by Mary Grow

Three of the residents who attended the Vassalboro selectmen’s Feb. 7 meeting brought specific requests; others came to catch up with local business.

Selectmen unanimously approved two requests, with qualifications, and refused to act on one.

Holly Weidner, a member of the informal East Vassalboro Village Area Association, asked that the speed limit on South Stanley Hill Road be reduced from 30 to 25 miles an hour, due to the number of houses, some with blind driveways, and the sharp curve before the intersection with Main Street.

Selectmen said the first step would be for the state Department of Transportation (MDOT) to review the road and make a recommendation to local officials. They voted to ask MDOT to review the whole East Vassalboro area, including the east end of Bog Road, with special attention to South Stanley Hill Road.

Weidner and Janet Babb asked to use the town office meeting room for a weekly Drums Alive class for six weeks. Drums Alive, they explained, is a fitness program for people of all ages.

Town Manager Mary Sabins said other groups using the room pay $10 per meeting toward costs of heat, lights and cleaning. Weidner and Babb were agreeable.

Selectmen’s concern was whether drumming and music would interfere with discussions at the counter in the outer office. They approved the request with the condition that office services not be impacted.

Dylan Dillaway, of 47 Daisies Farm on Webber Pond Road, asked selectmen to put on the June town meeting warrant a Food Sovereignty Ordinance. Other Maine towns have implemented such ordinances, authorized by state law in 2017. They allow the municipality, instead of state and/or federal governments, to regulate production, processing and sale of local food products.

Board Chairman Lauchlin Titus expressed concern about food safety. Board member John Melrose asked who among Vassalboro residents would benefit if voters approved an ordinance.

Dillaway said he would not – his operation has all the state certificates it requires.

Selectmen unanimously declined to act on Dillaway’s request. Sabins said Dillaway’s next step to get an ordinance onto the town meeting warrant is to get 211 voters’ signatures on a petition to selectmen.

In other business, selectmen unanimously authorized Sabins to sign an agreement with Central Maine Power Company to convert Vassalboro’s streetlights to LED (Light-emitting Diode) lights. Titus has not yet completed his survey of existing streetlights and areas where new lights might be needed; but signing the agreement will let CMP start ordering the new lights and scheduling the change-over.

Sabins said Vassalboro has a 2007 streetlight policy, posted on the town website (under Ordinances/Policies). It defines procedures for residents to request new lights and sets criteria for a no-longer-existent Safety Committee to evaluate requests and recommend selectmen approve or deny them.

Board members approved the revised draft of a request for bids to transport solid waste for disposal, omitting reference to recyclables.

Weidner asked what recyclables residents are now supposed to separate. Titus told her only cardboard, required by local ordinance, because when the Hampden Fiberight (or Coastal Resources) facility opens, its recycling operation will be more complete and efficient than anything the town could do at a reasonable cost. (See this article from the Jan. 31 issue of The Town Line.)

Before the meeting adjourned, Sabins gave selectmen a first draft of the 2019-2020 budget to review before their Feb. 12 budget workshop. The next regular selectmen’s meeting is scheduled for Thursday evening, Feb. 21.

by Mary Grow

China Budget Committee members agree with the board of selectmen on all but two of the money-related articles in the warrant for the April 6 town business meeting.

At a Feb. 11 meeting, the six members present voted unanimously to support most proposed expenditures, including the major ones for the town administration, highway department and transfer station.

They declined to endorse the selectmen’s request to voters to increase each selectman’s annual compensation from $1,000 to $1,800, adding $4,000 to the budget. Budget Committee Chairman Robert Batteese supported the request; the other five members recommended rejecting it, on the ground that other departments were being asked to minimize expenditures.

A more significant disagreement is over stipends for volunteer firefighters, introduced to encourage more people to join China’s volunteer departments and more members to respond to fire calls.

At their Feb. 5 budget workshop, selectmen recommended reducing the amount for stipends from $33,000 to $22,700.

