The Rockland Report Week of 2-8-13

OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER
 Met with Councilors, residents, staff and Andrew Hedrich, Engineer, to review the Pen Bay drainage project.
 Met with Dave St. Laurent, Transfer Facility Director and Mark St. Germain to review plans for future laydown areas at the Transfer Facility.
 Met with John Root, Code Enforcement Officer, and Rick Rockwell to discuss options for Rick’s plans to continue his efforts to invest in Rockland by rehabilitating properties.
 Held monthly department head meeting.
 Met with Ed Glaser to review and discuss options for making improvements to the public boat landing pier and docks at Harbor Park.
 We received eight proposals from Landscape Architects on the Camden Street Revisioning project. Along with REDAC, FMM, volunteer citizens, and city staff; we will be reviewing these proposals and selecting a firm to begin working on designs for Camden Street.
 Met with Terry Pinto, Water Pollution Control Facility Director, to discuss plans for a public restroom at the facility near the Thorndike parking lot.

OFFICE OF THE RECREATION DIRECTOR
 The dodge ball league is going well and we are up to 11 team. There are close to 150 people in the gym on Wednesdays playing and watching.
 Playoffs for our Pee–Wee basketball league started this week with the majority of games on Saturday and the championship on Wednesday.
 Indoor Soccer for all ages starts this weekend on Sunday. This is kindergarten through adult.

OFFICE OF THE POLICE CHIEF
In addition to responding to 232 calls for services this past week and making five arrests; summons were made for various offenses, including drug violations, probation violations and traffic offenses. Officers handled 11 traffic crashes and covered three animal complaints. Along with other duties and shift assignments, members of the police department were involved in the following highlights this past week:
 Chief Boucher and Deputy Chief Tower attended social media training in South Portland this week.
 Detectives made two (2) felony drug possession arrests this week.
 We have been working with the Knox Center on assisting with training on their respective emergency operation plan.
 Officers have been working with local schools on emergency planning and conducting presentations at local schools on issues that affect bullying and hate/bias incidents.

OFFICE OF THE CODE ENFORCEMENT OFFICER
 An inquiry was made this week about where in town someone might be able to open a homeless shelter.
 John attended the agenda setting meeting.
 The Planning Board met and approved the preliminary subdivision plan for the Navigator Motor Inn/Residences at Summer Street and Main Street. The plan is to turn nine existing hotel rooms into three condominiums.
 John approved the building permit application for Bixby & Co. for 279 Main Street with a few minor conditions that will need to be addressed.
 A pre-final inspection was done with Fire Department personnel at The Home Kitchen Café, they are hoping to re-open later this month.
 License inspections were done with Fire Department personnel at Clan MacLaren’s, Rustica, Chen’s China Coast, Roselyn Thai Restaurant, and the Dunkin Donuts at Wal-Mart and at 632 Main Street.
 There were three complaints filed this week.
 The following permits were received by the Code Office this week:
o Three Building permits
o Two Plumbing permits
o One Sign permit

OFFICE OF THE FISHERMAN’S PIER DIRECTOR
 Attended City Council agenda setting meeting.
 No permits were issued.
 One bait storage 8’ by 20’cooler was removed from the upper lot.

OFFICE OF THE CITY ASSESSOR
 Deadline for tax abatements is February 8, 2013.
 Working on three abatement requests that have just been filed.
 Preparing to mail personal property declaration out along with a copy of their prior property card.

OFFICE OF THE FINANCE DIRECTOR
 Approved Payroll Warrant.
 Approved Accounts Payable Warrant.
 The City Manager and I met with Transco on software to make our photocopier more technologically advanced for searchable PDF’s.
 Audit Work.
 Budget Work – talks with Department Heads on budgets that are due next week.

OFFICE OF THE HARBORMASTER
 We met with the USCG inspectors from the Belfast office and reviewed our security plan for the Public Landing. They gave their approval and though we need to schedule our annual audit, we are all set for this coming year.
 Processed more Mooring permits, about 25% of the private moorings have already been renewed.
 Updated and submitted our department budget to the City Manager.
 Insulated a newly discovered air leak in our building's upstairs area.

