It was a busy week for Chuck McCullough, chairman of both the Mattapoisett Capital Planning and Community Preservation Committees. But that’s to be expected as the town’s budget-focused committees continue their review and recommendation processes in a lead-up to the Annual Spring Town Meeting.
On March 3, McCullough met with the CPC to review proposed capital projects for the Fire Department and the Water and Sewer Departments.
Fire Chief Andrew Murray explained the necessity for replacing the pontoons in the department’s safe boat at an estimated cost of $14,500. He said the floatation equipment was 20 years old and will no longer hold air. But the big surprise was the $575,000 plugged-in for FY23 for a new fire engine.
Murray said that a January state inspection of the 1996 Pierce pumper engine currently in service stated that the apparatus would most likely fail a road-worthiness evaluation. He said the floors were rotting out and that seven years ago, $40,000 in repairs had given the piece additional service hours. “We’ve been nursing it along,” Murray said. “We have wooden planks holding the batteries in place so they won’t fall out.” This revelation prompted McCullough to wonder aloud if a new engine could, in fact, be pushed out to FY23.
Member Alan Apperson asked, “How do we decide if it comes out of free cash or debt?” Town Administrator Mike Lorenco responded, “The only option is debt or capital reserve funds.” Lorenco also thought that incurring the debt would push up the tax rate.
McCullough suggested to Murray that he pull together a committee sooner rather than later to study options and costs for a new engine given the amount of time it would ultimately take for a new engine to be built, upwards of a year. McCullough said it was possible to bring it to a fall Special Town Meeting if one is held.
Earlier in the discussion, Murray justified a request of $42,000 for a fire inspector’s vehicle, saying, “Most departments have a vehicle for the fire inspector; he’s not going to use his private vehicle.” He said that it would also be used to transport recruits to the fire academy.
Also coming before the CPC was Henri Renauld, superintendent of the Water and Sewer Departments. He described two sums of $25,000 from each enterprise entity as funds needed to prepare conceptual designs for a new, all-inclusive building proposed for property owned by the town and located off Industrial Drive.
Renauld said the design is the first step toward estimating a new municipal building that could finally bring the two departments together under one roof. To offset expenses associated with a new structure, he said that town-owned properties located on Church Street, North Street, and the Bay Club could be sold off. Currently, the Water and Sewer Department operations are sprinkled across the community at various locations with rents of approximately $4,000 per month.
Also divided 50-50 between the two services was $35,000 each for the purchase of a new truck. Renauld described a vehicle currently in use as deteriorated beyond repair.
On the project side, Renauld discussed the pending Pearl Street improvements, 25 percent design and dependent on the Highway Department’s design portion, and the Eel Pond forced main that will require horizontal directional boring under the bike path with an estimated cost of $2,345,000. If grants are secured, the town’s portion would be $750,000, said Renauld, who added he would know by the end of April if state and federal funds were secured. Regarding the town’s portion, he said that another project, the Fairhaven Treatment Plant and pipe-relining project, had come in under budget by $644,000, freeing up those funds for the town’s portion of the Eel Pond project.
The conversation turned to the capital needs of Old Rochester Regional High School. Once again, McCullough noted the importance of bringing the three towns together in a joint capital meeting to discuss matters. Lorenco said that funding outdoor track improvements or a replacement would require the approval of the School Committee and stressed that all three towns are facing very tight budgets.
“If the appropriation is too high, it won’t get funded,” said Lorenco. “Unless we use debt.” Lorenco also noted the increases being sought by Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical High School and Bristol County Agricultural High School. To fund a large track improvement project at ORR would mean cutting somewhere else, he speculated. Lorenco said that currently, the total split between the three towns is around $400,000.
On March 4, McCullough came before the Finance Committee in his roles as chairman of the Community Preservation and Capital Planning Committees.
McCullough said the Community Preservation Committee had received three requests, a scant number compared to other grant seasons.
The first grant proposal came from the Cushing Cemetery overseers for $20,000 to digitize historical records and map the cemetery. McCullough said that some 7,000 records are kept in boxes at members’ homes. The overseers sought to preserve the records for posterity before further deterioration or loss could occur. The CPA members were in full support of the request.
The Mattapoisett Christian Church and Mattapoisett Historical Society submitted a grant application for $35,500 for renovations of the entranceway almost exclusively used as the museum’s entrance.
After a thorough review by town counsel, McCullough said that no conflict was found between church and state since the museum was the sole occupant of the former church building. “We did our due diligence,” McCullough said. The CPA committee agreed unanimously.
A press box for ORR in the amount of $20,000, which had previously been brought before Town Meeting but failed to secure Rochester’s support, was again advanced by the CPA. McCullough said that the ORR Athletic Boosters Club was once again seeking Tri-Town support that its members believed they would receive at the spring town meetings. The CPC agreed to advance the request again, contingent upon full Tri-Town support.
McCullough switched hats and began discussions regarding the work of the Capital Planning Committee. He ran down the list of FY22 capital requests: $30,000 water well pump upgrades; $50,000 combined water/sewer new building conceptual drawings; $70,000 combined water/sewer new vehicle; $35,000 sewer pump upgrades; $150,000 village water main project; $644,000 Eel Pond forced sewer main; $54,000 Long Wharf improvements; $132,000 ORR track project; $55,000 new police cruiser; $14,500 fire boat pontoons; $250,000 roadway improvements; $85,000 side-arm mower; $45,000 local schools telephone upgrades; $25,000 floor repairs local schools; and $20,000 roof and window repairs library building.
The FinCom members also met with Old Colony Superintendent Aaron Polansky, who spoke to the rise in the number of students entering his school from Mattapoisett. He said that 31 students from the community are now registered. He gave a brief PowerPoint presentation that illustrated a budget increase of 1.98 percent or $824,722 for FY22. He said that one reason the increase isn’t larger came from a one-time offset from the state of $107,000, shared by the member communities. Polansky said the school had anticipated receiving $7,000 per student from the state but ended up only receiving $1,500. FinCom member Gary Johnson said, “You’ve done a nice job trying to get the budget down to under 2 percent.”
The Mattapoisett Capital Planning Committee scheduled a meeting for March 10 at 6:00 pm; the next meeting of the Mattapoisett Finance Committee is scheduled for March 11 at 4:00 pm.
Mattapoisett Capital Planning and Finance Committees
By Marilou Newell