Posted on February 9, 2017
By James Lomuscio, WestportNOW
The Representative Town Meeting (RTM) Tuesday night voted 31 to 1 with 1 abstention to appropriate $1.265 million to dredge the Compo Beach marina and adjacent channel.
It then spent more than two hours on a nonbinding recommendation on who should pay for it, finally voting just after midnight 16 to 15 to recommend slip holders pay 80 percent and the town 20 percent of the cost.
The appropriation included bond and note authorization over 20 years to pay for the dredging of an estimated 20,727 cubic yards—the first such dredging of the busy channel since 1993.
The appropriation vote was more than the 70 percent supermajority needed to override the last week’s 4 to 2 denial by the Board of Finance. The finance board voted down the Parks and Recreation Department’s request because it wanted the boaters to pay 100 percent, not 80.
It also did not realize that its earlier vote on the issue, which it rescinded, was merely a recommendation and not binding on the RTM or the administration in finally allocating the cost.
The irony of the RTM’s final vote was that he legislative body had come close to recommending the town pay 100 perecent.
RTM member Catherine Calise had put forth an amendment that the town pay the entire amount as other shoreline communities do.
“The Compo Yacht Basin (the Ned Dimes Marina) is a municipal basin; it’s not a private club,” she said.
Others agreed and compared the channel, which is so filled with silt that boats run aground causing safety and liability concerns, to a road that the town alone should maintain.
Since the last dredging, sands that had been piled high along East Beach to act as a buffer against super storms Irene and Sandy have washed into the Ned Dimes Marina and the channel.
Calise’s motion, however, was defeated by 16 to 15 in favor of RTM member Jack Klinge’s 80 to 20 percent proposal, which was in keeping with the original Parks and Recreation Department request.
Klinge compared fees that slip holders would pay for the dredging to the fees golfers pay for course maintenance and restoration at Longshore Club Park.
RTM member Jay Keenan, who has a slip at the yacht basin, said he had no objection to having his fees go to paying for the dredging since the slip holder fees were not going to increase.
“In full disclosure, I have a slip,” he said. “I have no problem with the 80-20 split. I have no problem with how it’s done internally.”
Source: WestportNOW
