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The Dartmouth Planning Board met on September 14, 2026, with Chair Lorri-Ann Miller presiding alongside Vice-Chair Helio Rosa, Clerk Kevin Estes, and members Margaret Sweet and Nicholas Psichopaidas. The meeting opened with an extensive presentation by longtime resident Thomas ('Red'), who shared historical insights into Dartmouth's water infrastructure and proposed utilizing roughly 20 to 40 acres of dormant cranberry bogs in North Dartmouth (near Flag Swamp and Copicut) as a town-owned reservoir system. Thomas argued that capturing natural springs and runoff could solve Dartmouth's water shortages and eliminate the need to purchase water from New Bedford or Fall River. Board members commended Thomas for his historical perspective and advised him to pursue discussions with the DPW Board and the Water Quality Advisory Commission. The board then conducted administrative business, unanimously voting (5-0) to acknowledge and file correspondence. Planning staff and board members engaged in a thorough discussion regarding impending state-level zoning mandates and potential ballot initiatives (notably Question 7) that would allow 5,000-square-foot residential lots in areas served by public water and sewer. Board members voiced strong opposition to state preemption of local town meeting zoning control, warning of severe impacts on town infrastructure, neighborhood density, and community character. Members noted upcoming public informational sessions on ballot questions scheduled for September 17 at Keith Middle School in New Bedford and September 22 at Dartmouth Town Hall.
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City Officials
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Okay, let's reconvene our meeting. We have go green an appointment with Hello Tom.
0:15Hello. How are you?
0:16How are you today?
0:18I'm very well so far. My partner's not.
0:22So, I'm trying to promote this by myself.
0:24I was just going to say, where's where's Bill? I thought he was here with you.
0:28No.
0:28What's that? Didn't he come in with you?
0:30No.
0:31No. Okay. Getting older now. I kind of caught him around and so we're all getting older.
0:36Yeah. Oh boy. You can say that again and again and again.
0:40Okay. Uh am I able to talk now?
0:43Bill, you have the floor.
0:45They call me.
0:47Bill, can you go to the can you go to the podium so that our public can hear you?
0:50Talk from here.
0:51Yes, please.
0:52We opened our meeting in there over here. So anyway, is this on?
0:57Yes, it is. All set. You hear me better?
1:00Okay. I was asked by many people in the town over the years about problems we have.
1:07And I think I'm on to it quite a bit and try to explain the biggest problem in Dartmouth.
1:14And probably everybody considers it the most expensive problem in Dartmouth.
1:20Water.
1:22Big big problem.
1:25When my folk came here from different countries, they told me all about wood and water is the main ingredients for everybody to live.
1:34And Dartmouth had so much water years ago.
1:41Then they ran into a situation where they didn't handle it very well.
1:46So, the two cities on both sides of Dartmouth have reservoirs in Dartmouth.
1:54And guess what? When the drought comes along, Dartmouth runs out of water. What the heck do we do? We buy it from the city of New Bedford. The water is sitting in Dartmouth and we're buying our damn water that's sitting here in the town.
2:12That was the first start of it. Then the city of Fall River winds up building Copic cut reservoir.
2:22They built that and they made a lot of money with it. They dug it out. It's up on a hill. Both reservoirs are high part of Dartmouth.
2:33The highest part of Dartmouth, I think I'm well aware of it, but I could be out out a little bit. It's corner road and flag swamp road. Highest part in Dartmouth.
2:43Okay.
2:44Now we have water towers.
2:47We have a water tank up in North Dath, north of Opal River Road. It holds millions of gallons of water up there.
2:58So the highest tower is down south deck road. It's over 200 ft high. That tank's probably 50 feet high. But the whole level of the whole system is level. And what happens with the existing water we have when we need water, the well pumps stop.
3:19We have wells all over the town from midway south. Nothing up north.
3:26So my solution is let's go up north.
3:30Let's build a reservoir.
3:33I know the area very well over the years. I can go into it forever and ever and tell you all the situations.
3:39But like anything else, business people, business and everything, the number one thing is location, location, location.
3:47And I can tell you where it is.
3:49Cranberry bogs.
3:51Up on top of the hill, the highest part in Dartmouth almost.
3:57Guess what? We need water. We don't have to start wells up. We don't need to start nothing up.
4:02The cranberry.
4:03The water's sitting there.
4:05Nobody's had enough guts, I I'm going to say, to go up there and do something until we get hung up with a big problem, though. But everybody's 40B now. They're arguing about everything up that way.
4:18They're arguing about a bike path. They want to kill everything in Dartmouth.
4:22Dartmouth is not going very well. So, the biggest problem, I'm here trying to help out the biggest way I can. And it's so damn easy because the water's there.
4:35But there's one situation and maybe I get a laugh out of here. You know who controls it? The woman, mother nature.
4:44When she gets mad, thunder, lightning, rain. Are you kidding me? Look at what happened yesterday.
4:50Cornell Pond. We don't have many ponds in Dartmouth. Cornell Pond's one of the only ponds we have. It went up 7 in of the water yesterday.
4:59So here's mother nature and here's all the swamps. There's springs up there. I can take you up there. There's a spring half the size of this room. Bubbling.
5:09They call it bubbling springs. Water's just coming out of the ground 247 all year long. Never stops. So where does it go? It comes flowing down.
5:20So who who grabs it or keeps coming down? Cornell pond. Years ago they used that for ice before the refrigerator. It was an ice box. So that is the area for all the damn drinking water, the fresh water in Das. We got tons of it and nobody controls it. All we got to do is hold it.
5:46And the holding area is a reservoir and it's available there. Why it's so good is because it has a bottom to hold the water. It don't keep sinking into the dirt.
6:02And it's about an 18 inch base. It's called clay.
6:06And it holds your water there. And you have Pete Moss, springs, streams, whatever. And Pete Moss is like a like a sponge in your house.
6:19Take a say some rag or something and a sponge.
6:25Put water on it. Let sit on your counter. Sponge will have water for almost forever. Longer spinning. the others will dry up. So that's the area I'm talking about for water. Now it's all piped in. It's pretty much all piped in now because the reservoir that New Bedford has, they get all that water from Long Pond, right?
6:47It's pumped from Long Pond all the way down sitting in the top of Dartmouth.
6:54Excuse me. Can I go over here and just show you now?
6:58Here it is right there. What can you turn that?
7:01And here's the big wine. Comes all the way from Long Pond down here.
7:06Bingo. It goes into Bit Wall River. Bingo. It goes to North Pupper. I say Dom is right there.
7:18The cranberry bogs are there. The swamps, the rivers, the streams, everything's there. It's been built. The cranberry people years ago, it used to be Phillips. Remember Jim Tus used to work for the radio station? That whole family built cranberry balls and as a spot up there you can't find a son as big as a baseball. It's all sand and cranberry balls was sand and clay and it held everything and they dug it all out.
7:48You know more about me and my family.
7:50They wanted to go across the street. I had over 200 acres here. They wanted to throw all the junk over there to make the cranberry box. We didn't allow it.
8:01So anyway, there's areas there all set up and they know how to handle water.
8:07Cranberry people knows how to handle water. So now that happened then the Ashley's family came along and that was then that left. So it's dormant for many years. So what happens? Some brush and stuff start building up, but it's been wiped out. It's been cleaned and it has all the embankment to hold the water.
8:35And in the middle of the all the embankments, it's like almost like rooms in a house. You got a bog here, bog there, bog here, bog there, bog here.
8:44Now, people know totally better than I do, but I'm going to say a baseball field. I'm I'm sorry, a football field.
8:50300 by 100. So this what 200 40,000 square ft roughly an acre. Yeah.
8:55So it's about an acre.
8:56About an acre.
8:57Okay. Houses now we need double that.
9:00Instead of 40 80,000 so we need four acres. There's about 20 acres up there that's available.
9:09All been cleaned out ready to go.
9:13That's like 20 football fields.
9:17So I wanted to try it and see how my system was going to work.
9:24So I went to the DPW commissioners.
9:29Can you go back to the mic? Wow.
9:30Back to the mic. Okay.
9:31Yeah, please. Thank you.
9:34Okay. Sorry about that.
9:36That's all right.
9:36So I went to uh Mr. Barber.
9:41He's in charge of DPW.
9:44And he says, "Hey, Red, I think you're crazy." I said, "What? Meet me out there, will you?" He says, "Okay." So, we drove out there. Two oldtimes, Mr.
9:53Barber. Looked at it. Wow.
9:58Maybe you ought to talk to Almy. There's a nice man. I knew his whole family.
10:05He came out. I put him in my pickup truck. We go drive. We're standing in the middle of the cranberry box. And he's looking around. He said, "Red, I can't believe this. Are you kidding me?
