Trenton Committee Looks To Make Sure Kids Say Safe

Next week, committee on Solar Development will hammer out details on how its run

Sep 06, 2024

TRENTON—Trenton’s Board of Selectmen had a seemingly simple agenda on Tuesday, September 3: hear visitors, approve agenda and minutes, talk about the fire department, potential background checks, and have an executive session. When all that was done, the board also approved the payroll warrant.

The meeting turned out to be quite quick with the majority of the discussion around how an ad-hoc committee focused on solar would work and how to make sure that youth sports coaches were safe to work with town’s children.

KEEPING KIDS SAFE

The Parks and Recreation Committee wanted to make sure that the people involved with coaching and volunteering with local kids are safe to work with those kids. Its representative asked the selectboard if some sort of background checks were a good idea.

“None of us want to be the ones to look at them and the stuff that comes in,” Chair Chip Roskom said.

They don’t want people’s privacy to be invaded. None of the members have been involved with background checks before and weren’t quite sure how it all worked.

“We’re just trying to figure out the best way to handle this so everyone feels safe and confident,” as they grow the youth sports programs, Roskom said.

Some members of the board suggested looking online for people’s name on sexual predator registers and asking for recommendations. Many nonprofits and local agencies that have volunteers use third party systems such as Checkr.com. They often use volunteer packets which include authorization forms so that the organization can run such a check.

Systems like Chekr give agencies choices about what sort of checks they want. It could be a criminal check or sex offender check. There are other options as well. The costs range depending on the depth and range of the search. Checkr’s costs range from approximately $30 to $80 per check.

Some towns have staff members, oftentimes a human resource officer or a police officer, keep track of the checks, collecting the forms as well as sending them in and reviewing them.

THE SOLAR COMMITTEE

There was some discussion about the ad-hoc solar committee. Appointees would come together with the Planning Board to review amendments to the town’s land use ordinance.

Selectman Charles Farley and six citizens comprise the committee. Five citizens are working members and one is an alternate: Jeanetta Peabody, Steve Eddy, Greg Askins, Emily Muise, Christina Heiniger, and the alternate is Maria Gott.

The board decided to have the town administrator review a recording of a past meeting that included attorney Tim Pease. During that meeting the committee was discussed. The board members also discussed reviewing the town’s ordinance to doublecheck how that committee would proceed. They decided the committee members also can discuss the committee and how it runs when the committee meets on September 11.

Voters had rejected the last solar-development related changes to the town’s ordinances this past May. After a petition request of over 100 Trenton voters, the town has a moratorium on medium-and large-scale commercial solar development.

The moratorium also came after a developer proposed creating a 70-megawatt solar farm near the town’s industrial park. Approximately 300 acres of land would have been cleared. The Ellsworth American reported that the Maryland-based company also discussed a potential tax increment financing (TIF) agreement for the project. TIFs enable a town or city to keep property tax revenue outside the state’s revenue sharing formula used for state’s education funding. The town can then use that money for credit enhancements with the property owner instead. It’s a kind of tax break meant to incentivize development.

It’s not the first moratorium Trenton has had as it has tried to regulate solar energy projects. An earlier moratorium occurred in 2020. That moratorium allowed the town to create regulations that define projects as small, medium, or large.

The Planning Board has revised the town’s current solar ordinance, hoping to address a citizen push toward limiting commercial solar developments or solar farms.

FIRE TRUCK WOES

The fire department has a truck out of service because of pumper issues. The department is doing everything it can to get it back in service with the next two weeks.