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Serving Bridgton and the surrounding towns of Western Maine since 1870. Vol. 144, No. 10
24 PAGES - 2 Sections
Bridgton, Maine
building where she had attended elementary school. At the town office, Beckwith made friends with her co-workers who “seem like family.” Beckwith has been a municipal employee who greets the young children accompanying their parents on that errand to the town office. “I genuinely care about the people. I am passionate about people. I want to find solutions for them when they come into our office. I don’t see black and white; I always see a gray area, a solution,” she said. Now, Beckwith has her own little girl to raise. She has taken steps toward providing the best future for her child. With the ball rolling in that direction, some big life changes have spun her way. Last week, she and her husband closed on a house in Naples.
“She’s doing everything that Judy did, plus,” Harrison Town Manager George “Bud” Finch said. Along with the usual town clerk duties of record keeping, colleting taxes and fees, issuing permits and licenses, supervising clerical staff and town elections, St. John will also serve as administrative secretary to the town manager, secretary to the Harrison Board of Selectmen, and will supervise any technology changes required in the future at the town office. Finch joked that when Colburn first saw the revised job description, “Judy said, ‘God, I wouldn’t want to do that job’.” But with Colburn retiring, Finch said it was the right time to make the change. With significant cutbacks looming in state
SIXTY CENTS
Parents push for input; SAD 61 tables proposal
By Wayne E. Rivet Staff Writer Joey Austin still remembers the “shameful” look on a classmate’s face when their eyes met at a local gro-
cery store checkout line. The classmate was purchasing a box of condoms. Austin, who was a cashier, suspects the teen was wondering whether he
Barbara Beckwith “It’s great to be able to provide a home for our daughter, and have our daughter’s first birthday party in that home. And, it’s great to still be part of this community,” she said. Next week, after five years with her current employer, Beckwith starts a new job in a different town. Beckwith’s final full-time SECRETARY, Page 12A
New Harrison town clerk St. John starts Monday By Gail Geraghty Staff Writer HARRISON — Melissa St. John will have big shoes to fill when she takes over the town clerk’s job in Harrison. The obvious reason is because she’s replacing a highly-respected veteran town employee, Judy Colburn, who served twice as Interim Town Manager over her 24 years as Town Clerk. Colburn, who for many embodied the spirit behind Harrison’s motto as “The Friendly Village,” will officially step down as full-time Town Clerk this Friday, March 8. But when St. John starts work as the new Harrison Town Clerk on Monday, March 11, she’ll be taking on additional responsibilities that weren’t part of Colburn’s job description.
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Condom access
Naples secretary lands new job By Dawn De Busk Staff Writer NAPLES — Ever since she was a young child, Barbara McDonough could envision working for a municipality as a job she could aspire to. “When I was a little girl and I went to the town office with my mom, I viewed the people at the town office as people who were respected. I would think, ‘Wow, this is where people pay their taxes. This is our local government,’” said Naples Secretary Barbara McDonough Beckwith. She stayed true to her childhood dream. Beckwith went to California and garnered a glistening resume working for the Commissioner of the Port of Oakland. Upon returning to the East Coast, she landed the secretary job with the Naples Town Office. To her delight, she was working in the same
March 7, 2013
Weather . . . . . . . . . . . 9B
revenue assistance, elevating employee productivity becomes a necessary choice. “The question becomes one of how to do more with fewer people,” he said. Town office restructuring Soon after he came to Harrison, Finch saw the need to take a fiveyear instead of fiscal-year approach to the budget, and began by looking for ways to save money by increasing productivity of town employees. With St. John’s hiring, a milestone has been achieved in that ongoing restructuring process, he said in his weekly update. “To meet the many changes yet not add new personnel, we are reorganizing who and how we
BUSY SATURDAY FOR FIREMEN — Harrison and other area fire departments were busy Saturday handling fires on Naples Road (above) and Scribner’s Mill Road. See story on Page 12A. (Photos courtesy of Bud Finch)
might tell others what he saw or was trying to figure out who the teen was going to have intercourse with. “I wanted to say you are making the right decision to protect yourself,” said Austin, who is a senior at Lake Region High School. “I wasn’t going to ridicule him.” Embarrassment and fear of losing a sense of confidentiality are reasons many teens shy away from buying condoms at local stores, thus leading them to engage in unprotected sex. Austin, who is a student representative on the SAD 61 School Board, supports the idea of condom distribution through the high school’s nurse’s office. Several parents, however, think otherwise. Robert Neault of Naples feels parental input on the subject is warranted before the school opens the door to condom distribution. Others questioned whether the school should be involved in the matter at all, calling distribution of condoms “inappropriate” and possibly circumventing CONDOM, Page A
Pass it on or pay it?
