Marion Recreation Department is sponsoring the 8th Annual Kids Equipment Fun Day, Saturday, May 11, 10:00 am to 1:00 pm at Washburn Park, Washburn Park Road, Marion. Rain Date is May 12. There will be fire trucks, dump trucks, bulldozers, mowers, police cars, and more. Bring the kids down to climb around and take pictures! Can you dig it? Great family event for all ages! Free Giveaways for the kids. Sensory hour from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm, limited sirens, horns, and lights during this hour!
The Rochester Senior Center will be hosting a Pampered Chef demonstration and luncheon on Monday, May 6. The demonstration begins at 11:30 am, with lunch to be served at 12:00 pm. Come for the demonstration and/or lunch! All are welcome! Please call us in advance to let us know that you are planning to attend. There is a suggested anonymous donation of $5.00.
Podiatrist Dr. Sarah Desrosiers will be at the Rochester Senior Center on Thursday, May 9. To make a footcare appointment, please call her office at 508-946-1444. Dr. Desrosiers office will call you directly to confirm appointments. Let us know at least 24 hours in advance if you need a ride!
There is a Friends of the Rochester Senior Center board meeting on Wednesday, May 8 at 10:00 am. Members are welcome to attend! Fundraising ideas will be discussed at this meeting. Please join us if you have some creative ideas or would like to join the Friends. New memberships are welcome and encouraged.
The Rochester Senior Center is currently accepting applications for potential new board members. The board is made up of 9 members. Members must be a Rochester resident and an active participant at the Senior Center. The Rochester Senior Center’s mission is to advocate for & support the community’s older adults, their families & their caregivers while promoting independent & positive lifestyles, in a welcoming & secure environment that provides opportunities for growth. Letters of interest should be sent to the Rochester Council on Aging, Board of Directors, 67 Dexter Lane, Rochester, MA 02770.
The Rochester Senior Center has various types of medical equipment available to borrow. We have wheelchairs, walkers, shower chairs, ect. that are available to borrow on a first come, first serve basis. Donations to this lending program are welcome. Please call the Center for more information.
RIDES: We provide free transportation for Rochester residents. Please call for a ride with one of our friendly drivers at least 24 hours in advance so we can schedule a driver.
Please contact us at the Senior Center at 508-763-8723 for more information or to make reservations for rides and/or events!
It’s finally official! April 25 marked the official commencement of the expansion of the Mattapoisett bike path, and state officials, local officials, and the folks of Mattapoisett all gathered at the YMCA grounds at the end of Reservation Road to celebrate this latest phase of the bike path, one that will further connect area residents with surrounding communities and the natural beauty of Buzzards Bay.
“What a beautiful spot,” said MassDOT Administrator John Gulliver standing at the podium, a row of shiny silver shovels in the sand in the background.
“These are difficult projects to pull off,” Gulliver said on behalf of the Highway Division. “We’re known for doing a lot of big projects like bridges and highways and such, but we do a lot of these bike trails and these are some the most difficult projects we do.” With all the consulting and cooperating it takes with project partners and abutters, “you really have to be very delicate with the design, and sometimes it takes a really, really long time.”
And it has taken a really, really long time. This day was literally 20 years in the making.
“We really want the final project to be what it’s going to be, which is a beautiful bike trail that’s going to provide connectivity for folks and, really, provide an opportunity to see the beautiful landscape that’s gonna be around it, and so we’re really, really happy to be here today to kick this one off,” said Gulliver. “This is one of those projects that takes so many people to get it done – with all the people that have been involved in this … if we had all just brought a shovel with us to all these meetings we’d probably be done with this trail now over the 20 years!”
The fruition of the roughly $8 million project, Gulliver said, couldn’t have been possible without State Representative Bill Straus, “a strong partner and tireless advocate,”as Gulliver called him.
Straus had mixed feelings about the celebration that morning, he said. “This is a project that’s had a lot of years in the making, and I didn’t feel good earlier this morning saying to somebody, you know, ‘When the project enters its third decade of planning,’ you begin to wonder, are you gonna be there to see it through? And this one, we are.”