Representatives of two of the three departments protested the reduction to the budget committee. They claimed that selectmen directed Town Manager Dennis Heath to revise the figure the afternoon of Feb. 5 and acted on it that evening, without consulting firefighters. They learned of the change only when Heath emailed after the meeting, Weeks Mills Fire Chief William Van Wickler said.

South China Chief Richard Morse resented the lack of a chance to protest to selectmen and said the selectmen’s proposal “does not deal with the need to encourage participation.”

Van Wickler said stipends have increased the number of his department members who respond to calls and who stay to clean up afterward. Calling for fairness, he said he would like funds to reward those who respond most often, including the chiefs who go on almost every call. The selectmen’s proposed amount would allow each chief’s annual stipend for being chief, but would leave no money for per-call recognition.

Selectman Ronald Breton defended the selectboard’s position as part of efforts to control the municipal budget in a year when “the school and the county are gonna kill us.” Neither the Regional School Unit #18 nor the Kennebec County budget is included in the April 6 warrant.

Budget Committee members unanimously voted to raise the amount for stipends to $33,000. Their recommendation for the fire and rescue budget totals $181,499; the selectmen recommend $171,199.

At the end of the evening, the April 6 warrant had 30 articles. Heath intended to add one more, the usual request to authorize selectmen to apply for grants and appropriate matching funds if needed. Budget committee members unanimously supported adding the article.

by Mary Grow

With no members of the public present, the China Planning Board’s Jan. 29 public hearing on proposed ordinance amendments did not last long.

Since they did not need to explain the changes, board members discussed them among themselves, making one final adjustment to wording, and unanimously forwarded them to China selectmen with a request to add them to the April 6 town business meeting warrant.

Codes Officer Paul Mitnik had prepared a two-and-a-half page summary of the recommended changes. Most are in Chapter 2 of China’s Land Use Ordinance and are intended to eliminate duplications and contradictions and clarify requirements, rather than make major substantive changes.

For example, planning board Chairman Tom Miragliuolo told selectmen at their Feb. 4 meeting that rules governing septic systems will, if voters approve the changes, clarify that relocating a structure also requires updating the septic system if it does not meet current standards.

Another proposed change eliminates the requirement that a septic system have at least 1,000 square feet of land, because, Mitnik’s summary says, the requirement can make replacement of grandfathered systems on small lots near lakes impossible and because new technology allows smaller disposal beds.

Another group of changes, discussed at length as board members worked on the ordinance, separates commercial campgrounds from individual private campsites and clarifies which rules apply to which type.

A commercial campground is an area “providing temporary accommodation to the public for a fee in a recreational vehicle or tent.” A private campsite also provides temporary living in a tent or recreational vehicle, but is “used exclusively by the owner of the property and his or her family and friends.”

The planning board further recommends changes in a few of the definitions in Chapter 11 of the Land Use Ordinance and an amendment to the Subdivision Ordinance saying selectmen set fees the ordinance requires. Currently subdivision fees are listed in the ordinance, and therefore can be changed only by an ordinance amendment approved by voters.

At their Feb. 4 meeting, selectmen discussed some of the proposed changes, especially the section on private campsites, for half an hour before voting unanimously to add them to the April 6 warrant.

Miragliuolo told the selectboard, “Nothing any of us [planning board members] felt was controversial is in here.” There are more controversial issues to be reviewed for a later town vote, he warned; China has only conditional state approval for its Land Use Ordinance until voters bring shoreland provisions into compliance with state regulations.

Selectman Ronald Breton, former planning board chairman, supported presenting the amendments to voters with the comment, “I sat on that [planning] board long enough to know nothing’s going to be perfect.”

In other business Jan. 29, Miragliuolo announced he had received an email from District 3 board member Milton Dudley announcing his resignation from the board. District 3 is the southeastern part of China. The position of alternate at large is also vacant. That board member can live anywhere in town.

Board members canceled their Feb. 12 meeting, unless Mitnik receives an application for review. Their next regular meeting would be Feb. 26.