DEXTER, Maine — After several meetings and workshops during the past year, the Dexter Planning Board voted last week to send its new public assemblies’ ordinance to the Maine Municipal Association for examination.
If the MMA doesn’t find anything in the ordinance that conflicts with state law or poses any potential legal challenges, the ordinance will go to the town council for a final vote — probably in July or August.
The planning board drafted the ordinance following some unexpected outdoor parties in recent years that drew hundreds of people and concerns from neighbors and the town’s emergency services.
The new ordinance affects any “musical entertainment, theatrical performance or other public assemblage where in excess of 250 people are reasonably anticipated to attend and where a substantial portion … will be out of doors on a single piece of property.”
The statute exempts any activities sponsored by the town or school district.
Anyone hosting such an activity must make an application to the town’s code enforcement officer 90 days beforehand and place legal notices in the local newspaper 90, 60 and 30 days before the event. In addition, abutters within 1,000 feet of the proposed gathering will have to be notified by certified mail.
License fees would be $500 for 1,000 or fewer attendees; $750 for events drawing 1,001 to 1,500; and $1,000 for gatherings of more than 1,501.
There are also standards required for sanitary facilities, food handling and preparation, fire and police protection, parking and liability insurance.
The ordinance, if approved, would be in effect for four years from the date of enactment.
In other action at the May 22 meeting, planners tabled a shoreland zone application from Gerald Marshall, who plans to build a new home near his Abbot Hill Estates apartment complex.
Marshall didn’t attend the meeting, and some board members and Code Enforcement Officer Al Tempesta had questions about some parts of the application including the projected height of the building and the slope of the land where it’s being constructed.
The board also heard a brief presentation by Dave Pearson, asking them to consider amending the town’s land use ordinance to prohibit construction of “transportation and distribution corridors” in the community.
Pearson is the town manager of Sangerville and his community was the first in Maine to pass a rights-based ordinance aimed at a proposed 220-mile limited-access highway between western Maine and Canadian border near Eastport. Cianbro Corporation is the leading proponent of the highway, but the company has been criticized for not revealing the exact route and other details about the project.
Pearson said that in his view, Dexter’s zoning ordinance is designed to “keep the town’s rural character … and a four or six-lane highway with a pipeline is not keeping within that character.”
Pearson also said that since the highway is reportedly only going to have six exits, that could present a problem for emergency responders. “It’s going to be up to the local municipalities to provide ambulance service and fire protection for anything that happens on this corridor,” Pearson said. “Whoever is behind this is not going to have a fleet of fire trucks parked alongside the road.”
Pearson passed out copies of a study by the Public Interest Research Group on privately-funded highways, some of which have run into financial problems when the original investors pulled out. “One in Texas was supposed to make $9 million a year in pure profits … The first year, it made $900,000 and the investors scattered. The state of Texas had to take it over,” Pearson said.
At the conclusion of the meeting, Chairman Sherman Leighton made a surprise announcement that he was stepping down at the end of June. “I took a job in Eastport,” Leighton said, “and I could be traveling to different boatyards all over the country.”
The firm he’s going to work for sells commercial boats in Florida, Maryland, California and Alaska, Leighton said, “So I don’t think it’s fair to the town or this board for me to stay on if I’m going to miss meetings.” Leighton, a diesel engine mechanic, has been on the Dexter Planning Board since 2009.