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www.bridgton.com Vol. 143, No. 11
Serving Bridgton and the surrounding towns of Western Maine since 1870. 20 PAGES - 2 Sections
Bridgton, Maine
March 15, 2012
(USPS 065-020)
SIXTY CENTS
To reach ‘zero’ target, SAD 61 cuts $500,000
By Wayne E. Rivet Staff Writer Seeing budget proposals rejected by taxpayers last year and knowing a poor economy continues to hover over the Lake Region, SAD 61 Superintendent Kathy Beecher set a target of a zero increase — excluding debt service (increase of $83,409) and the high school revolving renovation fund loan ($49,716) — for the 2012-2013 budget. To achieve that target, the district’s Leadership Team and SAD 61 Finance Committee had to cut positions and reduce services to the tune of about $500,000. While some school board members, such as Laurie Mondville of Casco, say the cuts were necessary to gain voter support, other directors including Phil Shane of Casco and Laura Ordway of Bridgton deemed the current cuts as “too severe.” The public can chime in on the proposed budget this Monday night. “This is not the budget
Hearing Monday
SAD 61 will hold a public hearing on the proposed school budget this Monday, March 19, at 6 p.m. in the Lake Region High School cafeteria. A presentation will be followed by board discussion regarding various items that could either be deleted or added to the proposed budget. The public will be offered a chance to ask questions or voice opinions. A regular school board meeting will follow at 7 p.m. The agenda includes awarding Good Kid Awards. I would have brought in. It is based on the direction given to me (by the Finance Committee),” Superintendent Beecher said. Here’s the proposed reduction/addition list: • Grades K-5 — Reduction of Grade 1, 2 and 5 teachers at Songo Locks Elementary;
New pastor selected
The First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ (UCC), of Bridgton, has announced that Rev. Yael Lachman has been called to serve as its new settled pastor. Rev. Lachman replaces longtime minister, Rev. Dick Bennett, who retired in 2010 after more than 12 years of service with the church. She follows Interim Pastor Rev. Annette Mott. Finding a new minister and spiritual leader for a church can take a lot of time and effort. It is more than filling a job opening. For UCC churches, the recommended “search and call” process that churches undergo involves naming a search committee (a group charged with managing the process of finding a new minister), conducting a church survey to get a “snapshot” of the personality of the church and discover which qualities are important in its new minister, reviewing 25-page profiles of potential pastors, and finally, interviewing candidates and selecting a pastor who is the best fit for the congregation. In the Bridgton church’s case, it took more than a year to find that perfect fit. It also involved reviewing 40 pastor profiles, more than 1,200 volunteer hours and cross-country trips to and from California, where Rev. Lachman was serving in her third year as a pastoral intern at Skyland Community Church in Los Gatos, Calif. Rev. Lachman was raised among California’s Sierra
Reduction of Grade 1and 4 teachers at Stevens Brook Elementary (classroom sizes at SLS Grade 5 and SBES Grade 4 will likely be 24) ; Reduction of a permanent substitute teacher at Sebago Elementary School. Originally, the school board looked to cut nine kindergarten ed techs at the three elementary schools for a reduction of $229,726. At their budget workshop Monday night, directors proposed to restore 6.5 ed techs at a cost of $192,549. Because many elementary school children currently fail to meet basic standards, school administrators and some school board members questioned how this cut will reverse the trend — feeling eliminating support services will add to the downward spiral. An addition to the budget, however, were 6.5 math/literacy WELCOMING ANNE KRIEG — (at left) aboard as the Town of Bridgton’s new director of resource facilitators (ed tech III). Planning, Economic and Community Development are Code Enforcement Officer Rob Baker Some directors felt 6.5 K ed techs (Ackley Photo) should be returned to the budget and Executive Assistant Georgiann Fleck. to go along with the resource facilitators. These items will be
BUDGET, Page 10A
Welcome aboard
Planning director eager to start
By Lisa Williams Ackley Staff Writer Anne Krieg is excited to be coming to Bridgton as the town’s new director of Planning, Economic and Community Development, with her first full week here beginning April 2. Having helped create the Comprehensive Plan for the Town of Bar Harbor that won Plan of the Year from the Maine Association of Planners in 2007, Krieg is more than well-versed as to how to create and implement a workable municipal comprehensive plan. Since last year, Bridgton’s Comprehensive Plan Committee has been hard at work updating the town’s 2004 Comprehensive
Plan that was not implemented after it was completed nearly a decade ago. Maine state law says a comprehensive plan must be formulated for each municipality, as the first step toward implementing zoning, and it must also be updated every few years. The statute also requires each town to have a committee for the purpose of formulating a comprehensive plan — which can be the local planning board itself, a committee comprised of some planning board members along with other community members, or a separate appointed committee altogether. Krieg acknowledged the fact that differences can exist among
committee members working together on their municipality’s comprehensive plan. “When I did the Comprehensive Plan in Bar Harbor, I used the planning board as the required committee,” Krieg said, in an interview last week, “and I just funneled everything through them. When the planning board sent recommendations (for the comprehensive plan) to legal counsel, I put them in a room and let them duke it out — I think I would rather have them get emotional and figure it out and deliberate together.” Asked what she plans to do, in her new role as direc-
