If you look in the rear view mirror in the Rangeley area you’ll see a pile of debris from Town Meetings and referenda. Once again, millions of dollars were shuffled on in an uncontested fashion while the inconsequential items or put another way the items that don’t cost so much were the subject of much discussion.
An interesting newer concept is the leasing of vehicles. This means the comedy of arguments on who should get a new truck and what parts are falling off of existing trucks and how much better run local contractors’ vehicles are and how many more years they run the trucks will be eliminated! A flat lease fee will make life easier for Town departments to get through Town Meeting. It will also make the budget preparation cleaner. Vehicles will go back after whatever the lease period is and the expensive maintenance will be –hopefully—eliminated. On the other side of this coin is the fact that the Town can borrow money at a better rate than an automobile company, but then the Town is back into the fight over which truck and which repair and on and on. It does, however, eliminate some of the levity of Town Meetings.
Often ordinances are knee jerk reactions to some real or perceived horror of life. In Rangeley, the horror this year is noise. How, you may wonder, as I do, is noise evaluated. Well, as nearly as I can tell, your noise is too much and mine is fine, or vice versa! When asked about the number of noise complaints, the new police chief, who was credited with requesting the ordinance, indicated that he had yet to experience any noise complaints. Some wondered aloud if ‘Disturbing the Peace” would not be a more efficient way to deal, but a small majority prevailed and the noise ordinance won the day. So keep it down if you are in Rangeley!! Try not to have too much fun for goodness sake!
The local radio station created quite a flurry of discussion by requesting $15,000 from the Town for their continued operation. It seems that the unresponsive cable company is going the way of the dinosaur and the only live communication will be via the radio. The discussion about funding the radio station danced around the tip of an iceberg that is the non-profits’ requests for funds from the Town. The small amount or small percentage of the total budget that each entity receives is negligible. However, the large number of groups making a request amounts to almost two hundred thousand or the equivalent of three Town employees or a couple of pick ups or a “wheeler’ so certainly not an insignificant amount of money.
Once you realize the amount of money that is involved in the seemingly insignificant individual non profit requests, you can see how a problem is developing with some run away good faith efforts. To that end and in order to attempt to get more participation in the actual Town government as afforded by an open Town Meeting process, the Town proposed and passed a one year change in how the warrant articles will be addressed.
In 2017 the whole process will happen earlier with a big meeting like the Town Meeting on the specific warrant articles. Discussions of each article and suggestions for amending each article will take place. Those discussions will then be put into the wording for the individual articles. A second public hearing will be held on the ‘firmed up’ warrant articles and further discussion will be held. A work sheet will be provided where the voters can vote the articles up or down depending upon their own choice of what is best for the Town. The individual articles will then go to a secret ballot on most likely the second Tuesday in June which will allow the Town to piggy back with any state elections and save money by having only one election. The Town Office promises to have all of the hearing information on its web site Town of Rangeley.com so that snowbirds can send emails with their questions and concerns or call the Town Office and give their thoughts which will be presented to the Selectmen for consideration as the Warrant is created. Voting in private on every issue will allow those who don’t wish to offend anyone the ability to vote what they believe to be right for the Town and for their pocket and not alienate their neighbors or friends.
Stand by!
Rose Collins
Rangeley
Rose, Oh how I miss you column in The Highlander. You always tell ” the rest of the story” and promote discussion on pertinent town issues. Keep up the good work and disseminate it however you can.