WILTON – Selectmen spent the majority of the Tuesday evening meeting discussing the state of a number of local properties, including accepting a bid to begin cleaning up the Wilton Tannery site.
Selectmen unanimously approved accepting a $196,367 bid submitted by E.L. Vining & Son to provide excavation and earth-moving services at the property, located on Route 2. The bid was recommended by Ransom Environmental, the firm consulting with the town. Twelve contractors attended a walk around the property, according to Nick Sabatine, a senior geologist with Ransom Environmental, with five submitting bids by the May 30 deadline. Those ranged from E.L Vining & Son’s low bid to one as high as $520,000.
“We’re extremely pleased to see it go to a local contractor, which is great,” Sabatine said. E.L. Vining & Son is based out of Farmington.
The tannery began it operation in 1959 and treated hides with a variety of chemicals for 38 years, before shutting down. Town officials have been actively working with state and federal agencies to clean up the property ever since selectmen voted to take possession of the facility in 2010, after foreclosure notices were sent to the owner with more than $75,000 owed in back taxes. Soil tests indicated the highest concentrations of chromium, a highly toxic chemical used in the tanning process, had leached from the leather pieces found dumped were in an area on the east side of the building.
The town has since acquired two grants to complete the rest of clean up: a $200,000 federal Environmental Protection Agency grant and a $150,000 state Department of Economic & Community Development grant.
The clean up plan is to prep the site with erosion control measures to protect abutting streams on the property. A significant number of mostly poplar and cherry trees will be removed on the west side of the site so its “clean” soil can be excavated and used to cover the leather dump site. Once the clean up is completed, the property will be put on the market with deed restrictions of not digging drinking water wells and using a vapor barrier if building a structure at one location on the property.
During the bid walk, the town also asked contractors to submit alternate bids to demolish the tannery structure itself. That potential step would not be tied to the Brownfields project, but might make the property more attractive to buyers.
Four contractors submitted proposals to demolish the entire building, Lead Engineer Jaime Madore said, with the low bidder being Wilton-based Cousineau Inc., for $89,700. Only two firms responded to a second alternative: tearing down the partially-collapsed wooden roof and leaving the rest. EnviroVantage out of Westbrook was the low bidder at $38,000, although Madore and Sabatine noted that bid had been submitted as part of the larger, earth-working project.
Madore said that E.L. Vining & Son intended to begin working on the site in early- to mid-July.
Selectmen also received an update on the Forster Manufacturing Co. mill property, located at 515 Depot Street, which has been moving toward a legal resolution ever since selectmen filed suit against Wilton Recycling LLC, the property’s holding company, in October 2013. The suit, filed in Franklin County Superior Court, utilizes the Dangerous Buildings section of the Maine Revised Statutes to declare the building “structurally unsafe; unstable; unsanitary; constitutes a fire hazard… or is otherwise dangerous to life or property.”
Tuesday evening, Town Manager Rhonda Irish said that no plan to begin clearing the site in 2014 had been forthcoming from Mack or his representative. The next step was mediation between representatives for the town and Wilton Recycling, with Mack’s attorney asking that the mediation date be moved up. Rather than January 2014, mediation will begin in October 2014, Irish said.
“It’s still moving, at the snail’s pace unfortunately,” Irish said. “They do not currently have a plan [to demolish the building] in place.”
If mediation fails, the case will proceed to trial. One thing the town would need to provide, at trial if not before, was the testimony or report of a building inspector, explaining why the building is structurally unsafe. Selectmen asked Irish to determine the scope of that project, and how much the report would cost to develop.
Selectmen received a report on another troubled property facing legal action by the town, with Irish saying that she had begun consulting with private companies to dispose of construction material, debris and other items piled up around a residence on Adams Road, just off Depot Street. The town had received a number of complaints regarding the property and brought legal action against landowner Duane Pollis in October 2013, through the Property Maintenance Ordinace. The Franklin County Superior Court issued a judgement by default for the town, after Pollis failed to respond to the court’s summons or the town’s complaint.
Pollis didn’t respond the board’s attempt to meet with him regarding the property, or a deadline set by selectmen to clear the property of material. After similarly not responding to the legal action, the Franklin County Superior Court ordered Pollis pay a $9,500 fine and remove everything within 30 days. After that point, the town could contract a third party to clear the property and bill Pollis for the work.
