The news from Washington, D.C. is good. Southport officials received word that President Trump signed a bill which includes funding for the Hendricks Head Beach Restoration and Resilience Project. The bill had been held up in Congress as the Senate approved it and waited for the House to follow suit.

As of a few days ago, the bill's passage was in doubt.  "Last week, we didn't think it was going to happen, but I guess it is," Selectman Gerry Gamage said.   

The federal project has an estimated $1,803,785 cost. The project is a pre-hazard mitigation and coastal resilience project intended to protect Hendricks Head Beach. The project's purpose is shoring up the adjacent seawall, and elevating Beach Road and the surrounding parking area. The project is a 75%/25% matching grant. The federal government is sending $1,165,000. The funding is expected to arrive in September, according to town consultant Shri Verrill.

Southport's match is about $291,000. Verrill is working on securing a state grant to pay for the match. Southport officials estimate the town's final cost will be about $29,000. A special town meeting is being scheduled to vote on meeting grant obligations and deadlines. Gamage expects the special town meeting will be held in the next two months. Residents will have an option to either appropriate about $29,000 or reject the proposal.

On May 6, several residents questioned the project's overall cost and functionality during the selectmen's meeting. Resident Bill Royall offered an alternative solution, but selectmen decided to pursue the federal and state grants. If voters reject raising about $29,000 later this summer, selectmen will entertain other ideas for protecting the shoreline from sea level rising.

In other action, at selectmen's direction, plans call for Sarah Sherman to interview generational Southport residents and commercial fishermen she said were not included in Southport Resilience Network's interviews. During the selectmen's meeting, Sherman gave her opinion of the recently finished first draft of a report the Network compiled. She read the first draft of the 166-page report as a planning board subcommittee member. She told selectmen the report only told part of the story. "It is of my opinion that many of this report's listed priorities are not island priorities at all, and the very short timeframe that the report's draft was made available was not conducive to widespread public input," she said.

Sherman sent selectmen a three-page letter outlining what she saw as the report's shortcomings. Her observations about the first draft included that only one generational Southport resident was interviewed, a lack of cultural and historic context, "our" rural island government and its supporting agencies are not described as positive assets in the community, and island fishermen were not consulted or listed as part of the proposed evacuation plan.

Selectmen meet next at 5 p.m. Wednesday, May 13 in the town hall.