The following area students have been named to the dean’s list at the University of New Hampshire, in Durham, New Hampshire.
Kelly McCormac, of South China; Michaela Hinckley-Gordon, of Benton; Kellie Bolduc and Luke Violette, both of Waterville; Sarah Wildes, of Winslow; Myrilla Hartkopf, of Albion; Andrew Marden, of Bingham, Maxwell Kenney and Kyle McLain, both of Fairfield; Adam Bovie and Rebecca Grenier, both of Vassalboro.
Vassalboro voters rejected both local referendum questions at the polls Nov. 8. (ep)
The revised Shoreland Zoning Ordinance on which planning board members worked for a year was defeated by a vote of 981 yes to 1,186 no, leaving the current ordinance in place.
A request for an appropriation from surplus of not more than $58,600 as the town’s contribution toward installing sidewalks in East Vassalboro lost with 969 votes in favor and 1,360 against. Had voters approved the project, it would have been incorporated into the state’s planned rebuilding of Route 32 through Vassalboro, scheduled for 2017 or 2018.
In the other local ballot question, Frank Richards was elected to represent Vassalboro on the Kennebec Water District Board of Trustees with 2,135 votes.
Town Clerk Cathy Coyne, reporting results shortly after 2 a.m. Nov. 9, said 2,480 ballots were cast, what she called a record turnout. Vassalboro has 3,165 registered voters.
Vassalboro Planning Board members postponed action on Leo Barnett’s application for a new building on Old Meadow Road, off Riverside Drive, in which tenants will grow marijuana for medical purposes, because the application he submitted at their Nov. 1 meeting was not complete.
Barnett said he plans a building about 28-by-140 feet just east of his subdivision on the same road. The map he submitted showed the subdivision and the remaining lot where the building is planned, but it was not specific enough about the location and size of the building and access driveway, proposed lighting or landscaping to let board members make a decision on the project.
Board Chairman Virginia Brackett told Barnett the map submitted with a commercial application “becomes the largest piece of the record for the town showing what’s supposed to be where.” Therefore, she said, an accurate map is essential.
In addition, board members could not tell whether the area that would be developed, including roadways, would exceed 5,000 square feet. If it did, the project would be a major rather than a minor development, with somewhat different requirements under town ordinances.
Barnett said he will have a better map prepared for the board’s Dec. 6 meeting.
Five neighbors from Riverside Drive, Lewis Road and Holman Day Road attended the Nov. 1 meeting to voice concerns about the project, questioning its suitability in a residential area.
Barnett said licensed caregivers running the business will rent the new building from him and live close by in an existing building. He said he owns a similar property in Farmingdale and there have been no problems with his tenants or with neighbors.
Acting on the town attorney’s advice, the Vassalboro Board of Appeals refused on procedural grounds to hear Jonathan Blumberg’s appeal of a permit granted to Bernard Welch for his South Stanley Hill Road property.
Codes Enforcement Officer Richard Dolby had granted Welch building and plumbing permits needed for a food-processing and storage building on the site of a burned-down chicken house on the property. Blumberg filed an appeal of the decision with the codes officer, but he did not supply the “appropriate appeal fee” of $100 required by the town ordinance, instead, he said, putting the money in an escrow account. Vassalboro’s ordinance does not allow for an escrow account, acting Board of Appeals Chairman John Reuthe said. Town Attorney Alton Stevens advised the board to find that without the fee, the appeal was not filed in the timely manner required by the ordinance, and to refuse to address the merits of the appeal.
The four board members present at its Oct. 27 meeting unanimously did so. Reuthe cut off Blumberg’s protests by adjourning the meeting.
When I was just a kid living in China 60 odd years ago I remember my grandmother saying, “Too many cooks spoil the soup.” My grandmother and those words keep coming to mind when I think of what has happened and is still happening with China Lake.
China Lake has become a mismanaged and polluted algae soup.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) began peddling its influence as protector of our environment in the late ‘60s. China Lake was not spared this new Crime against Nature.
The issues with China Lake began about 45 years ago due to federal legislation regarding clean water. Vassalboro was being required to treat its raw sewage that had been dumped into the lakes outlet stream at many locations along the winding streams banks.
Vassalboro didn’t want to spend the federal dollars it got to send that sewage to the Waterville Treatment Plant, there appears to be a profit motive there somewhere. The DEP allow raising China Lake five vertical feet insuring a reliable source of flushing water for The Outlet Stream where they (the DEP) located and licensed three crude sewage disposal plants dumping 72,000 gallons of wastewater per day into that stream. Using its influence, the DEP granted the licenses for the plants Vassalboro is currently forced to close due to the plants chronic and abysmal failure.
