Town meeting to consider separate votes on seawall funds, takings for easements

By Carol Britton Meyer

Article 25A and Article 25B on Monday’s town meeting warrant relate to appropriating the town’s share of design and construction costs to rehabilitate the deteriorating seawall along Nantasket Avenue opposite Mariners Park, and easements required to complete the work.

Town meeting voters will be asked to approve an additional roughly $6 million to help pay for the project in Article 25A. Town Manager Jennifer Constable explained recently during a select board discussion of the warrant that the project will be primarily funded through state and federal grants and that if the seawall were to fail, the impacts would be serious and far-reaching for the town. (See related story.)

Select board member Irwin Nesoff urged town meeting voters to support the funding for the seawall during that same meeting.

“It needs to be replaced, and that’s what’s on the warrant,” he said. “If voters choose not to support it, that will put everyone at that end of town at risk.”

In their recommendation for Article 25B in the town meeting warrant, the advisory board explains: “It’s critical that, should the affected residents resist allowing easements to do the project, the town have the option to pursue eminent domain solutions. The failure of the existing seawall would be catastrophic for the town. There is no intent to take homes; the intent would be merely to obtain the easements.”

Except for consent articles, the order of warrant articles is determined by a lottery system.

The “consent agenda” adopted by the August 2023 special town meeting allows the town moderator, in consultation with the select board and the advisory board chairs, to combine articles that are deemed “not likely to be controversial and not likely to generate debate” into one motion that can be passed by a simple majority.

If seven or more voters in attendance wish to hold an item from the consent agenda, that article will be removed and acted upon in the normal manner.

The articles that remain on the consent agenda will then be voted on as one motion, without presentation or debate.

For full details, check out the town meeting warrant that was mailed to every Hull household or on www.hulltimes.com.

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