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Serving Bridgton and the surrounding towns of Western Maine since 1870. Vol. 147, No. 12
20 PAGES - 2 Sections
Bridgton, Maine
March 24, 2016
Play nice to get tax data
By Dawn De Busk Staff Writer NAPLES — The town assessors recommended that the Town of Naples take the friendly approach to gathering personal property tax lists from the owners of local businesses. On the top of the list is public awareness — letting people know that this process is taking place. Next is getting an accurate list of all the businesses in town, which might require the help of the town staff and area chambers of commerce. Then, the town will send carefullycrafted letters to all Naples businesses, asking the owners to provide an updated list of taxable items by a certain date. (For those who do not respond by returning the taxable inventory list, the assessors can assign a tax based on the type of business.) “After those two steps, we create a new inventory of businesses and meet with the board TAX, Page 5A
www.bridgton.com
SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS
PR firm hired to sell sewer rules
The colorized postcard photo taken from the Remember in Bridgton Facebook page shows the Bridgton Books building at left, as it was around the late 1930s or early 1940s. Questions arose at Tuesday’s Bridgton Selectmen’s meeting about the historic eligibility of the Main Street building to receive a $9,500 matching façade grant under the Community Development Block Grant program administered through Cumberland County. Above, a current photograph of the building.
By Gail Geraghty Staff Writer Bridgton Selectmen have decided to hire a marketing firm to help explain changes they believe are urgently needed to free up unused capacity in the downtown sewer system. The board agreed Tuesday in a 4-1 vote, with Paul Hoyt opposed, to hire Next Generation Strategies to conduct an informational campaign on revisions to the sewer ordinance that are coming up for a revote in June. The cost of up to $10,000 will be paid from the town’s Sewer Enterprise Fund, the board decided. Selectmen agreed that residents simply didn’t understand what they were voting on last November, and that — more than any misinformation — was the main reason why they rejected revisions to the Sewer Ordinance that switches from a flow-based user fee system to an equiva-
lent-user fee system. In refining the changes and placing them back before voters, Next Generation Strategies will devise and deliver a campaign to make sure taxpayers understand what they are voting on — and why. The existing fee system has inequities that don’t allow for ongoing maintenance and operational costs and places a stranglehold on new development, selectmen have repeatedly said — but they haven’t, on their own or working with the Wastewater Committee, been able to get that message across. The decision to hire the marketing firm, which had earlier been recommended by the Wastewater Committee, comes as the committee’s chairman, Glen “Bear” Zaidman, made a decision to resign. Even though the resignation was not in writing, and the committee urged selectmen not to accept it in PR FIRM, Page 3A
Historic eligibility drawn into question
By Gail Geraghty Staff Writer Last-minute questions have arisen over whether the Bridgton Books building on Main Street has enough historical significance to qualify for a Community Development Block Grant from the town. Planning and Economic Development Director Anne Krieg told Bridgton Selectmen Tuesday that Cumberland County CBDG officials raised the question By Dawn De Busk with her last week, when Staff Writer turning over the final CDBG CASCO — It is not often project list as decided by someone insists on writing the board at their March 8 a check for a purchase, and admits that they would have paid the offering price after getting a slightly better deal. It happened during a live By Dawn De Busk auction of a tax-acquired lot Staff Writer on Tenney Hill Road. The CASCO — Roads matter land auction was part of the Casco Board of Selectmen to people investing in residential property. meeting on March 15. Wayne Wood appeared Casco resident Wayne Small lives at 39 Tenney Hill before the Casco Planning Road and is an abutter to the Board on March 14, asking lot, which the Town of Casco if there was a time in the acquired through a tax lien future that Graystone Drive could become a public easein 2010. The town manager and ment. Wood was acting as board members were unable an agent for Mecap, LLC, to locate the amount of back which is a loan broker locattaxes owed on the property. ed in Portland. Wood said he was not Typically the back taxes are added to the minimum bid entirely comfortable with price so that the town can the idea that the road would never, could never become a recoup its losses. The baseline bid price was public easement. set at 40% of the assessed value of the lot, or $12,400. The reason the price is so low is that the quit-claim deed process is used during the land sale. Taking on the role of auctioneer, Selectman Grant Plummer asked Small to explain why he would offer less than the baseline price. “It is not worth the value. It has no well. I’ll give you $12,400. But can I go lower?” Small asked. He offered $11,000. Plummer responded in a positive manner. “That is a fair price for the (amount of) debris left on the property,” he said. COLORFUL, CREATIVE According to Casco Town MURAL — Monday night, Manager Dave Morton, the the Bridgton Community property on Tenney Hill Center held an unveiling Road “has no structures but for the bottle cap mural some junk that has collected students from the Monday over the years.” Early Release Program “The junk and debris have been working on. needs to be removed within Thank you to Carmen a 60-day period. I would say and her team for such a 30 days but right now the wonderful event. All the road is posted,” Morton said. children were very proud BUYER, Page 2A of themselves!
