Sugar house will expand operations

Due to CDBG funds 

By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer

BROWNVILLE — In June Maine Highlands Sugarworks of Williamsburg Township was awarded a $50,000 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) microenterprise assistance grant for new equipment to expand operations. During an Aug. 18 meeting of the Piscataquis County Commissioners at the Brownville Town Office, a follow-up public hearing was held as part of the multiple phase grant process. CDBG applications are made through business host communities, or through the county for unorganized territory establishments.

Maine Highlands Sugarworks owner Shelly Weeks said some of the equipment, through reverse osmosis, “takes the water out of the sap, so now you are not boiling thousands of gallons of water.” She added, “Right now we are really doing stuff the old fashioned way.”

Weeks said a business building is in place, with an evaporator already on site and a kitchen space set up. She said Maine Highlands Sugarworks has 115 acres and “we are able to tap up to 2,000 trees; right now we are at 550.” Weeks said currently maple syrup is sold online as a side business, but with the expansion the goal is to increase the product enough to be sold in stores. When asked, she said the closest maple syrup business to her own is Bob’s Sugarhouse in Dover-Foxcroft.

“The contribution Shelly has made out of her own pocket has been significant,” said Piscataquis County Economic Development Council Executive Director Chris Winstead. During a public hearing in the spring he said Weeks is investing $51,860 of her own money into the expansion — the particular grant awarded has no matching requirements.

“We were awarded the grant on June 22,” Winstead said. “We have a full year from when the grant is issued until it expires,” he added, saying the timeframe should not be an issue for Maine Highlands Sugarworks.

“So this will be ready for production this spring?,” Commissioners Chair Fred Trask asked and then was given an affirmative reply.

In other business, Interim County Manager Tom Lizotte provided updates on several ongoing matters. Lizotte said he recently attended a meeting in Augusta of county commissioners from around the state and there everyone was trying to determine what the recently passed jail legislation means with this budget totaling about $12.2 million instead of $14.7 million proposed when $17 million was first sought.

“This has created a structural budget gap in all counties that run jails,” Lizotte said. “The only good news is the state does need to fix the legislation it just passed. They have agreed to look at it.”

“It makes it very difficult to put a budget together for (Jail Administrator Maria Landry) and I because we have no idea how much money is coming our way,” Lizotte said. He said Piscataquis County does have a fund balance and does not board prisoners “so we are in much better shape, but no one is in good shape.”

Lizotte said that Greenville Town Manager John Simko has been working on the solid waste contract between the community and county for three nearby unorganized territories. The commissioners are set to sign the contract at the Sept. 1 meeting, and the Greenville selectmen have the agreement on the agenda for their Wednesday, Aug. 26 session.

“The commissioners need to schedule three public hearings in September and October on building a new sheriff’s office,” Lizotte said, with a session taking place in each commissioner’s district and likely being held in the evening. One public hearing will take place at the county complex in Dover-Foxcroft but the sites for Trask’s and Commissioner James White’s areas are to be determined.

White suggested the possibility of having another hearing in Greenville or perhaps in Monson, halfway between Guilford and Greenville.

“We are getting the word out, people seem to know about that,” Lizotte said, with a question concerning a new sheriff’s complex to appear on the Nov. 3 referendum across Piscataquis County.

The present building has an antiquated skywalk connecting the sheriff’s department and courthouse that is currently used as a storage area.

“If we get a new sheriff’s building my recommendation is we tear that down, there is no functional value to that,” Lizotte said. He said snow and ice accumulates on the skywalk, and the ice falling multiple stories to the ground below can be a very dangerous hazard. Lizotte said this part of the complex has been discussed by the safety committee, but no decision will be made until after the referendum.

In attendance for the meeting was Brownville Town Manager Matthew Pineo, who said officials from his community and the county will sit down and discuss fire contracts “as well as plowing in the unorganized territories.”

“What we are looking to do is try to work with the county and collaborate on road projects,” Pineo said, preventing instances of one entity driving over the others to plow different sections of roads when possible. “We would like to go back over that and work to the point of a contract and hopefully save some money.”