Safe Streets, business park progress continues
Public hearing
on town budget Oct. 1
By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer
MILO — A pair of projects to benefit the town of Milo are both progressing toward the end of the month completion date for the current work.
“The Main Street project is moving along fairly well,” Town Manager David Maynard said during a Sept. 17 selectmen’s meeting. Sections of West Main, Park and Pleasant streets are being fixed up under the Safe Streets project, with new pavement and underground drainage, sidewalks and safer intersections among the components of the construction.
Maynard said according to the calculations of John Stetson of project contractor Stetson and Watson of Pittsfield, “We are still on budget and still scheduled for completion on schedule.”
Sept. 30 is the completion date for the Safe Streets project, but the selectmen, passed a motion to enable Maynard to work beyond the end of the month if the need arises.
The other ongoing project with a date of Sept. 30 marked on the calendar is for work to get the Eastern Piscataquis Business Park on Park Street ready for occupants to go in. “Yesterday we did substantial completion, we are in the process of drawing up a contract with the contractor for any work that needs to be finished,” Maynard said.
“I believe that we will have money left,” he said, with Town Treasurer Robin Larson concurring. “We are ahead of schedule, 27 days from start to finish.”
The remaining funds could be used to repair some pavement around the barns damaged by the contractor’s equipment, as well as fund an as-built survey by engineers CES, Inc. “It’s simply what was built as opposed to what was intended,” Maynard said about the survey. “It’s also our record of what is there for the future.”
The selectmen authorized the town manager to go ahead and spend any remaining funds to close out the project.
Maynard praised contractor Lou Silver, Inc. of Veazie by saying, “I am so pleased with this contractor and the job they did.” He said he visited the business park daily, and “that was a very smooth project and it went like clockwork.”
In other business, the selectmen scheduled a public hearing for Tuesday, Oct. 1 at 6 p.m. at the town hall for citizens to discuss the town budget for the next fiscal year. In the past few months, Milo officials have discussed holding such sessions to inform residents of what their options for town services could be at different mil rates.
“The public needs to understand, with the cuts that need to be cut you are talking services and personnel,” Selectman Lee McMannus said. He said some possible reductions to the town budget could be painful, as the spending plan has been scaled back over the years.
Maynard was asked about the status of the town hall kitchen, as renovating the space would enable the room to be used to cook for functions at the town hall — something that cannot be done at the present time. He said the honest answer is it would not be practical to devote time to this project while the Safe Streets project and Eastern Piscataquis Business Park work is ongoing but the town hall kitchen has not been forgotten.
Some groundwork for getting the kitchen has been done and a fund for the work has money in it. Maynard said when the time comes there may be a solution to conduct the renovations for less than what could be projected and complete the work in a shorter amount of time.