Thursday night, the South East Coastal Coalition held their third informal meeting with four towns in attendance: Weymouth, Marshfield, Scituate, and Duxbury. But with no distinct members or a mission statement, the group has created a survey in hopes of sparking interest with town officials to choose a representative to sit on the regional board. The survey will be given to each town’s DPW, Planning Board, Conservation Commission, Selectmen, and beach or harbor committee.
Coalition leader Joe Rossi from Marshfield explained they’re in the beginning stages and South Shore waterfront communities have expressed enough interest in regionalization to move forward, “I think at the next meeting when we start talking about the dredging issues and have a presentation about that, which we’re planning to do, I think that’ll be a big first step in really gaining some traction.”
According to Rossi, interested towns also defined flooding, infrastructure, and house raising as major issues.
The combined effort between towns is supported by State Representative Jim Cantwell and State Senator Bob Hedlund and is helping them secure coastal grant funding for projects like seawall repairs and other infrastructure. “Working in numbers is definitely helping them propose the legislation especially with coastal issues. [It’s] showing the state that the towns want to regionalize to really make a difference,” said Rossi
The South East Coastal Coalition is expected to have a full and defined board in the next two to three months in order to start swapping information between towns.
(Scituate Maritime Center)
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