Vassalboro plans being set for June town meeting

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro select board members discussed multiple on-going issues at their April 3 meeting, many related to plans for the June 2 and June 10 annual town meeting.

The only decision they made settled one long-discussed issue. Unanimously, board members voted to sell part of the tax-acquired property on Lombard Dam Road “back to the Estate of William H. Spaulding while retaining a portion of the property for use by the Town using a process for both parcels consistent with 36 M.R.S. § 943-C.”

(The state law requires municipalities to return the proceeds of any sale of tax-acquired property to the former owner or heirs, after deducting all costs the municipality incurred. Town Manager Aaron Miller has had the property surveyed; he is waiting for an appraiser’s report on its value.)

Miller had prepared a draft warrant for the town meeting. It begins at 6:30 p.m., Monday, June 2, at Vassalboro Community School, with an open meeting at which voters will discuss and decide 40 or more questions, including 2025-26 municipal and school budgets.

The meeting continues with written-ballot voting on Tuesday, June 10, at the town office, with polls open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The current draft of the June 10 part of the warrant includes amendments to the town’s solid waste ordinance and marijuana business ordinance; approval of the school budget adopted June 2; and local elections.

Select board members April 3 discussed some budget items, though neither the budget committee nor the school board has made final 2025-26 budget recommendations.

Resident John Melrose, founder of the business consulting service Maine Tomorrow, made a presentation on the fund balance policy developed by a town committee in 2019. In sum, the policy recommended the town keep in reserve in its unassigned fund balance (formerly known as surplus) an amount equal to 12 to 16 percent of its annual expenses, in the event of a financial disaster or an unexpected major expenditure.

The amount needed varies with factors including:

— the stability of the tax base (Vassalboro’s diversified, mostly residential economy is safer than a local economy that relies on a single major taxpayer);
— the stability and reliability of state and federal revenues;
— comparable (to area municipalities’) tax rates;
— the municipal debt level (the higher the debt, the more need for an ample fund balance); and
— the overall economy and housing prices.

Select board chairman Frederick “Rick” Denico, Jr., said as the town budget increases, board members should increase the fund balance, not dip into it to cover expenditures. Melrose agreed.

Board members talked about whether to recommend funding a recreation director’s position in the 2025-26 budget; the anticipated expenditure to replace the deteriorated Dunlap Bridge, on Mill Hill Road; the adequacy of the proposed stipend account for volunteer firefighters; a request to use money from the alewife fund to match a grant for work at Webber Pond; and Miller’s request for a $2,600 camera to monitor the water level at the Outlet Dam, in East Vassalboro, so public works employees need not check it.

In other business April 3, board members unanimously appointed Tim Connelly to the Sanitary District board of trustees, to serve until June 10 elections.

Conservation commission chairman Holly Weidner asked why the commission’s funding, unlike that for other town boards and committees, is listed separately in the town meeting warrant. She pointed out that cemetery committee funds are in the cemetery committee account, the trails committee funds in the recreation account, for example.

This year’s conservation commission request for $10,650 includes $10,000 for the China-based Courtesy Boat Inspection (CBI) program that the commission will oversee and $650 for other commission expenses. Miller explained that the problem was the $10,000; select board member Chris French said if the commission hired CBI, it was a procurement that should be bid out.

Wiedner replied bidding would be pointless, because no one else offers the service. Nor, she said, should CBI be listed as one of the outside agencies town voters fund annually.

Denico suggested finding a place for the commission in the warrant article that includes the administration account.

“Then we’re changing some accounts around” in the computerized bookkeeping system, Miller said resignedly.

Denico asked him to go ahead if the rearrangement is simple, skip it if not.

The final business of the evening was a brief discussion with cemetery committee chairmanj Savannah Clark, who had waited through two hours of other business, about the disagreement between members of her committee and the conservation commission over cutting trees in town cemeteries.

Last fall, Miller proposed having an arborist survey cemetery trees and mark ones needing removal. At their March meeting, cemetery committee members asked that work done in two cemeteries be redone with clearer markings (see the March 27 issue of The Town Line, pp. 2-3).

Clark said her committee members recommend no trees in cemeteries. Even healthy ones can be blown down in storms; damaging or destroying gravestones wastes volunteers’ time and wipes out evidence of town history.

Denico pointed out that the cemetery committee, not the conservation commission, is in charge of town cemeteries.

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