MATTAPOISETT — When an article regarding the creation of a committee to review the Main, Water, Beacon and Marion roadways project was discussed — and then approved — at Mattapoisett Town Meeting, it was specified that the item was not legally binding, that the town did not have to act with the article’s approval.

Just over two weeks later, the Mattapoisett Select Board initiated a process to form that committee at a meeting Tuesday, May 28.

That town meeting item was a citizen’s petition to form a seven-person committee to “review, comment upon, and make recommendations for design and construction” of a project to reconstruct Main, Water and Beacon streets as well as Marion Road with Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant sidewalks, stormwater filtration systems and to allow for the replacement of an aging gas line.

Select Board Chair Jordan Collyer said the committee “needs to be representative of the town, not any one specific area or any interest.”

“I support having a committee that’s thoughtful with a meaningful makeup of qualified individuals that will bring something to the table and not detract,” Collyer said.

Highway Surveyor Garrett Bauer will serve as an ex-officio non-voting member on the committee and will work with the Mattapoisett Select Board to choose other members.

The committee’s charge and criteria for committee members will be set at the Select Board’s next meeting.

An information session regarding the project will be held Tuesday, June 18 by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation at 6:30 p.m. at Old Rochester Regional High School.

Select Board member Tyler Macallister said he was waiting for that information session to “see where we were” and what the Department of Transportation had to say, then continue from there. 

“I will not encourage, I will not get involved with anything to slow this project down,” he said.