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Westfield council defers proposed yield-to-stop change after resident objection; committee plans crosswalk and sign refresh
Summary
A public hearing on an ordinance to replace a yield sign with a stop sign at a Lenox Avenue intersection was deferred after neighbor testimony questioned the need; council directed the committee to stripe crosswalks and replace faded signs at the busier nearby corner and to monitor results.
At a public hearing on general ordinance 2025-02 to amend Westfield's code (Chapter 13) and replace an existing yield sign with a stop sign, resident Lisa Wendell urged the council to reconsider, and the council subsequently voted to defer the ordinance back to committee for further review.
Wendell said she lives at 704 Lenox Avenue and that the house in question sits between Benson Place and South Chestnut Street. "In the 34 years that I've lived in the house, 20 of it working from home, I could not recall one single accident at that corner," she told the council, and said she believed a different nearby corner — Lenox and South Chestnut — experienced most collisions.
Town staff had previously assessed the other corner and, Wendell said, found it did not meet state requirements for a stop sign. After hearing from Wendell and other residents, Councilman Hapgood moved to defer adoption of general ordinance number 2025-02 back to committee. The motion carried on a roll-call vote (all members voting "yes").
While the ordinance was deferred, Hapgood and other council members said the committee would move forward with near-term changes at Lenox and South Chestnut: fresh crosswalk striping on all four approaches where now only two approaches are striped, replacement of faded stop signs, and post-installation monitoring. Council members said the striping work will proceed once weather permits.
The public hearing portion on 2025-02 closed after Wendell's remarks and the council's vote to defer. No formal action was taken to adopt the ordinance at the meeting; the item will return to a committee for revision and additional review before it returns to the council.
