FORT KENT, Maine – Fort Kent Town Council has approved the purchase of a vehicle for the town’s water and wastewater department and also voted to look into taxing vacant buildings.
During a Jan. 14. meeting, the council approved purchasing a $42,534 4-cylinder Chevy 1500 pickup truck for the wastewater department. Town Manager Suzie Paradis said the vehicle would be used to help the department in its routine tasks, such as checking meters.
Councilor Andrew Caron abstained from voting, as his son works for the department.
Paradis said that the department head and foreman discussed the possibility of buying a trailer for sludge equipment, but are going to hold off until they can find a good deal.
“They’re going to continue looking for something secondhand,” she said.
The council also voted to have the town planning board look into creating a tax for vacant buildings that are left alone after a certain period of time.
Paradis said the matter was first brought up about six or seven months ago, and that she had contacted the city of Bangor to see what type of fee it uses to assess vacant lots.
“What they did tell me is that it happens through the code enforcement office, through the planning board, where there’s a fee charged if there’s an empty building that stays empty for X amount of time, and it goes up per year,” Paradis said.
The fee goes up every year, but there are exemptions for some buildings, such as those related to the military. Paradis said the town received information from Bangor about how this is done, and now the planning board can look at it and choose to adopt a similar rule.
“It’s actually not us that has to review it,” she said. “It’s really the code and planning board officials that need to take a look at this. So if this is something you want them to move forward with, you need to take a vote on it, and then they can take a look, and they can take out what they want and bring it back to the town.”
Planning Board Chairperson Daniel Nicolas, who was in attendance during the Jan. 13 meeting, asked if this would address houses that have been vacant for multiple years. Councilor Jake Robichaud said it would assess a fee to the owner of the property that would increase each year until the situation is resolved.
Councilors unanimously voted to move forward with the matter by bringing it to the planning board.
