CABOT – Voters overwhelmingly approved using $250,000 from the Cabot Community Investment Fund (CCIF) toward the town’s work on flood mitigation, last Tuesday, November 4.
Votes in favor of using the CCIF funds were 199, over 80% of the votes cast, with just 57 votes against and two ballots left blank.
Cabot was asking voters for permission to use up to $250,000 of the roughly $1,000,000 currently in its Cabot Community Investment Fund for flood related capital projects.
$150,000 of that will now serve as the 10% matching funds if a grant application currently pending is approved for approximately $1.5 million to fund the replacement of the bridge at Menard Brook (the Rec Field tributary) and raising of the adjacent road beds.
Up to $30,000 will cover the cost of obtaining legal easements from adjacent landowners to allow for the bridge replacement.
Another amount of not more than $20,000 may now be used to cover the cost of test borings on Lyford Brook (the Village Center tributary) to determine the feasibility of installing debris catchers to limit damage in future floods.
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
