by Mary Grow

Vassalboro select board members have not been asked to sell the town transfer station, merely to consider sharing a small part of it.

The suggestion from the board’s April 3 meeting that Municipal Wastehub might want to buy or lease the transfer station was changed at the April 17 meeting, when Mike Carroll, head of the Hampden disposal/recycling facility, spoke with board members.

Carroll explained the hub-and-spoke system he’d like to organize among member towns to increase efficiency and save them money.

Instead of each municipality individually having its different kinds of waste – Carroll mentioned tires and mattresses as examples – hauled directly to disposal sites, nearby towns would combine their collections in a trailer Wastehub provided at one transfer station. Full trailers would be taken to disposal sites.

In response to select board members’ concerns and questions, he said:

— Current local employees would stay. If questions arose about their benefits, they would be resolved, with the goal of keeping employees whole.
— A trailer would sit wherever the host town’s staff wanted it.
— Wastehub’s associated services would include analyzing traffic flow, finding resources and helping negotiate any necessary contracts.

“You don’t lose [your transfer station],” he said.

The project won’t start unless enough of Wastehub’s 115 member towns participate. Carroll gave no number for “enough.”

Meanwhile, he said, the Hampden facility, where he was hired in 2019 to start this sort of plan – before the venture folded in May 2020 – is reopening. It is run by a company called Resource Recovery, with Municipal Wastehub a 10 percent partner.

Plans are to sort municipal solid waste to extract many more recyclables, like soiled cardboard and plastic; feed the remaining “miscellaneous fiber” into an anaerobic digester that will produce natural gas; and use the “grit” residue for projects like covering landfills.

If the new facility becomes profitable, Carroll said, it might be able to reduce tipping fees, or give municipalities rebates, or since Wastehub’s members are 10 percent owners, offer profit-sharing.

In other business April 17, select board members reviewed bids for door openers for the new public works building and for 2025 paving, unanimously choosing the low bidder for each job.

Paving bids were shared with the Town of China, to get a lower price by providing more work. The low bidder was Hagar Enterprises, of Damariscotta, at $85.50 a ton for paving mix. Town Manager Aaron Miller said China and Windsor had used the company before, though Vassalboro had not.

Acceptance of the bid was conditional on the contract forbidding Hagar from sub-contracting out work. The condition was proposed by board member Chris French, who remembered a past subcontracting problem.

Board members reviewed a history of Vassalboro’s Boston Post Cane, prepared by the Vassalboro Historical Society and available on the society’s website, under the heading “Vassalboro’s Oldest Resident.” Current holder of the honor – in the form of a replica carved by resident Raymond Breton, not the original 1909 cane – is Mrs. T. Lois Bulger, born, the website says, April 24, 1922.

At their May 1 meeting, board members plan to consider candidates for Vassalboro’s 2025 Spirit of America award, recognizing community volunteers. Anyone wanting to nominate a candidate is invited to contact the town office or any select board member, Frederick Denico, Jr., Michael Poulin or Chris French.

Select board members appointed Michael Phelps to the Vassalboro Recreation Committee.

The April 17 meeting was preceded by a 35-minute executive session and included further discussion of the draft 2024-25 budget. It ended with French insisting the board schedule a special April 24 meeting to approve the warrant for the June 2 and June 10 town meeting, if by then the Vassalboro School Board has made its final budget recommendations.

Miller was sure that signing the warrant at the next regular meeting May 1 would suffice, but French persuaded him and the other two board members to add the conditional April 24 meeting to their schedules.

The school board scheduled a special budget meeting April 22, Superintendent Alan Pfeiffer reported later.

Vassalboro’s annual town meeting will be, as usual, in two parts. On Monday, June 2, interested voters will assemble at 6:30 p.m. in the Vassalboro Community School gymnasium to elect a moderator and discuss and act on 41 (as of April 17) articles, including the 2025-26 municipal and school budgets.

On Tuesday, June 10, polls will be open in the town office from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for local elections. As of April 17, the draft warrant had two more June 10 articles, a request to amend the town’s solid waste ordinance and an affirmation or rejection of the school budget approved June 2.

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro Planning Board members approved Novel Energy’s planned community solar farm, at 2235 Riverside Drive, at their April 7 special meeting, despite last-minute surprises from neighbors (see the April 10 issue of The Town Line, p. 9).

Novel representative Ralph Addonizio brought the additional information board members requested at their April 1 meeting, an updated map showing required buffers and larger copies of the site plan, to accompany the two-inch-thick application.

With those additions, planning board members found the application complete. They then spent more than an hour and a half comparing the application to Vassalboro’s ordinance criteria for commercial developments in general and solar projects specifically.

They added three conditions to their approval of the project: construction of a turn-around outside the gate (at fire chief Walker Thompson’s suggestion); provision of a drawing of the planned solar panels; and planting a buffer of at least two dozen trees on the southwest corner.

The new buffer is intended to meet objections raised by Alison Thompson: she and her husband plan to build a retirement home on a knoll from which they will be able to see the solar panels.

Alison Thompson claimed that only solar developers like solar panels; she thinks they are “cluttering our state.”

Planning Board chairman Virginia Brackett doubted the ordinance required the board to consider nearby future developments when reviewing an application. Addonizio, citing Novel’s desire to be a good neighbor, was willing to add the buffer.

The second issue Alison Thompson raised, as the meeting drew toward a close, was that she and her husband had not received a certified letter notifying them before the first planning board discussion of the project. Nor, Walker Thompson said, had he – he came to the second meeting because a neighbor told him about it.

