesday, June 9!

Our town needs balanced leadership!

If you haven't been reading the LongmeadowBuzz blog and following the uncertainties of our town finances, please wake up before it is too late!

There are likely to be some significant shortfalls in town revenues for both the current FY2009 and FY2010. With the expiration of teacher and town employee contracts and no provision for "cost of living" adjustments in the FY2010 budget, the town will likely be dipping into the Operational Stabilization Fund or "rainy day" fund to balance the FY2010 budget.

Because of continuing fiscal problems, there will be a continuing need for elimination/ reduction of additional non-essential town-wide services. Longmeadow has done a significant amount of this in the past (curbside leaf collection, reduced curbside trash, increased High School sports user fees, etc.). There have been recent rumors of closing/relocation of the Greenwood Park/Senior Center as one of the next steps to reduce our spending.

In addition, the School Building Committee is moving on a timeline that may be putting a decision to build a new high school (price tag ~ $50-100 million) on the warrant for next year's annual town meeting.

If I had to personally prioritize town services, I would say that schools are very important but certainly don't rank at the top of the list.... I would rank public safety, fire, police, water supply, sewer and storm drainage before schools. Recent maintenance experience and surveys have shown that our town infrastructure and equipment are in desperate need of repair. You as a homeowner only need to experience a sewer backup or storm drain overflow into your basement one time before you put these services at the top of your personal list.

Election day is next Tuesday, June 9 with three of the Select Board seats being contested . There are two different Select Board elections- four candidates are running for two "three year" seats and two candidates are running for the "one year" seat (vacated by Brian Ashe).

Make sure that you vote for three candidates.

There is also a contest for one school committee seat (one year) with two candidates running. Two other incumbent candidates are running unopposed for the two "three year" seats .

There are a number of other uncontested elections. Here is a link to a complete election ballot.

The next 3-5 years are critical for Longmeadow if we are going to preserve the quality of life that many of us have come to expect. The Select Board race will elect 3 of 5 members- each of whom will play an important role in shaping our town's future. When deciding how to vote, please consider the team makeup of the SelectBoard. It appears obvious that there are polarizing elements in our town that would place schools above all else. We should elect candidates that will bring balance between schools and town services into planning for the future.

If you are going to be out of town and not able to vote on Election Day, pick up an absentee ballot at Town Hall. The deadline for filing absentee ballots is June 8 at 12 noon at the Town Clerk's office in Town Hall. For additional information about absentee ballots, please visit the Town Clerk's Voter Info webpage.

Make sure you get out to vote on election day- June 9.... As we have seen in recent close elections, your vote does count.

Congratulations

to Dan Bausch- one of Longmeadow.org's Around Our Town local photographers. One of his photos was selected for the Cries & Whispers column in today's Republican newspaper.

Dan has been taking photos of local events and happenings and sharing them online since last December.... When you have some time, check out the rest of his photos at Around Our Town on Longmeadow.org..... perhaps you will be in one of them.

In addition to Dan, there have been a couple of other town residents sharing their photos as well. If you have some photos of local interest and are interested in sharing them, simply send them to webmaster@longmeadow.org

Looking for a Choice at Town Meeting?

Longmeadow News- May 14, 2009
[click image to read entire article]

In the May 14, 2009 issue of the Longmeadow News, Mr. Alex Grant wrote in an opinion piece that the voters of Longmeadow were “missing … a choice” in the budget. Mr. Grant wrote that Longmeadow residents “have little choice but to approve the budget presented to them.”

Although Mr. Grant’s observation is correct that the town residents were given but one budget option to either approve or disapprove, I submit that the floor of the town meeting is not the place to write a $52 million budget. What is missing from Mr. Grant’s essay is the fact that the School Committee, the Select Board, and the Finance Committee jointly developed the proposed budget over a period of nearly six months – during which time there were numerous opportunities for public input. By the time of the Town Meeting, residents should expect the budget to be finalized and presented for approval by the residents of the town.

