FARMINGTON – The Farmington Board of Selectmen met on Tuesday night to hear an update from University of Maine Farmington’s President Edward Serna regarding how the University has fared in the past few months with the safe return to campus plan initiated throughout the UMaine system.
“We have a lot going on this year, which is why I have a lot more grey hair than I did a year ago,” Serna said, starting the meeting off on a lighter note before digging into the details of the University’s response to the Covid pandemic.
The reopening plan of the University included a restructuring of the classroom setting, an emphasis on technology improvements, and many preventative measures such as asymptomatic testing. So far UMF has administered 3,000 tests in the Fall semester, testing 10 percent of the University’s population each week. Serna stated that the main goal for the reopening plan was to address the integration of the school and the town of Farmington so that the safety of the students as well as town members was taken into account.
“We wanted it to be based on community,” Serna said.
Moving forward, UMF will be releasing a new safety plan for the Spring in December, which will also have an emphasis on the community found in Farmington and the University alike.
President Serna presented an update on the future of the University’s Athletics departments. He plans on meeting with the other Presidents of the Northeast Conference Division later this week to discuss the future of the athletic programs.
“We’re going to try to salvage something, even if it’s just Maine schools competing,” said Serna.
While Serna tried to remain positive throughout the meeting by focusing on how UMF has proved itself to be successful in its safety measures, many board members commenting on how pleasantly surprised they’d been at the site of students adhering to mask policies, the economic blows the University has suffered couldn’t be ignored.
“We’ve suffered an erosion in student population by 25 percent and have been operating on a deficit for the past few years,” said Serna.
A residential school, UMF depends on the room and board fees that come from a full docket of resident houses. After closing down Dakin Residence Hall for a quarantine dorm, this has syphoned off some funds. UMF has also suffered a cut in student enrollment this semester due to students returning to their homes to assist with family economic burdens as a result of the pandemic. Many of the previously enrolled students from outside of Maine didn’t return this year.
Looking forward, Serna is dedicated to constructing an “actionable” and “data driven” strategic plan that will keep students safe in the coming semester and hopefully address some of the economic impacts of this past year.
Following Serna’s presentation, the selectboard presented the final list of members for the Police Chief search committee. The committee will be comprised of Town Manager Richard Davis, board members Michael Fogg and Matthew Smith, District Attorney Andrew Robinson, Serna, Wilton Police Chief Heidi Wilcox, resident Pamela Poisson, former Sanford Police Chief Tom Jones, and resident Ryan Goding.
An amendment to permits regarding Special Amusement events was heard at the meeting last night as well. Attending local business owner John Moore and Code and Enforcement Planning Department head J. Stevens Kaiser presented the amendment as a yearly application that businesses would apply for, paying a comprehensive fee that would cover any events they’d like to host throughout the year.
“I look at it as an insurance policy,” Moore said.
“It also gives you a management tool,” Kaiser said, speaking to the control that the selectboard would have in approving these permits in the future.
Though there is no finalized version of the proposition at this time, Kaiser agreed to make a revised draft based on the selectboard’s comments regarding the specificity of some of the wording as well as the precise enforcement of the permits once they’re issued, and move forward soon with its implementation.
In support of smaller businesses, the board unanimously approved a new waste hauler license for Pine Tree Waste company to start offering services in Farmington.
