CHINA NEWS: Three topics on agenda for March 20 meeting

by Mary Grow

Monday, March 20, will be a good evening for China residents to gather at the town office to get information on three different topics, two related to the March 25 town business meeting.

The selectmen’s meeting that evening will be preceded by a 6 p.m. public hearing on proposed amendments to the town’s TIF (Tax Increment Financing) program. The amendments, to be accepted or rejected at town meeting, include adding new areas in town as potential development areas; adding the Central Maine Power Company substation on Route 3 as a new revenue source; and extending the program to 30 years instead of 20 years.

At the 7 p.m. selectmen’s meeting, board members have invited the chiefs of China’s three fire departments and China Rescue to talk about the proposal on the town meeting warrant to appropriate funds to compensate emergency personnel.

Town Manager Daniel L’Heureux has invited a representative of Redzone Wireless, of Rockland, to the March 20 meeting to talk about potential service in town.

China Village fire chief Timothy Theriault attended the March 6 selectmen’s meeting. He told selectmen when he polled his department, all but one member – the chief himself – favored the proposed compensation.

Theriault said his main objection was lack of a plan for distributing funds if voters approve the money. Now he has learned that there will be a plan and supports the idea, which selectmen presented as a way to encourage more people to join the fire departments and the rescue unit. Based on personal experience, he believes “money’s going to make a difference,” he said.

At the March 6 meeting and in anticipation of the Redzone presentation, selectmen appointed a three-person Broadband Committee, consisting of Tod Detre, Robert O’Connor and Raymond Robert. Detre and O’Connor, and audience member Lee Pettengill, talked knowledgeably about the possibilities of competition among internet service providers for China residents’ business.

The March 6 meeting began with a proud demonstration of China’s new police vehicle by officers Michael Tracy and Tracey Frost. The 2017 all-wheel-drive Ford Explorer, plainly marked as the Town of China’s, has front-and rear-facing radar and a state-of-the-art light bar whose multi-colored flashing lights can be turned into a steady white beam to illuminate an accident scene.

Frost said the vehicle gets about 18 miles a gallon and probably can go 140 miles an hour. “It won’t with us in it,” Tracy joked. A grant plus the trade-in for the previous police truck completely paid for the Explorer, which Frost and Tracy expect should last the town 10 years or more.

In other business March 6:

• Selectmen appointed Toni Wall to the China for a Lifetime Committee and appointed board members Irene Belanger and Ronald Breton to the Regional School Unit #18 cost-sharing committee, which Belanger said is beginning its work over again. The same two selectmen represented China on the prior cost-sharing committee.
• Theriault, who is also a state Representative, said the bill he introduced to charge Kennebec Water District customers a fee to help with China Lake clean-up is dead for this legislative session. However, he said, it had two useful consequences: the water district is again supporting the clean-up effort financially, after a lapse, and water district customers have been educated about where their water comes from.