EUSTIS – Selectmen hope residents will vote to approve amendments to the town’s comprehensive plan at Saturday’s town meeting. Voters rejected them last year because they wanted to study proposed changes more closely, First Selectman Jay Wyman said Wednesday.
Two of the three amendments propose to rezone parcels currently designated as Rural Woodland I, to Rural Woodland II and Residential Recreational. Wyman said the changes were designed to “help protect surrounding areas for the residents already here,” while still welcoming new industry. The other amendment puts specific noise controls in place.
Wyman said a number of positions are up for re-election. But, he added, so far no one has turned in papers to run against the incumbents. Jane Wilkinson will run for a third three-year term as selectman, he said, and Planning Board members Parker Savage, Kirk Vajentic, and Gregory Pease are up for re-election as well. A fifth position as an SAD 58 board member is up for grabs as well, but Wyman said so far, no one has submitted papers vying for Tom MacDonald’s seat.
The budget is up about 9 percent this year, Wyman said. “The cost of fuel plus insurances have gone up,” he said, but “I don’t foresee that our mill rate is going to change this year.”
Wyman said he has heard few complaints leading up to Saturday’s town meeting, leading him to believe there will be little opposition to the town’s requests, but “you never know,” he said.
“We’ve been pretty lucky so far, that our community has been in support of a lot of what we’ve done. I wouldn’t say (the Eustis budget is) bare-bones but in our case we wouldn’t be able to cut enough to change the mill rate even a quarter of a percent,” he said. “We’ve run our town in the black,” he said, “and never had to borrow money.”
Elections begin at the Town Office on Friday, March 3, at 3:50 p.m., and the town meeting begins in earnest at 9 a.m. Saturday, March 4, in the town Community Building.
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