CHINA NEWS: TIF discussion on head of lake proposal draws nearly three dozen residents

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.