Rochester’s Select Board has set a Special Town Meeting for January 22, 2024, for what Town Administrator Glenn Cannon called “a few cleanup items, including town financials.”
During Monday night’s public meeting held at the Senior Center, Cannon elaborated after the Select Board’s approval of the Special Town Meeting date that 11 articles are currently on the warrant. He said these articles will include a necessary move to increase the budget for police overtime and a zoning article related to adding a parcel to the town’s Cranberry Highway Growth Overlay District.
Most noteworthy, however, is the project not expected to be on the meeting warrant. Cannon said that none of the articles will involve the high-profile, public-safety facilities renovation and construction plan that the town has been formulating for the past year.
“We are not yet ready to move it forward,” he said.
That plan’s current focus is creating two separate buildings to address those departments’ inadequate space needs. The plan calls for the current police station to be renovated with a small addition and a new fire station to replace the existing facility adjacent to Rochester Memorial School.
The Select Board opened the warrant for the Special Town Meeting on December 11 and will close the warrant on December 20.
The board began the meeting by approving a request from Zoning of Appeals Chairman David Arancio that he be appointed chair of the new Zoning By-Law Review Committee only temporarily. He asked the board to dub him temporary chairman so the new board can elect officers at its first meeting. He explained he was too “tapped out” with other commitments to take the reins full-time.
Next, the board approved a request from Town Planner Nancy Durfee to use town property to install monitoring wells at Snipatuit Pond for a hydrological study of the pond’s water flow.
The goal, Durfee said, is “to get a better understanding of the complex’s aquifer.” A flow gauge will be installed with ARPA funds totaling $20,000, and it will be the town’s responsibility to monitor that gauge, she said.
The project’s technical consultants chose two possible sites for the gauge, both town-owned, she noted. They are the town forest across from the Northern Avenue cemetery and at the Old Colony Regional Vocational-Technical High School.
Conservation Commission chair Christopher Gerrior asked bluntly for a deeper reason why these two spots were chosen. Were they the best places for the wells or the best town-owned places?
Southeastern (Massachusetts) Regional Planning and Economic Development District (SRPEDD) consultant Helen Zincavage said these spots best mirrored the characteristics of the pond that the study needs for the review. Durfee admitted that being town-owned made access to the land less complicated.
After the board endorsed allowing access to the 0 Northern Avenue site, Durfee thanked Rochester Water Commissioner Fred Underhill for his help educating her on the pond’s problems and needs. “I thank Fred for taking me under his wing,” she said.
In other action, the board approved an amendment to the Red Barn Farm Conservation Restriction, adding 12.44 acres to the existing 60 acres at Rounseville and Vaughn Hill Roads.
The board also endorsed the Planning Board’s referral that another town parcel be added to the town’s Cranberry Highway Growth Overlay District. Cannon said later that this is the amendment that will need Special Town Meeting approval.
The Rochester Select Board is scheduled to meet on Wednesday, December 20, to approve the warrant for the January 22, 2024, Special Town Meeting.
Rochester Select Board
By Michael J. DeCicco