Rochester’s Select Board Monday did ordinary business until it came time to discuss the November 18 election asking the town to approve the $288 million Old Colony Regional Vocational-Technical High School building project.
The Select Board began by voting against exercising its right to purchase Great Bear Farms, 53 Dexter Lane, which is currently changing ownership. Town Administrator Cameron Durant noted this property is not changing use, so acquiring it as a protective measure is unnecessary.
Durant reported that this year’s Tree Lighting Ceremony at the Town Office Building will be on November 30 from 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm, a dramatically changed time from past years. The board approved a flammable liquids license for the propane tanks at the Water Department buildings at 87 Marion Road, 189 New Bedford Road and 52 Wolf Island Road.
The board then appointed Herbert LeFleur to the Historic Commission.
The board saved the most impactful for last. Chair Adam Murphy ended the meeting with what will happen whether or not the Old Colony Regional Vocational-Technical High School building project is approved on November 18. He said there will be a lot of work to do either way.
Murphy said on that date the town needs the debt exclusion override vote on the town ballot to pass as well as the Old Colony district’s (Acushnet, Carver, Lakeville, Mattapoisett, and Rochester) request to approve the $288 million plan for a new school building. The town now takes $500,000 from free cash nearly every year to balance its budgets, he emphasized. To fit another $2.4 million, the project’s cost to the town, into that budgeting without a debt exclusion “won’t happen,” he said.
Asked what the town will do if the school project is approved but the town does not approve the debt exclusion, the board declined to say that it would go directly to another debt exclusion ballot vote. The response will be some serious planning.
Durant noted the town’s first major payment of this debt would be 2028. “We’ll have some time to plan what we need to do,” he said.
“We’ll have a plan, and quickly,” Member Brad Morse said.
“We’ll have a lot of work to do either way,” Murphy said.
The Board of Selectmen did not schedule its next meeting before adjourning.
Rochester Select Board
By Michael J. DeCicco