The Town Line’s official ice out judge has ruled that ice went out of China Lake on March 30.
Therefore, Tricia Rumney, of China Village, has been declared the winner of the $25 gift certificate to North Country Harley-Davidson, on Rte. 3, in Augusta.
Vassalboro Grange (photo: vassalboro.net)
The mother and father of all United States agricultural organization is the Grange, formally known as the Order of Patrons of Husbandry. The national Grange was organized in Washington, D. C., on Dec. 2, 1867, by a seven-person group headed by Oliver Hudson Kelley (1826 – 1913), a Bostonian who moved to Minnesota in 1849 to become a farmer.
A Grange historian quoted in Ruby Crosby Wiggin’s Albion history wrote that the organization was a response to the “depressed condition” of agriculture after the Civil War. The 1873 financial panic hastened its growth.
In 1864, Kelley, working for the national Bureau of Agriculture, inspected post-war farming conditions in the southern states. He realized the need to help farmers earn their living from their land, found like-minded friends and created the Grange.
Kelley intended the organization as “an agricultural fraternal order,” not unlike Masonry, with rituals, named offices, degrees and an aura of secrecy, Maine Grange historian Stanley R. Howe wrote in a 2010 article reproduced on line.
“Fraternal” was never accurate, however; Howe credited Kelley’s niece, feminist Caroline A. Hall, with gaining women near-equality in the Grange. They had voting rights from the beginning and four of the 16 elected offices in each Grange are exclusively for women.
(Online information says in 1893 the Minnesota Grange elected a woman named Sarah Baird as the first female state Grange President [Master] in the United States. Minnesota’s current state Grange president is a woman, and so is the president of the national Grange, for the first time: Betsy Huber, of Pennsylvania, a Granger since she joined a Junior Grange at age five, has been national president since 2015.)
The name Grange comes from Great Britain, where the part of an estate used for agriculture was called the grange, Howe explained.
As the organization developed and spread, four main purposes emerged.
Economic improvement remained central. Means included cooperative stores, where the organization bought in bulk and sold to members at cost; discounts on things like life and health insurance; and spreading information about improved agricultural techniques, new machinery or seeds and other benefits to farmers.
Education, agricultural and general, was important. Granges published reports, newspapers and bulletins; many Grange halls had libraries; most Granges sponsored educational presentations on topics important to local farmers and the community; many hosted classes and workshops.
Having an organization that operated locally, state-wide and nationally gave Grangers political clout. One of the first national efforts was to pressure Congress to lower railroads’ shipping rates so that farm products could be sent to market more cheaply. Grangers also wanted grain elevators’ charges controlled.
The Grange lobbied for the postal service’s Rural Free Delivery system, so that isolated farmers would not have to choose between driving miles to the post office or paying a commercial carrier to pick up their mail. Grangers supported a variety of national cooperative farmers’ institutions; one source says they were instrumental in making the head of the United States Department of Agriculture a member of the President’s Cabinet in 1889.
Grange members lobbied for the Prohibition movement (implemented by the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, in effect Jan. 16, 1919, and repealed by the 21st Amendment, in effect Dec. 5, 1933). They helped implement progressive political ideas, like direct election of Senators (the 17th Amendment, in effect April 8, 1913) and voting rights for women (the 19th Amendment, in effect Aug. 18, 1920). Current national President Huber advocates expanding access to broadband service, especially in rural areas.
Complementing these economic, educational and political goals, at the local level the Grange became the social center for rural towns across the country, providing a community meeting hall and sponsoring suppers, dances and local and imported entertainments. One historian called this function especially important to rural women, who were more isolated than the men.
The Maine State Grange was organized in Lewiston on April 21, 1874, a year after the first Grange in the state was established in Hampden. Grange and state websites say there were 64 Maine Granges with about 2,000 members by the end of 1874; within two years, 228 Granges and 12,000 members; in 1907, 419 Granges and more than 55,000 members; and in 1918, 450 Granges and 60,000 members. Membership peaked at around 62,000 in the 1950s and has declined in recent years.
In 1918, according to that year’s Maine Register, W. J. Thompson, of South China, was Master of the state Grange. His wife held the position of Flora (one of three ritual stations, with Ceres and Pomona, Howe explained) and D. E. Foster, of Augusta, was Steward.
(Wikipedia says Ceres was “the Roman goddess of agriculture”; Flora was “the Roman goddess of flowers” and of spring; and Pomona was “the Roman goddess of fruit and nut trees.”)