The ordinance requires – requires, Alison Thompson emphasized – notice to abutters by certified mail. Walker Thompson added that the neighbor who informed him is not an abutter, but he got a notice.

The reason for the notice, Brackett said, is to make sure people know about projects on properties adjoining theirs. The Thompsons knew; the purpose was achieved.

But only, Walker Thompson protested, because of his neighbor. He insisted the board should follow the ordinance – otherwise, why have one?

Codes officer Eric Currie said he relied on inaccurate town records in making the list of abutters for Novel to notify. Board member Paul Mitnik, formerly Vassalboro’s codes officer, said he had had similar problems.

Board members agreed a mistake had been made. But they saw no point in going through the review process again, as they expected the result would be the same.

Board member Dan Bradstreet pointed that both Thompsons came to board meetings, and board members heard their concerns and addressed them as best they could. Looking at accurate information on town tax maps, Bradstreet and Currie found no other abutters who had not received notice.

Board member Douglas Phillips doubted another review would bring a different result. Dissatisfied parties can appeal to Superior Court, he told the audience.

Brackett, Bradstreet and Phillips voted to approve Novel’s application, with the three conditions. Mitnik said he could not vote to approve it, because the notice provision had not been followed.

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro select board members discussed multiple on-going issues at their April 3 meeting, many related to plans for the June 2 and June 10 annual town meeting.

The only decision they made settled one long-discussed issue. Unanimously, board members voted to sell part of the tax-acquired property on Lombard Dam Road “back to the Estate of William H. Spaulding while retaining a portion of the property for use by the Town using a process for both parcels consistent with 36 M.R.S. § 943-C.”

(The state law requires municipalities to return the proceeds of any sale of tax-acquired property to the former owner or heirs, after deducting all costs the municipality incurred. Town Manager Aaron Miller has had the property surveyed; he is waiting for an appraiser’s report on its value.)

Miller had prepared a draft warrant for the town meeting. It begins at 6:30 p.m., Monday, June 2, at Vassalboro Community School, with an open meeting at which voters will discuss and decide 40 or more questions, including 2025-26 municipal and school budgets.

The meeting continues with written-ballot voting on Tuesday, June 10, at the town office, with polls open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The current draft of the June 10 part of the warrant includes amendments to the town’s solid waste ordinance and marijuana business ordinance; approval of the school budget adopted June 2; and local elections.

Select board members April 3 discussed some budget items, though neither the budget committee nor the school board has made final 2025-26 budget recommendations.

Resident John Melrose, founder of the business consulting service Maine Tomorrow, made a presentation on the fund balance policy developed by a town committee in 2019. In sum, the policy recommended the town keep in reserve in its unassigned fund balance (formerly known as surplus) an amount equal to 12 to 16 percent of its annual expenses, in the event of a financial disaster or an unexpected major expenditure.

The amount needed varies with factors including:

— the stability of the tax base (Vassalboro’s diversified, mostly residential economy is safer than a local economy that relies on a single major taxpayer);
— the stability and reliability of state and federal revenues;
— comparable (to area municipalities’) tax rates;
— the municipal debt level (the higher the debt, the more need for an ample fund balance); and
— the overall economy and housing prices.

Select board chairman Frederick “Rick” Denico, Jr., said as the town budget increases, board members should increase the fund balance, not dip into it to cover expenditures. Melrose agreed.

Board members talked about whether to recommend funding a recreation director’s position in the 2025-26 budget; the anticipated expenditure to replace the deteriorated Dunlap Bridge, on Mill Hill Road; the adequacy of the proposed stipend account for volunteer firefighters; a request to use money from the alewife fund to match a grant for work at Webber Pond; and Miller’s request for a $2,600 camera to monitor the water level at the Outlet Dam, in East Vassalboro, so public works employees need not check it.

In other business April 3, board members unanimously appointed Tim Connelly to the Sanitary District board of trustees, to serve until June 10 elections.

Conservation commission chairman Holly Weidner asked why the commission’s funding, unlike that for other town boards and committees, is listed separately in the town meeting warrant. She pointed out that cemetery committee funds are in the cemetery committee account, the trails committee funds in the recreation account, for example.

This year’s conservation commission request for $10,650 includes $10,000 for the China-based Courtesy Boat Inspection (CBI) program that the commission will oversee and $650 for other commission expenses. Miller explained that the problem was the $10,000; select board member Chris French said if the commission hired CBI, it was a procurement that should be bid out.

Wiedner replied bidding would be pointless, because no one else offers the service. Nor, she said, should CBI be listed as one of the outside agencies town voters fund annually.

Denico suggested finding a place for the commission in the warrant article that includes the administration account.

“Then we’re changing some accounts around” in the computerized bookkeeping system, Miller said resignedly.

Denico asked him to go ahead if the rearrangement is simple, skip it if not.

The final business of the evening was a brief discussion with cemetery committee chairmanj Savannah Clark, who had waited through two hours of other business, about the disagreement between members of her committee and the conservation commission over cutting trees in town cemeteries.

Last fall, Miller proposed having an arborist survey cemetery trees and mark ones needing removal. At their March meeting, cemetery committee members asked that work done in two cemeteries be redone with clearer markings (see the March 27 issue of The Town Line, pp. 2-3).

Clark said her committee members recommend no trees in cemeteries. Even healthy ones can be blown down in storms; damaging or destroying gravestones wastes volunteers’ time and wipes out evidence of town history.

Denico pointed out that the cemetery committee, not the conservation commission, is in charge of town cemeteries.

The next regular Vassalboro select board meeting is scheduled for Thursday evening, April 17.