CLERK, Page A
Meeting tonight on sewer system’s future By Gail Geraghty Staff Writer Bridgton residents interested in increasing redevelopment possibilities for its downtown are invited to attend a public workshop tonight, Thursday, March 7, at 6 p.m. to tell the Wastewater Committee and selectmen what locations in town they’d like to see the town expand its sewer system. “Research indicates that a sewer expansion for our sized community could run from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million dollars,
depending upon the kind of expansion and treatment that an engineering feasibility report recommends,” Town Manager Mitch Berkowitz wrote in a Feb. 8 memo to the Wastewater Committee. He recommended that such a feasibility study be conducted, noting that the fiscal impact could be reduced through various grants. The town is looking at possibly expanding the system beyond Pondicherry Square to lower Main Street, and also possibly along Portland Road. New field locations would have to be created
in order to do so, since the existing lower ball field leach field has all but reached its capacity in terms of allocations already granted. Around half of the system’s users, or 30 customers on Main Street from around the Bridgton Methodist Church to Pondicherry Square are served by the lower ball field leach field. The Wayside leach field still has available capacity, so the need isn’t as pressing to expand the system on that end. Berkowitz estimated that anywhere from 176 to 352
new users would need to be connected to an expanded system in order to finance the necessary borrowing. One possible new field location that the Wastewater Committee is eyeing is town-owned land behind the Squeaky Clean Laundromat on SmithAvenue and Portland Road. Another town-owned parcel on Kansas Road is also being considered. Committee members and selectmen have said they want to involve the public as much as possible in decisions about expanding the sewer, because future growth
in town will follow such decisions. They encourage residents who have questions or concerns to attend the meeting. The Wastewater Committee is also reviewing changes in the ordinance governing the manner in which allocations of sewer capacity are issued. At the Feb. 26 Selectmen meeting, Wastewater Committee member Glen “Bear” Zaidman noted the need to update the spreadsheet listing current allocations so that it can be clearly seen SEWER, Page A
By Dawn De Busk Staff Writer CASCO — Don’t worry, property taxpayers. The Town of Casco is NOT paying to put small planes in the air, and take aerial photos of each and every parcel within its town’s boundaries. There is no need to fly — with the advent of modern technology like Google Earth, the State of Maine’s Web Map 2011 imagery cross-referenced with higher resolution aerial photos from 2001, and
the constant assistance of the Cumberland County Registry of Deeds. Robert Rogers, a geographical information system (CADIGIS) technician, is the person responsible for updating the tax maps — something most towns do on a yearly basis. Rogers spoke during a workshop of the Casco Board of Selectmen on Tuesday evening. Part of the job involves aerial mapping. “No part of what we are doing involves flying a plane and taking a picture
of Casco. Nope. We are relying on the data that is already out there,” Rogers said. He explained the many methods he uses to make tax maps that mirror property changes made over the past year. Another one of his objectives was to improve the quality of the tax maps. At one point in his PowerPoint presentation he provided selectmen with a summary of changes. He said roughly 50 real estate transactions, rezoning or subdividing had occurred.
Those property changes had resulted in changes to 30 actual tax maps. He began to show “then versus now” slides of the maps. Casco Town Manager Dave Morton interjected momentarily, saying he was speaking on behalf of residents — who might be watching the workshop on the cable TV station, and who think there is a proposed property line change. “He is not changing anyone’s property lines. He is changing the maps to
reflect property changes. He is adjusting the maps” to show the real lines of parcels that have had changes made at the Registry of Deeds, Morton said. Rogers picked back up TAX MAPS, Page A
Tax maps to mirror Casco properties
By Dawn De Busk Staff Writer CASCO – Allowing customers to pay for items with credit cards is all about providing better service. Nowadays, who wants to be limited to carrying around cash or writing a check? As it stands, Casco’s Town Office is not set up to accept credit cards or debit cards. So – in order to offer more convenience to residents, the Casco Board of Selectmen has been reviewing credit card services. During a workshop on Tuesday, representatives of TD Bank discussed a few types of credit cards, including a Personal Identification Number (PIN) bankcard system that charged a flat fee of 60 cents per swipe. One credit card system offered by TD Bank would allow all types of transactions. With this system, the town would be billed for 25 percent of the total transactions. This offering is referred to as merchant services. Another credit card system, which is offered by the company Bill2Pay, would shuffle the fee (of about 3%) to the customers. However, only certain transactions such as tax bills and fines are typically permitted, according to Bob PAY, Page A
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P.O. Box 244, 118 Main St. Bridgton, ME 04009 207-647-2851 Fax: 207-647-5001 bnews@roadrunner.com