Bar Harbor Town Council Says Goodbye to Hochman and Kelly
Council approves Shore Path Reopening Celebration, Water Grant
BAR HARBOR—The Bar Harbor Town Council said goodbye to outgoing councilors Matthew Hochman and Meg Kelly during its Tuesday night meeting.
“It represents an extraordinary amount of attention and effort,” Council Chair Valerie Peacock said of Hochman’s nine years of service and thanked him for his effort.
During the meeting, Peacock gave a litany of changes and policies and programs and work that occurred during Hochman’s years on the council and thanked him for serving on the council and other town committees previously. He has chosen not to run for reelection.
“Not running is bittersweet, I will miss serving,” Hochman said Friday. “I'll miss working with town staff and my fellow councilors.”
There are things and distractions such as lawsuits and negativity that he won’t miss, he said.
“Distractions like those prevented us from focusing on important work like housing and sustainable tourism, but I am proud of the work we got done over my nine years. We implemented a parking program, formed a charter commission, a comprehensive plan committee, purchased the ferry terminal, started building a new school, have begun much needed infrastructure work, and implemented needed short-term rental regulations,” he said. “I look forward to seeing how the next council grapples with those and other issues facing Bar Harbor. I'll just be watching it from the other side of the dais for a while.”
Vice Chair Maya Caines said it was a pleasure to work with Hochman and not just be his neighbor on Strawberry Hill. Councilor Joe Minutolo also thanked Hochman for his time on the council. Councilor Randell Sprague said that he’d miss Hochman’s institutional knowledge and procedural prowess.
“I can’t praise our town staff enough,” Hochman said during his final council comments.
Kelly, who was appointed to fill the seat this year, chose not to rerun for council and is instead running again for warrant committee.
“Thank you for stepping up into this space,” Peacock said. “It’s been great to get to know you.”
Kelly thanked her fellow councilors and staff. She said she enjoyed her time and learned a lot.
Sprague and Earl Brechlin are both running for reelection. Caines thanked both Sprague and Kelly for stepping up after Gary Friedmann and Kyle Shank both resigned this winter. Friedmann resigned to focus on serving in the state legislature. Shank resigned because he and his family is moving out of state.
SHORE PATH REOPENING CELEBRATION
The council unanimously authorized the reopening celebration of the town’s shore path. It will occur June 12 at noon at Grant Park.
“Having it back open again is going to be really great,” Hochman said.
The path closed after it was destroyed by a series of winter storms in 2024. The path is owned by private citizens, businesses, and the town. It is managed by the volunteer-run Village Improvement Association (VIA).
The VIA started a GoFundMe that has raised over $61,000 with an additional $330,000 donated directly to the VIA. The VIA also contributed $300,000 itself. Many local businesses such as Window Panes, Witham Family Hotels, and First National Bank have held Shore Path specific fundraisers and/or donated money directly. The reconstruction has been a community effort that involved not just local fans of the Shore Path but also those from away who fell in love with the path’s uniqueness and beauty.
PERMITS
Bar Harbor Cellars Winery at 854 Route 3 received a special amusement permit (class 3ao). They would have music on Saturdays between 2-5 p.m.
Denise Daugherty’s Point 2 Point Taxi’s license was renewed.
BEE POLLINATION CORRIDOR
The town approved the designation that it would be part of a bee pollination corridor initiative.
The goal would be to talk to other stakeholders about establishing a bee pollination corridor, which is essentially a planned area for bees and butterflies to have access to various plants that support their habitat and strengthen the ecosystem services. The idea, Town Manager James Smith said, came from the Climate Emergency Task Force.
“They think it would be an issue that is worthy of advancing some of their climate objectives,” Smith said.
Peacock said one of the focuses is to prioritize native plants.
“It’s probably going to generate some good buzz,” Hochman punned before moving that the order had passage.
SECRET BALLOT ELECTIONS OF CHAIR AND VICE CHAIR
“This came at the request of me,” Peacock explained as she began the discussion.
She said the organizational meeting where elections of chair and vice chair come very quickly after the June election of councilors by the Bar Harbor voters. The goal was to create more rules and procedures as the council promotes its leaders.
She said the councilors are looking for legal advice about the secret ballot aspect and asked for no action on the item at this time.
Hochman said he didn’t think it’s necessary to change things and was not a fan of self-nomination, which he mentioned at the workshop about the topic.
He did think it was a good idea to notify new councilors of the process of the organizational meeting and its procedures to make it easier.
“I think a conversation makes sense,” Caines said. She said the current process is formal and awkward. “Opening it up to discussion would be helpful. It doesn’t have to be long, just so people can voice their interest.”
