Vassalboro selectmen postpone business due to chairman’s absence

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by Mary Grow

VASSALBORO – With Chairman Lauchlin Titus unable to attend their Sept. 20 meeting, selectmen postponed the main planned business, a discussion of issues related to police and dispatching services, to their Oct. 4 meeting, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. in the town office. The two board members present approved the major business item on the Sept. 20 agenda, a boundary agreement with Comprehensive Land Technologies, Inc., which owns a gravel pit adjacent to Vassalboro’s in South China. (ep)

Ben Brann of CLT explained that the CLT pit requires a state license, because it covers more than five acres. To get the license, it must be at least 50 feet from an adjoining pit or have an agreement with the owner of the adjoining pit allowing for a lesser separation. When CLT bought the pit, he said, the separation was already less than 50 feet.

The Town of China has increased the assessed value of Vassalboro’s pit, thereby raising the taxes on it from less than $200 in 2016 to more than $1,500 in 2017 and 2018. China selectmen in their role as assessors unanimously rejected Vassalboro’s appeal of the valuation earlier this month. Vassalboro selectmen did not rule out further investigation, but decided taking the issue to court immediately would not be a wise use of town funds.

Town Manager Mary Sabins reported on steps taken toward applying for grant money for a large generator to make Vassalboro Community School a potential emergency shelter.

Five questions, candidates on China’s November ballot

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by Mary Grow

China voters have on their Nov. 6 ballots five referendum questions and in annual local elections one contest and two vacancies.

The candidate list provided by Town Clerk Becky Hapgood shows four candidates for three positions on the Board of Selectmen. Incumbents Jeffrey LaVerdiere and Donna Mills-Stevens each seek another two-year term; Ronald Breton and Wayne Chadwick would also like to be selectmen. Incumbent Neil Farrington is not seeking re-election. Instead, he is running unopposed for China’s seat on the Regional School Unit #18 Board of Directors currently held by Charles Clark. Dawn Castner is the town’s other representative.

For the planning board, incumbents Thomas Miragliuolo (District 4) and Toni Wall (District 2) seek re-election without opposition. There is no candidate on the ballot for the at-large position, elected from anywhere in town, currently held by Breton. For the budget committee, incumbents Timothy Basham (District 4), Jean Conway (secretary) and Thomas Rumpf (District 2) are unopposed for re-election. There is no candidate for the at-large position currently held by Valerie Baker.

The local referendum questions ask if voters want to:

  • Repeal China’s quorum ordinance;
  • Ask the Maine legislature for an exemption from the requirement that all municipalities collect personal property taxes on business equipment;
  • Appropriate up to $5,000 from Tax Increment Finance (TIF) funds to explore building an emergency services building and perhaps a community center on the former Candlewood subdivision, almost 40 acres of town-owned land off the north end of Lakeview Drive;
  • Appropriate up to $26,000 from current-year sale of tax-acquired properties for additional salaries and benefits for transfer station staff; and
  • Authorize selectmen, on the recommendation of the TIF Committee, to spend up to $100,000 in TIF funds on projects not presented to voters at the annual town business meeting.

On Nov. 6, China polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the former portable classroom behind the town office on Lakeview Drive.

TIF members hear about alewife restoration project

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China Baptist Church

by Mary Grow

China TIF (Tax Increment Finance) Committee members heard a presentation on the China Lake alewife restoration project, or ARI (Alewife Restoration Initiative), at their Sept. 24 meeting, preliminary to an application for financial assistance expected at their Oct. 22 meeting.

Landis Hudson, of Maine Rivers, Frank Richards, president of the Webber Pond Association, and Nate Gray, of the state Department of Marine Resources, credited alewives for better water quality in area lakes, including Three Mile and Webber ponds and China Lake. The small fish have been trucked into China Lake in recent years; ARI is clearing obstacles in Outlet Stream so they can swim into the lake from the Sebasticook River.

Hudson said of six dams in the stream, one (Masse in East Vassalboro) has been removed completely; Lombard Dam, close to the intersection of Lombard Dam Road and Route 32 between East and North Vassalboro, is almost demolished; Outlet Dam in East Vassalboro and Box Mills and Ladd dams in North Vassalboro will have fishways installed; and the fate of the Morneau dam, between the Masse and Lombard dams, remains to be decided.

