Under review An anonymous letter prompts local officials to review Bridgton Academy’s tax-exempt status Page 2A
Hunt for Gold Ball
Inside News
Lake Region will take a shot at winning the Class B state girls’ basketball title this Friday night
Calendar . . . . . . . 4B-5B
Page 7B
Classifieds . . . . . . . . . 5B Country Living . . . 7A-8A Directory . . . . . . . . . . 4B Obituaries . . . . . . 5A-6A Opinions . . . . . . . 1B-4B Police/Court . . . . . . . . 4A Sports . . . . . . . . 7B-10B Student News . . . . . . . . Towns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Weather . . . . . . . . . . . 5B
www.bridgton.com Vol. 143, No. 9
Serving Bridgton and the surrounding towns of Western Maine since 1870. 20 PAGES - 2 Sections
Bridgton, Maine
March 1, 2012
Pay per bag gains steam
By Lisa Williams Ackley Staff Writer Should the Bridgton Board of Selectmen institute a payper-bag recycling system for solid waste disposal, as recommended by the Bridgton Recycling Committee, without first asking voters what they think? The five-member board does want to hear from the public on the proposed pay-per-bag system, so they decided to hold a public informational meeting on Tuesday, March 20 at 6 p.m. in the downstairs meeting room at the Bridgton Municipal Complex. In past years, when the pay-per-bag solid waste disposal system came up, the then boards of selectmen asked for the public’s opinion, one way or the other. Each time, the payper-bag system and/or mandated recycling was defeated by voters. In 2002, Bridgton voters said ‘No’ to pay-per-bag solid waste disposal, by a vote of 63 Yes and 95 No, Town Manager Mitch Berkowitz explained. One year later, in 2003, voters defeated a Solid Waste Ordinance that would have incorporated pay-per-bag, by a secret ballot vote with just five votes difference, 98 Yes and 103 No. Then, in 2004, voters defeated by 12 votes an annual town meeting warrant article asking them to authorize the selectmen to institute a pay-per-bag system — with 95 No and 83 Yes. The following year, at the 2005 annual town meeting, Bridgton voters defeated a warrant article “as written,” that would have enacted mandatory recycling, Berkowitz said. Now, however, the Recycling Committee believes at least $69,000 in hauling costs could be realized, if the town institutes mandatory recycling and the pay-per-bag trash disposal system. Saying he concurred with a statement made by former selectman Earl Cash, Selectman PAY PER, Page A
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Krieg named planning director By Lisa Williams Ackley Staff Writer Anne Krieg, AICP of Bar Harbor, has been named as the Town of Bridgton’s new Director of Planning, Economic and Community Development. Krieg, who brings with her 25 years of experience in planning and development, 16 years of that time in municipal planning, was most recently the Director of Planning and Development for nine years in Bar Harbor. Arthur D. Triglione Sr., chairman of the Bridgton Board of Selectmen, who also sat in as a hiring committee member, indicated that Krieg was the Committee’s preference. Triglione said Krieg has the skills, experience and personality that will allow her to be successful in Bridgton. “We are excited to have Anne come on board,” said Chairman Triglione. Krieg helped create the 2007 Comprehensive Plan that won Plan of the Year from the Maine Association of Planners. She also worked with the Maine
Downtown Center for Bar Harbor to become a member of the Maine Downtown Network. Prior to working nearly a decade in Bar Harbor, Krieg was the Town Planner in Reading, Massachusetts where she worked on the closure and reuse of a former landfill. She was also Principal Planner in Danvers, Massachusetts where she worked on the reuse and re-zoning of the Danvers State Hospital campus. Krieg graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree with concentrations in planning and economics from the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Environmental Science and Forestry at Syracuse University, in 1986. She and her husband Rob have three children — Mae, who is a freshman at SUNY New Paltz; Theresa, 13, and an avid painter; and Gabriel, seven, who is getting ready for baseball season to start. Rob is a registered landscape architect working with Coplon Associates. They enjoy hiking and biking together.
