A request for a Notice of Intent to construct a 12-foot by 24-foot in-ground swimming pool, a retaining wall, and a patio at 17 Reservation Road was discussed at Wednesday evening’s meeting of the Marion Conservation Commission.

The applicant, Gale P. Runnells, was represented by Rick Charon of Charon Associates of Rochester.

The proposed project would be located at least 15 feet beyond the wetland area and be surrounded by a six-foot high fence that is intended to dissipate wave action in the event of a storm. The fence would be stainless steel wires. The property is located in a velocity and flood zone. The gunite pool would be four-foot deep and is intended for playing games and volleyball.

“Is this allowed in a velocity zone,” asked Member Steve Gonsalves, who noted that the property is located next to an extensive marsh area. “What is the worst case scenario,” asked Associate Member Cynthia Trinidad. The consensus was that the pool would break up and go either into the house or into the water or marsh area. The property has an extensive area of upland, on which the board also wanted to get more information.

Other issues of concern were the filtration system and any discharge. Charon said that the pool could have a replaceable filter so no back flush into wetlands would occur. Other issues to research included finding out the maximum height of a vertical wall in a velocity zone and information on how machinery will get to the proposed construction point.

Gonsalves asked if the applicant had considered a salt water pool instead of a chlorinated one. Member Jeffrey Doubravan noted that even salt water pools require some chlorination. Charon said he would ask his client about it as well as present the issues brought up at the meeting.

After deciding to revisit the site and review a revised site plan that would flag an area of concern between flags seven and eight, the board continued the hearing until March 26 at 7:20 pm.

The next appointment was a discussion of a request for a Full Certificate of Compliance for constructing a garage and breezeway addition and a second floor addition to the dwelling, also for Gale P. Runnells of 17 Reservation Road. Mr. Rick Charon represented the applicant.

A review of the site plans showed that a structure holding a generator was not noted on the plan. Also not shown on the plan was a three-foot block wall in the driveway area. “It appears that dirt was placed on top of the hay bales and it decomposed and is going into the wetlands,” said Member Norman Hills. Charon said that the area would have new hay bales installed and that he would come back to the commission with a corrected site plan.

Next up, the committee voted on and approved the wording of an article to be on the Spring Town Meeting warrant for funds to continue the Sprague’s Cove Stormwater Remediation Project. Article C1 reads:

“To see if the Town will vote to raise or appropriate or transfer from available funds in the Treasury (free cash) the sum of $12,500 to be expended by the Conservation Commission for control of invasive species and required maintenance at Sprague’s Cove and other Conservation Commission responsible parcels.”

            New Member Jeffrey Doubravan and Associate Member Cynthia Trinidad reported on their recent attendance at the Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions conference. “It was excellent,” said Trinidad, who noted that she brought back information to share with members.

By Joan Hartnett-Barry

A proposed café at 146 Front Street proposed by Kate Ross, co-owner of the Dean Ross home furnishings store, was discussed at Monday’s Marion Planning Board meeting.

Ross told the board that she would like to open a café in the area behind her retail store and wanted to discuss it with the Planning Board. The location is zoned general retail, and a special permit would be needed for a restaurant.

Ross said the ‘Café in the Back’ proposed area is approximately 800 square feet and could seat up to 32 people with outside seating under an awning. Her plan is to tie in the retail store to the café. The café’s kitchen would have a stove, but she plans to limit the available food options. Potential customers would be boaters, Tabor students and local residents.

“I want to add to Marion, not take away,” said Ross, who consulted with Marion General Store owner Jack Cheney and Uncle Jon’s Coffee owner Jon Pope before moving forward with the idea.

The board discussed the issues of parking, egress and handicap accessibility and suggested that Ross meet with the building commissioner to determine legal seating capacity based on the square footage and parking and other requirements.

Next up was an appointment with Dan Crete, who is looking to purchase a piece of land on Luce Avenue, off Route 6 near the Marion Indoor Tennis Club and the Lockheed Martin facility. Proposed use would be for boat storage, a workshop and a pressure washing pad for cleaning boats. The property is an industrial zoned lot. The proposal included an environmentally-friendly reservoir off the washing pad that would capture the waste, which would be taken off site.

The board told the applicant to formulate more specific plans and come back for another hearing.

A discussion followed regarding the hiring of a part time planner for the board that has been in the works for several months. The Request for Proposal to Hire paperwork has been given to Town Administrator Paul Dawson and the effort is moving forward.