“It doesn’t have to be super involved. It is tense right now,” Peacock said and stressed that it doesn’t have to be.
Brechlin said that he prefers it when all nominations go on the table prior to voting for nominations.
TOWN APPLYING FOR A FEDERAL WATER QUALITY MANAGEMENT PLANNING GRANT
“This order is something that we just talked about,” Bar Harbor Staff Planner Hailey Bondy said in that it connects to the stewardship of resources, which is also mentioned in the proposed comprehensive plan and Northeast Creek Watershed Water Monitoring Project.
The grant is a water quality management grant that creates a watershed base plan.
Collecting data at various locations in the watershed, creating a septic survey of existing septic tanks in the watershed would both be involved. It will likely recommend policy changes. It requests $70,000 from the EPA and requires an approximate $30,000 town contribution.
Peacock said the conversation around Northeast Creek and its relationship to development and density in that area came up multiple times in the comprehensive planning process.
The council unanimously approved it.
SCHEDULE OF FEES
The council did its annual adjustment to cruise ship passenger fees, which were a basic cost-of-living increase, Peacock said.
PUBLIC HEARINGS ON JUNE 10 TOWN MEETING BALLOT ARTICLES
The council also held public hearings on multiple June 10 ballot articles. No action was taken on the public hearings.
Article 2 “Comprehensive Plan” was the only article that had any public comment.
Ruth Eveland said she was hopeful that the town would support the comprehensive plan and said there were extraordinarily thoughtful responses to the process that was well organized by the planning department. She called it a “very sound plan” for moving forward.
No one from the public spoke to the following articles: “Offensive Language,” “Salisbury Cove Corridor, Minimum Front Setback,” “Time Frames and Phasing,” “Multifamily I and Multifamily II Definitions,” “Short-term Rentals,” and “Fire Protection.”
SHELLFISH ORDINANCE CHANGES
The town’s Marine Resource Committee Chair Chris Petersen and Vice Chair Matt Gerald spoke to the shellfish conservation ordinance changes. The town committee exists to do co-management between the state and the town about shellfish management.
There are currently 12 different license classes in the town for commercial and recreation licenses, junior and senior, day and annual. However, there were only six listed in the ordinance. The proposed changes are to make the ordinance cohesive and clarified.
“Mostly this is bookkeeping,” Petersen said.
There will be a public hearing on the ordinance change at a future meeting. Caines asked the committee to also change the pronouns to all “their/they/them” for consistency.
COUNCIL COMMENTS
Three elections, which is a lot to go through in this town,” Peacock said.
It’s 210 regular meetings. It’s $180 million dollars of budget, rounded up. It’s 18 warrants and nine budget processes, three clerks and three town managers.
She then gave a litany of changes and actions during Hochman’s tenure on the board.
It represents an extraordinary amount of effort and attention, Peacock said.
She thanked Kelly for her time.
Hochman said he thinks it’s close to 320. “It’s a lot of work,” he said.
“I think all the councils I’ve been on have done good work,” Hochman said. “I can’t praise our town staff enough.”
HOW YOU CAN BE MORE INVOLVED IN BAR HARBOR
Call For Volunteers - Northeast Creek Watershed Water Quality Monitoring
The Town of Bar Harbor is starting a Maine DEP Volunteer River Monitoring Program that will allow us to understand current water quality within the Northeast Creek Watershed and determine methods to protect this crucial resource in the future.
Program Details
Location: Northeast Creek Watershed
Monitoring: June – September 2025
Monitoring is expected to begin in June 2025 with sampling occurring at regular intervals through September.
Volunteering Details and Important Dates
Interested volunteers will have the opportunity to, upon registration, participate in two training opportunities to learn how to take water samples and use monitoring equipment.
Sign-up Deadline: Wednesday, May 28 at 5 p.m.
Mandatory Training Date: May 30 at 10:30 a.m.
If you are interested in registering as a volunteer, please reach out to Staff Planners Hailey Bondy or Cameron Sands.
hbondy@barharbormaine.gov or 207-288-1783 (or) csands@barharbormaine.gov or 207-288-1782
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Rick Osann Art.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
QUICK NOTE
We plan to have two more Bar Harbor council stories related to this meeting.
Follow us on Facebook. And as a reminder, you can easily view all our past stories and press releases here.
If you’d like to donate to help support us, you can, but no pressure! Just click here (about how you can give) or here (a direct link), which is the same as the button below.
If you’d like to sponsor the Bar Harbor Story, you can! Learn more here.