The Marion Capital Improvements Planning Committee has taken two big losses for the FY25 cycle about to commence, but its members were extremely impressed with the two candidates attending their public meeting on Tuesday night at the Police Station.
Paul Naiman, who has chaired the CIPC for the past several years, has stepped down for the current cycle to deal with health issues according to member Steve Nojeim and former member Dick Giberti, who was recently informed that he, too, can no longer hold membership because it conflicts with his role as the town’s registrar of voters.
The applicants’ attendance was the first of the prescribed steps toward membership on the committee. Janik took the opportunity to give each candidate the floor for extended introductions and questions, after which he acquainted them with the process that sees the committee collect information from department heads, consult with them on their capital requests and ultimately, prioritize Fiscal Year 2025 and 10-year-plan capital-project rankings for the consumption of the Finance Committee and Select Board.
Givens, who was the keynote speaker for Marion’s 2022 Veterans Day observances at Old Landing, will add more military background to the town’s think tank. She and her husband were both on active duty in Washington state until moving to New England. Mandy serves full-time in the National Guard out of Otis Air Force Base. She told the CIPC she has worked for the federal government since age 18 and is now 36.
“We’ve been involved in communities wherever we were living. A big reason why I ended up volunteering as the Veterans Day speaker, really and truly volunteering is the name of our game,” said Givens, who has budgeting experience in the military but is eager to experience it from the municipal side. “It would be great to get exposure from a town’s perspective.”
Marion made sense for Givens and her husband because it is centrally located between their baby daughter’s grandparents and their jobs. “We’re not moving out of Marion anytime soon,” said Givens, who is interested at some point in a full-time position in local government.
Barros is Givens’ neighbor.
Watson’s credentials stunned the members, who are excited to get her perspective from her work in other communities.
A 42-year Marion resident, Watson worked for Marion for 14 years as elected town clerk, treasurer and tax collector before taking a job in Barnstable, where she was treasurer 13 years and tax collector for 16 years. She retired last year and was on contract in Barnstable until June. She still serves as chairperson of Barnstable’s investment committee.
Watson has chaired several committees in Marion, including the group that predated the CIPC. She chaired a 25-person committee tasked with organizing Marion’s 150th anniversary celebration in 2002, including 42 different events within a week. She chaired the Marion Education Committee for 20 years. Her experience in Barnstable includes cap planning, working with the Finance and Budget committees and did all the borrowing for the projects. Her work helped Barnstable achieve an AAA bond rating.
Watson has also served as treasurer for two health groups and recently has worked as a consultant to North Attleboro, Plainville and Fairhaven.
“I know the entire process because I’ve been involved with it on a bigger scale,” said Watson, who worked on Barnstable’s debt service on 85 different projects. “Whether it’s a small or big project, I know how it flows.”
Janik suggested that Watson’s “biggest challenge is going to be the boundaries of how we handle (the process in) Marion.”
Barros suggested that Watson might have valuable insight for the questionnaire that the CIPC hands out to department heads at the start of the annual capital-planning process. Janik agreed, especially given the slow start to the FY25 cycle.
While wholesale changes are not being entertained for this cycle, the CIPC is paying close attention to either candidate’s criticisms of their forms.
Janik shared with the candidates the hard-copy forms that are annually distributed to department heads and discussed the many mitigating factors that can influence capital-project rankings, especially funding.
“We’re a planning committee … we’re here to help the department heads think through … not willy-nilly … not just this year but up to 10 years,” he said. “By them planning better, the town can get a better feel of what their capital needs are going to be.”
By definition, a capital expense could be a project, a piece of equipment or a study, the key being reaching $10,000. Staffing does not count, and some items repeat often enough to fall under operational budget.
“The reason why it still works,” said Barros, “out of the, say, 30 projects that you’re ranking, those are consistent to you, then you get an aggregate.”
Janik considers the process less a consensus and more so a calculation.
“The Finance Committee and (Finance Director) Judy (Mooney) actually use that ranking very, very seriously. They say, ‘it’d be ridiculous if we didn’t use it,’” said Giberti.
Janik hopes for the CIPC to meet on two Wednesdays per month through November, then after the holidays, the committee will have all its information to rank capital requests, then meet to share and calculate those rankings and finally, write a letter to the FinCom and Select Board.
In the immediate, Janik will seek to get the CIPC’s recommendation of Givens and Watson as new CIPC members on the agenda for Wednesday’s (September 6) Select Board meeting.
The next public meeting of the Marion Capital Improvements Planning Committee will be scheduled for Wednesday, September 13, pending the availability of a meeting place.
Marion Capital Improvements Planning Committee
By Mick Colageo