10:18Why in that water?" I says, "I don't know. Here I am trying to help out and give you all the information I can." He says, "You know, if we wasn't trapped with 40B, try to get all the information you can cuz this is a great thing for Dartmouth to do and get out of the damn problem they have with the water."
10:36But they've been tied up. I think you know well about 40B. Oh, that's what been going on all over the place. But the solution is, and I can show you by the pipes and everything, that if you flood the bogs, you hold the water, but you can't retain it. It has to have a flow. You have to let it move. All you do is store it.
10:59Then we have a pumping station up there, town of Dartmouth, right alongside. You almost throw a stone and hit each building. New Bethford's pumping station, Dartmouth pumping station.
11:11There's the big reservoir right there.
11:13You need water, push the button. Comes out of the reservoir from the bed pumping station is there.
11:23There's two twoft big pipes that run all the way down launch corner road all the way down into the system.
11:33The pipe system where all the wells are and everything it runs into that. So all you got to do is take the water up there was right down there. You don't buy it from them. You don't do anything. Make your own water.
11:50And another thing I heard they said it might be interesting if you can get the information as soon as you can because the town is looking to I'm going to say try to buy water from Fall River.
12:04Fall River. That's right.
12:05Right down Route Six.
12:07Yep. There's been pipes in there for years and years and years. Lake Noachoke was four rivers, right?
12:14Water and they pumped it up there. Now, Westport has no water. So, what do they do? They go from Ball River down Westport, uh, Route Six. They come down right almost where the VFW is and they stop. Now, they want the town D. I think want to continue it. the rest of Westport down into Dartmouth. Now, guess what they could do? They still gonna need water, Dartmouth. Here goes the problem again. So, they're going to be
12:45bargaining. They're going to say, "For how cheap can you sell?" Oh, no. No is going to sell it cheaper. All that water is a diamond. I'm trying to tell you people I keep saying, it's so crazy.
12:56It's unbelievable. But all that water is up there. You know what it does now that nobody takes care of it. The town don't and they should. It runs into Lake Nokachoke.
13:09Then it's the start of the Westport River.
13:11Yeah.
13:12If it wasn't for our water, Westport would have no water. It wasn't for our water, both cities on each side of us wouldn't have no water. But here we are.
13:22All the water we have and we don't take care of it. I just don't quite understand it. I wish. That's why I'm trying to talk to somebody that cares and I think you people care.
13:34I've known quite a few people and you wouldn't be here if you were stupid. So, I'm going to give you a lot of credit for what you do and you do a lot for the town for many years of service. I'm trying to get something accomplished and get it done so the town don't keep paying out money and everybody gets mad.
13:56I'll go a couple steps further. I think I'm a common man.
14:01I'm not really checked out as the world is today or whatever.
14:05So, I know about the woods. I've been up there with my father running dogs.
14:11And I'm glad that the town kept the Indian local cuz it was Indians up in that country. And I knew two brothers that lived there and they put all the names up in there.
14:26all the roads and everything and copi cut is the number one word that means deep woods and the first sawmill was up there it's still still there not the sawmill but right there 1760 so when the whaling days were in Newbin the water was not only drinkable to keep you alive but it was power it spun the wheel It cut wood. What do you need wood for?
14:59It was your housing, right? It was your heat in the winter. That was the power.
15:06It's still there. All that water is there. And I can go on and on and on.
15:11These there hatcheries up there. The trout they used to have and people donated their land. By the way, I donated almost 50 acres of the town right across the street. what I'm talking about right now. Flag, swamp, burrow, swamp. They knew what was up there everybody.
15:30And I think we should take care of it.
15:32And if you need more information, I have a lot more information about it. So, you can use the system you have now. There's nothing wrong with the system we have.
15:41Believe me, the water and sewer department done a lot to put in the wells to pipe it all up, clean the pipes out, service it and everything. Keep that system. But this will add all the water we need. We don't have to buy it.
15:58And the people that cost money in this town to pay for water, pay for sewer, pay for the taxes, pay for garbage, everything. They get mad. This town ain't great. And when it comes to that, I think we got to figure out something.
16:15And the number one problem I'm thinking right now, I'm almost certain is water.
16:21Does anybody have any questions about that being a problem here?
16:26I agree with you because uh the town of Dyon has a big problem with water because they used to buy their water from Swansea and Swansea stopped selling it to Dyon.
16:36Millions of dollars.
16:37Millions of dollars. And also the other thing uh is that Tiveton Rhode Island now has problems with water. Is if anybody's read about Tiveton Rhode Island, they're buying water from Fall River. Okay. So Fall River has a lot of water.
16:53Not only do we could we use this that you're saying water?
17:00That's my mind.
17:01You want me to go a couple of steps further where we can make money? I'm going to tell you a little bit more.
17:08They take water out of the ground and they have to do chemicals to it.
17:12Everything they have to do with it.
17:14What falls out of the sky is soft water.
17:17Are you kidding me? I used to catch the water off the roof, put it in the water washing machine, wash my clothes. All soft water. It was beautiful to have.
17:26So, we're going to have the water above the ground. Mother nature's going to fill it up. Here comes the sun and it's going to take care of it. And now one of the best water systems in this whole area is Providence, Rhode Island. They get it from Situit, Rhode Island. And the family they gave him all that land was Tasa.
17:49Task W and Mercury.
17:50Yep.
17:51Their millionaire family. They gave thousands and thousands of acres. It was built in the 30s. I wasn't quite born yet. I was born in the 40s. However, when I was a kid, my father took me up there and it's one of the wonderfulst things you can see what they do with water. They've got a line, I'm going to say maybe uh if I ex,000 2,000 ft and they blow it up in the air about 50 feet
18:18up in the air and that's aation, right?
18:24that adds nitrogen to it and the sun and the water, it does great things for it. So, if we have all that and it's a good damn possibility that all that can be done without big money because everything is sitting there, why spend a million dollars for an extension of the line in Route Six in Westport so we can go buy some more water there? I don't think that's the thing we should do.
18:53And there's people in town think I'm kind of crazy. I I said, 'What do you think? He said, 'Hey, it's a hell of an idea. How the hell are you ever going to do it? You ain't never going to know it.
19:02Well, here I'm trying to get it done.
19:04So, who can I see besides people like you? I think you're sensible people.
19:09Have you been to DBW to the board?
19:12Well, you you you started in the right place with Bob Elby.
19:16I'm very hard to hear about.
19:18You started with in the right place with Bob Alme. Yeah, he's he's the guy who's the chairperson of the DPW and he's the guy that will set the plan for DPW and how they're going to do what they want to do in terms of support saying that I think you're very very true about that and he told me when I didn't quite I know it's all family I make hay down
19:41there used to be across from Bayside restaurant I I do a lot of hayund 200 acres of hay with a lot of people so I see water and everything and I I didn't quite realize he was in California and he's very very knowledgeable about water.
19:58And the old guy that's not here right now, Bill Chandler, was born in in New Hampshire and he went to water college, graduated.
20:08He knows he's a typical politician though. He's a hell of a guy in his area. I'm just a common man over here trying to do free weight. I'm trying to say, but I'm trying to get people interested enough to carry this along for us and it's a big plus for the town.
20:29Did you know that there's a water quality advisory commission?
20:33I think they have them. Yeah. But they don't know this. They don't know this.
20:38Well, and and now Oh, you you're Yeah. Well, good. Good. Good. I'm glad. I'm glad for that. We're meeting.
20:45Don't they have a long range planetic also? Yeah, we have a capital planning commission.
20:50Yes.
20:51And another guy that's kind of pushing me also and asking me to do a lot select board.
20:59Dave Tattlebound.
21:00Both guys on the ends.
21:01Yeah.
21:01Yes.
21:03They are. So, you know, go do this. Hey, go do that. You know what I mean?
21:09David David is the chair of the water quality advisory commission.
21:13Well, thank you. Thank you. Many years ago, I was I was appointed to a committee here about Cornell Pond, and that's a whole another ball game.
21:26But see, I've been done doing a lot with water.
21:30I don't want to brag, but I know an awful lot about water and how it flows and what they do with it, what's it for, and everything else. And I can go on and tell you so many things that could be done. They have a low uh profile type of u electricity water. Water water trim, right?
21:51Low a low profile you can. So if you have to m build that thing up, fix it up now. Get it going. That's maintenance for it. And the other day I was very surprised. I went to Wham and Cara and you know what they're building second story is above all crabing box solar panels.
22:14Oh yeah. You think that? Yeah.
22:15It's about 8 ft.
22:16Yep.
22:17You can walk under you probably touch it.
22:19Mhm.
22:21Look at the electricity got coming out of that.
22:24So here's the bobs with the water. It's there. That's the location.
22:30hydro power the water running out of it.
22:33It don't have to be fast. It's hydro.
