WEST PARIS — A special town meeting covering a sale of land, two ordinances and a resolution will take place this Saturday at 10 a.m. at the West Paris Fire Station on Kingsbury Street.
After selecting a moderator, the second article on the warrant will ask if residents want to authorize town officials to sell a piece of town land to Hunter Rowell for one dollar. The septic system to Rowell’s house is currently on the parcel of land the town wants to sell to him.
Citizens will also be asked to adopt an Accident Fee Recovery Ordinance, which is designed to “protect citizens from potential expenses” caused by providing rescue services to actionable emergencies that have occurred in town.
Under section two in the proposed ordinance, an actionable emergency is defined as an accident/emergency situation that lasts more than four hours, involves a commercial vehicle, exceeds $2,000 in costs or involves the spill of hazardous waste.
If any of these things were to occur on town property, the party responsible for the actionable emergency would pay the town “all costs expended by the town and its departments, as a direct or indirect result of the actionable emergency.”
In the proposed ordinance, it also states that the Fire Chief would have to provide a statement of costs to the town manager within 30 days from the date of the actionable emergency. If the responsible party does not pay the town for the expended costs within 60 days of being billed, town officials have the option to pursue legal action, according to the proposed ordinance.
The second ordinance on local food sovereignty is designed to make local food more accessible for residents, “to support the ability of residents to produce, sell, purchase and consume locally produced foods, and to reduce government regulation of local foods.”
Under license and exemptions, “producers, growers and processors” of food/food products in West Paris are exempt from state food law licensure and inspection requirements, however, the exemption does not apply to the sale of meat products, which is still required to have state licensing and inspection done.
Both the recovery fee ordinance and food ordinance will go into effect immediately, if adopted.
The last article will ask if residents will vote in favor of supporting a resolution “in support of their constitutional right to keep and bear arms and in opposition to any law or executive action that would unconstitutionally restrict that right.”
The resolution was drafted after “several citizens expressed concerns against potential gun control legislation” at the state and federal level. Many citizens at a public hearing last month spoke in favor of the resolution, with a few speaking against it, too.
If passed, the resolution would go into effect immediately, and would affirm the town’s support for the second amendment and send a message to “legislators and elected officials that the town respects their citizens’ rights under the second amendment of the constitution of the U.S. and Article 1 of the Maine constitution.
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