Darren C. Moran, 27, the suspect in a February 20 single-car crash near 144 North Avenue in Rochester that critically injured a pedestrian, was arraigned on Monday afternoon at Wareham District Court and was being held in custody pending $10,000 bail.

            Charges include leaving the scene of a motor vehicle crash resulting in injury and for assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon.

            According to the police report, the operator of the vehicle that struck the female pedestrian went off the road and crashed. The operator fled the scene by foot. Rochester Police were searching on Monday for Moran after further investigation yielded an arrest warrant.

            The Rochester Fire Department reported having been dispatched to the area at approximately 1:30 pm on Saturday, February 20. Paramedic Josh Anacki and Firefighter/EMT Andy Weigel were the first to arrive in Ambulance 207. They learned from the injured patient that she had been struck by the vehicle, not ejected as had been originally considered, then the driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed before fleeing on foot.

            A Medflight was requested. Rochester Fire reported that the helicopter happened to be within five minutes of Rochester’s landing zone. The paramedics stabilized the patient, who had suffered severe injuries to her lower extremities and pelvic areas before being flown to Rhode Island Hospital.

            The Medflight is estimated to have cut the transport time to Rhode Island Hospital from 45 minutes down to 20 minutes or less.

            Rochester Police publicly credited officers Jason D. Denham and Robert Nordahl, Sergeant Shaun Peterson, and Detective Donald Kemmett for their effort in conducting a detailed investigation, and also thanked Plymouth County BCI, K-9 and Acushnet Police as well as Rochester residents who assisted investigating officers.

By Mick Colageo

            In an introductory tour of applications that will become the subject of more decisive scrutiny on February 26, the Marion Community Preservation Committee met on February 12 via Zoom to run through 10 Fiscal Year 2022 funding applications.

            “The real discussion will be two weeks from now. Bring a lunch; it’s likely to be a two-and-a-half, three-hour meeting,” CPC Chairman Jeff Doubrava told the members.

            With $456,000 in its account, Doubrava reported that $473,892 had been requested among 10 projects. The CPC would be able to fund $334,000. He said two projects had money to be returned: a Habitat for Humanity balance, and basement waterproofing at $65,000 that the Music Hall cannot spend until next year.

            “A lot of things funded last year weren’t spent due to COVID,” said Doubrava.

            Cushing Community Park Committee requested $30,000 to install a paved walking path on the grounds of the Benjamin D. Cushing Community Center on Route 6.

            The selectmen have allowed work out front where a 1/8-mile walking track will hopefully someday be complemented by a pavilion. The committee is working with the Council on Aging and the Recreation Department, and the COA and Friends of Marion Recreation have donated to the effort.

            Discussion ensued regarding the surface. While asphalt is planned, Board of Selectman Chairman Randy Parker suggested pouring concrete where possible. “It’s a good project, but I would like to see what concrete would cost,” said Parker.

            COA Chairman Harry Norweb said the selectmen approved the walking path phase last year. “Marion’s older adults will be users of the facility, but we anticipate all ages of the community,” he said.

            Chris Collings may find $30,000 in funding to buy more boats, kayaks, and equipment for Marion’s community sailing program, but he readily accepted the likelihood that very little of it will come from the CPC.

            As first pointed out by Parker, the roadblock is in the basic stipulation that CPC money can only fund permanent fixtures. That would include a basketball hoop, for instance, but not a bicycle and definitely not boats and kayaks.

            “I’m happy Randy was the bad guy because I was going to be the bad guy. Love the idea, but CPC funding cannot be used to buy boats,” said Doubrava, calling the answer “a hard no.” He asked, “Is there some other way we can fund this? Because it looks like a great idea.”

            While the town’s Recreation Department hires the staff, Collings works as a volunteer in the program. He founded it during a long rehab from a shoulder-replacement surgery.