22:35It's a low low profile above and it's right there sitting it down.
22:42We're all done buying that stuff. Let's sell it. We have to it'll pay for the I think that it's a good possibility and I I hope you agree, but you have your own decision to do.
22:55But I think it's going to be free for us. ain't going to cost nothing and we could run help run DPW because you know what's next to a treatment plant, right? I was here lived here and watched that being built and I used to work for the water and sewer division for many years here. I ran the garage on Allen Street. So, I've been through quite a bit. But there's an
23:22old saying and we're in both of the problems.
23:25What goes in comes out.
23:28Believe me, it's so true. So, take care of this and then we'll have to take care of that. And that will solve a lot of problems in this town. If it's not solved well 40B.
23:43But you know what really screwed it up?
23:44The state. The state come along and took the eminent domain.
23:50The college mass D all that land.
23:52You know how many people go to the bathroom over there?
23:56Then they build state comes in and builds a prison. How many people live in there? They're not even residents. Half of them. Thousands of people.
24:04And we get no taxes.
24:06Yeah.
24:06Because they don't pay taxes.
24:07Right.
24:08Well, I want to go one step further and there's a there's three organization nonprofit screwing things up, I think. But it's my opinion.
24:19Buzzes Bay Coalition, the Bird Lovers, and DNRT. Mhm.
24:26Put them three organizations together, nonprofit, and they don't pay a dime taxes. So what happens?
24:34They have thousands and thousands and thousands of acres.
24:39So what that does to us?
24:41A tax. What the hell happened? Up again.
24:43Up again. Up again.
24:48And I like to close it off a little bit.
24:50Hopefully, this right here is not very nice. This town hall right here for the whole town is not very nice.
25:06You can't come in here and get a building permit no more.
25:10You can't come in here and get anything you want done for home on your computer.
25:16You're online, right? No, the line I got is a clos line out backyard to be honest with you. But I lived here a lifetime. I tried to help and here I am trying to help again. So I hope something can be done that we can solve a lot of the problems and those are two problems we have very very very up there. Are you kidding me? The medical departments up on fourth quarter
25:41road what's been built all comes down to the treatment plant. At least they pay taxes. Yeah.
25:49Who wants the Who owns the property that that you were referencing the the cranberry box?
25:54That's I'm glad I kind of glad you asked that.
26:00Uh DNR DNR owns then you're never going to get anything done on that because DNR has power.
26:08Okay. Now, here's I try to get situations solved as much as I can.
26:15Very honestly, I sold 74 house lots in my lifetime in Dallas. I didn't want to.
26:20So, I would say that three organization nonprofit is not in a re retail uh real estate.
26:30Real estate.
26:30He looks at me and says that real estate.
26:33What the hell do they do with all this property? And what do they do with it?
26:38They make us look like idiots sometimes.
26:39Don't bring your dog. Don't do this.
26:41Don't do that. Right across the street from my house up in Hicksville. No place to park. I let them park on my farm. So they walk a street and go down there.
26:51You know what's there now?
26:53People that don't have houses. They got tents.
26:57They got tents down there now.
26:58Yeah.
26:59Oh, I didn't know that.
27:00No, I didn't. I don't.
27:01Okay. Right next to Plano Pond. They get the water there. So, all this is going on and nobody really takes an opportunity to get it straightened out.
27:10So, I'm glad. So all right.
27:16Don't mind how many acres how many how many acres is that that DNR owns?
27:22Well, there's two parts like Okay. It was all one about 80 some acres.
27:28So there's 44 and 43 or 44. Okay. Two par. I'm talking about one part. That's DNR.
27:34All right.
27:35Okay. I think they pushed it when I was doing all of this. It was up to sale.
27:42I couldn't get nobody going in the town to take a good look and let's just purchase the damn thing now.
27:51If it don't work, we'll sell it.
27:54Tom, isn't that the property that they tried to put solar on?
27:59Yes.
27:59And DNR bought it.
28:01Yes.
28:02There you go. Boy, you see, she got them brains like all of you people. I think you're very educated. I'm glad. I'm glad. I'm glad because a lot of people I have another question for you. When does our contract end with the city of Fall River using our town, our well, not our wells, but our lake.
28:23I'm not sure, but you know how I I can tell you how it started.
28:2899 year lease for dollar.
28:30Correct. Right.
28:31You man. No, we know about it.
28:34Yes, it was in the paper. It's been in the paper.
28:37The largest one of the largest land owners, right? Cushion sawmills horse.
28:43Okay.
28:44Largest land owner D.
28:47They had all the woods, the cushion saw.
28:51They done what they had to do and everything and all that up there.
28:55Everybody wanted part of that. And we were so stupid. We had so much water and so much. Did you know West B was D? No was D. Of course it was D. It was all D for Christ sakes. And they let the land go. They let the water go. And it was sitting here now in trouble.
29:15It wasn't properly done.
29:19So I'm trying to figure out what's the best thing we can do. And it could cost hardly any money. So your answer I your question I think the biggest answer is and it no matter on a DNR property I don't think we could do that could be why can't you because DNR has a lot of power I I think we're get these are great ideas maybe another I'm very interested in it
29:49but I think we're getting a little bit outside of the domain of of the planning group when we're talking about eminent domain and seizing property.
29:58Okay.
29:59I think I that doesn't discount everything that you're saying. I I I'm I'm very interested in everything you're talking about.
30:09Um I'm glad we have a lot of people in town that's very very interested.
30:13They're kind of asking me to get it going like a horse. Get on a horse.
30:18Have you Have you spoken to the DNR about this?
30:21I don't know what quite you say about the speak to the doc Dartmouth natural resource DNR. Did you speak to them about this?
30:30Yeah, they did like they said, "No, you're never going to get it." Well, let me tell you the college DNR. That was Carter Swam.
30:40I know Mr. Carter. I knew him.
30:41Remember that?
30:42I knew Mr. Carter in his motorcycle.
30:45Sorry to say that. But there's things that can be done and what you people are trying to do with the sporting be can be done right but you have to kind of stick together and try to get things accomplished and if it don't cost a lot of money takes you time and effort and get people together and they start liking it I think it's pretty good.
31:11I think it's a good I want to share something with you.
31:14Yeah.
31:14I want to thank you. My name's Nicholas Cyclopedus. I'm 52 years old. I grew up in Dartmouth since uh around I came to Dartmouth around five and a half years old to be exact.
31:26I don't think anybody's captivated my attention as much as you have perhaps since my college days, a professor or two. So, I just want to say thank you.
31:34Very nice.
31:35Now, just a little thing. I want to just step on that just for you for for some of your knowledge. My family, my older brother's the smartest guy in the world.
31:43Oh, well, you think you do. When I was a kid working on a farm for $5, used to give it to my mother. My mother, I caught her after a while giving my brother money to go to URI.
31:55Cuz he didn't have no money if you get the damn child out there. Guess what?
32:00The last 46 years, president of Johnson Wales College.
32:04Oh, wow.
32:05Nice.
32:05So, we hear brains of brawn. He's the brain. I'm the broad, but he can't change a goddamn flat tire.
32:13I love it.
32:15Very simple setup. I love it. I love it.
32:18Have you spoken to Have you gone to DPW at I'm not saying one person. Have you gone to their board? Have you gotten on their meetings?
32:27I'd like to get to that. Yes, if I can.
32:30But I think maybe you people or they were for sure tied up with the all the Zooms and all this meetings and the D 40B and and they had an opportunity to say, "Hey, we can't handle you. We don't have all that water.
32:49Our sewage treatment plant can't handle this. What the hell is happening here?"
32:55It's not the sewage treatment plant.
32:57It's the uh the u the stations the stations. We have 13 stations in this town. Some of them are are gone.
33:05They can't handle it. Other other stations can the pumping.
33:09One of my jobs were to run them generators down there. When I was hell well h then I left town and go work for electric company. I worked for electric company. I was a supervisor for 20 years. So Boston everywhere. Martha's vision. So I've been around. I saw a lot of things in a lot of people and believe me there's good and bad in everybody I would have to say and so you have to
33:36kind of watch out what you try to do and how you try to do it but you try to prepare it right and people listen to you it might be a big benefit so a lot of what happened here over the years never thought it would come out to the situation it is today when they built that treatment plant they knew there was like I think there was 17,000 people
33:55working here uh I mean living here or so they said hey we'll make it for double that 17 17 34 $35 now we go over 35 what happened a lot shouldn't have happened the way it did with the state coming in you know how the state got in to build that college and get it by eminent domain they buy a they bought a $1 million fire engine for the fire
34:20department up north you know why it's a high building we never had a so goddamn high to put the fire out there. It wasn't laded ladder truck.
34:29So here comes the state eminent domain walks up the car family and buys it.