The complexity of the budget, and the requirement that it be balanced, is such that its development by 11,000 town voters, or even 150 town meeting attendees is not practical. The budget is appropriately, in my opinion, prepared by the three committees that are charged with representing the town residents. The members of these committees take into account the needs of the town as well as input from residents. They assure that legal constraints (mandated programs) are financed, and that other statutory requirements are met (such as having a balance between income and expenses).

Once the proposed budget is developed and finalized, what the Town Meeting should do is provide a forum for:

• Those developing the budget to explain what they did and how they made the choices that were made. Options that were considered and rejected could be presented, but a review of six months of budget development would are not needed. Nothing would be served by rehashing at the town meeting each controversy or compromise that took place during the preparation of the budget. The Town Manager’s presentation met these objectives.
  
• Individuals to ask questions regarding the budget process, the bases for decisions that were made, and the budget recommendations.
  
• Individuals and groups with alternate positions on budget items (income or expenditures) to communicate their position and seek support from the town voters acting as the legislative branch of our government. Alternative proposals for additional spending should include either equivalent spending reductions in other line items or a source of income to support the added line expense.

Even with the prior development of the budget, residents still have the option of rejecting the budget on the floor of the town meeting – although I would submit that such action should be accompanied by a clear directive of how the proposed budget should be revised.

Mr. Grant acknowledged that the operating budget presented at this year’s Town Meeting “looked like a reasonable product of tough times and hard choice”. However, I could not disagree more strongly to his other comment that “the 150 residents who attended should be under no illusion that they wielded any significant power at that meeting.” Those 150 people did far more than pass a budget that that had been written, debated, and rewritten over a period of six months; they acted on 33 other articles on the Warrant, several of which had not been subject to that same level of public review over the prior several months. It is most interesting to note, that indeed, many of the articles and motions that failed to gain residents’ support at the town meeting were those that had not been broadly considered prior to the meeting.

The issue that appeared to be of greatest interest to Mr. Grant (and perhaps to those who were in attendance) was the issue of postponing the vote on the budget. Although the tri-committees (School, Select Board, Finance) had met the evening before the town meeting to discuss this issue, the short notice prior to that meeting and technical difficulties at LCTV (which prevented it from being televised) essentially made this a “new” issue to most of the electorate when it was proposed on the floor of the meeting. As a new issue, the debate was lively and polarized. I would guess that opinions were voiced at the Town Meeting that had not been heard the evening before. With the State Aid budget still not in place two weeks after the town meeting, it appears that the decision reached by the town’s electorate prevented an unnecessary delay in the approval of the budget that was developed over months of effort.

Other articles that seemed perfunctory when posted (such as articles 13 for remote reading water meters, articles 16 and 18 on parking and snow removal and article 32 on outdoor water use) also failed when questions arose on the floor of the town meeting that might have been addressed or at least anticipated had these items been given the same opportunity for prior public review.

Contrast these articles that did not pass with the passage of articles that included the approval of large expenditures. No, Mr. Grant, the passage of these articles was not a “foregone conclusion”, but their passage was rather an indication that the appropriate amount of planning and review had been completed prior to the evening of the meeting. In addition to the budget, the capital expenditures and the Community Preservation expenditures had been the subject of multiple publically held committee hearings over many months. Input from individuals and groups potentially affected by these warrant articles had been considered prior to the votes at the town meeting

Yes, Mr. Grant, only 150 people participated in this year’s town meeting, but whether in the vote on postponement of the budget or any of the 34 scheduled Warrant Articles, these people had significant power – and hopefully next year will see ten times as many voters at the Longmeadow Town Meeting to show the power of the people.

Mark P. Gold

Mark Gold is the chairman of the Capital Planning Committee and is a candidate for the one year seat on the Select Board. See his website at GoldforSelectBoard.com for additional information.