The Hatfield public met at Hatfield Elementary School to accept the borrowing of $375,000 for culvert restoration on Main Street.
Photo credit: Hatfield Community TV
HATFIELD — The town of Hatfield voted to borrow $375,000 for the immediate restoration of a 12-foot culvert under Main Street, just north of the wastewater treatment plant.
Diana Szynal, chair of the Select Board, told the public during a special meeting on Sept. 11 inside the Hatfield Elementary School auditorium that a part of Main Street had sunk in earlier this summer.
“There was a sinkhole in Main Street and that was because this culvert is starting to fail,” said Szynal. “This culvert goes from the swampy area over by the wastewater treatment plant, under the road, over to the Cowbridge Road area.”
According to Szynal, the Select Board met with state Sen. Jo Comerford (D-Northampton) and state Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa (D-Northampton) to weigh their options on how to fix the issue. Ultimately, they decided that sleeving the culvert would be the best option because it costs much less to do, and it can be done quickly with public safety in mind.
The other option the town considered was going through grant programs with the state, but Szynal said that route would have taken much longer and cost much more. The town argued that the restoration needs to happen as soon as possible.
“This is a really serious situation if that culvert fails,” Szynal said. “It’s very old. We obviously can’t have a failure of Main Street and a long-term closure of Main Street or the safety issues that could happen with a collapse.”
The original article that was presented to the public included a contingency that the bonded amount the town agrees to would be voted to be exempt from Proposition 2½ at a future election, but the town found that this contingency was not necessary.
“We’ve checked with bond council, and he has opined that notwithstanding that that language was in the warrant article, a motion that does not include the debt exclusion contingency would be perfectly fine,” said Town Counsel Tom Mullen.
The public who attended the meeting were overwhelmingly in favor of the borrowing for the project, which has already been out to bid.
Mike Cahill, a resident of North Street, agreed with the Select Board that the project needs to be finished now but asked the public to accept an amended motion that allows the town to use money from Community Preservation Act funding for the project.
“My sense is that it may very well be that this project could potentially qualify for CPA funds and the use of those monies, according to the act,” Cahill said.
Mullen responded by saying that using CPA money for the project would not be proper because CPA money is typically used to preserve a historic asset, whereas this project is about restoring a piece of infrastructure.
CPC at-large member Michael Bartlett agreed with Mullen’s assessment.
“I think this [project] would be considered a transportation issue,” Bartlett said. “I mean, an old pipe’s just an old pipe. It’s not historic in any way.”
That amended motion put forth by Cahill ultimately failed, but the original motion to borrow $375,000 passed. According to the Select Board, the sleeving of the culvert means that the culvert should last for another 30 years.
