Regularly scheduled Select Board meeting

Camden Snow Bowl audit to be discussed April 18

Lynda Clancy

Mon, 04/17/2017 - 2:30pm

In January, the Camden Select Board voted to spend $12,000 on an independent audit of the town’s Ragged Mountain redevelopment project. The long-awaited public discussion about the audit is to take place Tuesday evening, April 18, at a regularly scheduled board meeting, which begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Washington Street Conference Room at the town office. The public portion of the meeting will be preceded at 5:30 p.m. by a closed-door consultation with the town attorney.

It remains to be seen if the final audit report is to be publicly released April 18. The agenda item reads simply, “Discussion with auditor on Ragged Mountain Recreation Area Redevelopment Project Audit.”

The meeting is to be broadcast live on Time Warner Channel 22 and streamed at townhallstreams.com/locations/camden-me.

The independent audit had originally been commissioned in January, with a Feb. 15 anticipated delivery to the town. That got delayed due to snow storms that impeded travel, vacations that had already been scheduled, and for deeper audit forensics.

While the Select Board had designated $12,000 from its own contingency line for an audit of the finances governing the Ragged Mountain Recreation Area redevelopment, from 2012 to 2017, the additional $7,000 that was approved by the Select Board in mid-February to pay for more independent help was being spent on the town’s annual audit efforts.

“They ran into so much stuff that had tentacles to the Ragged Mountain project,” said Interim Town Manager Roberta Smith, in mid-March. “There were so many posting corrections that needed to be made.”

Smith, who was Camden’s town manager until her retirement in 2011, agreed to return and help the town in January, following the resignation of then Town Manager Patricia Finnigan, who had replaced Smith in 2011.

The Snow Bowl redevelopment is a public project and financed by a $2 million citizen-approved bond and a $4.5 million fundraising effort by the nonprofit Ragged Mountain Recreation Area Foundation. The project, originally with a $6.5 million pricetag, ran into multiple costs overruns, and the cost increased to $8.5 million

Additionally, the annual Snow Bowl operations hit fiscal obstacles (poor snowmaking weather, mechanical issues with the new triple chairlift), so that in a three-year period, the Snow Bowl accrued a $300,000 deficit.

Taxpayers, at annual town meeting in June 2016, forgave that deficit, and the Snow Bowl began the 2016-2017 season with a $920,000 budget and no deficit.

But that was when more citizens began to scrutinize the town’s fiscal history with the redevelopment project.

By December and January, questions were raised about the finances, to the point that the Select Board agreed to hire R.H. Smith and Co., of Buxton, to perform a forensic audit, and the Select Board agreed to spend up to $12,000 from its own contingency on the job.

In mid-February, Roberta Smith was back in charge the town office, and she told the Select board that any conclusions or audit reports were not anticipated before March.

The Select Board’s April 18 agenda follows:

5:30 PM 1. Executive Session: Consultation with Town Attorney 1 MRSA Section 405(6)(E) REGULAR MEETING ADJOURN AT 6:30 PM

2. Call to Order 3. Communications, Presentations, and Recognitions

4. Citizen Comments (for items not on the agenda)

5. Approval of Select Board Minutes of November 1, 2016

6. Discussion with auditor on Ragged Mountain Recreation Area Redevelopment Project Audit.

7. New Business

A. Consideration of License Agreement for the Camden Farmers Market

B. Tom Resek- Friends of Camden Riverwalk

C. Schedule Public Hearings for the following items to be submitted to the voters for approval the June 2017 Town Meeting:

1) Consideration of a warrant article to exercise a Put Option described in the Sixth Amended and Restated Agreement of Limited Partnership of Penobscot Energy Recovery Company (PERC)

2) Consideration of a warrant article to vote to transfer the monies received for its equity interest in PERC to the Mid Coast Solid Waste Jacobs Quarry Closure Reserve.

D. Designation of the Registrar of Voters’ office hours for the upcoming June 13-14, 2017 Annual Town Meeting.

E. Confirmation of Town Clerk’s appointment of Peter Gross as Election Warden for the State Referendum/Annual Town Meeting/SAD and CSD Budget Validation Referendum to be held on June 13, 2017.

F. Countersignature of the annual meeting warrant for the Five Town Community School District Budget Referendum

G. Countersignature of the annual meeting warrant for the Maine School Administrative District #28 Budget Referendum

H. Committee Appointments:

1. Harbor

2. Snow Bowl 4 Season Committee

Camden's Snow Bowl audit results delayed, no decision on DEP consent agreement, yet

Camden and the Snow Bowl redevelopment: One citizen's inquiry into the cash flow (Feb. 2, 2017)

Camden Snow Bowl Manager resigns; Camden commences new town manager search (Jan. 27, 2017)

Camden Town Manager resigns (Jan. 18, 2017)

• Tacos, fat bikes and demo skis at the Camden Snow Bowl this weekend

• Camden orders Snow Bowl financial audit; to negotiate with Sidecountry, Cold Toes Tacos

• Following public outcry, Camden Select Board moved to help put two entrepreneurs back at Snow Bowl (Jan. 11, 2017)