Creating fishways will be more expensive, and probably less controversial, than removing dams, Hudson said. The project has received state and federal grant money and $20,000 from China TIF funds approved at the March 2017 town business meeting.

All three proponents talked of the economic advantages of cleaning up China Lake, like higher taxes on lakefront property and a better fishery, perhaps including restoration of the salmon and trout that flourished before an overload of phosphorus led to a lack of oxygen in colder bottom water.

TIF Committee Chairman Frank Soares told Hudson the ARI application will be the first to be received for this year’s TIF funds. He anticipates a request for money for trail development from the China Four Seasons Club (which, he said, he no longer heads; Tom Rumpf is the new president).

In other business Sept. 24, Soares, committee member Tom Michaud and Town Manager Dennis Heath reported on the causeway project at the head of China Lake’s east basin. Replacing the old bridge with a higher cement culvert will require closing Causeway Street, beginning Sept. 27; conspicuous signs announcing the pending closure are posted at both ends of the street.

Anyone wanting to visit the project must sign in at the town office and must wear a safety helmet and abide by all other safety rules, Heath and Soares said. To help residents follow the work without getting in the way, Heath intends to post photos on the China website.

After the bridge is replaced, Michaud said the second phase of the project requires an initial inspection and recommendations from the state Department of Environmental Protection. Committee members have discussed new structures at the head of the lake to make fishing easier, sidewalks and perhaps a four-wheeler trail connecting to the new bridge and other not-yet-fleshed-out ideas. Until state regulators tell the town what can and cannot be done, the committee cannot make firm plans.

Heath will try to get a DEP staffer to look at the area soon.

Decisions postponed due to lack of quorum at planners’ meeting

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Causeway Road in China.

by Mary Grow

CHINA — With only three of the six China Planning Board members present at the Sept. 25 board meeting, decisions were postponed on both topics discussed.

Codes Officer Paul Mitnik recommends asking voters to approve amendments to the Land Use Ordinance, some merely clarifications, others more substantive. Board members will consider his suggested changes at future meetings and will decide whether to seek voters’ action at the March 2019 open business meeting or at the June 2019 written-ballot vote on the school budget and perhaps other town and/or state questions.

Board Chairman Tom Miragliuolo and members Jim Wilkens and Milton Dudley agreed that an April procedural decision lets Mitnik and Miragliuolo prepare and sign the final document listing reasons – findings of fact – for a board decision without further action by the whole board, an interpretation since disputed among board members.

The document containing findings of fact cannot be signed as soon as a decision is made because Mitnik needs time to write it. A related question, also left unanswered, is whether the 30-day period during which a decision may be appealed begins with the decision or with the signing of the final document.

The planning board’s next meeting is currently scheduled for Tuesday evening, Oct. 9.

Better communication between agencies topic of Vassalboro selectmen’s meeting

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by Mary Grow

Communication was the theme at the Vassalboro selectmen’s Sept. 6 meeting, as board members talked with new Vassalboro School Superintendent Alan Pfeiffer and School Board Chairman Kevin Levasseur about better information-sharing between school and town officials and with Police Chief Mark Brown and audience members about Vassalboro’s law enforcement needs.

Pfeiffer, newly-hired as Vassalboro’s one-day-a-week superintendent, came to introduce himself to the board. He promised to return as his schedule permits; a former principal and superintendent, he now works as a consultant to the state education department and travels throughout Maine.

Selectmen Lauchlin Titus and John Melrose expressed frustration at hearing from school officials only while the annual budget process was underway. They would like more frequent information, especially now that dissolution of the regional school unit makes the school more clearly a town department.

Titus called for out of the box thinking to find ways to fund tuition, transportation, special education and other essentials without taking money away from elementary education programs at Vassalboro Community School.

Town Manager Mary Sabins brought Pfeiffer up to date on her efforts to have the school designated a Red Cross emergency center and equipped with a powerful generator.

