Special Town Meeting
By Naomi Morrison

New Gloucester--As the post-holiday rush to the dump nears, the New Gloucester Board of Selectmen will bring forth a decision for residents to make in hopes to help improve services at the Transfer Station.

Residents will be asked at a Special Town Meeting on Tuesday, December 14 to vote on expending up to $16,375 from the transfer station projects special revenue general ledger account for several items. Of the money to spend, $6,500 is for the much awaited new roll-off container that will be used for trash overflow when the hopper is full and $5,100 for a concrete pad to park the new roll-off. The other items are $2,475 to fabricate a new rear door for the existing roll-off container and $2,300 for engineering and repair of the holding tank.

If at the special meeting there is agreement to purchase the new roll-off, it couldn't come at a better time, according to Transfer Station Supervisor Jeff Pratt. He says that the times when the extra container would come in handy are during holidays and summer hours.

Right now the transfer station has two spare containers. One is used for recyclables while the other is used for either hopper or recyclables overflow. Pratt said he would like to have both the spares be used for recyclables and the new container for the hopper overflow.

The container was deemed by Neal Allen, executive director of the Greater Portland Council of Governments (GPCOG), as the most important item to implement. Not only would it save double handling of the trash, it would also minimize the number of hauls on the weekend.

In July GPCOG supplied the town with resolutions to the problems at the transfer station. Allen recommended items for short term implementation that the town had already done, he said at the November 15 Selectmen meeting. This includes changing the hours of operation, improving signage and traffic channeling and adding staff. The staff change, said Pratt, includes budgeting for their part-time staff member to have hours all day on Saturday in the next fiscal year.

"You're making money now," Allen said at the meeting two weeks ago. "It's quite simple. It's well run and people know how it works."

Selectman Stephanie Bryan disagreed at the meeting that residents know how the transfer station works. She stated that closing early on Saturdays creates a tremendous amount of congestion. For instance, this past Saturday, there were bags being stored on the floor by late morning, which amounted to a lot of cleanup.

Selectman Kevin Sullivan said this past Saturday is just an example of what happens because of a holiday. The station was closed Thursday and that amounted to more residents needing to come on a Saturday resulting in 18.84 tons of trash being brought in. Pratt said in the first two hours there was 7.98 tons of garbage. With the noon closing time of the burn plant looming (where the town brings the trash), he said he opted to make a haul to Auburn and save the spare roll-off for overflow that could have happened later in the day. The bags were then stored on the floor for no more than 45 minutes while the compactor was on the road.

Bryan also mentioned the chaos associated with the two separate lines. She said that the people who are in line at the recyclables have to further wait for those who just go directly to the hopper. More confusion and back up is added when a person's garbage is being inspected by staff, she said.
The flow change was implemented two months ago and Selectman Chair Steve Libby said he wondered if that is enough time for these items to be in place before knowing if there's a problem. Town Manager Rosemary Kulow said she would investigate the issue and report back to the Selectmen at the December 13 meeting.

Also slated for the December 14 Special Town Meeting are adding the transfer of development rights to the New Gloucester Land Ordinance and Subdivision Ordinance; expending $16,200 of budgeted money on the fairgrounds grass and soil improvement program; and adding a budgeted line item to the current year's budget that could include a donation dedicated for the fairgrounds. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m.