Selectmen set land use and charter hearings

Leaders invite input during 
Tuesday, Sept. 20 sessions

By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer

MILO — With questions concerning both the enactment of a land use ordinance and the abolishment of the town charter set for the Nov. 8 ballot, the selectmen scheduled public hearing hearings on the two items for Tuesday, Sept. 20 starting at 6 p.m. — during a Sept. 6 meeting.

Select Chair Lee McMannus said the planning board requested that the proposed land use ordinance be placed on ballot and the selectmen needed to make a decision by later in the month in order to have the question wording ready for the absentee voting. The ballot question would ask if the ordinance should be enacted or not, and board opted to have another public hearing prior to the election.

The evening of Sept. 20 will feature another hearing on the town charter as the Tuesday, Nov. 8 presidential ballot will include a question asking if Milo residents shall approve the dissolving of the document. “Everything is covered by state law,” Town Manager Damien Pickel said, adding nothing would change if the community no longer had a town charter.

McMannus estimated that only about 80 of Maine’s approximate 450 incorporated communities have town charters on the books.

In other business, Pickel said discussions have been ongoing with Ron Desmarais, owner of Maine Alternative Solutions along with several other Milo-based businesses, about the purchase of several lots in the Eastern Piscataquis Business Park for a solar farm.

Desmarais said he is looking at about three acres of the park, near the snowmobile trail and the Three Rivers Kiwanis building. “We would like to start a small solar farm that could be a co-op,” Desmarais said. He said businesses could place panels at the farm and the electricity generated would be used to offset their power bills.

The solar farm could grow over time. “We want to have some solar awareness in the area, have people driving by and see the panels,” Desmarais said.

Pickel said he would continue to get the potential solar farm lots defined and the parcel would be brought forward to the selectmen.

State Rep. Norm Higgins (R-Dover-Foxcroft) was in attendance to discuss the impact of Atkinson deorganization on Milo. Higgins said last month Atkinson residents voted 82-8 to continue with deorganization as well as approving a start to the withdrawal process from SAD 41. He said this establishes a withdrawal committee and the Department of Education will then set up a meeting between the group and the SAD 41 school board.

“The report says after doing all the financials, the net loss is $293,699 for SAD 41,” Higgins said, as should Atkinson deorganize then its students would attend school in RSU 68/Foxcroft Academy.

“It means these dollars would not be coming in from Atkinson or the state on behalf of Atkinson,” Higgins said, with SAD 41 – which in addition to Milo and Atkinson also currently includes Brownville and LaGrange – potentially making up the difference through cutting programs, raising taxes or a combination of the options.

“It won’t be next year but I think 2018 would be the target date,” Higgins said, as the deorganization procedure would need to be approved by the Legislature as well by another vote in Atkinson via a two-thirds majority. “I think you should plan for it and if it doesn’t happen then things will go on as they are,” the representative said.

The selectmen also heard from Piscataquis Regional YMCA Healthy Communities Project Coordinator Erin Callaway about a summer meals program, with the board voting to support the initiative as Callaway works to continue it and similar programs in the region.

Callaway said she will be applying for funding – there would be not financial commitment from the town of Milo – “to support the use of free summer meals across the county.” She added, “We know there is a great need in Milo as well as other communities across the Piscataquis region.”

Conversations with a mother in Derby evolved into a meal program in this neighborhood and taking a look at a federally-funded summer meal program, Callaway said. She added that SAD 41 distributed free meals to children over nine days across three weeks.

“My hope and my request to the town is we continue to work together to find solutions for Milo,” Callaway said.

“We were taking care of 22 kids under the age of 12,” Pickel said about the Derby children’s summer meal initiative. “I think with Erin’s help that will continue to grow.” He said in SAD 41 about 91 percent of the students are food disadvantaged “and when school is out they don’t get those meals.”

In his report, Pickel said progress is being made on looking into the condition of the approximate 97-acre Derby Shops commercial railroad property on B&A Avenue. He said the only asbestos found is inside the building and tests of the groundwater indicate the water is at drinking quality and therefore is not contaminated.

During a special town meeting in June residents accepted the conveyance of the property. Those in attendance also authorized the selectmen to apply for and accept any grants for cleaning up the property, currently the home of Central Maine & Quebec Railway and 20-plus employees and which had been part of the bankruptcy proceedings for the former Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway.