To the Editor:
How did this happen??!!
More than 100 years ago, a handful of Townspeople gathered and constructed the present-day Acushnet Road culvert at Tinkham Pond. It’s been suggested that this group of hard working residents might have constructed the culvert over a long weekend. Since construction, animal and motor vehicle traffic has moved across the culvert unimpeded, water has flowed freely through the culvert, fish have swam and spawned in the pond, and vegetation in the area has flourished. This undertaking is another example of a job well done by those who came before us.
The north end of Acushnet Road is a very quiet, scenic, back country road and I suspect that many in Town have never driven over the culvert and many may not know where it is. This past October, the culvert was deemed to be “unsafe” and while the Massachusetts Department of Transportation did not condemn the culvert, they did recommend that it be closed to vehicle traffic for safety concerns. For reasons I’m not sure of, no attempt was made to temporarily repair or shore up the culvert to extend its useful life or to keep it open until a more permanent solution to the problems was identified and implemented. The culvert itself is roughly 25-feet by 20-feet, smaller than some rooms in some of the buildings around Town. We’re told that the permanent fix is still four months away – and perhaps longer if we get hit with an early winter. We have learned that the project is estimated to cost at least $600,000 – perhaps $700,000 by the time all is said and done. I’m sure that everyone will agree that this is excessive – and please remain mindful that these monies will need to come from our collective pockets –and as far as I know we don’t even get to vote on this costly project! We are fortunate that this Town has a pool of very talented and capable designers, engineers and construction professionals and that we are a community known for being good stewards of our waterways and natural surroundings– not unlike the group of Town’s people that built the culvert 100 plus years ago. We have within our community the expertise and energy to fix the culvert. So why after nine months isn’t this project behind us?
What’s different now is government overreach – as a public project, the reconstruction of the Acushnet Road culvert requires the review, comment and signoff from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Fish and Game, Mass Department of Transportation, the Buzzards Bay Coalition, Mass Department of Environmental Protection, the Mass Historical Commission, along with review and signoff from at least four Mattapoisett Boards and Commissions. (I’m sure I’ve missed one or two entities – my apologies!) Every stop along the way results in another suggestion or requirement or recommendation or idea that must then be incorporated into the plan – a plan that now includes sidewalks, a widening of the road, the reconstruction of the road before and after the culvert, wetlands remediation and on and on – and this results in rising costs and a delay in the reopening of the culvert – the main objective that I think has been lost in the discussion. The project to reconstruct and reopen the culvert is no longer the focus of the “project” – the initial design and engineering was done months ago; the “project” has become the review (project add-ons), oversight and management of the approval process to begin construction! At a recent meeting, Selectmen board member Jordan Collyer, expressing frustration, made mention that the delay with this project wouldn’t happen in the private sector – and I agree with him. More often than not, we have private projects underway in this Town that are more detailed, larger in scope, more complex and more expensive than the Acushnet Road culvert project – and in most cases, with the approval of our local Boards and Commissions coupled with project reviews by qualified and skilled Town inspection employees, these private projects proceed in a timely, transparent fashion where the current market dictates the project cost. Without question this expanded public project process has more than doubled (maybe tripled!!) the cost for the culvert replacement – an extra $300,000 (or more) that I think would be better spent in our schools or perhaps could be used as a down payment to construct our much needed Fire Station.
How did this happen? We did it to ourselves – we have allowed all levels of “government” to add more and more regulations to an already burdened system – we, the citizens, haven’t pushed back hard enough and we haven’t asked the tough questions particularly as they relate to the intrinsic value of each and every regulation. Well intentioned regulations, perhaps– but together, the bucket of rules and regulations has pushed common sense aside along with financial accountability. All across this great nation, our infrastructure is falling apart (a National embarrassment) and every day the risk of another major disaster increases. We’re told by our public leaders that we, the taxpayers, haven’t provided enough funding to address the problem – I argue that it’s not a funding problem but an over spending, out of control management problem, a problem of overreach – let’s move the public officials from a management role to an advisory role and let’s allow private industry and the trade professionals to manage the revitalization of our infrastructure in a cost effective and timely manner. If we did this, we would be able to complete twice as many public projects with the same dollars now required for one project. We’re spending more money than we need to with no discernible return on our investment.
To borrow a line from a movie I viewed many years ago – I think it’s time to “open our windows and shout out I’M MAD – and I’m not going to take it any longer.” How about you?
Chuck McCullough
Mattapoisett
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