When Vienna voters gather for Town Meeting on Saturday, they will consider new requests from elected officials, including approval to appropriate $571,751 to pay the costs of running town government for another year.
While it’s too soon to say what the property tax rate would be for the coming year because the Regional School Unit 9 district budget has not been determined, the town’s portion is not expected to change much.
“We’re managing the same budget from year to year,” said First Selectwoman Dodi Thompson, chairwoman of the Board of Selectmen.
Town Meeting starts at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Community Building. As of the last census, the town’s population was 573. Thompson said attendance at Town Meeting usually ranges from 50 to 80.
Sometimes the amount requested for road maintenance increases, and the employee contracts go up 3 percent every year, Thompson said; but the overall town budget doesn’t change much.
The 2017 tax rate is $18.45 per $1,000 of assessed valuation. On a house valued at $150,000, the homeowner would pay a little more than $2,700 in property tax before any exemptions.
This year, however, residents will be asked whether they want to spend $3,900 for painting double yellow lines on Tower Road. The town road, which winds from Mount Vernon at its south end to where it intersects with Route 41, has been the site of two fatal accidents in recent years.
“We want people to decide whether they think it’s worth it to spend the money on that,” Thompson said. “We have had some comment that it would be a good idea to do it.”
Town residents have noted that people drive fast on the road, Thompson said, and highlighting the turns in the road might improve safety.
“In Maine, people tend to drive in the middle of the road, and this might help remind people to scoot over. I have no idea how this might be received at this point.”
The Board of Selectmen also is asking to set aside $10,000 this year in anticipation of a revaluation in the next several years.
“We’re going to do that for the next several years until the next revaluation,” she said. “We don’t know when that’s going to be.”
Among the other items on the warrant are requests for $14,141 for debt service on the town’s firetruck, $35,500 for operating expenses for the Vienna Fire Department, and $94,000 for the paving account — $70,000 of which would be appropriated, with the balance coming from the state Local Road Assistance Grant.
In addition to fiscal matters, residents also are being asked to vote on two proposed ordinance changes.
The first would revise setbacks in the subdivision regulations. Minimum lot sizes would remain at 2 acres, but the setback from the road would be reduced from 50 feet to 15 feet from the road right-of-way limits or 40 feet from existing traveled ways, and the setback from property lines would be reduced from 20 feet to 15 feet.
The second would amend the town’s Shoreland Ordinance to replace “floor area” limitations with “footprint” limitations as described in the state’s model ordinance.
In Vienna, polls are open from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday at the Vienna Community Building on Kimball Road to elect town officials.
This year all the candidates are incumbents, and the races are uncontested.
Daniel Goucher is running for a three-year term as road commissioner. Jeffrey Rackliff is running for a three-year term as third selectman. Annie Tibbetts is seeking re-election to three-year terms as town clear and tax collector. Martha Gross is running again for a three-year term as treasurer.
Jessica Lowell — 621-5632
Twitter: @JLowellKJ
Send questions/comments to the editors.
