By Carol Britton Meyer 

The HRA has hired a technical operations manager to assist with writing requests for proposals and other tasks as the authority seeks to develop a plan for the future of its property.

The authority also is seeking to fill an administrative role to manage other tasks.

At Monday night’s meeting, Chair Dennis Zaia introduced Mark Hamin, who had already spoken with individual HRA members.

“Mark will be the first line of answers for things we are wondering about,” Zaia said.

Hamin is a principal strategic planning consultant with Sustainability Designer, where he works on a variety of projects involving strategic planning, design, and media communications. He is also familiar with various municipal, regional, and state agencies and has worked on a number of municipal, regional, and redevelopment authority projects. He also is a lecturer at the Rhode Island School of Design.

He grew up on the South Shore and is “very familiar with a lot of the issues related to coastal communities in Massachusetts as well as ones related to land use and coastal zone management.”

Hamin is looking forward to lending his editing and writing abilities to help the HRA fine-tune their RFPs and other elements,” Hamin said. “I’m delighted to be involved.”

In other business…

⦁ Member Joan Senatore asked about an $55,000 outstanding liability to MassDevelopment that she recently came across when reviewing the authority’s books. HRA member Bartley Kelly said the amount has been in the authority’s financial statements since 2017 and represents the balance due to the state agency for planning work undertaken with the town and the state Department of Conservation and Recreation for developments that did not occur. The amount would need to be repaid once the HRA moves forward with the Urban Renewal Plan, he said.

Click here to review the HRA’s financial documents

⦁ As HRA members head into developing what they are calling “Option 3” for the draft Urban Renewal Plan, Zaia said a good starting point might be “trying to channel what Doug Thompson [shared following the four meetings he facilitated] – to see what we can all agree upon. Maybe there’s a way to designate what the HRA property was 50 or 60 years ago to get us started.”

⦁ Resident Anne Murray, during the citizens’ comment period at the end of the two-and-a-half-hour meeting, expressed concerns about comments by Senatore and Zaia at an earlier meeting about emails they received from a resident, whom they mentioned by name, that Senatore called “disheartening” and to which Zaia also objected. The woman was on the Zoom meeting but did not respond at the time.

“I think [that situation] could have been handled more tactfully without names,” Murray said.

She also asked for clarification of the 2018 town meeting vote regarding the two-way road plan, indicating that an HRA member had said earlier that the plan had been approved at town meeting, which she said is not the case.

Murray urged HRA members to “go back and watch the meeting tape,” as she had done.

Zaia asked Murray to hold further comments until Town Manager Jennifer Constable “can provide a definitive statement of the town’s role with the two-way road plan, because this has consumed so much of our time.” He was referring to numerous related discussions during HRA meetings. “We’ve beaten the two-way road proposal to death, and I want to get clarification from the town manager.”

This is a project “within the town’s sphere,” member Adrienne Paquin said. “We are a partner and may have been an instigator. … Hopefully we can get some clarity from town hall on [the proposal]. This is no longer in our hands.”

HRA member Bartley Kelly responded to Murray’s remarks at Zaia’s request.

After a back and forth between Murray and Zaia, Kelly said, “I think I’m being called out here” for remarks he made at earlier meetings about the two-way road plan.

He said that a 2018 town meeting vote authorized the select to enter into an agreements to “alter, discontinue or abandon” parts of Nantasket Avenue within the HRA’s footprint (as deemed “prudent and beneficial to the town”) “to effectuate a two-way road plan going forward. That motion was approved by more than a two-thirds vote.”

Kelly added that the select board, as the town’s traffic commissioners, is the only board with that authority, although the HRA “may be a partner in that proposal if the authority loses or gains land as part of that plan. That was the authorization, plain and simple,” he said.

“I have to disagree,” Murray said.

Zaia said when he and Senatore get together with Constable in a meeting planned for the near future, he will ask her for clarification about the two-way road plan, among other business.

“This [issue] is overwhelming to this person,” he said, referring to himself.

• The authority has decided to withhold the release of the Keller Williams Real Estate report because it will directly affect its future negotiating position. Zaia said that components of the report contain the value of the property and members believe it is in the interest of the authority and the town to withhold the report until the draft Urban Renewal Plan is completed.

⦁ Upcoming HRA meetings include: December 16; January 13 – to discuss the draft Urban Renewal Plan; and January 27 – to review applications for use of the HRA property for the 2025 summer season (which have a January 20 application deadline).

A replay of the full meeting will be available on Hull Community Television’s broadcast channels and on demand at www.hulltv.net.

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