Buckfield Water Company looks towards coming year

BUCKFIELD — The Buckfield Village Corporation, a quasi-municipal organization that provides water from North Pond to 185 homes clustered around the village center, almost did not get a chance to hold its annual meeting on Tuesday, March 23.  The Board requires that a minimum of eight customers, counting board members, be present in order to make a sufficient quorum for conducting a meeting. 

However, ten minutes past the meeting’s scheduled start time, and with two warrants standing at the ready on which to vote, the Corporation was still one warm body short.  After pondering their options, a quick phone call was placed by Buckfield Town Office Assistant Candice J. Brooks, rousing her husband Tim to the Municipal Center.  Thus was the meeting was saved.

“This is nothing new,” commented Board Chairman Joan G. Pope,  “We usually have to scramble.”

Now able to legally conduct a meeting, the first order of business was to elect a moderator.  After the warrant was read by Board Treasurer Joan Austin, Town Manager Cynthia M. Dunn was chosen.

Then the corporation turned to electing a new member to the Board of Water Commissioners for a three-year period to 2007.  The sole nominee was Richard R. Pope, which caused a mini non-controversy when he ended up splitting the vote with “Dick” Pope.  Still, it was deemed prudent to allow Richard Pope to retain both votes cast, and he was quickly sworn in.

The Board then voted on “what sum of money the Corporation will appropriate from water service revenues” for salaries.

The approved amounts included $300 to each of the three water commissioners,  $200 to the Commissioner Chairperson, $7,200 to the Clerk/ Treasurer, $28,000 to the Superintendent, and $3,340 for assistants to the superintendent. 

With all in favor, the salaries for the coming year, totaling $39,640, were approved and the meeting adjourned. 

Total elapsed meeting time: fifteen minutes.

Ms. Pope estimated that the salaries voted upon represent the largest expense, more than one third, on the corporation’s estimated annual revenue of $99,000.

Superintendent Lewis Williams, who was not present at the meeting, is also in charge of the Hebron water company.  Ms. Pope stated that it was hard to estimate the hours Williams puts in as superintendent, citing a range from “a couple hours a day” during slow periods to virtually full time in certain parts of the year.

Over the coming year, the corporation sees a need to rebuild nearly one mile of water pipe along Route 117 through the village center.  Ms. Pope stated that the State, which plans work on the road to begin this year, will not complete any work in the village until the water pipes, originally laid in 1905, are rebuilt. 

“They can’t do he village until we do what we have to do,” she said. 

Although bids have not gone out yet, the estimated cost of the project is estimated to be over $800,000.

Ms Pope stated a hope that residents will turn out to approve the project.  The Corporation would like to complete the first half mile, from the Oxford Networks offices to the village center, during the summer months.

“Otherwise you people won’t get your sidewalks,” she lamented.

In order to secure grant money to help defray some of the costs, the corporation is currently conducting a required income survey of its customers.  It is estimated that 60 survey responses still need to be collected in order for the corporation to have the requisite number needed to apply for the Rural Development grant.

Still, even if a grant is secured, the corporation still anticipated going to the Maine Public Utilities Commission in the coming year for a rate increase.

Ms Pope noted that the corporation did not increase rates when the new filtration system was put in.  Even though residents did turn out during that project in 1998 to reject a $1,000,000 project to build the filtration system and reconstruct the dam on North Pond, work still was required to avoid a $25,000 a day fine from the Environmental Protection Agency.

“We used what we had for money and got by,” she noted.

The corporation also hopes to extend the water mains along Route 140 as far as John D. Long American Legion Post 58.  This will allow developed Gene Bell to tie in the roughly one dozen new house lots from his subdivision beside the Buckfield Junior/ Senior High School, resulting in additional revenue for the corporation.

Pope and the rest of the corporation expressed hope that residents, including renters who reside in the village, will turn out at future meetings due to the importance of the work to be done in the coming year.

“I don’t know why,” Ms. Pope said in reference to usual customer turnout levels,  “We have never, never had good attendance.”

Regular meetings of the Buckfield Village Corporation are held 6:30 p.m., on the last Thursday of each month, at the Buckfield Municipal Building.