Straus recalled 20 years ago when he attended an event just like this one in Fairhaven, and then eventually the first mile was laid down in Mattapoisett through to Neck Road, he said.
“And then this segment that is going to be more than significant because now, from village to village … you will have a transportation alternative, and that’s what these paths are about,” Straus said. “They are about recreation. They are about throwing people into the beautiful setting we have here, but the idea is … it’s another means for people to get around. There are things other than automobiles as a method.”
Straus thanked State Senator Mark Montigny, who was unable to attend, for his support of the project.
“But it’s the local people, though, in town that make a day like this possible,” Straus said. “There were many days, many town meetings … when almost every year at Town Meeting there was an issue about whether the Bike Path would continue.”
At first there were some opponents, Straus acknowledged, mostly before the first mile was paved into Mattapoisett. And those who advocated on behalf of the Mattapoisett bike path expansion had to go “20 for 20,” he said, and win every fight they faced. But opponents, he said, “if they had stopped the bike path even once, that was it.
“Opponents of projects like this only have to go one for 19 – once they win once, projects like this die.”
Straus also thanked the YMCA for its generous donation of the right of way access for the bike path.
Bike Path Committee Chairman Steve Kelleher has been on this committee since it was formed 23 years ago.
“Today, we’re here to celebrate those 23 years of dedication and hard work,” said Kelleher. “It was a difficult and exciting 23 years – I expected it to take five, but I guess I underestimated what was ahead.”
Kelleher gave thanks for all the different members who served on the committee with him over the years, the ones who “kept the faith,” he said.
“I wish Dave Jenney who just passed away about a month ago was here with us today,” said Kelleher, and all the others who have left the earth before that morning’s celebration. “I know that they’re all up there looking down here today and with great joy to see this project finally come to being.”
Bonne DeSousa, president of the Friends of the Mattapoisett Bike Path, a non-profit that has fundraised for years to help fund the project, said she was delighted to see the MassDOT funding more projects such as this one.
“MassDOT … began to see that building roads is not just about building the fastest, smoothest way from one place to another,” said DeSousa. “Building roads is about quality of life; building roads is about creating pleasant safe alternatives for getting where you want to go, healthful alternatives for where you want to go…. Thank you for sticking with this project and for getting it done.”
The group then proceeded to the shiny shovels in the sand, dug them in and, with a toss into the air, the project was officially begun.
By Jean Perry
Mattapoisett Finance Committee
By Marilou Newell
Chairman of the Old Rochester Regional (ORR) School Committee Cary Humphrey wanted the Mattapoisett Capital Planning and Finance Committees to understand the difference between the prior “T.U.R.F.” project and the current proposal, as a member of a committee comprised of school committee members, school facilities staff, and several members of the former T.U.R.F. non-profit group.
This committee, Humphrey said on April 25, has taken the original athletic field proposal – one that the Tri-towns had felt was too costly – and refined it to what they believe are the most needed repairs, namely the football field, the track, and some lighting and sound renovations in the auditorium.
Humphrey was flanked by ORR District Business Administrator Paul Kitchen; ORR School District member Tina Rood; school facility personnel; and representatives from Kaestle Boos Associates, the architectural firm engaged for design and estimating.
The meeting was called to specifically give the interested parties the opportunity to explain in greater detail the redefined regional high school improvement project and the financial impact to the taxpayers.
Humphrey said that the original T.U.R.F. proposal came in around $5 million, but the newer proposal was estimated at $2 million and focused only on those areas identified as safety concerns. Calling the ORR high school auditorium the “most used building in town,” he said the lighting was in woeful condition, as was the soundboard. Of the football field and track, he said that other schools didn’t want their students using those facilities due to concerns over player safety.
The plan is to resurface the track and install an artificial turf playing field. Presently, the athletic field was deemed by Humphrey as “more dirt then grass.”
Finance Committee member Colby Rottler wanted more information on the material being selected for the field, saying that dust, which the children might inhale, could have health consequences later in life.
