In advance of the Oct. 28 Rockport Select Board meeting, the town manager has released his bimonthly manager’s memo to the Select Board, reporting on the deadline for request for qualifications for the RES redevelopment, the Maine Department of Transportation’s estimate for when and how it will cost to replace the Goose River Bridge, and EMS Review Committee work.

Thanks to Safety Training Coordinator Diane Hamilton, the Town received a grant that will fund two-thirds of the cost of a full set of turnout gear for the Fire Department in the amount of $1,342.10.

Sea Street Pump Station

I have approved a project that will upgrade the existing controls at the Sea Street Pump Station to include engineering, construction administration and construction. This project consists of the complete replacement of the controls, instrumentation, and radio telemetry that currently control the pump operation at the pump station.

The current controls were installed in the early 1990s when the Village Collection System was constructed, and we had a failure earlier this summer at the pump station which required daily monitoring of the station by staff. This project is part of the Capital Improvement Program and is currently funded.

The project is expected to be complete by the end of the year.

As you know, Woodard& Curran have been attempting to work with landowners to locate a second pump station along Route 1 near Roxmont Road.

After failed negotiations with two separate property owners, a solution was found. The second pump station will be located near the Plants Unlimited property and does not require acquisition of an easement in order to place the pump station.

This location also allows the elimination of extensive site development costs associated with the two previous sites and eliminates approximately 1,000 feet of gravity sewer line in the area between Downeast Magazine and Plants Unlimited, saving the project over $100,000 in construction costs.

At this point, Woodard & Curran recommend that the wastewater line extension project be put out to bid in the Spring, instead of this fall, believing that the bid costs would be higher this fall than in the spring.

Pascal Avenue Bridge

At the last meeting, Vice-chair Kennedy Munger asked about the status of the Pascal Avenue bridge. MDOT has added the replacement of this bridge to their work plan. It is listed as a medium priority and scheduled to be replaced in 2022 at a budgeted cost of $6 million.

Crosswalks on Pascal Avenue

A resident has raised concerns about the crosswalks on Central Street and Union Street (near the Post Office) not being repainted. MDOT controls the crosswalks and directed the Town to discontinue the two crosswalks on Central Street near 18 Central and only repaint one further up the street where there are safe landings on each side that are also ADA compliant.

MDOT also directed the crosswalk at Union and Summer Streets be discontinued and a new crosswalk was added on Summer near the Post Office. MDOTs standard is that crosswalks are at least 400’ apart and have safe landings on each end that are ADA compliant. Since we are in compliance with MDOTs crosswalk policies, they approved providing funding for the Limerock/Central/Union/Russell intersection work.

I have directed Public Works to cover what is left of the white paint for these crosswalks with black paint, so that they are not confused with the other active crosswalks.

RES Request for Qualifications

The deadline for the request for qualifications for the RES redevelopment was October 16th. The Town received one submittal. The next step is for the RES Redevelopment Committee to meet and review this one proposal and then make a recommendation to the Select Board as to whether to work with this submittal, advertise for more submittals or some other action.

EMS Performance Review Committee

The EMS Performance Review Committee met for the first time since April on October 17th in the Richardson Room at the Town Office. All the four towns were well-represented and two NEMHS representatives also attended. The meeting consisted of a review of the last quarter’s performance as well as a review of the previous year’s performance. The current performance of NEMHS meets the contract requirements, as the current requirements in the contract are not difficult to meet.

ZBA Update

As you probably know, the Zoning Board of Appeals denied Stephen Earle’s appeal of the Library Building Permit at the meeting on October 17th. The appellant has 45 days from the October 17th vote to appeal the decision to court.