JAY – Selectmen authorized the town’s code officer to draft a changeable sign ordinance that would allow a sign message to scroll up and change every two seconds. The sign could also be fixed and not change.
Selectmen would like to put the new ordinance proposal before voters during the annual town meeting referendum on Monday, April 24, Chairman Bill Harlow said Tuesday.
Otis Federal Credit Union representatives asked the town to adopt an ordinance so that they could change their sign along Route 4 more than once every 20 minutes as the law states. There are exemptions for time and weather.
The state Department of Transportation regulates changeable signs on highways, but the state Legislature passed a law that went into effect last year that allows towns to enact a changeable sign ordinance.
A municipal ordinance could allow the sign to change as rapidly as the owner wants, and in any manner wished, except that the sign may not flash.
Credit union officials had asked that the ordinance allow them to change their sign message every two seconds. A draft ordinance from the Maine Municipal Association recommended that an ordinance allow the signs to change no more frequently than once every minute.
In other business, Harlow said, Selectman Ray Pineau, who had a stroke in August, received a standing ovation Monday night when he attended the informational meeting on the proposed $16.3 million budget for school and municipal operations.
Town officials and employees spearheaded a benefit supper and raffles for Pineau, which raised more than $12,000 Saturday including money donated by state legislators.
Harlow also said that selectmen tabled action on the Jay-Livermore Falls Hunting Club’s request for a property tax abatement, pending more information.
The club bought property on the Quarry Road from the North Jay Sportsman’s Club last spring.
The hunting club’s property is valued at $13,500 for both land and building. They have requested an abatement of taxes of $211.66, which is the full amount they have been assessed including interest, according to town records.
However, though Jay assessors exempted the sportsman’s club property in 1991, the exemption for that property was removed in 2005 because the town was sold, according to a memo Jay assessing agent Paul Binette gave to selectmen.
Jay selectmen, in their capacity as town assessors, can reinstate the exemption but the hunting club has not submitted an exemption application.
“The club has not yet demonstrated whether they are charitable and benevolent, scientific and literary, fraternal or any category that would deem a satisfactory outcome of the application,” Binette wrote. “With no exemption application to review, we cannot advise the board to grant the tax abatement application based on the property being exempt.”
Harlow also said Tuesday that Town Manager Ruth Marden reported that there were 317 certified residents of Jay who signed a petition asking selectmen to do what needs to be done to make Parker Pond Road a public way.
Selectmen continue to review options, Harlow said.
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