OXFORD — About 40 Oxford residents attended either in person or via Facebook to ask questions and listen to the positions of four candidates – Scott Hunter, Samantha Hewey, Floyd Thayer, and Ryan (RJ) Brown – running for two seats on the board of selectmen last Thursday. Hunter and Hewey are looking to be reelected to the seats they currently hold. Thayer spent eight-10 years on the planning board, several times on the town budget committee, was part of the recent building committee and previously served four terms on the select board.  Brown is a newcomer to elected town politics.

The “candidates’ night” panel was hosted by District 72 State Rep. Kathleen Dillingham at the Station House Community Center. The event can be viewed in its entirety on Dillingham’s Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/RepKatheenDillingham/videos/1301636180258111.

The topics concerning voters were not new – discussion was largely focused on the town’s two long-neglected dams that maintain water levels on three lakes within four communities, how to replace the dilapidated and unhealthy municipal office and how Oxford spends tax and casino revenues.

One resident voiced frustration that voters had rejected a five-year lease for town office space at a special town meeting in March and now selectmen are asking for the same plan at annual town meeting next month. She noted that when she was at the town office on Pleasant Street they kept fans running to get the filtration going so that the mold didn’t happen.

After the meeting, Hewey confirmed for the Advertiser Democrat that the town has done three air quality test throughout the years.

“All three have shown mold,” wrote Hewey in an email statement. “After the last special town meeting [in March] we had the third test conducted to see if it was still an unsafe environment. The air quality test did show mold even after the extensive cleaning that was performed. The basement, the current CEO office, and a third area was noted.”

“For years you people were saying we need to be fiscally responsible, and I am not really seeing that,” the resident said during the meeting. “When we talk about free money coming in from other places someone pays for it eventually. I want to see how you plan to keep taxes at reasonable rates. We have a lot of seniors citizens, we hear our mil rate is low compared to Lewiston and Auburn. I don’t want to live in Lewiston or Auburn.

“We need to look at ways to share [services] with other communities. How many times do we use a ladder truck? Does every town need a ladder truck? Why do we continue to spend money like that?”

Brown said that in his experience while in the military they followed the acronym K.I.S.S – keep it simple stupid, and if something is not broken don’t fix it.

“There is no point on spending money on new stuff when you can fix the old stuff,” he said. “Upgrade rather than build new…everyone’s got to stop and look at the bigger picture. Can it be fixed, repaired, cleaned up or does it have to be taken down and started over?”

“When I originally came to the board about 15 years ago and people talked of saving money, I brought up the fact that Oxford, Paris and Oxford had three legs,” said Thayer. “We all had our own fire department, police department and highway department. It didn’t go over that good, I thought they’d tar and feather me. To do cut things drastically, some of that stuff should be combined. We’ve done it with the school department. I’m not sure how to get everybody on that same page.

“As far as crazy spending, what one person thinks is crazy, for another it’s their number one priority. But we should have people thinking about actual needs over wants.”

“I agree with Floyd,” said Hunter. “We’ve tried between the three towns to combine services. Between them we have an ungodly amount of fire apparatus. But, if we don’t have it when we go on our calls? No one is around during the day and nobody can do fires by themselves today. We rely on mutual aid. We try to work together and we could eliminate half our fire apparatus. But that’s not what the municipalities want. If that happens it has to be done at the state level. No town really wants to give up their individuality.”

Hunter also pointed out that the town had to replace its grader and backhoe in 2020, equipment that was 30 years old. He said that although Oxford recently paid to have a failing part of the Thompson Lake dam repaired, selectmen will continue a dialogue with the other towns that have frontage on the lake for the next phases of maintenance and repair.

“I agree with your frustration of towns not sharing,” said Hewey. “When we did the Thompson Lake dam project, I advocated so hard to get a mutual agreement. I was on the [four-town] dam committee that other selectmen voted to disband. The board feels that ‘they don’t pay so they don’t say,’ that we are not giving up control. That has to stop and that thinking is what’s gotten us here. You could take the Thompson Lake dam and make agreements. Other towns have made agreements. You have to be humble when you go. You need to have a give and a take and the best compromise is where no one comes out happy but it’s the best situation for the most amount of people.

‘The ladder truck is an issue – the hotel has to have a certain height ladder. And talking about mutual aid, our ladder truck has been used multiple times down in Auburn and Lewiston just a few weeks ago because there was no ladder truck in between. The whole fire rating has changed. In other states houses have these plaques that tell you the house rating, number of occupants. But in Maine we don’t enforce it because we don’t like the government telling us what to do. We like our liberties. A house fire 30 years ago that would have burned much slower burns in minutes now.”

Hewey advised that town officials are working on grants to defray costs on equipment like a new ladder truck. She also said that the current select board has been able to pay for some things in cash from the town’s fund balance and worked to refinance bonds at lower rates to save on payments.

Another resident wanted to know the top priority for 2021 – the town office, fire department or the dams.

“How will you divide all this money to make everyone happy?” she asked, adding later that volunteers spent more than a year studying the town office issue and for the second time selectmen are pursuing a lease that the committee and voters rejected.

Hewey said that she is studying interlocal dam agreements from other towns and that work; one of her other goals is to execute replacement plans for town-owned vehicles and equipment to stagger the expense in future budgets.

Hunter explained that an office is being reintroduced because the new town manager has been able to negotiate a lease from five years down to three, that would give time to properly design a new building and weather the current period of skyrocketing construction costs.

“We really need to get out of that town office,” Hunter said, even as one resident told him he was wrong.

Thayer agreed with residents’ frustration over the town office impasse. He stated his priorities would be contracting the design for co-locating the town office at the public safety building before soliciting construction RFPs, and improving Oxford’s roads.

Brown said that a new town office should be built as an addition to the public safety building and that the roads in town are atrocious.

 

 

 

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