CARRABASSETT VALLEY – Carrabassett Valley selectmen will sign a warrant Monday for a special town meeting.
The meeting is scheduled Dec. 8 to vote on purchasing of a new ladder truck for the Fire Department. The truck is expected to cost about $700,000.
A hotly contested issue at the town’s special meeting in March, it was voted down 65-30.
A committee of 11 studied the issue for the past several months and recently published its recommendations and results in a five-page document. Members voted unanimously to recommend purchasing the new truck. The document is available at the town office or on the town’s Web site at www.carrabassettvalley.org/. A public hearing on the issue will be held at 7 p.m. Nov. 23, and the special meeting at 7 p.m. Dec. 8, both at the Touring Center.
An informational item on Monday’s agenda concerns the Maine Department of Transportation’s “Sugarloaf patrol.” Previous winters saw the department providing a plow truck and sand truck to patrol Route 27 during weekend days to ensure the road to the ski area remained safe and passable.
The department recently notified Kingfield and Carrabassett Valley that they will no longer provide this service. Norm Haggan, regional manager for the department, said Friday that the estimated costs for the service was $10,000 per season.
“The department does not provide a service like Sugarloaf Patrol in any other location in the state. We feel that we can use our limited overtime resources more appropriately responding to storms,” Haggan wrote in a letter.
Supervisory staff will still respond on weekends for major storms and the department will continue to provide nightly patrols, Haggan said Friday.
“The Kingfield Highway Maintenance crew is fully prepared and very capable of properly maintaining Route 27 without relying on the weekend patrol activity,” Haggan wrote.
Selectmen will also discuss the agenda for the Nov. 23 budget committee meeting at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 23 at the Touring Center. Also, updates will be given on the new clubhouse construction, the Bigelow Station bypass trail, recycling projects and touring center improvement project.
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