by Mary Grow

China selectmen spent most of their May 28 meeting reviewing bids for outdoor summer work, with mixed results. Their decisions annoyed a resident with a personal interest in the matter.

The bid requests were in three categories, each subdivided: materials, equipment to be rented (with an operator) and mowing.

Two contractors bid on materials, mostly different types of gravel. Public Works Foreman Shawn Reed recommended rejecting all bids and buying materials as needed. Contractor (and budget committee member) Wayne Chadwick agreed from the audience, saying he thought the bid prices were high. The four selectmen present (Board Chairman Robert MacFarland was absent; Ronald Breton was elected temporary chairman) accepted the advice.

Three contractors bid to provide equipment, with Hagar Enterprises offering to provide up to 16 items (backhoe, excavators, dump trucks, loaders, bulldozer) as needed and the other two bidding on three or four items. Selectmen and Reed agreed it would be easier for the public works crew to have a single contract.

However, selectmen realized that the bidders had not been asked to supply delivery charges for moving machines to China. Despite Chadwick and Reed warning that time is getting short to line up equipment and start work, they postponed a decision to their next meeting, scheduled for June 10.

Bidders for the summer mowing contract were asked to submit prices for ballfields, cemeteries and town properties (the town office lot, the adjoining lot where the red barn stands and the former Weeks Mills Schoolhouse lot). They were also asked for labor and equipment prices per hour for work done outside the contract, an addition that several selectmen found confusing.

Danforth Lawncare was the only company to bid on all three categories; William Danforth said he has done China’s mowing for many years. The job includes cleaning up the properties spring and fall and mowing and trimming in the summer, he said.

Ace Home and Camp Care bid only on town properties, and was the highest bidder. Rumpf’s Backyard Services was the low bidder on the ballfields and the town properties. On the ballfields, Danforth’s bid was $5,700, Rumpf’s $2,800; on town properties, Danforth’s bid was $4,175 and Rumpf’s $3,500.

Informed that Colby Rumpf is 16 years old and just starting his business, selectmen unanimously awarded the entire mowing contract to Danforth, based on his experience and history of reliability.

Later in the meeting, Tom Rumpf, Four Seasons Club president and Colby Rumpf’s father, talked about possible cooperation between the Four Seasons Club and the town to provide an access road to a public landing on the Hall property, if voters approve buying it on June 11 and if selectmen then develop it. (See The Town Line, May 2, and May 30.)

Before his presentation, Tom Rumpf rebuked selectmen for “somewhat wasting the town’s money” on the summer mowing. There were people in the audience who would have given references for his son, he said, if Breton had recognized them so they could speak. Breton later apologized.

Tom Rumpf said the Four Seasons Club board authorized negotiations with town officials to share the club’s driveway for a boat launch only, not a swimming beach. The Hall property has a rocky shore, he said; the club has the only sandy beach suitable for swimming.

Redesigning the road and agreeing on maintenance might be difficult, Rumpf said. “It needs to go slow right now.”

Selectman Jeffrey LaVerdiere has suggested the town buy and distribute to residents Four Seasons Club memberships, to gauge the level of interest in public lake access. Rumpf said the club would consider discounting prices for a reasonable number of memberships if selectmen adopt the idea.

In other business May 28:

• Selectmen unanimously approved Town Manager Dennis Heath’s request to spend $5,025 to switch to LED lights at the transfer station, to be partly offset by a $1,400 state rebate. The change has already been made in the town office and the nearby former portable classroom, Heath said. He expects to save money on electricity, but could not estimate how much money.
• On Heath’s recommendation, selectmen unanimously approved a settlement with Three-Level Solar Farm on Vassalboro Road (Route 32 North), resolving a dispute over depreciation and resultant future tax value that started in 2018.
• Heath said China’s property valuation is far enough out of line with the state’s that the town should raise its valuation. He expects Assessor William Van Tuinen to explain the problem at the selectmen’s June 10 meeting. LaVerdiere objected strongly to anything that would raise taxes, saying they are already so high as to discourage local business, including his general store outside China Village.

The May 28 meeting was governed more strictly than in the past by Robert’s Rules of Order, which selectmen adopt annually. Heath purchased a podium (for $88 at Marden’s, he wrote in a May 23 email) and Breton expected everyone, including Heath and selectmen, to be recognized before speaking and audience members to come to the podium.