Melrose raised the law enforcement issue. He pointed out that Vassalboro hired Brown for 15 hours a week, supplementary to his full-time job elsewhere, but gave him the title of police chief, implying, Melrose thinks, more policing than the town really provides.

Melrose recommends either using a more accurate job description or creating something more like a local police department, perhaps by contracting.

Brown told board members he works closely with state and county law enforcement and the state Drug Enforcement Agency. They take on the extended, time-consuming cases, he said; he focuses on local issues, including spending time with students at Vassalboro Community School.

Selectmen agreed to continue the discussion at their next meeting, which they scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 19 (instead of the usual 6:30 p.m. Thursday). Sabins asked Brown how the police cruiser is holding up. Brown, whose request for a new vehicle was shot down during spring budget discussions, said it is costing money for repairs, as he forecast.

In other business Sept. 6, selectmen agreed to offer for sale a tax-acquired lot on Harmony Lane, with a minimum bid of $5,000.

Road Foreman Eugene Field suggested additional road repaving if there is money available. Selectmen approved his suggestions and left decisions to him once he sees how much, if any, money he has.

Board members asked Sabins to send a thank-you letter to Steve Jones, of Fieldstone Gardens, for trees donated to the East Vassalboro park.

They approved a plan to provide enough water for the Sept. 8 Double Dam Ducky Derby, worked out by Kennebec Water District authorities, a representative of the Alewife Restoration Project (ARI) who is working on dismantling Lombard Dam and Vassalboro Days organizers.

Titus said he and Melrose plan to attend the Oct. 9 Vassalboro Historical Society meeting to discuss issues involving the society’s lease of the former East Vassalboro schoolhouse.

China projects to keep town crews busy

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by Mary Grow

China selectmen’s decisions on bids for various projects around town will keep the town public works crew busy for the rest of the fall.

At their Sept. 17 meeting, selectmen took two major actions.

They accepted Bryce DeMerchant’s bid to dig a new Neck Road fire pond for $5,560, provided that the town crew do a lot of auxiliary work, like pumping out the current pond, moving needed rocks and gravel and the existing fire hydrant and managing erosion control.

Town Manager Dennis Heath said DeMerchant would do the other tasks, but if he does everything his bill would exceed $12,000. There is $6,000 on hand for the project, board members said.

Selectman Neil Farrington supported the plan, though he said he would still prefer to fill in the existing pond and forget about a new one. China Village Fire Chief Timothy Theriault proposed the pond a year ago, to provide a nearby source of water in case of fires on Neck and Stanley Hill roads.

Selectmen rejected bids for installing a bathroom in the former portable classroom behind the town office, building an entry roof over the basement entrance on the north side of the old town house and making repairs at the town office, instead assigning the jobs – except for plumbing and electrical work – to the town crew. Heath said he discussed the idea with foreman Gary Cummings before the selectmen’s meeting.

Board Chairman Robert MacFarland and Selectman Donna Mills-Stevens expressed concern that the board is asking too much of the small town crew. Heath plans to let them schedule the extra assignments as their other responsibilities allow.

Selectmen also rejected a bid of $9,600 for roof work on the red garage south of the town office, because it exceeds the $8,000 voters approved. MacFarland recommended they advertise for new bids.

In other business Sept. 17, selectmen accepted a request that town office staff administer the Heritage Tour Scholarship Fund, established by former eighth-grader Sarah Praul and inherited by her mother, Erika Matthies Praul, after Sarah graduated from China Middle School.

The fund provides assistance to China eighth-grade students who cannot afford the annual March Heritage Tour, which Erika Matthies Praul said now costs close to $1,000 per student. The main fundraiser is selling advertising space on students’ T-shirts to local businesses; individual donations are also welcome.

Heath said the fund will pay the town $100 annually toward administrative costs. Codes Officer Paul Mitnik brought a consent agreement to correct land use violations. Selectmen approved it.

Town Clerk Rebecca Hapgood said residents may apply now for absentee ballots for Nov. 6. Ballots will be available a month before the election.

Selectman Irene Belanger and Transfer Station Manager Tim Grotton said China residents will be able to participate in a hazardous waste disposal program in Winslow on Oct. 20, after registering at the China facility, and in a drug take-back program and a document shredding program in China on Oct. 27. More information is available at the transfer station or the town office.

