The Town of Rochester has a temporary solution to its lack of an administrative assistant for the Zoning Board of Appeals. He’s veteran Zoning Board member Richard Cutler, whom the Select Board approved hiring as a temporary employee during Monday night’s Select Board meeting.
Without the help of former Patrice Braz, who resigned from the Building Department on December 19, 2022, members of the Zoning panel have been scrambling to complete the heavy paperwork load that board business requires.
The Select Board agreed to sign Cutler to a contract that fills the role for the next two months at a maximum of two days per week. Town Administrator Glenn Cannon said this will be a good temporary solution while the town screens candidates for the permanent position. The problem, he said, is that there is no private-sector equivalent to the job of Zoning Board clerical assistant. Anyone taking on the job will not have encountered this particular type of work before, he said. That is why Cutler’s experience makes him a perfect fit for the job.
The Select Board also found a replacement for outgoing Town Counsel Blair Bailey, who this week is retiring from the job after over 20 years serving Rochester. The board signed the contract that will make Mead, Talerman and Costa, LLC, a law firm with offices in Millis, Newburyport and New Bedford, the town’s new legal counsel effective Tuesday, February 7.
Before the approval vote, Bailey emphasized his confidence that this firm was the right choice for Rochester.
“I didn’t think twice about having them come to this town. This firm will give the town what it needs,” he said.
The February 6 Select Board meeting started with the town’s acquisition of the 65.26-acre Mahoney property for conservation purposes.
Conservation Agent Merilee Kelly explained that a Buzzards Bay Watershed Municipal Program grant totaling $93,100 is allowing the town to purchase its portion of the 241-acre Mahoney property that includes parcels in Acushnet and Mattapoisett and abuts Marion, Fairhaven and Mattapoisett Water Department properties.
Next, Helen Zincavage of the Southeastern Regional Planning & Economic Development District (SRPEDD) updated the board and residents on the regional, long-range “Assawompset Pond Complex and Nemasket River Watershed Management and Climate Action Plan.” The plan, she said, responds to the devastating floods that hit the area in 2010. A Municipal Vulnerability Program was created to prevent the same disaster from happening again. Rochester went through the MVP grant planning process in 2018-2019 and with Lakeville met to create their own addendum to these priorities.
Updating the Assawompset Pond Management Plan became this plan’s top priority. A management team and steering committee were created. The conclusion was a list of six floodwater-management priorities ranging from removing the first 500 feet of sediment from the Nemasket River to developing a long-term management plan for the Assawompset Pond Complex.
Zincavage said the next step is a 12-point action plan to address priority APC project goals, each at a different stage of research and development and in separate phases. She asked how Rochester would like to build into this work.
Former APC Management Committee member Fred Underhill responded with multiple criticisms. He said no one came to the Town of Rochester for its opinion on the action items that have been developed. He complained that Rochester does not have a vote on APC Management Committee decision, only if the vote “directly affects” the town. Yet the town will be responsible for developing, funding and managing these action items all on its own. Underhill added that New Bedford and Taunton, the two cities in the APC, wield too much power over the smaller member towns, Rochester, Lakeville and Middleborough.
Another resident asked if the town’s ponds have been tested to see if the nitro pollution the APC plan is worried about comes from the town. Town Planner Nancy Durfee reinforced this point by asserting that the APC analysis does not have enough data from Rochester’s ponds. “Without the data, you can’t really move forward,” Durfee said.
Zincavage responded that these are plans, not mandates. They are just future, possible strategies. “It does not make the town do anything,” she said.
The Rochester Select Board’s next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, February 15, at 6:00 pm at the Senior Center, 67 Dexter Lane, for a Community Electric Public Outreach hearing.
Rochester Select Board
By Michael J. DeCicco