Given the large amount of snow of the ground at the time, selectmen voted to give Pollis until May 30 to bring the property into compliance before contracting out the cleanup. Tuesday evening, with that deadline having come and gone, selectmen said they were ready to move ahead with the cleanup.
“That whole situation is just a bad situation,” Selectman Paul Berkey Jr. said.
Police Chief Heidi Wilcox said that an officer would likely be with the cleanup crew as they removed material from the site.
Irish also reported to the board about three other properties the Code Enforcement Officer has been dealing with. Two of them, one on Main Street and the other in East Dixfield, had begin cleaning their property, Irish said, and would continue to work with the CEO and a local group of volunteers. A third, the old Farmington Diner in East Wilton, was of concern to selectmen due to a portion of the roof possibly caving in. Earlier that day, Irish said, she had received a letter from an attorney representing the diner’s owner, Rachel Jackson Hodsdon, indicating that the building had been secured, wasn’t dangerous and has been worked on by the owner.
Board Chair D. Scott Taylor said he had driven past and it did appear that the building had been shored up. He noted that the building still needed to meet the town’s construction code. In 2008, the planning board granted Hodsdon a permit to store the diner on the commercially-zoned, 1-acre property indefinitely. She has said publicly that she would like to utilize the circa 1950s diner, which was moved from the Intervale Road in Farmington in February 2008, to open a restaurant or other business.
Irish said that the town would arrange to have the CEO inspect the diner and make certain it was meeting local ordinances.
Driving by the diner from route 4 it sure doesn’t look too pretty and not much has changed from when it was moved there 6 years ago. I do hope that it is rebuilt at some point and put to some good use, as for the CEO going to inspect the diner and make certain it is meeting ” local ordinances ” what dose that mean?
Congratulations to the town government on moving forward with dangerous, dilapidated, and otherwise unsightly structures. It is refreshing to see them taking the bull by the horns on these issues.
Quite frankly I am sick and tired of the diner sitting on my road! It’s a disgrace to all of us that live near it!!! Come on Town of Wilton!!!!!!!! If she hasn’t done anything in 6 years do you really think she will EVER!!!
GET RID OF IT ALREADY!!!!!
Getting tired of see that mess on Depot Street. Maybe a controlled burn? Too bad, spent 23 years there and the place was good to me.
i cant beleive the amount of news coverage that Wilton is getting , nor the amount of crap people have to say about the property issues. Wilton is beautiful, clean up the eyesores, If you cant be respectful of your neighbors and keep your property somewhat organized and maintained, then build a HUGE fence..and hide behind it..because no one wants to see piles of crap in your yard!
I’m sure glad to have home ownership cleared up. So, a person’s home is for the visual enjoyment of passersby? How exactly does that work when each person has a unique viewpoint of visual pleasure?
Lucille one mans trash is another mans treasure but as usual in todays world of Nanny government and nosey neighbors who think everything must be done their way no matter what. Then of course you have to remember all those fines that the towns love to stick you with because they can and need it because of all the things the government needs to survive of course at our expense.
Lucille and Steve: if you want to have piles of garbage in your yard and fewer restrictions then just don’t live in the downtown district. Nobody is saying that you can’t live in a pig sty out of the downtown though I’m sure your neighbors would prefer that you didn’t act like this wherever you reside. I’m thrilled that Wilton is sending a message to owners that we have some standards.
@ Lucille. Just wondering what your description would be of ” visual pleasure ” ?
FYI I don’t live in downtown Wilton. This is a universal viewpoint of personal freedom versus government control. Steve is right in his statements, isn’t he?
No, actually Steve is wrong,
When you live in any society, your behavior is held by the accepted limits of where you live.
Living in a town that cares about its general appearance happens with the benefit of the community relationships that are built, and with the acceptance of needing to live by the community’s rules.
We do not put people in stocks on the town common for breaking community rules, but we do have fines for behavior outside the accepted. The government control in a small town is by the neighbors who have been elected to run the town, and by the neighbors who support the rules as written, and elect the people to enforce them.
Pretty light weight government control…If you want to live as if you have no neighbors…..move out to the wide open spaces.
Lucille it doesn’t mater where some one lives , I just don’t understand ” This is a universal viewpoint of personal freedom versus government control ” I don’t understand how this went to personal freedoms when freedom is never mentioned in the article. It all is about the laws and what is going to happen with the ones that break them or do not abide by them.