By Wayne E. Rivet

Staff Writer

HARRISON — If Harrison wants to return to its long-time motto as “the friendly village,” it will require a town-wide effort.

Image — as seen in Harrison and outside town lines — took center stage out of the gate at last Thursday’s Select Board meeting.

Resident Rick Sykes sparked a pointed exchange when he posed a list of questions during public participation to open the meeting.

“I got to thinking a little bit about some of the challenges that the Select Board is going to have to face,” Sykes said. “I’ll just read them.”

• Fire Study recommendations, “what do you do with it?”

• Recreation Department review, “I think you need to do that.” Sykes cited low numbers and “participants and counselors have gone to Oxford Recreation.”

• Line item budget, “Do you really want to continue hiding that from the public?”

• The brush dump, unresolved. “I thought we were going to get something at the town meeting, but no.”

• Good job on the United Ambulance and PACE coverage, “that’s been resolved, for now.”

• Capital Improvement Plan, “That’s been asked for a number of times…Any large expense should be planned out over a number of years.”

• Employee resignations, “Someone told me that there’s been a number of employees that have resigned…An exit interview, something you folks might want to consider.”

• Public Works open house?

• Financial transparency, “Financial report on expenditures and revenue on a monthly basis should be available to the public. How about monthly meetings to talk about goals, objectives, even some of the things that I’ve talked about here. Something to think about…How do you regain the trust of the voters so we don’t get into the situation that we have at town meeting.”

Board Chairman Matt Frank “appreciated” the constructive criticism, but disagreed with Sykes on several points made in his “negative report.”

“The Rec Department did a fine job this summer. The kids had a very good time. I was very well run,” he said. “Many of these things you’re talking about are the same as when you were chairman, and in fact, we do a better job of it now than then. Can we improve? Yes, we can improve, but I don’t appreciate the attitude you have when you come here at each meeting to figure out what negative thing you want to say about us. I’m going to pay attention to this, but a lot of this comes from when you were chairman.”

Frank pointed out that fire department leadership is taking suggestions made in the Fire Study “seriously” and are evaluating the operation, despite voters rejecting key recommendations, such as hiring a full-time chief, at town meeting.

“We paid a lot of money (on the study) and voters did not come to the public (information) sessions, and then came to town meeting and voted no. That is the right of the voter to express his/her opinion, that’s fine,” Frank added.

Selectman Phil Devlin suggested that the board hold a planning session at the start of the new fiscal year — August — “to collectively consider priorities that we want to get accomplished this year…Some of these very well could be items in the list (Sykes presented), but I think this is not the right forum. I think the board needs a workshop.”

Select Board member Colleen Densmore clarified that the town has not been “completely remiss” to developing a Capital Plan, noting she and Sykes were members of a committee when Bud Finch was town manager, and money was earmarked for certain items or projects.

“You’ve been a part of this for a very long time, and some of the things that you have on here date back to when you and I were on the budget committee. Whether it is this board or the last 10 years of boards that were remiss and you are certainly a piece of that. We need to make progress. So, appreciation of feedback is one thing. Critiquing work that you’ve already done yourself and didn’t get accomplished is another. I just want to say that publicly, Rick, because it seems like you find something every month to bring to the board. I think last month, what you brought up to the board, you already knew the answers to because you were on the board when it occurred. So, to publicly bring forth some of these things to revisit that you are unable to accomplish on a board or that you already got the answers to, to make it look negative today, it's not part of the solution, Rick, it’s part of the problem.”

Densmore continued, “I love feedback. What should we do with Fire Study? We need to get around to what we can do, not what we can’t do. We need to figure out how to give those employees that little 4% (increase) in the town office. How do you justify giving it to every other single town employee, but not the people that work in administration? When all the hands go up at the town meeting and say, ‘I’m not giving you a raise,’ it’s a two-way street. It isn’t the board that always makes the town look bad. It is not the board that creates the conflict consistently. It is all of us collectively together, and we need to work together to go forward, not us versus them. It appears that that’s what you tried to bring forward at every meeting is us versus them. And it’s not okay.”

Densmore concluded recognizing Sykes for all his public service, which earned him a great deal of respect. But, she added, “This is not the game you played throughout your career. It’s not how you created your success.”

Sykes agreed that the Capital Plan should be written in pencil, to be erased and changed if other needs and priorities arise.

Devlin reiterated the need for a planning session. “There’s a lot of points of view and I think the important thing is we collectively agree on what’s important and are there ways to address things,” he said.

