The Bourne Select Board convened on July 28, 2026, at 7:00 p.m. The meeting included public comments, appointments to fill vacancies, approval of a special event, updates on capital projects, and discussion of a letter to MassDOT regarding the Sagamore Bridge design. The board also ratified a union MOU and heard reports from committees and the town administrator.
All right, meeting 7 p.m. Note this meeting is being televised streamed or recorded by Bourne TV. If anyone in the audience is recording a video taping, they need to acknowledge such at this time. Is that Helen online? Yes, sorry, I couldn't make it. That's okay, Helen. We're glad to hear. So we have Helen from Bourne Enterprise joining us remotely and recording. If anyone from the public wishes to access the meeting, they can do so by calling the following conference line. 1929-205-6099, Zoom meeting ID 8978. Password Bourne all cap. The Zoom chat will not be monitored. Participants who wish to speak must raise the hand icon until the chair asks them to unmute. All items within the meeting agenda are subject to deliberation and votes. Let's do a moment of silence to recognize our troops and our public safety. Pledge allegiance to the flag in the United States. One nation under liberty and justice. Thank you. All right. So we're gonna next on the agenda is to report out votes from executive session. The select board did vote to approve a memorandum of understanding with the patrol union. And the formal public vote is scheduled later this evening as part of our consent agenda. So next we have public comments on non-agenda items. Public comments are allowed for up to a total of 12 minutes at the beginning of each meeting. Each speeder speaker is limited to three minutes for comment, and the board members are unable to respond due to the posting requirements of the open meeting law. Go ahead, Mr. York. Um yes, for the record, my name is John York. I'm a resident of Bourne. Um I got up very early, or I got up early, Sunday morning to watch the Pan Mass Challenge across the Bourne Bridge in in the dark, in several hours of dark before the sunrise rose. It was a wonderful thing. It's a tremendous contribution Bourne makes to that ride, but it's also a tremendous contribution that those people make both to our town and the way they work with us and obviously to uh cancer research where they've raised over a billion dollars for research. Um I was standing right at the spot where several members of uh affiliates of the uh Pan Mass Challenge, including one of their board of directors, have requested a Mass DOT, a certain feature in their Bourne Bridge design. Um that those requests were made as part of the uh federal environmental impact review. And um it was very disheartening in the draft environmental impact statement to see how their requests were summarily dismissed by Mass DOT. I'm anxiously awaiting the final environmental impact statement to see uh if there's been any improvement in that respect. The uh suggestions they made would primarily benefit residents of the town and would be of marginal use to Pan Mass Challenge, which I think they were making those comments for their own purposes, but very much aware that they would be helping out the town if they could get Mass DOT to make those improvements. These are people who understand cycling. Um and so uh the uh federal environmental impact statement is due to be released at the end of this week, and I implore the board to uh read it carefully and see, read carefully how Mass DOT has treated uh commenters making requests for improved bicycling pedestrian facilities. Thank you. Thank you, John. Okay, any further public comment on non-agenda items? Yes. Yes, come in at hello, madam chair. My name is Stephen Exaros. I'm your Massachusetts State Representative for most of Bourne as well as Dave Vierra. Two things. One, thank you for the meeting the other day at the Bourne High School with Mass DOT and the bridge uh project. That was very, I thought well done. And remember, uh, if you ever have any questions, you can always go through me, state repiera or your Senator Dylan Fernandez.