Westport voters quickly approved the big dollar items and hashed over the small ones as they approved a $304,778 budget at their annual town meeting Saturday.
They still managed to keep their 2009-2010 municipal budget under the state property tax cape.
In a town meeting held at the island’s historic Town Hall, the voters doubled the suggested contribution to the Wiscasset Community Center and added $1927 to their contribution to the Wiscasset Library.
Despite their frugal action, the island’s property taxpayers were reminded that the municipal budget makes up less than 24 percent of their final tax bill with the school budget taking 65 percent and the county tax bill coming in at another 11.1 percent.
Jerry Bodmer, running unapposed, was elected to the Select Board replacing Brenda Bonyun, who stepped down.
The town quickly approved a new Shore land Zoning Ordinance that was mandated by the state. Unlike other towns, they approved a proviso that would shift monitoring of the standards to state officials.
Other Lincoln County towns, like Newcastle, have protested the state’s imposition of the new ordinance requirements on local governments. Some landowners have loudly protested the new provisions.
The voters voiced little discussion to measures allocating $98,000 of the town’s motor vehicle excise tax to the town’s road and bridge accounts and applauded measures proposed by the volunteer fire department, whose members sold coffee, donuts and sandwiches to the voters during what moderator Curt Downer called “a biology break.”
In Downer’s words, voters “chewed over” other spending articles, especially firing pointed questions over the compensation suggested for First Selectman George
D. Richardson. They ultimately approved a $3400 salary for Richardson plus a sum not to exceed $3500 for his duties as assessor.
Richard Devries, chair of the town’s budget committee, asked voters to reject a proposal providing more than $3700 to lease a copier, despite its earlier approval by the budget committee.
“We found a better deal,” he explained.
Another budget committee member, Dennis Dunbar, suggested proposed raises for the town office staff be rejected, but noted that proposal might get him run out of town. Devries and other voters quickly came to the defense of the staff.
“We have six good hard working people on our staff, and I can’t not give them a raise,” he said.
The staff raises were approved 64 to 8.
Volunteer town officials clashed over a proposal that would shift $4854 from the town hall reserve account to a combined reserve maintenance fund that would include the town hall, town office fire station and the ferry landing house.
Selectman Ross Norton said the town office needed a bit of work because “the woodpeckers” worked over the trim.
Town hall committee member Sandra Crehore objected to the shift that would move money earmarked from her committee.
Crehore’s protest brought Norton to heel. “I did not mean to step on the toes of the town hall committee,” Norton said.
The move to shift the town hall funds failed, but voters did approve raising $4200 to create a maintenance fund for the town’s buildings.
Dunbar found himself caught in a bind when the voters were asked to choose between a proposal to provide $750 or one to provide $5000 as a match for any future conservation grant.
“As a member of the conservation committee, I am I favor of the larger number, but I am also on the budget committee and am in favor of the lower number,” he said.
The voters approved the lower number.
Between the bantering, bad jokes, donuts and biology breaks, the whole process took a bit more than four hours to complete.
