Swap shop makes weighty difference

BUCKFIELD — The swap shop at the Buckfield-Sumner Transfer Station, on Route 140, has been a great success in its first full year of operation.

Created in August, 2007, with the placement of a cargo container to hold donated goods, the site has since grown to two containers and a shed, used to house material dropped off after hours. 

Led by Mary Alice Standard, of Sumner, about 20 regular volunteers weigh every item donated, to measure the amount of material the shop helps to keep out of the waste stream.  In the shop’s first month of operation, in September, 2007, 2,347 pounds of clothes, books, housewares, toys, old tools and other others that might have been thrown away were instead taken in by local residents for re-use.

One year later, in September 2008, the weight of goods passing though the swap shop has grown to 5,771 pounds. 

According to Standard, the swap shop diverts about 5,000 pounds of material per month from the waste stream.  The total through November stood at 37,234 pounds.  When the December numbers are tallied, the total for 2008 should eclipse 42,000 pounds.

According to Buckfield Town Manager Glen Holmes, the swap shop is saving taxpayers about $200 per month on tipping fees, the price paid to haulers to cart away local garbage to the MMWAC (Mid-Maine Waste Action Corp.) incineration, in Auburn.

“It’s been a really great investment that we made with Sumner,” said Holmes.  “Impressive is just way too small a word.  It’s just amazing, what these volunteers have done.”

Standard says the two Nezinscot Valley communities have opened their arms wide to the swap shop concept.  In addition to the two dozen volunteers who put in a few hours per week each, and the three who work regular hours, many folks have simply stopped by from time to time to help, offering whatever has been requested.  Fred Horsefall, Standard notes, built the shelves in the two cargo holds, using wood donated by Lowell Lumber.

“I think an even a bigger benefit than the $2,500 saved per year, is the tremendous use people are getting out of this stuff,” said Holmes.

As an example, Standard points out that, just before the holidays, a local grandfather of 14 stopped by the swap shop and walked away with 80 pounds of child’s clothing, including coats, and 40 pounds of toys.

Clearly, she said, donated items are finding homes where they are needed.

The swap shop is open from 9 a.m. to noon on Wednesdays and from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Saturdays.

And it’s always busy.  

“I went in two or three weeks ago,” said Buckfield selectboard Chairman Chris Hayward.  “You couldn’t even get near the place.”

Buckfield closes in on ‘qualified bidders’

BUCKFIELD — Buckfield is closing in on new rules that will ban selectmen from bidding on town contracts. 

A draft ordinance, based on Bangor’s code of ethics, was reviewed by selectmen at their December 16 meeting.  If adopted by voters at the annual town meeting in June, the Qualified Bidders Ordinance will force selectmen to automatically reject any bid submitted by a town employee.  Because selectmen collect an annual stipend in Buckfield, they are considered employees for the purposes of the ordinance, according Town Manager Glen Holmes.

However, Holmes notes that a bid may still be placed in the running if the town employee in question owns less than a 10 percent share of the company placing a bid.

“In that case,” said Holmes, the bid shall be considered as coming from the company and not the individual.”

An example of a company qualifying for the exemption is Northland Holder, of Turner, which recently was given a contract to plow the sidewalks in Buckfield Village.

“You may see me in the sidewalk plow,” said Selectman Chip Richardson, who works for the company.  “I just want everyone to be clear — I do not own any part of Northland Holder.”

Selectmen sent the ordinance to the town attorney, Geoffrey Hole, of the Portland firm Bernstein Shur, for review.  A vote to schedule a public hearing on the proposed ordinance is expected at the next selectboard meeting, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 6, at the town office.

Buckfield News Briefs

Tough sledding

So, far, it’s not been the sort of winter weather we saw last season, but that doesn’t mean towns aren’t again struggling to get by. 

In Buckfield, road crews reportedly went through 1,000 yards of sand prior to the most recent storm.  Thanks in part to the December 11 ice storm, and one other event which caused “freak” black-ice conditions, Buckfield put its trucks on the road 12 times before New Year’s, says Town Manager Glen Holmes.

According to Holmes, the town already has gone through 25 percent of its 4,500-yard sand stockpiled for the season.

Securing the trash

Buckfield selectmen are recommending the installation of security cameras at the transfer station on Route 140, following the theft of a donation box from the “swap shop.”

