WOODSTOCK — The Board of Selectmen unanimously voted to pay $10,000 to the Department of Environmental Protection to cover an outstanding fee.
Work on the Lake Christopher Dam began in 2013, after residents voted to allow the town to raise and appropriate $20,000 to make improvements to the dam’s sluiceway, which Town Manager Vern Maxfield said was “weak” and in need of repair.
Maxfield said that as part of the payment for the repairs on the Lake Christopher Dam, the town owed the DEP a permit fee of $10,044.
“However, after we completed work on the dam, we never received an invoice,” Maxfield said. “We decided to wait and see what happened. We wanted to see an invoice before we made any payment.
“It’s been about a year, and we recently got a letter from the DEP, telling us that we needed to pay the fee or they’d take legal action against us,” Maxfield said. “The selectmen decided that they should pay the fee, but made sure to emphasize the fact that they want to receive an invoice.”
Chairman Victor Young said he was strongly against paying the fee, but agreed to do so to avoid legal action.
“I suppose we ought to pay it and be done with it, but this really doesn’t sit well with me,” Young said.
Selectman Ronald Deegan said that the board needs to “strongly emphasize the need for an invoice and a receipt following the payment of the permit fee.”
“I’m with you, Rick, I am — but I think we should just pay it and get it over with,” Deegan said.
In other business, Maxfield told the selectmen that he would look into finding the cost of installing pellet heating systems into the town garage and fire station.
“We got the results of our energy audit, and it gave us some small things that we could fix to save money,” Maxfield said. “One of the suggestions was to switch over to a pellet heating system.”
Maxfield said that the selectmen agreed to allow Maxfield to pursue price estimates for installing pellet heating systems in the town garage, fire station and “possibly the Town Office.”
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