OFFICE OF THE PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR
 Attended Pen Bay Acres public site walk to review concerns regarding bond approval. Gartley & Dorsky engineers, City Manager, City Attorney, City Council members and a local resident attended.
 Preparation for major Nor’easter. Notification of city wide parking ban went into effect from 2pm Friday to 2pm Saturday to help reinforce our regular normal parking ban ordinance. At this time, two or more feet of snow along with up to 50-60 mile per hour wind gusts predicted in conjunction with astronomical high tides. Planning on hauling snow from downtown including other critical areas along the major roadways and parking lots on Sunday night starting at 6pm. Will try to remove as much snow as possible since rain is predicted for Monday.
 Worked on Vactor sewer truck hose reel replacing the major bearing.
 Repaired and replaced flag pole attachments at Library.
 Two city wide sanding call-ins over the past weekend.

OFFICE OF THE LIBRARY DIRECTOR
 I’m still reviewing applications for the Library Technician/Adult Programming position; I’ve seen more than 70 thus far.
 Attended the City Council’s Agenda Setting Meeting, as well as the Department Heads’ Meeting the following day.
 Sargent Lock replaced the door handle to the lower level stairway door, as well as making some repairs to the lower level entrance door.
 Hooray! The wonderful staff from Public Works repaired the Library’s flagpole, replaced the rope and hardware, and hung the new flags.
 Therapy Dog Story Time is beginning to get a following. The Children’s Librarian told me several families asked if one would be here, as they would stay just for that program. Mo was Therapy Dog of the Day.
 Kindle eBook workshops are being held this Thursday afternoon (and every Thursday in February).
 This Thursday Evening’s Arts & Cultural Events program is a presentation of the film Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind.
 Weather permitting; Saturday will see a celebration of the Chinese New Year. Teens and tweens celebrate with a dragon Scavenger Hunt, lantern craft and themed snacks!
 On Sunday, we will be co-sponsoring (with the Ashwood Waldorf School) the second of a two part film series: The Challenge of Rudolph Steiner.

OFFICE OF THE SOLID WASTE DIRECTOR
 The City Manager and I met with St Germain & Collins to begin work on the concept plan for the future construction and demolition handling and transfer area. The meeting went well. This will be a great opportunity to develop a great transfer area with good flow and ease of use.
 Collected water level data from 12 monitoring wells and 23 piezometers.
 Continued work on annual reports.
 The pump cable to the Q2N pump has failed. New cable has been ordered to replace the failed cable. Currently Q2N and Q2S pumps are down due to extremely low water levels. Next week we will have to erect staging around the pump casing and retrieve the pump from the bottom of the well in order to reattach the cable. The pump is 112 feet down from the top of the well casing.
 I am working with a mechanical engineer from Fisher Engineering to design a guard for the final drive on the D5M Bulldozer. The guard should protect the final drive from cable wrapping around and breaking the hydraulic seal. The previous bulldozer had the same vulnerability. Wire and mattress springs are poison to heavy equipment.

OFFICE OF THE WASTEWATER TREATMENT DIRECTOR
 Installed the spare grit pump and motor due to operational issues. The motor will be sent out for repair and the pump overhauled in house.
 Conducted a round of interviews for the maintenance mechanic position. A second round of interviews will take place next week.
 Wrapping up plant improvement project programming, and final performance checks are scheduled for next week.
 Continued to work on the sewer inspection equipment bids, including reference checks.
 Installed a new belt press broken belt sensor.

CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS
 Library
o 99.8% of the work from Cordjia’s CO#4 has been completed. Tim from Maine Controls continues to work on and refine some programming issues with the settings for the radiant floor, and wearing his hat as Chair of the Energy Committee, Larry Pritchett continues the inspection of the radiant floor manifolds.
 Recreation Center
o The metal flashing work is now complete and we are going to have a final walk through and punch list next week.