Lower Wilson Pond West Shore Association

Good Afternoon Everyone,

I hope you all had a good winter.  I have been in communication with Cole this winter about the road plowing contract and asked him to send me an updated price to continue his services for us.  Attached below please find his proposal.  The price below is a small increase over the previous year and I don’t think anyone should be surprised to see it. Last year Cole’s bill for the year was $14,400. The increase to $15,000 is very reasonable.  As we have discussed in the past the local labor talent pool continues to shrink in the Greenville area due to tightening labor resources.  I have been very pleased with Cole’s work again this year as well as his responsiveness to suggestions regarding the amount of sand needed and scheduling the plowing and sanding around storms.  He has been very flexible.  Please email me and let me know if you are in favor of committing to Cole again this season.  I don’t want to wait to commit and possibly lose him as a resource.  

….

As discussed during our last association meeting the dues for the coming year are $500.00.  I REALLY appreciate anyone who paid extra.  The little extra bit does help a lot.  We will have the conversation about the dues during our August meeting but I think that everyone should prepare themselves for an increase.

I know that some of the properties on Wilson Pond have been sold/purchased or transferred ownership between family members.  I am trying hard to keep our record keeping up to date so PLEASE if you meet a new owner give them my contact information so I can get their updated information. If you are involved in a property exchange could you please let me know your family members contact?  I would really like to get our internal correspondence down to email only.        

Joe and Joyce Luvisi volunteered to host the 2023 annual meeting at their camp on August 5, 2023 at 10PM.  There will be more info on that as we get closer to the date 

Please send your dues checks to 

LWPWSA

Attention: Doug Watt

P.O. Box 1773

Greenville, ME 04441

President – Doug Watt

Vice President – Anne Zeller

Treasurer – Jackie Watt

Secretary – Laura Wood

Other Positions:

Sanders Pt. Road Commissioner – Harold Blanchard

Wilson Pond Road Commissioner – Craig Watt

excerpt from Doug Watt’s update email of 1 Dec, 2022

We had an active fall season on the roads and the ditch work and culvert work that Mark Muzzy did seems to have held up pretty well.  We had a bit of a wash out over the big culvert at the start of sanders point road but Harold Blanchard spoke to Mark and he brought in a couple of loads of good material that should hold us till the spring.  That culvert absolutely will need to be addressed as soon as the ground thaws and dries this spring.  Harold has spoken to Mark about possible solutions and they have a plan.  The deeper ditches attracted and held more leaves than I have seen in years past but thanks to everyone that did their best to keep the ditches raked out.  It does help keep the water moving.
During the association meeting we discussed the need to request a possible additional payment this winter to keep up with rising costs but I have decided to table this discussion till next August.  I would expect that the dues will go up however. If there is anyone that has not paid their dues yet please do so as soon as you can.  There are currently 12 members who have not paid. 

Good Evening Everyone,
......

I just wanted to send you a quick update regarding the progress on the roads so far this Spring.  Mark Muzzy spent a couple weeks on Wilson Pond Road and pulled some impressive boulders out of the road that had popped up over time and had become hazardous to the under-carriage of low-riding vehicles.  He replaced the culverts by Lynne Mulholland's and the culvert in from of Bill and Sally Foley's place.  I wanted to point out that not only did he improve the drainage capacity, but he also put up a nice filter/silt fence to try to keep the debris that washes off the road from making its way down to the pond.   After doing that he spent time shaping the road and created a crown to try to promote proper drainage.  I met Mark on Sanders Point Road this morning at 7AM and he is going to start on that road today.  After texting with Jamie Kane, Mark is going to focus on the three culverts in a row that are sitting in the low spot before Tom Dudac's that are damaged and popped up as well as shaping the road and scraping and filling the bad pot holes.  He is also going to work on the long, flat section at the bottom of the hill after LuVisi's.  I had a load of gravel dumped across from Joe's driveway and will use that this summer to try to keep the corner of the hill smoothed out.  Per the recommendation of Rod Gaudet I am looking at the possibilty of getting calcium put down on the roads as we have in years past to help with dust control.  I'm trying to get pricing on that.  That is a service Mark Muzzy does not provide.

Because of the recent spike in fuel charges the price of gravel and culverts has again gone through the roof.  Mark's current price for a yard of gravel is $22/yard.  That doesn't sound like a lot but it adds up.

I approached Cole Aucoin to see if he would be willing to plow our road again this year.  He said he would do it again but his price has gone up.  Last year his price was $12,000.  It stands to reason that pricing would increase given the price of diesel. The quote is below.


November 1st, 2022- May 1st, 2023
                        Task                                        Details                                     Total Price
Plowing road when 2" or more & sanding hills and intersections needed
-Keeping road open throughout snow storms cleaning up afterwards -winging road back when needed
-Sanding when needed for normal traffic

Excluding hill
$12600.00
Including hill
$14400.00
.......