Political positions the Maine State Grange took included supporting funding for local schools and the University of Maine and opposing the repeated efforts to move the state capital from Augusta. Augusta’s Maine Farmer newspaper, published from 1823 to at least 1900 (see The Town Line, Nov. 26, 2020), was a Grange publication.
The organization promoted causes that benefited not only farmers, but other segments of society. Howe mentioned sending care packages to soldiers overseas during World War II and building and supporting Grange Cottage to house orphans at Goodwill-Hinckley School, in Fairfield.
Since 1945, the Maine State Grange has been headquartered on State Street, in Augusta.
In the 1880s the state organization added county Granges, called Pomonas. Juvenile Granges started in 1944; Palermo’s Sheepscot Lake Juvenile Grange #106 and Augusta’s Capital Junior Grange #274 were active in the 1950s and 1960s.
A current on-line list from the Maine State Grange says there are 103 active Granges in Maine, counting both local and county Granges. Local ones listed are Benton Grange, Fairfield Center’s Victor Grange and Branch Mills Grange, in Palermo; Vassalboro Grange, in East Vassalboro, should also be on the list, according to its Facebook page.
Albion Grange #181 was one of the earlier local Granges, past and present. Maine State Grange Master Nelson Ham oversaw its organizational meeting on July 6, 1875, historian Ruby Crosby Wiggin wrote. There were 36 charter members: 34 couples, the son of one couple and an unmarried woman.
Wiggin said in 1875, only farmers and their families were eligible to join the Grange. Doctors, storekeepers and all other non-farmers were excluded.
In 1873, Albion residents had organized a local stock company to build a community hall. The hall was finished in 1874, and the first Grange meeting was held there.
Until January 1881 Grangers rented the hall only for meetings. In January 1881, the Stock Company leased it to the Grange at $35 a year, and in 1886 the Grange bought the building.
Beginning in October 1875 Grangers ran a cooperative store, buying a variety of items – coffee, salted fish, cloth, raisins, rock salt, cheese, sugar, chewing tobacco, grass seed – in bulk and selling them to members. Meetings included panel discussions, suppers and other forms of entertainment.
On Oct. 4, 1879, Albion Grange held its first fair, in conjunction with Freedom Grange. Independent Albion Grange fairs were held annually into the early 1950s, Wiggin wrote.
By 1892, Henry Kingsbury wrote in his Kennebec County history, Albion Grange had 150 members. In 1902, the Maine State Grange Proceedings says there were 252 members.
In 1903 Grangers added a dining room to their building, which they still used when Wiggin published her Albion history in 1964. On-line sources suggest the Grange had been re-established in 1957, probably after an interval of inactivity.
In Augusta, records show two Granges. The earlier, Capital Grange #248, was organized April 7, 1883, according to Capt. Charles E. Nash’s chapter on Augusta in Kingsbury’s history. The second Capital Grange Master was Samuel L. Boardman, who wrote the chapter on agriculture in the same book.
On Nov. 12, 1901, according to records of the national Grange, Brother Obadiah Gardner carried an invitation to those attending the national convention to visit Augusta on Nov. 19, traveling by train. The flowery letter was signed by Capital Grange Master G. M. Twitchell and Augusta Board of Trade President C. B. Burleigh.
Attractions included touring the city and the State House; meeting Governor Hill and his wife at “the mansion of the late Hon. J. G. Blaine, which remains as it was when he did his great work”; and visiting “the national home at Togus,” then caring for 2,600 Civil War veterans.
The Grange records say that Brother W. K. Thompson, of South Carolina, moved to accept the invitation. Discussion was postponed from the morning to the afternoon session, when Brother Thompson’s motion was “considered at considerable length and unanimously adopted.”
(Obadiah Gardner [1852-1938], a Michigan native who moved to Maine in 1864, graduated from Coburn Classical Institute, in Waterville, and farmed in the Rockland area, was Master of the Maine Grange from 1897 to 1907. He ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1908; was appointed to the United States Senate in September 1911, after William P. Frye died in office; and lost his re-election bid in 1912, leaving the Senate March 3, 1913. He was then appointed to the International Joint Commission to deal with boundary-water issues between the United States and Canada, on which he served until 1923.)
In 1902, M. F. Norcross, the Deputy of West Kennebec County, reported on his Nov. 21 visit to Capital Grange, which then had 60 members. He found there were “[n]ew rituals and badges,” and the members were much interested in “working the third and fourth degrees” under a capable Master. “Bound to succeed,” he summarized.
