JAY — Residents will consider questions on adult-use marijuana, fireworks, recouping costs for fire services and the state retirement system when they go to the polls Nov. 2.

Voting is from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Spruce Mountain Middle School gymnasium.

The first question asks voters if they want to repeal the town Consumer Fireworks Ordinance, which requires anyone wanting to set off fireworks to get a permit from the Fire Rescue Department.

The local law enacted by voters on June 2013 does not work, Town Manager Shiloh LaFreniere previously said. If repealed, the town would follow state fireworks rules.

The next warrant article asks residents if they want to adopt a Fire Department Services Cost Recovery Ordinance. It would allow the town to seek payment for the cost of services provided by the Fire Rescue Department to nonresidents, or upon request of mutual aid from other municipalities, according to the draft document.

Services for which the town would seek payment include those involving hazardous materials, vehicle crashes and/or fires, and aircraft crashes and/or aircraft fires. Other services include standing by for utility lines in roads caused by crashes.

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Residents may be billed for calls involving negligence or repeated false fire and/or sprinkler alarms after three incidents in 12 months, and car accidents related to negligence.

The third question asks voters if they want to exclude its full-time public works and town office staff hired on or after Dec. 31, 2021, from participating in a regular plan with Maine Public Employees Retirement System.

Residents will be asked to appropriate up to $70,000 from the undesignated fund for payment to the retirement system for the associated partial withdrawal liability as outlined in the system’s rules.

It would affect future full-time employees hired after Dec. 31 to work at the Public Works Department and Town Office. The retirement system option was previously eliminated from the union contracts involving those entities.

The last question asks townspeople if they want to enact an Ordinance to Allow and Regulate Adult Use Marijuana Cultivation Facilities and Adult Use Marijuana Products Manufacturing Facilities. It covers cultivation and manufacturing facilities, not retail stores, which would not be allowed.

The proposal requires businesses be 200 feet from property lines and 1,000 feet from schools. The application fee would be $200. Residents narrowly rejected allowing marijuana businesses in 2019.

If approved, the ordinance would allow four tiers of marijuana cultivation and a nursery level.

The Planning Board and code enforcement officer would be in charge of permitting.

Proposed annual permit fees for a manufacturing facility, which includes a high hazard level because of different processes that could be used, would be $3,000. Annual cultivation facility fees proposed are Tier 1, $1,500; Tier 2, 2,500; Tier 3, $3,500; Tier 4, $4,500; and a nursery, $350. The fees could go into a reserve account to offset the town and Planning Board costs, LaFreniere previously said.


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