Town of Otisfield
Board of Selectmen Meeting Minutes
July 16, 2014
1. CALL TO ORDER: The regular meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM. Hal Ferguson – Chairman & Rick Micklon present. (Lenny Adler Absent).
2. FLAG SALUTE: Audience and Board members saluted the flag.
3. ACTION ON MINUTES:
A. Meeting minutes from June 18, 2014. *Motion to accept minutes. RM/HF-Unanimous.
B. Warrant Review & Approval from June 30, 2014. *Motion to accept minutes. RM/HF – Unanimous.
4. SPECIAL EVENTS
A. Tarring Bids; Richard Bean, Sr. 7:05pm. (2) Bids received.
1) All States Asphalt, Inc. out of Windham, ME - $243,287.50
2) F.R. Carroll, Inc. out of Limerick, ME - $179,940.00.
*Motion to go with F.R. Carroll Inc. for a total $179,940 for paving Powhattan & Gore Road. HF/RM -Unanimous.
B. Road Commissioner: At Town Meeting this position had a motion and second for Richard Bean but was not voted upon before declared unanimous. We need to elect Road Commissioner for the upcoming year. *Motion that we claim the Otisfield road commissioner position vacant. HF/RM. – Unanimous. *Motion that we nominate Richard Bean Sr. for the rest of the year as Road Commissioner. HF/RM – Unanimous.
C. General Assistance Public Hearing on Appendices A. *Motion to open @ 7:16 PM. RM/HF – Unanimous. Appendix A, June 30, 2015. Oxford County has increased gross income by $8.00 month from last year. *Motion to close public hearing @ 7:18 PM. HF/RM – Unanimous. BOS Signed General Assistance Appendices.
D. Kristen Roy: Requested to be on Agenda to address her complaint / misrepresentations / safety concerns.
HF: Are you recording. Kristen: Yes. HF: you have every right to record this meeting, but it may stifle what is said. I can’t stop you, but I don’t condone it. Kristen read her newest letter out loud. BOS asked if it was something she would like them to read so it would not be too emotional for her to read aloud. Kristen declined. HF wanted to respond to her 1st paragraph to address what was said. Kristen declined, and asked if she could finish reading it. HF: Explained, I would like to discuss it point by point so that nothing gets overlooked. Kristen: Feels as though it would answer a lot of questions if she read through it all at once. HF/RM agreed, but thought it might eliminate confusion and be less emotional for her to go through it paragraph by paragraph. Kristen continued to read her letter out loud
and became emotional. RM: Would you like to stop: Kristen: No. RM: We like to do things in public with the 3 elected officials. We are trying to be consistent. But it’s difficult when there are 4 different documents before the Board. We ARE listening, but we are trying to address one complaint at a time. Kristen; all complaints are how my safety is being compromised. Kristen finished reading letter. When Kristen finished reading her prepared statement she said “I do not have the capacity to discuss this w/ you tonight. Please put anything you would like to say back to me in writing”. Kristen then left the building. HF: once again we don’t know exactly what the problem is. She did threaten the town with possible legal action in her letter on the 17th. We tried to stop her from reading the whole letter, because we know she gets emotional. RM: We have been advised to discuss things w/ her in public and not in private. If the conversation is only allowed to be
one sided, we’ll never resolve this. HF: this is why I wanted to do it paragraph by paragraph. Pixie Williams (public): She needs help. She has got to learn that life is not legalistic. I’d recommend that the Board come from a caring/loving (?) place when dealing with her concerns. RM: I‘ve said I wish she would get someone to help her work through this. So if she had a question, a friend could help her when she gets emotional. I’m supporting what you propose because that person could help her through the meeting. Pixie: She just needs to bury the hatchet and move forward. HF: We have done so with the others involved with the cell tower issue but Kristen cannot seem to do so. RM: There is no way that this Board ever wants anyone in this town to feel unsafe. We have never encouraged or supported anyone in this town, employees included, to treat her any differently than others. IF she feels unsafe, she needs to report it, because we don’t want anyone to feel unsafe. On the
other hand, we can’t be held responsible if another citizen is hostile to her. We recognize that may happen, but it hasn’t happened when BOS are present. She is saying it’s the towns’ responsibility. WE can’t take ownership of that. She has threatened us w/ law suit, it may not have been what she meant, but it is what was said. We are trying to get her to understand that she did say it. It’s difficult because we are trying to be good listeners, but to resolve her concerns we need the opportunity to talk about it and help her, but whenever we get to a point to talk about it, she doesn’t allow us to respond; just like tonight. HF: The original complaint against Sandy Ouellette, has been investigated and documented, and she didn’t want to see it. Regarding her letter saying that I was belligerent; I WAS NOT. I set up a meeting in the CEO office so she would have privacy. She talks about her running for BOS, but it didn’t come from the Town Office. There were rumors,
but Leslie (Dixon) called her to address it prior to the Sun Journal article. We understand she is quite emotional, but we would like to address what she is accusing the Town of. Pixie: Maybe you can all say sorry and let’s move on. HF/RM: we have and have also said let’s move on and we thought we had, but it keeps getting brought up. We don’t want anyone feeling unsafe but we don’t want the town being held responsible. We are not doing anything to instigate things.