Later references to Capital Grange are hard to find. The on-line index to the University of Maine’s Raymond L. Fogler special collections library says the library has 110 years of Capital Grange treasurers’ records, from 1883 to 1993.
Capital Junior Grange seems to have been created in or before 1955 and to have lasted until at least 1961.
North Augusta Grange #348 was founded in or before 1899 and existed until at least 1973. In the 1902 Proceedings of the Maine State Grange, Norcross, reporting as Deputy for Kennebec County, said North Augusta Grange had 126 members and a Degree Team and appeared to be doing well.
Nineteen pages later in the same book, Norcross, listing himself as Deputy for West Kennebec County, reported on his Nov. 4 visit to the North Augusta Grange. The Master told him meetings had been suspended temporarily “on account of a drama.” Norcross gave no details, but commented, “It is hoped that the work that the Grange is designed to do is not made a secondary matter.”
19 Granges in the central Kennebec River valley, in the order in which they were founded (as nearly as this writer can determine)
Victor Grange #49, Fairfield Center; established 1874, still active.
Oak Grove Grange #167, North Vassalboro; May 11, 1875.
Albion Grange #181; July 6, 1875.
Albion Grange #181, Oct. 28, 1957; suspended Aug. 26, 1998, for failure to file state corporate reports (according to an on-line source).
Sidney Grange #194; November 24, 1875.
Cushnoc Grange #204, Riverside (Vassalboro); January 13, 1876.
Capital Grange #248, Augusta; Apr. 7, 1883.
Windsor Grange #284; June 2, 1886.
China Grange #295, South China; December 29, 1887.
Clinton Grange #287; March 1888 (according to Kingsbury; this date is out of sequence).
Clinton Grange #287, July 15, 1949; dissolved Sept. 6, 2006, for failure to file state corporate reports (according to an on-line source).
Winslow Grange #320; in existence by 1894.
East Vassalboro Grange #322, 1895; still active.
Silver Lake Grange #327, China Village; 1895 or 1896.
Branch Mills Grange #336, Jan. 1, 1897 (organized in China, most of its life in Palermo); still active.
North Augusta Grange #348, in existence by 1899.
Sheepscot Lake Grange #445, in existence by 1905.
Benton Grange #458, 1906; still active.
China Lake Grange #578, also called China Grange; fall 1974-1976?, China Village.
19 Granges in the central Kennebec River valley, alphabetical by municipality
Albion (two) Albion Grange #181, 1875; Albion Grange #181, 1957.
Augusta (two) Capital Grange #248; North Augusta Grange #348.
Benton Grange #458.
China (three) China Grange #295; Silver Lake Grange #327; China (Lake) Grange #578.
Clinton (two) Clinton Grange #287, 1888; Clinton Grange #287, 1949.
Fairfield Center Victor Grange #49.
Palermo (two) Branch Mills Grange #336; Sheepscot Lake Grange #445.
Sidney Grange #194.
Vassalboro (three) Oak Grove Grange #167; Cushnoc Grange #204; East Vassalboro Grange #322.
Waterville had none, apparently.
Windsor Grange #284.
Winslow Grange #320.
Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).
Wiggin, Ruby Crosby, Albion on the Narrow Gauge (1964).
Websites, miscellaneous.
by Mary GrowWith four of China’s five selectmen joining their April 1 virtual meeting, China Broadband Committee (CBC) members rearranged their future schedule and discussed what might be good news.
Committee members had been scheduled to make a presentation at the April 26 selectboard meeting. Instead, they added a Thursday, April 29, meeting to their schedule, with selectboard members specifically invited to join the live stream.
The CBC was already scheduled to meet at 7 p.m., April 8, April 15 and April 22. Selectmen – and interested residents – are welcome to watch those meetings also, via the Live Stream tab at the lower left of the town website, china.govoffice.com.
The maybe good news came to CBC Chairman Robert O’Connor in an email from Peggy Schaffer, Director of the ConnectMaine Authority. She notified him that the 2021 American Recovery Act will provide $23 million in broadband funding to Kennebec County, with China’s share expected to be $430,000.
Schaffer’s email said the United States Treasury has not issued guidelines for using the funds. CBC members therefore do not know how much, if any, money might be applicable to China’s project.
CBC members looked into an earlier grant that provided funds only for unserved and underserved areas. Most China residents have access to broadband service at some level. At the April 1 meeting, committee member Jamie Pitney cited two estimates of households with no access, out of 2,100 to 2,300 properties: 83, according to ConnectMaine, or 140, according to current provider Spectrum Community Solutions.
