Select Board Moves to Restore Public Comment & Will Contract Out for Board Secretary
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SOUTHWEST HARBOR—The town is getting closer to getting some major projects done and then also underway, the town’s select board heard during its meeting, September 9.
Select board members also moved back toward having a public comment time at their meetings and contracting with someone to record minutes for potentially both appeals board and planning board meetings.
MAIN STREET SIDEWALK PROJECT
The Main Street Sidewalk Project has just a punch list of items left to address before it’s considered complete.
Contractor R.F. Jordan will likely return the week of October 6 to finish the remaining work and a Maine Department of Transportation (MaineDOT) walkthrough of the area is expected to occur the week of September 22.
“So in essence, you know, there’s detectable warming fields that have to be readjusted, there’s a piece of drainage curve down by Ocean’s End that has to be fixed, there’s a property pin that needs to be reestablished. There’s catch basin grates that they have; they could have come in earlier and put in, but I haven’t really been on there, you know what, for those things, because it wasn’t like a major crisis, but they have them. They’ve got to clean the drain system after they’re done because they’ve not done that yet. There’s a driveway that needs to be replaced; the apron’s not good quality; they didn’t . . . . It doesn’t look like it was compacted properly,” said Annaleis Hafford, vice president of Olivr Associates.
“There’s a catch basin issue at Wood Street, where the two catch basins that are out in the road that are intended to pick up the water, the water’s going around them, and I’m not sure yet of what the fix is. I would say that’s probably the hardest one to figure out, because I don’t want to have a patch in the road.
“If we change the pavement in the shoulder to … They just didn’t shim it correctly, it’s a paving issue. When they came through and paved it, they just didn’t get it quite right. But we have some options of maybe lowering the basins, the covers on. It’s not easy because they’re sitting on the rim.
“So there’s some things we need to work out to get that to look right. So that’s the biggest item I see is getting that done right.”
PUBLIC WORKS GARAGE
The town’s new $3.22 million public works garage plans are currently being finalized and about to be put to bid, Hafford told the board.
“We would imagine the bid opening would be in late October. This is a pretty big job and we want to give people a chance to price it fairly and get their numbers in,” Hafford said.
Congressionally designated funding, would pay for $2.4 million of the project. The town would pay $804,000, an amount that has to be approved by voters at 2026 town meeting.
“And the earliest construction would start, I’m believing would be in April 2026, which is good kind of timing, because by then the treatment plant guys will no longer be over there in the lab, because they’ve been using your only real clean space there for a lavatory,” Hafford said. “But it may be that construction doesn’t really start till May, but I did an estimate of if it did start in April of 2026, it would be done around June 2027, and there may be some shutdowns through the winter, depending upon where they’re at with the construction, that might delay. They might have some added time at the end of it to finish the paving and stuff like that.”
The plan has been slightly tweaked for ADA-compliant bathrooms and removal of partitions.
STORM DAMAGE REPAIRS
Storm damage repair plans at four different locations are approximately 98% complete, Hafford told the select board members. That damage came from winter storms in 2024.
“So we feel we’re about 98% complete on the plans. The reason I say we’re not 100% complete is Karen (Reddersen, the town manager) just got the final FEMA agreement and there are some items in there that we’re trying to coordinate with our plans and make sure that there’s not going to be any confusion during bidding,” she explained.
As far as the permitting, they are still waiting for the Army Corps of Engineers permit for Harbor Avenue.
“We do not have that yet. We do have the DEP permit for Harbor Avenue, so that’s a step ahead,” Hafford said. “I thought Manset Bath was complete, but they put that through to IF&W because there was a species in that area. I’m sorry, I can’t remember which one, but there was either a bird or a particular rockfish or something that had to be considered during the permitting. The DEP told us they don’t expect there to be any issues with getting it permitted. And that’s the easiest one.”
They submitted that permit in July.
“They’re all submitted. They’re all been accepted,” Hafford said. “And those are the only two things we don’t have is the, and we can’t bid it until we have them.”
BOARD APPROVES HIRING A RECORDING SECRETARY FOR MINUTES
The board approved hiring a recording secretary for the town’s appeals board and planning board.
Reddersen said that there is approximately $10,000-$11,000 in the budget for code enforcement activity that could be used to provide minutes.
“We really still don’t feel that there’s sufficient staff on board to have that. We had Maddie trying to do that, or we had John trying to do that,” Reddersen said. “So it’s our internal recommendation to you all for consideration that we advertise and hire that through a contract opportunity so that they would come forward if we found the person to do that, that they would be paid by the warrant as a contract, not as an employee of the town.”
Code Enforcement Officer John Larson estimated that it would take people two hours to write the minutes, Reddersen said, but the secretary would also have to attend the meetings and record them, which adds additional hours.
“I think this might be a great trial for us to see kind of if we can find someone and then see how it goes if we need more funding, and then either finding another solution down the road if it happens within this fiscal year, and then going forward, making sure that we’re budgeting,” Select Board Chair Noah Burby said.
The board suggested paying $30 an hour and advertising for a recording secretary for both the planning and appeals boards.
PUBLIC COMMENT
A new state law, LD 1091, expands the rights of the public to provide public comment at municipal officer meetings.
“The law specifically states the following: ‘A reasonable opportunity for public comment must be provided on matters addressed by the municipal governing body at any regularly scheduled public meeting of the municipal officers,’” Reddersen explained in her packet.
The law goes into effect on September 24, 2025.
“I personally like—I love the idea of having the public comment at our select board meetings. I’m disappointed that it was previously taken off of our agendas,” said select board member Natasha Johnson, “because I think we are here because of the residents that are in our towns. And if they have concerns, I think some people don’t know the best way to bring those concerns to the select board or even to the town manager, and this gives an open, non-pressured—hopefully non-pressured—ability for our residents to bring up topics of concern, and I think that that’s really important.”
The select board decided to draft a policy to be in place in October.
RIGHT-OF-WAY COMMITTEE
The board discussed a right-of-way committee to look into places where people might be encroaching on the town’s various right of ways.
“I think it’s incredibly important for the town to safeguard our rights-of-way and/or any easements we have for public use,” Johnson said. “I think that sometimes they can get forgotten about and that can cause other issues, whether it’s encroachment on them or forgotten that they even exist.”
Johnson said the town used to have a group of people that met that went over different rights-of-ways in the town, but doesn’t believe anyone has formally met in regards to that topic in quite some time.
The work will likely require boundary surveys, which will cost money to create. Johnson said many members of the town’s conservation committee wanted to work on the project, but that it’s a separate action from the committee. They had voted for her to bring it the select board.
Correction: During the correction process Olver Associations was changed to Oliver Associations. We have fixed that and regret the error!
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