LIVERMORE — An ordinance giving the town authority to enforce the curfew at the town beach at Brettuns Pond was among topics raised Tuesday night at a public hearing to review the annual town meeting warrant.
Six residents, two of whom are fire department members, five selectpersons and the administrative assistant attended.
Resident Pam Manter asked who would enforce the beach ordinance.
“It’s very simple,” Selectperson Brett Deyling said. “It’s really just to give authority to the town to enforce the curfew at the town beach so we don’t have some of the issues that we have been seeing. The county will actually have something to stand behind if we call them and say ‘there’s somebody down there, we would like them to vacate the area.’ Right now there is no reason they would have to leave, there’s nothing in place to say that person in that car can’t sit there the entire night doing drugs.”
Last summer, selectmen responded to complaints of trash, hypodermic needles and feces littering the public area.
Manter asked if there would still be access at the boat ramp.
“Yes,” Selectperson Scott Richmond said. “We found last year, when we had problems down there, we don’t have any authority. We looked at (ordinances) from five or six other towns. I think Turner’s was closest to what we were looking for.
“It’s a necessity,” he said. If the Sheriff’s Department sees somebody there, they can go down.”
The Select Board is also working with Central Maine Power and a landowner to install an additional streetlight in that area, Richmond said. “If there’s light, they won’t want to be there,” he added.
Copies of the ordinance are available at the Town Office/Fire Station Complex on Crash Road and will be available at the polls April 25 when voters cast ballots on the warrant articles.
Resident Andrew Sylvester asked why the debt service amount was increasing from $97,241 to $202,299.46.
“It was the firetruck that we voted on (last year),” Board Chairman Mark Chretien said.
Voters approved $100,000 in previous years and had to take out a loan to get the deal on the truck, Richmond said. “That is why it is increasing.”
In regards to buying a new truck for the highway department, Richmond said it would take a year to a year or more to get it because of supply issues.
“There is one more payment on the 2019 Volvo this year, so by the time the new truck would come in, we would have lost that payment,” he said. “Already this year we have put $16,732.56 into the 2009 International, probably put that much into it last year. We are on borrowed time with the 2009 International.”
There will be 53 questions on annual Town Meeting ballot, plus municipal elections for three- and two-year terms on the Select Board. Polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 25, at the Spruce Mountain Primary School gym on Gibbs Mill Road.
Article 11 on the warrant asks to give municipal officials authority to open and close roads to winter maintenance. Chris McHugh owns property on Wyman Road and officials are going through the process of closing that road to winter maintenance.
During the Select Board meeting following the hearing, Richmond said Livermore has a new Facebook page because the previous one can’t be fixed.
“It looks exactly the same, should be on top of the old page,” Chretien said.
A note under the introduction section of the page reads: “This is the new and current page for the Town of Livermore, Maine.”
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