Rockport Community Preservation Committee, Oct. 19, 2026

I'm here. Good. And Ruth George, I'm here. What a select person is Paul Murphy. And he's with us. Hi, Paul. And I don't see Christine McGuire. She's our Finance Committee Liaison. So I'd like to call the meeting to order. Our first thing on the agenda is approval of minutes from September 14. That was our little short meeting we have just before town meeting. I took the minutes. I hope they're okay. Do I have a motion to accept them? Move to accept the minutes of the 17. Okay. And seconded? Seconded. Second. Okay. Any corrections or

anything? Any further discussion? Okay, roll call. Discussion I'll abstain because I wasn't at the meeting. Likewise. Okay. Roll call vote. Mel? Aye. Larry? Aye. Peter? Aye. Jim isn't here. Carrie and I'm an aye. So motion to accept. Thank you very much. Got that out of the way. Next thing is just a quick town meeting recap. All nine articles passed. It was another good

meeting. I think most people enjoyed it. I tried not to talk quite so long. I do think in this coming year's application, I am going to add some things to it. And that will be that we'd like some pictures submitted with the application so that we can show those pictures at town meeting. It could be up on the screen while we're talking about the project. So people have a better visual. Several people have mentioned that over the last two years. So I think that would be a good addition for this coming year. How would people feel about that? Great idea. Give us a good library too as we go through the following years and accumulate pictures of each of these things. Right. And a lot

of them will want follow up pictures. Right. And to see what it looks like before and after type things. Absolutely. I still have a signature page for Dana to sign and Jim Yagoni. And that's for paying bills. And I'll catch up with you at some point to just get you to sign that piece of paper that goes to Town Hall that says that Mel can sign for checks. I can. And now Sue Terry Blake is the vice chair. Any other comments? Any questions or observations you had? What were good? What were bad? What we can do better on? What do you think? Anyone? I saw a lot of people read the poster. I think that was a huge, huge, good thing to do this year. Thank you, Peter, for all your help

with that. And Mel. And that is now at Town Hall in the front lobby. And probably in a month or so we'll move it to the library. And then I might put it up at the police station in the community room or someplace else to put it around town so other people can see it and look at it. I think that visual gives a lot of history of CPC and shows the width and breadth of each category and how much is in each one. I think that's a great idea. People are very, very visual. Right. Yeah. And they like the backstory of not only this year, but people who might not have been to town meeting over the last five or six, 10 years or so can see what else has been on there.

And it will give them food for thought of what another application that they might think of putting together or something. Okay. Enough on that. Number four, treasurer's report. Mel, you're on. Thank you. Basically, the biggest thing here is we've got $200,000 more to spend this year than we had last year. Much of it due to Ruth's diligent efforts to get some of the money back that wasn't being spent. It wasn't being spent. It was out there for quite some time. Also, because we got more money from the state and the town, the tax collections were up a little bit. So we have total amount of $3,119,275, $275.81 in unspent appropriations. That bothers me.

That's a lot of money to be holding and not getting spent. Then projects are still moving very slowly. I think it's a shame that we had to take, we got some money back, believe it or not, because we intended for that money to be used mostly on projects that we're going to get completed. Some of them didn't, some got completed under budget, which was great. But I really think that we've got to get these projects moving somehow. That's about all I have to say. If you have any questions, let me know. That $3 million includes the million we just gave out, right? That's right. And looking at the list, I mean the only one that goes back, well there are three of them that go

back. Two are the Pigeon Co Fire Station. I'm going to report on that in a minute. And the other one is 2014 front beach improvements. All the others are pretty much 24, 25, 26, and 27. When I stopped, I saw the $3 million and it shocked me too. But we've got to remember that $600,000 of that is parked for straight Smith. And then there's money sitting there for the affordable housing group. And again, all of this will come back to us if it isn't spent. So I think we've done really good getting those older projects closed out.

So I did a little kind of update for tonight. I've been talking and working with Rosemary about the kayak rack replacement. They still had $14,371. They were looking to get some electrical work done at the kayak rack. But I spoke with Steve Bonapain and that area needs extensive electrical work down at White Wharf. So she has already written me a note and that money is being brought back to CPC. So Mel, you can add that. Yep. Okay. $14,371.09 coming back. I'll send out. I got the letter today.