5. COMMITTEE REPORTS:
A. Planning Board: An application was received from David Hyer. *Motion to appoint David Hyer in to the vacant Alternate position for a (5) year Planning Board term ending 06/2019. HF/RM – Unanimous. *TT will update web site.
B. Robinson Dam Committee: Next meeting will be held on Wednesday, July 30th. TT will attend as requested, to act as Secretary.
C. Road Study Review Committee: Quen Henderson: Engineer for Dept of transportation is meeting w/ the committee on August 5th. All are welcome to attend.
6. DEPARTMENT HEADS:
A. IT Support; David Hyer: New computer installs were done today at the Spurs’ Corner Fire Dept.. Network was rewired. Internet performance upgrade will be done. He will need to be there when Fairpoint service needs to do internet upgrade. Security cameras have been set up and are operating. Meeting w/ alarm company tomorrow.
7. QUESTIONS/COMMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC.
A. Oak Hill Road residents requesting pavement being restored. Letter submitted into public record. Oak Hill Road, Mains Road, Jug Town and Holden Trail people requesting maint. on their roads. Thomas Nile: Understand Road commissioner is busy and not trying to be pushy, but the roads have been washed out from the rain. Culverts are all full and washed out. Brooks filled up from sand running down the hill. RM: we will ask him if he has plans to address this area and if it’s not in the budget, we will ask him to look at it the next fiscal year. Thomas Nile: Q-Team would donate the removal of trees for this area.
B. Community Center Donation: Pixie Williams would like to donate money to have blinds at the Community Hall. This would allow Power Point presentations down there. David Hyer has been doing measurements. The BOS has been supportive and townspeople very generous donating money over the years for the lakes and Pixie thought maybe she could help the Town by donating this. The total cost is just over $400.00. David Hyer: I agreed to go down and take measurements and a count. Sample provided. Labor cost will be approx 75% of material. HF would like to defer this until LA is in attendance. RM/HF: Thank you for this kind gesture. The town appreciates your generosity. *Tabled until an upcoming meeting.
8. ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT ITEMS
A. Samples of signs (3) examples brought forward. Brown or black stands out. All agree the ones at Heniger Park are good and just want to be sure signs are all consistent.
B. Thank you note from Pleasant Lake and Parker Pond for the financial support. Mill foil has been eliminated.
C. Mr. & Mrs. Durgin (residents): Looking to install private poles – requesting to install a power line to their property. Spoke to Evergreen Electric today and CMP, faxed over permit. MIM: His information will be put in and they should have pole permit by the 23rd. June 5th is when they spoke to Richard St. John and were really hoping this process would have been completed by now. RM: We will expedite as quickly as possible.
9. ADJUSTMENTS TO AGENDA
A. None.
10. UNFINISHED BUSINESS
A. None.
11. SELECTMEN’S ITEMS TO BE DISCUSSED & VOTED ON
A. Town Warrant: *Motion to sign Warrant #1 to pay the town bills. HF/RM - Unanimous.
B. MMA Ballot for Annual election: V.P. & Executive Committee members. *Tabled until LA is in attendance.
C. MMA Ballot Legislative Policy Committee. *BOS signed.
D. MDOT Local Roads Assistance Program Certification form. Form filled out annually. The total is $60,620.00 for the fiscal year. *BOS signed and dated so that the town can get money back by December 1st. MIM will have LA sign when he comes back.
E. Notice on schedule August 9th – Household Hazardous Waste Day, once a year. Located on Brown Street in Norway.
F. Del Maxfield, Maine Survey Consultants (MSC), Inc. in Harrison Maine: RM: Survey for Map R9, lot 31, ¼ acres, Spurs’ Corner lot to be in the range of $1,000.00. *Motion that we accept proposal in the range of $1,000.00 and have this land surveyed. RM/HF – Unanimous.
12. QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS FROM THE BOARD
A. Otisfield Community Hall boundary survey. This has been completed. The map and accompanying letter have been entered into public record.
B. Otisfield Annual Business Showcase will be held August 2nd.
C. Oxford Hills Technical School is selling woodworking items. BOS do not feel they need anything at this time.
D. Home and land sales are up in Otisfield and Maine: RM and member of the public agreed on this.
E. Saturday Pond Watershed: Removal of planks for the dam. RM: I would like LA to be present for this discussion. I have yet to have formed a strong opinion, but would like research and have the dam keeper involved.
F. Heniger Park – HF: Attorney was called today to meet about Heniger Park leases. Sometime in August this needs to happen.
G. Community Hall generator: HF would like to see this all set and ready to go. Boiler for town office needs to be looked at as well. MIM will check into generator grant status.
13. ADJOURNMENT. *Motion to adjourn at 8:53 PM. HF/RM-Unanimous.
Respectfully submitted,
Tanya Taft, Secretary
Approved by:
Hal Ferguson, Chairman
Rick Micklon
Lenny Adler
Approved on August 6, 2014
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