Wiscasset selectmen passed the new sewer rates June 21, after department superintendent Rob Lalli explained how revenue can rise 46% with most rates rising by about half that.

Via Zoom, Lalli told the meeting at the town office, only one rate will rise 46%: the flat rate created for people who have broken meters and do not let the town fix or replace them. Lalli said the flat rate was higher than the minimum rate. The point was to be punitive, but the rate was not punitive enough, he said. “We do have customers ... producing more sewage than that flat rate is paying for ... They’re thumbing their nose at us” by refusing to let the town onto their properties to work on the meters, he said.

The flat rate has been a quarterly rate of $270.40, Lalli said. The department wants to get people off the flat rate by their letting the town get at the meters, he said. How? By having that rate be the lone one that does go up 46%, to $395 a quarter, he said. The hike might be the incentive the holdouts need, he added. A town ordinance requires sewer users to be hooked onto meters, so enforcement is also an option, Town Manager Dennis Simmons said. He said those users could be fined and taken to court over access to the meter. 

Another part of the plan to up revenue is to handle seasonal use differently, with a quarterly minimum charge “even if the house is vacant and they’re not using anything,” Lalli said. And if they use more than the minimum, they will pay more than the minimum, he said. Lalli said year-round users have been “carrying the burden” for seasonal ones. The change helps avoid an across the board 46% rate hike, and it feels fairer, he said.

In other changes, the camper dumping fee would rise from about $25 to $38, Lalli said.

Also June 21, after an executive session, selectmen agreed to have Federal Appraisal of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey help appraise Maine Yankee. Simmons explained in email responses and a phone interview June 22, the town’s and Maine Yankee’s 20-year tax agreement expires in 2023 and the town needs updated information for a new tax assessment.

The town will pay Federal Appraisal up to $37,000, depending on the work, Simmons said: A first phase will yield an “overview”; a second phase, more information, if the town requests it; if not, the cost would be less, he explained.

The board nodded $346,371 in state funds toward Wiscasset Elementary School’s handicap accessible elevator. The school department’s interim finance manager Cathy Coffey said the rest of the $868,750 for the project will come from fund balances. “So there’s no impact on local taxes.”

Selectmen nodded a one-hour parking limit for three spots in front of Wiscasset Public Library; Selectman Dusty Jones’ nomination to Maine Municipal Association’s policy committee; another year’s services from Midcoast Humane; and a business license for Sally A. Hinsch and Salmon Falls Counseling, LLC, 61 Flood Ave.

In public comment, Judy Flanagan said being a ballot clerk June 14 was an honor and fun; she has felt bad watching the Congressional hearing testimony on events surrounding the 2020 Presidential election. At the polls, people came up to her and others and thanked them, she said. “And I thought, ‘That’s what it’s all about.”

Chair Sarah Whitfield added she was “super pleased and proud as a townsperson” at the voter turnout of 703.

The meeting was the first since residents elected William Maloney and James Andretta to the board and kept Whitfield on it. The new board kept Whitfield as chair and Jones as vice chair.