Rockport board refuses to reconsider Opera House

ROCKPORT — On June 12, town meeting voters will decide on a supplementary budget for the Midcoast Solid Waste Cooperative of $1,941 and a planning grant of $17,475, with a local match of $5,825.

Selectmen approved the measures at Monday’s meeting. There was no comment expressed at two public hearings.

The solid waste budget will allow the hiring of a consultant and an investigation of a composting project.

The planning grant will go toward development of the town comprehensive plan and establish a mapping of wetlands as well as computer programs.

But the board was criticized at the Monday session for what was missing from the warrant. One resident asked why an Opera House renovation was not on the warrant. The Opera House project, along with a recreation project and a new town hall, were rejected 5-1 when contained in a single article in March.

“People are sick and tired of it,” said Selectman Roger Jones.

With a 20 percent increase in both the school budget and county budget, with a new $8 million middle school on the plate of taxpayers, it is no time to consider a large capital project, officials said.

Town Manager Donald Willard said the town was criticized for including the three articles on the March warrant. Now they were being criticized for not including one of the items a few months later.

“You have to respect a 5-1 defeat,” he said. The likelihood that the Opera House renovation would pass in June was “extrmely remote,” Willard said.

Selectman Robert Duke said it would be “political suicide” to bring the item back before voters.

Roger Jones said that the people with whom he talked were not eager to vote on the item again so soon.

A moratorium on the sale of cemetery lots, imposed in 1988, was lifted Monday. A management plan with limits on sales will be imposed.

It was no wonder the board rejected another management plan, this by Code Enforcement Officer Blaine Richardson. Richardson was asked to develop a plan to handle Route 1 hawkers and peddlers, after complaints by merchants.

Richardson described the plan as “throwing a hand grenade into a crowded room” to get one person in it.

Perhaps stung by the metaphor, the board rejected the idea.

The board set June 4 as a public hearing date for a proposal to use land donated by the Friends of Rockport Harbor as a pumping station for a sewer line.

Charles Plaisted was appointed to the Planning Board to replace Harley Fetzer.