As the predictable wetlands problems associated with keeping the China Lake water level artificially high and stable through the critical spring and fall growing season became evident, the DEP started making increasingly complicated excuses for its actions. Seeing the writing on the wall the local special interests got involved protecting their very special interests in deeper water at their unique individual properties by pushing the formation of the China Lake Association to walk in a cozy lock-step with a crooked DEP and to act as propaganda artists confusing and misleading the local politicians and voters.
Now along comes interest #3 Inland Fisheries & Wildlife (IFW) tinkering with the very special environment of the uniquely slow water exchange rate (every 2.5 years) of China Lake. Inland Fisheries and Wildlife allowed increased involvement of Coastal interests from the Lobster Bait Industry to take virtually all the natural lake suckers (catostomus commersoni) from China Lake in recent years. I personally observed the way IFW and the bait industry conveniently got around the regulations in place for years to accomplish another crime against nature by IFW manipulating both trapping methods and inspections.
Lake suckers, although edible and vital to the health of this slow exchange rate, are not considered a game fish and therefore not protected by a self-interest motivated IFW (IFW is not funded from the general fund and therefore is in business for itself) hence the big spending IFW did to keep the bear hunt licensed the way it is and keeping a fat cash cow for the bosses at IFW.
I now have reason to believe IFW, in cooperating with the total removal of all the lake suckers, was working with DMR (Department of Marine Resources) prepping China Lake for this next state special interest that was to follow, re-introducing alewives to our lake, not seen here for almost 200 years due to the building of the high dam in North Vassalboro, built there for the mills around the time of the American Civil War.
DMR’s interest and duty is to the Gulf of Maine where, through DMR’s mismanagement, the fisheries, including the herring fishery, collapsed. (Alewives are a sea run anadromous herring). An anadromous fish means a fish born in fresh water and spending most of its life in the sea returning to the same fresh water where it hatched, to spawn.
Getting the herring re-established is critical to the entire fishing industry in the Gulf of Maine. Due to the many disruptive dam removals and, to maximize the quickest return of the alewives, removal of any and all competition to alewives like lake suckers was needed. To do this DMR used lakes and streams that were not coveted for their great fishing otherwise, with the history for the past 45 years of China Lake and the laissez-fair hands off attitude of the residents of China, our lake was a prime target, they could tell us anything and we are ready to believe it.
DMR tried a few alewives (less than six alewives per acre of lake) to snow us. The lake never suffered so many free ranging alewives in the past as the lake had a robust natural predator system alive and well to keep the numbers of sea run alewives in check.
Alewives will out compete and eat everything left in the China Lake basin if this new one-sided self interest of DMR is allowed to go forth in China Lake. Come on selectmen, suck up your courage, research this so you understand what the issues are, and don’t allow the rest of the natural lake to be driven to the same sad extinction the game fish in China Lake have been driven during the past 45 years of DEP and other state agencies’ crimes against nature influence peddling to special interests.
On October 31, 47 sixth grade students along with six teachers traveled to Bangor to the Challenger Learning Center. They worked for the past four weeks under the guidance of Mrs. Desmond (science teacher), Mr. Esposito (JMG Master Specialist), Mrs. Ladd-Cyrway (Math), Mrs. Caron (language arts), and Mrs. Peabody (speech) to learn their jobs while taking part in this great simulated Shuttle and Mission Control program. Using the concept of simulation as an instructional tool, Challenger Center programs create an exciting, cooperative learning environment that fosters interest in science, math, and technology. Thanks to the efforts of thousands of dedicated individuals, Challenger Center continues this important mission today. The nation’s first Challenger Learning Center opened in August of 1988 at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Currently there are over 40 Challenger Learning Centers in the United States, Canada, and Europe. On June 15, 2001, the Challenger Learning Center of Maine became site number 51! As a part of the Challenger network, Maine’s Center is part of a successful tradition of hands-on discovery. With the financial assistance from the Vassalboro Community School PTO, and a grant received from the Challenger program and also a grant from the Cole Transportation for travel made this fantastic trip possible. Contributed photo
The Vassalboro Board of Appeals meets at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 27, to hear Jonathan Blumberg’s appeal of the codes officer’s issuance of building and plumbing permits for Bernard Welch at Welch’s South Stanley Hill Road property.
