Plainville Selectmen Authorize $3.2 Million Internal Borrowing, Advance Commerce Boulevard Traffic Plan

NORTH ATTLEBORO -- January 21, 2020, Plainville Selectmen vote to borrow $3.2 million internally to launch 16 capital projects, as budget and water crises deepen. The Board of Selectmen unanimously authorized advances from the town's combined stabilization funds across 16 previously town-meeting-approved projects January 21, including $700,000 each for highway well replacement and the Miramichi Bridge, $500,000 for road maintenance, and $500,000 for a water main project, with Acting Treasurer-Collector Janet Janelle presenting the required Department of Revenue filings. Engineers from Beta Group confirmed that both existing highway wells have cracked, compromised casings and that a replacement well could be online by November 2020, but warned that a new Turnpike Lake water source could take five to 10 years and more than $1 million per well to permit and build. Town Administrator Jen Thompson told the board the town faces a structural operating deficit approaching $1 million before any departmental budget requests are added, higher than the comparable starting point last year, and said the town is "running out of band-aids" after years of using one-time offsets. The board also unanimously approved a $124,766.60 change order with CTA Construction on the public safety and town hall project, with one member stating for the record he was "very disappointed" in the time it had taken CTA and its construction manager to process change directives dating to November 2018.