by Mary Grow

By the end of the China selectmen’s Jan. 29 special meeting, board members and Town Manager Daniel L’Heureux were satisfied they had the warrant for the March 24 town business meeting in final form.

Selectmen plan to sign it at their Feb. 5 meeting. By email, L’Heureux invited budget committee members to find a meeting date later in the week of Feb. 5 to review proposed expenditures and make their recommendations.

Selectmen’s recommendations were unanimous on 4-0 votes, with board member Jeffrey LaVerdiere absent due to illness. Items discussed and decisions made resulted in several proposals that will be new for town meeting voters.

For example, Art. 14, dealing with annual appropriations for emergency services, asks voters also to implement a new state law allowing the town to give each volunteer fire department its appropriation as a lump sum from which the department pays its bills, rather than having the departments submit bills to the town for payment.

Selectmen established that the law applies only to the China Village, South China and Weeks Mills fire departments, not to China Rescue.

Voters will be asked in Art. 18 to appropriate $80,613 to buy a pre-crusher/compactor and a new forklift for the transfer station, taking the money from a reserve fund and the town’s unassigned fund balance (commonly called surplus).

Art. 26 asks for up to $20,000 from surplus to provide a septic system and water system for the former Weeks Mills schoolhouse.

In Art. 41, voters are asked to appropriate up to $100 from surplus for purchase of the Branch Mills Union Church, adding another historic building to town ownership. The amount is intended to cover transaction fees; the article also requests authorization to use up to $80,000 from grants, donations and Tax Increment Finance funds to restore the building.

Art. 43, requested by the planning board, proposes using up to $22,000 in TIF funds to develop and implement a new town comprehensive plan.

Selectmen made final decisions on two local service organizations’ fund requests they debated inconclusively at their Jan. 22 meeting. They recommended a $3,000 appropriation for The Town Line newspaper as in past years – the item was debatable this year because the newspaper is renting the old town house basement for a nominal fee. And they recommended a $4,500 appropriation for the South China Library and a $100 appropriation for the Albert Church Brown Memorial Library in China Village, basing the difference on the growth of the latter’s endowment fund.

The possibility of reappearance on a June local ballot. One would have requested up to $10,000 to buy the land around the new fire pond on Neck Road; the other would have requested up to $110,000 to buy the Bailey property at the head of China Lake, as part of the expansion of recreational opportunities there.

The fire pond was again discussed at some length, and selectmen reaffirmed their Jan. 22 decision to get some kind of barriers around it as soon as possible.

Engineer Rick Pershken, attending the meeting at board Chairman Robert MacFarland’s request, gave his professional opinion that the steep sides of the pond would gradually erode into milder slopes, cutting away the edges including toward Neck Road. Selectmen agreed to ask someone from the US Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service for advice on stabilizing the pond.

The Feb. 5 selectmen’s meeting is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. The Budget Committee meeting, when scheduled, will be posted on the town web site. Both meetings are open to the public.

by Mary Grow

China Planning Board members have decided to start carrying out their responsibility to prepare a revised town comprehensive plan before the current one expires in the summer of 2020.

The three members at the Jan. 16 meeting directed Chairman Tom Miragliuolo to ask selectmen to appoint a new comprehensive plan committee and to try to get a request for funds on the warrant for the March 24 town business meeting.

Miragliuolo promptly got in touch with Town Manager Daniel L’Heureux, who replied that he would put the requests on the selectmen’s Feb. 5 agenda. Miragliuolo proposed an estimated cost of not more than $24,000, based on information from Kennebec Valley Council of Governments about other municipalities’ costs.

Residents interested in serving on a new comprehensive planning committee are invited to contact the town office.

Miragliuolo’s state job used to involve reviewing towns’ comprehensive plans. He told the other planning board members that they are created under the state Growth Management Act, passed in the late 1980s with general goals like creating orderly development and economic growth, providing housing and recreational opportunities and protecting natural, agricultural, historic, archaeological and other resources.

China’s current plan was developed by a committee, with major assistance from a paid consultant. The committee reported to the planning board; at the board’s request, selectmen presented the plan to voters, who approved it in November 2008.

Miragliuolo expects the process of revising the plan and getting local and state approval to take a minimum of 18 months. Few towns do it that fast, he said.

The consultant’s fee will be the major expenditure, he predicted. The person with whom the town contracts will be expected to attend committee meetings and draft the plan based on committee members’ and residents’ input.

China is not required to update its plan. However, a town that does not have a current state-approved plan cannot do some things, like adopting an impact fee ordinance, and is disadvantaged in other ways, for example in applying for state grants. The second topic at the Jan. 16 planning board meeting was Codes Officer Paul Mitnik’s draft revisions to China’s Planning Board permit application and conditional use permit application checklist.

Board members agreed the documents should be discussed in more detail at their Jan. 30 meeting, after they have time to consider them.

The Jan. 22 China selectmen’s meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m., will be preceded by a 6:30 p.m. meeting of the Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) subcommittee of the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Committee. Both meetings will be in the town office.

The RLF subcommittee is meeting to approve an agreement with the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments to administer China’s revolving loan fund. The fund uses money from China’s TIF program for small auxiliary loans to help start or expand local businesses.

The full TIF Committee is tentatively scheduled to meet Monday evening, Jan. 29.

by Mary Grow

Parris and Catherine Varney have withdrawn their controversial application for a permit to allow commercial gatherings and events in their barn at 701 Neck Road.

In a Jan. 9 letter to Codes Officer Paul Mitnik, Palermo attorney Matthew Evans, representing the Varneys, said, “In light of the irrational, to the point of being delusional, opposition to the Barn Venue,” the couple decided to make no additional financial investment in the project.

“Unfortunately, the process has been dominated by a mob mentality,” Evans added.

He wrote that the Varneys will continue to use the barn as a private venue. They have plans for a different use and will apply for appropriate permits.

The Varneys first applied for a planning board permit in September 2016. Neighbors expressed a variety of concerns, arguing that traffic, noise and lights from the proposed activity would disrupt a quiet rural area and create inconvenience and hazards.

Subsequent proceedings involved the planning board, board of appeals and Kennebec County Superior Court.

At their Dec. 2017 meeting, planning board members agreed they needed to begin re-reviewing the application. They had scheduled a Jan. 16 public hearing to give neighbors and other interested residents another chance to comment; the hearing was deleted from the Jan. 16 agenda.

Because China has minimal zoning, commercial development is allowed almost everywhere in town if the developer can meet ordinance criteria. The criteria include traffic safety, lack of adverse effects in adjacent property values and the most discussed in the Varney case, the requirement that the project “will not have a significant detrimental effect on the use and peaceful enjoyment of abutting property as a result of noise, vibrations, fumes, odor, dust, glare or other cause.”