MATT VANHEYNIGAN
Greetings, Citizens of Westfield,
It was great to see so many of you join me at recent events in recognition of our city’s – and our nation’s – men and women of the military, including the city’s annual Memorial Day Parade, the program that followed at Parker Park, and the annual Memorial Day Program at Paper Mill Elementary School. We owe our utmost gratitude to these men and women for their sacrifices in their service to our country.
As I am now five months in to my inaugural term on the City Council, there is much that has been happening over the past several weeks in Council and across the city to write about. Since being sworn into office on January 6, many residents have asked me about how things are going on the Council, and where I stand on the issues, so I will use this column to address some of these issues, and how I’ve been working on my own and with my Council colleagues to address them.
As most of you know, the Council is confronted with passing a FY15 budget for the city in the coming weeks – in the face of growing post-employee benefits, rising health care costs for city employees, and declining local aid from the state – while also advancing the core priorities of the city in service to its residents, who have been increasingly burdened with taxes each year. As a new councilor, I have taken an active role in gaining a more thorough understanding of the city’s finances by attending the meetings of the Finance Committee and asking questions in order to weigh the challenges with the needs the city must provide if we are to sustain ourselves over the long term. The council has recently received a series of significant free cash requests (totaling nearly $500,000), in addition to the $7.5 million bond request for the senior center (which I support). I have real concerns about burdening the city’s taxpayers any further going forward, and about maintaining a healthy stabilization account balance as well. Clearly, these are challenging times for us all, and the debates on these issues in the coming weeks will indeed be challenging, as well – and I hope that you can lend your voice as citizens and taxpayers to these discussions.
I support the $7.5 million bond request for the senior center because I believe our seniors – who represent nearly 20 percent of the city’s population, 2,000 of whom were served by our current senior center in FY13 – have waited far too long for a proper facility that can adequately provide the wide range of services that they require, and that the city is obligated to provide. Council on Aging Executive Director Tina Gorman and her staff have truly done wonders in their current 5,000-square-foot facility, but – speaking from my own firsthand visit there last fall – it is no longer a suitable facility for the population served and scope of services provided. A new senior center, in my view, falls well within the city’s core mission in serving our seniors, and the time to make the senior center a reality is long overdue.
We are at a critical point in determining the future of the city’s educational infrastructure, and its suitability for the needs of our children’s learning in the 21st century. By this time next year, the city will be preparing to vacate Juniper Park Elementary School in order for Westfield State University to pursue its own planned use of the building, which has been a part of their long-term planning for at least ten years. Meanwhile, two other elementary schools – Franklin Avenue and Abner Gibbs – pose significant repair and heating expenses, and no longer meet the increasingly complex needs of our students and of today’s teaching methods. On a visit last week to Abner Gibbs Elementary School with Principal Maggie Adams, I saw firsthand, in almost every instance, the multi-use and maxed-out use of nearly every usable space in the building, and the lack of any dedicated space to meet the increasing needs for individualized instruction, special needs students, and breakout groups/collaborative learning that is at the heart of instruction in today’s classrooms. Clearly, we are facing a very real need for a new facility to serve a significant portion of the city’s elementary school population. This is a simple recognition of the facts. I believe – as I know many of you do as well – in the future of the Westfield schools, and the important role they serve in educating our students for the future, and the critical role a strong school system plays in helping to attract new growth in the city. For all of these reasons, I support the new school project. As a member of the Legislative and Ordinance Committee in which the order of taking of the Wielgus property – which will allow the school project to move forward – now sits, I hope that there may be a legal resolution to the acquisition of this property by the city, while also providing a fair dollar amount to Ms. Wielgus. This property presents a significant opportunity to allow the school project to move forward, while also creating much-needed recreational space for the city.
As many of you may already be aware, a petition to dissolve the Westfield Business Improvement District (WBID) has been submitted to the City Council. At last night’s (June 5) meeting of the Council, the petitioners and the WBID, as well as many members of the public both in support of and in opposition to the proposed petition, had an opportunity – over the course of nearly two and a half hours – to present their perspectives on this issue. At the heart of the question of whether or not to dissolve the WBID is the state law that was passed in 2012 making membership in any BID mandatory for any property owner within the district (except non-profit and residential owners, which are excluded from the fee), effectively mandating an additional tax on these owners in the form of an annual BID fee. This followed the establishment of Westfield’s BID in 2006 which, at its outset, had voluntary membership. As the Council voted to close the public hearing on this issue following last night’s discussion, the Government Relations Committee (of which I am Chair, and serve along with Councilor Brian Hoose and Councilor Mary O’Connell) will be meeting prior to the Council’s June 19 meeting to deliberate on this issue and make a recommendation to the full Council, for a vote of the full Council on the petition to follow. I anticipate much deliberation on this issue both in Committee and among the full Council, as much is at stake from both sides of the debate.
On quality of life issues, I have been fielding calls and emails on a range of topics that directly relate to residents’ ability to enjoy a quality of living that residents deserve as taxpayers in the city. In particular on this issue, I am pleased to report that through the Legislative and Ordinance Committee, with the valuable input of the Westfield Police Department, and the support of the full Council, I was able to successfully lead the passage of an ordinance change that has increased the fine for noise violations from $25 to $100. Based on the input I received from many constituents across the city – particularly those who live in neighborhoods where police presence is common for noise infractions – this increase will (hopefully) help our police force to be more effective in maintaining the peace in our neighborhoods that we all deserve.
As life is incredibly busy for many of us, I understand the competing interests at hand that limit the extent to which you can get involved in the decision-making that occurs at City Hall. Nonetheless, it is of the utmost importance that you find the time to follow the issues, ask questions of your elected and government officials, and communicate your views – given the critical issues that touch us all, and the stake we all have in the long-term viability of our city, our schools, and neighborhoods. We need to remind ourselves of the core mission of city government – and the core priorities, including public safety, infrastructure, and education – that we must support in order to ensure the long-term health of our city. At this point, improvement of our infrastructure and investment in the education of our children are clear priorities that I have supported – and will continue to support. I believe that with even more efficient and prudent use of your taxpayer dollars and with new revenue streams from new businesses, Westfield will be able to thrive for years to come. I look forward to hearing from you and welcome your constructive thoughts and feedback to help shape the Council’s decisions, and the direction of the City, into the future.
Sincerely,
Matthew T. VanHeynigen
City Councilor At-Large
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not the staff, editor, or publisher of this publication.
