NAHANT ― Residents will meet to help decide the next steps in a multi-million-dollar sewer project that the town needs to complete by the end of the year.
The special town meeting will occur on Sept. 27 at Town Hall. The meeting will be held indoors with the windows open and masks will be mandatory for those looking to attend.
Joshua Antrim, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, also said that they will be looking to acquire an air-filtration system for the event.
At the last Board of Selectmen meeting, it was decided that Nahant will ask for more money from the state, in the form of a low-interest loan, in order to secure one of the bids from local construction companies. With this being a financial matter, a town meeting needs to occur for the public to vote on the issue.
While Antrim added that no one likes to spend more money than they were expecting to, he did say that he expects the meeting to go well.
“I think most people understand the situation that we need to get this project done,” said Antrim. “We got three bids: This is the low bid, it fits within the available time frame, but unfortunately costs have gone up.”
The lowest bid that came in for the project was priced at $8.8 million. With Nahant having $7 million budgeted for the sewer project, they are looking to secure nearly $2 million more in state funding.
The town did have some good luck when it came to the project: With the low-interest loan having a two percent interest rate, while others would be around three and a half percent, the town will ultimately save some money in interest.
“It’s a bit painful but I expect it will go smoothly because a lot of people understand how important it is to get this job done,” Antrim said. “If we try to delay it further, my guess is that the price would only go up.”