Schaffer suggested the CBC prepare an informational presentation to the Kennebec County Commissioners.
CBC members spent most of the April 1 meeting repeating previous discussions for the benefit of selectboard members, with O’Connor, Tod Detre and Jamie Pitney sharing their expertise.
They said China needs better broadband service than Spectrum can provide with its current equipment and technology. A faster, more reliable and more flexible system would expand opportunities for residents, including adults working from home, children attending school remotely and everyone looking for entertainment and communication; and it would give China an advantage in attracting new, high-tech businesses.
They prefer a model that would have the town own the infrastructure and contract out building it, maintaining it and providing service. Under that model, should a service provider be unsatisfactory, town officials could seek a different one.
After reviewing proposals from Spectrum and two other companies, CBC members are negotiating with Axiom Technologies, of Machias, with assistance from consultants Mark Van Loan and James Dougherty of Portland-based Mission Broadband.
They are not ready to make a recommendation to the selectboard. They have no firm cost estimates; no consensus on covering costs (a bond issue has been discussed); and no agreed-upon definition of services to be provided.
Their present position is that the contractor(s) would do the billing and would maintain the town-owned infrastructure. After Selectman Wayne Chadwick asked what if something like the 1998 ice storm brought down lines all over town, CBC members thanked him for the reminder and planned to include a provision ensuring the contractor handled disasters as well as routine repairs.
Chadwick remained skeptical about town involvement. Everything government does is “top-heavy and inefficient,” he said; he would prefer a private contractor take on all aspects of the service.
CBC members agreed they will present updates at selectmen’s meetings, either by Selectman Janet Preston, the board’s non-voting representative on the CBC, or by O’Connor. Should they get new information, like Schaffer’s email, between meetings, they will share that, too.
Photo by Lee Pettengill
On Saturday, March 20, Scouts from China Troop #479 hiked Beech Hill Preserve, in Rockport, and enjoyed a beautiful sunny day. The hike helped prepare the Scouts for more challenging upcoming hikes. This hike included a visit to the 1913 hut at the top of the hill of the 295-acre conservation property.
Photo by Lee Pettengill
Photo by Lee Pettengill
Photo by Lee Pettengill
Maritime Energy and Maritime Farms convenience stores are once again supporting LifeFlight through gasoline and diesel sales at their 13 Maritime Farms convenience stores. This program, titled “Pennies for Life,” donates one cent for every gallon of gasoline and diesel fuel sold during the months of April and May.
“LifeFlight receives a request for transport about every four hours, every day of the week. It has probably helped save the life of someone you know as it has provided critical care and transport for over 30,000 patients throughout Maine” says President of Maritime Energy, Susan Ware Page. “Our state needs this essential service, and we want to do what we can to help the organization.”
Here’s just one story of a young man and his need for the service. There are thousands more, and new needs every day.
Thirteen-year-old Adin Grey was riding his new bike near his home in Camden when the chain came off and the bike stopped short, driving the handlebar into his abdomen. He crashed in a heap on the sidewalk, just across the street from the fire department. Several of the firefighters were outside, they rushed over to help and noticed substantial bleeding from Adin’s midsection. They grabbed a first aid kit from the fire truck and used wound dressings to apply pressure while they waited for the ambulance to get there.
Upon arrival at the hospital it was determined that Adin needed to get to specialized care at Maine Medical Center as soon as possible. The LifeFlight helicopter could make the trip in less than 30 minutes and provide the critical care that Adin needed along the way so the call was made for transport. Once safely in Portland, Adin went into a four-hour surgery to fix the damage and stop the bleeding. It was two more days before he stabilized and his doctors and family breathed a sigh of relief. Adin and his family are happy to report that he has made a full recovery and is a thriving honor student at CHRHS. He is also working part time and recently received his driving permit.
Pennies for Life will help LifeFlight purchase a new state-of-the-art helicopter, which will complete an entire fleet upgrade. These new aircrafts are faster, more powerful, have a larger interior workspace, and advanced avionics that will give LifeFlight more options to safely and reliably answer more calls for help. This translates to more patients served, and served more quickly.
by Mary GrowChina’s Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Committee members covered two of the three items on their March 24 agenda, without reaching final agreement on either.
Committee members reviewed the committee’s Mission Statement, last written in August 2018, and the application form for organizations seeking TIF funds. Both will be back for reconsideration at their April 20 meeting, along with the procedures document they did not discuss March 24.
