by Mary Grow

The China Tax Increment Finance (TIF) Committee’s public hearing on the largest proposed TIF expenditure on the March 25 town meeting warrant drew close to 20 interested residents Feb. 27.

The issue is the committee’s recommendation that voters appropriate up to $750,000 over the next three fiscal years for improvements to the causeway at the head of China Lake’s east basin. Improvements would be intended to improve environmental conditions, further pedestrian and vehicular traffic safety, improve recreation and promote economic development.

Discussion focused on priorities, in two different ways.

Many audience members wanted to know specifically what the committee intended to do and in what order, so they would know exactly what they were voting on March 25. The project includes improving parking for people using the boat landing, improving the landing itself, rebuilding the 1930 bridge across the inlet to the lake and adding a pedestrian walkway and fishing platforms. The walkway and platforms depend on remaking the shore of the lake by installing some kind of vertical facing instead of the present slope dotted with boulders.

Committee members have already spent some money on engineering to get preliminary ideas and cost estimates. Answering many of the questions raised will require more engineering work; committee Chairman Amber McAllister said the group did not want to be faulted for spending too much money on preliminary work before voters decided whether to approve the project.

If voters approve the money, priority questions still loom. Boat landing parking is likely to happen first, because Town Manager Daniel L’Heureux said the town has almost completed buying the additional land voters approved last November. However, whether the bridge, the pedestrian ways or the fishing areas should come next, or whether all need to be done more or less simultaneously, remains to be decided.

McAllister said if voters approve funding on March 25, the committee will begin setting priorities, with input from residents. When Justin Gaudet interpreted her words as promising more public hearings, McAllister accepted his interpretation.

No one who spoke at the hearing opposed the idea of expanded recreational facilities at the boat landing and causeway.

Gaudet urged committee members to consider possible long-term impacts of the project, like what increased boat traffic could do to water quality and shoreline erosion.

China Lake belongs to the state, not the town, committee member and Selectman Irene Belanger said, so town residents cannot control what happens on it. She added that a major bass tournament, larger than any held so far, is scheduled for this summer.

The TIF Committee is charged with recommending to selectmen economic development projects that can be funded with tax money from the expanded Central Maine Power Company power line that runs through the town. A separate article in the March 25 town meeting warrant asks voters to add the new CMP substation off Route 3 as another TIF revenue source. Voters will also act on other proposed expenditures of TIF funds.

The next TIF Committee meeting is scheduled for Monday evening, March 13. Interested residents are welcome at all committee meetings.

by Mary Grow

China Budget Committee members have endorsed the selectmen’s spending recommendations for the March 25 town business meeting, in all but one case by unanimous votes.

The largest proposed expenditures in the warrant budget committee members reviewed at their Feb. 16 meeting were, as usual, for road maintenance, town administration, insurance and the transfer station. Budget committee members supported all of them after a few questions. The transfer station budget has increased over the current year because Palermo residents now bring their trash to China, but Town Manager Daniel L’Heureux said Palermo’s annual contribution plus the per-bag fee charged to Palermo residents will cover the increase. Two new items to be presented to voters required budget committee action, a request for up to $40,000 for stipends to volunteer emergency services personnel (Art. 20) and a request to authorize selectmen to repurchase China’s interest in the Penobscot Energy Recovery Company (PERC) (Art. 56).

The proposed stipends, suggested initially by Neil Farrington, chairman of the selectboard, are intended to encourage more people to join China’s three volunteer fire departments and China Rescue. If voters approve, any money used would be taken from China’s Unrestricted Fund Balance (UFB, familiarly called surplus) and disbursed according to policies to be developed by selectmen and emergency services volunteers.

China’s current contract with PERC ends in 2018 and will not be renewed. In March 2016, voters authorized selectmen to switch to the new Fiberight facility being developed in Hampden. L’Heureux told budget committee members the town should get about $17,000 back from PERC.

The article on which one budget committee member abstained – the rest supported it – was L’Heureux’s request to move $150,000 from surplus to the capital and equipment reserve (Art. 14). The manager argues that should an expensive piece of town equipment break down beyond repair, selectmen could use the reserve to replace it without calling a special town meeting and without borrowing money.

In November 2016 voters rejected L’Heureux’s request to move $100,000 from the UFB into the capital reserve account by a vote of 911 in favor to 1,354 opposed.
Budget committee member Tom Rumpf declined to support the recommendation for the March 25 meeting because he thinks the amount is too high.
Budget committee members – and the manager – want China to maintain a healthy surplus, because it improves the town’s financial standing and is a benefit in case the town should need to borrow money. L’Heureux’s point is that money in a designated fund, like the capital and equipment reserve, still counts toward overall financial health.

China’s town business meeting begins at 9 a.m. – or as soon thereafter as a quorum of 126 registered voters assembles – Saturday, March 25, at China Middle School.

L’Heureux said if voters approve all municipal expenditures as recommended, they will not increase the property tax rate. However, property taxes also support the school budget, which will be voted on in June, and the Kennebec County budget, over which town voters have no direct control.