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MINUTES OF THE <br />ORONO PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING <br />Monday, November 18, 2019 <br />6:30 o’clock p.m. <br />_____________________________________________________________________________________ <br /> <br />Page 17 of 46 <br /> <br />Mr. Dennis Walsh, 1354 Rest Point Circle, said he is always amazed with all the unbelievable things to <br />deal with in Orono with all the shoreline. He noted the Commission has an item in front of them that they <br />need to address. Solving a different problem is not in front of the Commission right now. He thinks if <br />there's anything that lends itself to an exception for a very specific piece of ground, that they could work <br />with the City Attorney to come up with an Easement that has not yet been created, has not been sold, has <br />not been agreed to. He thought the Commission could make a recommendation to forward something for <br />the consideration of the Council to figure out what is the solution. He thinks this is something that can be <br />solved, but he would defer to the City Attorney regarding how to create that. <br /> <br />Ms. Penny Saiki, 2874 Casco Point, said she lives across from the public access on Casco. They removed <br />the dock 3-5 years ago because of legal liability. If you put a dock on City land again, you're opening <br />yourself up to liability. Whether that has private use or not, it's a dock on the water. She said all the <br />people that live there are cooperating, bringing up a solution. Regarding the access, at Casco where they <br />did the land restoration, that sewer manhole was in water so they restored it with dirt. That's not a road <br />Easement and that's on the water. So, if you're going to have emergency vehicles going out there, that is <br />not built as a road so you will have erosion of that very quickly and, you've got a road right on the water. <br />There's also no turnaround for an emergency vehicle. <br /> <br />Ressler agreed there is definitely not, nor is there a use for an emergency vehicle. <br /> <br />Mr. Robb said the electrical power and the phone lines for the entire island come up that Easement. If you <br />put a dock out in that waterway, how are you going to guarantee you don't put a dock post down and hit <br />that high powerline. <br /> <br />Ressler stated that was not helping the case of the application. <br /> <br />Mr. Robb said that is another reason to move the dock, because otherwise you might hit a 12,000-volt <br />buried cable in the water. <br /> <br />Ressler noted Mayor Walsh is encouraged that the Commission could find a way to make it work and it <br />might not be how it is proposed right now. Motioning one way or the other gets the Commission to move <br />along and allows them to work together and try to find a way that might make it work. As it is applied <br />does not work with what the applicant would like to use it for, so he thought it would be prudent to <br />motion and deny the application and allow the applicant to go in front of the City Council and start <br />working on a way to make it work. <br /> <br />Gettman stated he would move in that direction with one caveat, which is to amend Section 82-255, to <br />allow the private Easement on the RS-only properties to allow landlocked RS property direct access to the <br />lake. That's a suggestion to be considered by the City Council but separate from the movement to then <br />have this application be denied. <br />