The Marion Board of Selectmen held a special early morning meeting on April 14 to sign a bond anticipation notice (BAN) in the amount of $3,779,778.
A BAN is a short-term borrowing instrument for periods of one year or less, but it can be rolled over into the next year, which municipalities often do.
This particular BAN was signed for the Mary’s Pond well replacement for $630,000 and wastewater lagoon improvements for $938,000, both already approved by Town Meeting.
The Town, with its AAA bond rating, secured a 1.25% interest rate on the BAN, which is “pretty low,” said Selectman Stephen Cushing. The Town will see some savings, said Town Treasurer Gary Carreiro.
Town Administrator Paul Dawson said that due to the Monday holiday, the selectmen had to hold the special meeting in order to have the BAN signed and submitted to the bank in time. The BAN is dated for April 21, 2017, with a maturity date of April 19, 2018.
In other matters, the board authorized community electricity aggregate program representatives from Good Energy to put the town residents’ electricity rate back out to bid.
Town Meeting had approved the electricity aggregation program, which allows a third party to negotiate with electricity providers for a lower electricity rate, a program residents are allowed to opt-out of.
“They’ve done some scouring and determined that now is a most favorable time for everyone. They are going to be putting this out to bid again to enter into a new agreement,” said Dawson.
That day will be April 19, and the Town will have a two-hour window to decide to accept the bid amount. Cushing was appointed again by the board to act as representative in the bidding process.
Before adjourning, Dawson announced that just an hour prior he had received the anticipated final NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Dawson had not yet had a chance to give the 190-page document a thorough read through, but he did forward it to the DPW and the Town’s engineering firm.
“I don’t anticipate any surprises in the critical terms we’ve been talking about,” said Dawson. “I think we will need to discuss what segments of this do we appeal…. We need to have the science checked and what the permit requirements are.” In particular, he said, the compliance schedule.
Marion Board of Selectmen
By Jean Perry