Select Board: January 26, 2026

Transcript captured from MHTV’s Vimeo auto-captioning. No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:00 Why don’t we then, why don’t we go ahead. Why don’t we open the meeting, emergency meeting of the select board on Monday, January 26th at 2:05 PM Should we do a roll call since we’re all virtual? Yes. So, Ms. Does Thissen present? Ms. Singer Present. Ms. Nunan? Here. Mr. Fox Present.

0:29 All right. So it looks like we have one topic to discuss, which is the reason for this meeting, and it is to declare a snow emergency. Um, Amy, maybe if you could spend a little time explaining the process and the need for this given, uh, some of us haven’t gone through this process before on the select board. Explain, um, what the next steps are and also your limitations. Sure. So our reasons, uh, my reason for requesting this is that we see a threat to public, public health and safety. And that really is all the snow that we have moved has now been deposited on sidewalks and built up in corners. So there’s difficulty to see.

1:16 Our streets are very small, so we now have a narrower street to get, uh, your emergency equipment through. Um, and we have no place to actually put our snow the next round that comes through. Um, we’ll just keep piling it higher and higher. Uh, so we would like to remove it. We’ve done it in the past. Uh, we generally have operations go on through the night as we do the removal. The major part of the removal, we might do smaller removal during the day. Um, we really stick to just a few places, uh, which are gonna be like, um, the business district, the historic district, and, uh, sometime that sidewalk at the causeway, we only dump snow in two places.

2:02 And that’s at the landing at State Street and, uh, Riverhead Beach, um, which has a boat ramp. So neither affect the environment for the trucks going back and forth. Um, the process is to load dump trucks. Dump trucks will line up, back up, uh, to the edge, um, and deposit the snow. The snow has not been down for a long period of time, so it hasn’t collected trash. Uh, we did not, we pretreated way prior to the storm, um, and haven’t treated during the process right now, so there’s no additional salt or de-icer in the snow. Um, and I’ll read the preamble to our policy and guidelines ‘cause it kind of explains why we, uh, still have to go

2:51 to the ocean for our snow disposal. Um, the town of Marblehead is one of the most densely populated communities, bordering the Salem sound. The few remaining town owned open properties within Marblehead are either cultivated parks or playing fields. Conservative lands containing wetlands or wetlands such as marshes and ocean beaches. Public town owned parking areas are located either directly adjacent to wetlands and are connected to said wetlands via storm drain systems, most of which do not contain best management practices, which are like stormceptors or the ability to clean, um, storm water or trash. So, and, um, should all this snow melted goes into a catch basin

3:38 and ends up in the ocean, where is where we’re actually putting it? So, um, we try to do, uh, obviously the minimal amount, but we definitely wanna make sure that we, oh, the other place we’re gonna, we also do is the, uh, crosswalks near the schools. So we wanna make sure that we have, uh, safety for schools and that we have safety for people going to the businesses, and then that public safety can reach all of our homes. Great. So the process would be that we would declare, from my understanding, a state emergency through, uh, January 30th on Friday at 7:00 AM and we would still have to go to, you will then go to DEP for approval before we do this. Is that correct? So, uh, we will, yep.

4:25 Conservation will put it, the conservation agent will put in a form which is right online, uh, for emergency dumping in. We will put it through, uh, with mass DEP and we also, uh, track what we put in and we report that too. So we track where it came from, where it went, and, um, how much so went in. So, yeah. And, um, uh, now that Alex has left, who was the conservation agent who took Brenda? So, Brendan, Brendan Callahan is our acting conservation agent. Okay. He, he has already communicated with the chair of the Conservation Commission in regard to this. He’s also has sent correspondence to DEP, given him heads up. So what will happen is, uh, um, working with the Chair

5:13 of Conservation Commission under his signature, under Brendan’s signature as Acting Conservation agent, uh, that letter and then a letter stating that the select board has declared this emergency, those who go into the DEP. And then I think Thursday Conservation Commission is already scheduled for meeting. They will ratify the actions after the fact at their meeting, I think scheduled for Thursday. Okay. So I, I guess how, how soon could the removal start, I guess? Um,