“Everything is toxic,” said Rottler. “It’s a matter of what is less toxic.”
The artificial materials were described as natural polished wooden pearls spread over a shock-absorbing pad. It was further described as having a 15-year lifespan and requires grooming every three weeks for about two hours. A special machine employed in the grooming process was included in the cost estimates.
But the bigger issue for the Town’s two financial committees was not the need – that fact is recognized by all – but how the Town would fund a borrowing scheme for it, especially in light of plans to build a new fire station.
Finance Committee Chairman Pat Donoghue said, “My primary concern is, how much money are we going to have to put up each year?”
Superintendent Doug White said via a 15-year bond.
“Our portion would be $800,000*, spread over 15 years,” said Gagne.
“Is the note going to last longer than the life of the field?” Donoghue asked, continuing, “We have a capital project we’ve put off for years – the fire station. We don’t have a choice, so I’m trying to prioritize where this fits in. Does it meet the same necessity as some of these other things?” She also said that another priority for the town was local school improvements.
“We don’t have the money in the levy right now,” said Gagne. “If it’s voted at Town Meeting, it will have to be a debt exclusion.”
“We would not be here today if it weren’t a very big need,” Humphrey stated.
“We’ll look into what other regional school systems have done,” Gagne said, adding that Mattapoisett has a stabilization fund and that, possibly, there might be a way for the school district to develop something similar that could be used for large scale projects. “There really should be some ability to plan,” Gagne said.
Gagne was asked to study the financials and to return with a detailed breakdown. No vote was taken regarding the proposed project.
In other business, Mattapoisett Highway Superintendent Barry Denham meet with the Capital Planning and the Finance Committees to shed clearer light on his department’s needs.
Regarding repairs and improvements to the Highway Department building located on Mendell Road, Denham’s documents showed $217,020 remaining from previous town meeting appropriations against an estimated cost for $436,400 in renovations, a shortfall of $219,380.
On the matter of bridge repairs on Acushnet Road, for which the town has a grant for $500,000, Denham listed another $76,000 on-hand. The project total is estimated at $1.2 million. Denham projected, if the town secured another $230,000 from Chapter 90 funding in 2021, that would still leave $164,000 required to complete the project.
The next meeting of the Mattapoisett Finance Committee is scheduled for May 2 at 5:00 pm at the Town Hall.
*On April 29, Gagne updated the amount to $909,000 during a subsequent Finance Committee meeting.
Money makes the world go round, but how it is spent takes a voting majority. As Mattapoisett prepares for the Annual Town Meeting on May 13, the Mattapoisett Finance Committee is now in overdrive, meeting twice in one week to iron out lingering questions prior to making its final warrant recommendations on May 2.
On April 29, after having met with Old Rochester Regional (ORR) proponents of the athletic field/auditorium upgrade project four days earlier, Finance Committee Chairman Pat Donoghue said she visited ORR that day and walked the entire length of the track. While finding some repairs needed, the scope, in her estimation, was not as dire as what had been reported to the committee by the group proposing $2.5 million in repairs to the football field, tracks, and the auditorium.
“It’s not that bad,” she told the committee.
One track, she said, would need extensive repairs, while another only needed resurfacing.
Town Administrator Michael Gagne said that after taking a deeper dive into the ORRHS proposal, he found that Mattapoisett’s share spread over 15 years would be $909,000. He also wondered aloud if the $50,000 requested to replace lighting with LED lamps in the auditorium was allowed under the terms and conditions imposed by the Department of Revenue. He said he would be following up to ensure the bonding request was in line with regulations.
On that theme, Donoghue said, “I’m hearing that the artificial turf lasts only 10 or 15 years, and there is maintenance. … You don’t want debt when you have ongoing maintenance.” She said she believed that 20 percent of the track needed work. Of the proposal before them, she said, “I’m not comfortable.”
