Houlton transfer station hours trimmed to three days a week

HOULTON — People using the Boyd-Sawyer transfer station will have to plan more carefully, as the company plans to reduce the days and hours it will be open, starting May 1.

Beginning next Monday, the transfer station will be open from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.

The facility has been open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. five days a week, except Thursday and Sunday.

The company’s action comes just two weeks after the Houlton Town Council declined to approve the company’s request for an average 11 percent rate increase for collected and dropped-off trash.

Anton Finelli of CommonWealth Resource Management Corp., a Massachusetts-based consultant hired by the town to review the increase request, supported it, and said it was “eminently reasonable.”

Instead, the council approved a 5 percent increase. Some councilors suggested the company look for other ways to cut costs.

At Monday night’s meeting, Wayne Boyd, general manager for the waste company, which is a subsidiary of Sawyer Environmental Services, said that is exactly what was done when the days were cut.

“We felt that evening [April 10] that there was a directive from the council to try to tighten our belt,” Boyd told councilors.

Boyd said that after meeting with employees, it was determined that Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays were the days most people came to the transfer station.

The changes will affect not only people in Houlton, but also will involve residents of Hodgdon and Ludlow, since both those towns have contracts with Boyd-Sawyer.

“It’s going to be an inconvenience for some,” Hodgdon Town Manager James Griffin said Tuesday. He noted, however, that after talking with Boyd, he understood the company had done its best to accommodate people on the days they most used the facility.

No employees will lose their jobs as a result of the reduction. Boyd said two employees at the transfer station had recently left, and only one of them will be replaced.

Had the requested 11 percent increase been approved, Boyd-Sawyer would have made an additional $22,000 a year to cover increased fuel costs, new equipment, facility upgrades and employee salaries.

In its contract with Houlton, the company, however, was required to pay the town’s $7,000 cost for the review consultant.

With the rate increase cut in half, and figuring in the cost of the consultant, Boyd said the actual benefit to the company would be more on the order of 1 percent, or about $3,000.

Monday’s announcement of the reductions did not set well with some members of the Town Council.

“You could be punishing us for not giving you what you asked for,” suggested Councilor Philip Bernaiche.

Council Chairman Paul Romanelli said he was both disappointed and shocked by the company’s decision.

“If you had told me [April 10] that you were going to cut the service in half, I wouldn’t have given you any increase,” he said.

It was Romanelli who first suggested April 10 that a 5 percent or 6 percent increase would be adequate for the company.

Boyd said the new hours were not cast in stone, and if it was determined that they were not satisfactory to meet the needs of customers, they could be changed.