FARMINGTON – Voters at Farmington’s annual town meeting had approved every one of the 27 articles by 9 p.m., although there was heated discussion before many of the votes, focusing on the nearly 7 percent budget increase proposed by the town.
A number of Farmington residents, most notably Bill Crandall and Tom Eastler, suggested to selectmen and the approximately 100 residents at the meeting that the town should do more to decrease the budget in future years.
Just before voters approved a 5.2 percent increase in Public Works Department salaries, Crandall said that in a year in which most Farmington people “are paying more in gas” than ever before, and have not received raises in years, paying for the wage hike “is a little hard to swallow.”
But the Public Works Department salaries are tied to the Consumer Price Index, Town Manager Richard Davis explained, and the town cannot change the amount of the raise until the contracts are renegotiated in two years. The increase is also offset by the fact that town employees now have to pay half the cost of any rise in health-care premiums, Davis added.
In the voting that took place prior to the meeting, residents elected Mary Wright as selectman and Francis Orcutt and Yvette Robinson as school board directors. Wright and Orcutt will serve three-year terms, and Robinson a one-year term.
The first 27 articles were voted into effect by 8:25 p.m., but at 9 p.m., people were still in the midst of debating Article 28, which asked voters to allow the town to spend $100,000 on the first phase of fixing Walton’s Mill Dam, which has needed repairs since 1970.
According to Bob Greenwood of Temple, “that dam, that dry stone dam, always did leak,” and can be fixed without spending the nearly $260,000 that selectmen plan to spend over the next few years.
Eastler, who teaches geology at the University of Maine at Farmington, once did a study on the hydroelectric potential of the dam. He said he agrees with Greenwood and suggested waiting to spend the money for another year, until research can be done on ways to maximize the dam’s energy producing potential.
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