The response of Old Hammondtown Elementary School students in neighboring Mattapoisett to an opportunity to participate in television production with Old Rochester Community Television caught ORCTV Executive Director Robert Chiarito off guard.

            “Every single fifth grader tried to sign up,” Chiarito told the Marion Select Board during Tuesday night’s public meeting at the Police Station.

            In attendance via appointment to present an Annual Report, Chiarito and Phil Sanborn, Marion’s liaison to and representative on ORCTV’s Board of Directors, brought the Select Board up to date on multiple matters of interest, including the spiking interest in student participation.

            Chiarito said the junior reporter program has been so popular that students have been divided into two groups. He hopes that when they reach high school, they will still be interested. Students put together a half-hour news program about what’s going on at the school, including plays and concerts. They write, produce, direct, film the shows themselves. Chiarito said some of the work is done in the studio and some in the field.

            “This year there’s more than twice as many kids as spots,” he said.

            Along with the usual bookkeeping such as a third-party review (a draft of which Chiarito said he would have by November 6 to present to a Tri-Town Select Board meeting) and an audit, ORCTV is hoping to build a radio station. They have identified an in-school site, renovated and painted it. Now they’re only waiting on technology. The internet-based radio station will allow listeners to stream government meetings.

            There is also a plan in the works to outfit a new press box at the high school. Chiarito said that ORCTV has donated money to the project and has been waiting six to seven years for it to become a reality. Chiarito said mounting such a structure atop existing bleachers is a complicated task.

            A prefabricated construction such as a shipping container could be mounted, and Chiarito indicated that ORCTV wants to make it handicap accessible. There is no construction timeline because all the labor involved is volunteer based. ORCTV is not doing the building, just the wiring and installation of broadcasting equipment.

            In his Town Administrator’s Report, Gorman said that procurement and project budgeting is completed for the new Harbormaster Building construction. Alluding to the informational meeting held on the subject an hour before the Select Board met in the same room, Gorman credited Marleigh Hemphill, the daughter of Executive Assistant Donna Hemphill, for a fine job putting together the pamphlet distributed to attendees. Gorman was told to anticipate a nine-month construction timeline.

            As for the proposed Department of Public Works operations center at Benson Brook, a November 7 meeting has been scheduled to discuss procurement and a construction timeline.

            Marion’s Swap Shed, aka the Boutique at Benson Brook, now has rules and regulations, after Donna Hemphill met with Randy Parker and other stakeholders. The plan is to open the Swap Shed from April to October on Wednesdays from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm. The shed will be open to Marion and Rochester residents and will be staffed by volunteers. The town will hold the right to refuse any item.

            The Marion Police Department has received a $46,000 grant to fund body cameras and received a letter from state officials congratulating the town for being selected. Body cameras were part of union contract negotiations. Gorman expects Marion will have them by July 2025.

            Marion has received Best Practices grant funding of $35,000 to update the town website, achieve ADA compliance (January implementation), and another $15,000 to improve human-resources policies and procedures. Consultants have reached out, according to Gorman. The strategy is to create a template for an employee portal in a SharePoint site so that employees can access information.

            The town is applying for an IT Best Practices grant to pay an Upper Cape Tech student whose full week of work has inventoried the Town House computers, an estimated eight or nine of which can no longer support software upgrades.

            Marion has also applied for grant funding for a digitization effort at a maximum $200,000 that would cover 75% of costs; Gorman is waiting on a response.

            The Marion Fire Department will host an Open House on Friday, October 20, at 6:00 pm at Fire Station No. 1.

            The Special Town Meeting will be held on Monday, October 23, at 6:45 pm at Sippican Elementary School.

            A Pumpkin Palooza will be held on Saturday, October 28, from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm at Cushing Community Center. Participants in pumpkin carving must preregister by Tuesday, October 24.

            Marion will hold a Veterans Day ceremony on Saturday, November 11, at 11:00 am, followed by an 11:30 am lunch for veterans and their families at the Cushing Community Center.

