Officials from the Kennebec Water District and the Town of Vassalboro gathered at KWD’s Vassalboro treatment plant July 8 to finalize KWD’s sale of about 26 acres of its land to the town.
Attorney Mary Denison, of Lake and Denison, in Winthrop, distributed documents for the appropriate signatures. KWD General Manager Roger Crouse acknowledged that KWD was selling the land, for $1; Vassalboro Town Manager Aaron Miller acknowledged the town was buying it, for $1.
Vassalboro voters approved the sale and appropriated the $1 at their June 1 town meeting. The town also covered the buyer’s fees of $969.40 that Miller planned to include in the bills presented for payment at the July 8 select board meeting.
Crouse further fulfilled a legal requirement by telling Denison there are, to his knowledge, no buried oil or petroleum storage facilities on the land.
The deed stipulates that if the town ever wants to sell the land, KWD has first refusal, at the same $1 price. It also requires maintaining a 150-foot wooded buffer between town and KWD land south of the new acquisition.
Meanwhile, said John Melrose, former select board member and now chairman of Vassalboro’s Trails Committee, Vassalboro owns “a really nice piece of property” over which its Red Brook Trail already runs, with KWD permission.
He called KWD’s sale “a generous addition to the recreational facilities.”
Denison said Meadow Brook, also called Red Brook and several other names, is one boundary of the irregularly-shaped new town land; for two others, she drew straight lines connecting known points. The area she called “very roughly 26 acres.”
KWD will save on 2027 property taxes. Denison said it will be up to KWD and town officials to divide the tax bill.
Also attending the ceremony were Frank Richards, Vassalboro’s representative on the KWD board, and also the board’s immediate past president and current vice president; and Frederick “Rick” Denico, immediate past chairman of the Vassalboro select board.