When asked if the ORR School Committee had a capital planning process, Gagne said that they did, but in the absence of a Stabilization Fund, they didn’t have money to spend. He also said that if it isn’t possible for the town to bond the proposed project with a 15-year note, numbers would have to be recast at 10 years and he was unsure what impact that would have on taxpayers.
In other business, Gagne said that a new agreement with Old Colony Regional Technical High School (OCRTHS) was in hand and that legal counsel was reviewing it. He said there is a new formula applied to municipalities sending students to OCRTHS. Whereas previously the same fee structure was applied to all participating towns, the structure was now based on enrollment.
Regarding the ballooning other post-employment benefits known as OPEB, Gagne said, “It’s a little alarming.”
According to Gagne, between 2015 and 2017 there was a $2.5-million increase in the Town’s OPEB liability. The town has been setting aside the sum of $435,000 from the budget for the past several years, but now, Gagne said, “We may have to increase that to keep pace with the retirements.”
The next meeting of the Mattapoisett Finance Committee is scheduled for May 2 at 5:00 pm in the Town Hall.
Mattapoisett Finance Committee
By Marilou Newell
We did it! We did it! We did it! Hooray and thank you.
You may (not) have noticed the fireworks thermometer at the corner of Front Street. It shows the red benchmark to the top! We did it! Thanks to you and the donations from the community, the fireworks committee is proud to announce that we have reached our goal to fund the fireworks this year!
Hold the date of July 5for this celebration. There will be food trucks, kick off of the band concert season, and, hopefully, a cloud free sky. The fireworks are scheduled to begin at 9:00 pm. The rain date is the following day, July 6. Stay tuned for a more detailed schedule of the events that day.
What a great way to continue the July 4 celebration. Thanks to all of you who have made this happen.
The Sippican Lands Trust will host a talk and workshop about invasive plants with Mike Bald from Got Weeds? on Saturday, May 4at 10:00 am at the Sippican Lands Trust Office, 156 Front Street, Marion. The talk will start at 10:00 am followed by site visits to two Sippican Lands Trust properties for a workshop about invasive plants.
Mike Bald, owner of Got Weeds? in central Vermont, will share his insights about removing and eradicating invasive plants like Japanese knotweed, Japanese barberry, and Oriental bittersweet using manual techniques. Bald has worked to protect sensitive areas in New England from the negative effects of non-native invasive plants since 2003, and will share his innovative, hands-on techniques about how to get rid of non-native invasive plants.
Bald grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and graduated with a B.S. degree in biology from the University of Notre Dame. Bald served in the Army with the Army Combat Engineers and worked for the U.S. Forest Service on invasive plant management projects before starting ‘Got Weeds?’ in 2011.
The talk and workshop are free, and no registration is required. If this event is canceled due to inclement weather, then information will be posted to SLT’s website and Facebook page. For directions or further information visit www.sippicanlandstrust.org or call Sippican Lands Trust at 508-748-3080.
The Marion Art Center’s Sidewalk “Sale-abration” will take place on Sunday, May 5, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm. Shop the treasures unearthed while cleaning out the MAC from attic to basement – you’ll find bargains galore on everything from theater props to holiday décor to art supplies! While you’re here, participate in a community art project led by artist Tracy Silva Barbosa. Using water-based chalk paint, we’ll decorate the surface of Main Street in front of the MAC with designs based on the famous blue and white tiles known as “Azulejos” in Portugal. Adults and children are welcome to participate. Note: The Azulejos street painting with Tracy Silva Barbosa will take place from 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm. Bring the kids for unique creations by a local balloon artist from 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm, and enjoy festive face painting by the talented Handi Mandi from 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm! The Oxford Creamery’s famous Oxcart will also be on site, offering their popular lobster rolls, hotdogs, homemade coleslaw, and more! All activities are FREE – contact the Marion Art Center with questions. In case of foul weather, the sale and other activities (besides chalk painting), will take place inside the MAC. For more information on other ArtWeek events visit us online at www.marionartcenter.org/artweek.