“There wasn’t much in there — it couldn’t have been more than $2 or $3 — because I try and get it out every week,” said the shop’s volunteer manager, Mary Alice Standard, of Sumner, who uses the money to pay the electricity bill for the two cargo containers used to house donated goods. 

Still, selectmen recommended putting in security cameras, in part because, in a tough economy, copper, steel and other materials at the site could make a tempting target for thieves.

“Knock on wood, we haven’t had problems up there in years, but there have been times,” said selectboard chairman Chris Hayward.

“It’s a small investment for what we could potentially save ourselves in damages,” agreed Selectman Chip Robinson.

At a special town meeting in October, voters okayed $3,000 for security cameras that have since been placed at the municipal complex on Route 117 and at the highway garage, on John Ellingwood Road.

Town Manager Glen Holmes said money for the transfer station cameras will be included in his budget that will go before voters at the annual town meeting in June.

Culvert conundrum

Sometimes, you have to go straight to the top.

At the November 18 meeting of the Buckfield selectmen, Town Manager Glen Holmes read a copy of a letter he’d received that day from John Meader, a resident of Roundabout Road.  In the letter, addressed to David Cole, commissioner of the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT), and copied to State Rep. Terry Hayes, Meader complained of a hole in the pavement and gravel shoulder.

“This hole originates over a culvert,” wrote Meader.  “It has occurred several times yearly for perhaps five years now and is periodically repaired by the state department of transportation.  The repairs have involved no more than filling the hole with gravel and putting tar patch on top.  This is ineffective long-term.”

Noting that the Roundabout Road is a “busy section” of Route 124, used frequently by logging trucks, Meader complained that his frequent complaints to MDOT have not resulted in a permanent fix.

At the most recent selectboard meeting, Holmes read a letter from Cole promising that the fix is on the way.

Although he said the hole in question has been “monitored” and that it “has not become a hazard,” Cole said a “major ditching project” is scheduled for the Buckfield section of Route 124 this year.

“The work will include permanent repairs of the hole by replacing the culvert,” wrote Cole.  “The decision to wait for permanent repairs is a prudent one considering all of the issues.  The culvert replacement will be achieved more efficiently in conjunction with the ditching project.”

Mutual aid

Buckfield has joined a county-wide mutual aid agreement sponsored by the Western Maine Firefighters Association.

Although Buckfield had agreements in place with all bordering towns, it frequently answered requests for help from other nearby towns, which had the potential to create legal snafus, according to Town Manager Glen Holmes.

“There are some lawyers who would tell us that if one of our firefighters got hurt in that situation, they would not be covered under our workers’ compensation because that was not a place where they were authorized to be,” he said.

Reviewed and cleared by the Maine Municipal Association, no town in the pact will have to pay for aid received from mutual aid towns.

“It’s a give and take,” said Holmes. 

Generally, he said, towns get as much aid as they receive.  The only know exception, Holmes added, occurred with aid rendered between fire departments in Rumford and Mexico.

“Mexico literally went through their entire year’s budget in six months this year, going to help Rumford, because they get so many more calls,” said Holmes.

Holmes said this should not happen to Buckfield.  However, he did make note of one in of the aid agreement, which could prove beneficial to Buckfield residents, even if the town may occasionally give more than it gets.

Under the mutual aid agreement, a Buckfield firefighter is allowed to pass off incident command to a more experienced officer from another town.  That, said Holmes, could give the town access to more advanced training in a critical situation. 

Under the agreement, it would not be unusual to hear on the scanner that a fire chief from Paris, or Oxford had taken control of a fire scene in Buckfield, if its chief was unavailable.

Sidewalk rules

Buckfield Town Manager Glen Holmes has reportedly been working on a sidewalk ordinance, which he plans to present to the town’s ordinance committee at an as-yet unscheduled meeting, sometime this month.

“It will include a parking ban,” he promised, at a recent selectboard meeting.  “It will very clearly say that if you park on the sidewalk, you will be removed.”

Roads posted

If you want to get there from here, you better stick to the state routes through Buckfield, at least if you are in a truck.

Buckfield has permanently posted four roads — East Buckfield, Bear Pond, Paris Hill and North Hill — to heavy trucks with more than two axles.  Exempt from the ban are emergency vehicles, moving vans, school buses and delivery trucks, as well as trucks belonging to residents of the four roads, as well as current and future businesses.  Fines are set by the ordinance at $50 for a first offense and $100 for a second.

