Good afternoon Sangerville,
I would like to remind everyone that the town office will be closed this coming Monday January 20th to observe the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. which is a state and federal holiday. Interestingly enough it is also inauguration day, which is always the third Monday in January. This is only the second time since the government created this holiday that inauguration day has fallen on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Our select board met Wednesday night. Several weeks ago, we recognized the need to begin reviewing policies. We started this month with a rewrite of the town’s personnel policy. The most significant part of the rewrite was restoring the fire department pay to minimum wage instead of a per call stipend. This is consistent with the practice of almost every municipal call fire department in the state of Maine. Wendy Lorigan volunteered to fill a vacant position for Sangerville on the school board and the selectmen voted for her to fill the position until town meeting. Our thanks to Wendy for helping out with this need. We also set a date for the annual town meeting for 2025. It was a consensus that we return to the tradition of having town meeting the last Saturday in March, so annual town meeting in Sangerville this year will be on Saturday March 29, 2025.
In the early history of small towns in Maine, Sangerville included, town meeting was a big annual event at the end of a long winter. It was part of the tradition to have a big potluck dinner at the end of the meeting and socialize with friends and neighbors. We are hopeful, we can begin to bring that tradition back. Our plan is to have the town meeting in the morning with a public dinner or lunch immediately following it. Debate at town meetings can sometimes be heated, that is a good thing, it shows people still retain passion for our community. I would make the request, that no matter how passionate any debate is that we remember rules of basic civility and courtesy. I believe part of the value to sharing a community meal at the conclusion of a town meeting, reminds us that we can disagree, sometimes strongly and still get along as friends and neighbors. I would welcome any ideas or thoughts anyone has on this proposal.
I have been asked many times recently what is going on with our town hall project. First of all, we are working on it. The town hall committee will have their first meeting as an official standing committee of the Town of Sangerville, this coming Tuesday January 21, 2025, at 6:00 PM at the fire station. This meeting is open to the public as all our meetings are and I encourage any interested citizens to attend. This week our engineers have been in town twice. We have had roof contractors they have engaged, that are certified and experienced with slate roofs on historic structures, evaluate the roof and plan to provide us with estimates for the work which will be included in the overall budget of the project. Both contractors were encouraging that the required repairs probably will not be as expensive or extensive as we feared. More survey work was done on the building and lot. I also met this week with Chris Maas and Mary Annis from the Dover-Foxcroft Historical Society. They were key people in the renovation of Central Hall in Dover-Foxcroft a few years ago, which was a very successful project. They gave me some great advice and have offered to help us in any way they can.
As I have rambled on long enough for one post, I am going to conclude this and wish everyone a safe and happy weekend.
Brian

Good afternoon Sangerville,
Just a real quick notice. We have a budget advisory committee meeting at the fire station tonight at 6:00 PM, this as all committee meetings is open to the public and all are welcome. Also, tomorrow evening at 6:00 PM will be a regular monthly meeting of the select board. It will be at 6:00 PM at the fire station and again, it is a public meeting, and everyone is invited and encouraged to attend. The following is the agenda for tomorrow evening’s select board meeting:
Town of Sangerville, ME
Regular Select Board Meeting
Wednesday, January 15, 2025, at 6:00 pm
Meeting Location
Sangerville Fire Station: 9 School St, Sangerville, ME
Opening Meeting
Roll Call
Selectpersons: Chair Jeff Peters, Josh Tracy, and Mike Gould
Employees: Brian Mullis, Michelle Nichols, Kelsey Shannon
Public:
Pledge of Allegiance
Open Session: Limited to 2 Minutes-Extension per Chair
Sign the Minutes of Board Meeting
Review of the Treasurer’s Warrants:
Payroll: # 90, 91, 1 and 2
Accounts Payable: # 94, #3
Old Business
Hunnewell Avenue Update
Mill Street Update
Route 23 Property Update
New Business
2022 Personal Property Abatement
Rhonda Crouse Cemetery Deed
Rhonda has a relative who has a plot in the Village Cemetery. She would like to know if it is possible to transfer their deed to her

Tree Growth Penalty
A resident took part of their land out of tree growth and there is a penalty associated with that.

