June 20 in a selectmen’s meeting and at points June 24 in a meeting of the mining committee he facilitates, Alna’s Christopher Cooper was not sure the committee will manage to draft a mining ordinance, a blasting one, both, a combined one, or none. But in both meetings, he expressed hope.
By its nature, the committee is a contentious one, Cooper said.
Cooper told selectmen June 20, he has not “had such a difficult group of people since I was substitute-teaching junior high” a half century ago. “All is not happy among my people. And I will try to address those (issues) and get the committee’s help in rectifying those perceived problems ... Frankly I don’t know if they are all fixable. This committee ... is a very strange animal,” with some members with unyielding viewpoints, other members nearly silent “and some, we just don’t know.”
Some of the committee’s discussions had given him hope, he told selectmen June 20. “I’m really asking the public, just give us some room, and see how it goes.” The public can submit written comment to him, but adding public comment to the committee’s meetings might bring the usual comments from the usual people and lengthen meetings on a summer night for a committee that has an “undercurrent” of some feeling they are wasting their time, he said.
June 24, Second Selectman Steve Graham, who serves on the mining committee, told the committee he spent hours drafting potential language for a blasting ordinance. He called it a starting point for discussion, and said he spent many hours on it, including going through Alna’s rejected mining and blasting ordinance and looking at rules in Topsham and Augusta. He invited members’ input.
Planning Board Chair Cathy Johnson did not see how blasting could be addressed without addressing mining. She did not oppose separate ordinances, but each would need parts that could have instead been covered under a single ordinance, Johnson said.
Committee member Jeff Spinney, a small pit owner, said a section should be added to Graham’s draft to state which work the rules apply to, such as multi-time blasting over a certain size, so the ordinance “clearly gives the out” to things that should not have to go through an exception process.
“I think this document is a fairly easy win, with some minor tweaks,” Spinney said.
Fellow committee member and small pit owner Jeff Verney proposed grandfathering existing gravel pits; requiring a permit for a new pit over two acres; and requiring a permit to blast for a house or leach field.
Members eyed avoiding a sunset clause like the one Cooper said was a complaint he heard from residents about the failed ordinance.
The committee planned to meet again July 8.
In other business June 20, selectmen nodded a letter of support for Consolidated Communications’ grant effort for a fiber optic broadband project. Wiscasset’s Evan Goodkowsky said several Lincoln County towns and Woolwich in Sagadahoc County are involved, and Alna’s $10,500 toward the project would be the smallest contribution by any town in the proposal. Selectmen discussed whether to tap American Rescue Plan Act funds. The letter does not commit the town to spending the $10,500, Goodkowsky said. That would take a town vote, participants said.
In public comment, Road Commissioner Mike Trask told selectmen the town’s share of Sand Building Road’s assessment should need town meeting approval and should not come out of the roads account. Selectmen planned to look into the matter.
Ed Pentaleri said the ongoing paint job at Alna Meetinghouse was on budget and on schedule and was “looking very good. I think it’s going to go a long ways toward preserving the building.”
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