Westport in Brief!
EverythingWestport.com
Sunday, February 4, 2018
Quick Article Index . . .
Westport
Cultural Council awards $4,385 in grants.
CRE-HAB repair program
deadline extended to January 29, 2019
Super Bowl Walk, a Super Good Time!
WRWA release report on their Winter
2018 Cockeast Pond Oyster Project.
Letter to the Editor: Westport resident against
school before being for it.
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Westport Cultural Council awards $4,385 in grants. EverythingWestport.com Thursday,
February 1, 2018 Sen. Michael Rodrigues and Rep. Paul Schmid, along with Carolyn Duby, chairwoman of the Westport Cultural Council,
announced that 16 grants totaling $4,385 for cultural programs have been
awarded and will benefit the people of Westport this coming year. Requests for support in 2017-18 grant period
totaled four times the money available. WCC members made decisions based on
priorities published on the Westport Cultural Council website with an
emphasis on reaching all Westport citizens. The members of the WCC meet and carefully reviewed all applications and
grants denied were able to request a meeting with WCC
members. All grants funded will be completed in the coming year.
Above: Current members of the Westport Town Council are
Carolyn Duby, Ned Daniels, Robin Smith, Helene Korolenko, Lisa Arnold, Rud
Lawrence, Irene Buck and Meg Christ. WCC members are appointed by the Selectmen
and recognize they have a wonderful opportunity with this funding program to
support local concerts, artists, support for science and humanities and the
education of students. The work is a privilege but with so many requests
Council members work very hard to make sure all applications will increase
exposure to the arts and humanities for the entire community. The Westport Cultural Council is part of a network of 329 Local
Cultural Councils serving all cities and towns in the commonwealth.
Statewide, more than $3.3 million will be distributed by local cultural
councils in the coming year. Grants will assist an enormous range of
grass-roots activities with nearly half of LCC
funds supporting educational activities for young people. The LCC Program is the largest grassroots
cultural funding network in the nation, The state legislature provides an
annual appropriation to the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency, which then
allocates funds to each community. A majority of applications were submitted
online in the previous year when initiated by the MCC. In 2017, WCC decided to accept only online applications. The WCC members provided a training workshop
and support for all interested. Local grants for
2017-18 include: Westport River Watershed Alliance Winter Art Show, “Oars and Paddles” Kristin Tucker Zeiterion Theater cultural performance New Bedford Art Museum/ArtWorks!, Teen
Artist Internship Program The Arc of Greater Fall River, The Kids on the Block Junior Puppeteer
Program Westport Historical Society, family activities at the Handy House Ruth Harcovitz, Songs of World War II New Bedford Whaling Museum Museum, Access
for SouthCoast Youth New Bedford Festival Theatre, Inc. production of “West Side Story” and
“Summer Acade” Westport Free Public Library, Libraries Rock! New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, “Learning in Concert: The Orchestra as
Ecosystem” Zeiterion Theatre, Inc., New Bedford Folk Festival The Art Drive, 11th annual Open Studio Tour Massachusetts Audubon Allens Pond Wildlife
Sanctuary native plant events with Mass Audubon Paskamansett Bird Club, Marla Isaac Raptor Show Susan Viveiros, Children’s authors Korey Pimental, Shakespeare in Buttonwood CRE-HAB
repair program deadline extended to January 29, 2019. EverythigWestport.com Thursday, February 1, 2018 WESTPORT – The Westport Affordable Housing Trust Fund is accepting
applications for a housing rehabilitation grant program called CRE-HAB. The Trust will receive applications until
January 29, 2019, or until the grant funds are exhausted. The Trust has nearly $165,000 in funds recovered from repayment of
loans generated through the town’s former Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) housing rehab program to finance grant awards of up
to $25,000 to help owners of properties assessed up to $250,000 to repair and
rehabilitate qualifying existing homes in Westport. After receiving numerous inquiries about the program in 2018, the
Affordable Housing Trust Fund approved one applicant’s request for grant
funding for needed home repairs and safety improvements last year, said
Westport Housing Specialist Leonardi Aray. The CRE-HAB grant program is designed to improve
general housing conditions and eliminate building code violations at existing
Westport homes owned by low and moderate income households. The financial
assistance grants will be given in exchange for a 15-year affordable housing
deed restriction on the subject property, Aray
explained. The deed restriction requires that upon any resale during the 15-year