            “This is really my favorite application,” said CPC member John Rockwell, calling the bay “our greatest open space.” Rockwell asked who would own the boats, noting the absence in the request of the Recreation Department, and said endorsement letters would be needed from the Friends of Marion Recreation. Collings said he could return in two weeks and satisfy some of those questions.

            Facilities Director Shaun Cormier has made numerous repairs to the steps at the Main Street entrance of the Town House, but the steps need a complete overhaul. A $221,000 project would include new entry doors, saving the old granite steps, and using them in the new construction in the same style. The plan is to remove the two side bulkheads that once served the former school building as an entryway to its woodshop. The bulkheads were not part of the original design and have no future purpose.

            Noting railings from the 1860s, Rockwell asked about outsourcing a reproduction of the design. Cormier said the architect would specify railings like the Taber Library entrance so that all three railings will match and be historically correct.

            Meg Steinberg, the chairperson of the Marion Historical Commission, said that the entrance is not historically accurate and has been modified many times. Steinberg asked about plans for the doors. Cormier said he has old photos from the early 1900s and plans to match all of the railings. The plan calls for a solid mahogany wood door with double glass that will match the originals. The current aluminum storefront doors will be removed.

            CPC member Will Tifft said to anticipate overages.

            Steinberg was present to speak about and answer questions about the Historical Commission’s $30,000 request to continue the town’s historical inventory.

            Doubrava asked Steinberg about the $125,000 previously awarded that has not yet been spent. Steinberg said the money has been “committed,” including a $12,000 consultant’s fee. Steinberg told the CPC that the Historical Commission was advised to use the other $15,000 in the request as the required local commitment in a state grant application meant to net much more in funding.

            Steinberg further explained that in assembling more funding through grant applications and CPC requests, it would be “probable four to five years down the road before we have it all done, but we have no other sources.” Steinberg said she learned that it is “very common” for towns to use CPC funding for such a project.

            Doubrava cautioned that such a lengthy project could become an ongoing activity, so hiring staff would be a problem.

            The Town House Annex received private funding to replace its windows and is now seeking $90,000 to finish the job, including trim. “There’s a lot of labor in that, and it’s good to have it redone, I think,” said Rockwell. The CPC voted to have the Board of Selectmen file a conservation restriction to protect the building.

            The Elizabeth Taber Library has requested $4,867 to complete funding for a $7,300 project that would add the stone carvings of four more books under the benches outside the building. The titles would represent the works of authors of diverse backgrounds. The rest of the project has been privately funded, including a donation from Tri-Town Against Racism. Steinberg indicated that the original contractor would donate some of the cost of installation.

            Sippican Historical Society has requested $25,000 to continue its archival catalog. SHS Executive Director Leslie Thayer Piper said the prior award of $125,000 has been allocated and will be spent by July on documents and artifacts before being digitized, putting collections online to make them accessible by students and the community. Thayer Piper said people around the world are looking to SHS to provide information, including German descendants of one of the crewmembers of the abandoned ship Mary Celeste.

            CPC members were not confident about Sippican Women’s Club’s request to fund an upstairs apartment because the funds target maintenance costs that do not qualify. Rockwell said the CPC had funded the building before. “Some components aren’t eligible for funding, but the ones that are (eligible) have dollar value, so we can look at that,” he said.

            Citing 550 total gravesites, CPC member Margie Baldwin noted that a project to update veterans’ grave markers calls for 500 sites. The project would use $228 unspent from 2020.

            Other projects include a $10,000 project to maintain split rail fencing at Silvershell Beach.

            The next meeting of the Marion Community Preservation Committee is scheduled for Friday, February 26.

Marion Community Preservation Committee

By Mick Colageo

            Members of the Rochester Board of Selectmen on February 16 expressed disappointment and frustration over the commonwealth’s dissemination of seemingly constantly changing COVID-19 information and the lack of vaccine availability to municipalities.