The board discussed updates to their website and agreed that there should be an archive section and that board members’ names should be on the site instead of located through a link.

Lastly, the board noted that they only had one comment regarding the recent Zoning Board of Appeals ruling on construction proposed by Christine and Mark Fantoni at 64 Allen Street. Their comment was that there be no water discharge onto neighboring lots.

By Joan Hartnett-Barry

Marion’s grant writer was given one more year to produce more grant money for the Town after selectmen voted March 18 to leave the grant writer in the FY15 budget, despite the Finance Committee’s recommendation to abolish the position.

Selectman Jonathan Henry has advocated on behalf of Development Specialist Pamela Marean ever since FinCom sent a memorandum to the selectmen asking them to consider cutting Marean’s position from the budget. FinCom said in the memo, and during a March 13 joint meeting with selectmen, that the amount of grant money has not increased as anticipated since Marean was hired two years ago.

Henry cautioned the selectmen to think carefully before making a final decision.

“Common sense will tell you it wouldn’t take very many grants to offset … the money that’s expended for this purpose,” said Henry. He acknowledged that Marean had a more productive first year than her second year culling for grants, saying it was due to the economy and the fluctuating availability of grant money. He said that is just “the nature of the animal.”

“I think in a time of austerity it’s even more important,” stated Henry, “to go after these things … I think it’s bad timing…”

Just give it one more year, Henry suggested to the board. And maybe tweak the position, change the management, and give Marean a chance to deliver.

Selectman Stephen Cushing concurred, saying, “It may not bear fruit right off the bat … I’m willing to give this one more year and we’ll visit it again.”

“Some towns would give their left arm for a grant writer,” said Henry.

Chairman Jonathan Dickerson was somewhat reluctant when it was his turn to speak.

“You gotta admit, though, we haven’t gotten the most bang for our buck,” said Dickerson with a shrug, before acquiescing to the other selectmen.

“One more year,” Dickerson stated after the unanimous vote to keep the grant writer.

Also during the meeting, Robert Zora from the Water Committee briefed selectmen on the plan to replace the Great Hill water tower, which will be featured as an article on the warrant and presented at Town Meeting.

The two-million gallon water tower will be replaced with a one-million gallon tower that is similar in design, but superior in technology than the current tower that was built in 1965.

An inspection back in 2004 showed the tank needed repairs, but Zora said, at this point, it is a wiser investment to demolish the old one and replace it with a new one. He said downsizing to a smaller tank would result in cleaner drinking water and provide ample storage of water.

The cost to replace the water tower is approximately $96,000.

In other business, the board approved the police chief’s request to require a permit for door-to-door solicitors in an attempt to control the activities, while keeping tabs on the whos, whats, wheres, and whys of solicitors in Marion.

The board approved the chief’s $20 permit fee, and solicitors will be required to carry this permit on their person while conducting their business in town. The permit will be valid for one year and only applies to commercial solicitors; not religious groups, political groups, or Girl Scouts.

Also approved was the building commissioner’s request to charge potential applicants who want to conduct a plan review prior to applying for a building permit a $25 fee.

Town Administrator Paul Dawson said Building Commissioner Scott Shippey often puts in several hours consulting with residents and reviewing their plans and, many times, these individuals do not follow through with the application process.

“Just to make sure it’s only serious people,” said Dawson about the reason behind the new $25 fee.

The fee will be non-refundable, but it will be applied to the building permit fee should the applicant move forward with the project.

Lastly, Dawson briefed the board on a two and a half-hour conference call that he, the treasurer, and the finance director had with representatives from Standard and Poor’s Rating Services on March 14 where the discussion was mainly about monitoring the Town’s bond rating in anticipation of a tentative future upgrade.

Dawson said the feedback was positive, and an upgrade would save the Town millions of dollars over the years when borrowing money for capital projects.

The public hearing for Wave Restaurant was continued until April 1 to allow for the proper notification of abutters.

The next meeting of the Marion Board of Selectmen is April 1 at 7:00 pm at the Marion Town House.

By Jean Perry

A Brandt Beach Road housing development may get a different type of septic system, something that is already in use in many areas, but new for Mattapoisett. Attorney John Williams, partner and legal representative for the project, came before the Mattapoisett Planning Board to discuss a plan modification and to propose upgrading the septic to a ‘Bioclere’ system.

