Group: Mechanic Falls Council

Met: Monday night

Safe workplace

Issue: Identification of hazards in the workplace and training in how to avoid accidents can pay off in preventing on-the-job injuries and lower workers compensation rates.

Scoop: Town Manager John Hawley told the council that the town had no claimable injuries in 2007 and that, according to Bob Thomas from Maine Management Association’s Risk Management, is an achievement no other town insured through the MMA Risk Pool has ever managed to accomplish. Hawley said the town’s Safety Committee deserves credit for its part in raising awareness of what constitutes a safe workplace and helping to create one.

Up next: If 2008 proves to be even an average year for injury payouts, the town’s workers’ compensation insurance rates should see a substantial decrease a year from now because rates are based on the town’s records over the past five years, and 2003 is the last year Mechanic Falls had a major claim.

Recreation building

Issue: Should the Recreation Committee allow the Boosters Club to set up a permanent full service kitchen in the rec storage building to serve people at the town ball fields.

Scoop: Recreation committee members Matt Gary and Tom Kuklinski explained that their committee questioned whether the additional costs would be offset by sufficient revenues. After hearing issues pro and con, the council said it didn’t want to micromanage the Recreation Committee, and made it clear that whatever course the committee chose, taxpayer money would not go into the project.

Plowing private propertyThe stipulation that public funds cannot be used to maintain private property applies to clearing snow from a private parking lot.

Scoop: In response to a resident’s complaint that the town crews are plowing American Legion Post 150’s parking lot, Hawley explained that the Legion is being billed a little under $50 a storm to have its lot on Elm Street cleared. He said the figure is based on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s schedule of rates for equipment use plus time for public works drivers. The town plows the lot because it has a shared parking arrangement with the Legion that allows public parking on Legion property to accommodate people frequenting nearby businesses.

Health officer

Issue: The state requires each community to have a health officer and to insure qualified people fill that role. The state has changed the criteria that a health officer must meet.

Scoop: Hawley noted that like many small towns, Mechanic Falls has given the responsibility to him as town manager, but although an EMT, he really doesn’t have the experience in public health that the position requires.

Up next: Hawley recommended the council handle the health officer position in the same manner it does its emergency management agency director, creating a separate stipend position.

– Winslow Durgin