West Paris Town Meeting

by E.C. Shanor
     
     WEST PARIS – Tri-Town Rescue will have a chance to reorganize, at least the West Paris town meeting said so.
     
     At the town meeting Saturday, March 6, the topic of what to do for ambulance coverage was thoroughly discussed. The choices boiled down to the town endorsing Med-Care, of Mexico, PACE, of Norway, or giving Tri-Town a chance to restructure itself, perhaps with a new legal entity giving the towns greater say in its management.
     
     John White, the town manager, said the sentiment expressed by the meeting goers was that the local organization should be maintained, in part because it was closer than either of the competitors and governance would not be dominated by distant parties. PACE is a division of Stephens Memorial Hospital, in Norway, and although MedCare is headquartered in Mexico, West Paris selectmen believe it is heavily influenced by Rumford, the largest of several towns that created it as a quasi-municipal organization.
     
     Unlike either of its competitors, Tri-Town, which covers West Paris, Greenwood and Sumner, has always been an independent organization, although the towns contributed financially to it. The plan West Paris voters approved is for Tri-Town to become a quasi-municipal organization, similar to MedCare. Another example is the Norway-Paris Solid Waste corporation.
     
     The town would have to hold a special meeting or election to appropriate funds to the new entity, said White. The town meeting vote only endorsed the concept, but did so by a vote of 65 in favor and 32 opposed.
     
     In other town meeting business, the voters approved contributing $1,500 to Western Maine Economic Development, which was requesting town funds for the first time.
     
     “The budget committee and the town were swayed by the presentation by Linda Walbridge, the agency rep, who reassured them her agency was not like the old Growth Council, but aimed at creating jobs, not infrastructure,” White said.
     
     The town employees not being given annual cost-of-living raises kept the budget from growing, as did a good deal of belt tightening, White said. In fact, at $1,028,591, the West Paris Budget for 2010 is $72,017 less than last year.