On Heath’s recommendation, board members again postponed action on two documents, a tower use agreement with Hussey Communications, of Winslow, intended to improve wireless service in town and an internal financial controls policy.

Heath announced that work on the new causeway bridge at the head of China Lake’s east basin is scheduled to close Causeway Street from the first week in October through the first week in November.

China budget committee approves three spending measures to be on Nov. 6 ballot

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Image Credit: chinalakeassociation.org

by Mary Grow

China Budget Committee members have unanimously endorsed three spending measures selectmen will present to voters on Nov. 6.

Nov. 6 local voting includes elections and five referendum questions. The first two, which did not need action at the Sept. 5 Budget Committee meeting, ask if voters want to repeal China’s quorum ordinance (which sets a minimum number of voters required for any town meeting to be held) and if they want to send a resolution to the state legislature asking to authorize municipalities to opt out of collecting personal property taxes (paid on business equipment).

The issues the Budget Committee supported are: (ep)

– A request to appropriate up to $5,000 from Tax Increment Finance (TIF) funds to explore possibilities of using the 39-acre former subdivision on Lakeview Drive opposite the Candlewood property for an emergency services building and a community center.

  • A request to authorize selectmen to use up to $26,000 from sale of tax-acquired property in the current (2018-19) fiscal year to pay for additional hours and benefits for transfer station employees, due to the new schedule that took effect Sept. 4 and an expected staff change.
  • A request to give selectmen continuing annual authority to use up to $100,000 in TIF funds, on recommendation of the TIF Committee, for economic development projects not presented to voters and approved at the March town business meeting.
  • On the first issue, Town Manager Dennis Heath emphasized the $5,000 would be used for a conceptual rendering only. The emergency services building he has in mind would house the China Village volunteer fire department and China rescue, provide office and vehicle space for China’s part-time police force and perhaps house a Delta ambulance.

Delta officials have expressed interest in keeping an ambulance in China if there were a place for it, Heath said. China Rescue is a first-responder unit not licensed to transport.

If voters approve the concept, and if the project goes ahead, Heath said other town managers have used TIF economic development money for fire department housing. The rest of the project would probably need other funding sources.

On the transfer station issue, Heath explained that the new schedule requires increasing hours for two part-time employees to the point where they are entitled to benefits. The $26,000 ceiling ought to cover the increases, and is less than China has already taken in this year from the sale of one tax-acquired property, he said.

As of Sept. 4, the transfer station is open Tuesdays through Saturdays, five consecutive days. Hours were sent out with tax bills and are posted on the Town of China web site, in recent issues of The Town Line and elsewhere in town.

Heath said transfer station employee Ed Brownell plans to retire in the spring, necessitating additional changes.

If voters approve the final referendum question, letting the TIF Committee and selectmen spend TIF money without town meeting authorization, projects that come up during the year can be funded without delay, Heath said. The TIF Committee, he reported, asked selectmen to postpone the question to a spring 2019 ballot, to give more time for consideration.

The five Budget Committee members present Sept. 5 endorsed all articles. Votes were 5-0 except on the last question, which was 4-0-1: Budget Committee secretary Jean Conway abstained, since she is a TIF Committee member. (ep)

On Nov. 6, China polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the former portable classroom behind the town office.

Three arrested in China car burglaries

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From right-to-left, Manuel O’Shea, Ashlee Suzor, Willie Golston

State Police charged three people from Massachusetts in connection with a number of car burglaries off the Neck Road, in China, over the weekend. Taken from the vehicles were a credit card, change and sunglasses. At least six vehicles, all unlocked, were entered late Saturday night and early Sunday morning along fire roads 15, 16 and 17.

Arrested Sunday were Manuel O’Shea, 25, of Methuen, Willie Golston, 21, of South Boston, and 25-year-old Ashlee Suzor, of Methuen. All were taken to the Kennebec County Jail, in Augusta.

