In thanking Paul Naiman and the Capital Improvements Planning Committee, Marion Town Administrator Jay McGrail told the February 15 meeting of the Marion Select Board that Naiman’s letter to the board will be a supplement to the warrant for the Spring Town Meeting.
In a 6:30 pm appointment, Naiman appeared on behalf of the CIPC to discuss its process in prioritizing FY23 capital project and creating a 10-year outlook.
The CIPC, Naiman explained, still has a couple of its founding members. Select Board Chairman Norm Hills is a founding member, and the newest member is Bill Marvel from Finance Committee. The committee’s purpose is to assist town department heads on developing capital plans to present at the Spring Town Meeting.
By definition, a capital project in Marion has at least a five-year lifespan and costs at least $10,000.
In order to facilitate the Select Board’s, town administrator’s and voters’ actions, the CIPC meets with department heads and asks them to prioritize their own capital projects and to answer how each project will be financed and its benefit to the town.
“Once we have all of the projects (there are over 30 for FY23,) they are scored on seven criteria,” explained Naiman.
Projects funded by fees and enterprise funds garner the highest number of points, and those financed by debt garner the lowest number of points. Other factors that hold serious sway in CIPC project rankings include state or federal requirements (compliance) and decrees; projects lacking any regulatory requirements get no points, but public safety or health-related projects get points.
A project will garner points if it upgrades an existing item and makes it more efficient such as replacing a snowplow. If a purchase is new, Naiman and his committee ask, “What’s the payback?” They also ask how a project relates to the Master Plan.
The CIPC totals up project scores and creates a weighted average and a ranking. The goal is to achieve “an objective list, not a singular point of view,” said Naiman. “Just because a project scores high or low, it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be put on the warrant.” Some of the school projects, he said, score lower on the priority list due to criteria failures, but those projects are typically funded.
For FY23, Marion has 34 capital projects submitted for consideration totaling $8,600,000 in estimated costs, $7,200,000 of those costs related to Department of Public Works projects.
The CIPC also puts together a compilation of a 10-year plan from each of the department heads as a planning tool. Before CIPC, said Hills, “there was nothing. Stuff would drop out of the air.”
Sewer and water projects take up much of the 10-year outlook.
The CIPC will meet in a few weeks for a post-mortem, discuss how the year went and how to improve, said Naiman.
Waterman called the CIPC “a huge asset to the town. It’s methodical but also the fact they help us lay out a 10-year plan that avoids a chaotic budget process.”
“If we didn’t have that list, it would put a tremendous amount of pressure on the boss and us to prioritize this list,” said McGrail. “From a management perspective, the final product is extremely helpful to Judy and me. We work backwards off the list.”
In a 6:15 pm appointment, Harry Norweb and Dr. Ed Hoffer appeared before the board to discuss an action plan for the town to achieve an Age-Friendly Community (AFC) designation with AARP and the World Health Organization.
Norweb explained that while many of the actions associated with the action plan can already be accomplished by the Council on Aging and volunteers, they cannot distribute the action plan, but the Select Board can. So the Select Board voted to submit the action plan to AARP.
John Waterman thinks it is premature for Norweb to disband the volunteer working group because lacking a centralized leadership, he suspects the action plan would wane rather than thrive. McGrail suggested forming a workgroup under his watch.
Hoffer suggested that the mutual interest in creating market-rate housing for the town’s senior population could bring together the action plan volunteers with the Affordable Housing Trust. McGrail noted that the AHT is scheduled to appear at the March 15 Select Board meeting to discuss the board’s scope of activities.
Hoffer said the action plan also makes Marion eligible for modest AARP-related grants.
Bob Grillo was introduced as the town’s new building commissioner. Grillo was the assistant building commissioner in Sandwich and a local inspector. He replaces Scott Shippey, who recently went to work for the Town of Foxborough.
“We need to work with our contractors and homeowners, not against them,” said Grillo, who said he enjoyed success going at the job that way in Sandwich. “Hopefully we can continue on that same track.”
In his Town Administrator’s Report, McGrail was thrilled to announce that the installation of the lagoon liner is complete, and all that remains are leak-mitigation measures. The town did not have to apply for another extension as the state said it will not hold the January 31 deadline over Marion’s head.
Under Action Items, the board voted to support the DPW’s request to deficit spend on snow and ice removal. The town has already exceeded its allocated $50,000.
The rescheduled, public dangerous-dog hearing has been moved forward from April 19 to March 15 at 6:15 pm.
The Select Board voted to approve the conditions of a sewer connection application at 390 Wareham Road with the following prescribed conditions: an engineered connection plan, two as-built drawings within three months (regular condition,) that the applicant work with other users to build an association and a bond.
The board approved several reappointments to the Stewards of Community Open Space, and Emil Assing was appointed as a full member of the Conservation Commission. Assing will fill Cynthia Callow’s spot until its June 2022 expiration and will need reappointment at that time.
A letter from Donna Maxim requesting the placement of a memorial bench at Silvershell Beach was passed over, as Hills and McGrail plan to draft a policy in light of many such requests.
The next meeting of the Marion Select Board is scheduled for Tuesday, March 1, at 6:00 pm.
Marion Select Board
By Mick Colageo