Cemetery Deed -Jackman Corner Cemetery
A gentleman purchased a lot

Town Garage- Fuel
Old Municipal Building Funding
Rent Increase 3 %
Lorigan and Son’s is increasing the rent 3%. Our payment would go from $1339.00 to $1379.17 a month

Rabies Clinic
FMLA -State requirement
Capital Reserve Account
Personnel Policy
County Budget- Boards signature
School Board Vacancy appointment
Town Manager Report
Road Commissioners Report
Select Board Concerns
Executive Session
Adjourn

Thank you
Brian

Good morning Sangerville,

Hopefully everyone had an enjoyable holiday season. At the town office these days, the majority of our work is preparing the budget, with the guidance of the budget committee and approval of the select board for the town meeting warrant in March. That would be the next discussion point in my ongoing discussion of how we create a budget. We start in the town office by reviewing our expenses and revenues for the previous year. We look at what additional expenses and projects we anticipate for the coming year, add expected or ideally in some cases known inflation variables and we look to see if we can save on any expense items. We put those figures into a line-item format and discuss them with the budget advisory committee, whose first 2025 meeting is tonight at 6:00 PM at the fire station. This, as all public meetings is open to the public. The budget advisory committee makes their recommendations as we go through the full municipal budget, which happens over two to three meetings, then there is a final meeting with the budget advisory committee and select board to set the budget that will be presented in a series of warrant articles to the citizens at the annual town meeting.

Our select board meeting schedule proved a bit challenging through the holiday season as the holidays fell on Wednesdays last year. We had a special select board meeting with a very limited agenda on Monday December 30, 2024, for the select board to sign the warrant so we could pay the end of the year bills and close the books. We had initially planned to meet on January 8th and January 15th. Because of a very light agenda for the 8th and one of our board members needing the 8th off we decided to move all our January 8th agenda items to the January 15th meeting. So, we will not be meeting tomorrow evening but returning to the regular meeting schedule of the first and third Wednesdays beginning with next Wednesday the 15th’s meeting.

I would like to close by reminding everyone that all our meetings are public, and the public is welcome and encouraged to attend and participate.

Good morning Sangerville,

We had our last regular select board meeting of 2024 Wednesday evening. The most significant item of discussion was on our budget, which fits with my ongoing information to you folks about how we collect and spend your tax dollars. When taxes and other revenues from the state are collected, we spend that money within our budget as directed by the taxpayers at the annual town meeting. One of the big challenges to this process, believe it or not is the calendar. Our fiscal year is the same as the calendar year. Our town meeting is in the spring, and we do not begin collecting taxes until July. You, the citizens of Sangerville authorize us to spend your tax dollars, and how to spend them at the annual town meeting. Traditionally, town meeting in Sangerville is the last Saturday in March, although it was in May this year. The selectmen and I have heard significant feedback from you, the citizens that town meeting should be held the last Saturday in March as it has been for many years. We are planning to return to tradition and have town meeting the last Saturday in March this year. When you authorize us to spend the budget at town meeting, that is for the remainder of the fiscal year. In other words, we can spend from the line items of the budget, on their respective expenses until December 31st. Included in each town meeting warrant is always an article that allows us to pay our bills during the new fiscal year, until the next annual town meeting. After town meeting, we begin spending the budget for the current fiscal year, however, we have not set a mil rate or begun collecting taxes yet. What that means is we are spending money that is already in our checking and savings account until the end of July. When August rolls around we finally start using money collected from taxes on the respective year to pay our bills. So, when I reported to the select board for the last regular meeting of this fiscal year, I felt it necessary to report that we do have enough money in our checking and savings account to run the town through July 31st, with a three-month reserve, as recommended by our auditors to cover any unforeseen or emergency expenses. I am happy to report that when all our expenses were figured, we are in good shape and there is some money beyond what we need to run the town until August.

To make a long story just a little bit longer that brings us to the main discussion Wednesday evening. At the 2024 annual town meeting two articles were passed that our tax revenues did not allow us to fully fund. Article 26 was to use up to $200,000 for road repairs, beyond regular maintenance. Article 35 was to raise up to $440,000 to renovate the town hall. The select board voted to use the remaining money in our savings and checking account beyond what we need to run the town until August with the three-month reserve for emergencies, to place $250,000 into a reserve account for the town hall renovation and $30,000 into a reserve account for road work to begin in the spring. In addition to the money, we set aside to continue road improvements as soon as possible in the spring is the approximately $39,000 in local road assistance money from the department of transportation to be spent on capital road improvements. This allows us to begin road work as soon as we can in the spring, and we have a long list of projects.

