Vassalboro News: Selectmen sign final warrant for June town meeting

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro selectmen signed the final warrant for the June 5 and 13 town meeting at their May 4 meeting, after public hearings on two ordinances that are included and a final discussion of school funding.

The ordinances, in Articles 24 and 25 of the 68-article warrant, are titled “Town of Vassalboro Shoreland Zoning Ordinance as revised November 2016” and “Vassalboro Sanitary District Charter, as revised March 2017.” Copies of both are available at the town office and on the town web site.

Planning board members and sanitary district trustees attended the hearings to answer audience questions. There were none about the sanitary district charter; several people were interested in the revised shoreland ordinance. Planning Board Chairman Virginia Brackett told them:

• The revisions presented June 5 are the same ones that voters rejected in November. She said without exit polling, she did not know why voters did not approve the changes. Selectman Lauchlin Titus surmised that voters did not understand the changes and therefore voted against them.
• The major change is from volume to floor area or impervious surface as the standard for deciding how much a building in the shoreland can be expanded. The change means, for example, that basements can now be allowed, as they do not change the area of impervious surface. Brackett and others think voter approval of the changes would increase expansions of camps and houses within 250 feet of lakes.
• The revised ordinance transfer authority over timber harvesting in the shoreland zone from the town to the state, a change Brackett expects would provide more expert regulation.

A two-page handout summarizing changes from the current to the proposed ordinance is also available at the town office and on the web site.

Selectmen commended planning board members for their hard work on the ordinance revisions.

The one issue remaining in the town meeting warrant presented May 4 was a wording question in the article added to deal with possible additional state school funding, beyond what the school board currently expects.

Over a series of meetings, school board and budget committee members and selectmen have predicted the legislature will provide more than the $3.644 million in the current list of school revenues. That figure is more than $249,000 lower than the current year’s subsidy.

However, no one knows what the final figure will be, and legislative action is not expected until after Vassalboro’s town meeting.

To deal with anticipated post-town-meeting changes in the state education subsidy, school officials proposed an article at the end of the school budget asking voters to authorize giving part of any additional state revenue to the town to make up for the amount required from property taxes, $338,681 in the budget as it now stands. Initially, the school board approved that wording, while selectmen endorsed an article that would have given the town all unanticipated state revenue.

At the May 4 meeting, School Board Chairman Kevin Levasseur asked indignantly if town officials expected a million dollars if the state should somehow provide that much. Selectmen agreed on an article saying the town will receive up to $338,681 in additional state revenue, if it materializes; should the state subsidy increase even more than that, the rest would go to the school budget.

In other business May 4, selectmen again discussed the request to designate a handicapped parking place in front of Hairbuilders on Oak Grove Road. Town Manager Mary Sabins said a representative of Lucas Striping told Road Commissioner Eugene Field that marking the area would cost about $100, and that it needed a 16-foot-wide area. Selectmen advised asking Field to measure to see if that much space is available without running into the road or onto the sidewalk.

Sabins and Selectman Philip Haines reported briefly on a meeting they attended at which a preliminary plan for a fishway at the China Lake Outlet Dam was displayed.

The next regular Vassalboro selectmen’s meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday, May 18.