Town of Otisfield
Board of Selectmen Meeting Minutes
February 17, 2016
1. CALL TO ORDER: The regular meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM. Chairman; Hal Ferguson, Lenny Adler & Rick Micklon present.
2. FLAG SALUTE: Audience and Board members saluted the flag.
3. ACTION ON MINUTES:
A. Meeting minutes from February 3, 2016. *Motion to accept minutes. RM/LA – Unanimous.
4. SPECIAL EVENTS:
A. None.
5. BOARD & COMMITTEE REPORTS:
A. Planning Board: BD:
1) A (4) lot minor subdivision was approved at last night’s meeting and a couple members felt the driveway openings were a concern. The applicant has offered to purchase safety signs, i.e.; blind drive or hidden drive, if our Road Commissioner feels they are allowable. LA: I will discuss with Road Commissioner and report back at an upcoming meeting. RM: Are you suggesting 2? One on each side? BD: Yes, I believe that would satisfy the members.
2) Posted Public Hearings should be on the website calendar. RM: In addition to the PB Agenda’s? BD: Yes. RM: Annie does the calendar, but if any changes are made, she will need to be notified so that the information can be updated. BD will discuss with Annie.
3) Definitions Ordinance: PB is requesting that the OPRC review Definitions Ordinance and other Ordinances that have definitions in them. i.e.: Road Ordinance. RM: Are you looking at all Ordinances? BD: We could, we have a little bit of time before public hearing. LA: I believe this should be sent to the OPRC, that’s what they are there for. HF: June 9th is the Public Hearing. BD will email OPRC chair Joe Zilinsky directly.
B. OPRC. HF was asked at the last OPRC meeting to find out how multiple appeals pertaining to one item being contested could be handled. HF checked with Town Attorney and he said that the BOA could consolidate the appeals for the hearing. Any appeal must also allow for a reconsideration by the interested party or by the Appeals Board. OPRC will review this at an upcoming meeting. Only thing that is mandatory is the amount of time. All agree the whole process can be tightened up. RM: it still gives the process (2) appeals, so everyone has the chance to be heard twice. If they want to be heard a 3rd time, they have to take it to court. All agree this is a win/win situation.
C. OPRC: HF: Final Draft of Tax-Acquired Property Policy has been sent from HF to the Town Attorney.
6. DEPARTMENT HEADS:
A. Fire Dept.: Kyle Jordan:
1) Our neighboring Town Harrison has been down an engine so we have offered to give them temporary use of Otisfield’s Engine 1 (Gore Road). They have since had another tanker go down. RM: Do we have something stating their insurance will cover them borrowing it. KJ: Yes, a copy of their insurance will be provided.
2) Last Monday the FD training consisted of the dry hydrant on Williams Way and at the Town beach. No problems whatsoever. Kyle emailed Silvaqua Association to let them know there were no issues. HF: I sent an e-mail to MMA legal and received an answer back today. The assistant director is skeptical that using public funds on private property should be allowed. RM and LA read the e-mail. HF: Recommend that this e-mail be forwarded to Janet as president of SOA. RM and LA verbally agreed.
7. QUESTIONS/COMMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC:
A. John Steede, Bow Street, 15 years on FD. About 4 years ago, I asked about the manning of the Otisfield Gore Road Fire Station. I was told they were working on it. It has been 5 years now and there is still nobody manning the station. The truck is now gone (to Harrison) and although I think it’s great we do mutual aid, I feel we have to take care of our own town and assign someone to the station. KJ: There are currently no neighbors that are members of the FD and the station inspection gets done monthly. I have a member of the dept. who does respond when he’s in town. Takes it from Gore Road to Spurr’s corner monthly. More often than not, that is the only time it rolls. Monthly inspections are done though. There is no one assigned at this point to any of the vehicles. We have a building and equipment on an
end of town where we don’t have members. Nothing that says that if we got in a situation where we needed more than the 2 engines on scene, we couldn’t go grab that engine. John: How big of a situation does it need to be? It never responded to any of recent fires. KJ: The personnel we had, were tied up in what they were doing. We had as much attack apparatus as we could use. John: I had to fill out an insurance form for my house and I stated that we had an active Fire Dept. I feel I may have been dishonest, now knowing the Fire Truck is out of Town. My neighbors and I would like to have coverage up there. KJ: it is an active Fire Station. It is inspected monthly. The fire truck has not been relocated, it has been temporarily loaned to a town that is down and out. John: I would like to get someone to man that fire station. How many active Firefighters do we have? KJ: We have 22 on the roster. John: I am requesting that you assign 2 or 3 to this station. KJ: Our response is not
going to be slowed down based on the apparatus we use. John: If you can’t expend 2 or 3 to this station, perhaps it’s time to advertise for more volunteers? I have not seen it posted anywhere. KJ: No one wants to volunteer, it’s a full time job. RM: I believe that “active vs. manned” are two different meanings, so I don’t think you were dishonest whatsoever. RM: we can advertise on our website and put something up on the bulletin board. John: Is this being recorded so that I have something to go back to. RM: Yes you can see our minutes on line and if something is wrong, please correct us. TT will post on the website.
8. ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT ITEMS:
A. None.
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 # 15 to pay the town bills. LA/HF - Unanimous.
12. QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS FROM THE BOARD
A. Kayaks: HF: Last meeting we requested that Anne check with MMA regarding certified instructors. MMA responded that they definitely had to be certified and their legal opinion was the exposure is much too high for any town. Insurance will be a minimum of $1,000.00 annually, and their suggestion was sell or donate the kayaks. BOS would like to donate them to Seeds of Peace. Seeds of peace signed something absolving the Town from any liability. RM: Our intent is to give them away and the letter should state that. Hal will work with Anne on this.
B. Western Maine Transportation: RM: Spoke to Craig Zurhorst of WMTS and invited him to attend an upcoming BOS mtg. (back ground: Rick is the 2014/15 Chair of the 9 member County Budget Committee all Selectmen, and represents District 3, served by Commissioner Tim Turner) Due to Oxford County now funding them and our Finance Committee being opposed to such funding, Rick felt it was best to have Mr. Zurhorst, the Finance Committee and the BOS all in the same room. All agreed to March 2nd. Any questions for WMTS should be provided ahead of time so that all questions can be answered.
C. Pleasant Lake Dam. HF: I attended a joint meeting on February 4th . At Peter Barbers home. The next meeting with both towns BOS will be held, Tuesday, March 1st @ 7:00 PM. in Casco. We still need to go through DEP and other hoops, but it’s moving along.
D. Junkyards: (2) letters were sent, one for Spurrs Corner and one for Cobb Hill. Spurrs’ Corner responded, Cobb Hill did not. LA would like to know the status of Cobb Hill. Sandy will look into this and report back for next meeting.
13. EXECUTIVE SESSION:
A. Motion to enter into executive session pursuant to MSRS. *Motion to close executive session by___ 2nd___, All Y-N. Discussion: *There was no executive session held at this mtg.
14. ADJOURNMENT. *Motion to adjourn at 7:50 PM. HF/LA -Unanimous.
Respectfully submitted,
Tanya Taft, Secretary
Approved by:
Hal Ferguson, Chairman
Rick Micklon
Lenny Adler
Approved on March 2, 2016
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