The 12 Westfield City Council At Large candidates are seen during the candidates forum at the Westfield Senior Center on Monday night. (Photo by Lynn Boscher)
WESTFIELD—The candidates for At-Large City Council were at the center of last night’s candidate forum, as voters have just a week left before the polls open.
A total of 12 candidates were given questions and allowed remarks as they try to convince voters to choose them for one of the seven available At-Large Councilor seats on Tuesday, Nov. 7. The forum was one in a series sponsored by The Westfield News and the Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce, held at the Westfield Senior Center. Tina Gorman of the Westfield Council on Aging hosted the event and Kate Phelon, Executive Director of the Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce, moderated.
The candidates were each given a total of five questions to answer, as well as opening and closing remarks. For the opening question two candidates each were posed against each other and asked the same question, followed by two questions that were posed to all councilors. Then, a different question was asked individually of each, followed by a final question for incumbents and a final question for challengers.
The incumbents are Dan Allie, Brent Bean, John Beltrandi, III, Steve Dondley, Dave Flaherty, Cindy Harris and Matthew VanHeynigen and the challengers are Jeff Chagnon, Matt Emmershy, Muneeb “Moon” Mahmood, Nick Morganelli and Gary Wolfe.
Among the topics discussed during the forum included taxes, the state of the city’s water, budget and use of city resources.
One of the two questions asked to all were how the city can more effectively manage their resources to improve services without raising taxes.
Several councilors voiced a thought that spending must be done more efficiently as a means of providing the improved services.
“We really have to judicially look at where we are spending money,” Wolfe said.
“I think we all have to reel it in and spend it wisely,” he added.
Flaherty said that the city faces significant financial challenges, including what is owed to employees through pensions and health benefits. He also said that consolidation of services between departments can help.
“We owe a ton of money to employees and we have to find a way to attack it,” he said.
Flaherty also spoke about the concerns of nearing the levy limit, which, he believes, could put services at risk if it is reached, as well as the concern of utilizing free cash savings in the city’s budget to reduce the tax levy on residents. Flaherty called this living on savings.
“We have to live within our budgets, within our revenue,” he said.
“Later this month, we might have a chance again to burn up some savings,” Flaherty said. “That was not the plan at the time we looked at the budget.”
And Morganelli also suggested that jobs may need to be cut to find savings.
“We really have to take a hard look at what jobs are needed in the city and what aren’t,” he said, adding that the city could benefit from more efficient work.
Harris though, balked at the idea of cutting jobs.
“I think we have extremely dedicated employees here and don’t think laying off employees is the answer,” she said.
She said that the city has a “necessary, thoughtful” budget, with efforts happening to improve it.
“Even to this day, as of last week when we were in council chambers department heads were honing their budgets and returning funds,” Harris said.
In addition, Bean said the city has seen some cuts in budgets from departments.
“We’ve seen major, major change the last two or three years in the city,” he said.
However, the state is expensive to do business and projects in, he noted.
In addition, he said that Westfield, like other municipalities, are in similar issues regarding budgets.
“Westfield is not the only place in this situation,” Bean said. “It’s very difficult to cut and keep services going.”
Instead of following rhetoric provided, Bean said that residents should look at how councilors vote.
“Pay attention to votes moving forward,” he said. “That’s something that will be a telling tale.”
VanHeynigen spoke of the finance subcommittee’s own efforts, which he is a part of, toward improving the city’s financial situation.
According to VanHeynigen, the subcommittee has been able to assist in the freeing of funds through bonds.
“On finance [sub]committee we have been doing this of late: looking at a lot of open bonds we have and freeing those up,” he said.
Combined with the recent cut from Mayor Brian Sullivan and Sullivan’s overall budget management, VanHeynigen said, “We’ve been doing it, we’ve been making progress.”
For some councilors, suggestions also included keeping work within the city as opposed to seeking outside efforts that may be more expensive.
“We’ve done some insourcing, which is very important,” Beltrandi said, citing pavement work recently done by city staff.
However, he said that in-house design work could benefit the city financially, as well.
“If it’s a simple project we should be doing it in-house. We don’t need to send to consultants and spend money beforehand.”
Emmershy also spoke about utilizing the services on hand within the city.
“We need to utilize our in-house services we have,” he said.
Emmershy noted that the Westfield Technical Academy has vocational students that could provide some of the work, such as what is done for floral or fountain maintenance, citing Smith Vocational High School in Northampton providing some work for that city’s police vehicles as an example.
The other question asked of all councilors was, is the city adequately addressing the issues of contamination in the water supply, as well as communicating to the residents and what can be done as a councilor to improve this.
Regarding the water supply now, most councilors spoke that it is safe for residents.
“Your public water supply is 100 percent safe right now,” Dondley said.
However, Dondley noted that there are still issues with private wells that the “state is on top of,” and that there are concerns about exposure levels to perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) found in the city’s water.
“What we don’t know at this point is what the exposure was,” he said.
He thanked the Westfield Residents Advocating For Themselves (WRAFT) though, for the work they’ve done to provide exposure to the issue.
VanHeynigen also spoke admirably of how the city handled the contamination issue, including the shutting down of the affected wells and that the city would seek reimbursement for the efforts put forth. He also commended the city’s communication on the issue.
“Communication I think, from the city, has been good,” he said.
He said however, that other outlets, such as social media, has been an issue due to inaccurate information being put out to residents.
“It’s a serious issue, we all are obviously very concerned about it,” he said.
For Allie, he commended Mayor Brian Sullivan for shutting down the wells and “getting ahead” of the issue, but voiced concerns about how much information is being made available for residents.
