DIXFIELD — At Monday night’s board meeting, selectmen opened engineering proposals from seven different state firms bidding to design the utilities and street reconstruction project for Pine, High and North streets.

Despite being given the same set of specifications for the work, bids ranged from $14,750 by A.E. Hodsdon of Waterville to $104,072 by Wright-Pierce of Topsham.

Other bids were $28,000 from Pine Tree Engineering Corp. of Bath; $41,048 from Sebago Technics Inc. of Westbrook; $45,045 by Mainland Development Consultants Inc. of Livermore Falls; and $90,000 each from CES Inc. of Auburn and Brewer and James W. Sewall Co. of Caribou.

Rather than pick one, Town Manager Eugene Skibitsky suggested having the board’s Roads Committee review each document and pick the top three choices on which selectmen will then act at their next meeting. Selectman and Road Committee member Stephen Donahue said the committee would meet at 9 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 18, at the town office to complete the work.

In other business and without discussion, the board unanimously approved placing a proposed youth curfew ordinance on the November ballot, and then set a public hearing for it at 5 p.m. Monday, Aug. 23.

The proposal outlines the hours a child would be allowed on the streets based on their age. It also seeks more responsibility from parents or guardians, including possible fines of up to $100 and jail time.

As proposed, children younger than 11 must be off the streets between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. For those 12 or 13 years old, the deadline would be 9:30 p.m.; for those 14 to 18, it would be 10 p.m. On Fridays and Saturdays, the times could be one hour later for each age group.

The curfew, which is being sought to crack down on increasing vandalism, would apply to all youths and not just those who live in Dixfield.

And, good news on the lengthy pest control front. Skibitsky said annual bug problems that have plagued residents whose homes border the Irving Forest Products sawmill are wood gnats nesting in algae that forms under the bark of logs sprayed with water from a mill pond.

The gnats don’t bite, but they swarm in great numbers when mating.

“Apparently the bark that is watered down from the pond provided the moisture to let algae grow in the bark and in that algae are the wood gnats, so they’ve finally found where the wood gnats live,” Skibitsky said.

He then said Irving can treat the pond with some inexpensive, non-harmful ingredients to deprive the wood of the algae when water from the pond is sprayed onto the wood. It’s either a bleach or copper sulfate, he added.

“So now, since that’s a several million dollar investment sitting on the ground in the form of logs, Irving was going to check and see what kind of agents they can empower, and then they are going to start treatment,” Skibitsky said.

“They need to do a bit more due diligence, but Irving acknowledges it is their problem. There may not be a resolution tomorrow, but over time, we’re going to take away that algae living in those logs, and that will take away the wood gnats’ incentive to live and breed in those logs.”

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link