The second session of Billerica Town Meeting descended into series contentious debates over spending after members voted down a proposal made by state Rep. Marc Lombardo to appropriate $125,000 to begin the design and construction of a bike path.
The proposed path would extend from Middlesex Community College on the Bedford line all the way to Good Street where the Hallenborg Ice Rink is located.
Will the familiar refrain: “Why not us?” Lombardo gave an impassioned defense of a project he has worked on since his days as a member of the Board of Selectmen.
“I picture families walking and spouses jogging,” he said. Lombardo said that the project would also contribute to a cleaner environment and spur economic development.
Lombardo also lashed out at critics of the plan, including Selectman David Gagliardi, who said that, while he supported the construction of a bike path, the town should wait until it had secured the proper easements from private landowners.
Gagliardi also questioned where the funding for the project would come from and criticized Lombardo for not securing any state funding before he brought forth the warrant article.
The project would also require easements on property owned by the Cabot Corporation and Pan-Am Railways.
Beverly Woods, executive director of the Northern Middlesex Council of Governments said that the town was told several years ago by the state Department of Transportation that the agency would not release any state funds for bike paths until municipalities had secured easements from the private landowners involved.
Woods said the town secured state funding for a similar project almost a decade ago, but had to relinquish it once it became clear that the necessary easements couldn’t be secured.
Gagliardi told members that he spoke with representatives from Pan-Am who told him that they would be unwilling to give up there leases to the rails.
A representative from Pan-Am Railways, who refused to give his name, declined to comment on ownership of the tracks, nor did he confirm or deny that the company had any conversations with any town officials.
Cabot Corporation did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Citing a cost estimate done in 1999, Gagliardi said that the project could cost the town more than $2 million and probably more given the increases in labor costs over the last 10 years.
In a report by chairwoman, Mary McBride, the Finance Committee, who voted 10 to 1 to recommend that the project be defeated, said that the bike path could cost between $4 million and $6 million.
Ed Hurd, a former selectman and Lombardo’s chief of staff, balked at that number saying the project would cost the town around $700,000.
The article came just three votes shy of passing only after Lombardo tried to have the article dismissed saying he couldn’t go ahead with the project without the support of the Board of Selectmen.
Outside Town Hall after the vote, tempers flared when Lombardo called Gagliardi a “liar” and accused members of the Board of Selectmen of demagoguing the issue in order to hand him a defeat.
“Everything I said was on the board,” said Gagliardi “How could I have lied?”
Inside the auditorium, political tensions were just as raw.
“[Lombardo] wasn’t working in concert with anybody,” said Selectman Bob Correnti, ”so the demagoguery doesn’t rest on our side.”
Town manager, John Curran, was even more blunt.
“He ‘s suppose to be looking for money not coming down and pilfering ours,” said Curran. “In my 20 years I’ve never seen a state representative elbow his way into a Town Meeting and try to get money through a petitioner’s article. “
Curran also accused Lombardo of going behind the backs of town leaders for his own political gain.
In other news, members approved the borrowing of more than $16 million in sewer expansion for new sewer hook-ups in East Billerica and an expansion of the wastewater treatment plant. The upgrades are necessary for the town to win approval from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection to continue with the sewer expansion project.
“The folks in that area of town have been paying for the rest of the town to receive sewer,” said Rep. Onorio Cerrato, echoing the sentiments of many people who spoke on the article, which was approved overwhelmingly.
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