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CC MTG MINUTES JANUARY 3 2012 ' REGULAR MEETING OF THE AGAWAM CITY COUNCIL Minutes dated January 3, 2012 President Rheault — Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Reorganization meeting of the City Council on January 3, 2012. Item 1. Roll Call President Rheault—Barbara, please call the roll. ROLL CALL — 10 PRESENT, 1 ABSENT (Councilor Bitzas) ' President Rheault — Ten present, one absent. We have a quorum. Just for clarification the reason why I sit in this Chair this evening is because I have the good fortune of being the oldest member of the City Council. It's only a number. That's all that counts. That's ' the rules of the game. Item 2. Moment of Silence and the Pledge oLllegiance President Rheault — Please rise for a moment of silence and Pledge of Allegiance. Normally,just this meeting is purely for Reorganization. Unfortunately because of some cross-communication, certain things were posted and the first being Citizen's Speak Time, Councilor Letellier--Point of Order? Shouldn't be sworn in before we vote on things? President Rheault—Yes, we were waiting. ' Richard Theroux CityClerk — We were waiting for one of the councilors, trying to g move on but I certainly will swear you in now and I will take care of that councilor at another time. If you would please rise and raise your right hand and before I swear you in I certainly want to congratulate all of you in the election process and also want to thank you on behalf of the Town of Agawam for the service that you are about to begin. ' If you would repeat after me, I (state your name) do solemnly swear that I'll bear true faith and allegiance to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and will support the ' constitution thereof so help me God. I (state your name) do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of Councilor for the Town of Agawam and will faithfully and partially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me to best of my ability so help me God. I (state your name) do solemnly swear to preserve, protect and uphold the laws of the Town of Agawam, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States of America so help me God. I (state your name) do solemnly swear that I'll bear true faith and allegiance to the United States of America and will support the constitution thereof so help me God. Congratulations! (APPLAUSE) ' 1 ' Item 3. Citizen's Speak Time ' President Rheault — So we're back to Item 3 which is Citizen's Speak Time which is normally not allowed at the Reorganization Meeting as well as any other business that may legally come before the Council as well as an Item of Agenda beyond the Presidency and Vice Presidency so circumvent that we will entertain a motion to allow Citizen's Speak Time because we have four that have been misled. Moved by Councilor Calabrese, seconded by Councilor Letellier. Any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? All right. The first speaker on the Agenda is James Marmo. James Marmo — James Marino, 65 Kellogg Avenue, Feeding Hills. The cost of the ' clean up after the storm — someone really missed the boat costing Agawam a lot of money. Agawam hired outside contractors costing over five million dollars. Local contractors from Agawam could have used this work at this time plus local contractors pay taxes in Agawam. Local contractors have or could buy or rent proper equipment to pick up this debris plus the DPW could have helped out picking this debris up. Westfield used local contractors and did a job quicker and the cost was less than one million dollars including grinding up the debris. Outside contractors take the money and run giving nothing back to Agawam. Agawam again Agawam contractors pay taxes in Agawam. Four to five million dollars could have done a lot of things in Agawam. Wasting money that why everyone just got an increase in their tax bill of $40 to $60, Agawam has to tighten up their belts and stop wasting money. Thank you. ' President Rheault—Thank you. Bill Sapelli? Bill Sapelli — Good evening. Bill Sapelli, Superintendent of Schools. First of all, congratulations to each and every one of you and I look forward to working with you as a Council for the next two years. I'm here this evening to talk about our Statement of ' Interest that we're planning on applying for based on approval this evening. The School Committee approved the Statement of Interest to the MSBA which is the Mass. School Building Authority at their last meeting 5 — 0. I know it came up as Old Business and I would hope that you could and would vote on that this evening although it would be the second reading. Just so you know obviously a Statement of Interest is simply a statement or a form that's filled out with approval of the School Committee and the City Council that's submitted by the Superintendent