Chairman Thomas Michaud had the 2018 statement and proposed revisions from committee members James Wilkens and Robert MacFarland. Most of the discussion was over how specific the statement should be, with detours into whether it is a mission statement or a vision statement, and how large the committee should be.
Discussion of the application form was more complicated, beginning with whether to set an application deadline and if so, what it should be. Suggestions ranged from January to August, for requests for the fiscal year that would start the next June.
Committee members are effectively dealing with three timelines. They need to have requests for TIF money early in the calendar year, so they can develop a budget request for the following fiscal year by March.
After town voters approve the budget at the annual town meeting in the spring, committee members need to recommend specific expenditures from TIF funds to the Selectboard, which authorizes issuing checks. And the date at which money will actually be given to requesting groups depends on fund availability.
Central Maine Power Company provides TIF funds through taxes paid on its north-south power line in China and its South China substation. Like other taxpayers, CMP pays twice a year; if voters approve selectmen’s recommendations for the coming fiscal year, local taxes will be due Sept. 30, 2021, and March 31, 2022.
Committee members also talked about what information should be requested on an application form. They left almost all their questions to be resolved at their next meeting, scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 20.
At earlier meetings this year, committee members developed a Second Amendment to China’s TIF document, including a fund request for 2021-22. The document and fund request are in Art. 16 of the town meeting warrant on which voters will act June 8. Public hearings, on the Second Amendment and on the rest of the warrant, are scheduled to start at 6 p.m. Monday, April 26, before that evening’s selectmen’s meeting.
China Lake (photo by Eric Austin)
Colby College Professor Denise A. Bruesewitz, Ph.D., gave China Planning Board members “more than a little bit of food for thought,” Chairman Randall Downer remarked after her presentation at the board’s March 23 meeting.
Bruesewitz is a limnologist (the word means an expert on scientific aspects of inland waters) who has studied lakes in New Zealand and various parts of the United States. She is currently engaged in a National Science Foundation water quality project that uses robotics and computer modeling to study algae in lakes in Maine, including China Lake, and in other states.
Bruesewitz said China Lake is classified as mesotrophic, meaning it has a moderate amount of nutrients in the water. (A eutrophic lake has so many nutrients that algae blooms are common; an oligotrophic lake has few nutrients and therefore is unlikely to have algae blooms.)
Older surveys of China Lake have involved taking water samples from a boat and analyzing them. Bruesewitz said the current study uses drones that collect data and learn to recognize hot spots. There are plans to create diving robots.
Downer invited Bruesewitz to help board members develop standards for shoreland erosion barriers. She said she and her colleagues are not familiar with the type of solid vertical barrier that caused the planning board discussion, but in principle such barriers are not a good idea.
The zone where water and land meet, an area that is alternately wet and dry, is ecologically important, she said. Technically named the reference line, it is home to microbes that eat nutrients and is therefore critical to protecting water quality.
The shallow water on the lake edge of the zone houses life forms that are part of the lake’s food web, so it, too, should be protected from man-made disturbance, Bruesewitz said.
Downer asked how to quantify effects of a solid barrier. Bruesewitz replied it would not be easy. She suggested three possible methods: measure on-land nutrient uptake over the seasons and in different conditions; or look for relevant studies from comparable water bodies; or begin a citizen-science monitoring and sampling program.
Bruesewitz shared several documents with planning board members, including New Hampshire’s 2019 Shoreland Water Quality Protection Act that several members considered worth studying.
Replying to questions from board member Scott Rollins, Bruesewitz said China Lake’s biggest threats are the phosphorus that is already in the lake, plus on-land factors, like roofs, paved areas and other impervious surfaces and lack of buffers, that add more unwanted nutrients. Remedies, she said, include providing vegetated buffers that control run-off without separating land and water, and minimizing soil disturbance in the watershed.
She told the board she will be able to share results of the National Science Foundation project with them and with the Kennebec Water District, which uses China Lake’s west basin as its water source.
In other business March 23, Codes Officer Jaime Hanson’s report to the board included the comment that China is experiencing “a definite uptick in construction,” based on permit applications for new houses and other construction.
Board members continued review of the draft solar ordinance that, if approved by voters, will give them standards for reviewing applications for solar installations, both individual and commercial. The ordinance is not on the warrant for the June 8 town business meeting.