Procedural issues dominated at the Vassalboro School Board’s Oct. 18 meeting, as AOS (Alternative Organizational Structure) #92 officials explained some of the issues the central office deals with for Vassalboro, Waterville and Winslow schools.
Superintendent Eric Haley described the process by which bills are generated and paid, listing the numerous reviews both in the local schools and in the central office aimed at ensuring expenditures are justified. Assistant Superintendent Peter Thiboutot explained the federal programs in which AOS #92 schools take part. The purpose of federal school funding is primarily to help students who fail to meet educational standards by assisting in various areas of need. Each category is called a title.
Vassalboro receives funds from three of the six federal Titles, Thiboutot said. In 2016-17, Title I provides $152,481; Title II, $24,306; and Title VI, $24,000. Title I programs provide support in reading and math; allocations are based on the percentage of students who qualify for free and reduced-price school lunches. At Vassalboro Community School, 43 percent of students receive free lunch and another seven percent receive reduced-price lunch. One teacher and two educational technicians are paid with Title I funds; a third technician works in the program but is paid from the local budget because the federal funds are inadequate.
Title II money is used for professional development activities. Receiving schools are allowed to transfer up to half their Title II money to Title I; Vassalboro does so, Thiboutot said.
Title VI is called Rural Low Income, and Thiboutot described it as a catch-all that covers a variety of support activities, from contracts with behavioral health counselors to certain after-school clubs and activities.
In preparation for the Oct. 27 meeting of the Maine School Board Association, Vassalboro board members reviewed and endorsed four proposed resolutions. Three ask for legislative action to: 1) confirm that allowing a student to transfer to a school in another town should be a decision of the two superintendents involved, not to be overridden by state officials; 2) review rising teacher retirement costs that the state shifted onto school districts’ budgets in 2015; and 3) create a task force to review special education costs and needs. The fourth resolution asks the governor’s office to nominate a new Commissioner of Education for 2017 legislative confirmation.
The next Vassalboro School Board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday evening, Nov. 15.
Vassalboro selectmen would like to appoint a new alternate planning board member at their Nov. 3 meeting, so anyone interested in the position should notify the town office by that day at the latest.
At the selectmen’s Oct. 20 meeting, Town Manager Mary Sabins said former Codes Officer Paul Mitnik was so far the only applicant to succeed Paul Breton, who resigned earlier in the month.
The meeting opened with two public hearings, one on amendments to the appendices to Vassalboro’s General Assistance Ordinance and one on renewal of junkyard and auto hobbyist permits. Since no members of the public were present, the hearings were extremely short.
After the hearings, selectmen approved the changes in general assistance and nine permits, as follows:
Vassalboro Food Pantry officials requested permission to add a carport on the food pantry building beside the North Vassalboro fire station and further asked selectmen to waive the permit fee, since the town owns the building. Selectmen unanimously granted both requests.
Sabins said the food pantry had received a gift of money for the project, which is intended to protect the front door of the building from the weather.
In other business, Sabins said cemetery committee members have been putting up identifying signs at all known Vassalboro cemeteries and planning two administrative-type projects, extending the regulations adopted for the North Vassalboro cemetery to the other active cemeteries in town and computerizing Vassalboro cemetery records. For the second project, Sabins said, she is looking for grants to cover costs of the computer program committee members recommend and the data entry work.
Following up on an issue from September, Sabins said she talked with Jan Clowes of the Vassalboro Historical Society about shared maintenance of the grounds around the former East Vassalboro school building that the society leases from the town. The two did not reach agreement, she said. Board Chairman Lauchlin Titus advised research to determine the exact boundaries of the schoolhouse lot.
Vassalboro Planning Board members unanimously approved the town’s second locally-licensed indoor marijuana-growing facility at their Oct. 4 meeting.
Applicant Mike Kelley represented half a dozen licensed caregivers who intend to grow marijuana in the former craft shop on Route 3, on property more recently the site of the MacKenzie Landscaping satellite business.
Kelley plans no changes to the exterior of the building. There will be no retail traffic; only licensed caregivers are allowed inside the growing area, he said. Primary access will be from Whitehoue Road rather than from busier Route 3.
Kelley said someone will be on the property at all times for security. The odor control plan involves fans and filters, which will not create significant noise outside the building.
Neighbors had been notified, as required by town ordinance. None attended the Oct. 4 meeting.
Planning Board members found the project meets all Vassalboro ordinance requirements.
Codes Officer Richard Dolby said there have been no complaints about Vassalboro’s other town-licensed marijuana-growing business on Cushnoc Road.