A special Town Meeting will be held the first of next month.
Joseph Cabrera Jr.EAST LONGMEADOW - A special Town Meeting will be held on Feb. 1 to vote on a resolution regarding the lights for the East Longmeadow High School athletic field.
School Committee member Joseph Cabrera submitted more than 200 signatures requesting that the lights be paid for through the town’s reserve fund.
Cabrera submitted the article as an individual town resident, not as a member of the School Committee.
The School Committee has debated the issue of the lights for months.
In November the committee voted to include the lighting project as part of its request to the Capital Planning Committee. However, Cabrera still decided to go forward with the petitioned article.
The meeting will be held in the high school auditorium at 7 p.m. The article requests $115,000 from the town’s reserve fund to pay for the athletic field’s lighting retrofit.
During a School Committee meeting in December Cabrera said he decided to go forward with the petitioned article in order to get the lights up quicker. He said the longer it takes to install the lights the more money the athletic teams lose in revenue from night games. Currently football, lacrosse and soccer teams cannot play evening games due to insufficient lighting on the field.
Cabrera and School Committee Chairman Gregory Thomspon attended the Jan. 3 meeting of the Board of Selectmen where they voted to schedule the meeting for Feb. 2. The date was later changed to Feb. 1 due to scheduling conflicts at the school.
Although the special town meeting will primarily deal with the lighting article any town resident or department head can submit an article.
The deadline to submit warrant articles for consideration at this meeting is Jan. 10 at 4 p.m. Petitioned warrant articles must include the signatures of at least 100 registered voters. Petition forms are available in the Town Clerk’s office in Town Hall, 60 Center Square.
All warrant articles must be submitted to the Board of Selectmen’s office.