“We do have a serious problem,” he said. “People need to understand what’s going on.”
Allie said that he put forth the effort himself, including videotaping the first public forum on the contamination of city water at City Hall, but that more should be done.
Among his suggestions were that meetings should be recorded or livestreamed over the internet, in addition to getting information out about what is happening in city council subcommittee meetings. He also suggested information be disseminated through articles, emails and phone calls.
As far as Bean, he felt that the city’s efforts were positive on the contamination issue.
“I couldn’t be more proud with the way the city has reacted to this issue,” he said. “It was fast, it was efficient.”
Bean though, voiced his concerns about how the issue became one of politics.
“My bigger problem is that people are politicizing this like councilors aren’t doing our job, or we’re untrusting,” he said.
He said that regarding a reimbursement for the city and other alleviations of the problem, that the city has been working on it.
“We can’t just go into a room and expect to be reimbursed and expect them to fix it,” Bean said.
Chagnon though, had an opposing view.
“This issue has been going on for over 20 years, resolutions never come fast,” he said.
“Big government is not very agile,” he added.
He noted that though 59 private wells have been tested in the city, more need to be tested.
He added that as councilors, they must confer with the experts on these issues.
“We don’t need to be experts beyond our expertise,” he said.
“We have to consult with experts,” Chagnon added.
Mahmood too, spoke on the fact that councilors may not be experts on the issue—he also mentioned his expertise in aviation and business as opposed to science—and that those in charge of the proper departments are handling the issues well.
“Everybody is trying their best, being transparent on the issue,” he said.
Other topics that arose in the forum included the discussion of tax revenue, including whether the burden should be more on residents or businesses.
“I think that the burden should be balanced, a lot of our businesses are small business owners and residents,” Allie said earlier, when asked which segment should carry the higher burden.
Allie cited also that the city has one of the highest commercial tax rates not only in western Massachusetts, but in the state.
Allie proposed that instead, spending should be controlled.
“We need to really control spending, we all live on budgets,” he said.
Chagnon, when asked the same question as Allie, said that “what we need to do is spread the burden across more folks, whether it is more residents or more businesses.”
Chagnon also noted that the city should focus on how the city is welcoming businesses.
“We are going to be one of the most unfriendly areas to bring in businesses,” he said.
Instead, Chagnon suggested that the city attract more people to the area. He also noted that the budget is of concern.
Dondley was asked a separate question during the forum, but also spoke about the commercial tax rate.
According to Dondley, the solution is in long-term economic development, which he said will lower the commercial tax rate over time.
“As we get more revenue in the city, we lower the commercial tax rate over time,” he said.
“We also have to play up our strengths, and we do have a lot of strengths in Westfield,” he added.
He noted that though the commercial tax rates are high, the property rates are lower compared to the eastern portion of the state. In addition, there are railroads and the Columbia Greenway, as well as the creation of the Economic Advisory Committee that he worked on.
Related, Mahmood discussed the efforts that the city must continue to put in as an effort to try and attract further business into the city.
“We cannot just sit and say we set the foundation and let the businesses roll in,” he said. “We have to hunt for businesses.”
Mahmood also proposed providing possible tax incentives for businesses to come to the city as a possible solution, with understandings being made with the businesses about the incentive.
Wolfe also spoke of the possibility of tax incentives during his closing arguments. In addition, he suggested that downtown be a focus.
“Downtown should be a priority,” he said. “We have to fill that void now and react to it.”
“Make it even better than it is now,” he said.
Beltrandi also felt that promoting what Westfield has to offer businesses will help its success.
“We need to look at the development of business and what we have to offer to businesses in Westfield,” he said.
Beltrandi said that he spoke with City Advancement Officer Joe Mitchell about this and came away with great ideas.
He added that the city should look to utilize the airport more than it does, as well as incorporating the downtown not just for the storefronts, but also for the office space.
“Just based on creating new businesses coming in it will help dramatically,” Beltrandi said.
Emmershy spoke about the potential for development of the airport area too, as well as the use of filling vacant lots, especially in downtown.
However, he said that a potential solution could be to lower the commercial tax rate.
“To generate local revenue…lower the commercial tax rate,” he said.
For Harris, she spoke about protecting homeowners from the possibility of increasing taxes.
“I’m always for the homeowner and that’s what I fought for,” she said.
Harris spoke about utilizing free cash to reduce taxes for residents, and would look to do the same again this year.
Harris, who was also questioned about her voting related to downtown projects, said that she believed in the assessment that downtown “will never be the downtown it was a long time ago.”
However, she supported the possibility of market-rate housing in the area, which she said she was also a partner in bringing to the area across from the Westfield Fire Department. She also said that she voted against closing Romani’s Bowling “because I think it is a very wholesome activity.”
Another topic touched on was related to subcommittee meetings and their importance to the governmental proceedings.
“Any councilor that has not been to all the budget finance subcommittee meetings does not deserve a seat on the council,” Nick Morganelli said. “You have to go to the subcommittee meetings, those are crucial.”
According to Morganelli, during his previous time on city council he attended several subcommittee meetings he was not directly part of.
“I’m very passionate about subcommittee meetings being in the forefront,” he said.
Morganelli added that the subcommittee meetings should be recorded and televised.
The Westfield city election is Tuesday, Nov. 7, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The Westfield News will have all your up-to-the-minute coverage of the election. The Westfield News will also be holding the last candidate forum Wednesday, Nov. 1, at the Westfield Senior Center, for the unopposed elected officials in this year’s election, including Mayor Brian Sullivan.
Videos of the forums thus far can be viewed online at https://vimeo.com/channels/660285
