SWAMPSCOTT — The Select Board has authorized Director of Community and Economic Development Marzie Galazka to pursue grants for both planting trees and coastal resiliency.
The Select Board’s policies of operation originally required it to have final approval of any grant the town sought to apply for that had a value exceeding $5,000. Earlier this year, Chair MaryEllen Fletcher said she did not believe the board had been following this policy. The board then voted unanimously to change the policy to apply to any grant exceeding $50,000.
The Cool Corridors Tree Planting Grant would fund the installation and maintenance of more than 20 trees in total at Philips Park, Jackson Park, the new elementary school, and the Swampscott MBTA station by the Department of Public Works and Tree Committee. The application will now be submitted to the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
Galazka described the Fiscal Year 2025 Coastal Resiliency Grant as a way for the town to conduct different studies and analyses to find solutions for mitigating coastal flooding.
“The project will evaluate long-term impacts and develop conceptual designs along with estimated costs and priorities of projects that protect vulnerable assets and roadways,” Galazka wrote in a proposal to the board.
In 2016, the Climate Action Plan Committee received nine recommended actions to improve climate-resiliency efforts from Kleinfelder, a Boston-based engineering-consulting company. In April, Select Board member Doug Thompson announced that a plan is in the works to update the town’s coastal-resiliency models to create more grant opportunities.
“If funded, this grant will help us update some of the former projections as well as use new data to develop solutions to the flooding along our coastline,” Galazka wrote.
According to Thompson, the grant is worth approximately $400,000 and the town would only be responsible for paying for $40,000 of the amount.
“The Select Board has been laser-focused on preparing for the inevitable impacts of climate change with fiercer storms and rising sea levels,” Thompson said.
He added that members of the community will have multiple opportunities in the future to share their opinions on which options discovered through the potential studies would be the best.