I expect my next post to be sometime after the holidays, where I will talk about the process of putting together the budget that you folks will vote on, at the annual town meeting in March and how we will determine the articles in the warrant. Happy holidays everyone.

The Town Office will be CLOSED

December 24^th will be a half day, closing at 3PM

December 25^th & 26^th for Christmas

December 31^st for year-end closing of books

January 1^st

 Have a wonderful Holiday!

Town of Sangerville, ME

Regular Select Board Meeting

Wednesday, December 18, 2024 at 6:00 pm

1. Opening Meeting
   1. Roll Call
      • Selectpersons : Chair Jeff Peters, Josh Tracy, and Mike Gould
      • Employees : Brian Mullis, Michelle Nichols, Kelsey Shannon, Matt Blockler
      • Public :
   2. Pledge of Allegiance
2. Open Session: Limited to 2 Minutes-Extension per Chair
   1. Samuel EatonDiscussion on Plowing and Sanding
3. Sign the Minutes of Board MeetingAttachments:
   • December 4th Board Meeting Minutes
4. Review of the Treasurer’s Warrants:
   1. Payroll: #
   2. Accounts Payable: #
5. Old Business
   1. Town Tax Acquired Property- The Next StepA 2022 tax lien expired November 1. The property is located on Hunnewell Avenue.
6. New Business
   1. Corinna Abatements for 2022 and 2023
   2. December 30th Board MeetingWe end our year on December 31, the board needs to sign the warrant for the last bills of the year. Do we want to skip the January 8th meeting so the next board meeting would be January 15th?
   3. General Assistance Ordinance to be signed by the Board
   4. Harris Computer- Trio Upgrade
   5. Raymond Mountains Abatement application
   6. Angela Alfonso’s Abatement Application
   7. Old Municipal Building Reserve Account
7. Town Managers Report
8. Road Commissioners Report
9. Select Board Concerns
10. Executive Session Personnel Matters 1M.R.S.A sub 405 (6)(A)
11. Adjourn

Good afternoon Sangerville,

Last night we had a special town meeting to see if the town would authorize the select board and specifically me as their agent, to apply for private, state and federal grants that may require matching funds. The article passed unanimously, which opens us to possibly receive a significant amount of funding to help in multiple areas of the town but specifically renovating the town hall. With that authorization, this morning I completed and submitted a historic preservation grant application to assist us with the roof repairs on the town hall. The application was for $30,000.00 with a $10,000.00 match if we are successful with the grant.

I am sure I am not alone in my happiness seeing a sunny day today.

We were concerned that this week’s weather would create some significant storm damage to trees and roads in our town. We were fortunate that we only had some very minor damage, a couple trees down and two small washouts on the Knowlton’s Mills Rd and the Gray Hill Rd which were being repaired yesterday.

With Christmas rapidly approaching there is a lot going on locally this weekend. The recovery center is having a fundraising auction, similar to a festival of trees at their facility on the Douty Hill Rd., (the old catholic church). The Sangerville Fire Department will be doing a holiday party for local kids tomorrow from 1:00 PM until 4:00 PM at the fire station. I heard a rumor that Santa will be there around 1:30. If you should feel like venturing to Dover-Foxcroft this weekend, Mosaic masonic lodge will be holding a festival of trees at the Piscataquis fairgrounds.

In my continuing discussion of how we determine property taxes and fund town government I will discuss the next piece of the puzzle. We already discussed that the evaluation of your property multiplied by the mil rate creates your property tax bill but how do we set the mil rate. There are three components to the decision of what the mil rate is for the year. Number one is the school budget. The largest single portion of taxes collected by the municipalities in our area goes to fund local schools. As town government we have no voice in how our school budget is determined and passed. You as individual citizens do have a right, and I encourage you to exercise it, in deciding how that money is spent. You elect representatives to the school board who act on your behalf the same as select people do with town business and County Commissioners do with county business. Know your school board members and do not hesitate to contact them with questions or concerns. Also, as with the town government all school board meetings and school budget meetings are public. The SAD 4 website has information on school board meetings. If you are concerned about how your taxes are spent, I would encourage you to learn how the school board is spending your tax dollars. County government operates similarly. We have three county commissioners that meet regularly and also have budget hearings. All those meetings are public and information about them can be found on the Piscataquis County commissioners’ website. On my next post, I will discuss how we determine our local budget from property taxes.

