Freetown Select Board Accepts $100,000 Gift to Restore Porter Pasture Beach

FREETOWN — August 19, 2024 — Freetown Select Board accepts a potential $100,000 donation to restore Porter Pasture beach and approves Narcan kits for Town Hall. The board unanimously accepted an offer from Robert Dean, 96, a Freetown native whose family conveyed Porter Pasture to the town in 1970, to seed a fund with roughly $100,000 for a beach restoration feasibility study and engineering plan, with the Conservation Commission overseeing the land. Conservation Commission Chair Charlie Sullivan said a formal legal agreement outlining spending parameters is forthcoming. The board also unanimously approved placing Narcan kits in Town Hall, with Health Agent Kevin DesMarais set to handle training and placement. A tuition reimbursement of approximately $1,500 for a former planning and land use administrator died without a motion after two board members refused to set a precedent of retroactive CBA approval across the town's five union agreements. The board appointed community program director Kylie Cabral as a new grant-funded outreach worker for the Council on Aging at $28 per hour and voted to post simultaneously for both a town planner and land use administrator to manage millions of dollars in active grant projects.