Poland residents urged to attend meetings

POLAND – There are two dates for Poland residents to be aware of in preparation for the April 2 town meeting.

“We have scheduled two public hearings,” said Town Manager Dana Lee. “The first one is at 7 p.m., Tuesday, February 22, at the town office. This will be a public hearing on land-use code changes to be proposed at town meeting. The second important date is March 1, a week later, same time same place. We will go over some non-land-use warrant articles – a beach ordinance, a rental-housing code and the general assistance ordinance. We invite people to participate to learn more about what will be discussed at town meeting.

“We've been so busy constantly trying to fix things, advance and move things along,” Lee continued, “that we initially had about 20 warrant articles at town meeting that are not budgetary articles. So we have trimmed some of the articles that we felt were not ready for ‘prime time.’”

Lee said that some articles had to do with future state grants.

“We don't know about these grants yet,” he said, “and I hate to ask a question, ‘If the grant comes through, will you authorize us to do X-Y-Z?’ If you don't know what you're asking for, you don’t want to ask for a blank check or blank authorization. There was also an article to take over [the] cemetery, but I have to get a legal opinion on that because it may be better for us to take the cemetery by abandonment, rather than by donation.

“We have discussed a grant program that the state had started under Governor Baldacci,” Lee said. “His legislature was going to grant $3.5 million for downtown grants that would need to be matched dollar for dollar. So for a $100,000 project, there would be $50,000 from the state and $50,000 local. But that grant program is on hold with Governor LePage. He’s put a regulatory hold on all things right now so he can look them over.”

Lee said Poland selectmen want to review available funds, and the affordability of differently-sized town projects in the event that the state grant is approved.

“We want to be ready when opportunities happen,” Lee said.