Vassalboro select board has not been asked to sell transfer station
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.