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.

Buckfield adult ed in danger of demise?

BUCKFIELD/OXFORD — The dawning of the new year in Buckfield also marks the fifth month of a contract standoff between SAD 39 directors and the local teachers’ union.  But now according to Superintendent Richard Colpitts, the district faces a new concern. 

As the school board begins to hammer out a budget for the coming fiscal year that will both satisfy teachers and serve students, there is a very real danger that the district could lose services for adults.

At the December school board meeting, Colpitts told school board members that, while he has yet to receive an  official notice, the word has come down that SAD 17 will sever its adult education union with SAD 39 at the end of the current fiscal year.

Since 1999, Judy Green, the adult education director for SAD 17, also has run SAD 39’s program. 

The origins of the partnership vary according to who one asks.  Colpitts says SAD 17 wanted extra income to hire an assistant adult ed director.  Officials in SAD 17 say Green’s motives were more altruistic — she stepped in, they say, because SAD 39’s adult ed program, at the time, was in “such disarray.” 

Asked following a recent school board meeting about the future of the management deal, SAD 17 Superintendent Dr. Marc Eastman confirmed that it is headed for the dustbin, but would offer few specifics.

“I haven’t met with Rick [Colpitts] yet,” he said, “so I’d prefer not to speak.”

This year, SAD 17 hired Jane Courcy as co-director of adult education for the two districts.  Come July 1, she takes over full time and Green, having spent a year grooming her replacement, will retire.

Colpitts told SAD 39 directors at their December meeting that they will have decisions to make, since the state mandates the oversight of a director.  SAD 39 can hire one of its one and take back management of its adult ed program, said Colpitts, or, it could find a similar arrangement with another school district, most likely SAD 52 in Turner. 

The other option, said Colpitts, might be to eliminate adult education in SAD 39.

“Of course, we will always have adult ed available to us through Region 11,” said Colpitts.

However, if that is the plan, SAD 39 may have to overcome more than its historical resistance to send adult students “over the mountain” to the regional vocation school that shares space with SAD 17 inside Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School.

Some SAD 17 officials fear that changes in educational philosophy at the state level could lead to the demise of the vocational curriculum.

At the December 18 school board meeting in SAD 17, Don Gouin, of Norway, who also sits on the Region 11 board, had strong words.  He said the “common core” concept currently being pushed by Maine’s Education Commissioner, Susan Gendron, could prove “devastating” for the technical school.

Eastman explained after the meeting that the “common core” drive includes increasing the number of credit hours required for academic classes.  The intent, he said, is to better prepare students for placement in a typical four-year liberal arts college, such as the University of Maine system.

However, the increased focus on academic classes, from 13 to 22 credits in SAD 17, including foreign language classes, will mean fewer hours in the day for vocational or technical programs. 

“If classes are not in the 'core,' they are electives,” said Eastman.  “And if you reduce the number of hours available to any student to take electives, that reduces the amount of time they have available to take a tech program.”

In a very real sense, the plan could take the “comprehensive” out of Oxford Hill Comprehensive High School, he said.

Moreover, some people, like SAD 17 school board Chairman Dale Piirainen, of West Paris, fear that Gendron’s plan, designed to raise the overall socio-economic well-being of the state by funneling more students into college, could blow up in the face of the local labor force.

“If kids do not get the type of education they want to get, those kids will get frustrated,” he says.  “I think you’ll see the dropout rate go up.”

”I think we are seeing that now,” says Eastman.  “I’m looking at the numbers now — we’ve got the dropout rate down to 2 percent and I think you are going to see that start to go back up.

“The commissioner’s bandwagon is ‘college ready for every student.’  What scares me about that is that we have a lot of our kids who learn in what I would call an applied way,” says Eastman.  “They learn hands on.  They learn by doing.  An academic-only program will not meet their needs.”

Eastman and Piirainen agree that Gendron has had to do some “tremendous backpedaling” on the common core concept, given the heat she has reportedly taken from a number of employers who count on the students who come out of the regional vocational school, and the community colleges, as well as any number of apprenticeship programs.   

“What they [the Department of Education] will argue is that you need to prepare kids coming out of [high] school for the maximum number of options, and if they start at ‘college ready,’ then whatever profession they go into, they can handle all of the technical aspects,” says Eastman.  “They are saying that technical jobs require more and more academic skills, today.”

However, even barring any changes that may alter the look of the regional vocational schools over the long term, there also are other plans afoot in Augusta that could influence what becomes of SAD 39’s adult ed program.

According to Eastman, a number of reports, such as a recent Brookings Institute study, urge consolidation of school administration, including both SADs and regional vocational schools. 

With that change looming on the horizon, Eastman says he is nervous about dumping SAD 39 too quickly, only to have the program boomerang back into his lap.

”We have to be careful about saying we are going to send this piece of this program that way, say to SAD 52, when we may be legislatively mandated to turn around and run that program,” he says.  “So, we need to be a little cautious about acting too quickly.”

Still, the wheels are turning at the state level.  The trick for SAD 39 is to not get caught in the gears.  Because SAD 17 is not interested in having Courcy run adult ed for both districts, as Green did, that may force SAD 39 to act before it’s clear exactly what's ahead.  At any rate, what’s coming, cautions Eastman, could be big.

