HERMON – Amidst ethical and performance concerns by some residents, councilors voted Wednesday to endorse a five-year snowplowing contract renewal with the council chairman, the current holder of the contract.

In a lopsided decision, the council voted 5 to 1 to approve the $805,000 contract with Louis LaChance Inc., with some changes put in place in the contract since the council had last taken up the issue last month.

Chairman Louis “Buzzy” LaChance abstained from the vote while Councilor Donald Shepley renewed his opposition and promise to take the matter to Hermon residents at the annual town meeting.

The contract approved now contains wording that would allow the town to opt out of the contract after year three, provided the town can provide its own snowplowing equipment.

And Town Manager Clint Deshane said the contract provides for greater recourse should complaints arise and allows for fines to be assessed for complaints that went through the process unresolved.

Deshane said that he didn’t think that any of the complaints raised this year would have risen to the level of the fines.

But at Wednesday’s meeting, a handful of residents criticized the snowplowing on several fronts, including an excessive use of sand, streets and roads that were missed by snowplows and many mailboxes that weren’t missed by the plows and damaged, sometimes repeatedly.

Clarke Road resident Timothy Richardson told councilors that twice this winter his wife has gotten stuck in the middle of their road because of the lack of plowing. Also disconcerting was what Richardson perceived as inconsistencies in contract approvals.

Richardson has a contract with the town to mow the sides of the roads, which he has done since 1985. He questioned why last year this $1,800 contract went out to bid, yet the councilors didn’t go out to bid for the much more substantial snowplowing contract.

He said the snowplowing contract should go out to bid, if not to ease suggestions of conflicts of interest to make sure the price they were paying was in the same ballpark.

Information provided at the council meeting suggested that the costs were on par with the area, with Hermon’s per mile cost being nearly the same as the average per mile cost of 10 snowplowing contracts overseen by the Penobscot County Commissioners, according to Commission Chairman Tom Davis, who was at Wednesday’s meeting.

Other residents said that plows are putting down too much sand, which is accumulating in their yards when the snow and ice melt.

“The sand being spread over there is astronomical,” said a Patten Road resident. That prompted Shepley to suggest the council look at reducing the amount allocated to sand.

Shepley, as he had late last month, sought to cancel the contract and send the whole thing out for bid, but he failed to get any support, at least on the council.

Councilor Brooke Greene called LaChance’s plowing this past winter “pretty commendable” and, responding to the concerns about the mailboxes – apparently the majority of the complaints filed – noted that there was no consistency with how high and far out the mailboxes were placed.

Councilors also pointed out that LaChance’s holding the snowplowing contract apparently wasn’t much of a concern when voters elected him to the town council.

As for conflict of interest questions, Town Manager Clint Deshane said that even before the contract came up, he was working to develop a policy that would prevent future councilors from holding a town contract.