34:36They went out of business.
34:40So I think it's possible. I'm not sure.
34:44I guess a lawyer or somebody really brilliant about this evident domain.
34:49Have you ever been we must know is it's available, right? Would you say think so?
34:54It it it's a concept. Yeah.
34:56Okay. Here's an idea. Another idea. You know the uh I forget the name. Uh church people own Lake Noach church. Uh there people own that. City of Paul River don't don't own much of it already. They own you know the damn down the end of Route Six. But up there the town bought that. The town owns it now.
35:23So you say to them, "Hey, we'll swap land with you. You take this, we'll take that for water for the town. You take over this. We don't buy it. We get it."
35:35The town owns property. The town owns so much land, they ain't got no idea what's going on.
35:42They almost 200 acres was a pig farm on the old river road.
35:47Do you know that?
35:48Yes.
35:49And you know what happened? Yes, that was a big problem. There was a big problem.
35:54They went there with a bulldozer and made a big hole. Thousands of pigs, bur them, killed everyone and buried them.
36:01Yeah.
36:02All that and mess and stuff is in the ground up there. So, guess what? The people who owned it had garbage or the guy died.
36:15The wife took over. The lawyer said, "Get rid of that goddamn problem. Give it to the town." The town grabbed it for a dollar. All that. Did they know that they had all that contaminant in there?
36:28It's up there. That's Dartmouth land.
36:33So, I think Dartmouth can become a boss when it's problems, right? And say, "Hey, damn it. Will you listen to me? We need the water. You had you bought that thing or people will walk around or something have walk around over that other pond over there or swap with you.
36:54So or imminent domain we have to take it over. But if you have people like you select board finance you know you have to sell it right so they don't have to buy whatever and DPW everybody involved get together I think it's a big plus.
37:13Well, I I think the fact that if we could because everybody's talking money today.
37:19Yeah, exactly.
37:20Everybody. So, if we could say, look, we can we can use this water, we can sell it because then they might say, hm, well, let's further investigate this because now Dartmouth can make some money.
37:34That's what I call waking them up.
37:36You're waking up the situation to be handled as well.
37:41What did Mr. Barber say when he went up there?
37:44Mr. Barber said, "Gred, I don't know how you can do it, but that's the thing to do." He liked that idea. And also, Mr. Alman and I didn't realize he had a lot of information about California with water and they they pump water across the whole country up there from one state to the other state.
38:10The Colorado River does the same thing.
38:13Yeah.
38:13Okay. This area again, location, it's on a hill. It's the highest spot down. But guess what's up there? Like a bowl.
38:23There's a bowl there up on top of the hill.
38:27That's where the cranberry bogs are.
38:29That's where all the water is. So guess what? You put it there. Not going to run down the road.
38:35How many bogs are there roughly? How many cranberry bogs are up there? own.
38:40You mean all individual?
38:42Oh, and so while you were speaking, forgive me, I did turn on my phone and I did a brief calculation. 40,000 square ft by 4t deep translates to about 1,850,000 gallons of water. Okay?
38:58So, if that cran, cranberry bog is 4t deep with clay, it can hold almost 2 million gallons of water.
39:05Okay? You're going to double that. You know why? updated the bars are built a little different. You can make them 8 ft deep not eight.
39:12Okay.
39:13So for people to know you're talking because almost four million gallons of water in a 40,000 square foot bug and that's about 20 now that parcel is 44 point some acres. I got all the paperwork with you. Okay. What's been already opened? Okay. to hold to for the cranberries. It's about half of that. I'm going say about 28 acres.
39:39The rest is the swampy areas and they have what's called retention ponds. There's one here, there's one there, there's one here, one there.
39:46Guess what? They have pumps.
39:50Boom. They start them up.
39:52Ever see the airation? See them sprinkles go on. I'll tell you, some evening you want to see the rainbows up there. It's unbelievable what it looks like, right? And they don't want that.
40:03The frost will kill all them bars. They ice it down. Ice won't kill it. So they know how to handle it. So I'm talking about half of what's half. There's two parts of 80 some acres. I'm talking about 40 and then 20 of that 40 is about more million. What' you say now? About 3.6 6 million gallons of water per 40,000 square foot bog that's 8 ft deep.
40:33Okay. Now, all right. That's what 1 acre.
40:37That's about one acre at 8 times 20 acres.
40:41Well, you're going to How much water is that?
40:43You're going to go 3.6 * 20. So, you're going to have 60 and then the 6 call another 18. About 78 million gallons of water, right?
40:52A lot of water in it.
40:53That's a lot of water. And all you do is sitting there holding it. I'm watching it. And mother nature takes care of the sun. And you know what I was told years ago? I don't know if this is true. Maybe some of you will know. Some of the cleanest places and nobody believes it.
41:07Say downtown the sidewalk.
41:10People piss. They everything. They throw cigarettes down.
41:14Guess what? Rain and sun. It's clean as clean as a whistle.
41:20Mother child knows how to clean herself up. So that's part of the what what what stream what feeds that those uh what feed what up there what feeds the uh cranberry bogs? What was feeding them?
41:35What's upream of that?
41:37The water. Yeah.
41:38What feeds it?
41:39Springs, brooks, ponds, swamps.
41:45And it No, I know the swans, but any particular big spring or here's the tree I'm talking about.
41:52Right.
41:54This green area and he he's got all the information.
41:59This is uh what do they call that area for water?
42:02All aquifer or waterhed.
42:06Aquifer.
42:06Yeah. Yeah. States got that all marked off. Well, now here's something. Here's here's the here's for river Dartmouth.
42:16So, here's the airport. There's the other one. Here is this. This is going to come down here. Here's all the piping that's in here. Okay. Now, I'm only talking north of 04 river.
42:28Now, here's the pipe that Dartmouth has right here. There's that pumping station.
42:33And over here is the weapons pumping station. There's the reservoir right there. that little reservoir. See it?
42:39That's new.
42:41This is like 10 times the size of it.
42:43And that could be all ours.
42:45So when they turn the pumps on, it goes this way or Darlington goes this way.
42:50Old Four River Road is all piped in to Hicksville Road Reed Road all the way down north of Old River Road and 99% of it has own wells and all the septic systems.
43:05And you know what? some of the nicest waters up there because of the aration and everything that's up there. What it does and I can take you and see that WT that's a water tower right there. That's a big water tower right there. So you can go through here and you can see water. It all blows down there. Everybody talks about pastamanset river and let me tell you where the heck
43:32do you think Pastam River comes from? It don't come from areas like I'm talking about. It comes from Sullivan's ledge dump hatway road.
43:43Oh, I didn't know that.
43:44It comes down the past valley or pastamit river.
43:50The water of the the water comes from Sullivan's ledge on the back and high side of Haway Road.
43:56Yes. And you know Butwood there's a the street Buttwood Buttwood pass come on the uh the east side.
44:06Okay. Way over here is small river. I'm talking about dead center right now.
44:10Yeah.
44:11This is all the streams, the ponds, uh the springs. Dead springs. One, two, three, four, five. I can walk you in the woods and show you that boiling out of the ground.
44:24Nice fresh water.
44:27The Indians, their last name was Perry.
44:30There were two brothers there and they run that place. They run the woods and they knew how to handle water and they knew what to do cuz they lived by it.
44:41And I used to work a field trout with my father running dogs up there. That's called field trout. You know, white oak run.
44:48Yeah.
44:49In Dartmouth.
44:49Yeah.
44:50White oak. Very simple tree. White oak run. He used to run dogs down there.
44:55That's cool. That's how they named it.
44:57So all over the United States there were sport, different sports. Baseball, you have dog runs.
45:07They come from England.
45:09I didn't know.
45:09They go down to Ali's farm.
45:11I know Ali's farm. Yeah.
45:13Whole bunch of horses, dogs blowing the horn and let them go.
45:17Fox hunts. My father used to say, "Right here, a little pad pencil. Go sit over there next to that tree and don't move for like four hours." Every dog, they painted a number around them.
45:33And then you see them, you'd be a bunch of us in the woods. First dog, what's his number? Block it down. Right. That was a big challenge day. We never shot nothing. We never killed no animals. So all that up there was taken care of like that. And then two brothers used to come down once a month. They got a government money being Indian, American Indian, Pixel, a little store.
45:59Yeah.
46:00Buying chewing tobacco, little nips or whiskey, sitting on the cemetery wall watching girls go by. The church is right across the street.
46:11Yeah, I know exactly where you're talking.
46:14Stopped one time and I was there. Will Junkyard. That's car now. But they they stopped and said, "Hey, Will, do you remember seeing a blue car racing up and down the roads here?" He says, "Yeah, I see it quite often." He says, "Good." He says, "Uh, if you don't see it anymore, don't worry about it. We'll take care of it." And you know what? They never saw the car again.
