by Mary Grow Members of China’s Transfer Station Committee and station manager Thomas Maraggio discussed plans for continued improvements at their Aug. 13 meeting. An ongoing issue is items for which the station charges a fee, because it costs the town extra to get rid of them. The list (which is on the town website, […]
by Mary Grow The Faughts were another early Sidney family. The first Faught your writer came across was Marlborough Packard Faught, a name that sounded refreshingly unusual; but she soon found that the Faughts, like the Bacons, enjoyed repeating more common names – Frederick, Jacob, Samuel – through generations. Alice Hammond wrote in her history […]
by Mary Grow The three leaders of Augusta’s All Season Home Improvements company met with Vassalboro Planning Board members on Aug. 6 to talk about amending a nine-year-old subdivision. The 2015 plan was for land on Church Hill Road; it included a dead-end road named Karen Lane that runs southeast off Church Hill Road near […]
by Mary Grow Vassalboro select board members began their Aug. 8 meeting with the good news of a $200,000 grant toward the Mill Hill bridge replacement project. The Mill Hill bridge, also called the Dunlap bridge, is actually a double culvert. It carries Mill Hill Road over Seven Mile Brook, which alewives use to migrate […]
by Mary Grow Lower than last year, but property owners should expect larger tax bills China select board members set the 2024-25 tax rate (in their role as town assessors) and lined up several local referendum questions for Nov. 5 at a busy Aug. 12 meeting. The tax rate they chose, based on assessor William […]
by Mary Grow Among early settlers in Sidney against whose lives your writer brushed while trying unsuccessfully to learn why someone chose to name the town after a long-dead Englishman were the Bacon, Faught, Lovejoy, Marsh and Snow families. Now she presents more information about the Bacons, with a double warning: readers uninterested in genealogy […]
by Mary Grow Three members of the Vassalboro Board of Appeals found they lacked jurisdiction to hear an appeal from a June 4 planning board decision. On June 4, planning board members approved most of an expansion plan for Sidereal Farm Brewery, at 772 Cross Hill Road. (See the June 13 issue of The Town […]
by Mary Grow Three members of China’s Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Committee discussed the third amendment to the town’s TIF program, which they intend to ask the select board to present to voters at the Nov. 5 local election. China’s TIF income is from taxes Central Maine Power Company pays on its transmission line through […]
by Mary Grow China Planning Board members decided at their July 30 meeting that they have a proposed new town ordinance ready to forward to select board members. The document is titled “Mass Gathering Ordinance” and is intended to regulate events that bring 500 or more people to a site, in order to protect nearby […]
by Mary Grow The town on the west bank of the Kennebec River south of Waterville that is now Sidney began as part of Vassalboro, the town on the east bank. There seems to be unanimous agreement among historians that Sidney was incorporated as a separate town on Jan. 30, 1792, and that it was […]