##VIDEO ID:nvS70FYQx5Y## [Music] today is Tuesday o August 6 2024 it is 4:30 p.m. is there a motion to call the meeting to order so move I'll second all those in favor this meeting will be audio and video orded please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic it stands na under God indivisible with liberty Justice all right is there a motion to call the public hearing to order so moved I'll second all those in favor I I Mr Kelly roll call Vote Yes Mr Gasper roll call yes I'm a yes public hearing is open and announce the uh petition m2024 D40 from Verizon New England Inc and NSTAR Electric Company doing business as eversource energy proposing the place new facilities poll 104 55.5 on Middle Road Middle Road install one joint own midspan pole 104 55.5 on east side of Middle Road which will be approximately 865 ft southwesterly from the center line of Paris Lane the new pole will be installed in line with an approximately 86 ft south of existing pole 104/56 and approximately 106 ft north of existing pole 104/55 the installation is being requested by eversource to support the existing Pole Line and to keep the wire at a safe height over driveway of the property at 284 Middle Road [Music] we have somebody from urce if it's being proposed by urce it's Verizon petition we get it in support okay happy to speak to it just introduce yourself if you don't mind absolutely uh don bner with Verizon um I trust you have the map with you um the I just came from the site literally 20 minutes ago um the measurements are pretty close to exact what you see there it's a really good rendition of what you see in the field um the Stak was there it's been removed probably by somebody by hand who wanted to park there uh they pulled it out and put it on the the rock wall but there was a stake in place um and I can see that the wires are if they want to get trucks back there they need to lift these these wires up so it makes sense why it's being requested um other than that uh um what you see is pretty accurate Mr chairman yes Mr Gasper thank you Mr chairman so I went over I read I read through this um the description of this and then I went over although I'm not trying to measure it 800 something feet from the center line of Paris Lane I do know past practices you try to set polls on the property lines right and that property line is sitting right alongside of that individual's driveway I happen to speak with the resident that owns that property at 284 Middle Road and he indicated to me that he couldn't make it tonight um from his notice for the ab but's notice and I don't see anybody else here that's an abutter for that notice but he he said he has no reason to believe why that needs to occur and I just told him quite honestly I I did have this with me I said it's being requested by urce to support the existing Pole Line in to keep the wire a safe height over the driveway so that's been that wiring has been there for 50 years never been an issue with that Resident according to the resident and he has no idea why you would want to put a pole on the side of his driveway and make it more difficult to get in and out of his driveway and again he couldn't make it here tonight so I wouldn't want to take any action tonight I just want to know simply if it's being requested by ever Source why all of a sudden now is that request being put in when those two polls have been supporting that wire infrastructure for the last 50 plus years well I applaud you for doing your D diligence and speaking with the person um as to the exact why I do we have any engineering purposes as to why we are doing a a Jessica urce how are you doing U with there's a large project that's going on along uh uh from here down to Fair Haven down to Maran um with a replacement of whole that we have uh going along that way and a couple of these petitions have been submitted and they're going to be they were uh held until September 17th um this is just one of the polls that needed to be put in um as support U along the way for those other Replacements as well Goa Mr chairman yes Mr Gasper so we've never been notified that that's been brought to my attention I was a previous chairman of this board and it's never been brought to my attention mentioned that there's an upgrade of facilities and wires going down Middle Road we were discussing the power station on Wing Lane and I understand the solar fields and all that and that's what all the double poles are on Wing halfway in Main Street heading north would be right is to support the infrastructure but there's never been any dialogue at least that I'm not aware of I'm aware of is to more infrastructure more double poles down Middle Road for anything being done there as far as that Maran f behaven upgrade so I don't know where that miscommunication um lies um but it surely hasn't been discussed with Town officials of town of Acushnet about how these the future of that looks like right it'd be nice to give notice to our residents of what is going on in the town of aush we know that that side is a lot to do with solar fields in the power station for the grid forever Source over off Wing Lane but there's been no discussion of anything happening off the Middle Road Cora so there has been a there's been a couple petitions that came in to this town that have been not the Middle Road it's all Wing Lane over there there's two petitions that are outstanding for Wing Lane pole settings and that's it nothing's come from the Middle Road so Wing Lane's on that side of town right down this road over here off half away okay and Wing Lane Dives over there and and your um power station is back of the PJ keing facility and you access it from Wing Lane which is a couple of miles that way and middle roads a couple of miles that way so we don't I don't know of anything or any discussion that's taking place of any kind of system upgrades from that power station um on Middle Road and how many more double poles we're going to have quite honestly in the town of a cushion and we've been continuing the poll hearings because of the double polls that are on that side of town where they've been snapped off off and left with giant splinters and I talked about young kids whacking their head falling off a bicycle it's an unsafe condition for any Resident let alone a young child and I know some polls have been removed but there's still several polls that have not been removed okay and I do understand that um Anthony Bell um supposed to be in contact with you or has been in contact at some point in time and will um on this issue as well um I will give back to him to that um I know that the double pole issue has been an issue that they are trying to uh settle with uh Horizon going out and the moving those um but they've gone rid of a couple like I said B but they haven't gotten rid of all of them and and some of those polls have been sitting shattle to another pole for well over a year right it's not the double poles that you're putting for infrastructure upgrades it's car accidents of things of the like whatever reasons why and they chop them off some have been blistered from car accidents and they run safe unfortunately we can only communicate that with Verizon Verizon has is is you know I I understand that but it was supposed to be a collaborative effort between Verizon urce Comcast and things of the like and we have some fiber optics up there that we would have to deal with if it's part of the larger infrastructure for eversource and they should be paying for our fiber optic cable to be moved as well I have no idea about that but that we'll take that up whatever so that's what I'm talking about it needs to be a much bigger discussion with Town officials before we keep having Verizon coming in every month or every few weeks doing a petition for poll hearings that we're just not going to approve doesn't make any sense right it's definition of insanity so somebody needs to come in and speak to town officials and give us a game plan on what the plan really is and really start taking action on getting rid of double poles before quite honestly at least I'll speak for myself allow any more double polls and I I'll agree with that simply because of the fact that since we've gotten our initial petitions for the last three polls we've asked for a simple communication between osource Verizon to give us some kind of timeline when the double poles will be removed and it took I want to say two to three meetings of bringing up a poll directly in front of town hall that was like Mr Gasper said splintered and potentially dangerous right in the middle of the sidewalk it's finally gone but it took somewhere along the lines of 5 to 6 months to do it so in general until we get an active plan on how we're going to address double poles and broken poles the town of aishna isn't going to accept us authorizing any more polls until we have some kind of plan in place and that's the big part and Anthony has been in communication with me ultimately it really falls on Verizon to do a better job at addressing the town and coming to us and letting us know what's happening I can tell you this right now this when the gentleman does come to the next when we can I'm I'm going to take a while guess that this will be continued to but I'll bring this map cuz I didn't have this map when I spoke with the gentleman that resides at 284 the property owner that resides there I can tell you this when he sees that poll on that property line he's going to have an issue to that so whatever you folks need to do to maybe work with that property owner and say okay we won't place it right there on the property line we we come down 3T I don't know what the solution is for that Resident but I did have a conversation with him and I said my best guess looking at where that poll is and that poll is get somewhere near the center line and I know they usually do it on property lines that's where the poll's going to go and he goes oh My Dead Body and I said okay just letting you know and sure enough now that I looked at a map it's exactly where I said it would go so that's a problem and I will give that that property owner this map does he if since you spoken with him and I I haven't I actually tried while I was there and I just got some some dude who worked out back um is it would he prefer it be moved over like 5T like away from the property line is he worried about sight lines I won't try to speak for him I just told him that if it was my best guess that's where the poll would go no one pass practice where Verizon sets poles I know they always try to do it on a property line right sure yeah so I said that's my best guess looking at the existing two polls he said I don't I don't understand I didn't request the wires are in the way they bed like this my whole life and I said understood so I don't know why Vari um eversource is making the request it specifically says in this the installation is being requested by urce to support the existing Pole Line and to keep the wire at a safe height over the driveway at the property well that wire has been like that again 50 years while all of a sudden now safe height over a driveway no it's nearly a 200 foot span and just speaking from experience they sag over time so if you want to make sure it stays and you want to make sure it's at a safe height I'm I'm not speaking for eversource right now I'm speaking for what I've seen in the past putting it over even if you move it 5T over so you're not worried about his sight lines it can stay up there at a nice safe height and you can put the pole in yeah so the the problem with that comment Sir with no disrespect is a lot of poles that are 200 ft apart some like in my neighborhood at 210 cuz I've actually measured them with a wheel get so if doing it for one why aren't you doing it everywhere else do you want us to bring more polls well he's asking me a question why is this justifiable While others aren't yeah no and I'm just judging the re compensation you probably don't want a lot more polls in town we don't love to put them in they're very expensive to bring them to to bear so um you know they somebody must have felt some engineer must have felt there was a purpose for this and you I'm just trying to bring that to you your attention so right I'll leave that to you Mr chairman then contact Anthony and find out why this request is being put over this um at this particular yep I'll reach out to Anthony to set up a internal meeting with Mr Kelly and myself and we'll sit down and really work on a game plan on how we're going to reach out resolve all the questions we've had for multiple months and seem to not be able to get an answer for doesn't make a lot of sense what's going on with the utility infrastructure we have a lot poles that are rather leaning this way dramatically leaning that way dramatically they actually look like they're going to fall over at any given time and then with the two poles that we're talking about now that are both in good shape and the wiring is pretty straight not sagging not stretched or anything like that we want to put a pole there but we have numerous poles throughout town that look like they're just going to fall over and I I can guarantee you this one good hurricane and and there'll be a majority of poles that come down cuz it just they're awful I've never seen poles leaning at 30° angles we have them here but yet we want to put one where it's not really necessary instead of fixing the ones that are leaning at 30° doesn't make any sense some of them actually shape like that and they're old as hell don't understand what this engineer was doing when he was driving down the street but I can give him other places to drive down the street and say that Paul really looks like it needs to be replaced so I don't know what the bigger picture is if this is just the start of you know a bunch of polls being put down Middle Road that's what we need to know not peac mailing it I don't know when we continue into but I would make a motion to continue to September 17th whatever time we postpone the other ones at 4 P.M did we say 4 or is it 4:30 I think it 4:30 yeah no postponed till uh continue to all other yeah there already two there's already two we got do a date and time certain yeah so let's get the date and time certain I know it's September 17th cuz I did the original one just don't know if it's 400 p.m. or 4:30 I think it's 4:30 p.m. it's 5:00 p.m. yeah the other ones are at 5 make a motion to continue this poll heing until September 17th at 5:00 p.m. I'll second all those in favor I I thank you thank you is there a motion to adjourn uh Mr chair uh maybe you should uh inform the public about the water main break oh yes um just in case anybody's watching this uh there is a water main break on Westland Street uh water should be shut off by this point uh DPW is working hard and fast to resolve the issue um but if you do notice you don't have water that is why um we did send out or reverse 911 we've posted on all social media um but if you do have any questions that's what happened there was a water MTO main break on wesland and we are working to resolve it okay motion toour so moved second all those in favor by [Music]