Hampden conducted its annual Town Meeting on May 12 inside the former Thornton W. Burgess School.
Photo credit: Town of Hampden Youtube page
HAMPDEN — A plethora of important articles passed Hampden voters during the annual Town Meeting on May 12, including three that allow the relocation of town offices to the former Thornton W. Burgess School on 85 Wilbraham Rd.
The first article changes the purpose of the property from a school to municipal offices; the second grants the town the ability to raise $80,000 to fund the cost of moving the town departments and the library to the new site; and the third allows the town to raise $75,000 to repair the building.
During the Town Meeting, which was conducted at the former Thornton W. Burgess school, Selectboard Chair Donald Davenport said the 85 Wilbraham Rd. building was only used for school purposes since the land was taken by eminent domain in 1966.
When Thornton W. Burgess School closed in 2017, the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District advised the town of Hampden that the building could not be used as a school again.
Davenport said the town currently owns 85 Wilbraham Rd. He added that the town would like to move townhouse offices and the library to the building because there are accessibility and storage problems at the current Town Hall, which resides at 625 Main St.
“If we move to the old Thornton Burgess School, it will give the library a larger space, expanded programs; it’ll give the parks and recreation and abilities center programs, the veteran service offices will have a private office for the first time, and it’ll give us the offices that we need for expansion in the future,” Davenport said. “We’re being fiscally prudent, but not space prudent, because as you know classrooms are pretty big.”
Although the three articles passed, the votes were not unanimous. Former Selectboard member Mary Ellen Glover felt that a change of use to the building meant the town was not staying true to its word. She also argued that Hampden would lose students to Wilbraham because of the loss of Thornton Burgess.
“If we lose Thornton Burgess, we will never be able to return those students to Hampden,” Ellen Glover said. “We have lost that say for our own destiny if we no longer can have kids in their town because we will have all the middle school and all the high school kids going over to Wilbraham.”
Despite these concerns, the town argued that moving offices and the library to 85 Wilbraham Rd. is the most fiscally prudent decision.
Davenport said building a new town hall would require $30 million, while the cost to renovate the building for school purposes would be in the $15 million range. Meanwhile, moving town offices to 85 Wilbraham Rd. only costs a couple hundred thousand dollars.
While a lot of great memories were made in the current Town Hall, Hampden Treasurer Richard Patullo agreed that the 625 Main St. building does not meet the needs of the town.
“I really think moving the buildings over [to 85 Wilbraham Rd.] is the only financially reasonable things to do,” Patullo said. “It seems logical to me.”
Dan Blanchard, director of Parks and Recreation, said the current Town Hall is “unsafe” and lacks the necessary space to operate.
“We outgrew [625 Main St.] many years ago,” Blanchard said. “From the Parks and Rec. director standpoint, moving tow town offices over [to 85 Wilbraham Rd.] provides a fantastic opportunity for us to increase programming.”
As far as what will happen with the current Town Hall, Davenport said that its next use will be determined by a blue-ribbon committee formed by the town.
Fire department renovations and expansion
Voters also passed an article allowing debt authorization so that $8.3 million can be borrowed to repair, renovate and expand the existing fire station at 19 North Rd.
Mark Barba, lieutenant from the Hampden Fire Department, said that renovations are needed in the current station to improve safety and space.
“The space we have right now is extremely difficult to get around,” Barba said. “It does not have adequate separation for decontamination.”
Barba added that there are a myriad of non-compliance areas and the bays inside the station are undersized for their vehicles. He said without the ability to decontaminate; the station would likely develop hazardous or cancerous materials.
Aside from those challenges, Barba also mentioned that the kitchen is “nowhere near adequate” and called the bathroom in the station worse than “the worst rest stop you’ve seen on a highway.”
Barba said the initial station, which was about 3,200 square feet, was built in 1964, and then additions were made in 1980 and 2011. The current station is around 5,000 square feet, according to Barba.
To accommodate better conditions, the Fire Department is asking for a bigger training room, more space to allow for separate offices, renovations to make the station ADA compliant and a cistern tank to fill their trucks.
“[The project] is going to allow safe entering and exiting around our fire apparatus,” Barba said. “It’s going to give us our DECON area that we really need to have … [as well as] capacity and space for at least, we figure, 20 to 30 years in the future.”
By renovating, repairing and expanding the station, Barba said the department will likely retain more firefighters and attract others who want to come in.
“We’ve started a cadet program, which has been received well, but our position is we need to always be bringing people in,” Barba said.
While there are many variables to the $8.3 million project, Patullo said the construction would be funded by short-term borrowing until it is completed, with the town paying interest only. Once the project is finished, the town will go out for a 20-year bond and make annual payments of $644,000 to $873,000 a year.
Given those projections, Patullo predicts that a tax increase of 4.3 to 5.9% is likely to occur during the bonding period.
Now that the article has passed, the question to borrow will appear on the June 23 election ballot.
Other items
Aside from those major articles, the town also passed a level services budget of $17.78 million for fiscal year 2026, a 7.17% increase from FY25. The Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District assessment makes up $8.85 million of the town’s operating budget.
Voters later approved restrictions for accessory dwelling units to limit size, parking accommodations and placement on the lot. This comes after the state passed the Affordable Homes Act in summer 2024. Under the legislation, cities and towns are required to allow “accessory dwelling units,” including tiny homes and in-law apartments. The units cannot be rejected; however, reasonable restrictions can be placed on them through zoning laws.
The Town Meeting featured a positive vote to amend a zoning bylaw that allows the town to regulate battery energy storage systems so petitioners cannot circumvent local governance in their pursuit of building such systems.
As for school improvements, voters approved $92,500 to replace IT switches at Green Meadow School and $72,016 to upgrade the camera system at Minnechaug Regional High School.
Minnechaug will also see the addition or replacement of split AC units and upgrades to its two-way radio repeater system thanks to votes by the town.
Despite those approvals, voters opposed an appropriation to help pay for a Kubota RTV for the school.
Readers can watch the full Town Meeting on Hampden’s YouTube page: tinyurl.com/yuecyay4.
