The pivotal appropriation of $1,202,688 was approved by an overwhelming margin at Marion’s Special Fall Town Meeting held Monday night at Sippican Elementary School, green-lighting construction of a new Maritime Center for Harbormaster Department operations at Island Wharf.
The appropriation will come from the town’s Waterways Account, which is funded by harbor-related fees that were substantially raised in 2023. Added to $1,603,000 in grant funding from the state’s Seaport Economic Council and a prior Town Meeting appropriation of $700,000, the October 23 action brings the funding total to $3,505,688, the estimated construction cost.
The next step is to inform the low bidder for construction of the project of the vote supporting the funding, after which Murphy, Chief of Police Richard Nighelli and project manager Shaun Cormier (the town’s facilities manager) will schedule a preconstruction meeting with the builder.
Ten of the other 11 articles on the warrant carried, the one exception being Article 9, which was postponed indefinitely after the Select Board reconsidered its plan to recommend, considering an article requiring dog owners to carry equipment for clean-up to be impractical.