Alternate member sought for planning board

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro selectmen would like to appoint a new alternate planning board member at their Nov. 3 meeting, so anyone interested in the position should notify the town office by that day at the latest.
At the selectmen’s Oct. 20 meeting, Town Manager Mary Sabins said former Codes Officer Paul Mitnik was so far the only applicant to succeed Paul Breton, who resigned earlier in the month.

The meeting opened with two public hearings, one on amendments to the appendices to Vassalboro’s General Assistance Ordinance and one on renewal of junkyard and auto hobbyist permits. Since no members of the public were present, the hearings were extremely short.

After the hearings, selectmen approved the changes in general assistance and nine permits, as follows:

• Junkyard/auto graveyard permits: James Cagley (Ron’s Parts Inc.), Main Street; Dale Clement (Bondo’s Garage), Taber Hill Road; Bill Pullen (Freddie’s Service Center), South Stanley Hill Road; Stanley Garnet (Garnett Motors), North Belfast Avenue; Olin Charette (Weeks Mills Garage), Riverside Drive; and Voit Ritch (Autowerkes), Route 3.
• Auto hobbyist permits: Keith Lemieux, Priest Hill Road; James Jurdak, Baker Road; and Robert Dore, Church Hill Road.

Vassalboro Food Pantry officials requested permission to add a carport on the food pantry building beside the North Vassalboro fire station and further asked selectmen to waive the permit fee, since the town owns the building. Selectmen unanimously granted both requests.

Sabins said the food pantry had received a gift of money for the project, which is intended to protect the front door of the building from the weather.

In other business, Sabins said cemetery committee members have been putting up identifying signs at all known Vassalboro cemeteries and planning two administrative-type projects, extending the regulations adopted for the North Vassalboro cemetery to the other active cemeteries in town and computerizing Vassalboro cemetery records. For the second project, Sabins said, she is looking for grants to cover costs of the computer program committee members recommend and the data entry work.

Following up on an issue from September, Sabins said she talked with Jan Clowes of the Vassalboro Historical Society about shared maintenance of the grounds around the former East Vassalboro school building that the society leases from the town. The two did not reach agreement, she said. Board Chairman Lauchlin Titus advised research to determine the exact boundaries of the schoolhouse lot.