LIVERMORE — Selectpersons Tuesday night, June 7, agreed by consensus to have Administrative Assistant Aaron Miller look into the cost of a professional to help with economic development.
Miller said he had had a discussion with Selectperson Brett Deyling about the importance of economic development and pitched the idea of looking at a professional.
“There haven’t been that many site-plan-review applications submitted for any major new business development in town that we would consider a big win in the last few years,” Deyling said. “It seems people are bypassing Livermore for towns that are either better marketed or more well known. No one even knows Livermore exists, it is just on the way to somewhere else.
“Someone who is able to market our town, none of us have the free time to go out and try to do that. It is not something I am going to do. I don’t know how to do that but there are people who do.”
Having Miller get some pricing on what it would cost, perhaps use some of the American Rescue Plan Act funds, was suggested by Deyling.
“See if we can engage somebody for a year, see if it produces results,” he said. “If we get a couple of decent developments out of it or even one it could offset their costs.”
Selectperson Randy Ouellette asked what kind of development.
“It would be business development,” Deyling noted. “I don’t think many of these people look for residential, that is not where your money is coming from. I don’t know if our ordinances support large residential developments, housing complexes.”
Deyling suggested a pharmacy or a machine shop that doesn’t necessarily have a store front but is making money, there’s not much traffic or noise associated with it. It could employ people and certainly bring in more taxes than a vacant lot, he said. “We certainly have a lot of vacant lots along our business corridor,” he added.
“If you are making efforts to show that you want to encourage economic development along the business corridor, if people know you have somebody actually working, you may get people who say ‘maybe I am interested,'” Miller said. “You have got to start somewhere.”
“That is a good place to start,” Ouellette said.
“It would give us a little more information to work off of,” Deyling said. “We do have to consider what type of business is coming into town, too.”
“People want to see business come to town,” Miller said.
There would be a fairly large hit to the community if the mill in Jay shuts down, it may not be viable long term, Deyling noted. There would be a huge glut of properties on the market, he said.
“We need to look at what we can do as a town if something does happen to the mill,” he added.
In other business Fire Chief Donald Castonguay gave an update on getting insurance companies to reimburse the department for some of its calls.
“We are going to go after insurance companies for these accidents that result in four, five, six hours [time],” he said. “It’s these long drawn out calls we have to go to. We are not going to charge the townspeople.”
Most of the accidents happen on U.S. Route 4, Castonguay noted. “[It] is 90% out of staters, out of towners, stuff like that,” he added.
Selectperson Scott Richmond said reimbursement programs are usually 85% successful.
“If the insurance company doesn’t pay, we are going to drop it,” Selectperson Brett Deyling said. “Some towns will go after the people themselves.”
Castonguay said he would like to have the money put into a capital account for the department. The department is purchasing a truck, but it would be a start for when the next new truck is needed in a few years, he noted.
“You have the authority to receive money,” Administrative Assistant Aaron Miller said. “You need authority to spend the money. You will want to put that on a warrant.”
Putting the question to voters at the Gubernatorial election in November was suggested by Miller.
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