Council Has Official Priorities

Tourism, Housing, New Revenue Sources, Public Engagement and Advocacy on the Council List

BAR HARBOR—The Bar Harbor Town Council adopted its priorities during its December 5 meeting. Those priorities were originally discussed at a facilitated workshop in November that had been held at Machias Savings Bank.

“We got to areas. We got to buckets that we want to work on,” Council Chair Valerie Peacock said Tuesday. Those are buckets, she said, rather than goals. “There is still work to do from these.”

Councilor Maya Caines said that it was important that the work be presented as general council priorities. She is uncomfortable about presenting them as council goals and feels “great about the process” that took place at the workshop. She said a clear timeline for individual priorities would be helpful. Then once there is a timeline created, she hoped that the town would publish those meeting dates where different topics could be discussed and the public could be engaged.

A goal is, according to Merriam-Webster, “the end toward which effort is directed,” while a priority is “something given or meriting attention before competing alternatives.”

Councilors spoke to several bullet points under the “buckets” or “priorities” in the summary report of the goal-setting workshop.

Those were to:

1. Propose and implement alternative sources of revenue;

2. Increase affordable housing;

3. Establish a sustainable tourism vision and management plan;

4. Be proactive about public engagement;

5. Effective advocacy at the state house.

via Council packet

Under proactive public engagement, the bullet point about “managing the narrative” felt controlling, Caines said. She would prefer it to be about putting out information proactively. She said the language of “managing the middle” is not as clear as it could be. She perceived of that bullet point as being more about hearing voices that might not often be heard than “management.”

Caines also spoke of having metrics for success and goals that are more concrete and refined.

A next step for the Town Council would be to write out three year and one year goals, Councilor Kyle Shank said. And there needs to be meat added in there to shape those priorities into goals, he said.

Council Vice Chair Gary Friedmann suggested keeping the goals and taking out the bullet points. Charles Sidman, speaking from the public for the scantily attended meeting, said he appreciated that. He said that when they discuss specifics, he hoped that cruise ship tendering by the town would be one of those specifics for potentially bringing in revenue.

“I agree with that. We talked a lot more than (just) about the things that are on here,” Peacock said.

Caines stressed again that they should be discussed as priorities and not goals.

Town Manager James Smith said that staff would fit the priorities into the calendar for discussion as quickly as possible.

The summary of the meeting was unanimously adopted with the bullet points were taken out.

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OTHER ITEMS DISCUSSED

In a quick half hour at that same meeting, the Bar Harbor Town Council performed multiple items on its agenda.

There was no discussion about Anne Tikkanen’s nomination to the town’s Parks and Recreation Committee as the MDI YMCA representative. She is the CEO of the Y. She replaces Bob Huff who resigned earlier this fall. It passed unanimously. There were no other nominees.

During the public comment period at the beginning of the meeting, people have three minutes to talk about anything that is not in litigation. There was no public comment at that time.

The November 21 minutes were tweaked before their approval. On page 6, under the public hearing for the cruise ship ordinance work, Sidman offered public comment on all three items, not just one item, Peacock said.

Graves suggested changing the wording to “all three items.”

Peacock looked to the audience where Sidman was and asked if that was okay. Councilor Joe Minutolo abstained on the vote because he was not at the November 21 meeting. All other present councilors voted in favor.

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LOAVES AND FISHES REQUEST

Vice Chair Gary Friedmann is a partner with Bar Harbor Farm, and one of the farm’s customers is Loaves and Fishes. He alerted the council to this conflict of interest prior to the discussion of the request from the Ellsworth agency. The councilors voted 5-0 that he did have a conflict and he recused himself for the discussion, sitting in the audience.

The Council moved to accept the request for discussion about funding from Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry, and authorize the town’s manager, or his designee, to schedule a presentation at a future date.

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CONSENT AGENDA: EMPLOYEE LEASING AGREEMENT AND HULLS COVE LAND PURCHASE

Two items were on the consent agenda: a land purchase in Hull’s Cove and the police sharing agenda. Bother were unanimously passed.

“It’s essentially the same agreement that we’ve had,” Peacock said of the agreement between the two towns.

The town’s agreement with Mount Desert, in which the towns share the police chief, captain, administrative assistant, and mental health liaison was up for review after the Town Council unanimously appointed David Kerns to become police chief during another meeting earlier in November. Kerns had been the captain for both towns under the shared employment agreement. He replaced James Willis, who was an employee of Mount Desert. Kerns has been employed by Bar Harbor for almost twenty-four years.

The agreement also specifies the police chief’s duties. Salary information was also included in the packet, as were the costs for the chief and captain’s cruisers, and the cell phone usage for the chief, captain, mental health liaison, and administrative assistant. Bar Harbor’s share is approximately $299,000 while Mount Desert’s is approximately $200,000. Cruiser expenses are not included in that cost and are $11,292 each for both the chief and captain. The chief’s annual pay without benefits is $120,000. The captain’s is $87,380. The administrative assistant’s is $72,092 while the mental health liaison’s is almost $54,000.

Councilors also approved the necessary funding to replace an existing utility easement by purchasing the land for the Hulls Cove sewer pump station from Chris White. The land is on the Bar Harbor Road, where the Hulls Cove sewer pump station currently sits.

The councilors also heard from Planning Director Michele Gagnon who presented a draft of the Housing Policy Framework. That discussion is detailed in our earlier article.

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LINKS TO LEARN MORE

The video of this meeting is now available and linked below.

Council Packet

https://www.townhallstreams.com/stream.php?location_id=37&id=50539

https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/housing-needs-pressure-bar-harbor

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