Have a great weekend.

Brian

See insights and ads

Boost post

Like

Comment

Share

TOWN WARRANT

FOR THE SPECIAL TOWN MEETING

TOWN OF SANGERVILLE

Piscataquis, SS                                                                                                          State of Maine

To: Richard Hall Jr. a resident of the Town of Sangerville, in said County of Piscataquis, State of Maine.

GREETINGS:

      In the name of the State of Maine, you are hereby required to notify and warn the             inhabitants of the Town of Sangerville, in the county of Piscataquis and the State of Maine, qualified to vote in Town affairs, to assemble at the Sangerville Fire Station  on _December 12th,  2024_ at _6:00 _O’Clock in the evening, then and there to act on the  following Articles, to wit:

ARTICLE 1:  To choose a Moderator to preside at said meeting.

Pledge of Allegiance

ARTICLE 2:  To adopt the Maine Moderator’s Manual published by the Maine Municipal  Association as the authority on the rules and procedures for conducting the     Annual Town Meeting.

ARTICLE 3: To ascertain if non-resident speakers are present and whether or not Inhabitants wish to call on them, to be heard.

ARTICLE 4: To see if the Town will vote to authorize the Select Board to apply for and accept grants from private, state and federal agencies, which might require matching funds from the town and enter into contractual obligations for these grants. 

Given under our hands this _5th_day of December, A.D. 2024

‘_______________________________________________________

Jeff Peters, Chair

‘_______________________________________________________

 Mike Gould

‘_______________________________________________________

 Josh Tracy

The Board of Selectmen

Pursuant to the within Warrant, I have notified and warned the Inhaitants of Sangerville qualified as therein expressed to be at the time, and place and for the purpose therein names, by posting this day an attested copy of the within Warrant at the following places:

            Sangerville Town Office

            The Sangerville Town Web site

            The R. & D Emporium

            The Sangerville Post office

            The Sangerville Facebook page

Attest, a true copy:

            ‘________________________________________

              Michelle Nichols, Town Clerk

Good morning Sangerville,

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Mother Nature has had our plow crews busy this last week as well as the fire department helping out with accidents and downed trees. I know Chris and Warren are working hard to get the roads in good shape, this morning they had a breakdown of one of their bigger trucks, so they were using a smaller truck to help get things opened up until they can get to the whole town with the larger truck. So, I will ask everyone to be patient, they are doing the best they can, and I am sure the roads will be in good shape shortly after the storm is done.
One of the challenges I have learned recently to doing maintenance on our dirt roads, especially the dead-end ones is that we have some really inadequate turn around spots for our snowplows. I will be putting that on the agenda for our road committee to discuss and we will add that to our project list for next summer. Again, I ask for patience with the roads. We still had work we wanted to accomplish this fall, but the weather has shut us down. We will develop a list of projects and their expected costs over the winter and with the blessing of the voters in March at the annual town meeting will be out working on those projects as soon as we can in the spring.
Our Select board meeting last night had a fairly light agenda because a lot of our time in between meetings was our Thanksgiving break. We were able to appoint four out of five positions for a board of appeals. We still have one opening for anyone interested. Recently, several residents have questioned why we are using Mid Maine Solid Waste Association in Corinna for solid waste disposal as opposed to Dover-Foxcroft. The concerns voiced to the select board and I have primarily been two issues. One is the distance, as I live in Dover-Foxcroft and Corinna is my hometown, I have a good understanding of the mileage and time differences between the two and it is significant. The other issue is that MMSWA has fees for the disposal of many items, specifically demolition material that Dover-Foxcroft does not. It has been conveyed to us that this is causing a hardship to certain residents who are doing their best to comply with our property maintenance ordinance. I will continue to research this topic and the select board may choose to put this before the people at our annual town meeting. We learned that Moosehead Cable will cease services to the Town of Sangerville residents in six months. They only have 64 current customers between Guilford and Sangerville and cannot afford to keep this operation. The office staff and I met with representatives from Androscoggin Savings Bank last week and feel that they can better serve the banking interests of the town than our current bank. We recommended to the select board and they approved a switch to Androscoggin Savings for our banking. This will have little to no impact on you the residents, other than we will be earning more interest on our sweep account, which is a form of municipal savings account, which is your tax dollars. Finally, from the select board meeting it has been decided to call a special town meeting for next Thursday, December 12th, at the Fire Station at 6:00 PM. The purpose of this is to vote on an article that would allow the select board to apply for and accept grants that may require matching funds. The article in the town meeting this past spring was written to exempt this type of grant from those which we may apply and accept. This limits us on our grant applications, particularly for the town hall renovation. Please try to come out next Thursday evening to discuss and vote on this article.
In my next installment of how we collect and utilize your tax dollars, I will discuss the other have of the equation that determines your tax bill. One half is mil rate, that I talked about last time. The other half is evaluation or assessment. When I became a selectman in Dover-Foxcroft almost twenty years ago, I did not realize the title of select person also included tax assessor and overseer of the poor. The tax assessor responsibility terrified me. Fortunately, almost all communities have recognized that tax assessing is a professional skill set all to itself. Larger towns have full-time assessor agents, towns like Sangerville, mostly contract with an assessing firm. We use Hamlin Associate out of Parkman. These professional assessing agents look at a variety of factors to determine the assessment of your property. The state of Maine has passed laws taking as much of the subjectivity out of the process as possible as well as requiring towns keep their assessments up to date, so everyone is being taxed fairly. I recently read the manual the state requires assessors to use, and it is very complex. To keep it brief, the assessment accounts for location, i.e. is it waterfront, on a paved road, etc., size of the lot, size and condition of any buildings on the lot, taking into account everything from paved driveways to number of bathrooms. They also use data collected from sale of similar properties in the area. The goal is to have the assessment as accurate as possible. This assessment multiplied by the mil rate determines your tax bill. On the next installment, I will start discussing how we collect and use your taxes. Have a great day and a great weekend everyone.

Good afternoon Sangerville,

It appears the ground is becoming a little white for the first time this year, but the national weather service is saying little to no accumulation is expected. Nevertheless, the weather over the next few days looks like it may be a little ugly at times and roads may become slippery in places for short periods of time. Please be careful driving and slow down appropriately. I have just been informed our crews are out sanding as I write this.
There is not a great deal to report from the town office today as it is Thanksgiving week. A reminder, we will be closed Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. If you are looking for a place to connect with your neighbors and share a Thanksgiving meal, the recovery center on the Douty Hill Rd. will be providing a free community Thanksgiving Dinner. The doors will be open for people to come by and socialize starting at 1:00 PM with dinner at 2:30 PM.
One of my primary responsibilities as town manager is to oversee our budget, or more specifically, see that your tax dollars are spent in a responsible manner according to what you the citizens decide at our annual town meeting. In addition to that responsibility, I help prepare a budget that is reviewed by our select board and budget advisory committee and presented to you, the townspeople at our annual town meeting for approval for the next year. That is why attending town meetings are so important. Every dollar we spend on everything from roads to the fire department to animal control and everything else is approved by you at town meeting.
To most of us that annual tax bill is a significant portion of our family income, I understand with prices of everything going up the way they have the last few years, that even a modest increase in taxes hits those struggling to make ends meet very hard. That is why the select board, budget advisory committee and I will be working very hard to produce a fiscally responsible budget while doing as much as we can to improve town services and infrastructure.
I don’t remember ever learning in school, even in college, how a town collected and spent taxes. Which to me is far more useful to know L’hopitals rule in calculus, but I digress. I thought you folks might consider it interesting, if over the next few posts, I talk about how your tax bill is created and then what happens to the money after you pay your taxes.
The first item to discuss is mil rate. I think we are all familiar with the term mil rate. Mil is short for millage which is derived from the Latin word millesimum which means one thousandth. An analogy is percent, one percent is 1/100th, 1 mil is 1/1000th. An example would be if you have a mil rate of 12, which is fairly close to our mil rate and a property value of 100,000 your annual tax bill would be $1,200. I will talk a little more about assessed property value on my next post.
Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving everyone.
Brian