            Heather O’Brien started on Monday as the town’s new finance director. O’Brien, the unanimous choice of the Select Board members among three finalists for the job, visited for two or three hours three times to work with Judy Mooney prior to her official start date.

            The abiding complications felt by the Marion Energy Management Committee in its quest to orchestrate some energy-saving solar installations in town landed in the lap of the Select Board, as it discussed a letter received from the EMC.

            Most of the focus was on the longstanding effort to get a ground-mounted solar project at Benson Brook, an item now being stalled after Eversource recently declared the need to take a step back from all new projects while it reassesses all aspects of its operation.

            Gorman participated in a virtual meeting with PowerOptions’ consultant and remains optimistic that the town will find a few solar projects it can complete. Per Select Board member Randy Parker’s request, he intends to set up a roundtable meeting.

            “What our little committee is concerned about is Marion should do their part to try and reduce fossil fuels. Unless we do something, nothing’s going to happen,” said Ingerslev, who believes Eversource’s main concern is handling power already created. “Eversource has to have the infrastructure to take that power out.”

            The new DPW building is being designed and positioned for roof solar.

            In other action items, the Select Board granted a one-day Special Liquor License to ICJ Corporation for the Travers wedding scheduled for Saturday, October 21, from 1:00 pm to 8:00 pm at the Music Hall.

            The board agreed upon 2024 meeting dates and approved the closure of Holmes Street for the annual Marion Cub Scout Pack 32 Soapbox Derby on Saturday, November 18, from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm (rain date Sunday, November 19.)

            A sewer connection was approved at 3 Taunton Avenue, but a sewer abatement request at 5 Moorings Road was tabled after discussion.

            The request to appoint Denise Schwartz as registrar was withdrawn.

            Two people were voted onto the EMC as full, voting members for three-year terms, longtime associate member Jennifer Francis and newcomer Kimberly Holbrook. The decision brought the EMC to a maximum seven members with no alternates.

            The board approved Water/Sewer commitments of $155 (sewer reconnection September 27) and $10,950 (new water and sewer service for 64 Lewis Street October 11.)

            The next meeting of the Marion Select Board is scheduled for Monday night’s Special Town Meeting to be held at 6:45 pm inside Sippican Elementary School’s multipurpose room.

Marion Select Board

By Mick Colageo

            The Mattapoisett Planning Board’s October 17 meeting was about 17 minutes long, a far cry from previous meetings lasting hours and chalk-a-block full of technical details. But the town’s business, whether massive or small, is noteworthy.

            Coming before the board on Tuesday night was developer Scott Snow to finalize a surety agreement for the Eldridge Estates subdivision off Prospect Road. Snow sought and received a waiver to change the planned underground electrical service to overhead wiring. Snow also received confirmation of an updated surety agreement from lot holding to cash totaling $48,000.

            Caroline Booth of the engineering firm Beals and Thomas, Inc., came before the board remotely for their client, Randall Lane Solar, which requested an extension for an approved solar site. A reason was not given during the meeting, but in a follow-up, Booth said a letter outlining the need for the extension has been submitted to the board on behalf of the client.

            In a follow-up with Town Administrator Mike Lorenco, he said that the request was due to Eversource’s need to study the grid and interconnection considerations. “These large solar projects take time and have to go before the Department of Public Works, a time-consuming process,” said Lorenco. The Randall Lane Solar project received a two-year extension.

            The next meeting of the Mattapoisett Planning Board is tentatively scheduled for Monday, November 20, at 7:00 pm.

Mattapoisett Planning Board

By Marilou Newell

            Rochester’s Conservation Commission Tuesday approved the next step for a plan that will place a 15-acre, self-storage facility at Kings Highway and Route 28. The panel approved an Abbreviated Notice of Resource Area Delineation that reflagged the parcel’s 2,700 linear feet of bordering vegetated wetlands.

