Whitefield Fire Chief Tim Pellerin told selectmen road conditions during Monday’s snowfall were “not acceptable.” Throughout Lincoln County, the town’s tally of 27 accidents was second highest, right behind Edgecomb, he said. Most alarming was that a Whitefield fire truck responding to a call slid off the Mills Road into a ditch about 9 a.m.
A fire truck needs to get up a hill if there’s a fire, said Pellerin, who is also the county’s emergency management director.
Road commissioner David Boynton, who lost the town snowplow contract last year to Steve McGee Construction, of Gardiner, arrived in the selectmen’s office on Pellerin’s heels. Scowling, Boynton challenged the board, “You want to come look at my road? The Benner Road hasn’t been touched all day.”
The same was true on Rooney Lane, where Selectman Frank Ober lives. The dirt road had not been plowed when he left for the weekly board meeting.
Board chairman Steve McCormick said he called McGee earlier that day when he didn’t see a snowplow on East River Road until shortly after noontime. He said he reminded McGee that his contract stipulates six vehicles are to be available to plow Whitefield roads. Instead, there were only three two-and-a-half-ton trucks and a one-ton vehicle battling the first winter snowfall.
If only four inches created such havoc, what would be the impact of a heftier storm, McCormick wondered.
Exacerbating the problem for road crews was a malfunctioning salt and sand shed door. McGee driver Steve Carlton showed up at the meeting about 6:30 p.m. to say the shed door was stuck shut three feet from the ground. Because of a faulty chain mechanism, attempts to raise it were unsuccessful. The board finally gave the sand truck driver permission to use a front-end loader to lift the door, even though there would be some damage necessitating repairs. Ober and McCormick concurred there was no choice.
“You’ve got to get the roads sanded,” said McCormick.
Pellerin commended firefighter Josh Mooers, who was driving the fire engine to a traffic incident, for skillfully maneuvering the vehicle as it slid backward and for avoiding hitting a car driven by Bill McKeen. Conditions on that section of Rt. 218, near Clary Mill, “were just terrible. We had four more accidents” at the same site, Pellerin said.
Before reorganization last spring, the three companies divided $43,200 from the town to run their stations. One result of the reallocation is to restore stipends (cut from $15,000 to $10,000 at the 2010 town meeting). Another is to create a disaster contingency fund – “It’s not a good idea not to have one,” Pellerin said. Startup money would come from $1350 in the discontinued forestry and civil defense line. The contingency fund will be a separate warrant article.
Defending restoration of the stipends, Pellerin said he had “heard some grumbling” about the cuts last March, and that $15,000 “is not a lot to pay” for professional level fire protection service. The first year the stipends were given, firefighters received about $200 each at the end of the year. The town of Alna pays its firefighters $10 an hour, Pellerin pointed out.
Whitefield EMS director Lynn Talacko said the budget was “a good starting point.”
Pellerin said all department heads and officers had input into drafting it. “I can’t guarantee this will be the best budget,” he said, but “we worked hard to be fair.”
Pellerin also shared an incident report on a recent structure fire on Hilton Road. The cause was a space heater being too close to combustible material. Such heaters need to be at least three feet away from walls and other combustibles, the chief said. “Also we recommend people using gas heaters to keep a window open an inch or two because these heaters do cause carbon monoxide gas.”
Coding errors were corrected on the Parmenters’ property on Senott Road and the Fagins’ residence on Fox Farm Lane. In the former instance, an outdoor swimming pool was incorrectly coded as interior and assessed $60,000 higher than its $1500-$2000 value. In the latter instance, because of previously overrated exterior conditions, a dwelling was reduced in value from $213,000 to $145,000.
Property owner Heather Ryan is appealing the town’s decision not to grant abatement on an inaccessible lot she owns on Crocker Avenue. The county commissioners will hear the appeal on Tues., Dec. 21 at 11 a.m.
McCormick said the board turned down Ryan’s abatement request in the interest of “being consistent and equitable with property owners with similar lots in town.”
Board member Sue McKeen added, “We just wish the construction were further along.”
Groundbreaking began the last week of October. The latest schedule sheet shows Catalano completing the project by March 30, 2011.