The Elks of Wareham/New Bedford Lodge No. 1548 sponsors the Elks Student of the Month and Student of the Year Awards for students enrolled in local area high schools. The criteria used in nominating a student includes a student who excels in scholarship, citizenship, performing arts, fine arts, hobbies, athletics, church, school and community service, industry and farming.
We congratulate Senior Lily Govoni of Rochester for being selected as Student of the Month by the Old Rochester Regional High School Faculty and Staff. Govoni is self-motivated and very talented. She loves to knit and crochet, and she creates patterns and designs to make her own clothes. She had the initiative to begin the Knit OR Crochet Club at ORR, with the intention to donate the knitting pieces to a local shelter. Her vision for the club was that students could provide hats, scarf, and mittens to the people in need to help them stay warm in the very cold winter months. She also wanted to knit to help reduce stress in high school students, and to promote resiliency, one of the CORE Values at ORR. Thanks to Govoni’s idea, and her dedication, the club was able to donate 70 pieces (hats, scarfs, headbands, and mittens) during March.
On April 19, Mattapoisett Town Administrator Michael Gagne came before the Zoning Board of Appeals with an application for a Special Permit for the construction of a photovoltaic solar array on top of the capped landfill located on Tinkham Hill Road.
Gagne said that an expired Special Permit had been issued about six years prior. However, there weren’t any developers interested in investing at that time because power grid infrastructure improvements are needed. While there was interest in the location, the financials just didn’t work.
With apparent new and rejuvenated interest in that site and several other private properties in town, Gagne felt the time was right to open a new permit.
“Things have changed,” Gagne began. He said sloping topography is no longer a problem for the placement of solar panels.
According to Gagne, several developers are interested in shouldering the investment of upgrading power lines along parts of North Street and Crystal Springs Road. He also said the Crystal Springs Road sub-station needs upgrades to handle additional electricity production.
“We are more optimistic we’ll get a vendor,” Gagne speculated. He said his office had been in discussions with Sun Power and Blue Wave, LLC. Sun Power is working with Old Rochester Regional High School on a possible array installation at the high school, and Blue Wave has been a good business partner to the town on other solar projects, said Gagne.
The 147-acre site located at the end of Tinkham Hill Road abuts Haskell’s Swamp and several private undeveloped parcels. Gagne noted that there would be no impact on area residents, and the private lots near the landfill could be leased for solar development as well.
“The revenue the town would get could help with capital projects,” said Gagne, something that the selectmen believed made the projects attractive.
Gagne told the ZBA that not only would non-taxed municipal lands become taxable commercial property, but also that a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) program, like others the town now has in place, would generate new revenue.
When asked if the only benefit to the town would be money, Gagne said the town could also apply for energy credits that would be used to offset power consumption by municipal buildings and schools. The board unanimously approved the Special Permit.
In other matters, the board gave special permit approval to Vince Mondo, 11 Waterman Street, to construct a shed that would not meet setbacks. He explained that the family wished to store a car on the property, and abutters supported the plan.
Special Permits were granted to Jeffrey and Laurie Roberts, 5 Woodlawn Avenue, for the construction of a new deck, and to Paula Coffey, 64 Shore Drive, to demolish a house and construct a new one.
The next meeting of the Mattapoisett Zoning Board of Appeals is scheduled for May 16 at 6:00 pm in the town hall conference room if there are any ensuing applications.
Mattapoisett Zoning Board of Appeals
By Marilou Newell
The Friends of the Mattapoisett Council on Aging (COA) held their spring luncheon last week. The event, catered by Courtyard Gardens, was well attended. Guest speakers, Amanda Stone, RN; Chief Lyons; and Officer Lima, gave valuable information regarding the town’s reassurance program, sharps disposal, and the securing and disposal of medications. Prizes were given to attendees in the following categories: Oldest – A. Crowley, Longest Resident – B. Briggs, and the person with the most great grandchildren – J. Pannell. Thanks to all who contributed to the success of the event. COA’s tireless efforts to fundraise for these types of events continue with an upcoming event – a yard sale at the Center School COA entrance on May 18.