to the MSBA stating that we are interested, we are contemplating applying for, getting in the pipeline for a building grant, in this case for a high school which would be a combination high school/early childhood center. I know that Councilor Bitzas sponsored this at the last meeting. He had contacted me and asked me why this would be coming up again. It was my understanding at that time that annually you had to reapply with the Statement of Interest. I believe there is a November ' 301h deadline if you want to re-submit it and you didn't need a vote. We did not do that at that particular time. I did inform Councilor Bitzas that we would be coming forward with this, the understanding with this Statement of Interest, those of you that have been around for a while remember when the DOE was responsible for approving grants for new buildings and when the DOE had it, you got on their list if you were lucky enough to get on their Iist, they assigned you a number and you could have been on that list for a period 2 ' of time, several years in some cases. With the MSBA now that they have control of it, that's not necessarily the case. They expedited the whole process and want to make sure you are actively involved and you have, once you're notified, you have 270 days from that point to get all your ducks in order and there's seven criteria that you have to follow. One of them is setting up School Building committee and there's a couple of other things that have to be done within the first sixty days of that 270 days so there's a lot of new developments or changes since the MSBA picked it up versus when the DOE had it but basically the long and the short of it is a Statement of Interest is simply that. It shows you're interested in contemplating a need for a new school. It doesn't mean that you're determining that you have a specific need. It just says that you're interested in investigating the possibility. You're not committing yourself to any funds at this point. ' You're just saying you want to move forward, to probably set up some committees that involve School Committee, City Councilors, committee members, educators to sit down, go through the school and evaluate it. Just for your knowledge, this as you know, those L of you that were on the Council last year, this was voted on with a 7 — 2 vote and since that time on September 21 St, MSBA came out with one of their representatives along with an architect and an engineer and did a complete walk through of the High School. I've been after them for the last month to find out when we're gonna receive the report and they said it could be up to six months so I don't have the results of that walk through at this particular point in time. They may come back and say after viewing your school versus other schools in the area and the Commonwealth, we don't see a need. They may come back and say we do see a need and at that point, we would proceed further and then they would notify us that we're in the pipeline. Then we would have to determine if in ' fact we wanted to go forward, if we could afford it, and then we would go for a vote for funding but this is not about committing ourselves to any funding at this point whatsoever. It's just showing that we're interested as a community to take a good look at ' it and to see if we really feel we need it. We may determine we don't. Clerk—One minute please. Bill Sa elli — But the bottom line is b voting es tonight, you're at least opening the P Y gy g Y P g door so we can at least seriously contemplate getting on that list so I'd appreciate your ' vote. Thank you. ' President Rheault—Thank you Bill. Shelley Reed? Shelly Borgatti-Reed —I'm Shelley Borgatti-Reed. 10 Shelley Lane, Feeding Hills. I'm here as a member of the School Committee obviously. I'm here to show my support for the renewal of the Mass. School Building Authority Statement of Interest that you're gonna vote on this evening. Like Mr. Sapelli said it's simply a Statement of Interest. It has nothing to do with raising our taxes or building a new school. Right now we just want to keep us in the line. We need it for the fixture of our schools and I think we'd be foolish not to keep our name in the line for that so I'd appreciate you vote on this. Thank you. President Rheault—Douglas Reed? Douglas Reed — Douglas Reed, 10 Shelley Lane, Feeding Hills. Again, I'd like to ask ' that you guys would support the Statement of Interest. I think it's a progressive thing for the town. I think the Sewer Project might be an example of- we kind of waited a little bit too long—let's not wait too long in the school. Let's look forward to that and on another note, I'd like to thank Councilor Cichetti, Councilor Perry and Councilor Rossi for putting together a workshop that was able to answer some of the questions for the citizens regarding the storm, the actions that were