The Vinalhaven Annual Town Meeting was held the evening of Friday, June 24 at the Vinalhaven School. Roughly 65 residents attended the meeting, which is significantly lower than in years past. This may have been due to the lovely weather, or because two of the more contentious articles on the warrant had already been decided by a referendum 10 days earlier.
The articles at the referendum were to enact the Vinalhaven Comprehensive Plan, and to change the name of a small outlying island within the town’s jurisdiction. Both items failed, the Comprehensive Plan 112 for – 266 against, and the island name change 165 for – 211 against. Both issues had become quite contentious in the preceding months with numerous editorials placed in The Wind, Vinalhaven’s local newspaper, flyers placed around town, and lots of talk around town on every side of the issues.
At the heart of the debate on the Comprehensive Plan were recommendations for an increase in minimum lot size within the shoreland zone, increase in well setback from shoreline and neighboring wells, and a building permit cap of 20 new homes per year. These recommendations were designed to protect Vinalhaven’s fragile and limited groundwater resources, but many feared they would render many island properties too small to subdivide into building lots for future generations of year-round residents. At a public hearing a few days before the referendum, the Plan was amended at a public hearing to remove these recommendations, but the Plan still did not pass. Some speculate that the incredibly rainy spring put the drought and dry wells of the recent years out of people’s minds, some think that word of the amendments did not get out in time, others assume that people had already made up their minds on the issue — and still others say many Vinalhaven residents are wary of any more land use regulation than currently exists. When the planning process began nearly four years ago the State required each town to adopt a comprehensive plan, but has since dropped the requirement, which itself could have been enough to defeat the Comprehensive Plan.
The second article of the referendum was related to a small outlying island on Vinalhaven’s east side. The owner of Green Island, or Greer Island, depending on which map is used, believes that the island has been mistakenly placed in the Resource Protection zone for the last 22 years. The owner contends that the island has been confused with another Green Island on the list of islands in Resource Protection (the Town has at least two other islands named “Green”). In this zone, the landowner could request a variance to build one small, rustic cabin on the island. The landowner believes that placing this property in Resource Protection constitutes a `taking’ of her land without compensation, as she intends to use this property as her retirement nest egg and does not believe a prospective buyer will pay the property’s full value if they cannot build a larger, more modern home. Town officials say that the property does fit the criteria of islands in Resource Protection and that her current valuation reflects the current zoning constraints on the property. The property’s current valuation is $186,900 and was recently advertised for sale at nearly $900,000.
Before the residents was a proposed budget of $2,010,568 from taxes and reserve funds, a 3.5 percent increase over last year’s budget. Forty-four of the 55 articles presented at the meeting related to the budget, most of which passed unanimously with little discussion. There was a good deal of public discussion on certain items, and there were dissenting votes on a handful of measures, and one article was voted down.
Much of the evening’s discussion was related to the Public Works Department and an upcoming state paving project. The town is currently seeking a new Public Works Supervisor, which led to some discussion of salary increase and the need for a paid Roads Commissioner who would work more closely with the crew. Late this summer, the state Department of Transportation will contract the paving of all the island’s state-maintained roads. The town has piggy-backed on this effort and will contract the repaving of a significant portion of the town-maintained roads while the equipment and manpower is here. Some residents were in favor of delaying the paving until the roads could be better prepared for the paving, while others insisted that the paving could not wait another year.
Discussion was also heard on the increased contract with the Knox County Sheriff’s Dept. to replace the State Police, which had previously patrolled the island at no cost to the town, as well as the need for a Fire Department boat and repairs to the Brown’s Head Lighthouse.
The failed article proposed to move $30,000 from the town’s Shore Access Reserve Funds to the Harbor Reserve Fund. While most people in attendance agreed that using a portion of the Shore Access Reserve for the harbor was a good idea, there was some unease with allocating such a large amount of money to the Harbor Committee with no itemized budget. The general consensus was that the committee should approach the selectmen with a budget at a later meeting.
The remaining articles were administrative in nature and passed unanimously and with little discussion. The meeting adjourned at 10:30pm.