Six weeks after forming a comprehensive plan steering committee and five subcommittees, Damariscotta continues to seek volunteers to staff the committees.
The steering committee still has vacancies for business owners from Bus. Rt. 1 and Main Street, and still needs a representative of the environmental/land trust/conservation community.
The subcommittees or work groups also have vacancies and one – the natural, marine, agricultural and forestry resources subcommittee – doesn’t have any applicants.
The other four subcommittees are demographics and housing; economy, fiscal capacity and capital improvement plan; governmental, public facilities, utilities and transportation; and land use, historic and archaeological resources.
Applications for the steering committee and subcommittees are available at the town office.
Piper Village Development owns or has agreements in place to purchase multiple properties totaling about 260 acres with frontage on Bus. Rt. 1 and Paradise Pond.
The properties lie mostly within Damariscotta’s rural zone, which limits development.
The company has proposed expanding the boundaries of Damariscotta’s less restrictive C-2 zone to incorporate about 54 acres of its holdings.
The Jan. 18 vote came despite a warning from Town Planner Tony Dater.
Piper Village “may want the town to move more quickly than is good planning,” Dater said. Dater suggested that the town complete the comprehensive plan update – projected to be an 18-month process – before tackling the request.
“If everyone could be a little patient, we might do a better job in 2013,” he said.
Selectman Dave Wilbur also expressed reservations, calling the prospect of “blanket zoning changes” “hard to swallow,” especially without any concrete information from Piper Village about what it plans to do with the property.
Piper Village representatives have said they have no definite plans for the property.
Atwater and Selectwoman Vicki Pinkham vocally advocated for sending Piper Village’s proposal to voters.
“I really think that we should go ahead and try to accommodate [Piper] and get the public hearings done and let the people speak to find out if they want that or not,” Pinkham said. “I don’t see making [Piper] wait another 18 months.”
Piper Village previously worked with the town in a multi-year process to develop a zoning amendment known as the Damariscotta SmartCode, but voters soundly defeated the code in June 2011.
Josh Wilbur, the owner of Axis Photographic Solutions, the town’s website contractor, gave Lutkus and another town employee “a mini-training session” and will provide some “more advanced” training in the near future, Lutkus said.
The problem, Lutkus said, stemmed from the fact that former Town Manager Greg Zinser was the only town employee with knowledge of how to edit the new website.
The issue created some strife at the Jan. 4 meeting when Selectman Josh Pinkham accused Dave Wilbur – Josh Wilbur’s father – of having a conflict of interest when Dave Wilbur offered to assist town employees with uploading documents to the website.
In other business, the selectmen accepted the resignation of Elizabeth McPherson from the Damariscotta Budget Committee.