taken during the storm, the clean-up and so on ' and so forth. The meeting probably raised more questions than we answered unfortunately. I guess as a citizen I was a little disappointed that we didn't get more participation from other members of the town that really should have been there, some of ' the Department Heads that were key figures to answer these questions--were not present and I think that's a little bit of a disappointment to myself as a citizens and I think others in town feel the same so I thank you. President Rheault—Thank you. Anthony Bonavita? ' Anthony Bonavita — Anthony Bonavita, 683 Cooper Street, Agawam. I'm here as a member of the School Committee just to urge you to support the Statement of Interest so we can still participate in this process for all the reasons that Mr. Sapelli gave. Thank you. President Rheault — Thank you. That concludes Speak Time. (Councilor Bitzas joined the meeting at 7:16pm) Item 4. Minutes ' None. ' Item 5. Declaration from Council President ' None. Item 6. Presentation of Petitions, Memorials & Remonstrances I. TR-2011-64 - A Resolution Authorizing the Preparation of a Statement of Interest for a New Early Childhood Center and High School (Councilor ' Bitzas) Councilor Perry—Make a motion to suspend the Rules. ' President Rheault — Moved by Councilor Perry to suspend the Rules and seconded by Councilor Letellier. Any discussion on suspension? If not, all those in favor? Opposed? Rules are suspended. TR-2011-64 so moved by Councilor Perry, seconded by Councilor Letellier, it's on the floor for discussion. Councilor Bitzas? 4 ' Councilor Bitzas —Yes, Mr. President, first of all I would like to apologize. I got caught in traffic, from Connecticut I'm coming, today is my working day so I didn't want to get ' a ticket speeding so I took my time a little bit — 65 — so again I'm here and I'm really sorry for doing that. Going to .the resolution I sponsored. I did that with Councilor Walsh last year and it did pass the Council supported it and it is only a, it's a resolution ' that's not going to make anybody pay any taxes or the town to spend any money or anything about it's just only a procedure probably Mr. Sapelli explained to you, I didn't hear him what he said but we had a lot of talk few days ago and last week. It's a ' Statement of Interest. It is a strategic planning for the future, for a school not five years, not ten years, whatever it comes, then the time we would discuss it for the high school or against the high school, this has nothing to do if you are for a new high school or against a new high school, it's just only to keep our name on the list to get the 77% I believe reimbursement from the state so I hope the Council supports it. Thank you. ' President Rheault—Councilor Cavallo? Councilor Cavallo — Yea, I'm gonna support this but when I read through the document, ' there were quite a few concerns that I had regarding the quasi-proposal and I passed out to all of the councilors tonight, I requested a grade enrollment sheet and to just quickly go through it, I don't want to take much time because there are other matters we have to be ' concerned with tonight. If you look at the green that's underlined under each of the totals for each grade, if you look at kindergarten it says 250. This is the number that are in that particular grade at this time. 304 for Grade 1, then Grade 2 is 260. What I did is I projected out 6 or 7 years and what I found is that when the present first, second, third, fourth and fifth and sixth and seventh graders down the road to year 2017, there will be a distinct drop in enrollment and that doesn't count of course what will be coming in at the 1 other time and I'm surprised that the state did not ask you for enrollment figures down the line to determine are you going to be overpopulated or do you have enough room or are you gonna have less students than you have now? And what I came up with that in the year 2017, for example, in Grades 6 through 12 we'll have 1854 kids, I'm just taking that segment which comes out to an average of 265 students in each class. At this time, if you take the same population, you have an average class size of 340. That's a distinct difference — you're talking 75 students in each of the grades. Now I'm not saying that this is right or wrong, I think when we get down to that point where we have to make some decisions,this is a fact that they're going to be asking you about because you know, ' when you have one hundred less kids or 75 less kids in a school, that means you don't need as many personnel, you don't need as many teachers and you have more availability of classroom space. The other points that I was concerned about in the proposal or the letter of interest number one, some of the things that I read through here we were never put on a warning status by the visiting committee that