5:49 Uh, so, uh, we’re asking that you declare it, um, after this meeting. Uh, right now we’re still in snow operations, not in removal yet. So we have another four to six inches coming. Uh, we’ll be dealing with the snow operations and then on Tuesday we will start, um, the, uh, crosswalks and smaller areas. So there could be minimal snow removal then, but the majority of the snow removal will happen, um, between midnight and seven on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening. Okay. And, and are we waiting, I, I wasn’t clear. Are we waiting on anything from the state at all or approval? Or is that

6:34 You really just have to, uh, looking at, we’ve done in the past and reading what it is, you just have to submit it and you have to track it and you have to let them know when you’re gonna start, when you start. Okay. So, so thinking out loud, it, it could be tricky for kids tomorrow just based on what’s going on. Okay. I think, yeah.

6:54 Yeah. We really are still trying to keep public ways clear. Yeah, I get it. Tomorrow’s gonna be a tough day, bottom line, no matter what

7:05 and be, have any questions or comments? Um, not on this, I just didn’t wanted to give Amy an opportunity if she wants to. Um, I think there’s a couple reporters if there’s anything you wanted to get out, um, for residents at this time or,

7:22 Sure. So, uh, we definitely appreciate all the residents, uh, staying off the roads and clear of the plows. Um, we really, we’ve seen this time and we understand it’s difficult for you all, but, uh, you need to keep your snow on your private property, um, on your private property and not push it back into the public way. Uh, we’re finding it that will plow a street and it will look like it hasn’t been plowed five minutes later due to contractors and homeowners that are putting it back in. So try to be mindful, um, of where you deposit your snow. Anyone knows that they have a catch basin near their house. It would be great if they would snow blow, um, or plow over that catch basin to re uh, to clear it so that it can take any kinda snow melt.

8:08 And, um, if you feel like clearing a hydrant, we would definitely appreciate that too. Oh, also, it is extremely cold for the next week. If you have a history of water pipes freezing, you should keep a faucet dripping. We’ve already had three frozen, um, properties with water pipes, so, Okay, thanks. Just ‘cause it always gets comes up. How many, um, sidewalk plows do we have for the town? So, and the school, the school has, I don’t know how many the school has. I think they have three to four. Mm-hmm. The town currently has one really ancient one and two. Um, however, sidewalk blouses are made for large sidewalks. They don’t fit down most of our sidewalks, um, due

8:55 to the nature of how narrow our streets and sidewalks are, so, Okay. And you think it’ll be a few days before we, or you think like, I mean, you’re still in operation clear the streets mode, so then it becomes sidewalks after that. And because people always ask about the sidewalks near the schools. Uh, so the evenings that we do snow removal is when we really get the, the sidewalks in those areas. Okay, thanks. The school does try to do the sidewalks after each operation though. Okay. All right. Well, if nobody has anything else, um, if I could have a motion, uh, that the select would declare a state emergency in the town

9:41 of Marblehead from Monday, January 26th, uh, 2026 through Friday, January 30th, 26th at 7:00 AM due to significant snow accumulation resulted from the snowstorm of January 25th through 26, 20 2026. And that said, snow poses immediate threat to the health or safety of persons or property on the town of Marble Hood. So moved. I’ll second. Okay. This will be a poll vote. Okay. Yep. Uh, Ms. Singer? In favor? Ms. Newan In Favor? Mr. Zis? In favor, Mr. Fox? In favor. And, uh, um, Go ahead, Mr. Chair. I apologize. I forgot one more thing. Yep. Uh, there is no private, uh, property

10:27 or private snow that is going into the harbor. There’s all from the public way. Makes sense. Yeah. Well, thank you to you and, and, uh, all the people that work with you for, for the hard work. I know some of ‘em been out for 24 hours plus. And thank you Chief for attending this and everything you’re doing. Glad to see you. Uh, back on your feet, Jason. Hope you’re doing well. Doing good. All right. Good. Good to hear. Absolutely. Good, good, good to see you upright. Yes. Thank you. Yep. Welcome back. All right. If I could have a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Um, Ms. Nunan? In favor? Mr. Zin? In favor, Mr. Ms. Singer? In favor, Mr. Fox. In favor. Thank you all and stay warm.

11:15 Thanks. Thank you. All right, thanks. Thank you. Bye.

11:27 You said you, uh, to seat you up?