Hi, Jim. Welcome. Hello. I'm just going over some of the projects. Front beach improvements. I talked to Steve Bonapain also today. That was questionably for a bubbler and some other things that were going on down there. They're not really sure what they're going to do. They were looking at a small shower area down by there. So he's decided he's going to write a letter also, and we're going to get that money back. And they'll put another application in if they decide to do that for recreation purposes down there. So that's another $8,794. And that one is from 2014. So those are definites that are coming back that I will get their letters, send them to the DPW

department, and then they will come on the DPW commissioners thing to get them back to the accounting office and get them back into the right group of part of money for Mel or whoever. Update on the Pingree and other softball fields that's underway. They've gotten estimates for fencing and different things there. So that is well on its way. That was a 2025 project. The community house flooring from 2026 is about 95% done. They just have a little bit more. Nothing has come out yet of the account, but I'm going to go to the accountants office tomorrow Steve did talk with Lori in the DPW department, and it was billed to the right account.

So that a lot of money should be coming out of that. That was like 70,000, I think. As I said, Pigeonco Fire Station, their projects were 2016 and 2023. And that will be starting in the spring. He's pretty sure that he can get that project done this year. So that will be that's his number one goal is to get that done and out of the way of roofing, windows, siding, things like that. What does that note say in the right column? It's cut off on my copy. Roofing and siding repairs will start show. I'll stop shortly. They said they were going to start it before the ring, but now they're going to ring.

Yeah, because it's not a time. Yeah. So they're going to do it in spring, right? Yeah, spring. And that and that's his number one priority of everything on the CPC list. Action still has quite a bit. Yep. Yes, Larry. Has that gone out for bids? No, he's got the bid package already. He's got the bid package already to go out. And he said he usually sends it out a couple of months before he wants to start it. Right. He's got all the paperwork all ready to go. Yeah. Action sent me an email the other day, and they just weren't sure how to get the money. I think it's a new person who's requesting the funds.

So I explained that to her. I sent a copy of that to you, Mel, I think. And so that should be getting dispersed shortly. And then there are several things that I need to talk to Rob Craig about because he's sort of shepherding those. It's the Granite Pier, T. Wharf, Bradley Wharf, and the library windows, the study. Those are all 24, 25, and 26. So those are recent. I think a lot of money has gone out from Granite Pier, but it doesn't really show it on our account side. I don't know what's going on there. And again, T. Wharf, Bradley Wharf, they came in higher than the money we gave them.

So I want to talk to Rob about what their thought is going forward about those projects. So that's kind of an update on the current projects that we have. You know how much the miss was? You know how much the quotes were about what we had given them? You know, is it like a ton or 10% or twice? I'm not sure. Yeah, it'd be just good for us to know those numbers for future relative work. I know it's really hard with the price of things. They go up almost daily. Yeah, all that Wharf work has been hugely gone up.

So I'll try to meet with, see if I can meet with him this week. I've got some afternoons open, so I'll do that. Ruth, thanks. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. Would you ask them if they want to come back this year and ask for more money so they can complete the projects? Yes, I will. Thank you. Yeah, yep. Okay, yep. Any other questions on outstanding projects or how we're doing? I think we did good getting a lot back this year, so that's good. We're getting there. Any public comment?

Yeah. There's no other constraints except the selectmen could theoretically put a constraint on it. Yeah. And I think this, I mean, this is the, one of the big projects that town meeting absolutely thinks is wonderful. So I don't think there'll be any problems. And we'd hate to do the town seal over again with top half of the South Tower missing. I don't see that would be more expense. And so we need to avoid that expense. I know we have to redo everything. That wouldn't be a good, that wouldn't be a good show. Okay. Next. Unanticipated new business. Anything anyone wants to talk about it can think about or.

Nothing. Okay. Our next meeting is November 9th. It's kind of right around the corner. But I'll get that letter to the editor. I'll work on it tonight and just put in the old, the new projects. Get that over to the paper. Get going on sending out emails. I'll try to reach 1623 and talk to them and we'll get that going. I'll do what I usually do. Mel does part of the meeting and talks about financial stuff. And I'll talk about doing the application, how to do it. Just a very easy tutorial. Walk through the application. Tell them who to call with questions. And just put it out there. And especially, I think I'm going to refer most, a lot of people to go to town hall and look at

that big poster and look at the different things. And if, see if they can think of something that might be interesting to them to do an application for the town of Rockport, something under our four slash five categories. Ruth, the something that you sent out that thought was an update on the Legion. Yeah. The thing that I'm thinking about, though, from that, are we going through historic on that? Is that the avenue? Yeah, it's historic. So we got to keep, I think you got to keep in mind, I think the historic is only on the exterior appearance. But it can be preserving a historic building by that's why I've got the call out to CPC coalition.

