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BATH

Hear that tinkle of glass on Wednesday night? That was a ceiling falling in Bath. 

Mari Eosco, councilor for the fifth ward, was elected chair of the new Council at the Council meeting on December 4. 

She is the first woman in the history of Bath to have that position. 

At her first time with the gavel, Eosco presided over the final approval of an ordinance allowing for the Winnegance General Store to operate as a business, accepted the new limits for General Assistance food aid owing to the new federal limits for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, and elected not to go forward with improvements to Waterfront Park dockage because of a massive cost increase. 

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Jennifer Greene, owner of the Winnegance Store, appeared and filled the Council in on the improvements to the building thus far.  The general store has been positioned over the new foundation, and new joists and sills and other supports will be constructed before the building is lowered down onto the foundation.  Greene said she expects that to be done before the deepest part of the winter, along with pouring the concrete slab for the shed and backfilling the driveway.

The General Assistance limits were decreased for food aid because of new limits in federal guidelines for the SNAP program.  In last month’s meeting, the council was told that there was nothing the city could do to change those limits, and that general assistance would have to conform with the federal rules.  This week, without comment, the council voted to accept the limits.

And a planned improvement to Waterfront Park was scuttled when the cost of materials, primarily marine steel, rose astronomically over a short period of time.  City Planner Andrew Deci appeared to ask the council’s approval on a grant application to fund half the projected cost of replacing the dolphins (structures that are basically piles driven into the riverbed) so that some of the larger yachts might be able to dock.  The current docking situation cannot handle larger vessels.  However, since the idea was first brought forward to the council, there had been a large price increase, from $200,000 to $300,000 for the work, mostly because of the increased cost of marine steel.

Andrew Winglass, councilor at large, said, “I’m very uncomfortable with that price increase,” a sentiment shared by Councilors Brackett, Lockwood, and Paulhus.   Amy Lent of Maine Maritime Museum spoke about the need for the City to increase dockage fees so as not to price the Museum out of the dockage market, since the institution has recently invested half a million dollars in their own dock.

Ultimately, the council voted to prevent Deci from submitting the application, and agreed to consider dockage fees in the early part of the new year.



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