FARMINGTON – During the Feb. 22 board meeting, the select board voted to set aside the remaining American Rescue Plan Act funds for use on the community center roof project. If any ARPA funds are left after the roof project is complete, they will consider additional funding requests they have received.
Board members Michael Fogg and Scott Landry were absent, partly due to the hazardous weather conditions. Joshua Bell made a motion to set aside the current balance of ARPA funds until they had the community center roof project under control; if there are ARPA funds remaining, they could then consider allocating them towards other requests, such as Safe Voices, Western Maine Transportation or other municipal projects.
To date, the board has authorized a ‘hazard pay’ for municipal employees, approximately $93,000, and a study on broadband in the area, around $4,800.
The town has received roughly $820,000 in ARPA and committed just under $100,000. The estimated cost for the community center roof, which will be further researched to create a detailed quote, is between $600,000 and $900,000.
“My heart tells me there’s two or three others that I’m kind of akin to, but …” Stephan Bunker said, agreeing that if they prioritized the requests, the community center roof seemed to be at the top of the list.
The board was supposed to meet in executive session on Feb. 15 to continue discussions about the town meeting warrant, but that meeting did not take place. Bell asked why; board chair Matthew Smith explained that he had not wanted to sign the warrant articles in the meeting on Feb. 8, but that he did not have anything he wanted to continue discussion on or make changes about. He stated that the biggest difference of opinion between board members appeared to be the wage increases. There has not been a universal wage increase in the town of Farmington in about twelve years, Smith said. He felt the board had created the problem and needed to fix it. Other board members had indicated they did not feel the need to hold an executive session, so the meeting did not take place.
Because Fogg and Landry were absent, Smith asked that they postpone the review and approval of the town meeting warrant until a later date. He wanted the full board present to vote on the warrant.
The board agreed to meet again on Thursday, Feb. 24, at 6:30 p.m., to review and vote on the town meeting warrant.
The board did approve the referendum ballot, for March 28, to appoint two select board members and two school board members.
Town employees had asked board members to revisit the masking policies in all municipal offices. Town Manager Christian Waller recommended that they wait to make any changes until after the town meeting at the end of April. The board did not make any changes to the policy but agreed to continue revisiting it.
