VASSALBORO: Nine residents hear select board on three local ballot questions

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro select board members began their Oct. 3 meeting with a public hearing that drew nine residents to learn about three Nov. 5 local referendum questions.

The first question asks residents to approve matching funds to be available if the town receives grants to help replace the Dunlap Bridge on Mill Hill Road. Specifically, if voters approve it, select board members will be allowed to appropriate $360,000 from TIF (Tax Increment Financing) money or from the town’s undesignated fund (surplus), as they choose.

The second question asks voters to amend the Vassalboro TIF program to allow TIF money to fund “environmental improvement projects” in town.

As Town Manager Aaron Miller explained, the two questions are related. Amending the TIF document under the second question will allow use of TIF money for the Dunlap Bridge under the first question.

Select board member Chris French talked about three alternative bridge plans. The currently preferred option, dependent on more grant money, would cost a total of $1.8 million, of which the town would pay $360,000, he said.

Last summer, Vassalboro received a $200,000 Municipal Stream Crossing Grant to help with the bridge. An application for a larger grant has been filed and is awaiting approval or rejection.

Resident Douglas Phillips asked why the proposed TIF amendment is limited to environmental improvements. Miller replied that authority to use the money for the Dunlap Bridge is needed urgently, because the sructure is in such poor shape. A more comprehensive overhaul of the TIF program would take “a tremendous amount of time.”

Holly Weidner asked for a clearer explanation of local funding. Board members and Miller said they are working on explanatory background documents, and discussed ways of making it easy for residents to obtain them before Nov. 5.

During previous discussions, and on Oct. 3, board members emphasized that approving the bridge funding is appropriating money the town already has, not asking taxpayers for more money.

The third ballot question asks voters to amend the Vassalboro Sanitary District’s charter, specifically how the district’s trustees are chosen, their organization and their duties and responsibilities. There were no comments on this question. Copies of the proposed changes are attached to the local ballot and available from Town Clerk Cathy Coyne.

During the meeting that followed the hearing, select board members talked briefly about the bridge. Board chairman Frederick “Rick” Denico endorsed French’s statement at the Sept. 19 board meeting: board members should postpone further action until they hear from voters on Nov. 5.

Board members made three unanimous decisions.

— They accepted the lower of two prices for a new pole barn for the public works department, $141,140 from All Season Home Improvements, of Augusta. Miller said, in response to concerns about a nearby wetland, that someone from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection had visited the site. Work is not scheduled to start for six to eight months.
— They prepared an instruction for K & K Land Surveyors, of Oakland, expected next week to survey the tax-acquired property on Lombard Dam Road adjoining the transfer station. Board members want them to draw a lot line 25-feet from the property’s westernmost building, unless a well or other structure is in the way. The goal is to maximize the transfer station lot to allow for future expansion.
— They appointed Cara Kent a new member of the Vassalboro Cemetery Committee.

The next Vassalboro select board meeting is scheduled for Thursday evening, Oct. 17.