Island Briefs February 18, 2021 on News
A native of Northeast Harbor, Durlin E. Lunt Jr. has lived in Mount Desert all his life. PHOTO COURTESY OF BRIAN SWARTZ
Town treasurer job upgraded
MOUNT DESERT The Board of Selectmen has approved Town Manager Durlin Lunt’s recommendation to upgrade the position of treasurer/tax collector to director of finance/treasurer. That action reverses a decision made in 2011 when, Lunt said, it had become hard to find someone who was capable or willing to take on the extra responsibilities of finance director.
Now, however, he told the board, “As governmental finance continues to evolve in complexity, the time has come to return to the finance director model.”
Town rejects petition for causeway, culverts
MOUNT DESERT The Board of Selectmen has denied a request by three property owners on Northern Neck Road that the town replace two culverts under a causeway on the road and assume permanent maintenance of the causeway and culverts.
Northern Neck is made up of a peninsula and an island, connected by a short causeway, that bisect the northern end of Long Pond. The 60 lots on Northern Neck are privately owned.
A prominent sign at the beginning of the unpaved Northern Neck Road announces: “Private road…Owners & guests only…No public water access.”
Each of the galvanized steel culverts under the causeway is 40–feet long and allows water to circulate between the eastern and western sides of Long Pond. Installed in 1983, the culverts have become a safety hazard, according to the three property owners who petitioned the town to take responsibility for them: Robert Foster, Robert Shea and William Waters.
Town Hall addition eyed for fire, ambulance and police
MOUNT DESERT Rather than construct a new building in Northeast Harbor for the fire department and ambulance service, as Fire Chief Mike Bender proposed two months ago, town officials are now considering the idea of adding onto the Town Hall building to provide more space for those services, as well as for the police department.
The Board of Selectmen voted Monday to authorize paying Hedefine Engineering & Design up to $10,000 to prepare a concept floor plan and construction cost estimate for a two-story addition.
Bender told the selectmen more than a year ago that, due to the increasing shortage of volunteer firefighters, the town would need to hire more full-time personnel to provide around-the-clock coverage. That, in turn, would mean the fire department would need to provide sleeping quarters, he said.
Town to save $132K on road rebuild
MOUNT DESERT The town will pay $132,218 less than anticipated to complete the last 810 feet of the reconstruction of Route 198 this coming spring.
The Maine Department of Transportation, which has split the cost of the entire 2.2-mile project with the town, will save the same amount.
The first 1.1 miles of the project, from about a quarter of a mile north of the Parkman Mountain parking lot the Giant Slide trailhead, was completed in 2018 at a total cost of about $1 million.
The second half of the project, from the trailhead to Eagle Lake Road, was to have been completed last year, also at a cost of $1 million. But because of cost overruns, the project was halted near the intersection of Route 198 and the northern end of Butler Road.