By Mary Macedo, Neighb News Correspondent
At its meeting on Monday 7/13 the Fairhaven Board of Public Works discussed parking at the town beach, pickleball at Cushman Park, and welcomed a new board member.
BPW Vice-Chairperson Robert “Hoppy” Hobson announced at the beginning of the meeting that BPW Chairperson Brian Wotton would be absent from this meeting due to personal business. Mr. Hobson ran the meeting in the chairperson’s absence.
“I’ll run it the best I can, considering my age,” Mr. Hobson, 79, said laughing.
The board first introduced their new board member, Marcus Ferro. Mr. Hobson said Mr. Ferro was one of two or three candidates who applied for open position on the BPW and Mr. Ferro was selected and appointed by the Selectboard.
Mr. Ferro said that he was excited to join the BPW.
The board met with Tom Alferes and other members of the Fairhaven Tennis Association, as well as pickleball players/residents via Zoom to discuss adding secondary lines to the tennis courts at Cushman Park to allow for pickleball playing.
BPW Superintendent Vinnie Furtado said that they would like to modify the lines at the existing tennis courts and add secondary lines for pickleball. Mr. Furtado said he sees no reason to object seeing as the FTA has no problem with it.
Mr. Alferes said that the secondary lines will also be useful for the junior tennis players to use as well as for pickleball players. He said the secondary lines will cost the town no money because the pickleball players will pay to have the lines added.
BPW member Cameron Durant said that considering everyone has no problem with it and the FTA is fine with it, they should make a motion. The board voted unanimously to approve the secondary lines.
In another matter the board met with Gary Lavalette via Zoom to discuss town beach parking. Mr. Lavalette explained that this past Sunday there were about 800 people on the beach, and everyone was social distancing.
Mr. Lavalette said he thought the beach could hold about 1200 people comfortably. He said that he has the cars park about 4-6 feet away from each other and at that distance the parking lot fits about 150-160 cars.
Mr. Lavalette also said that after the lot was fills up he starts allowing cars to park on one side of Fir Street. He said he allows people to unload their car in the parking lot and then has them move to Fir Street.
He reminded the board that at the previous BPW meeting the board discussed putting no parking signs on Fir Street, but Mr. Lavalette said the town beach needs the extra spaces.
The board said that there will only be no parking signs on one side of the street. Mr. Hobson agreed that having cars park on one side of Fir Street is fine.
Mr. Durant said if they have their town beach sticker there is no problem with cars being parked on one side of Fir Street.
Mr. Lavalette said he can fit about 40 cars on one side of Fir Street.
Mr. Durant said to utilize those 40 spaces.
Mr. Lavalette also told the board that around 120 cars on Sunday were denied entry because they had no sticker or were not a town resident.
Mr. Furtado said that they have sold around 1000 season passes to Fairhaven residents only and they only have 100 stickers left.
Administrative Assistant Becky Vento asked if they should stop selling passes once the 100 passes are gone. She said she sold 25 passes on the day of the meeting alone.
Mr. Hobson said that at the next BPW meeting they should see how many stickers are left and then decide what to do.
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