MATTAPOISETT— Tempers were high at a Jan. 26 Board of Selectmen as board members were concerned that consultants are dragging their feet in completing the design for a major road reconstruction project. 

The project — part of MassDOT’s Transportation Improvement Plan to design and build highways and transit projects — would see large improvements made to Main Street, Water Street, Beacon Street and Marion Road.

The Vanasse Hangen Brustlin consulting firm was chosen in 2017 to complete 25% of the project’s design by this year. Completing that 25% design work — which the consultants have been working on for three years — is a requirement to qualify for the substantial state funding needed to undertake the project.

The project is ranked on the statewide improvement plan, but if other towns ahead of Mattapoisett fail to complete a long list of requirements in time, Mattapoisett could get moved up the line. 

In 2018, 10% of the plan was submitted and approved by the selectmen.

So far, VHB Engineering Project Manager Jamie Pisano noted, the firm is “in the middle of designing the 25 percent” — only a 2.5% increase since 2018. Originally set to start this year, construction is estimated to begin in 2022.

Chairman Paul Silva said that he thought VHB would have gotten “a lot further along” with their design work by now, not the 12.5% Pisano reported.  

“It’s been quite a while you’ve been working on it,” he said. “Without being at that 25 percent, that creates a [timing] problem.” 

Vice Chair Jordan Collyer was more blunt with his frustration.

“Are we going to sacrifice trying to advance ourselves on this project because the contractor decided ‘we’re going to put it on the backburner for now?,’” he said. “We’ve already terminated one contract from the last four months — I have no problems doing it again.” 

Collyer had reservations granting VHB the initial contract for this road project back in 2017. At the time, the selectman expressed disappointment with the bike path project bike VHB worked on in the early 2000s, saying it ended up going over budget and that the “scope wasn’t clearly understood.” 

“I did not want a repeat of the bike path,” Collyer said at the Jan. 26 meeting. “Now we’re having a repeat of the bike path.”

According to Pisano, not advancing the design was “fiscally responsible for the town,” since MassDOT could change policies which would require work to be redone.

“I didn’t want to come back to the board and ask for more money,” Pisano said.

Once the plan is submitted, which Pisano anticipates will be April 30, MassDOT will provide comments that will “get the ball rolling” to advocate moving up on the improvement plan. 

The project is expected to be complete in fiscal year 2025.