By Gail Geraghty Staff Writer The Army Corps of Engineers isn’t willing to eliminate a $30,000 wetlands mitigation fee on the McDonald’s project in Bridgton, despite plans by developer Mark Lopez to add a second stormwater filter pond. “It’s very unlikely” that the fee would be lifted from the permit requirements, Army Corps Senior Project Manager Rodney Howe
said last week. “Based on current law, we’re required to seek compensation for wetland disturbance,” and nothing in Lopez’s amended Site Location of Development Act permit request with the Department of Environmental Protection, nor its National Resources Protection Act amended permit request, would change that requirement, he said. Tom DuBois of Main-Land Development Consultants, Inc. filed the amendment proposal
in February with the DEP’s Bill Bullard, asking him to “do the math” and reconsider its decision on wetlands compensation. DuBois sent a copy of the amendment request to Gov. Paul LePage, whose office has encouraged the department to create more business-friendly policies. Lopez said in February that the $30,000 impact fee “compromised the economics of the proj-
rate, decrease trash, promote fairness and save money. Yet, the Bridgton Board of Selectmen offered differing opinions on the Recycling Committee’s proposal at their meeting Tuesday night, with some saying they would entertain different ideas about how to increase recycling, should they be forthcoming. Currently, it costs Bridgton $158 per ton for trash disposal at ecomaine’s site, as well as $213 per haul to get it there. The selectmen will hold a public informational meeting on the Recycling Committee’s recommendation to go to pay-per-bag recycling on March 20 at 6 p.m. in the
downstairs meeting room at the Bridgton Municipal Complex. Recycling Committee CoChairman Al Burk and his group have been researching and working for two years on how to promote better recycling in Bridgton, as it seems to have reached a plateau. He said the goal is to achieve an additional 325 tons of recycling for a projected savings of $69,000. The town’s transfer station processed 585 tons of recyclable materials and 2,205 tons of trash in 2011. Town Manager Mitch Berkowitz said the town’s recycling rate has “capped off at 22%.”
Lopez unlikely to prevail in having wetlands fee lifted
NEW PASTOR of the First Congregational Church in Bridgton is Rev. Yael Lachman. Nevada Mountains. In 2011, she earned her master’s degree in Divinity from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif., and was recently ordained at her home church, the First Congregational Church of Santa Cruz, Calif. Her family is Jewish, and her distinctive name, Yael, literally means, “to go up or ascend.” She will also tell you it is the Hebrew word for “mountain goat,” a sure-footed climber and
a symbol she is proud to be associated with. The spiritual journey that led her to the UCC and the western mountains of Maine has been a remarkable climb. “I was on my way to Rabbinical School when I realized that the community I was being called to was much wider By Lisa Williams Ackley than the Jewish community,” Staff Writer said Rev. Lachman. “I explored The Town of Bridgton’s a lot of different traditions and Recycling Committee is recomsettled on the Christian con- mending enacting pay-per-bag recycling to increase the recycling PASTOR, Page A
begin as soon as possible, and the new station would be ready for occupancy by next spring. “It will be the biggest single expenditure the town of Sebago’s ever made,” and the result of nearly 20 years of debate and planning, Selectman Allen Crabtree said Tuesday. Ward Hill Architects of West Baldwin, which selectmen hired in January at a cost of $35,120 to draw up plans, has estimated construction costs for the four-bay station at $878,039. But Crabtree said selectmen are hopeful that bids will come in lower than estimated, because the economy is still hurting and contractors are eager for work.
“We were pleasantly surprised when the high school bids were opened” last year and found to be less than anticipated, he noted. Regardless of the bid amount, selectmen plan to finance the construction over 15 years, to minimize the effect on taxpayers. If the architect’s estimate holds true, the annual net cost would be around $51,000 a year, or around a $30 increase in taxes per year for a $200,000 home. The town’s website chronicles the journey toward the new station that began in 1996, when the Sebago Fire Department recommended a committee be formed to locate a suitable site. The report
MCDONALD’S, Page 10A
Pay-per-bag hearing Tues.
Site plan ok’d for new fire station
By Gail Geraghty Staff Writer SEBAGO — The Sebago Planning Board unanimously approved a site plan Tuesday for a new fire and rescue station to replace two aging fire stations in East and North Sebago, both built in the early 1950s. The next step is to seek bids for the proposed four-bay, 10,000square-foot station, to be located on two acres on Route 114 just north of Fitch Mill Pond. Voters will then be asked to approve funding for construction in a referendum in June, to be held on the same day as local elections. If voters approve funding, work would
KRIEG, Page A
said the 50-year-old East Sebago Station on Route 114 has inadequate bathroom facilities, no room for office space and an overhead door that restricts larger fire vehicles from entering. Parking is inadequate, and the station is inefficient to heat. The North Sebago Station has no running water, poor visibility for oncoming traffic, and even more access restrictions for larger fire vehicles. Station 1 in Center Sebago was never properly insulated and was built without running water or bathrooms. It wasn’t until the 2003 Town Meeting, however, that voters
FIRE STATION, Page A
HEARING, Page 10A
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