Natick Report

Jon Marshall, Natick’s deputy town administrator for operations likes to compare the town’s success in scoring state and other grants to a great batting average. We’re talking about put Ted Williams and his legendary .406 batting average from 1941 to shame numbers.

Staying with this metaphor, we’ll soon get to see how good the town is at bearing down and batting with two strikes in its effort to secure $1.243m  funds to renovate Grove Park and the nearby dilapidated multipurpose park area along Pleasant Street and the Charles River in South Natick. The town recently disclosed that it wasn’t selected for a state Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness  (MVP) grant for $1.243m to fund the project, and the town’s Finance Committee on Sept. 15 voted by an 8-5 margin to refer Motion C requesting $1.243m under Article 8 from the Community Preservation Committee (CPC) back to the sponsor. It was the only one of four motions under the article not to receive a favorable recommendation from the Finance Committee.

Now it will be up to Fall Annual Town Meeting, which starts on Oct. 20, to decide on the Community Preservation Act (CPA) funding request. While Town Meeting often votes in line with Finance Committee recommendations, that’s not always the case. The appointed Finance Committee vets motions being presented at Town Meeting ahead of the town’s legislative body convening and makes recommendations (or not) on them.

The town last fall scored $82,500 in CPA funds for design work on the same project. CPA funds come courtesy of a 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. Natick receives matching state funds amounting to about 15% of those that the town collects from taxpayers via the tack-on.

If Town Meeting does not approve the CPA funding for the parks project, Natick could take another swing at the MVP grant or go outside the strike zone in search of other state monies, such as a Parkland grant. Though Marshall spoke of the momentum that would be lost even if the town does manage to secure MVP funding later in the year. The town has been raring to go on this project, having put lots of staff time into permitting and design work, and securing a key order of conditions from the Conservation Commission. “Starting and stopping is the most difficult thing that we can do with staff resources,” he said, emphasizing how limited they are.

Oh, and about the town’s batting average. Marshall says it’s probably below .250 when it takes a second shot at state grants. That’s down where most of the Red Sox starting line-up hit this past season.

If Town Meeting does approve the CPA funds for the park improvement project, the town could seek an MVP grant for park work on the other side of the river, where Bacon Free Library looms above. “It’s a timing thing,” Marshall said.

The town has positioned its dam/spillway removal and parks improvement projects as separate but intertwined efforts, with those supporting the spillway removal tying that to assurances that the surrounding parks would get an upgrade. The plan for the Grove Park and multipurpose park areas would be to provide trails, more accessibility, and better seating, plus allow for possible future enhanced access to the river depending on how the water winds up reshaping itself without the spillway in place. When the Charles River Dam Advisory Committee issued its final report in 2022, it stated: “By using grants to support spillway removal and river restoration, the Town could afford to make needed park improvements without compromising other local funding priorities.” Some now seem to be questioning whether use of CPA funds is consistent with that approach, even though CPA funds are explicitly designed in part to support open space projects.

One piece of information that Town Meeting could have that Finance was not privy to is an explanation of why the state rejected Natick’s MVP grant bid. Town officials to date have speculated that the state just had a lot of candidates for a limited amount of grant money, but they were expecting to get a more definitive word from the state sometime after that Sept. 15 Finance Committee session.

Finance Committee member Julian Munnich made a motion to refer Article 8 Motion C back to the sponsor, the CPC, while member Kat Monahan made a motion for favorable action. In general, Finance Committee members seemed supportive of improving the parks, but differed on how to approach it financially and strategically.

Munnich said “this is the kind of money that sometimes you wait for,” referring to the opportunity to take another shot at state funding. He also questioned adopting a design before the river carves out its new path. The Charles River “has not yet told us what it wants to be…for us to go out and design something around what nature hasn’t decided is just the ultimate of hubris….”

Monahan, speaking in support of approval, said the town gave it a good shot going for state funds, but that CPA funds are another legitimate option. She acknowledged the town might have been better off seeking funds for the Grove Park and multipurpose park projects separately so that the request wasn’t so large.

CPC Chair Bill Ramage, speaking Monday at a Coffee With A Purpose session previewing Fall Annual Town Meeting, said the plan is for the CPC to still bring Motion C to the floor at Town Meeting.

Sadly, we don’t qualify for CPC funds. But you can make a tax-deductible donation to support Natick Report, the only dedicated daily news site covering the town.