This week, Selectmen approved spending $25,000 on Main Street work. The vote followed news that the redesign project is still on the state’s “TIP” project list, though one year further out.
The expense will allow the Town to prepare for another necessary vote on easements at a fall Special Town Meeting. Some of work being funded is necessary even if the vote fails.
Southborough Wicked Local covered the Tuesday night vote:
Karen Galligan, public works superintendent, in a memo to selectmen, said that the Metropolitan Planning Organization agreed to move the project in the state’s Transportation Improvement Program to federal fiscal 2018, which runs October to September, after the easements failed.
“To stay in this program and receive this funding, Southborough’s Town Meeting will have to authorize the selectmen to negotiate easements for the project,” Galligan wrote. “This needs to be done at a Special Town Meeting this year, as discussed at previous meetings.” . . .
She told selectmen that $5,000 will be used for a ground-penetrating radar survey along the retaining wall on the south side of the common, on the common itself or along the Old Burial Ground as requested by the Historical Commission.
Selectman Brian Shea asked if the results of the survey can be used if the town doesn’t continue with the state project. Galligan said the survey needs to be done for any construction work in the area.
“It also makes sense to know if there are any issues at this location before Special Town Meeting so that the Historical Commission has a comfort level with the work there, or can help create a plan to address the issues, and so we all know of any issues before we develop the final design plans,” Galligan wrote on June 1. “Performing this work will provide useful information to the town for this, or any, future project.”
The rest of the money will be used to respond to the comment from the state Department of Transportation on the 75 percent design plans, create more renderings of the project and assist the Main Street Design Working Group.
For the full story, click here.