46:41Guess what? You ever seen anybody drown?
46:45No. So that neck of the woods, I'm telling you, but that's where everything we need is wooden water. Still need all that. It's available.
46:56It's sitting there doing nothing and nobody's doing nothing about it.
47:02So are you a good seller? You can you can maybe you business. Are you good at it?
47:11This kind of sellers is so easy. It's so easy. It's there sitting there waiting for somebody to do so. I I'll share this. I don't even think it needs to be sold. I don't know the implications and the process by which it can be collected and organized and built for, you know, to represent what you're describing. But anybody who's coherent, not intoxicated, sits here and listens to you understands there's the water and
47:36it's what we need and it's more than enough. So, I congratulate you on that.
47:40I don't I honestly don't know personally. I don't know and I have no experience how to affect something that DNRT possesses.
47:51That's when we need another person.
47:54Well, Kevin's on on that committee, right?
47:57But I think it could be acceptable.
47:59I think it could be done.
48:01How how accessible I'm being very honest asking you this question and um I'm intrigued by this. My heritage, my culture is Greek. We go back to Greece every summer. I'm in the village. We go on hikes. We go up to the natural springs. We swim over there. We drink the water over here. We cut tomatoes and some bread and cheese. And we sit and we enjoy exactly the stuff you're talking
48:23about. The question I have, how easy is it for three or four people in suits with a tie on to jump in a truck or two and go see it? Is it that accessible? Is it that obvious?
48:34Yes.
48:35Okay, that's good to know.
48:36Yes. Yes. It's not fenced off, but there's been trees that grown up, right?
48:43And this might sound stupid, but years ago when they needed to hold water, they done different things. And they call it embankment.
48:54It's a oneman stone. One person, all women, no matter one person stone. You can pick it up and do something with it.
49:02And they used to put dirt with it. Okay.
49:05Stones. Stir. Pile it all up. Then in a certain time of the year, here comes the acorns.
49:13Here comes the pine needles. Uh, not the pine, pine cones. Put it in the dirt with it. Guess what? Here comes the trees. They start to grow. Their roots hold all that together. It makes a damn damn right there. And there's no cement.
49:30There's no nothing. It's all mother nature stuff. It's been laying there.
49:33It's been done with, you know, it's been applied to everything that they know.
49:41And uh there's trails up there with the used to be Oh, you are a lot of horses and everything. And when they built all the boats, the whaling boats.
49:50Yeah. They could cut there.
49:52Yeah.
49:53And the the I don't want to brag, but the house I have now, I bought for a reason. I real good family went there.
50:01It's the last historical house in Hel.
50:04Wow.
50:051810 it was built.
50:08And the family that built it was Hathaway.
50:13Have you ever Hathaway Road?
50:15Mhm.
50:16Haway family was making money up in the woods cutting wood to bring it down so they could build the whailing boats.
50:28So what come out of DA? not only water it the wood and it was all truck done that way years ago and so everything is there you know and uh housing so you could have something over your head was built by that and one of the kind of things I show when I became doctor you know where I had to go to bathroom house it was a two-seater too That's all there is.
51:01I'm telling you the damn truth.
51:03So so amazing.
51:05So people that had my father come from Poland, my mother come from Ireland. It doesn't matter. But everywhere in the world is good and bad. But the boats come over from the different countries during the war. When they found America, they're on boats and they couldn't wait to get off that damn boat in the ocean.
51:24Three, four weeks or whatever. But the captains on that boat, if it was good, would not let them off if they saw land.
51:34You know what? They had to see water.
51:37They couldn't drink the damn salt water.
51:38They died. So to get off the boat, to get on the land, they had to find a stream.
51:45Russell Mill right there. That's where Din started. The first village, Russell's village.
51:52Guess what? Russell family.
51:54Quest.
51:55Yep. Now it builds up. Builds up. It's an awful lot of people. Guess what? Hey, you got to move on. How do you think of what what do you think moves about water? They found the stream. They went up until they found the next spillway.
52:10Smith Mills Smith was qu
52:21They were killing each other.
52:24That's all got much stronger, right? Okay. So now I honestly believe that this town will be a better town if the school department asks you to go and speak either in an auditorium or a gym to fourth, fifth, maybe sixth graders before society gets them. and they learn how privileged they are in the history of our time. This tonight, I'm going to tell you, I'm in business for myself.
52:57Forget about what I do. I don't get out of work at 6:00 stress free. I carry stress and thought from the day.
53:03I want to thank you. This has probably been the best hour that I've had in a long, long time.
53:10And I want to tell you one last thing that's very hard for me to tell try to tell you. You may not accept this. In my later days, there's one thing I hate.
53:22You have any idea what it is?
53:25The telephone, technology, cell phones, money, real bad. You got it. Everybody wants it.
53:32I know. Yeah.
53:33Family feuds, everything happens.
53:35Y there goes the properties that they had and everything.
53:39Are you fighting? Damn it. Stop it. And how can you go out and sit down with somebody like we're doing right now?
53:46Let's sit on the table, have something to eat together and talk about something. Dingy, dingy, dinky.
53:51Everywhere you go, it's just a crazy world. So, old man Bill Chandler, he's got a lot of knowledge of this. I was telling you, right, he comes up with an idea. Hey, Red, you know what? I want to write a story about you. I said, "What do you like about?" Yeah, I think it's something I should write about you. He said, "What? I like the way you talk.
54:09Like the way you are on paper. People like you." I said, "What kind of a story?" He said, "Well, I've got a couple of ideas." So, there too late. He says, "This is what I'm going to call it. A common man trying to live in a tech world."
54:25And it's pretty much the way things are.
54:27And our kids, I don't know how or what they're going to have to do.
54:33I wish them very, very well. And I'm glad you mentioned something like that.
54:38I'm glad.
54:39I mean it.
54:40I think they need a lot of that.
54:41They do. They do.
54:42They don't have anybody like you talking to them. They don't know about water.
54:47They don't What happened to Wicked Park? What happened about what we used to do?
54:50But they just they open the faucet and water's there. They have no idea.
54:54Yeah.
54:55Okay. And you know, it's not like I grew up. I know about those things. Okay.
55:00And and you're talking most all you're talking it's a big valuable thing we have.
55:05That's a big valuable thing. And I we need it. We got to live. We can't live without it. I I think though to sell it, you got to you got to say we can sell the water. I think unfortunately the people that are going to help make the decisions and legitimize and legalize the effort, they conceptually as a group need to know like most situations that there's monetary gain. But you know what? If
55:32that's what they need to know to make Dartmouth better and use Dartmouth's water, that's okay as long as the outcome is this.
55:42But the area here, I've been repeating in this, the people that are involved in here don't want to get in trouble. They don't want to do nothing. They just want to be nice, smile, and see you later.
55:57They don't want to step forward. There's an old saying, but you women, I don't think you'd like me to say it, but my mother told me, can I say it? Go ahead. I hear it.
56:09Don't get your ch stuck in the ringer.
56:12You understand? When you're washing the clothes.
56:15So, nobody wants to get their stuck in the ringer. So, they ain't going to do They're going to sit there and promise everything and nothing gets done.
56:24Thank you. You're very, very nice to me.
56:26Thank you.
56:27Thank you so much.
56:28Thank you so much.
56:31I would like to go on and get to the DPW now. they might have some more opportunity to get together and I think you would be very proud to know that you're listen to this and I think you're agreeable and everything can be put together and I think it can get done I hope very much so before I quote well I think you have to see the board right
56:53yeah have you got have you been able to get to see the DPW board you got you got to go for ask for a meeting before the board of the DPW the problem here in this town that I run to. I was very fortunate. I'm going to say that guy right there helped me to get to you people to talk with you.
57:14Uhhuh.
57:15I can't I was on that board there for seven years trying to get in here and tell what the hell I done for seven years. If that administrator you trying to get to select them for meeting or any meetings, you can't do it. Yes. Almost impossible.
57:34Not like it used to be.
57:36No.
57:36Do you have his phone number?
57:39Um, I don't think so. I have Mr.
57:41Chandler's phone number. I don't think I have your contact information.
57:45Bill Bill done a lot. Yeah. Was that what you your contact information?
57:50Yeah. Don't say it out loud. Write it down over here for us. Okay. Write your telephone number down. All right.
57:57Your name? Yeah.
57:58I got to help.
57:59All right.
58:01And then I can give it all right.
58:04Yeah. Everyone know that Thomas is red.
58:09Yeah. One and the same.
58:10Yes. One and the same.
58:13Thank you.
58:14Thank you.
58:16Good luck and thank you so much. And I hope you can get to some of the students in Dartmouth somehow cuz I think as a youngster in town, maybe in a history class or in an auditorium one particular day, somebody from the town's going to come and speak to us about natural resources and the history of Dartmouth.