All solar installations require permits. Hanson bases his reviews on the six-year-old International Residential Code, and planning board members have been adapting standards for new structures to cover rows of solar panels.
The next China Planning Board meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 13.
by Mary GrowRonald Breton, Chairman of the China Selectboard, requested and received time on the China Broadband Committee’s March 25 agenda. In return, CBC members ended their meeting by drafting an email request for time on the selectboard’s April 26 agenda.
Breton complained that CBC members are failing to keep him and the rest of the selectboard informed about their activities. What he knows, he reads in The Town Line, he said; and the articles make it sound as though the committee is trying to “sell” a broadband plan to townspeople before consulting the selectboard.
If people are convinced that broadband is “good and great,” and selectboard members find otherwise, he fears “They’ll get their asses kicked” by indignant residents.
Speaking as a selectman, he expressed two concerns: he does not want taxes to increase, and he does not want any broadband system to impose more work, like collecting bills or “running a utility,” on town office staff.
He also questioned the CBC proposal to prepare a letter of intent to continue negotiations with Axiom Technologies, of Machias (see The Town Line, March 25). Breton believes only selectmen, not members of committees appointed by the selectboard, have authority to sign letters of intent.
Committee member Jamie Pitney, who had drafted a nine-point outline of a document the committee could flesh out and present to Axiom president Mark Ouellette, agreed with Breton on the authority question. “Letter of intent” is probably incorrect wording, he said; the idea is to give Ouellette something more than a verbal assurance that he is not wasting time negotiating with the CBC.
At their March 18 meeting, CBC members and Ouellette talked about Axiom helping not only to plan broadband service, but also to develop a community outreach program to present information to the selectboard and residents.
After Breton zoomed out of the meeting, committee members further discussed the outreach program. At one point, Tod Detre and Chairman Robert O’Connor were talking about what residents might want for broadband service: would 25 up and 25 down be enough, or would people insist on at least 100 over 100, or maybe a gig over 100, or gig over gig?
“Can you imagine this discussion in a community meeting?” Pitney protested. “You’ll lose two-thirds of the people in the first 10 minutes.”
Members talked for more than an hour about different facets of providing broadband service, including the option of starting with a partial build-out (for $2 to $3.5 million) instead of going town-wide in one swoop (for $6 million or more); the possibility of cooperating with other central Maine towns, and what legal structures might be needed to do so; and potential grant opportunities.
They ended their two-hour meeting with two decisions: to ask to talk with selectmen on Monday, April 26, and to meet at 7 p.m. each of the first four April Thursdays (April 1, 8, 15 and 22) to prepare for the April 26 meeting.
On April 26, the selectboard is scheduled to hold consecutive public hearings, beginning at 6 p.m., on the Second Amendment to the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) document that governs expenditure of TIF funds and on the warrant for the June 8 annual town business meeting (which includes the TIF amendment).
Breton said he expects the hearings to be short enough so the selectboard meeting will begin about its usual time, 6:30 p.m.
by Mary GrowAt a short China selectmen’s meeting March 29, board members unanimously authorized two actions by Town Manager Becky Hapgood and discussed Selectman Janet Preston’s idea of a China farmers’ market.
Hapgood is authorized to sign a contract to continue using the Waterville dispatch center to dispatch local fire departments and China Rescue, and to write a letter to the Atlantic Salmon Federation assuring them plans for a fishway at the Branch Mills dam will not interfere with town property.
Selectman Wayne Chadwick said he, Hapgood and Public Works Director Shawn Reed had reviewed the federation’s plan on-site and determined it will not affect the town’s right-of-way where Branch Mills’ main street crosses the West Branch of the Sheepscot River.
Preston had previously suggested the town sponsor a farmers’ market. Discussion at the March 29 meeting favored private sponsorship. Chadwick thought town sponsorship might have the potential for liability.
Board Chairman Ronald Breton assigned to Preston the job of finding out whether there is interest among local farmers and residents and whether some group would offer a site, presumably in return for rental fees or other payment from vendors. Interested people are invited to email Preston at janet.preston@chinamaine.org.
The next regular China selectmen’s meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Monday, April 12.
On April 26, selectmen have scheduled a 6 p.m. public hearing on town business meeting warrant articles, on which voters will act on June 8, followed by a selectmen’s meeting.
by Mary GrowVassalboro selectmen meet at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 1, in person at Vassalboro Community School gymnasium. Major items on their agenda include:
The Vassalboro Budget Committee will meet immediately after the Selectboard adjourns, also in person in the gymnasium.