The Belgrade Town Office staff is undergoing a change.
Barbara Geaghan is leaving her post as Belgrade town clerk Friday after three years with that title and five years total in the Town Office. She is joining the town of Hampden as its tax collector.
“We are going to miss her,” said Michael Barrett, chairman of the Board of Selectpersons. “We wish her well. She’s stepping up to a better situation.”
All Town Office staff members started working at their jobs in Belgrade within the past year, including Town Manager Carrie Castonguay, who was hired in March, not long before the new Town Office opened.
Joyce Tillson, of Anson, was appointed by selectmen Tuesday as the new town clerk and was at the office Thursday, learning the layout there. She was selected by a search committee that included selectmen and other town staff members.
Tillson was town clerk briefly in Newport and before that was deputy city clerk in Waterville for six years. She is certified as a city clerk in Maine.
She said she hopes to move to Belgrade soon. “I love this town,” she said.
In other business, the Belgrade Planning Board is scheduled to hold a public hearing at 7 p.m. Dec. 15 on proposed amendments to the Commercial Development Review Ordinance. The hearing will be part of the Planning Board’s regular meeting that night at the Town Office, at 990 Augusta Road.
The proposals add recommendations included in the 2014 Belgrade Comprehensive Plan, setting clearer approval standards and reorganizing the ordinance.
Here are some of the proposed substantive changes, all of which are detailed on the town’s website:
• Allow the code enforcement officer to approve smaller projects.
• Add permitting standards for commercial wind towers and allow consideration of the visual effect of proposed telecommunications and commercial wind towers.
• Restore standards to avoid nuisance lighting.
• Exempt seasonal farm stands and some temporary outdoor sales as businesses.
• Allow 36 months to construct a project.
• Allow internally lit and digital changing signs along Route 27 from Route 135 to Sidney if they meet state standards, and change some requirements for depth of vegetative screening in that same corridor.
Voters are expected to weigh in the proposed changes at the March 2017 Town Meeting.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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