58:31I think it would be an amazing 30 minutes or hour for those kids.
58:35And another thing that I do a lot of people don't quite understand it what is continued on in this area.
58:42The next town over West is the largest dairy farm in Massachusetts.
58:47They're milking 700 cows.
58:49Are they still milking 700 cows? Cuz I know I know years. I went to work for Daria when I first came here.
58:57So did my uncle.
58:58Taking care of my uncle.
58:59Taking care of 74 trucks.
59:02That was a hell of a place years ago.
59:05Yes, it was.
59:05He lives in that territory.
59:07Yes. So what was done years ago they used to around all the dairies in West Point do 250 when I came here in the 60s there two today from 250 to two.
59:21Wow.
59:22Talk about some form of Well, you got somebody in Westport who doesn't want any more cows. He wants all the cows gone.
59:29Yes. He wants all the farms gone if you ask me. The thing of the past I know thing of the past and today helping out.
59:37I have doctors and lawyers believe it or not with tons of money have me come in take care of their properties. You know what they want? They want open they some of these people buy old farms that people started fueling the families and they buy it. So what do they want?
59:58They want to keep the pastors, put some cows in there. They want me to come in and make hay, make it look good, right?
1:00:07So, here's money. How they screw things up.
1:00:11We go in there for years putting corn.
1:00:14Corn is a big product for the cows to eat.
1:00:17Right. Right.
1:00:18Well, cow corn grows 10 12 feet high.
1:00:22And Manny's got 600 acres. I sit behind him and he blows all the corn in. So, I'm in and out all the time. The people coming out now will talk about it. They say, "Hey, you know what, man? Listen, I don't think you better put no more corn in there." Oh, no, no, no. That's not a good idea. We We appreciate it for years, but we got to change it. Uh,
1:00:42well, we'll have to go. We'll have to No, we don't want you to go, but we don't want you call no more. Why? We can't see the water. It's too high.
1:00:51Big hay fields. It only goes about 3 or 4 feet. We can still see everything beautiful. But don't forget, cut it.
1:00:57Keep cutting it. We don't want the you know to go out doctors and lawyers. One fell him and his wife built a place a mansion mansion all road and do he owns PRI TV provin you want to see the mansion they have there. It's all concealed.
1:01:21But they want me knowing me old guy that know what the hell they're doing. I ain't going to throw around and mess the place up cuz I want to help them out. And there's a lot of laneways.
1:01:32You don't see what's there for years now. DNR, Buzzers Bay.
1:01:40Yep.
1:01:41Uh bird lovers.
1:01:43Yeah.
1:01:44Taking over all that.
1:01:45Oh yeah. and they want to buy more. They want to buy all the water from.
1:01:51Thank you very very much.
1:01:53Thank you, Tom.
1:01:56Thank you. Nice to meet you.
1:01:57Yeah, likewise.
1:01:58Thank you.
1:01:58Thank you.
1:01:59We all enjoyed this very much.
1:02:01So, if you ever need any information, give me a holler.
1:02:03Yep. I got your number.
1:02:06Thanks again.
1:02:07I was going to get the door for you, but it's open.
1:02:09Oh, okay. Thank you so much. Yep.
1:02:15One last thing. I trained, but I would like to come for years. Thousands of people. I was a trainer.
1:02:23This is the truth. The best people that will listen to me was young girls.
1:02:31You know who she asked me for? Guys like me. Old guys. Think we know what I love it. Thank you. That's funny. Have a good night.
1:02:42That's funny.
1:02:45Well, I hope you can do something for them and Kevin D.
1:02:50Go get him listened to.
1:02:52Yeah, at least listen to, huh? Yeah.
1:02:56Because all that water up there and we need water.
1:02:59Mhm.
1:02:59Sitting on DNRP property.
1:03:01Well, well, you know something? Let me just say this and I don't care who hears it.
1:03:07Some of those organizations, and I'm not particularly saying just the DNRT, but some of those organizations are not being held as high in high esteem as they used to be. Let's put it that way.
1:03:21Well, the problem uh listening to him is so intriguing. It's just an amazing presentation and I'm enamored by listening to that generation because I feel like if you don't talk and just listen, you will instantaneously learn.
1:03:34So, I spend time with I just that's my company. I love that.
1:03:38Um, the average person doesn't know we have a water problem because they turn on the faucet and they still have water.
1:03:45So, listening to him for an hour would not be a priority. And acting on the knowledge he has and the resources identified would not be of any interest.
1:03:54This is a cute side story, but in my mother's village, running water up top hillside high in the mountains 3,000 ft is where they collect it. My uncle runs the majority of the village when it comes to these kinds of things. For many years, there was a leak in the approach to the holding station and etc, etc.
1:04:11They were losing valuable water. The village though as a group didn't think it was a big deal because well, we all have plenty of water. We have great pressure, but we're losing what mother nature's given us. We need to fix it. So just because we have running water today and you take three showers a day and and the list goes on doesn't negate the need to hear right what he's saying right
1:04:35and address the resources we have that's really the message right so no that was very kind very very kind and if you look at other parts of the country they are having a real big water sure they are I mean they don't have the rainfall wars will be fought over water 100% yes I've said that before in the meeting Uh Tivetan's got a problem now because of the fire, one of the fire stations, you
1:04:59know, and uh so they've got chemicals in the water. Well, water.
1:05:04Yeah.
1:05:05Also, and as I said, Dyon, they don't have the water. So, water is a big problem. And who would have thought, I mean, really, I would have never thought of that 10 years ago. I would have never thought that water was going to be a problem.
1:05:19Everyone thinks there's plenty. And there's not plenty.
1:05:21No, there is not plenty.
1:05:24Well, especially, you know, geographically, we are seaside. So, theor theoretically, we are downstream.
1:05:31You would think that, right? We're not at the top. No trying to collect something above us that's only air.
1:05:36We're at the bottom.
1:05:37We should be able to collect and distribute.
1:05:40But, you know, in in Dartmouth, we are kind of lucky though because we do have a lot of uh marshland. We have a lot of swamps, you know, and we do protect our aquifer too much, I think. But we do perfect, you know. So, we're kind of lucky in Dakmouth, but I really think that we should do something about that.
1:05:58Well, and I'll just I'll finish with this on the water subject from my perspective. I brought it up months ago.
1:06:04Maybe it was it was months ago. And I have no idea of the cost, but desalination. Oh, you did say we're we're adjacent to an abundance an unlimited supply of salt water. Most oceangoing vessels use salt water to make fresh water and don't run out of the water demands they have. Right. So between that and between the fact we could address what we could do with the marshlands and the salt and the brackish
1:06:33waters we have, I got to believe we have a volume of H2O regardless of how filtered it needs to be or not. That's going to be pable usable water. Just how do we get it? How do we collect it? So and we need to get our water supply back from Far River. Mhm.
1:06:48Which is I don't know how many more years we have.
1:06:52And anybody that thinks that their water is fine because it comes out of the faucet.
1:06:56Yeah.
1:06:57Is not looking at their last quarter bill.
1:06:59100%.
1:07:00Not only the last water bill, the chemicals in the water.
1:07:05100%. Yeah.
1:07:06Anyway.
1:07:07Okay.
1:07:09Uh Ross, kudos to bringing you in.
1:07:12Oh, yeah. Thanks. Yeah. They've been asking about inerson meetings for a bit.
1:07:16um checking in periodically. So, as soon as I heard this one, I was excited to give him the the positive news.
1:07:21That's very nice. Very nice.
1:07:23Yeah, I'm glad that I'm glad that he could come in. I think I think he's he's on to something. I think he I think he is too.
1:07:31Okay. Number two on administrative items. Um Dartmouth future zoning, which is probably on hold until we find out what uh is happening in the state.
1:07:42Minutes none available. uh correspondence. I need a motion to acknowledge and file.
1:07:48Moved.
1:07:50I'll second.
1:07:51Second.
1:07:52So, we have a motion from um Kevin and seconded by Helio.
1:07:59Kevin, yes.
1:08:00Margaret, yes.
1:08:01Nick, yes.
1:08:02Helio, yes.
1:08:03Lori, yes. Motion carries.
1:08:07Old business. Incoming zoning board of board of incoming zoning board applications legal ads.
1:08:16Any questions? Any I don't think there is any on this one.
1:08:20I didn't I have my computer but I didn't turn it on. Um zoning board of appeals decisions.
1:08:26Uh none on this one.
1:08:27Nope. Subcommittee reports.
1:08:30None to report.
1:08:31I still don't know if I'm on a committee, Madam Chair. Someday I'll find out. the soils. I I did unfortunately it was while I was away I did see an email when I returned that they made an effort to reach out to the members and if it was going to meet so infrequently i.e.
