Curtain Calls for Szyndlar, Stoltenberg

            Though it might add approximately $70,000 to the town budget, the Rochester Finance Committee Monday approved recommending a 3% Cost of Living Adjustment increase for all contract town employees for Fiscal Year 2025.             The vote came after Finance Director Suzanne Szyndlar advised the board to set the COLA figure right away so the […] Read more »

New Name, Same Game

            The planning for a massive upgrade to the filtering system in the Mattapoisett Water Treatment Plant has reached its fine-tuning stages, and the Mattapoisett River Valley Water District Commission wasn’t at all thrown off by a corporate takeover of Koch Separation Solutions, the designer of the state-of-the-art system to be installed in the plant […] Read more »

Water/Sewer Pitches New Building

            A new municipal building is being planned for the Mattapoisett Water and Sewer Departments. During the February 12 meeting of the Mattapoisett Select Board, members heard from Henri Renauld, Water and Sewer superintendent, regarding the new building plans.             Renauld stated that a combination of revenue sources will be used to offset the early […] Read more »

MassDOT to Change Fork into Turn

            Reconfiguration of the intersection of Front and Spring Streets at Brew Fish restaurant from its present fork design into a hard turn is one of two changes coming to the stretch of Route 105 seaward of Route 195.             The entry to Washburn Park off Front Street just southeast of the 195 interchange will […] Read more »

School Closure Leads Storm Prep

The Old Rochester Regional School District and Massachusetts Superintendency Union #55 announced on their Facebook page today that ORR District schools will be closed on Tuesday, February 13, due to the anticipated winter storm that is predicted to bring unfavorable conditions to the area. ORR District schools include ORR High School, Junior High and the […] Read more »

Short-Term-Rental Bylaw Down to Details

            In order to preserve neighborhood character and maintain the distinct difference between investors who buy houses just to rent them out short term and those in the business of operating a rental establishment and also live on the premises, the Marion Planning Board is fine-tuning a bylaw on short-term rentals that it hopes will […] Read more »

Testing of Bogs Debated for Several Hours

            After several hours of debate and the sharing of technical data regarding stormwater flooding that recently occurred at the Buzzards Bay Coalition’s Bogs site and the concern that possible hazardous chemicals were transported to freshwater wells, Tuesday night’s public hearing with the Mattapoisett Conservation Commission resulted in a continuation.             Early in the Enforcement […] Read more »

Biofuels Conditioned for Solar Project

            Including a condition the petitioner had wanted excluded, Rochester’s Conservation Commission Tuesday approved the Order of Conditions for BWC Snows Pond LLC’s plan to build a 2.39 megawatt, solar-energy array on 12.55 acres of a 31.23-acre parcel at 0 Cushman Road.             In a previous meeting, the commission requested that the conditions should include […] Read more »

COA Adopts Town’s Personnel Bylaw

The Rochester Council on Aging adopted the town’s Personnel Bylaw as written in a January 31 public meeting that town officials attended to allay fears that attempts were being made to take away the COA’s authority to hire its own employees.             A January Special Town Meeting article proposed revising the town’s Personnel Bylaw to […] Read more »

Highway Department Upgrades to Begin

The February 5 meeting of the Mattapoisett Select Board found architect Stephen Kelleher and Highway Surveyor Garrett Bauer getting what they have long striven to receive – approval to move forward with Phase 1 planning for the highway barn renovations.             As noted in the approved architectural agreement, the scope of Kelleher’s work on various […] Read more »