Williams said it has become apparent that the current real estate market has no appetite for two-bedroom homes. His original development plans included two-bedroom single-family homes as well as three-bedroom homes for a total of 90 bedrooms once all the homes are built. That figure was arrived at when the plan included a traditional trickle septic system with common holding tank for all the homes in the development. The Bioclere system (a proprietary system) would allow greater flow and improved wastewater treatment.

From the website of AquaPoint located in New Bedford, a designer and installer of these systems states: “…classic trickling filter systems have been used for over 100 years for wastewater due to the simplicity and reliability of the process…” It goes on to say, “Bioclere is a trickling system over a clarifier that uses fixed-film treatment with varying organic and nutrient concentrations.” The website also points out that some of the advantages of this filtration system are the reduction in nitrogen concentrations, as well as digestion and mineralization of sledge. Johnson also pointed to another benefit noted by the website: The system can handle greater volumes of wastewater. He said that with the septic upgrade, pegged to cost $400,000, the board might be favorable to a move to allow all the houses to be three bedrooms. By allowing the increased number of bedrooms, Johnson impressed upon the board, the parcels would be more attractive to potential buyers.

After further discussion, the board members agreed that if Johnson installed this better system, he could move forward with the increased number of bedrooms. He was told to update his plans to include the newer septic system, and they would approve the amended plans. Johnson will return for that approval during the next scheduled meeting.

Earlier in the evening, Tree Warden Roland Cote, along with resident Dorothy Nunes of 18 River Road, petitioned the board for removal of a diseased maple tree located on the Nunes property situated on scenic roadway. Although the Planning Board has jurisdiction of trees along scenic byways in town, they deferred to Cote’s expertise in this matter. Nunes received approval to have the tree removed.

Further discussion regarding modification to by-laws was postponed until the next meeting scheduled for April 7 at 7:00 pm.

By Marilou Newell

What is the job of a police matron, you may be asking right now.

Matrons are on-call female employees whose responsibility is to supervise female prisoners, and assist with other procedures such as the patting down and searching of the body of a female in police custody.

As per the request of Police Chief Paul Magee, selectmen appointed Ashley Daniel and Kelly Massey as matrons to the Police Department on March 17, the only two applicants for the two openings.

Daniel is currently a part time dispatcher for the department, and Massey is an animal control officer for the Town of Mattapoisett.

Chief Magee described the position as “very, very part time,” and the two women will only be called when a female is taken into custody. The two new employees will attend training for the position later this month.

In other matters, Selectman Richard Nunes motioned to hold a joint meeting of the three Tri-Town Boards of Selectmen, the Finance Committees, and the ORR School Committee to discuss the recently disclosed cyber hacking, which led to the theft of over $100,000.

A date was not scheduled, but Parker said she would provide some possible dates for the other towns to consider. The vote to hold the meeting was unanimous.

Also during the brief meeting, there was some good news and some bad news.

Town Administrator Richard LaCamera began with the bad news, telling selectmen that the snow and ice removal budget is now at a $40,000 deficit as of today.

“I thought it might have been a little worse than that,” said LaCamera. “Hopefully it stops snowing soon,” he added, while Selectman Naida Parker crossed her fingers.

LaCamera then knocked on wood.

Unfortunately, reported LaCamera, the Town will not be receiving as much Chapter 70 money from the state this year to supplement the school budget.

LaCamera said they were all disappointed — they were hoping for more money this year in reimbursements. Alas, the house and the senate have already voted unanimously to accept the state aid numbers and, as Parker pointed out, “They’re not gonna back down” when it comes to the governor signing the budget.

Keeping with budget talks, selectmen were glad to hear that the ORR School Committee approved their FY15 budget, acquiescing to Rochester’s requested number for their assessment for the junior and high school. LaCamera added that Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical High School also approved their budget, keeping with the assessment Rochester was hoping for.

There was more good news for selectmen during the meeting, and LaCamera called it “absolutely amazing” that, for a third year in a row, health insurance rates for town employees is not going up at all, despite the three-percent “Obamacare” increase.

“They’ve (Mayflower Municipal Health Group) managed to absorb that,” said LaCamera.

NSTAR sent selectmen a memorandum announcing that workers will be spraying herbicides along the high-tension wires as part of their “Five Year Vegetation Management Plan.”

Nunes got excited about killing off poison ivy, while Parker exercised more caution toward the matter.

“As long as it doesn’t adversely affect anyone’s wells,” said Parker.

The next Board of Selectmen meeting is March 24 at 6:30 pm at Town Hall.

By Jean Perry