March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Van Buren’s manager search continues > Change sought in town’s Labor Market Area status

VAN BUREN — The Van Buren Town Council plodded along in its search for a town manager Monday, but made no decision after an hour-long executive session.

They received 16 applications for the post which will open in late September, when Town Manager Jayne Farrin steps down.

Their top choice pulled out of the running. They said little Monday about their progress since then.

In other business, an Aug. 10 letter from the Maine Department of Labor indicated that a letter-writing campaign has paid off.

Van Buren is now in a Labor Market Area with Madawaska, a mill town with much lower unemployment. Van Buren officials said the combining of figures with Madawaska’s led to a skewed rating that damages Van Buren’s chances in grant competition.

Van Buren’s unemployment rate was more than double Madawaska’s for three consecutive years. When combined, the figure for the labor pool more closely resembled that of Madawaska.

The letter-writing campaign was sparked by Van Buren’s failure to receive jobs bond money for a series of improvements to municipal buildings last July. The town received only $6,000 to install utility poles.

Although Van Buren had double-digit unemployment figures for the past three years, it scored only four out of a possible 15 points under the bond’s criteria for job-loss statistics. Town officials suspected the same held true when Van Buren applied for Community Development Block Grant funds.

Raynold Fongemie, division director for the Department of Labor’s Division of Economic Analysis and Research, wrote that the state had researched the matter and found that “the commuting patterns in 1990 did not support keeping Van Buren as part of the Madawaska-Van Buren LMA.”

The state made recommendations to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and a month ago, the bureau issued a list of the new definitions they were considering, among them several newly defined labor market areas.

“They came up with a Van Buren LMA which includes the towns of Van Buren, Hamlin and Cyr Plantation. The 1990 data supports this change, and this is the way we expect it to be when a final decision is made,” Fongemie wrote. “Labor force data under the new definitions will be developed starting with January 1994.”

However, he added: “Labor force data will continue to be produced by minor civil divisions. Cities and towns in Maine should still push for the block grant allocation formula to use town data rather than larger LMA labor force figures.”

The council in other action approved Rona Ouellette’s request to sell resident hunting and fishing licenses at the store she owns with her husband, Peter. A probationary period will run through Dec. 31.

After a half-hour executive session with Robert Clark of the Northern Maine Development Corporation, the council hired the NMDC to write Van Buren’s Phase II CDBG applications. One is for a downtown improvement grant, the other to reseed the revolving loan fund.

The councilors had earlier agreed to pay the NMDC $3,000 for each application, but on Monday negotiated agreements under which the town will pay more money for more work. Van Buren will pay $5,000 for the preparation, engineering and administration of the downtown grant, and $4,000 for the other application.

They also signed a $1,204,936 tax commitment for 1993-94 and adopted a series of resolutions related to the CDBG program.


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