RUMFORD – When Joe Roberts asked the town last May for a $7,000 loan so the Moontide Water Festival Committee could pay off some of its debts and ensure a fireworks display during the July 4, 2005, celebration, he promised the town would be repaid, even if he had to pay it himself.
At Thursday night’s selectmen’s meeting, board Chairman Jim Thibodeau announced that the debt had been repaid.
“We thank you very much for that,” he said, as about 20 members of the public looked on.
Town officials had threatened to withhold the usual $10,000 annual contribution for the water festival and fireworks display if the loan had not been repaid.
Those funds come from the town’s share of cable television franchise fees.
Following Thursday’s board meeting, Roberts, who is president of the Moontide Water Festival Committee, said he paid $4,000 from his own money. The remaining $3,000 came from restitution made by Moontide’s former president, Matthew J. Plante, who was found guilty late last year of stealing about $6,000 from funds raised to put on the annual festival.
Roberts said the remainder of the restitution went toward paying off part of the money owed to Telstar Displays, the Jaffrey, N.H., fireworks company that put on the July 4th display. He said the Moontide committee still owes the company about $5,000.
He believes fireworks will be a part of the annual July 4th downtown celebration this year. The committee is hard at work trying to raise enough money, he said Thursday night.
Following last year’s funding difficulties, Roberts had said that the three- or four-day festival may be reduced to just one. The lengthier festival has generally cost about $44,000 and money taken in during the event has been far less than expenses.
In other matters on Thursday, the board voted 3-2 to grant the town’s nonunion employees a 3.5 percent wage increase.
Thibodeau and Selectman Mark Belanger opposed the percentage increase, preferring a flat across-the-board raise of 45 cents per hour for all such employees. Selectmen Greg Buccina, Jolene Lovejoy and Jim Rinaldo favored the percentage hike. Nonunion employees received a 3 percent hike last year. Negotiations for union employees are currently ongoing.
The board also granted a liquor license to Rick Mealey, owner of the soon-to-open Boiler Room restaurant at the Harris. Mealey also owns the Boiler Room Restaurant in Wilton. The Rumford restaurant is expected to open sometime next month.
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