Buyer eager to buy property
(USPS 065-020)
Weather . . . . . . . . . . . 6B
meeting. Krieg said county officials told her that the building, owned by Justin and Pam Ward, needs to be either listed on or eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places in order to receive the $9,500 in matching funds the Wards have requested for façade improvements. She said both she and the county are now researching the issue, but wanted to make the board’s grant approval for the bookstore provisional on establishing the building’s historic status. If it turns out it is not eligible, the funds should go towards a new
bathhouse at the Salmon Point Campground, Krieg recommended. The deadline for resolving the question and providing a final funding list to the county is Friday, April 1. Selectmen agreed to make the funding decision provisional, but several members questioned why the historic status issue was still unresolved at this late date. Krieg also asked for $2,020 to be shifted back to the recreation summer camp program because of the need to spend those funds before June 30. “This is literally a shell game,” a frustrated Selectman
Paul Hoyt said. The town’s two food pantries would still receive the $5,000 approved earlier. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was curious” why there were still outstanding issues regarding the bookstore’s façade grant funding, added Selectman Greg Watkins. “Here we are, still at the last moment (making decisions), which is exactly where we didn’t want to be.” The board vowed last year to start the CDBG decisionmaking process earlier so there wouldn’t be a repeat of last year’s series of lastminute adjustments and
changes. The Community Development Committee met four times this go-round to review eligible projects, and then selectmen followed up with four separate discussions of their own. Krieg said county officials do allow private businesses to receive façade grant help, but only if two conditions can be met: either the building is historical, or it qualifies on the basis of so-called “slum and blight” conditions. In the latter case, health and safety issues must be present, and that is simply not the case with the Bridgton Books ELIGIBILITY, Page 2A
For the time being — and it is not yet written in stone, anyone who invests in the property will do so with the understanding that the Town of Casco is not responsible for maintenance or snowplowing of the existing road. According to Wood, Town Planner Jim Seymour (who was not present at the March 14 meeting) wanted the plan to include that the road would never be protected as a public road. “I don’t want to commit wholly to that caveat,” Wood said. “If the future residents wanted the road to become a
public road, could they bring the road up to standards and have it accepted as a public road,” Wood asked. Planning board member Stan Buchanan restated the question, “Can that happen after the fact?” Casco Town Manager Dave Morton commented. “Not to my recollection. I’m not saying that it hasn’t happened. I don’t know of any roads that are built substandard and then rebuilt up to the standard,” Morton said. Buchanan wondered if it was possible if the road base was completely redone.
It would require the expertise of an engineer to make sure the base is a certain depth, Morton said. Wood also asked which ordinance he had been instructed to follow by Seymour. In order to decrease the width of the road, a section of the ordinance would be waived. Wood was uncertain if that fell under subdivisions or back lot roads. The project will be on the planning board’s agenda on April 11. Many roads in town are maintained by road associations, made up of the prop-
erty owners who live along the road. About a year ago, the Casco Board of Selectmen voted to not accept any more roads as public easements. The selectmen’s plan was to update the town’s road standards first. An impetus behind this move by the selectmen is that many, older roads are too narrow for today’s public safety vehicles and plow trucks. Wood did agree to a request to make the entrance of the road wider so that public safety vehicles could safely make that turn off Meadow Road.
By Wayne E. Rivet Staff Writer SEBAGO — Before area residents cast their votes next month regarding the proposed renovation/construction project at Crooked River School, they can expect to see opposition to the plan from Friends of Sebago Elementary. Despite SAD 61 paring the price tag from over $9 million to $7,880,000, the group still believes the district can address its overcrowding problem at Songo Locks School by making minor improvements at the Casco facility and thus be able to move elementary students there by this fall. Their message — Open Crooked River now for less to alleviate overcrowding.
Secondly, the group sees an expanded Crooked River — capable of servicing 350 students — as a direct threat to closing their elementary school. Last week, Richard Merritt requested that the town’s Withdrawal Committee — of which he is a member — release $2,500 from its fund to pay for materials (possibly posters, advertising and mailings) to oppose the proposed Crooked River project.
Withdrawal Committee members, however, wondered if use of the funds would be “appropriate,” so the group asked Sebago selectmen to consider the matter. Town Manager Jim Smith said the board voted unanimously to support the $2,500 request. He noted that the Withdrawal Committee is free to spend the $25,000 raised by taxpayers in any manner they see fit, and do FUNDS, Page 2A
Developer questions future of road
State: Use of withdrawal funds a ‘local decision’
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