News
Gray
Town Manager's Report
By Mitchell A. Berkowitz
Final
FEMA Grant:
The town should be receiving the final FEMA grant
reimbursement for the last of the four disaster declared
storms. The $21,934.95 to be received brings to $
92,673 the total amount that will be used to offset
the winter public works expenses in this current year's
budget.
Landfill
Water Quality Monitoring:
The Town's engineering firm, Woodard and Curran completed
the spring round of sampling and reported these to
the MDEP. These will be combined with the Fall 2005
sampling and so reported. The Town is required to
do an annual Municipal Landfill Water quality Monitoring
program by statute. We started developed this program
in 2004.
By-pass
Information:
We met with the engineers and utility personnel on
Friday, June 10 along with Chair Pam Wilkinson to
review the northerly intersection. The design of this
intersection is a four way intersection with the flow
of traffic going to and from the proposed By-pass.
Traffic wishing to remain on the current Rt. 26 as
it comes into the Village would have to make a dedicated
turn off this intersection. The design also calls
for some impacts to the properties along the northerly
section on both sides up to the Town property. The
MDOT is in contact with each property owner about
those impacts. The balance of the review was with
the various utilities and their lines and impacts
and how they will work with the DOT during construction.
We have posted the new intersection design in the
lobby of the Town Offices.
Since that meeting I have been contacted by two other
parties who are affected by the intersection design
on Rt. 202 and we have made additional contacts to
the MDOT about their issues.
Legislature
Tinkers with Tax Reform:
We
are awaiting the outcome of the Legislature's efforts
to balance the budget. The approaches thus far are
to tinker with some of the key points of their tax
reform bill passed earlier in the session. We will
report the outcomes as quickly as possible. However
it is likely that these will mean a reduction of revenue
in some form to the Town or the MSAD #15. Simply put,
for each $10,000 of lost revenue, our tax rate could
be affected by 1.5 cents.
Maine Municipal Association Risk Management Services:
The
Town of Gray belongs to the MMA Property, Casualty
and Liability Pool which is an alternative to going
out to the market place to obtain this kind of insurance
coverage. Like many communities, Gray has found this
to be price competitive as well as providing us with
loss prevention and on site inspections plus dividends
for our experience ratings.
Bi
Annual Client Seminar:
The
Town Attorney's Law firm will host the Bi-annual client
seminar featuring a review of the legislative changes
from the 122nd Legislature. Please mark your calendars
for Thursday, September 22, 2005 from 6-8:30 PM at
the Sheraton Tara Hotel in South Portland. Please
RSVP to me by mid August.
Respectfully Submitted,
Mitchell
A. Berkowitz
Town Manager
