Town Council: Incumbents Daniel Blanchard (48 votes) and Roger Guptill (47 votes) re-elected to three-years terms; Nancy Richard (72 votes) elected to a one-year term.

School Committee: Incumbents Katie Bryant (54 votes) and Melissa Hodgkin (42 votes) re-elected to three-year terms; Jacques Wiseman (12 votes) elected by write-ins to a one-year term.

Mechanic Falls town meeting
42 agree to raise mill rate to $19.42

MECHANIC FALLS – The 42 voters at Saturday’s annual town meeting approved a budget guaranteed to increase property taxes.

With little debate and no attempt to reduce the amounts requested, voters approved school and municipal budgets totaling $6.8 million.

Town Manager John Hawley apologized, warning in advance that taxes on a $125,000 home would go up by about $65 if the budget was approved as proposed.

“I hate to be the messenger of gloom and doom, but the cost of doing business has dramatically increased,” Hawley said. He cited the strain that Town Council, Budget Committee and School Committee members felt in producing a budget that required an increase in taxes yet did little to improve the rapidly deteriorating condition of the town’s roads and sidewalks, school and municipal buildings.

The tax rate, which has stood at $18.90 per $1,000 in property value for three straight years, is projected to rise to $19.42.

Budget Committee Chairman Carlton Beckett thanked transfer station manager Bob Abbott for saving $30,000 at the town’s trash transfer station, achieved mainly through recycling efforts. Beckett also praised the School Committee for coming in with a budget that for the fourth year in a row kept the town’s tax contribution level.

Elm Street School Principal Mary Martin noted that this year’s budget included a $200,000 cut in state aid. That meant the School Committee had to eliminate three positions to avoid an increase in local taxes.

The $4.7 million school budget passed on a 37-5 written ballot vote. Voters approved raising $205,420 for the town’s capital improvement program but balked at Hawley’s request to transfer $19,920 earmarked for improvements to downtown sidewalks to the Brown Road improvement account, which was budgeted at $30,000.

Hawley explained that Poland is doing its section of Brown Road and noted that if Mechanic Falls doesn’t do its section, “Poland’s new road will be 2 feet higher than ours at the town line by the brook.”

Voters agreed that it made sense to do Brown Road, and do it right, which would mean spending the extra near-$20,000 needed to properly remove the clay that underlies the road – which is why the road has never been right. They gave the Town Council authority to move money within the capital improvement budget as it sees fit, provided the council not cannibalize the sidewalk account.

Sky-rocketing fuel costs were identified as the prime cause of increases in budgets for operating the municipal complex and the Public Works Department, prompting resident Jeffrey White to suggest cutting back on the number of times plows go over a road as a way to save money.

“Some people don’t want to drive through 2 or 3 inches of snow. They want to drive at highway speed, no matter what,” White said, suggesting the town might practice a little conservation in the future by reassessing its practice of plowing roads 6 to 8 times during a storm.

Resident Terri Arsenault said she appreciated roads being open in time for the morning commute and saw clear roads as a way to reduce accidents.

Hawley noted that the Budget Committee and the council were open to suggestions on how the town could make do on less.

The meeting was moderated by veteran moderator Michael Baird.

State law requires that the school budget be validated by a local referendum, which will be held from 3-7 p.m. Wednesday in the municipal gym.