Large turnout for China’s public hearing on May 5

An unusually large number of residents turned out for the China Sweet Treat Social and public hearing on May 5. (contributed photo)

by Mary Grow

China select board members got updates on the community garden and Thurston Park, accepted Town Manager Rebecca Hapgood’s idea of contracting with a professional grant-writer and presented the annual Spirit of America award for volunteerism at their May 5 meeting.

Planning Board chairman Toni Wall received the award – to her surprise – in recognition of her years of work on the board, during which she has spent a great deal of extra time creating and updating town ordinances.

Hapgood proposed connecting with a professional grant writer in Liberty to see if he could help China find and apply for outside funds. His fee is $60 an hour, she said, and she proposed contracting for 10 hours of research.

Board member discussed how much direction he should have, seeking the happy medium between learning about grants they didn’t want and missing information on grants they hadn’t realized could be useful. They unanimously approved spending up to $600.

Thurston Park committee chairman Jeanette Smith again raised the issue of access to the park. Currently, people drive in from the north, over the unpaved Yorktown Road coming south from Albion. The road is so bad that people keep asking for access from the south end; landowner resistance is a problem there.

Hapgood said she has been discussing the road with Albion officials. Smith is seeking cost estimates for paving the China section of the north approach. Select board member Edwin Bailey suggested the grant-writer might be helpful.

James Hsiang presented an update on the community garden, sponsored by the China for a Lifetime Committee and located on the town-owned lot south of the town office complex. The wooden raised beds have been built, the soil to fill them is due soon and two volunteers will spread it in the beds, he said.

Lakeview Lumber, in China, donated lumber for a 6-by-8-foot garden shed. Hsiang asked for, and select board members unanimously granted, permission to build the shed on the town’s land.

About half the almost three dozen beds are still for sale, Hsiang said. If not all are sold by the deadline he is about to set, he plans to use some to raise vegetables for the China Food Pantry.

Hsiang plans a variety of summer events, not all garden-related, to bring visitors to the community garden.

The select board meeting was followed by a short recess, during which the ever-increasing group enjoyed cookies and cupcakes. By the time the public hearing on the June 10 warrant articles started, more than two dozen residents had filled the meeting room, a turn-out Hapgood and select board members greeted with pleasure.

This hearing was on the already-approved warrant on which voters will act at the polls on Tuesday, June 10. Some of the questions raised at the hour-and-a-half hearing dealt with timing: why not a hearing before the warrant is final, while changes can be made?

The answer, from officials and other audience members, was that the warrant had been discussed for months at publicized meetings of the select board and the budget committee: residents’ comments would have been welcome.

Several people again proposed going back to the pre-covid open town meeting, so that voters could ask questions before they voted and perhaps amend some of the articles.

Select board chairman Wayne Chadwick, and others, replied that too few people attended the open meetings, 100 or so compared to 1,000 or so who voted by written ballot.

“One hundred informed people versus one thousand uninformed people,” former select board member Joann Austin protested.

South China Fire Chief Richard Morse asked what happens if voters reject an article, for example voting not to appropriate funds for town administration. Art. 13 asks voters to approve (as in prior years) a statement that if an article does not pass, the amount appropriated in the current fiscal year “shall be deemed adopted” for the new FY beginning July 1.

In other words, Hapgood and Chadwick said, defeating an article authorizing an expenditure does not reject the purpose, just the funding. Should such a thing happen, select board members would have to try to get by on the previous budget; or dip into surplus; or call a special town meeting to re-present a request for money.

The manager clarified a related issue: the terms “undesignated fund balance,” “unassigned balance” and “surplus” all mean the same thing, the money China has available as emergency back-up. As of June 2024, China’s surplus was about $1.8 million, she said.

Hapgood and board members explained meanings of and reasons for specific warrant articles about which questions were asked. The recording of the hearing is on the website, chinamaine.org, under Live Streaming, May events.