By Renee Worthing
Staff Writer
About 100 Kennebunk residents attended the annual Town Meeting, the town’s annual budget meeting, June 11  to cast votes on 41 warrant articles.
Kennebunk’s $10.4 million proposed municipal budget passed, including four articles totaling $358,000 above the LD1 Cap. The approved budget is approximately $500,000 more than last years budget.
Finance Director Joel Downs said each of the four additional articles, which required voting by secret ballot, would add about 20 cents to the town’s mil rate, bringing it to $13.90 per $1,000 of valuation.
Voters cast their ballots 79 to 32 in favor of raising and appropriating $167,400 for capital expenditures and projects. They also voted 80 to 29 to raise and appropriate $56,680 for capital expenditures financed through five year lease/purchase agreements, including the lease/purchase of three trucks for the public works department and a cardiac monitor, a vehicle for the chief and a thermal imaging camera for the fire department.
Article 39, to raise and appropriate $75,000 for the “On-call Firefighter and EMS Responder Incentive Program passed 88 to 18. By a vote of 74 to 36, voters approved $35,000 to hire two full time firefighters under a SAFER (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) grant.”
According the Department of Homeland Security Web site, “the SAFER Grant was created to provide funding directly to fire departments and volunteer firefighter interest organizations in order to help them increase the number of trained, ‘front-line’ firefighters available in their communities.”
The final secret ballot article on the warrant, to raise $24,000 for the Kennebunk Shuttle and Shoreline Trolley, also passed 75 to 32.
Voters approved raising and appropriating $3.1 million for public safety, $1.5 million for public works and slightly more than $695,000 for capital expenditures and debt services. They also approved an appropriation of $210,000 from an unreserved, undesignated general fund balance for overages incurred by last winters plowing and snow removal.
Voters opposed Article 22, a proposal to levy an eight percent interest rate on overdue property taxes.
Kennebunk resident Sue Walker proposed amending the article to reduce the eight percent interest rate to the current rate of six percent.
“Eight percent is punitive with oil and gas prices extremely high,” Walker said. “Six percent is as high as it should be. It’s only fair to reduce it to six percent.”
Walker’s proposed amendment passed by a majority vote.
Voters also approved an amendment to the zoning ordinance, which established a staff review committee for minor site plan applications.
Members of the site review committee will consist of the town planner, public works director, code enforcement officer, fire chief and the police chief.
According to the amendment, the committee will “exercise all of the powers exercised by the site plan review board including the power to grant submission waivers, and the power to approve, approve with conditions, or deny applications for site plan approval.”
Town Planner Judith Bernstein said the staff review process will follow the same process as the site plan review board and said the public is welcome to staff review meetings.
She also said the process of appeals will remain the same.
Voters also supported amendments to the noise control ordinance. The ordinance now describes how levels of continuous noise must be measured and outlines limits in zones and restricts hours.
Town Manager Barry Tibbetts said the amendments are a “good tool” to enforce the ordinance, but Selectman Al Searles disagreed.
“This ordinance is a piece of garbage,” Searles said. “But, if we don’t have it, we will continue to listen to [noise] complaints.”