            Selectboard Chairman Paul Ciaburri said the Emergency Management’s COVID-19 team has had to return to a weekly meeting schedule because, he said, “Things change on a daily basis — sometimes twice a day. It’s maddening, and it’s so hard to plan anything with this.”

            Town Administrator Suzanne Szyndlar added that vaccine access for municipalities has become more restricted, prompting Ciaburri to refer to the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson’s hopefully soon-to-be-approved vaccine that would be more widely available because it does not require the ultra-cold conditions other brands of COVID-19 vaccine require during transport and storage.

            “Hopefully, we could possibly get our allotment,” said Ciaburri. “If that’s the case, then we would probably wind up doing it (in Rochester) like a flu-vaccine clinic, depending on how many doses we get at one time.”

            Ciaburri lamented the many weeks the town spent devising a COVID-19 vaccine-distribution plan, even carrying out dry runs on how fast workers could inoculate vaccine recipients using a drive-through method.

            “We were ready, but everything just [fell through],” said Ciaburri.

            Selectman Greenwood “Woody” Hartley said the Council on Aging already realized that Rochester seniors would not be receiving their COVID-19 vaccine in Rochester any time soon. He said the COA had received over a hundred calls from seniors looking for information on when and how they might get vaccinated.

            “When it became clear over the weekend … that we had actually missed the window … and now it was too late because there were no more vaccines,” Hartley said, those working at the COA started to plan for how they could get their seniors aged 75 and up vaccinated as soon as possible.

            Hartley said the COA would begin calling eligible seniors to ask them if they would be willing to travel to Gillette Stadium, one of the commonwealth’s mass-vaccination sites. If so, the Rochester COA would provide the transportation and help set up their vaccine appointment.

            “And we will get as many of them that want to get inoculated as fast as we can,” Hartley said. “We have one going tomorrow.”

            Ciaburri is relying on that Johnson & Johnson vaccine, saying that once Rochester gets an allotment, “We will be giving that out. We will be doing it.”

            “That’s fine,” said Hartley, adding that it likely won’t be approved for some time, and then it takes weeks to get it to their intended destinations.

            Ciaburri said he recalled that the state had promised to get vaccines out to places like Rochester, which then responded by preparing to efficiently handle the vaccinations.

            “We did all this work, and they basically told us no, which is discouraging,” said Ciaburri.

            In other business, SEMASS’s PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) disbursements to the town have recently decreased significantly in size, with its most recent payment for January 2021, $262,943, about $95,000 less than the January 2020 payment.

            Szyndlar reported that a major plant outage in January is to blame for the PILOT decrease, adding, “But the trend overall in our receipts for [Fiscal Year 2021] have been lower.” One reason, Szyndlar said, was the drought condition last year that she said “makes trash weigh less,” affecting profits. Also, a recent major construction project at the Cranberry Highway waste-to-energy plant impacted production at the plant from having to shut down operations during that timeframe. When she compared FY20 to this point in FY21, Szyndlar said Rochester so far has seen $319,000 less in PILOT revenue from SEMASS.

            “It’s a considerable amount of money,” Szyndlar said, adding that the decrease will affect the town’s free cash account.

            Selectman Brad Morse said that back in January he spoke with representatives from SEMASS, and they are well aware of Rochester’s concerns. Still, another operations shutdown is scheduled for March, said Morse, to install upgrades that will help the plant run more efficiently.

            “But we do have an open dialog,” Morse reassured.

            In other money-related matters, Szyndlar reported that she had received a notice from Bristol County Agricultural High School informing the town that Rochester and other non-resident towns would soon be issued a debt assessment in addition to their annual non-resident tuition for their students.

            According to Szyndlar, Bristol Aggie is imposing a per-student debt assessment cost of anywhere between $5,200-$6,000 to fund a significant project at the school. Rochester currently has 13 students that attend Bristol Aggie, which Szyndlar said means an additional budget strain of $68,000-$78,000.

