The voters at Annual Town Meeting wasted no extra energy approving Article 26, giving the Harvard Energy Advisory Committee (HEAC) $8,300 for an extensive energy assessment of Town Hall and making the town eligible for $4,200 in matching funds from the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources. HEAC had originally suggested funding the study from the town’s Green Communities grant, but the BOS set other priorities for the grant funds. The study that will give recommendations for a deep energy retrofit for Town Hall is complementary to, but independent of, the design schematics project approved for Town Hall and Hildreth House.
The Conservation Commission recommended passing over Article 28, its citizens’ petition to raise and appropriate $100,000 for the Conservation Fund. The Conservation Fund is just shy of $1 million, primarily from annual CPC grants of $100,000 to $200,000 in the past several years. The Finance Committee withheld support for the citizens’ petition, citing the funds already available to the Conservation Commission. The CPC had early on decided not to support a Conservation Fund grant this year.
In contrast, money continued to flow to the pond when voters agreed to transfer $73,750 from the Community Preservation Fund to the Bare Hill Pond Watershed Management Committee to continue its Bare Hill Pond Stormwater Pollution Control Project and to become eligible for matching funds from the Massachsuetts Department of Environmental Protection. According to committee Chairman Bruce Leicher, the site projects intended to treat stormwater entering Bare Hill Pond from the town center are almost completed and coming in under budget. In the past, the committee has successfully leveraged CPC funds and volunteer hours to receive just under $600,000 in DEP funds.
Voters agreed to take an inaccessible, unbuildable half-acre lot off the tax rolls and off its owners’ hands when it approved a gift of land in Article 44, the last business of the day. The Brown Road lot adjacent to Interstate 495 is the last remnant of Costa family holdings originally purchased in 1926. The majority of the Costa land went to the construction of I-495. Abutters declined offers to purchase the small remaining piece.