1:08:52hasn't met in a long time perhaps the subject matter should be um the responsibility andor represented by an existing board that meets on a regular basis. I don't know what the outcome of that was because I was I was in Greece.
1:09:07I was away. So the S world so board in the past is probably met twice a year.
1:09:14When I was on it, I met once.
1:09:16Yeah.
1:09:16Yeah.
1:09:16So I just know that they were trying, you know, they they threw that out there, but that's it.
1:09:20Yeah.
1:09:21Planners report. We'll ask you if you have anything.
1:09:24No, I I have nothing other than I think uh between the select board meeting and and this uh presentation we just had, I think it was really good to have this in person meeting. I think um I'm really hopeful that that got the ball rolling between um education. I'm hoping to get some questions in from the public in the in the next few days hopefully of those who watched. Um and I
1:09:46think it's good to to stay in touch between boards like we've always said.
1:09:49So I think I think this is um a really positive thing we did tonight.
1:09:52Ross, well done on putting together a lot of that information and Thank you.
1:09:57been great.
1:09:58Thank you. I appreciate you sounding good out there.
1:10:00Thank you. Yeah, I think um actually I think we all sounded good because we all, you know, kind of pushed on the pushed on the points that were important, you know, like, hey, this is Dartmouth. We want to look like Dartmouth. We don't want to look like New Buffett, you know, New Befford can be new.
1:10:20I I just want to share and I and I'm saying it publicly that that's all true and and and that is most important. But what I dislike or detest the most is the ability and the willingness of the state and its governing body to simply walk over present and past efforts in in and basically future planning. that's the result of present and past efforts.
1:10:52It's grossly disrespectful and and I'm literally I'm talking to the state right now, but I cannot put in words how much that bothers me. And I know we all feel the same way and we would put it together differently but it will be a it will be a geographic and political change in perpetuity if the state does this. Because if I knew the state had that ability, I would have no interest
1:11:25in asking if I could run or how do I run or pulling papers or running a small campaign? And if I knew the and if I know the state can do that, how do I talk to people about perhaps running for a seat that's available? How do I encourage people to participate in town government?
1:11:44Because I'm going to tell you how. You cannot give up.
1:11:49Agreed. You cannot. You've got to fight fight fight. Yeah.
1:11:54Asop's tail the mouse and whatever. You don't you if you don't do it. Who's gonna do it?
1:12:00I agree. I agree.
1:12:01So, yes, maybe we're going uphill with a snowball. That's how I feel.
1:12:06Yeah.
1:12:07But if we don't do it and we don't speak, who's going to do it?
1:12:12Yeah. The good news is I I don't know I don't know the exact square footage, but this is going to impact many state officials, including some that may live in our town. That's the good news.
1:12:28Correct.
1:12:29Yes.
1:12:30Yeah. I'll I'll finish with that because Kevin sees the state officials. Oh, you guys missed it. At one point I tapped his shoulder like this and I said "God I didn't say it.
1:12:45Your time your timing was impeccable."
1:12:47I did not mean the timing was impeccable.
1:12:52And I thought to myself, Christina was saying, "Listen to Kevin."
1:12:58Well, you should hear me when I go into the planning office. Okay. Okay.
1:13:03Okay.
1:13:05I mean, it it's it's just um it's dictatorship.
1:13:15That's what it is. I I'm trying to be nice about it, but it's dictatorship.
1:13:20We're going to tell you what to do, right?
1:13:24I mean, when the when anything that's been done in this town when it comes to building zoning goes through town meeting and the people get to vote on what they want.
1:13:36It's not just this board making up zoning. It's not this board saying two acres here or half an acre here or two feet here.
1:13:44It goes through town meeting. It goes through hearings. It goes through town meetings and the town meeting members vote on it. and the town meeting members are elected.
1:13:57It's going to be taken away. Like I said, why bother having a Z talked about the zoning board of appeals?
1:14:06They might as well just go bye-bye.
1:14:07They might as well. Yes. Because they have no more control.
1:14:10No more control.
1:14:11No.
1:14:12And that used to be so all the newbies in my opinion because I've been on both boards. You got the building commissioner, you got this, you got that. The most powerful board in the town of Darkmouth is the ZBA.
1:14:28Agreed.
1:14:29Because they were able to give or take.
1:14:31Exactly. Right.
1:14:32Yeah. Now they can't.
1:14:34Now they can't.
1:14:35Master plan information report. Well, of course that's going to wait for zoning articles too.
1:14:40Yeah.
1:14:41Planning department updates.
1:14:43Um, no. We we're just keeping the ball rolling honestly as best we can. Um I am communicating with Dan a couple times a day. Uh checking in kind of keeping him updated so he knows any new applications that come in kind of what I'm up to on a day-to-day. Um we're we're keeping each other updated. So that's really good. Um and I think this was this was the bulk
1:15:09of of my prep for the past few days. So um I'm just going to keep the active applications moving along now that now that this is uh concluded.
1:15:19Chairman report. I want to thank everyone this evening. I think we had some great input. Um I'm Sleman obviously listened. I hope the public listened. I'm hoping um that Dartmouth Weekly does a good article, you know, explaining what's going to happen.
1:15:38But what I fear most of all is 494 and up are going to vote positively.
1:15:48Well, I didn't hear the 494 corridor and up.
1:15:51Oh, they're going to vote. Yeah, they're going to vote in favor of this and they have more votes for a higher population.
1:15:5749 You mean 495?
1:15:59Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:16:00All Newton, Wilson.
1:16:01100%. all those towns, you know, the people that already live. Well, not maybe not Newton, but that's why a lot of Newton, but not all. But yeah, Cambridge something.
1:16:16Yeah.
1:16:17I mean, I know I'll just finish with this because I I know it's dinner time for all of us, right? But um I guess what I'm getting at is could we get to the right people and express that there are places for this and there are not places for this and if if this needs to be on the ballot within towns and municipality I I I don't know. Is there a way to break it down some?
1:16:46We already have places for this in town.
1:16:48We have 6,000 square foot zoning in Vilana.
1:16:52Payum two lots is 5,000 square feet.
1:16:56We already have areas that this can be built implemented.
1:17:01So we have we have 6,000 square feet. We have 5,000 square feet in the village because most of those lots already are.
1:17:08We have um 15,000 square feet. We have half an acre and we have um an acre and we have two acres. So, the town is very diversified already. It's not like we're trying to prevent anything from being built. We're not. It's It's already there. But what this is doing is saying to us, you're twoacre zoning, 5,000 square feet.
1:17:35No, I know. And and you know, the thing that's even a little bit sadder is that twoacre zoning if it's on sewer and water.
1:17:44Think about this. My kids's going to college. You know, I have the ability to put a 5,000 square foot lot here. The neighbor sees that home. I'm going to pay for my college kid, too. Yeah.
1:17:56There goes another 5,000 square feet because those houses are five, they'll have 5,000 square feet on the side.
1:18:02Sure.
1:18:04Yeah.
1:18:05That's, you know, everyone thinks, oh, well, it's not going to go over on the two acres zoning. Yeah, it is.
1:18:10It will. It will, you know, and and the realization of what can happen is, oh, it's not going to happen in Dartmouth.
1:18:18I don't know what they're thinking.
1:18:19If it passes, it's going to happen everywhere.
1:18:21Of course, it's going to be everywhere. It's a statewide thing.
1:18:24Yeah.
1:18:24Yep. Yeah.
1:18:24But not only that, like I said, Westport doesn't have to worry about it.
1:18:29Yeah, you do.
1:18:31Because you know what? I'm going to get tired of having a 15 a 50 15,000 square foot house on either of my sides. I'm gonna move to Westport now. I'm going to use up your infrastructure.
1:18:46Yeah.
1:18:47The 5,000 square foot aspect of it, I think, is hard to grasp, but it's only 50 foot of frontage, 100 deep.
1:18:55That's it.
1:18:56That's it.
1:18:57That's it. And I would I would look at plans oftent times if I'm doing research for someone or for a project. A lot of times a deed will reference a plan from 1911 1912 and it'll be in all blocks. Yes. of 50 by 100 and I would think wow those are tiny and people would buy six or 10 and that's kind of how you had today's shape.
1:19:16So to think that that's where it's going back to for for for a house 1940 subdivision well just go look in in the city of New I do stuff a lot in New Bethford and sometimes when I go in there I have a hard time with the maps because then I got to put everything together because it's like 15 of those little maps. Okay. Exactly. And years ago, the the numbers were different. So
1:19:39then you got to change all the numbers.
1:19:41All right.
1:19:42Mhm.
1:19:42And you know, they're tiny tiny little lots. All right.
1:19:46It I'm going to give Nick some some credit for a discussion that we had earlier.