            Szyndlar said she met with Bristol Aggie representatives to ask why non-resident communities must be “on the hook,” given that the school is in another county “and we are not a member town.” This added cost will create a severe impact on Rochester’s budget “for many years to come,” Szyndlar said, for the entire life of the loan, she told the board. She suggested the town seek assistance from State Representative Bill Straus, who Morse commented once helped Rochester deal with transportation funding issues regarding Bristol Aggie.

            Szyndlar also plans to reach out to other non-resident towns with students at Bristol Aggie for their input.

            “This could be very detrimental,” said Ciaburri.

            Also during the meeting, the board adopted a Town Hall key-card policy for the use of a set of new electronic key fobs to enter and exit the building. Szyndlar said the policy would help keep track of who is in possession of the relatively costly key fobs, should they be lost or stolen and need deactivating and replacing.

            The board also adopted an updated surplus-property policy to include instructions on how department heads should report surplus property to the chief procurement officer, Szyndlar, via a new sign-off sheet.

            Hartley reported that Rochester did not receive the grant it was counting on to construct a patio at the Senior Center, but suggested he would work with others to apply for a SRPEDD grant that could potentially provide funding for an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accessible walking path around the center of town.

            The next meeting of the Rochester Board of Selectmen will be held on Monday, March 1, at 6:00 pm.

Rochester Board of Selectmen

By Jean Perry

            Before beginning his FY22 budget proposal presentation during the February 11 meeting of the Mattapoisett Finance Committee, Mattapoisett Water and Sewer Superintendent Henri Renauld responded to a question from Chairman Pat Donoghue about rate increases. “Every year you come before us with expenses around 2 percent, then suddenly there are rate increases. How do we look at revenue versus expenses?” asked Donoghue.

            Renauld explained that “A few projects came in over budget,” such as the Pease Point water and sewer project that he said was over by approximately $220,000. He noted that the overage had to come out of retained earnings, leaving that fund at a low of only $51,000. He said it became necessary to look at rates to bring in more revenue. When asked, Renauld said that presently retained earnings for the Water and Sewer Enterprise Funds stand at $327,000 and $317,000, respectively.

            “So, Pease cost more, do you come back to Town Meeting for more?” Donoghue asked. Renauld requested $200,000. “A grant covered 25 percent of the original bid, but the Coastal Zone Management grant couldn’t cover the difference,” he explained. “We will recoup the cost of the project with betterments.” In a follow-up, Renauld said the betterment fees were under review.

            When Donoghue asked if water rates had been increased to pay for the project, Renauld said the town’s rate is 25 percent under the current rate as reported by engineering consultant Tata & Howard.

            Renauld also told the members that a $3 million expense, Mattapoisett’s portion of a plant upgrade to lower nitrogen levels at the Fairhaven plant, was coming. The total estimated costs of the project stand at $23 million.

            On the theme of large-ticket items on the Capital Planning spreadsheet, Renauld said the sewer pipe that crosses the Eel Pond breach would cost approximately $3 million and that the town’s portion, should another Coastal Zone Management grant come through, would be about $750,000. Another sewer line project in the Hollywood Beach neighborhood would have to be pushed out to 2024, he said.

            Renauld also talked about the need to evaluate the Water and Sewer Departments’ offices and equipment storage. He said that currently, the two operations are spread out over the town at various sites, some with rental agreements amounting to approximately $3,800 per month. He said the town owns more than one property that might be appropriate for building a combined facility and that he wanted to spend about $30,000 on conceptual plans to “get a whole new building.” He said the small lot on Church Street currently used by the Water Department could be sold to offset new construction. Donoghue asked, “What about maintaining a new building?” Renauld said that would all be part of the study.

            The proposed FY22 budget for the Water Department is $1,559,960, a 0.18 percent increase, and the Sewer Department is at $826,336, a 0.2 percent increase.

            The next meeting of the Mattapoisett Finance Committee is scheduled for Thursday, February 18, at 4:00 pm.

Mattapoisett Finance Committee

By Marilou Newell