According to Town Manager Glen Holmes, the roads have been posted for years.  However, signs posted at either end of each road lacked bite, at least until the October passage of a road posting ordinance.  Selectmen are able to pass traffic ordinances without a public vote.  The creation of the ordinance will allow for easier prosecution of offenders, said Holmes.

"This is not a personal pet peeve with me,” said Diane Dunn, a North Hill resident who stumped for the postings.  “I am concerned that heavy truck traffic will damage our roads and increase cost to taxpayers."

The four posted roads are 9.81 miles long, combined, representing about 21 percent of all public roads in Buckfield.

Task Force nixes Buckfield water company takeover

BUCKFIELD — A special citizen’s task force formed to study options for paying a $1.2 million water company debt that’s been mounting for almost a decade has made its final recommendation — pay the bill.

The task force issued a statement advising against a town takeover of the quasi-municipal Buckfield Village Corporation (BVC), an option seriously considered at several recent town meetings.

“Given that the decisions to take on this debt were chosen, over a period of years, exclusively by the BVC, without any possibility of input from those outside the BVC, it is recommended that the satisfaction of the debt remain the sole responsibility of the BVC and its users,” read the one-page statement.

Founded by a charter from the state legislature in 1887, the Buckfield Village Corporation has 179 customers, mostly residential, centered in Buckfield Village and along the water lines that run into town from North Pond.

Recent rate hikes approved by the Public Utilities Commission to help pay the corporations debt, and meet operating costs, will drive the annual water bill for a typical single-family home to $615, according to Steve Levy, executive director of the Maine Rural Water Association. 

That, says Levy, is more than twice the average water bill in Maine and comparable to the highest prices in the nation.

The rate increase will affect all tax bills in Buckfield, not just those on town water, because, by law, 30 percent of the water company’s income must be derived from the town in the form of hydrant rentals.  This also factored into the task force statement, which noted that “the town should not take on additional portions of the debt outside of its current responsibility.”

The proposed rate increase comes hard on the heels of an emergency 75 percent rate increase, approved by the Public Utilities Commission in April to help keep the Village Corporation from defaulting on loan payments.

In 2004, the corporation received nearly $1 million in financing from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).  Forty-five percent of that funding came in the form of a Rural Development grant, the other 55 percent was financed through a low-interest loan.

The money was needed to replace 101-year-old asbestos water pipes in advance of a Maine Department of Transportation construction project on Route 117.

Although the Buckfield water company is small, and had few assets, the USDA loan reportedly was approved on the strength of its status as a village corporation, one of only four left in the state.

That status gives the Buckfield Village Cooperation the power to  levy taxes.  However, water commissioners — who are, technically, known as assessors — have never exercised this power and a series of board members who have come and gone over the last two years have all been reluctant to use it.

Instead of taxing customers, or raising rates, the water company took out two loans with Northeast Bank totaling $129,700, at least one of which was a short-term $65,000 note, due to be paid off in April, 2007.  That money was used to make USDA loan payments.

Some BVC customers have complained of mismanagement over the years, including allowing water to leak out of a reservoir tank for decades and allowing federal waivers to lapse, forcing the water company to install a $470,500 filtration system required under the Clean Waters Act.

However, others say that the village corporation has done the best it could given minimal involvement from customers, who are technically owners of the system, with voting power.

Current water commissioners include Peter Gagnon and Susan Chatterton, both voted in last fall when no one else was willing to step forward, and Dick Pope.

The Task Force letter asks commissioners to provide three things before the next town meeting, in June — an explanation, “in simple layman’s terms” of how the $1.2 million debt was acquired, a detailed breakdown of how the debt will affect water customers and taxpayers not on town water, and a report of the village corporations “water plan, going forward.”

Finally, the task force asks for additional help.

“It seems the last, best hope for relief is our congressional delegation,” read the task force letter.  “We therefore ask that the selectmen work with BVC members to generate interest, and to create a town-wide petition to gain assistance from the congressional delegation.”

However, Town Manager Glen Holmes says that he met recently with representatives from the offices of all four congressional members, as well as local legislators.  At that gathering, it was agreed that no state or federal help is available, says Holmes.

The Buckfield Water Task Force will meet at 7 p.m. tonight, January 4, at the town office.