Select Board Approves, Hesitantly, $129 Million In New Contracts On Wednesday

The Select Board hesitantly but unanimously approved around $129 million in spending on Wednesday, much of it related to the massive Our Island Home nursing facility project backed by voters at Town Meeting and the ballot box last month.

The contracts related to Our Island Home that the Select Board approved on Wednesday totaled just under $109 million in new spending related to articles passed by voters this year and in 2023. According to project manager Jon Lemieux, all of the numbers are within the bounds of what voters approved.

New Select Board members Jill Vieth and Bob DeCosta expressed some concern with the figures, but ultimately voted to approve them.

“I get concerned about just rubberstamping this kind of money without any kind of guardrails to make sure we don’t go over,” DeCosta said.

Vieth pushed for greater transparency on the borrowing schedule for the project.

“My issue is we don’t have a debt schedule yet, so we don’t know when we’re borrowing, we don’t know how much,” Vieth said. “I would be more comfortable if I understood exactly what the plan was.”

Some of the money voters approved may never be spent if the town opts not to purchase a pair of cottages on the current site.

“There are millions of dollars that may never be spent,” Select Board chair Dawn Hill said.

The spending also included about $3 million for bathroom improvements at 25 Federal Street, the solid waste facility, and the Sconset comfort station. Vieth told the Current that the bathrooms were being funded by expenses approved at Town Meetings in 2021, 2023 and 2025. Last October, the Select Board rejected all three bids to renovate the town’s public bathrooms, largely in an effort to save money by excluding the Harbormaster building from the renovation project and rebidding without it. A plan to rebuild the Harbormaster building is going forward along a separate track.

Vieth expressed support for the project.

“This came to [the Capital Program Committee] last year,” Vieth said. “We actually saw the pictures, and Dawn [Hill] and I were practically in tears. I’m not kidding. It was pretty appalling what was at the [wastewater treatment facility], and I feel strongly that this needs to happen.”

Voters also approved $7 million for nine bedrooms of town employee housing this year, and the Select Board gave the go-ahead for just over $6 million in spending for the project on Wednesday.

The Select Board also authorized just under $10 million for the second phase of construction at the Surfside wastewater treatment facility. The funds, authorized by Town Meeting articles that voters approved in 2018 and 2019, will cover HVAC, metal, and electrical work.