came in in 2008 to do an accreditation study. In fact, some of the things that were mentioned that have to be improved were addressed by the School Committee so it isn't like right now at this time it isn't like you know you need a new car battery for your car because it went dead. I don't 1 go buying a new car, I just buy a new battery for the car you know at this point, at this stage in 2012, 1 really don't see a need now unless there's a need coming down the road then that of course is a whole new story. As I said there are other issues in here again 5 ' that I think as Mr. Sapelli pointed out maybe the Council should become more involved in this in the next four or five years, have a committee in fact, take a tour of the school. I ' know for a fact, I found out last week, that the recreational department and the school maintenance department are no longer being housed downstairs. Well, there's affordable space and I'm sure you're gonna put that to use in some way whether it be a multi-media television studio or whether you move the drafting department to be down where the other shops are located but there is some flexibility at the present time. We're not in bad shape I don't think at this point. The schools that have been designated and are being built now Longmeadow and Minnechaug and West Springfield, they were built in 1959 and I think West Springfield earlier. Those buildings essentially were falling down. Agawam had great foresight in that they had three additions. We added on when we felt ' there was a need and when I was the principal in 2000, in 2001 a brand new library, a state-of-the-art library right up to date because we were put on warning status, we needed a new library so I think we've got to really look at this carefully down the road and look at some of the issues and maybe cooperatively with the School Committee, with the Council, a sub-committee whatever, see if we can three or four years, look at some of these things right now. Is this gonna be a problem 12 years from now? Well one ' example right now is our school population. That's fact. Those are numbers right here and they don't change that much and that doesn't count the number of kids that'll be coming in in kindergarten, second, third, fourth and fifth, when these other kids are seventh, eighth and ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth graders so you see in seven years if you have, you could drop another 50 -100 kids! So is that gonna justify to the State do you really need a new building I mean you don't have an overpopulation problem. So that's all I have to say but I will support this tonight but I think we have to look at some of these issues down the road. Thank you. ' President Rheault---Councilor Rossi? Councilor Rossi — Thank you. I, originally when I came in here I had the intent I was ' not gonna support this and the reasons that I have is that I firmly believe at this point and I don't know if there's anything that's gonna change my mind in the future that we're gonna need a new high school in the near future and I look at this high school and the renovations that we've made over the years. This high school was built in 1955 and since then that high school was built at a square footage of 166,000 square feet and now it's ' 266,000 square feet. We've been renovating this thing on an average of every ten years and we just renovated that last major step that we did was in 1997 when we put in that facade in front and we did the offices up there and we added some 18 classrooms to that high school and in 2001 I believe it was like Councilor Cavallo just said, we just spent over a million dollars on a media center. We're still paying bond to some $8 million on those renovations that we have at that high school. Now everything that I have read and everything that I have heard and seen done here and from some of the members that put this Statement of Interest together has stated that the high school is a sound building, even from the previous Superintendent of Schools who said that we do have some renovations problems but the building is structurally sound now she made that statement herself just a year before this Statement of Interest was introduced in January 26, 2011. But to keep progressive I guess the word is, it's fashionable to say contemporary I'll go 6 along with this Statement of Interest to keep our Statement of Interest in the pipeline. Mr. Sapelli who I spoke to earlier said that he's confident that he could put together a ' new Statement of Interest and have it submitted within the timeline if it's voted on tonight and I will give him that with my vote but I'll have to be really, really convinced in the future about any kind of future building. Even the Mayor went on the record as saying it would be several years before he would even consider it so but I think that the thing we need