restriction period, the home must be conveyed to an income In addition to the grants, the Trust is also reimbursing successful
applicants up to $500 toward initial home inspections or other inspections
that may be required for homes taking part in the program. Any
newly-restricted housing units created by the grant program will be counted
on the town's Subsidized Housing Inventory (SHI) for the 15-year life of the
restriction, noted Affordable Housing Trust Chair Elizabeth Collins. Adding new affordable housing opportunities to the town’s SHI helps
Westport meet the state’s goal that 10 percent of every community’s total
housing stock is deemed to be affordable; at present, only about 3.5 percent
of the town’s housing is considered to be affordable. While new construction is the most cost effective method of creating
affordable housing in Westport, the Trust acknowledges that the CRE-HAB program is another tool to help the town reach
its affordable housing goals and preserve the number of existing
moderately-priced homes in the community. The Westport Affordable Housing Trust Fund has CRE-HAB
information and application packages available in the information rack on the
second floor of Westport Town Hall, 816 Main Road; and at the Westport Free
Public Library, 408 Old County Road. The program package can be downloaded
online at: https://www.westport-ma.com/sites/westportma/files/uploads/cre-habwestport_012018_1.pdf. For more information on the program, or to request help with an
application packet, contact Housing Specialist Leonardi
Aray via e-mail to: Leonardi@larayarchitects.com,
or by calling (617) 270-3912.
The Westport Affordable Trust Fund’s housing assistance office in Town Hall
is open Wednesdays from 10-4, and can be reached by e-mail to WestportHousing@outlook.com
or by calling Super Bowl Walk, a Super Good Time! EverythingWestport.com Sunday, February 4 WESTPORT – The Super Bowl Walk co-sponsored by the
Westport Land Conservation Trust (WLCT) and The Trustees drew a crowd of well
over 150 hikers last Sunday, February 4th. This is the third consecutive year
that the annual event which traverses 6+ miles from the Slocum’s River to the
Westport River has drawn an exceptionally large crowd.
The annual event began over a decade ago as a means to showcase the public
value of a Slocum’s River to Westport River Greenway. The Slocum River to
Westport River Greenway Project envisions a continuous 6-mile expanse of
protected land extending from river to river. The Super Bowl Walk has become
a great tool for engaging private landowners along the route who are willing
to protect their land for the enjoyment of future generations. While the
vision for a Greenway has not been fully realized, there continues to be
great support from many private landowners along the 6-mile route in recent
years. Bette Low, long-time supporter of the Greenway Project and private
landowner along the route, now helps facilitate the walk each year by
clearing sections of the Super Bowl Walk trail across her family land. “The
first year of the Super Bowl Walk we thought it might be fun to see a few
hearty souls willing to brave the weather and hike 6 miles in the slush,”
said Low. “Imagine our surprise when we arrived to find a sea of cheerful
hikers! We have enjoyed the Super Bowl Walk many times since and donated a
Trail Easement for the Super Bowl Walk trail so other families can also
discover the simple pleasures of a good walk in the woods.” Publically accessible land traversed by Super Bowl Walk attendees
includes the Slocum’s River Reserve, a reservation of the Trustees and the Dartmoor Farm Wildlife Management Area, a property
protected by the State of Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. Special thanks to Westport Rivers Winery for opening their doors to hikers
at the end of the walk and Whaling City Transit for generously donating
transportation services for the event. WLCT and The Trustees also wish to
thank Sylvan Nursery
for providing parking and the many private landowners and volunteers who help
to make this walk possible. For more information on upcoming public hikes and
events near you, visit WestportLandTrust.org or TheTrustees.org. WRWA release report on their Winter
2018 Cockeast Pond Oyster Project. EverythingWestport.com Sunday, February 4, 2018
The Westport River Watershed Alliance (WRWA) has been working with
UMass Dartmouth's Coastal Systems Program (CSP)
since 2016 on a project funded by a grant from the US EPA Southeast New
England Program for Coastal Watershed Restoration. The UMass Dartmouth initiative is utilizing Cockeast
Pond as a natural laboratory to measure how oysters improve water clarity and
potentially reduce elevated nitrogen levels which degrade fish and other
marine wildlife habitats. Over the last year WRWA staff and volunteers have put in many hours to
assist CSP scientists with multiple research
related tasks. Half a million oysters have been in the water since August,
and the scientists are seeing good survival and growth. For a more detailed
project history visit the WRWA website.