But I think it's it's like preserving the roof, preserves it, the heating, all of those plumbing and electrical. It has no fire suppression in it. Okay. I think all of those things, I think, by what I read under the Secretary of Interior standards for rehab would cover those. But I didn't place a call and left a message for the CPC coalition, because I got this, I don't know, 15 page report today, and I'll send it out to it's only eight or 10 pages. I'll send it out to you folks tonight. That just gives a basic number on the different categories. The only reason why I get a little nervous is because we do use that kind of consideration

when we think about repairing the interior of a church. I didn't really go through this with the flooring at the community center. Yeah, yeah, we have. We I believe that the standard is a little bit, you know, it's a if it's a public building or building that's open to the public, there's, and you're talking about the historic fabric of the building. So it's what you can see and what you can feel or it goes to protect the building or its infrastructure, you know, so, for example, if you're changing framing that's inside, you don't see it, but it's necessary. Right. So if you get something rotted out. But there's also a fine line between preservation and maintenance. And, you know, something that gets categorized as maintenance doesn't get covered.

So there are it's complicated. I think Ruth is right to make that call and, and find out, specifically on this project, what what would and wouldn't qualify. I would use that example when you think about it. I mean, I'm for the project 100 percent. I just want to make sure we're careful with precedent and some other decisions we've made. But that that would be a good question to in comparison, Ruth, when you think about yeah, the considerations for the bones of the church. You know, I mean, we did do the steeple at the churches and we did. Those are all the interior bones, you know. Yeah. And that is that is considered the historic streetscape.

A church steeple is a historic streetscape. That's how it is characterized under CPC. But I guess I would I guess I would look and remind them of our community house project. Yeah, historic building. This and this one is older than that, I think. But we did the heating. We did the HVAC. We did the plumbing. We did that kind of thing. The roof to protect and preserve the history of the building. Now, I think Don made the point. It might be the discriminator is that it's a public building. Right. And this is owned by the town. Yeah.

Least to the Legion. But at some point, Jeff Scaddaday sent me this with a note saying he wanted to talk to me. And I do want to go talk to him. And the Legion commander, I think his name is Favalloro, the steep police guy. I do want to go talk to them after I talk to CPC about do you have any other avenues to look at? Is there a Legion group? Is there someone else that you could you could tap into some cost of this building? And what would your what would your feelings be to open this up to more public use?

Yeah, that's a big one. It is. And it's, you know, it's using taxpayer money, CPC money for don't give it. It's wonderful for the Legion and for all of those guys who have served. But it's a a limited amount of use. And I'd like to see and I'm sure they would. But I'd like to talk to them about opening up the usage. I think they've had those some of those discussions. Okay. And and if nothing else, starting to expand even the families of veterans. You know, my dad served in World War Two, would I could I be connected somehow? So, you know, there's plenty of ways to stay the course and think about a larger community.

Right. Yeah. So I've been trying to think about all those avenues that would help help help sell that project and take the burden 100 percent off us sort of. Yeah, they can raise money pretty quickly. For like, for example, I think they're going to need a new stove. I already know people who will be willing to jump in on that. If they ever put something together, there'd be a lot of private funds. I bet would. Yeah. Step up where the town, you know, can't get back to. And, you know, they might be able to do some wonderful fundraising. I'm sure they might have several benefactors who are. Definitely service members who would put a bequest in for something for that building.

Yeah. So I just want to kind of talk to them about it. I'm sure they're going to be open to it, but I do want to just plant the seed and let them. I'm sure they've been thinking about it because I did mention it once before way in the beginning. But all good things. Okay, so next meeting is November 9th. We'll do it at 7 p.m. Anything else anyone wants to talk about? Do I have a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Seconded. Second. Don, okay. Roll call vote. Larry. Aye. Mel. Aye. Dana.

Aye. Jim. Aye. Peter. Aye. Dawn. Aye. Ruth. Aye. Great. Thank you. Unanimous. Thank you. See you on November 9th. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thank you so much. Thank you, Lisa. Good night, everybody. Good night, guys. Ladies. Thank you, Frank. Thanks, Frank. Good night, everyone. Okay. Bye-bye.