HADLEY — A bylaw to curb the use of plastics and foam containers by Hadley businesses, amending the town’s solar bylaw to allow stand-alone battery storage facilities and spending on $1.3 million in capital projects are coming before annual Town Meeting Thursday.
The session to take up 24 warrant articles, including a Finance Committee-recommended $19.42 million budget that is $1.18 million, or 6.4% higher than this year’s $18.25 million budget, begins at 7 p.m. at the Hopkins Academy gymnasium.
Masks are being recommended but will not be required, and masks will be available at the door. There will be areas in the room reserved for those with masks and those without.
The fiscal year 2023 budget is supported with $400,000 from the federal American Rescue Plan Act and $274,571 in free cash. The budget to be presented is $57,193 less than Town Administrator Carolyn Brennan’s proposal, with most of the difference centered on funding the Other Post Employment Benefits account, or OPEB, which the Finance Committee is reducing to $170,00 from the $260,000 annual target.
Brennan said the budget includes a 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment for town employees and covers rising costs of fuel and other services. The most significant increases are for public safety, with the combined spending for police, fire, ambulance and emergency dispatching at $3.16 million, a $386,581, or 14% increase, from the $2.77 million in this year’s budget. The new spending means the police department can add one lieutenant position and the fire department can add one paramedic position.
The most discussion at Town Meeting may center on the bylaw, drafted by a subcommittee of the Climate Change Committee with input from town officials, that “seeks to reduce and eliminate the use of single use plastic bags, Polystyrene and Expanded Polystyrene (Styrofoam) disposable food containers, and plastic straws, and to promote the use of reusable alternatives.”
Bruce Brewer, who led that subcommittee, told the Select Board that the language borrows heavily from ordinances and bylaws in places like Northampton and Amherst. If adopted, the bylaw would go into effect Jan. 1, 2023.
Select Board member Jane Nevinsmith was the lone member of her board to recommend approval, noting that “because plastic doesn’t biodegrade ever, it will help our environment.”
The other four members are not recommending passage, though haven’t given a public reason, aside from John Waskiewicz, who said he uses plastic bags to line trash cans and finds they are useful. “I don’t see any need for it, but let the people decide,” Waskiewicz said.
Both the budget and the $1.3 million in capital spending is being done within the levy limit of property taxes or using water and sewer reserves, meaning there is no Proposition 2 ½ debt-exclusion necessary.
The capital plan includes $400,000 for a plow truck and sander and $255,000 for a payloader, both for the Department of Public Works, $310,000 for painting the Mount Warner and Holyoke Range wells to protect against leaks and $31,654 for carpeting replacement at Hopkins Academy and the school central office building.
Additional spending will come from the Community Preservation Act account, with $100,000 going to the First Congregational Church to fix its leaning steeple, with that building considered an important element of the historic town center. To preserve farmland associated with the Hartsbrook Farm, on South Maple Street, $57,000 will be drawn from CPA, with $33,000 from the transfer of development rights account.
Another $24,100 in CPA will support $45,000 for a playground, benches and gazebo at Zatyrka Park to make the site more useful space. Home Depot is giving $10,628 for the project. Finally, $18,000 from CPA will go to the Hockanum Cemetery fence.
The Planning Board has drafted a bylaw revision that will allow stand-alone energy storage systems. Planning Board Clerk William Dwyer said when the solar bylaw was originally drafted these large batteries could only be associated with solar arrays, meaning the board has yet to be able to permit a battery storage system for a gravel pit on Breckenridge Road.
Another bylaw change would give the building commissioner authority to remove unauthorized signs. Dwyer said these types of signs are often put up by businesses along roads when they are having sales or going out of business.
The board is also advocating to tweak the special permit process to bring it into conformity with state laws. “It will not affect anything we are going presently, it will just give us a clearer framework,” Dwyer said.
Other articles include clarifying the name of Old Mountain Road, a gravel road near the South Hadley town line, and accepting as a town road Maegan’s Way, a subdivision street off Huntington Road.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
