An hour before Tuesday night’s Select Board meeting, the Town of Marion held an information session on the Maritime Center that will ask voters to appropriate $1,202,688 at the Monday, October 23, Special Town Meeting at Sippican Elementary School.
Current funding for a new harbormaster headquarters is $1,603,000 via grant funding from the state’s Seaport Economic Council and $700,000 from prior Town Meeting appropriation. Total estimated cost of construction is $3,505,688.
The gap figure on the Town Meeting warrant has increased in only a few weeks from a $922,000 estimate, and an informational pamphlet distributed to attendees warns that further delay in construction will result in cost increase and potential forfeiture of awarded grant funding.
The appropriation is to come from the Waterways Account, which is funded by harbor-related fees, not property taxes.
The current facility measures 225 square feet, but Marion officials and the Harbormaster Department insist it is no match for an operation of three full-time officers, administrative assistance and part-time help to manage 2,300 active moorings.
The old building is not ADA compliant, and currently operations are split between the office at Island Wharf and the Town House.
Asked by a resident unconvinced that the equipment was fairly described as “life-saving” how many lives have been lost due to the current conditions of equipment storage, Marion Harbormaster Adam Murphy was less than thrilled to suck the air out of what was likely meant as a rhetorical question.
“I personally lost one life, an eight-year-old boy named Connor,” said Murphy. “Sorry, I’m a little caught off guard by your question.”
Alluding to the complications of procuring a simple dive mask and some fins in an emergency situation, Murphy said, “time matters, preparation matters, having equipment available to us. …”
Murphy said that while Marion is a relatively small town, its harbor ranks second in the state for volume to Nantucket. He cited the yacht clubs, Tabor Academy and the need to staff all harbor events.
“A lot of medical issues that happen out there,” he said, noting that both marinas see several hundred boats come in and go out every weekend and that the Beverly Yacht Club calendar is full of events.
Vin Malkoski, the chairman of the town’s Marine Resources Commission, said, “It is critical to note that with the facilities we have, because we have really good people who train really hard … that we avoid … (catastrophes.) The facility we have now is not going to support that mission.”
Wharf and the Town House. He says critical and operational storage space was lost when the town sold its Atlantis Drive building. Marion saved substantial money building its own floats in-house, something it can no longer do.
Administrator Geoff Gorman said that the $900-per-square-foot construction price will increase by at least 25% if the town waits until May to vote to fund the remaining construction cost.
Others in attendance supported the new construction, especially those in the boating industry.
By Mick Colageo