By Lisa Williams Ackley Staff Writer Citizens of Bridgton participated in a public hearing Tuesday night about Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds the town will receive and how they are proposed to be used over the next five years. Improvements to the sewer system, installing sidewalks, supporting the food pantry program and eliminating slum and blight in the downtown are being recommended by Town Manager Mitch Berkowitz. However, in the end, it will be the Bridgton Board of Selectmen who have the final word as to what funding requests will be accepted. The Town of Bridgton’s continued participation in the Cumberland County Community Block Grant Development Program as an entitlement community has been approved for another fiveyear period, Berkowitz said. The CDBG funds that will
be available in the Town’s Fiscal Year 2013 total approximately $170,000, Berkowitz explained. Other suggestions as to how to utilize the CDBG grant funds were expressed at the Feb. 28 public hearing before the selectmen: • Mike Tarantino of the Bridgton Community Center asked the Bridgton Board of Selectmen for up to as much as $13,000 for a generator at the BCC that is used as a shelter for the community in times of emergencies. • Carmen Lone, Executive Director of the Bridgton Community Center, asked the selectmen to consider including monies “for food programs in the community and expanding resources to low income people for heat, housing and referral programs.” Lone stated further, “This would help our low income residents and the middle class, which is moving down (into the
How to spend block grant money
BEST OF THE WEST — Lake Region seniors Abby Craffey (left) and Rachel Wandishin twirl the net after the Lakers beat Greely 49-30 to win the Class B West girls’ basketball title Saturday at the Cumberland County Civic Center. The Lakers (19-2) travel to the Bangor Auditorium Friday in search of a Gold Ball. The Lakers meet East champ Presque Isle (21-0) at 7 p.m. See stories Page 7B. (Photo by Greg Van Vliet)
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Rusty Wiltjer — Making it as an artist in rural Maine
By Gail Geraghty Staff Writer SOUTH WATERFORD — His formerly robust production of high-end whimsical sinks is down to next to nothing. Jigs for his signature fish “Chain of Life” wind chimes, which were sold the world over, lay gathering dust in his studio on Route 37. Some have wondered lately whether Rusty Wiltjer has gone out of business. But, no, the well-known local potter isn’t done with the Chain of Life, or his business, Wiltjer Pottery. He’s operating as he always has, doing his art for the love of it, not for the money. He’s made tons of money. But at every point where it started to become more about the money than the art, things started to go wrong, and he walked away — choosing to reclaim the heart in his art. “I don’t consider myself a business person or a marketing person. I just do what makes sense,” said Wiltjer, who, a decade or so ago, turned down a deal by Coldwater Creek to have the slabwork for his fish farmed out to a pottery outfit in New York, in order to tap the
Asian market. All through the ‘90s, he did huge orders and had five full-time employees that did nothing but produce fish for the national catalogue retailer. “I’d go there, oversee every-
WORK OF ART — Rusty Wiltjer’s process in creating a hand drum like this one took about three years from its prototype to finished stage. “When something leaves here it is functionally and artistically the best I can make it,” he said.
thing, and just get a check. And I said no. It’s my design, and nobody else is going to make them,” he recalls. “It wasn’t one of my better business decisions.” Still, he doesn’t regret it. “I can’t answer the question of would it have been better (had he become the business manager of his art, instead of the artist) because I don’t know. I definitely wouldn’t be who I am now. My guess is, I wouldn’t like it — but I might just be saying that to make myself feel better.”
Beat of a different drummer Right now, his gigs as a drummer, and the ceramic hand drums he’s been creating for the past five years are his passion. But the drums spent years in the prototype stage (“When something leaves here it is functionally and artistically the best I can make it”). And the market for the beautiful drums is but a fraction of what he enjoyed for his custom sinks — which everyone needs, after all. At one time he was going through a ton of clay every three weeks, and he was making around a dozen of them a week. Barely keeping up with orders, he was on the
verge of building a new road into his 25-acre studio/home, and erecting a new, much larger studio, when he took a trip to Hawaii, met a potter working in the open air, and realized, “there’s other climates on this planet.” The sinks were lucrative, but he began to struggle with the making of them. “They were really good money, and I didn’t want to do them for the money. So things started going wrong, and when that started happening I know it’s a sign for me” to return to doing his art “for the love of it, like I usually do.” He brought the project to a halt, started cutting off his sink orders (Home Depot and others had started to create custom CONNECTING WITH THE SELF — Clay is a very tactile sinks and his clientele began material and can help people get in touch with their emotions, to resemble “trend-chasers,”) said South Waterford potter, Rusty Wiltjer, who is offering and began migrating into the classes in his studio for the first time this spring. drums. “I’ve gone from thousands of people with money to a few people with no money — and Established 1870 then slap a bad economy on top of that, and I’m eating bread P.O. Box 244, 118 Main St. again, you know what I mean?” Bridgton, ME 04009 He’s determined to stick with 207-647-2851 the drum-making until it fully Fax: 207-647-5001 takes hold. But to supplement his bnews@roadrunner.com
The Bridgton News
POTTER, Page 10A