            The Concom approved the site’s first wetlands delineation in 2015, the petitioner’s engineer Robert Rogers explained at a previous meeting. Then a commercial development plan that did not survive long was approved in 2017. Now, eight years later, the flags marking the wetlands are hard to find and just plain missing.

            Rogers reported Tuesday that the delineation flags have been successfully rehung, and Conservation Agent Merilee Kelly endorsed the work. “It looked good to me,” she said. Rogers said next he will want to seek approval of a new Notice of Intent on the project itself. The commission promptly approved the delineation unanimously.

            Next, the commission asked for more information before it can approve a Notice of Intent for a plan to expand the backyard and level the area with additional fill at 31 Hiller Road, for a yard that will extend no closer than 25 feet to the wetlands.

            Homeowner Nathaniel Reece told the board he simply wishes to extend his backyard and flatten it “closer to level” for more space that his family and pets can play on. Already, he has placed a silt fence and boulders where he wants his work to start, he said. He explained he is a mechanical engineer by trade, and his starting point for his wetlands distance measurements are old wetlands flags on the property.

            The commission responded that it needs a precise delineation of where the wetlands begin and that Reece should hire an engineer for the job. Commission member Ben Bailey cautioned Reece that it will take at least two commission meetings before the actual approval can be given.

            The commission then had a similar request of Walter Farias regarding his property at 532 Snipatuit Road, where an Enforcement Order was recently issued to stop work after the property was the site of a fire near a houseboat on the pond.

            Faria and his consulting engineer Rick Charon explained to the board their specific plan to carefully clean up the area. The commission said what needs to be done first is to file the Notice of Intent paperwork to include a wetlands delineation.

            Charon said the houseboat has a fiberglass hull and a wooden frame and is sinking into the pond. The plan is to surround it with a vinyl containment boom and silt controls and be ready for anything beyond that with oil-absorption pillows. A small excavator will then clean out the hull, cut the hull up and haul it away, then take out the remainder of the dock and clean the burnt debris from the hangar building.

            Bailey asked why a wetlands delineation has not been done. “It depends on how fast you want us to move on this cleanup,” Charon said.

            “We just want to make sure you do the work correctly,” member Mike Gifford said.

The board instructed Charon to file a Notice of Intent, including a wetlands delineation before any work begins.

            Next, the board learned the Mattapoisett Select Board cannot help the town with the much-debated, 241-acre regional Conservation Restriction that includes 13 acres at Red Brick Farm East but gives Rochester no rights to the water there. The agreement gives Mattapoisett the water rights to the Rochester parcel, including possibly digging up to four new wells under a co-ownership agreement with the Mattapoisett Water and Sewer Authority.

            Kelly on Tuesday read aloud a recent letter from the Mattapoisett Select Board in which the panel said the issue is outside its jurisdiction.

            Moments later, Kelly had better news, that Rochester Town Administrator Glenn Cannon recently told her he is working to schedule a meeting of Mattapoisett Water Authority and Rochester officials for the November 6 Select Board meeting to discuss the issue. This led Conservation Commission Chairman Christopher Gerrior to move that the commission post notice of a public meeting that night to join that discussion.

            The commission decided at its meeting two weeks ago to take its appeal to keep the town’s rights to that water local directly to the Select Board, and the Planning Board agreed to join this strategy last week. When they first heard of the CR plan months ago, commission members complained that Rochester has lost the right to use its own water resources too many times over the decades.

            The commission eventually prodded the Mattapoisett Water Authority to agree in writing it would “make every effort” to transfer the conservation land in Rochester to the town for $1. But Town Counsel recently told the commission that the promise of making “every effort” is not a legally enforceable one.

            The Conservation Commission scheduled its next meeting for Tuesday, November 7, at 7:00 pm at Town Hall, 1 Constitution Way.

Rochester Conservation Commission

By Michael J. DeCicco