Despite pandemic, Cohasset moves town meeting to meet hard deadline for flood maps imposed by government

Wicked Local South/Mariner (Marshfield, MA)

May 7--In a time of constant motion, Annual Town Meeting once again has a new date.

During its meeting on April 14, the Board of Selectmen was informed during that Cohasset may be required to move its Town Meeting up a week to meet a deadline from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Town Manager Chris Senior explained to the Board that FEMA requires each town with any body of water to adopt flood maps each year. An administrative issue, these new maps were set to be on this year's warrant anyways.

The issue that has arisen is that the deadline to adopt these maps is June 19, three days before the newly scheduled June 22 Town Meeting.

The problem for the town is that, with Cohasset's form of government, the only way that these can be adopted is through approval at Town Meeting.

This past Tuesday night, Senior explained to the board that as of yet, FEMA had not moved the deadline, nor expressed inclination to do so.

"Despite the fact that we are in the middle of this health crisis," said Senior, "FEMA refuses to move that date."

The penalty for missing that deadline would be severe, with Cohasset being dropped out of the state's flood insurance program.

"That's something we obviously don't want," Senior said. "There are a number of towns in the same boat as us, and we've all been lobbying hard with our congressman and state reps to get them to move the deadline."

So far, the lobbying has been to no avail.

"It's all routine changes," said Senior of the new flood maps. "Nobody is intentionally not adopting them, we just need more time for Town Meetings. But FEMA hasn't listened to this at all."

Cohasset will now be forced to move Town Meeting a week earlier.

June 22 was initially chosen to give the Board the maximum amount of time to prepare while still coming before the end of the fiscal year.

Now, the schedule will tighten again for the Board.

Working against them still is the continued health crisis and Governor Baker's stay-at-home order, which was recently extended to May 18.

While Cohasset is ready to do all that it can to meet FEMA's deadline, the reality, Senior says, is that it may be out of their control.

"We still don't know what's going to happen," Senior said. "We still have to get 100 people in a room. It's not impossible that it will be hard or even impossible to actually have the meeting on June 15. If that happens, there's nothing we can do."

The town will try to get creative as to how it holds the Town Meeting in order to keep everyone safe in the event that the country is not clear from the pandemic yet.

Currently, the meeting is slated to be held in its typical location at the Cohasset High School gymnasium. Senior said, however, that other venues are being looked at.

"It's possible we could hold it on the football field if the weather is good," said Senior, noting that other towns have shifted to outdoor venues to keep social distancing intact.

A downsizing of the 100 person quorum is also potentially at play, and is currently on the floor at the state level.

"State legislation is looking at potentially allowing for the Board of Selectmen reduce the quorum to 25 percent of the normal statute," Senior said. While this could ease the town's burden, Senior said there is something potentially troubling about "having such a small amount of people deciding such important things for the town."

The state is also examining the possibility of allowing for virtual meetings, but Senior believes that the logistical hurdles would be too much for Cohasset.

"Pre-registering people would be a bit of a hurdle I think," Senior said. "There are other communities in the same boat we are, so there is a big push to move that FEMA deadline."

Senior suggested that a potential solution may be for the board to be allowed to adopt the maps on their own, removing the necessity for them to go before Town Meeting. Legislation on this is still a ways off, however.

The simplest solution continues to be a deadline extension on FEMA's part, and is something that Senior remains hopeful will come.

"I think it would be absolutely silly for FEMA who is trying to help us on one hand to whack us over the head on the other," Senior said.

With the deadline still currently standing at June 19, though, the board was forced to move Town Meeting forward.

At the behest of the town's moderator, Town Meeting will not be moved forward exactly one week, but moved six days to Tuesday, June 16.

Should that date prove to be untenable, or fall within an extended stay-at-home order, the moderator retains the power to move the meeting by 30 days in order to maintain the public's safety.

Regardless of the move, Annual Town Election will remain scheduled for June 27.

With the warrant still not officially complete, signed, and submitted to the moderator, the date for Town Meeting remains flexible.

The Board maintained that the safety of Cohasset's citizens would be the foremost concern. Should Town Meeting need to be moved to protect residents, it will be moved, regardless of FEMA's deadline.

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