LIVERMORE FALLS — Nine people have signed up to serve on a committee to look at options to pay down the debt of the Sewer Department related to the sewer treatment plant.

Selectmen Ken Pelletier and Louise Chabot have agreed to serve on the panel, Town Manager Kristal Flagg told selectmen Monday during their meeting.

Both do not have public sewer service, but Chabot is for taxpayers helping to pay for the plant, while Pelletier is against it, Flagg said.

Two people who do have public sewer, Wayne Knowlton and Kenny Jacques, have agreed to serve.

Three others who don’t have public sewer also want to serve, Flagg said.

She asked selectmen if they wanted to have three people serve on the committee or just two.

They will have no power, board Chairman Bill Demaray said. They will look at all the options and make recommendations to selectmen.

In response to Flagg’s question, Demaray said he had no problem if they all were on the committee.

“Hopefully we will get some ideas,” he said.

Other selectmen agreed.

Selectmen, in their capacity as sewer trustees, voted in November to raise the sewer rates by 20 percent to help offset debt and other costs. A 35  percent increase was needed, but selectmen believed that such a high increase at once would be too much.

Knowlton and Jacques asked the town to help pay for sewer during a hearing. Sewer users currently foot the whole cost.

Flagg said she will call everybody who wants to serve to see what day would be a good meeting time. She will try to organize a meeting prior to the new year, but is not sure if that can be accomplished.

Pelletier said he understands that it’s a busy time of year, but the work needs to be done.

Flagg also updated the board on the a grant for funds for the sewer treatment plant.

The town would need to have a GIS map and income data of those that use the sewer system, she said.

“The only way we could get that is to send a survey to all the sewer users,” Flagg said. They would have to be back by Jan. 18, 2013. The grant requires a certain percentage of surveys to come back, and the numbers returned don’t usually meet the criteria.

The grant application is not doable this year, she said.

Getting the funds to fix the bar screen is not going to happen, and it needs to be done, Flagg said.

The repair is expected to cost $200,000.

Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments representative Amy Landry recommended that Flagg and she meet in April to see what can be done.

In other business, selectmen accepted the resignation of Thomas Mitchell with regret from the sewer treatment plant. Mitchell has worked for Sewer Department for 37 years, she said.

Demaray said Mitchell didn’t want any fanfare when he left. He just wants to go, he said.

Flagg said when she advertised for a chief plant operator in April, there was another applicant who was the second choice. He has since gotten his plant operator license, and she would like to hire him, she said.

“I think it would be a good fit,” Flagg said.

She had posted the position in-house previously, but no one applied. There is also no one in the town’s employ after Mitchell retires that has an operator’s license, except for the superintendent of the Sewer Department, she said.

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