“It’s a pretty drastic change,” he says.  “It’s on everybody’s plate.”

According to Colpitts, Green will be at SAD 39's February school board meeting to address adult education issues.  That meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, February 7, at the school district’s central office in the Buckfield Municipal Building.

Norway Oddfellows Hall gets fourth last chance

NORWAY — In the fourth reprieve granted in as many months to the vacant Oddfellow’s Hall on Norway’s Main Street, the Growth Council of Oxford Hills has given a potential buyer until January 15 to come up with the balance of the $150,000 selling price.

                                               

At a recent appearance before Norway selectmen, Growth Council president John Shattuck said he has observed an “alarming pattern of behavior” on the part of Rick Lockwood, since the Gorham developer signed a purchase and sale agreement and put a deposit on the building in early November.

Shattuck said later that Lockwood missed several agreed to performance standards, although he refused to say exactly what was not done, beyond not coming up with the full purchase price by December 31.

Shattuck did acknowledge that sub contractors for Lockwood have already done some work on the building, using about $95,000 salvaged from state grant money given to Norway when the Growth Council began its renovation of the building.  Work was done to the heating and plumbing systems, and a new liner was put in the chimney, he said.

The Growth Council bought the three-story brick building from the last remaining Oddfellows in 2002 for $68,000, with the intent of turning the building into a center for nonprofit business.  A  $500,000 Municipal Investment Trust Fund (MITF) matching grant awarded to Norway in 2003 for the project. 

After spending about half of the money, and giving continued reassurances to Norway selectmen that the project was moving along, former Growth Council CEO Brett Doney finally copped to a cash flow shortage in late August, announcing that his group could not meet the dollar-for-dollar match required to spend the rest of the grant.  Instead, he said the Growth Council would abandon the Oddfellows’ project in favor of other items on its long-tern strategic plan.

The Department of Economic and Community Development gave Norway 30 days to find a new developer for the project, or else it would take back all MITF money not spent by the Growth Council.

In late September, the Growth Council announced that a buyer had been found.   However, after their selection, an announced press conference failed to come off and, as the weeks passed, sale papers went unsigned.  By November those buyers bowed out, unable to come up with the money they had offered for the building, and Lockwood stepped in.

By that time, the Growth Council was only able to salvage about $92,000 from the MITF grant to match money it has already spent gutting the building of all utilities.  Ultimately, about $268,000 in grant money was returned to the state.

Lockwood did not return messages from this newspaper requesting comment, but previously said that he intends to renovate the first two floors for retail, create office space on the third floor, and put “a nice Italian restaurant” in the basement, with tables looking out onto the Pennesseewassee Stream.

“I think Norway’s citizens are going to be very proud to have this building in their town,” Lockwood, said in an earlier interview. “It will be a beautiful building when we get done.”

Vicki Farr confirmed that she plans to close on a deal to buy Maine Made and More January 15, and move it into the Oddfellow building as soon as renovations are complete. 

The Growth Council had given Farr until the 15th to vacate the stores current location in the former Newberry building, recently leased to Norway Savings Bank for use as office space.  Growth Council vice president Marcy Boughter says she will work with the bank to buy Farr some additional time.

Shattuck says that another potential buyer has been lined up, if the deal with Lockwood falls through.  Farr says she has spoken to that person and is confident that Maine Made will end up in the Oddfellows building regardless of who ultimately ends up owning the site.

Farr says the only difference is that Lockwood has promised to install stairs and an elevator, so that she can occupy the bottom two floors.  The other potential buyer currently waiting in the wings, has said he can not afford an elevator, says Farr, which will relegate her to the ground floor.

Lola’s closing January 31

NORWAY — Lola’s Boutique, a ladies’ fine apparel shop on Norway’s Main Street will close January 31 after two years in business.

Owner Lorrie Bean cites a stagnant economy for poor sales — down nearly 70 percent year-to-year — which led to the decision to shut the doors.

Sales were strong a year ago when Bean moved the business to 434 Main Street, up from 274 Main Street, where Pick a Lily is now.  But after an initial spurt, sales “just died right back off,” Bean says,

“From what I hear from people, for the most part, it’s the economy more than anything else,” she says.  “Right at this moment, I’m not sure I’m feeling too positive.  It’s not so good out here.

“I certainly don’t want to hurt anyone who’s out there trying to make a go of it, but I don’t know if it’s a great business climate right now, to be honest,” said Bean on Tuesday, as she was beginning to draw up her going-out-of-business signs.

For the rest of the month, Bean will liquidate her stock. 

“Hopefully, somebody will decide, just because it’s too warm and they can’t go skiing, to come on in and clean me out,” said Bean, displaying some of her usual good-natured joviality.

Bean plans to move into advertising sales once the shop closes.  She’ll also continue to market her own handmade line of children’s clothing, on the internet, by phone (539-8533), and at local farmer’s markets, where she says she’ll be in her element.

“I really am just an old farmer at heart,” she says, with a laugh.