Proposed public safety building and potential deer hunt will both be on the May 11 ballot.

Shaun Farrar

Apr 02, 2026

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by the Maine Seacoast Mission.

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TREMONT—On Monday, April 6, the Tremont Select Board will hold two public hearings on issues that voters will have to decide to support, or not, on May 11. That day is the town’s secret ballot portion of its annual town meeting with its open town meeting the next evening on May 12.

One of the ballot votes will be seeking public support on a potential future bond of approximately $2 million to support a new public safety building that is planned to be built in the same area as the town office building and highway department garage.

The other ballot vote will be to determine if Tremont voters support what could be the first deer hunting season on Mount Desert Island in almost 100 years.

At its meeting on March 9, the Tremont Select Board met via Zoom with representatives from Hedefine Engineering and Design Group Collaborative, the two consulting companies working with the town on the engineering and design of the proposed new public safety building. The Select Board wanted to speak about a number of cost eliminations and potential design alterations, all in an attempt to lower the estimated construction cost of $7.7-$9.5 million to a number closer to $6 million.

The Public Safety Building Committee is applying for a Congressionally Directed Spending grant through Senator Susan Collins’ office that will hopefully pay for approximately 75% of the new building.

The application deadline for this grant was March 20, making the process of potential price reduction accelerated so that the Public Safety Building Committee could meet this deadline, which according to Town Manager Jesse Dunbar, it did.

The idea was to get a firmer number, closer to the town’s goal, for both the grant application and for the town vote during which voters will approve, or not, the town’s match.

The potential cost saving ideas were presented by both the consultants and the Select Board members with input from the Public Safety Building Committee.

Some of the big-ticket eliminations from the latest proposed cost sheet (at the time of the March 9 meeting) and potential design changes are below:

• Removing air conditioning from the apparatus bays;
• Reducing proposed 3 phase 800 amp electrical service to 200 amp;
• Changing 300kw generator to smaller propane powered generator;
• Removing separate public safety building parking lot;
• Changing from two separate buildings to a two-story single building;
• Possibly building a steel building rather than more traditional stick built construction.

At the following Select Board meeting on March 16, the Select Board was again joined by representatives from the consultant companies. After having only a week to rework the project with the previous suggestions from the Select Board and Public Safety Building Committee, the firms were able to get the estimated construction price down to just over $6.7 million. Adding on the administrative “soft” costs brings the project price to approximately $8 million.

If the town is successful in securing congressionally directed funding for the project, taxpayers would be responsible for just over $2 million.

You can view the most recent proposed public safety building draft report below.

Tremont Psb Draft Report Final

11.4MB ∙ PDF file

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POTENTIAL TOWN OF TREMONT DEER HUNTING SEASON

On April 3, 2025, Maine House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) presented a bill, LD 1438, that he was sponsoring to the Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife that would make it legal to hunt deer on Mount Desert Island.

On May 7 at an IFW Committee meeting, the committee unanimously voted that the bill ought not to pass (ONTP), which “killed the bill in committee.”

Since that decision was made, the Tremont Select Board has been refining plans to hold a special deer hunt in Tremont as a way to attempt to reduce the number of deer-involved car crashes, destruction of private property through deer grazing, and instances of Lyme disease in humans.

During this almost year-long span, the Select Board has met many times to create and modify the proposed plan and held multiple public hearings on a potential deer hunting season in Tremont.

At its meeting on March 16, Town Manager Jesse Dunbar informed the Tremont Select Board that the latest draft of the town’s deer hunting season proposal has received unofficial approval by IFW officials.

Some of the finer points that have been honed down during the process involve who can hunt, where they can hunt, what weapons can be used to hunt and what sex deer can be killed.

Those points include:

• All hunting will be archery and shotgun only.
• Hunting can only take placed from a fixed position, ground blind or elevated stand.
• Landowners must provide stand locations.
• Only property owners and Tremont residents may hunt.
• Only anterless deer may be taken. An anterless deer is defined by the state as any deer having antlers less than three inches in length as measured from the skull.
• Hunters will be required to register with the town office to prove residency or land ownership and will be given a permission slip which must be shown when tagging a deer at the mandated tagging station.
• The tagging station location will be either Gott’s Store in Southwest Harbor or Hansen’s Outpost in Tremont, location to be decided.
• The special hunt will take place during the month of November beginning with the 2026 hunting season and will last for a total three years.
• All other applicable state hunting rules and guidelines must be followed including shooting distance from dwellings.

The full special hunt plan as presented to the IFW is below.

Tremont Special Hunt Request Draft 03 16 2026 (1)

265KB ∙ PDF file

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