Town of Otisfield
Board of Selectmen Meeting Minutes
October 15, 2014
1. CALL TO ORDER: The regular meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM. Hal Ferguson – Chairman, Rick Micklon & Lenny Adler present.
2. FLAG SALUTE: Audience and Board members saluted the flag.
3. ACTION ON MINUTES:
A. Meeting minutes from October 1, 2014. *Motion to accept minutes with edits. RM/LA-Unanimous. TT will make edits and post on website.
4. SPECIAL EVENTS
A. General Assistance Appendices Hearing: Chairman HF opened the public hearing at 7:16 P.M. for the 2014-2015 Housing Appendices. MIM: Usually this runs from October through September, but in July 2014 the maximum amounts was raised. This year the housing went up a little. Ie: For (1) person it went up $5.00 for (2) people it went up $10.00, so on and so forth. RM: For clarification, the Town pays for this and the State refunds the Town 50% of what was paid out? MIM: Yes. BOS reviewed the appendices for the current year. *Motion to accept the 2014-2015 increases. HF/RM – Unanimous. Chairman HF closed the public hearing at 7:25 P.M.
5. COMMITTEE REPORTS:
A. Road Study Review committee; Informational meeting Oct. 23, 2014 in the Annex @ 7:00 PM.
B. Robinson Dam Committee: Next meeting will be held on Wednesday, December 10th @ 6:00 PM. TT will attend as requested, to act as Secretary.
6. DEPARTMENT HEADS:
A. None.
7. QUESTIONS/COMMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC.
A. Kathleen Jackson Dillingham is a 2014 Republican candidate for District 72 of the Maine House and wanted to come and introduce herself to the Town. If she gets elected, she is asking the BOS to get her involved and let her know how she can help Otisfield.
8. ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT ITEMS
A. Supplemental Tax Warrant # 1 in the amount of $1,821.96 was billed to the wrong person, so it is being abated and they will supplement the
correct person. *Motion to sign the supplemental Tax Warrant # 1. LA/RM – Unanimous.
B. Someone was listed under the Homestead Exemption that shouldn’t have been. The office has corrected this. *Motion to sign the abatements. LA/HF – Unanimous.
C. Bell Hill Meeting House Association: Property was taxed and should not have been. The office has corrected this. *Motion to sign the abatement. LA/RM – Unanimous.
D. Harvest Hill Dance: Application has been filled out. A check for $10.00 needs to be signed and sent in with the application for BYOB. Fire Dept Assoc. has the insurance under the town policy.
E. State valuation 2015. In our county, these values are per April 1, 2013. Last year $280,950,000 This year $273,150,000 so it’s gone down a few thousand.
F. Chris Davis, program coordinator of Healthy Oxford Hills is providing more free non-smoking signs for Otisfield.
G. Illuminated Sign Grant Update: We did not get the grant for the Emergency Sign, but we will reach out to see if others can help the Town purchase this.
H. Virginia Aresenault did some research after attending last meeting and submitted a number of pages concerning public roads. Abandonment vs. discontinued roads. (Submitted into public record). HF is going to go through what is provided regarding “Putting Public Roads to Bed in Maine”. *Tabled until an upcoming meeting.
9. ADJUSTMENTS TO AGENDA
A. None.
10. UNFINISHED BUSINESS
A.
11. SELECTMEN’S ITEMS TO BE DISCUSSED & VOTED ON
A. Town Warrant: *Motion to sign Warrant # 7 to pay the town bills. LA/HF - Unanimous.
B. Set date for performance evaluations - CEO & Admin. Assistant. *Tabled until an upcoming mtg.
12. QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS FROM THE BOARD
A. Swampville Property Site Walk: All agree to meet at 9 Am on Monday, October 20th at Swampville Road Town Property.
B. Heniger Park Lease Review: All agree to meet at 7 PM on Wednesday, October 22nd.
C. Town Garage: LA: Crooked River Heating went to Town Garage and gave a proposal on increasing the garage oil tank capacity. *Motion to authorize Crooked River Heating to add an additional 275 gallon oil tank at the town garage for a cost of $1,627.24. RM/LA – Unanimous. *LA will contact Crooked River Heating tomorrow.
D. Two Ponds Trail: HF: Kiosk had a nice looking map on it and all agree that a large laminated map should be purchased and placed at this location and that Bob Blake has done a great job.
E. Heniger Park Site Walk review: RM: Lot 4 (the shore front lot that has abandoned building on it). Town Forester Bill Newcomb & RM have spoken and property has been marked out in the grid pattern required by Maine DEP for cutting within SZ. RM submitted this plan to CEO. A quote was given for approx. $4,000.00 and wood kept. The reason for the high quote is because the trees would need to be cut from the top down to prevent them from falling on a neighbor’s lot. LA suggests asking Q-Team, Sheldon Rice of Rice Tree Service or Marston’s Tree Service
for Quotes. RM will research. *Tabled until an upcoming meeting.
F. RM: John Mahoney, Senior Land Use Planner at AVCOG will be reviewing all of our ordinances as part of his service, but if he is going to look into it in depth for over-all continuity it would be charged at an hourly rate. RM will bring a letter from AVCOG to next meeting after he has spoken to John again. John has 39 years of experience. John has assisted more than 40 Towns including Otisfield, and drafted 100’s of land use ordinances including 5 wireless telecommunications facility ordinances. Assisted in over 5 Cell Tower Ordinances.
13. ADJOURNMENT. *Motion to adjourn at 8:25PM. HF/RM-Unanimous.
Respectfully submitted,
Tanya Taft, Secretary
Approved by:
Hal Ferguson, Chairman
Rick Micklon
Lenny Adler
Approved on November 5, 2014
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