Town Clerk Rebecca Hapgood had the honor of christening the podium. Asked about one of the expenditures selectmen approved early in the meeting, she left her seat in the back row, walked to the podium, said “Yes” loudly and distinctly as required, and returned to her seat.

An executive session to discuss personnel issues followed the open selectmen’s meeting. Afterward, Heath emailed that board members directed him to poll the public about closing the China Town Office on Saturdays. Currently it is open Saturdays from 8 to 11 a.m.

by Mary Grow

About a dozen China residents attended the selectmen’s May 13 public hearing on two June 11 ballot questions, focusing most of their attention on the first and more expensive one.

The first question asks if voters want to authorize selectmen to spend up to $150,000 for the Hall property across Lakeview Drive from the town office and abutting the Four Seasons Club. The approximately four acres for sale include lake frontage that would provide a beach and boat landing. Funds would come from China’s lake access fund ($125,000) and TIF (Tax Increment Finance) fund ($25,000). The budget committee recommended approval on a 4-2 vote on April 9.

The second question asks if voters want to authorize selectmen to spend up to $25,000 from the town’s Undesignated Fund Balance (surplus) “to contract for the engineering and costing of a consolidated emergency services building and a community building,” based on designs for which voters appropriated up to $5,000 in November 2018. The emergency services building would house the China Village Volunteer Fire Department, China Rescue, a police office and perhaps a Delta ambulance; combining China’s three volunteer fire departments is not part of the plan. Plans for both buildings are on the town website under “News.” The budget committee unanimously recommended voters not approve the appropriation.

With Town Manager Dennis Heath absent, there was a lack of answers to many of the questions raised at the hearing. Selectboard Chairman Robert MacFarland said town officials are waiting for voter approval before making detailed plans, and if voters do approve they won’t necessarily buy the property; they just want to be able to.

Two members of the former Lake Access Committee, which proposed buying the former Candlewood property and was turned down by voters, said China still needs a place for residents who don’t own waterfront property to access the lake.

If voters approve, the current undetailed plan is to develop a beach and a boat landing, with at least one parking area partway up the hill toward Lakeview Drive.

Audience and selectboard members talked about safe separation between swimmers and boaters, or maybe having a carry-in launch area only, or having a landing that would accommodate the overflow from the state landing at the head of the lake outside China Village. The last proposal sparked another inconclusive discussion about the future of the present landing.

People asked how the town benefited from bass tournaments and about the risk of importing the invasive plant milfoil when a lot of out-of-town boats use China Lake.

Location and size of the access road were unknown; MacFarland said it would “probably” be two lanes. The number of parking spaces was not determined.

Two men said the proposed $150,000 would be “a drop in the bucket” compared to the cost of developing the area for public use. Even if state funding were obtained, Wayne Chadwick pointed out that state dollars are still tax money.

At the selectmen’s meeting that followed the hearing, China Planning Board Chairman Tom Miragliuolo said the Land for Maine’s Future program where he is a Ssenior planner would be likely to approve a China application for up to half the appraised value of the property. Also, he said, the Bureau of Public Lands has a program that might contribute development funds for a boat landing.

If the waterfront were developed, people asked whether it could or would be limited to China residents; whether it would be considered public or private; whether there would be lifeguards, people to check residency or other supervisors and whether they would have to be paid. There were no answers.

Selectman Jeffrey LaVerdiere cited public beaches in nearby towns that have been closed due to unwelcome clientele, vandalism and other problems.

Whether the state Department of Environmental Protection would approve the development is unknown – Selectman Irene Belanger said they are “involved.”

“You’re asking the people to make a decision without information,” Bill Van Wickler summarized as the discussion drew to a close.

The much shorter discussion of the second question ignored the community center and focused on the proposed emergency services building. Months ago, the concept was that the China Village Volunteer Fire Department would move into a new building on the town-owned property on the east side of Lakeview Drive opposite the former Candlewood Camps. Its present building would be demolished and China Baptist Church would create a new parking lot on the site, freeing the present church parking lot for boaters’ use.

Now it appears that state officials will not continue to support the boat landing, because of lack of adjacent parking and its location, exposed to debris blown from the entire east basin. Therefore, all three China fire chiefs said at the hearing, no more parking is needed, so the China Village station doesn’t need to move, so there is no reason to waste more money planning for a new building.

China voters will decide both questions by written ballot on June 11. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the former portable classroom behind the town office.