LIVERMORE FALLS — Selectmen voted Tuesday to take out sidewalks on School and Wheeler streets, both of which are in poor condition.
Road Foreman Bill Nichols recommended removing the sidewalks. He said it would cost as much as $8,000 to replace them, “versus $300 to take it out.”
Nichols said he wanted to leave the street widths as is and pull out the pavement and concrete, replace them with loam and extend lawns to the street.
“We don’t have the money to maintain the sidewalks we have,” he said.
Resident Melissa Crocker said she was concerned about people having a place to walk on more heavily traveled streets. She suggested a white line for separation between pedestrians and cars. Nichols said he wanted to keep the sidewalks on more heavily traveled streets.
In other business:
* Selectmen voted 5-0 to buy a Wacker Neuson sidewalk tractor for $86,126 after trade-in to help clear snow from sidewalks and to perform other maintenance. Nichols said he had obtained prices for four machines, ranging from $86,126 to $155,100 after trade-in of one of the town’s older machines.
The Wacker Neuson machine includes a snowblower, kick broom for cleaning sidewalks of dirt, sickle bar mower and a spreader for sand and salt. It is being purchased from Central Equipment in Bangor.
* Tax commitment time is approaching for Livermore Falls.
“Obviously, we should take out some money from the fund balance this year. Otherwise, the (tax) rate will go up quite a bit,” Town Manager Kristal Flagg said.
Last year, the tax rate was $20.90 per $1,000 of property value. Flagg said that if the town took $100,000 from its fund balance for tax relief, it would result in a tax rate of 21.30 this year.
She said that last year, the town had an overlay of around $100,000 and didn’t use any of it.
The town has $1.5 million in its fund balance, Flagg said.
“I’d rather see the tax rate stay the same if there’s that kind of a fund balance,” Selectman George Cummings said.