1:19:54We we we all spout to our friends about what's going on and things that work and don't work and they hear and Kevin's doing something on some board and whatever. Um we need to make this real.
1:20:14I know that's what I And the best thing that happened tonight was Cody saying this is what this looks like.
1:20:21Mhm.
1:20:22And we really need to make it real with numbers to say how many extra housing units or parcels could be made out of existing parcels and show how many parcels could be created in a new development like Hawthorne, right? like uh and I'm just going to use this as a an example, John George Farm, right?
1:20:55With roads going through it.
1:20:58Uh I bet you you could put How many acres is John George's farm?
1:21:05But I bet you easily easily you could put 5,000 foot lots. You could probably easily put 50. That's it'd be a it'd be a lot would say a lot more probably because you put winding roads that you 5050 50 and you got the Yeah.
1:21:20Yeah.
1:21:21I mean we really and we joked about it today and it was the joke was repeated. 40bs are going to look pretty good.
1:21:31Yeah.
1:21:31Yeah.
1:21:32Yeah.
1:21:33Yeah. Anyway, I don't want to be They're not going to be any The big thing that my I'm taking away is that we need to make this real so people pay attention to it and they're not just hearing, "Oh, here goes."
1:21:46Well, you got to call on the radio, too, because uh I never listen to the radio, but now because of other circumstances in my life, I listen and I call in because you have WBSM, Chris McCarthy, he thinks 5,000 square feet, lots of wonderful. Okay.
1:22:03And New Bethford does.
1:22:04And New Bethford does. And a lot of the people that call in and say, "Oh, and I know a lot of the voices because I know a lot of people." And it's wonderful because all these old people aren't going to build these houses. No, the these are for old people.
1:22:19I mean, no. Can I don't want to build a new house.
1:22:23I'm old. And not only that, they're not going to be single level, right?
1:22:27These houses are going to be three stories. You have to be if they can they can build a because five it's 50 foot frontage 10 10 here and 10 here you can't build on. So that gives you 30 ft right of width of width.
1:22:42They're going to go up.
1:22:44They're going to have a twocar garage on the bottom.
1:22:46Yep.
1:22:47Then they're going to have living room, dining room, etc. And then you're going to have bedrooms. This is going to be a townhouse like in Boston, New York, Chicago. That's what this is going to be because a height allows them to build this.
1:23:00You're adding density. You're just It's going to be super dense.
1:23:03Yep.
1:23:04Which is in it by itself is not an issue.
1:23:07It's where you can't support the It's where you're looking to add it and without any safeguards, without any protections, it's just a free-for-all.
1:23:15It's going to happen.
1:23:16Yeah, sir.
1:23:17But it's See, and I know I sound now I sound like a broker. It's not fair to the people that have bought these properties in these subdivisions or on these streets and they said, "I want a 150 foot frontage.
1:23:32I want my children to have a pool in the back or play in the yard." It's not fair to us kind of people that we've Hey, listen. We struggled to buy these properties. These people have struggled to buy these properties. Some of them they don't want to if they wanted to live in New Bedford they would have stayed in New Bethford and that's why we have the different zoning areas and that's why we
1:23:56have the diversification right I mean I'm not sure that the public understands we have diversification when it comes to what you need to build lot sizes we have we we have it we we have it there for you to decide what you want if you come from New Beford and you want to live on a on a 6,000 square foot lot we've got it Right. And then if you want
1:24:18to live on two acres, we have it.
1:24:20That's right.
1:24:20But what this is going to do is say, "No, 5,000. Nothing everywhere that there's town water and sewer."
1:24:29Yeah.
1:24:29Right.
1:24:30But we know what's next. Okay. This is a minimum minimum of 5,000 square feet.
1:24:35When are they going to come down and say a maximum? When are they going to come down and say no more than no more than an acre or no more than a half an acre?
1:24:45When are they going to come down and say more restrictive things that we can't control?
1:24:50Think about it.
1:24:51Oh, if they I this will be my I promise my last comment of the night.
1:24:55If they pull this off.
1:24:57That's right.
1:24:57All of that is endless.
1:24:59Yeah.
1:24:59It's whenever they want to.
1:25:01That's right.
1:25:01If they pull this off, it's whenever they want to. It's a when and if or an if and when.
1:25:06Yep.
1:25:08That's I'm not even going to say everything, but you'll all know what I mean. You know, if somebody comes and knocks on your door and takes you away and you do nothing, not you, but your neighbor, you do nothing. And then the other neighbor, they take them away and you do nothing. You say, "It's not me."
1:25:24Well, but do you think they're going to knock your door?
1:25:27Okay. So, you know what? We have to fight this and hopefully they're going to have a meeting about it. The selectman and people have to call on the radio and people have to write, you know, Mark Montgney, right to Mark, write to some of these other people and say "Look we need to get votes."
1:25:48Yes.
1:25:48From outside of 495.
1:25:51Yes.
1:25:51All the way into Albany.
1:25:55Mhm.
1:25:55I don't know how to do that, but I And we have to get it fast.
1:25:59Yeah. And the problem is is they have $2 million to spend to to get it.
1:26:04They have more than that.
1:26:05I'm sure they do by now.
1:26:062 million doesn't scare me because that's going to go quick. The fact that they got 2 million scares me because that tells me they can raise 10 if they need it.
1:26:13Yes, they got 1.7 million. That was the the year end 2025 report that showed that money.
1:26:25Since then, Dan showed me a PowerPoint that he got a hold of of theirs that says that they have $5 million.
1:26:39Really?
1:26:40Yeah. And we do have some de some developers in the town of Diamond who have donated money.
1:26:45Okay. Here's what I heard.
1:26:48Here's what somebody $1,000.
1:26:49Somebody sent me this today. I got to go downstairs and see if this is posted.
1:26:54Okay, this is about the ballot questions.
1:26:59Questions 1 through 5, Thursday, September 17th at the Keith Middle School in Haway Road, New Bethford, the community room. Okay. Questions one through five. Uh, questions 6 through nine, which I knew nothing about. I felt stupid because I'm in town. Tuesday, September 22nd, Dartmouth Town Hall 6 to 9.
1:27:25Well, this chairman of the select select board said they are going to have a meeting to discuss.
1:27:30This was sent to me today.
1:27:33What's the date on that?
1:27:34Who's sponsoring that?
1:27:36I don't know because I somebody just sent it to me. It says this is nonpartisan ballot choice impacts you and they send it to me because you know I'm on the okay 6 through9 yeah six is uh se questions 6 through9 on September 22nd in DMouth town hall so now that's something that we have to publicize okay I've got to find out first if this is real because I just got it no name
1:28:03and who is going to where was where was one through five one through five was going to be at the Keith Middle School, 225 Hathaway Road, New Bethford in the community room.
1:28:17What time?
1:28:17It doesn't say what time and DM. Oh, I'm sorry. 6:00 to 7:30 for both places.
1:28:236:00 to 7:30. Okay. No debating, just pro and con presentations and your questions answered. Okay.
1:28:32I'd be I'd be very interested to find out who's going to be there to do number seven. Yeah, question seven needs a day.
1:28:38Well, yeah, but I'd like to see one through five to get an idea of who's putting it on and how it's handled.
1:28:45Well, I'll tell you, I should be able I'm going to go downstairs and find out uh well, tomorrow call Sarah because she's got to know about this. If they're coming to the town hall and they got the room, they've got to have a room and they've got to have asked Sarah. Okay. So, I'll call Sarah tomorrow and see who's putting this on.
1:29:04What was the date for 1 through five? 1 through 5 is September 17th, Thursday.
1:29:08This Thursday.
1:29:09All right.
1:29:10Okay. At the Keith Middle School.
1:29:11Here we go.
1:29:13And then next week, Tuesday, September 22nd, 6 to you know.
1:29:18All right. Thank you.
1:29:20So interesting.
1:29:23It is interesting. And and you know, maybe like I said, I'll call Sarah tomorrow. She'll know if anybody's inquired about that because I know my group has we have put a big board together And we have advised people what they should vote. Advised. I'll tell you advised. Okay. Like on question seven, we advise no. Okay.
1:29:47But some people think it's, you know, they think that they think that the state of Massachusetts is being helpful.
1:29:59Anything else to come before us this evening?
1:30:01A motion.
1:30:02A motion. I need a motion to adjurnn. So moved.
1:30:05And our next meeting is Monday, September 28th, and that will be a Zoom.
1:30:11I second the motion.
1:30:13Uh motion was made by Kevin, seconded by Nick. Kevin, yes.
1:30:18Margaret, yes. Kevin, uh Nick, yes.
1:30:20Alio, yes.
1:30:22Lori, yes. We're adjourned.
1:30:24Okay.
1:30:25A long meeting, but more