The Natick Select Board on Sept. 2 received an update on plans for the South Natick parks along the Charles River where the spillway is being removed (see Pegasus recording about an hour in). Efforts on the parks renovations project have been ongoing for several years.
The headline from this briefing came from Angela Snell, director of community services, who said the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs this summer turned down Natick’s request for a $1,243,500 ECO One Stop Grant for park renovations. This grant would have been paired with town staff time and $147k in already secured town funds as a matching requirement. The town doesn’t know yet why it got shot down, but Snell said Natick expects to get feedback from the state later this month. It looks as though the state went with communities during the recent funding round that it hadn’t awarded such grants to before, she said.
The parks project team, however, had hatched a backup plan in May to apply for a Community Preservation Grant from the town, and now that $1,243,500 request will head to Fall Annual Town Meeting in October following the Community Preservation Committee’s (CPC) recommendation. Snell read from a memo during the Select Board briefing, then answered questions.
If approved by Town Meeting, this segment of the project will be funded courtesy of the 1% property tax surcharge that most property owners in town have had to pony up since 2023, following the town’s adoption of the Community Preservation Act in 2022. Natick receives matching state funds amounting to about 15% of those that the town collects from taxpayers via the surcharge. (Of course state grants also come from taxpayers, though a larger base of them.)
The town last fall tapped the CPC for $82,500 to fund final design and permitting work. The town used that money to work with ubiquitous consulting firm Weston & Sampson, which teamed with Natick to apply for the state grant that failed to materialize.
Natick will use the CPA funds, assuming they are appropriated by Town Meeting, to work on Grove Park—the picnic table and tree-shaded area where the spillway removal team has staged its worksite—and the long dilapidated multi-purpose park that has been home to basketball hoops, skateboard ramps, and who knows what else.
In May, the town received an Order of Conditions for the project from the Conservation Commission, and that permit is good for five years.
Grove Park, pre-spillway removal projectOld Town Park, on the Bacon Free Library side of the river, will have to wait, as archaeological assessments will need to be conducted ahead of permitting. Further grant opportunities are being explored to fund renovation of this shabby chic park, though Natick may wait to see how the newly-freed river reconfigures itself before going too far on Old Town Park renovations.
Speaking of grants… if you’re with or know of an organization that might be willing to award Natick Report grants to support student interns, please let us know: natickreport@gmail.com
How much are they asking the CPC for in this next round?
$1,243,500. This is the biggest CPC request to date.
Spending money before receive it
Really?!?! And taking this all down was the “cheaper” option?! Bullcrap. It’s going to cost a lot more money and end up being worse. Residents who live here didn’t get to vote on any of it. Their concerns were dismissed years ago and they were overruled by a select few.
Wait! The promise of beautifying the park as a way to appease those who didn’t want the the spillway taken out was based on unsecured funds and now that part of the project is at risk? Shocking, yet not shocking. As soon as the spillway removal was voted on the select board started backing off on the plans for the park. Why were funds not requested from the CPC to fix the falls in the first place? The Select Board was not willing to spend town money on keeping the falls, which many wanted to do. Of course we don’t know how many since it was never put to a vote. Resigned, to the spillway coming out, we are trying to stay open minded to it eventually looking beautiful again, in large part because of the promised work on the park. And now we are talking about adding bike lanes in downtown that few want and we presumably have no money for. Natick Select Board has lost their way. They keep chasing the free grant money and then feel they are in too deep to stop so they kick off work we can’t fund and don’t want.
The selectboard failures continue to mount. CPA is a violation of a homeowner’s constitutional rights. It is a tax on a tax and not only violates prop 2 1/2 but enables bad government to patch up their errors putting the burden on hard-working residents carrying the majority of Natick’s bill paying load. It should be repealed!
We will be paying over $1,000,000 to start for this MAJOR selectboard blunder. If anyone took the time to observe the spillway removal, they would have seen how well-constructed it was as the destructive equipment had to work so intensely to remove it, and as TONS of boulders and Tons of trucks road across the fragile earthen dam.