right now and I think we should very seriously look at is that Early Childhood Center. Now this Early Childhood Center was attached to this Agawam High ' School Statement of Interest if you remember, that we were supposed to build a wing on this high school and the reason that we wanted to build the raving on the high school for this Early Childhood Center was so we could attach it to the Statement of Interest to qualify us for a new high school, Well, I thought that was kind of back-dooring the project and kind of setting this Early Childhood Center out. Now I was on this long- range school committee and almost ten years ago, it was decided or determined that that Early Childhood Center is in dire need of renovations, that it is inadequate to support the programs that are mandated and those that are necessary to provide the education for those youngsters out there at Perry Lane Park and l think we've been missing the ball by not doing something with that and I think we should put our heads together and try to get that thing done and it has been mentioned that we do have some room now at the High School and I think we should look very seriously about moving that stuff up at the High 1 School. If not, maybe get some kind of a study group together about another maybe a campus setting type of an environment when we could maybe get this Early Childhood Center together with maybe some before and after school programs and some community involvement and make like a campus center so we can get user fees and more or less pay for itself and I think it would go a long way to satisfying our needs, not only in our education but in our community but I'm gonna give you my vote tonight on this only to ' keep this thing in the pipeline but I don't want to leave the impression with anybody at this point in time that I am in favor of building a new high school. President Rheault—Councilor Mineo? Councilor Mineo — Yea, I just want to say I'll be supporting it tonight again, it's just a ' statement of interest, we're just keeping our name on the list and I don't think this is any big deal. We're not funding anything. We're not spending any taxpayer dollars. We don't even know like Councilor Cavallo said, we don't know at this point maybe the numbers don't, or that we do need a new high school but you don't know what the future's gonna bring. I mean, seven, eight, nine, ten years from now things could change. There's always new developments that are being built in Agawam. We just don't know what the future holds and I think it's an option that we need to keep on the table. ' President Rheault--Councilor Johnson? Councilor Johnson — Thank you Mr. President. I echo the sentiments of Councilor ' Cavallo and Councilor Rossi. I have my doubts at this point whether we need a new high school but I support the resolution because it's the beginning of process. I would like to point out for the Council's information that in the resolution it indicates that we 7 convened in an open meeting on December 19, 2011 and January 3, 2011. I think that needs to be amended to say 2012 and in addition it references the Statement of Interest ' form dated December 12, 2011 and the Statement of Interest form that's at least attached to my resolution is dated January 26, 2011 so I don't know if there's been a subsequent one that the School Department prepared or whether they're identical but just those two housekeeping matters just so that when it is passed by the Council and ultimately submitted that there aren't any problems with it. So I guess with that I would at least amend the current resolution to change the date of January 3, 2011 to January 3, 2012. President Rheault — Moved by Councilor Johnson, seconded by Councilors Bitzas and Rossi. Any discussion on the amendment? If not, Barbara, please call the roll. ' ROLL CALL -- 11 YES, 0 NO President Rheault — Eleven yes, you've approved the amendment. The main motion as amended and attached with the corrections, any further discussion? Please call the roll, Barb? ROLL CALL— Ll YES, 0 NO President Rheault--Eleven yes, you have approved as amended. Item 7. Report otCouncil Committees None. Item 8. Elections 1. TE-2012-1 - Election of City Council President President Rheault—The floor is open for nominations. Councilor Rossi—Excuse me, Mr. President? President Rheault--Councilor Rossi? ' Councilor Rossi — Before we move on and before we move off of Item 6 1 have a ' presentation that I was asked to make on behalf of the City Council and since you have made your intentions known by an article in the newspaper that you will not be seeking re-election to the Agawam City Council Presidency, the Agawam City Council would like to present you with a gavel, Mr. President, commemorating your many years of service to the Agawam City Council and as President the many years and it's so inscribed and there's