To date, all the year-one objectives for the project have been
achieved as originally planned.
Above: Measuring oysters. Roberta Carvallho,
WRWA Science Director, records oyster data from Alan Austin of UMass
Dartmouth. In the background is Paul
Mancuso, UMass scientist. Photo |
Steve Connors In December WRWA helped with the last oyster sorting for the year,
where WRWA provided field support to help measure, sort, and determine
survival rates. The oyster cages were lowered to a depth just off the
sediment surface in the pond to prevent the oysters being frozen by icy pond
waters and keep gear from being damaged. Over the winter, the project
team will be considering the merits of expanding the oyster experiment by
including another 500,000 oysters to the previous deployment, bringing the
entire experiment up to 1 million oysters. Five commercial oyster farms in the East and West Branch of the Westport
River contribute much in reducing nitrogen levels, according to researchers.
The Cockeast Pond project will provide some solid
evidence to validate those projections. In the early spring, WRWA will work with the CSP
team to refloat the cages and begin the sorting, counting, measuring and
water quality measurements again. The work will culminate after four years of
monitoring. As oysters in Cockeast Pond reach
maturity, various options will be considered for their location. They could be transferred with the help of
the Westport Marine Services Director to an area of the East Branch that has
previously supported oysters as a mechanism for re-establishing that natural population.
Or, if the oysters have been shown to significantly improve water quality,
stakeholders may consider leaving them in place to maintain or continue to
improve the health of the pond. Letter
to the Editor: Westport resident against school before she was for it. EverythingWestport.com Sunday, February 4, 2018 WESTPORT - Letter to the
editor: As
my friends know, I was, until fairly recently, strongly opposed to the new
school building proposal which comes up for a vote on February 27. It was not because I don’t support the best
possible education for other people’s children and grandchildren or because I
don’t want my taxes raised. It was
because I thought education is more about what goes on inside buildings than
about the buildings themselves. “I have come to see that I was mistaken in believing that proponents
were motivated by naïve beliefs that the best education happens only in the
best school buildings or ‘if you build it they will come.’ What the School Building Committee has
done, in fact, is to make lemonade out of lemons.” – Wendy Goldberg I still believe that. But,
through attending open meetings, reading letters to the editor, digging into
facts, and engaging in discussions with folks on both sides of the matter, I
have come to the conclusion that it would be extraordinarily short-sighted
and self-defeating for the town to turn down the very well thought out
proposal made by our fellow townsfolk on the committee. I have come to see that I was mistaken in believing that proponents
were motivated by naïve beliefs that the best education happens only in the
best school buildings or “if you build it they will come.” What the School Building Committee has
done, in fact, is to make lemonade out of lemons. The committee has taken the calamitous
discovery of EPA-prohibited levels of PCBs at the middle school building and,
through working with the MSBA, turned it into an
opportunity to provide a new improved facility for the middle school, the
high school, the recreation community, and the community at large at a
discount of 40% from what it would have cost without the $38,000,000 being
contributed by the state. Considered only from a financial point of view, I am now convinced it
would be foolish in the extreme to waste this opportunity. But, of course, as regards improving
education, voting for this proposal is not enough. Happily we have many citizens and
organizations in town that will continue to work to help make sure that we
constantly improve what goes on in the new building as well. Wendy H. Goldberg - - - - - End -
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2018 Community Events of Westport
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