The Community Preservation Committee will fund seven projects in the coming fiscal year totaling $345,456, including money to help pay for repairs to the old library roof and a cash infusion to the fund used by the Conservation Commission to purchase land.
The committee, which recommends each year how to allocate money in its Community Preservation Fund, voted last Thursday to support the two projects, along with five others that were among nine requests submitted by town agencies and a citizens group. Each of the seven recommendations will be presented to Annual Town Meeting as a separate article and must be approved by a simple majority vote. A summary of the requests and recommended grants appears in the table that accompanies this article.
Money to replenish the Community Preservation Fund each year comes from two sources: a 1.1 percent surcharge levied on every Harvard taxpayer’s bill, plus a matching grant from the state. As fiscal 2019 began last July, the fund balance was $82,566. Surcharges collectioned this fiscal year are expected to add $230,176 to the fund, and the state match will be $43,037, an amount that has declined annually since Harvard adopted the Community Preservation Act in 2001. If the town approves the uses recommended by the CPC, the fund will be left with an uncommitted balance of $57,691 as fiscal 2020 begins.
The grants recommended for the old library roof ($100,000) and the Conservation Commission ($125,000) are the two largest in next fiscal year’s list, but they were not the most controversial.
In June, a private group identifying itself as the Bromfield School Turf Project led by Ed Frackiewicz and Karen Strickland asked for $125,000 to pay for the leveling and reseeding of the field used by the Bromfield lacrosse and field hockey teams. The pair proposed to work with the Harvard Athletic Association and the Bromfield athletic department. But at a Jan. 17 CPC meeting, Strickland was unable to provide the committee with a written endorsement from either group, and stakeholders such as the Parks and Recreation Commission and the Bromfield Trust were not on board. Project estimates ranged from $60,000 to five times that amount. While acknowledging the work needed to be done, CPC voted 8-1 not to support the project in fiscal 2020.
The committee rejected two other proposals, the first from Parks and Rec, which had proposed to replace 18 trees removed this fall from Pond Road with new plantings. “We don’t need to put more trees in the woods,” argued committee member John Lee. The committee also turned down a request from the Historical Commission to restore the rest of the Bromfield stone wall on Mass. Ave. With plans for the roadway in flux, the commission voted to defer the work to another year.
