BETHEL – At next week’s special town meeting, voters will decide on proposed amendments to four town ordinances and whether to lease a town building to a local energy startup.

At Monday night’s meeting among selectmen, the budget committee and Bethel Airport Authority, selectmen scheduled a special town meeting for 7 p.m. Thursday, July 10, at Crescent Park School.

The amendments include clarifying enforcement abilities of the code enforcement officer and selectmen on the floodplain management, shoreland zone, site plan review and subdivision ordinances.

Additional changes to the site-plan review ordinance include clarification on the definition of wetlands and that there isn’t any pro-ration of dwelling units allowed lots smaller than one acre with sewer service.

Also for both that ordinance and the subdivision ordinance, an amendment proposes to eliminate a provision allowing the planning board to request additional information from applicants that isn’t specifically defined in the ordinance.

“Ideally, we would have dealt with these at town meeting, but errors were made by us regarding notices of public meetings,” Bethel Town Manager Scott Cole said by phone early Tuesday evening.

Article 6 asks voters to authorize selectmen to enter a two-year lease agreement at $42,500 per year with Maine Energy Systems LLC for a 4.7-acre parcel of town land containing the single-story, 20,000-square-foot GAMM building.

That agreement would also give Maine Energy Systems an option to buy the building and land at anytime during the two years for $600,000.

Selectmen further amended the article that should the option be exercised, it could be no later than July 1, 2010.

A seventh article on the draft warrant, which asked voters to determine what action the town should take with the disposition of proceeds from the sale of the building and land, was deemed moot and removed, Cole said.

The GAMM building, which is located on the corner of North and Davis roads, has been leased to American Ski Co. for the past 10 or more years. Cole said rent off the building is dedicated to the Bethel Regional Airport fund and provides the bulk of money needed to operate the airport.

Maine Energy Systems was founded earlier this year by Les Otten, the former founder of ASC and former owner of Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry.

The Bethel-based business is a distributor for wood-pellet fired boilers made in Sweden and Germany.

At Monday’s meeting, selectmen also:

• OK’d using $2,500 to buy materials for picnic tables and picnic table shelters, and handicap ramps at Angevine Park on North Road.

Cole said the money will be taken from the remaining $24,000 balance of federal funds used to repair damage caused by last summer’s watershed-destroying rain deluge and subsequent flooding along North Road.

• authorized a Maine Department of Transportation grant for a traffic engineering study regarding the proposed Mason Street sidewalk, but reserved the right to bail out of the project.


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