too much of it to go into but it says to Donald M. Rheault, thank you for your ' many years of dedication and service to the Agawam City Council, the presidency, and it's dated January 3, 2012 and it gives me a personal pleasure to introduce that going back I've known you for many, many, many years — long before I ever got onto the City tCouncil — and it's been a real privilege to work with you and under you as your Vice 8 President of the City Council. I know you're gonna do well on the floor, arguing the issues and I wish you well on the floor. So on behalf of the Agawam City Council may I ' present this gavel to your many dedicated years of service as President of this Council. (APPLAUSE) ' President Rheault—Thank you very much. Thank you. As always, I'm speechless but did you really read all that? Thank you very much. That's very nice and very considerate and it's certainly I think this was my sixteenth year which I thought I felt ' good about being around a long time until I read in the paper that Holyoke's City Council President just finished his 26'h straight year which is unbelievable and unfortunately got beat this term. I don't really, um thank you very much. It really means a lot to me and ' Pm gonna still be up here so watch out. Thank you. Now the floor's open for nominations. Councilor Calabrese? Councilor Calabrese --I'd like to nominate Christopher Johnson for Council President. President Rheault — Chris Johnson has been nominated. Any other nominations? Moved by Councilor Bitzas to close nominations, seconded by Councilor Letellier, well we don't really need a second to close but we'll accept it. We have Christopher Johnson and seeing he's the only candidate I will cast one vote for and make it unanimous from the, on behalf of the Council, for Chris Johnson. Congratulations sir. Do you want to take the microphone now? Oh, I'm sorry; we've got to have a vote. Wait a minute. ' ROLL CALL— I I JOHNSON President Rheault — EIeven, unanimous vote. Congratulations and welcome! (APPLAUSE) Would you like to take the last item or do you want me to finish? Councilor Johnson—No, go ahead and finish. 2. TE-2012-2 - Election of City Council Vice President ' President Rheault—The floor is open for nominations. Councilor Magovern? Councilor Magovern—I'd like to nominate Robert Rossi. President Rheault — Bob Rossi's been nominated. Any other nominations? I have two lights on and I didn't see who was first. Councilor Cichetti? Councilor Cichetti—I'd like to nominate Dennis Perry? Y President Rhcault —Dennis Perry's been nominated. Councilor Letellier—I was gonna nominate Dennis Perry as well. 9 ' President Rheault -- Okay, so we have two nominations on the floor. Any others? I'll entertain a motion to close nominations? So moved by Councilor Calabrese. Barbara, ' please call the roll. If you're in favor of Rossi or Councilor Perry, state their name. ROLL CALL—7 PERRY, 4 ROSSI President Rheault — With a vote of seven to four, you have elected Dennis Perry as the Vice President. (APPLAUSE) Traditionally we draw for seats and Barb, have you got the magic bag? Just for the information of those that may not know, the oldest member of the Council sits to my left, President in the middle and Vice President to the right. So I'm not moving too far! Number one is the side of Councilor Perry to four. Five, six and seven are skipped and eight, nine, ten, eleven are down the other side. Now for the benefit of the camera man, could we now sit in the proper chairs? Item 9. Public Hearings None. ' Item 10. Old Business ' None. Item 11. New Business ' None. ' Item 12. Any other matter that may legally come before the City Council. President Johnson — Now that we've played musical chairs. Since that's not traditionally an item on an Organizational Meeting it would require a motion to suspend the rules and I'm not sure that we really want to do that. I just have one quick housekeeping thing. I put together a sub-committee preference questionnaire going ' through all the various sub-committees. I'd ask that you take a look at it and get your requests in to Barbara. I put down the date of next Wednesday, January 11"', as the date to try to get it in so that the Vice President and I can hopefully make the committee ' assignments by our next meeting and with that I just want to say there's no chance that I could ever possibly fill the shoes of the man that I'm replacing tonight. When I first ' came on the Council back I don't know how many years ago, 1988 1 believe it was, I voted for Don as Council President back then and he's done an outstanding job so I just want him to know that I could never, ever fill his shoes. And with that the Chair will ' entertain a motion to adjourn. Heard around the house, Councilor Magovern, Councilor Cichetti, all those in favor say ay? Opposed? We're adjourned. Thank you. Adiournment. 1 ' 10