Transfer station, Mass Gathering Permit take hits

Selectmen Chair Karen Gerrish holds the microphone as Selectmen Ben Thompson answers a resident's question as, from left, Road Commissioner Larry Torno and Selectman Paul Philbrick look on. (Harrison Thorp photo)

LEBANON - There was a lot of anger at Monday night’s Public Hearing on the Ballot: anger at a lack of oversight over what Selectman Ben Thompson called a “runaway Rescue Department” that racked up some $200,000 of accrued town debt by spending on its receivables instead of revenue, anger over a Mass Gathering ordinance being forced down residents’ throats again after they overwhelmingly rejected it just six months ago, and - who saw this coming - anger at a lack of customer service at the Transfer Station.

The trash talk began after first-time Lebanon Public Hearing moderator Richard Nass, a longtime Republican state legislator from Acton, read Referendum 14, which asked residents to appropriate some $330,000 for operation of the town’s Transfer Station, which is led by former selectman Ronal Patch.

After a resident asked if the money included salaries, several residents fumed that they rarely saw anyone there to help them.

Brenda Zeller makes a point on what she characterized as an anti-business Mass Gathering Ordinance at Monday night's Public Hearing at the Lebanon Elementary School.

Nass, who is an experienced moderator in his hometown, allowed the tirades to continue as Budget Committee member Chris Gilpatrick ripped Patch for his crew not helping Gilpatrick’s cleanup crew as they unloaded truckfuls of trash they had voluntarily brought from a cleanup of the Rescue Department’s headquarters earlier this year.

Patch found himself on the defensive again as he was prodded by Budget Committee member Chip Harlow on Patch’s crews’ policing of transfer station users who are supposed to be from Lebanon and have stickers affixed to their windshield to prove so.

Several residents complained of having no service when they use the transfer station and that they rarely see anyone there, including Patch or his wife, who is also a transfer station employee.

Patch said his employees do help people when they can and do check for stickers, but since they know so many residents’ cars that come there, it may seem like they’re not but they are. They just know the vehicles.

Moderator Richard Nass gestures as he makes a point during Monday's meeting.

After some angry outbursts directly between Gilpatrick and Patch, Nass finally was able to stop the feuding and push through to the next questions.

The hearing began with an even more contentious issue: selectmen’s regurgitating of a mass gathering permit referendum that was overwhelmingly rejected by residents last November.

Kurt and Brenda Zeller of Just Chevy Trucks and 4 X 4 Proving Ground demanded to know why Referendum 1 was on the ballot again with no modifications after its thumbs-down in the last vote.

The Zellers’ Route 202 facility boasts a large mud track where mud trucks can test their vehicles’ endurance and performance. They have several events during the summer that can draw large crowds.

Kurt Zeller said he needs to get 1,000 eventgoers to make a decent profit and not go out of business and that the requirements in the Mass Gathering Permit would do just that.

Some of the requirements include one security person for every 50 attendees if liquor is being consumed on the premises. He said he could not bear that cost, which could be $30 an hour per security person. He added it would end up putting him out of business.

He said he has 10 full-time employees and pays $20,000 a year in taxes to the town.

One resident complained that if you had a wedding with 150 guests, you’d need three security officers.

“Who’d like that?” he said.

The Zellers complained that when the Mass Gathering Permit was being discussed in the selectmen’s office last year, they were never contacted for their input.

Selectmen said State Police had first approached them about updating the Mass Gathering Ordinance, which has not been updated since the 1980s.

Thompson admitted it might not be a perfect ordinance, but the ordinance does at some point need to be updated.

No one mounted much of a defense of the new ordinance, while after the meeting Kurt Zeller noted on his business’s Facebook page, “at least they admitted it was the State Police that put them up to it! When the Police make the rules AND enforce them... this is known as a "Police State."

A question that asks voters if they want to approve Sunday sales of alcohol at town taverns is on a separate state ballot and is also titled Referendum 1, a tactic to confuse voters, the Zellers said.

Selectmen denied the charge.

Meanwhile, residents broadly vented on selectmen regarding the lack of oversight that led to the Rescue Department deficit dilemma.

Selectmen Chair Gerrish said when she first came on the board three years ago she felt there was something fishy going on, but couldn’t put her finger on it.

She said it wasn’t until Treasurer Jeanette Lemay was hired last July and began to unearth the Rescue Department fiscal dilemma that selectmen became aware of it. By then former selectman and assistant rescue chief Jason Cole had for the most part stopped coming to selectmen meetings. He stepped down from both positions at the end of last year.

Thompson said the deeper Lemay forayed into Rescue accounts the worse it looked and by the time a December meeting with auditors and the town attorney came around, the $200,000 black hole of debt came fully to light.

Several residents were incredulous that this could’ve gone on under selectmen’s noses for so long.

Budget Committee Chair Nancy Neubert, however, drew a round of applause for selectmen as she said this was the first board in years that has been truly cooperative with her board.

Despite getting bogged down on the three most contentious questions of the night, most of the 39 referenda went through without so much as a hand raised. The hearing was history by 9 p.m., exactly two hours.