BELCHERTOWN — With an unexpected additional $340,896 in state aid, residents agreed to split the money between capital items and savings at a special Town Meeting Monday night.
Residents signed off on a plan to squirrel away $189,896 in a stabilization fund, while earmarking the remaining $151,000 for four capital projects. Those projects call for buying six new radios for police cruisers ($34,000), replacing a burner for a boiler at Jabish Brook Middle School ($25,000), funding a compensation and classification study to update job descriptions and salary levels for each municipal position ($42,000), and making a partial payment on the school’s athletic field water system project ($50,000).
Most of the spending allocations passed with no comments from the 96 attendees at Belchertown High School. However, some voters questioned whether to give $50,000 for water tanks as part of the Belchertown Public School’s athletic field watering system when the schools had already received capital funding and Community Preservation Act money.
School officials noted that the two wells already dug for the project only pump 15 gallons of water per minute, which is too low to meet the irrigation demand of 120 gallons per minute. The school district plans to build two tanks that each hold 35,000 to 40,000 gallons of water for field irrigation, but the tanks require a new foundation to support them.
“This is an important continuation in order for the stadium field to continue to (be) watered and be used by sports teams throughout the district,” School Committee Vice Chair Hope Guardenier said.
In a separate issue, residents discussed and eventually approved zoning changes that will allow 13 new types of businesses in industrial zones located on Harris Way, off Springfield Road and at the south end of town.
Parking garages and commercial mixed-use developments, such as office buildings or health clinics, will now be allowed by special permit. Other uses, such as indoor sporting facilities and restaurants, will require only Planning Board approval.
“We want to make sure there is that maximum opportunity there going into the future in case somebody else wants to come in and utilize those properties,” Planning Board Chair Dan Beaudette said.
Community and Economic Development planner Eric Weiss said the new rules send a message that Belchertown is “open for business.” People mostly spoke in favor of the change, though some expressed concerns about data centers, which are not among the new uses.
“Right now, we are reviewing that issue,” Beaudette said. “What we’re looking at doing is putting a moratorium on it for 12 to 18 months…because that whole subject is moving so quickly that nobody knows how it’s going to turn out.”
Town Meeting also approved leases for Department of Public Works mobile radios and a Council on Aging van.
Voters also approved restoring, rather than replacing, the windows at the Clapp Memorial Library, a project approved at the annual Town Meeting in May. The change will save money for future Community Preservation Committee projects.
