The town of Winthrop has been denied eligibility for its long-sought $400,000 state grant to address flooding issues in the area of Pico Beach and Fisherman’s Bend, further compounding frustrations over the Town Council’s refusal to comply with the 3A housing law.

Town officials received notification of the state’s position shortly after being told that Winthrop also would not be able to receive an $820,000 grant for similar preventative work in the area of Morton Street and the Belle Isle Marsh Reservation.

In both cases, state officials told the town that the projects are among a series of grant categories that are off-limits to towns such as Winthrop that have decided against complying with 3A, the 2021 state law requiring communities to expand areas where they allow multifamily housing.

Winthrop government officials have found that they could comply with the 3A law, without adding any new housing, because Winthrop has three parts of town already containing multifamily housing that can be rezoned to reflect that situation. But the Town Council has refused to take that step, prodded by activists who favor defiance of the state as a means of delivering a message of principled resistance.

As that political position now starts to produce tangible effects for the town, residents in areas affected by the flooding are increasingly demanding that the Town Council reconsider its approach, with a showdown on the topic expected at next week’s council meeting.

Opponent holds firm

In advance of that, one of the council members refusing 3A compliance, Rob DeMarco, has re-emphasized his position. In an email exchange with Carina Campobasso, a resident urging approval of a 3A plan, Mr DeMarco downplayed the significance of the state’s denial of eligibility of grants for flooding relief, noting that the town is never guaranteed to win any particular grant request.

“Grants are like getting a bonus at work,” Mr DeMarco told Ms Campobasso. “If you have a 10K bonus at work you may get it, you may not…so you budget for what you know you will get,” the council member said.

Mr DeMarco also suggested that the amount at stake over 3A was small. “If you go back and check how much money the state has given us, you would be surprised how little it is,” he told Ms Campobasso, an activist with the Winthrop chapter of the environmental group Mothers Out Front.

Mr DeMarco and other town officials said they did not have available data on how much money the town typically receives annually in state funding in categories covered by 3A compliance.

Mr DeMarco became a central figure in the recent failed attempt, by opponents of 3A compliance, to oust another council member, Max Tassinari, over his support for obeying the law. Mr Tassinari had noted at the June 17 Town Council meeting that Mr DeMarco had missed three council meetings so far in the year, making him subject to a vote of removal from the council under attendance rules that the council reiterated and promised to enforce after a similar controversy the previous December.

Extensive work needed

But Mr Letterie declined the suggestion that he hold the removal vote, and instead initiated a review of the council’s approved minutes of its May 20 meeting in which Mr DeMarco was marked absent. Mr Letterie – also an opponent of 3A compliance – contended that Mr DeMarco had connected by Zoom for at least some portion of that meeting. That showdown played a key role in sparking the recall campaign, with Mr Tassinari’s opponents arguing that by asking about Mr DeMarco’s absences, Mr Tassinari had “targeted” Mr DeMarco, trying to remove him “through unethical, biased actions.”

The town of Winthrop formed its Citizens Advisory Commission on Climate a year ago. In an assessment report this past February, the commission ranked the Morton Street and Belle Isle Marsh area as the top “hot spot” in town needing protections from rising sea levels, and listed the Pico Beach and Fisherman’s Bend area as third.

The town of Winthrop last year was denied on a $1.2 million state grant application for work at Morton Street. That raised suspicion among some advocates of flood protection work that the rejection, at least in part, reflected a warning from state officials, given that several Winthrop Town Council members already had been expressing their intent to violate the 3A law. The climate commission has been pursuing a project that would install berms along the boundary between the Belle Isle Marsh and Morton Street, and the $1.2 million would have allowed just an early phase of that effort.

The commission’s second-ranked hot spot is the coastline border area with Revere, which is regarded as an especially major challenge because of the potential need to raise the entire roadway in the area.

At the third-ranked spot, the area of Pico Beach and Fisherman’s Bend, the commission described problems as including both flooding and mosquito infestations, with proposed work that includes fixing broken and cracked stormwater pipes, extending a seawall in the area, and dredging ditches. A $400,000 grant request for some of that work was also denied last year by the state. State officials made clear this year’s denial was due to non-compliance with the 3A law.