Entries by Mary Grow

China to join national communications system

by Mary Grow China select board members voted unanimously at their Dec. 5 meeting to spend $2,000 a year for the next two fiscal years to join a communication system called TextMyGov. As the name implies, TextMyGov will let residents send texts to China municipal officials and departments at any time and to get a […]

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Jefferson Medical College grads – Part 2

by Mary Grow As promised last week, this week’s article will feature random information about three more central Kennebec Valley doctors with degrees from Jefferson Medical College, in Philadelphia. Their names were Cyrus Kendrick, Class of 1850, who practiced in Litchfield; James E. Tuell, Class of 1884, who practiced in Augusta and who started this […]

Vassalboro planners have one application on agenda

by Mary Grow Vassalboro Planning Board members have one application on their Dec. 6 agenda, before they continue discussion of adding a section regulating commercial solar developments to the town’s Site Review Ordinance. Joseph O’Donnell has applied for a medical marijuana grow facility at 960 Main Street, in North Vassalboro. The business will be on […]

Deadline approaches for China TIF requests

by Mary Grow The deadline for China organizations to apply for 2023-24 money from the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) fund is Dec. 31, 2022. That’s a Saturday, a TIF Committee member observed as the Nov. 14 meeting wound down. No problem, Town Manager Rebecca Hapgood replied; it’s one of the two Saturdays each month, the […]

Chadwick chosen as China select board chairman

by Mary Grow Four China Select Board members began their Nov. 21 meeting by electing Wayne Chadwick board chairman and Janet Preston secretary. Both votes were unanimous (with Blane Casey absent). Chadwick succeeds Ronald Breton, who did not run for re-election to the board. Items on a long agenda included discussion with Municipal Building Committee […]

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Jefferson Medical College – Part 1

by Mary Grow Kennebec Valley graduates Your writer recognized a question, probably unanswerable, left over from last week’s mention of Dr. James Tuell, of Augusta. Why had he chosen to attend Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, when Maine had a medical school at Bowdoin, founded in 1820, and there was one at Dartmouth, and numerous […]

Vassalboro school board reviews draft lease agreement with daycare

by Mary Grow At their Nov. 15 meeting, Vassalboro school board members reviewed a draft lease agreement with Jennifer Lizotte’s daycare, which has been operating at Vassalboro Community School (VCS) with mutual satisfaction. Superintendent Alan Pfeiffer said he, assistant principal Tabitha Brewer and director of maintenance and grounds Shelley Phillips worked on the document with […]

China transfer station committee debates use of RFID tags

by Mary Grow China Transfer Station Committee members spent much of their Nov. 15 meeting talking about whether to continue using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags to separate China and Palermo residents from out-of-town users, or to go back to stickers on vehicles. The RFID system was started with state grant funding in 2019. The […]

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Augusta fires, fire departments – Part 4

by Mary Grow James North’s history of Augusta ends in the year 1870; 19th-century Augusta fires did not. Your writer has relied for later firefighting information on the University of Maine’s on-line DigitalCommons collection, mentioned last week, and on-line Augusta histories. * * * * * * Charles W. Ricker was Augusta’s chief engineer for more than a decade, starting […]