Later in the meeting, Town Manager Cass Newell addressed several of Sykes’ points in her report:

• “Our Recreation Department works very, very hard. (Rec Manager) Brianna Morris, who is in her second year, has done extraordinarily well,” Newell noted.

The manager pointed out that the rec program had 105 kids to start the season, along with 15 counselors. “We maxed out with the amount of counselors that we were able to have. No counselors left us this summer, and no kids other than for vacation or other plans left us this summer,” she said.

• Regarding brush/stump disposal, Newell said several options were investigated and discussed at budget meetings. Private sites declined, because in the past some people left refrigerators, tires and other debris at the brush site. Rolfe in Bridgton would accept brush/stumps at a cost.

The town looked at the Transfer Station, but there is not sufficient space available there.

“The Select Board did make a decision that it was to be status quo for now, unless in the future something changes or they want to bring it back up again,” Newell said.

• An open house at the new Public Works facility has been extensively delayed due to an “incident with one of the bays,” which Newell would not elaborate on but added, “we are still fixing that bay (they are custom bays, it does cost a lot of money, and we do not have that finished yet, it became an insurance issue).

Also, the old 1959 garage still needs to be demolished. The town is waiting on a contractor to tear down the structure.

“I’ve talked to our insurance company. I cannot do an open house until all parts and pieces are a go,” Newell said. “We cannot open it legally to the public, even for an open house or a grand opening, until those are done. Trust me, I want it open more than probably anyone else in this room. Nobody is hiding anything. Nobody is sitting on their laurels. These are things that are being worked on.”

• On transparency, Newell said, “I have had two newspapers that have sat across from me, and you certainly can ask the newspaper personnel if you’d like, and say that as far as transparency, that I have been extraordinarily transparent, more transparent than they get from other towns or other organizations that they work with, including other towns. I really want to keep positive momentum in this town. It’s hard to continue to be positive and forward thinking when members of the community are stuck in a negative or in a space where it’s hard to get away from. There’s a difference between fixing something and constructive criticism and receiving constructive criticism and staying in that space for a long time. We’ve talked at length about this board on how we’re supposed to go forward into the future and how we’re going to go forward as a town. When I see what’s on your list, and I hear in an accusatory manner from folks in the community, behind my back or behind staff’s back, I don’t think that’s positive at all.”

Newell added to achieve a positive environment and the ability to move forward as a town, “I would like us to work together. I would like to do that, but I have a hard time doing that when there’s this behind me. One step forward, 12 steps back to try to try to figure out what, how to make that better. I would ask that as we go forward, we do try to stay positive. All of us. We try to stay in a united front. If we want to come back together as the ‘friendly village,’ which we’re still are, we need to work together. I don’t like when I hear a mockery of the friendly village because of what they see or what they hear.”

Select Board member Densmore said when it comes to trust, everyone needs to do their part.

In other meeting notes:

What happens next? With the SAD 17 budget failing for the second time (Harrison rejected the current proposal by a 211 to 49 margin on Aug. 6), a resident asked the Select Board what happens next?

Select Board Chairman Matt Frank explained that the school district has 45 days to revise the budget and bring it back to voters for consideration.

“We would like to have input into that budget. And hopefully, all the town managers and boards will have input,” Frank said.

Another question is how does the failed school vote affect the local tax rate.

“Whatever is the last budget that was passed by the town meeting, which was a week or so ago, will be what will be used to set the taxes by,” he pointed out. “So even though we voted it down, we’re going to use those numbers in the mill rate calculation. Hopefully, we will have a more responsible budget soon.”

A resident asked if the school budget number comes in lower, and local taxpayers overpaid on their taxes, do they get a rebate? At this point, the town is waiting for a clarification from the state. “We’re just not sure how it (a credit) works,” Frank admitted.

Buying AEDs. Using $7,500 in federal ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act of 2021) funds, the town will purchase three AEDs (automated external defibrillators) to place in the two Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office cruisers that patrol Harrison, and the other in the fire chief’s vehicle.

Town Manager Cass Newell said the AED’s lifespan, if well maintained, runs 12 to 15 years. The town currently has seven AEDs, placed at various locations such as the town office, transfer station, public garage and library.

Appointed. Wendy Gallant was appointed to the Harrison Planning Board.

Sold. Newell reported that the town has sold two dump trucks that were no longer being used, hauling in $30,000 to the town’s coffers.