Planning board approves on Hall Quarry Road

Carrie Jones

Dec 20, 2025

MOUNT DESERT—Facing approximately $775,000 in annual debt payments tied to school renovations and municipal borrowing, Mount Desert officials are weighing whether now might be the moment to tap a long-set-aside reserve fund. It’s an effort the town manager says that could soften future tax increases even as rising costs ripple through budgets across the Mount Desert Island community.

Mount Desert Town Manager Alex Kimball presented the town’s selectboard with a possible way to decrease the taxes the town needs to raise to accommodate two debt service payments for a bond. The comments came during a December 15 selectboard meeting.

”So this is a tricky one here. A few years back, the town had the opportunity and it put $173,000 into a CFE account called debt service reserve. The point of the debt service reserve is to guard against potential budget spikes on a year when a new debt, new bond issuance comes online,” Kimball said.

He explained the past thought process, saying, “If there’s a period where a new bond issuance is going to cause a spike in tax rate, potentially. Let’s save it for that year.”

Before Kimball became the town manager this fall that money had been set aside.

When should they use that money?

“What I am proposing is that this is the year,” he said of the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget.

He reasoned that there is a $1.6 million bond that the town will have to pay off as well as a $6 million bond for the Mount Desert Elementary School building renovation and repairs. Those bonds are equivalent to approximately a $775,000 debt service for the year.

The initial draft for the Mount Desert Elementary School’s 2026-2027 budget has a 12% increase overall and 8.8% increase in taxes raised due to that $650,000 debt service payment this year. The draft budget is approximately $6.5 million.

Taxpayers in the the region pay for their own school budgets, municipal (town or city) budgets, and a portion of the county, AOS, and high school budgets. What they have the most control over is their town or city budgets.

In other business, the selectboard approved closing the town office at noon, December 24; okayed purchasing radio equipment from Brown’s Communications; and entered into an agreement for codification of Town of Mount Desert’s Ordinance Codes, which will cost approximately $17,000.

It agreed with the harbor committee’s recommendation to adjust the rate for vessels <49’ to $3.70/ft, the rate for vessels 50’<60’ to $4.20/ft and the rate for vessels 60’ to 99’ to $4.70/ft and the rate for vessels 100’ and over to $5.40/ft.

It also agreed with the harbor committee’s recommendation of amending the summer electricity rate to $25.00 for 30 amp, $36.00 for 50 amp and $65.00 for 100 amp per day starting May 15, 2026.

At the town planning board’s December 12 meeting, Nathan Donaldson and Vanessa Little withdrew their application to purchase three acres of land on Blue Bell Lane also known as Centennial Lane from neighbor, Sydney Roberts Rockefeller. That purchase requires planning board approval because the land is part of a subdivision. It had previously been discussed at a November 12 meeting.

“Our original agenda has been altered a little bit,” Planning Board Vice Chair Tracy Loftus Keller said, December 12.

At the November 12 meeting, some abutters had been worried about future plans for the property.

“If you guys say yes to this and then they come back and they say, ‘Okay, now we’re going to put four or five houses here,’ does that have to come back to you guys?” he asked.

The board said it would if there were plans for that. Future plans (if any) were not presented.

The board approved Michael C. Musetti‘s request to alter an existing vegetated “buffer,” at 49 Hall Quarry Road, Hall Quarry.

They are relocating the right of way to lot four of the subdivision, which goes through Musetti’s lot and move it toward a property line to get to lot four. It would shrink the buffer area by 30 feet.

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LINKS TO LEARN MORE

The planning board packet.

The select board packet.

To watch the meetings.

The planning board page.