LIVERMORE — Selectpersons unanimously voted Tuesday night, May 9, to pay Manzer’s Fine Grade & Earthwork of Anson $394,749,82 to reconstruct the south end of River Road.
When asked, Chair Mark Chretien confirmed all unit prices would be the same as last year. The work will continue from where it ended last year and go to Route 108, he noted.
It does not include the area washed out last week, Selectperson Jeremy Emerson stated.
The price includes $381,912.32 for road reclamation, $7,500 to replace four culverts and $5,337.50 for shoulder work near Barnyard All Terrain, a mud run park.
The shoulder is pretty wide there where people walk, Selectperson Scott Richmond noted. Building the road up, it will be one flat area, he added.
New Selectperson Joshua Perkins asked if any other company had put in a bid.
Manzer did the first section, said he would keep the same unit price, Chretien replied. The price of everything is the same, he added.
“He was $50,000 less than anyone else last year,” Richmond noted.
“We haven’t seen prices come down in our special projects in the last year,” Selectperson Brett Deyling said. “In my company, we do a lot of municipal work, put out bids and we haven’t seen anything better than we got last year.”
The next time, it will go out to bid, Chretien added.
Selectpersons also approved a four year lease purchase agreement with Androscoggin Bank for a highway plow truck that won’t be available for at least a year and a half.
The bank provided two options:
• Annual payments of $74,315.35 with 5.45% interest for a four year plan
• Annual payments of $61,041.25 with 5.5% interest for a five year plan
Interest rates had gone down once but the agreement couldn’t be signed because voter approval at the April 25 annual Town Meeting hadn’t been received, Chretien stated.
With a count of 115 to 61, up to $275,000 was authorized at the annual Town Meeting in April to purchase a new truck for the highway department.
A new truck can’t be ordered now, Richmond stated. It will be one, maybe two winters without the new truck, he added.
Chretien suggested the four year option, noted the bank would like the first payment this July.
“For a truck we’re not going to have for two years,” Deyling asked.
“We can’t do first payment in July, there is no money in the budget this year,” Richmond noted. “We still have one more payment left on the 2019 [truck]. That’s why we did it this way, so we could get that paid off. We could do it the following year.”
The 4-year plan was supported by Deyling. “After that we are going to want a new truck,” he stated. “We don’t want to have to be paying on a truck that is no longer providing the service it needs to, to the town.”
The goal is to purchase a new truck to replace one of the town’s three big trucks every five years, Richmond said.
It is going to take two years to get a truck, Chretien noted. Supply issues probably aren’t going to stop, it will be at least a year to even get the truck, then you have to get the body put on and all the head gear, he added.
Similar issues are being seen with the town’s new firetruck, Richmond noted. The timing for its production has changed several times, they don’t know when it will be, he said.
When asked about what year of truck to include on the agreement, Chretien said it will always be a year behind.
It will depend on when production starts, Richmond noted.
Selectpersons charged Administrative Assistant Carrie Judd with working with the bank to make the first payment due after July 1, 2024, and determining the truck year to use.
By consensus Selectpersons agreed to update the map for the town’s commercial zone. Code Enforcement Officer Terry Pinkham had requested one, Chretien said.
“He showed us the map,” Judd stated. “There is so much missing from it.”
“As long as it’s within the budget, I am good with it,” Chretien said.
Richmond suggested running it by the Planning Board too.
Chretien noted Pinkham is trying to get pricing for a new shoreland zoning map which is also out of date.
That one is kind of pricey, there isn’t enough money in the budget, Judd said.
Deyling suggested putting that map update in the budget for next year.
It could be put in either the Code Enforcement or Planning Board budget, Chretien said.
In other business, Chretien was elected Chair and Deyling Vice Chair.
Rod Newman was appointed to the Planning Board and Mike Berry was confirmed for Budget Committee.
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