O’Shea is charged with burglary, forgery and theft. Suzor was charged with forgery and Golston was charged with conspiracy. Troopers found the group had used the stolen credit card at the China Dinah and at the Circle K store, both in China. The trio was in the area over the weekend visiting a friend, who was not identified

Vassalboro planners approve lone applicant

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by Mary Grow

Vassalboro Planning Board members took about 10 minutes to approve the only application on their Sept. 4 agenda, commend the applicant for well-done paperwork and congratulate themselves on a record short meeting.

David Tyrol has permission to tear down a two-story barn in the shoreland zone on his Dore Road property and use the material to build a one-story barn. The present barn, which Tyrol said is leaning enough so he fears it will collapse, is 24-by-24 feet and about 120 feet from Seven Mile Stream. The new one will be 24-by-36 feet and about 224 feet from the stream.

Tyrol plans a pole barn on concrete footings with a crushed-stone floor, to be used for storage. He does not intend to install plumbing or electricity or create a new driveway, he said.

Selectmen answer questions about recycling

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by Mary Grow

Vassalboro trash hauler Tom Richards attended the Aug. 23 Vassalboro selectmen’s meeting to ask what he should tell his customers about the future of recycling as the town waits for the new Fiberight trash facility, in Hampden, to open.

Selectmen said tell them steady as you go until everyone figures out what’s going to happen. That means, board member John Melrose amplified, continue to separate and flatten cardboard and continue with single-stream recycling.

Town Manager Mary Sabins and Selectboard Chairman Lauchlin Titus were among municipal officials who took advantage of Fiberight’s invitation to visit the new plant. They agreed it’s big.

Opening date is still in question. So are recycling plans, especially since the international recycling market has tanked now that the People’s Republic of China has practically stopped taking recyclables.

Fiberight has not set final tipping fees for solid waste or for recyclables. Titus expects Fiberight will charge lower fees for recyclables, but because Vassalboro does not compact them, trucking will be less efficient and more expensive than for solid waste.

  • Some years ago, Sabins remembered, selectmen commissioned an engineering study on adding a second compactor for recyclable materials. They learned providing space would require an expensive redesign of the facility.

“We’re all in transition,” Titus told Richards, promising to share information his customers can use when the selectmen have any.

Audience member Melissa Olson suggested adding recycling instructions to the Vassalboro website. Transfer station Manager George Hamar thought it a good idea once Fiberight supplies information.

Hamar raised another transfer station issue, asking for and getting permission to sell two no-longer-used metal containers for $400 each. The income, he said, would cover the increase in the price of the new roll-off container voters authorized at the June town meeting.

In other business Aug. 23, Melrose had done research on the East Vassalboro park and adjacent lot with the former schoolhouse, in response to resident Steve Jones’ offer to donate Fieldstone Garden trees. He said the land once housed the First Baptist Church and the park had been a cemetery; the graves were supposedly moved years ago, but he recommended “some sensitivity about digging there.”

In consultation with the Vassalboro Conservation Commission, the China Region Lakes Alliance and the China head of the LakeSmart Program, Melrose came up with recommendations: remove the fence between the two lots, but not the fence along Outlet Stream; remove dead and dying trees; plant the donated trees between the two lots perpendicular to the road and shore, choosing canopy trees that won’t block the view of the water; and clean up the shoreline consistent with water quality protection rules.

No public money will be spent on the work, Melrose said. All three selectmen approved the project.

Olson and William Pullen are concerned about vehicles driving onto the town land. Selectmen doubted a fence would be an effective deterrent; Melrose suggested a curb and Pullen said trucks would drive over it. Olson also asked for road signs designating South Stanley Hill Road and Stanley Hill Road, to minimize confusion at the four-way intersection with those two roads, Priest Hill Road and Lombard Dam Road. Selectmen asked Sabins to ask Road Foreman Eugene Field to look into the issue. The Aug. 23 meeting was scheduled to begin with a public hearing on a dangerous building situation, because two of the mobile homes in Brock’s Mobile Home Park lacked adequate septic systems. Selectmen accepted Codes Officer Richard Dolby’s recommendation to cancel the hearing, because a new septic system had been designed and was being installed. (ep)

Selectmen expect a progress report at their next meeting, which is set for Thursday evening, Sept. 6.