WANTED-School Board Candidates!

(Lamoine) — Two resignations and two term endings will likely result in a very different school committee next spring. As of late December only one person was circulating a nominating petition for one of the four open seats.

The terms of Tammy Dickey and Frank Murray expire as of the March 2006 town meeting. Mrs. Dickey has indicated she probably will not run again. Neither she nor Mr. Murray had taken out papers.

Julie Tilden who was appointed an interim member until the 2006 town meeting intends to run for a 3-year slot on the school committee. Mrs. Tilden took the vacancy created when Linda Haft resigned from the school board when she took a job in Kentucky. That resignation left a term that will expire in 2007, thus the availability of a 1-year term seat on the school board.

The other vacancy came when Bonnie Marckoon submitted her resignation in December, effective at the March 2006 election. Mrs. Marckoon said she wanted to devote more time to her family and found it difficult to devote enough time to effectively continue serving on the school committee. She was re-elected in March 2005, and her seat will be a two year term.

The election will leave current school board chair Faith Perkins as the lone holdover from the 2005 town meeting. Superintendent of Schools William Fowler said the board is losing a great deal of institutional memory with the vacancies, but he looks forward to working with the new board members.

Nomination papers are available from the Town Office. To appear on the ballot, candidates must gather signatures from at least 25 registered voters.

Heating Fuel Spills On Seal Point Road

(Lamoine) — The Maine Department of Environmental Protection and Lamoine Fire Department responded quickly to a report of a home heating fuel tank leak on Veterans' Day—but that report came a few days too late. The spill on Seal Point Road occurred at the outlet of the fuel tank, and the smelly fuel leaked onto the dirt basement's floor. Enough accumulated to activate the sump pump in the cellar which shot the fuel outdoors and into drainage paths leading across the road to a small pond. Firefighters used absorbent pads and a boom to contain the outdoor spill. Nathan Thompson of the DEP said it appeared the fuel did not soak into the ground very far on the outside of the building, and wells around the area probably will not be affected.

The DEP called in environmental cleaning specialists from Clean Harbors which used a giant suction truck to pick up the heating fuel. The truck spent the better part of two days on the scene.

The inside of the house saw oil saturate the basement floor, with the odor permeating the vacant residence. The owners, who live in Massachusetts, reportedly were getting ready to rent the house. It's believed the floor was to be dug up and the contaminated dirt removed and the house aired out. The DEP's Thompson said his department responds to dozens of similar calls each year, some worse than others. He did not know how much this leak might cost to clean up. There was concern that the home's well was threatened as it is located within a few feet of the bulkhead entrance to the basement. Initial testing, though, did not show any contamination to the household's water.

This is the second fuel tank leak in Lamoine in the past few years. An August 2004 leak occurred at a Buttermilk Road home when a wood pile fell on top of the fuel tank's outlet, snapping it off, and causing several dozen gallons of to spill into the basement. That cleanup took several weeks as the oil seeped into cracks of the concrete floor, migrating to the cellar drains.

Thompson advises homeowners to have their tanks inspected by a professional on an annual basis.

The Cleanup

Crew members from Clean Harbors use a suction truck to lift spilled heating fuel from the ditches near a Seal Point Road residence.

Single Vehicle Crash Kills 22-Year Old Driver

(Lamoine) — State Police investigated a crash on November 22nd that claimed the life of the 22-year old Trenton man who was driving. Barry Smallidge was pronounced dead at Maine Coast Memorial Hospital in Ellsworth. Smallidge grew up in Lamoine and was employed at a chain-saw shop in Trenton. A passenger in the truck, Brandon Sprague of Lamoine, was able to walk away from the crash. Police say Sprague, who owned the truck, wore a seat belt while Smallidge did not.

The call came in shortly after 8:30 PM that a vehicle had rolled over and a person was trapped. Lamoine's fire department immediately called for assistance from Ellsworth and Hancock, but on arrival it was determined the way to recover Smallidge was to roll the truck off him. Smallidge was unresponsive.

Police believe speed and alcohol were factors in the crash. The night was windy, cold and rainy but the road was not particularly slippery. Firefighters had just returned home following a pair of reports of trees down across Shore Road and Raccoon Cove Road due to the high winds.

The Hancock Fire Department helped close down Mud Creek Road for approximately an hour and a half while Trooper Thomas Pickering and Sergeant Edward Bonney took pictures and measurements at the scene to help reconstruct the accident. The crash was the second fatality this year in Lamoine. The first occurred last June when 14-year old Janina Haslam was struck by a car on Lamoine Beach Road.

Mud Creek Road Wreck

The remains of a pickup truck after it left Mud Creek Road, hit a stump area, and rolled over several times, pinning and killing driver Barry Smallidge.

Selectmen Explore Salt Sand Shed Options

(Lamoine) — A complaint to the Department of Environmental Protection may spur the town to construct its own salt/sand storage shed.

On Election Day, the DEP's Erich Kluck arrived at the town office to let officials know that the privately owned salt/sand pile on Needles Eye Road was in violation of several rules. The pile is used on town roads by Nankervis Trucking which leases the land. Several dead trees downstream from the pile were the giveaway that something was wrong and salt was getting into the vegetation. A citation was issued to the pile owners who have fixed the problems for now, but the pile remains outdoors.

Mr. Kluck met with Selectmen in December to talk about the options for building a salt/sand shed on town owned land. A shed offers many advantages, including a level playing field for contractors bidding on the plowing job. Selectmen will explore possibly locating the shed on the former Anderson property near the closed landfill.