HATFIELD – Voters at Tuesday’s annual Town Meeting approved a $9.4 million operating budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, but rejected borrowing $850,000 for more Town Hall renovations.
Next year’s $9,441,760 budget is up by less than 1 percent from the current year’s figure of $9,351,232.
Voters approved money to cover a $43,000 deficit in the water and sewer enterprise fund, resulting from a break in a 125-year-old water pipe on Route 5.
They also authorized borrowing $135,000 to develop a master plan for wastewater maintenance and expansion; borrowing $65,000 to complete 500 feet of sewer repairs on North Street; and transferring $25,000 from free cash for water service repairs on Valley and South streets.
And voters approved Article 7, which allows any public office in Hatfield to remain closed on all Saturdays. Officials said in the past voter registration had been done on Saturdays, but few people showed up.
After a heated debate, residents voted against borrowing $850,000 to fund the second phase of Town Hall renovations. The money would have been spent on an exterior ramp, an elevator, and a fire suppression system, to bring the building up to code compliance.
Town Administrator Marlene Michonski said the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board has given Hatfield a waiver on compliance until September 2018, because the renovations are being completed in phases.
Many residents said that $850,000 was far too much to spend a ramp and urged finding a cheaper way to complete that work.
Kerry Flaherty, chairwoman of the Council on Aging board of directors, spoke against the article.
She said the project would affect the Council on Aging by eliminating a ramp to the basement where it has most of its space for seniors, and cutting into the kitchen space.
She also expressed concerns about safety of the seniors, saying that the project would have taken away an emergency exit and people using canes, walkers and wheelchairs might not be able to get to the stairs.
Because the proposed ramp would not extend to the Council on Aging’s basement level space, Flaherty said the plan to bring the building up to code compliance overlooked the aging population who require accessibility the most.
“Work on the Town Hall does need to be completed, but departments that are directly affected by the changes should have been more involved in the planning process and they weren’t,” she said in an email after the meeting.
There was some discussion before voters approved a one-acre donation of land owned by the trustees of Smith Academy which abuts Town Hall.
The land will be used as a park and maintained by the town.
One resident noted that accepting the land would mean another maintenance responsibility for the town, and he suggested letting the Smith Academy trustees maintain ownership and responsibility for the property.
But a Smith trustee and other residents argued that transferring the land to the town allows more of the school budget to go toward educational expenses, instead of park maintenance.
Voters authorized $194,633 of Community Preservation Act money to restore the park at the corner of Main and School streets. The treasurer was also authorized to borrow $50,000 for renovations, allowing the town to apply for a $50,000 state Parkland Acquisitions and Renovations for Communities grant.
“We have to spend the money to receive the grant, and it is reimbursable,” said Michonski, adding that the total cost project of the park project is $244,633.
Though a few residents said the cost was a steep figure for what they called “a small piece of grass,” Joan Cocks felt differently, saying that “it really does a disservice to the center of Hatfield to call it just a piece of grass.”
She said “this public space” deserves investment by the community and that she is willing to donate her own gardening time to beautify the site.
A second article failed during the meeting, which was a request by Duval Logging LLC to amend the zoning of a five-acre property on Straits Road from rural residential to light industrial.
Residents raised concerns over the legality of what they believed might be “spot zoning,” a concept applying to small parcels of land within a larger area that is zoned differently.
Jeff Zgrodnik, however, strongly disagreed.
“I don’t think (former) Holyoke paper mills thought breweries and art galleries would be a great fit for that location in their original (town) master plan, but times change,” he said.
Still, the proposed zoning change was voted down after lengthy discussion.
Sarah Crosby can be reached at scrosby@gazettenet.com.