BECAUSE OF THE SCARCITY OF LABOR AND CONTRACTORS IN THE AREA I WOULD LIKE TO AWARD THIS CONTRACT TO COLE.  I WOULD LIKE TO ASK EACH OF THE MEMBERS IF THEY WOULD PLEASE SEND ME AN EMAIL EITHER APPROVING THIS OR NOT.  I KNOW THIS IS NOT TYPICAL AND THAT THESE DESCISIONS USUALLY GET VOTED ON AT THE ASSOCIATION MEETING IN AUGUST BUT I AM AFRAID THAT IF WE WAIT TILL THEN THE CONTRACTOR MAY BE OVERBOOKED AND NOT CHOOSE TO PLOW OUR ROAD.  I'M TRYING TO BE PROACTIVE.  PLEASE LET ME KNOW EITHER WAY IF YOU AGREE WITH THE INCREASED PRICE OR NOT.  I WOULD LIKE TO REMIND EVERYONE THAT WE GOT THREE QUOTES LAST YEAR AND THE OTHER TWO QUOTES WERE HIGHER THAN COLE'S CURRENT PRICE IN SPITE OF THE RECENT INCREASED COSTS FOR FUEL/LABOR ETC.
To date about half of the members have paid their $500 dues for 2022.  I would like to thank those of you who paid the dues and added a little extra for gravel etc.  It is very much appreciated.  For those that have not paid yet please do so as soon as you can.
This years annual meeting will be held at Joe and Joyce LuVisi's house at the bottom of Walden's Hill on Saturday August 6th at 10:30. Please bring a chair.

The dues for this year are $500.00 and were due by June 1st.  Please send your checks to:



LWPWSA

C/O Doug Watt

P.O. Box 1773

Greenville Maine 04441


If anyone has items they would like placed on the agenda before the meeting please send them over to me and I will make sure to address them on August 6th. If anyone speaks to a neighbor and they state that they didn't get this notice via email that means I don't have a good email for them.  Please ask them to reach out to me.
Thanks for your time and I hope to see you all soon.
Have a good week,

Doug

Good morning and Happy Spring,
I hope you all had a good winter.  The current air temperature on the pond is 31 degrees and it's spitting snow.  The ice is still headed towards the dam but should be gone very soon.  I have attached the agenda from last years meeting in case anyone didn't see it.  I wanted to send out a quick note to catch everyone up on the activity down here since we all got together last August.  We contracted with Mark Muzzy to bring his excavator down and pull some large rocks out of the middle of the road that had started to pop up.  I had been notified by a member that they had scraped their oil-pan on their vehicle.  Mark ended up being able to get 6 rocks up between Foley's and Joe Madden's and pushed off to the side.  He dug on a few more that ended up being too big to pull up so he dug around them and tried to get them to settle lower than the top of the road.  While Mark was here I also pre-purchased 3 culverts.  That was a good decision as the price of culverts have gone up another 25% over the winter.  In late fall Harold Blanchard volunteered to use his skidder and pushed over about 23 trees that were dead or dying and were threatening the power and fiber lines.  As directed by the members we had our first season with Cole Aucoin plowing the road.  It all seemed to go well.  I did receive some feedback in February from one member who felt that the road was too narrow and the banks needed to be pushed back.  I called Cole and asked him to do that and he responded within 24-hours and moved the banks back.  The hill survived the winter pretty well.  This last weekend Craig and John Watt used the grader and the rock rake on the road and hill.  They were able to smooth out the potholes and deepen the ditches to try to promote water drainage.  It's a challenge to manage the water on the roads as there just isn't much gravel anywhere.  We are right on the base layer which is mostly clay so the water doesn't drain.  The material on the road just absorbs the water.  Also last year Phil McNamara worked with Max Hall, Joyce LuVisi and Ed Linz to get the basic website set up.  This is an ongoing project and the web address is http://lwpwsa.org

Looking ahead to this years initiatives...Mark Muzzy has agreed to come down this spring as soon as the road conditions allow and work for at least 3 days on road improvements.  He will place the three culverts we purchased last year.  Currently there is one needed in front of Lynne Mulholland's because the current culvert has a large rock speared through it, the culvert in from of Foley's on the corner will need to be replaced and repositioned because the old culvert is crushed and we will need to reset the culvert up higher on the hill above LuVisi's because it has popped out of the ground.  If we have any money left we can ask Mark to add gravel to the softest parts of the road but I won't know if we can do that until we see what the bill is.

This years annual meeting will be held at Joe and Joyce LuVisi's house at the bottom of Walden's Hill on Saturday August 6th at 10:30. Please bring a chair.

The dues for this year are $500.00 and due by June 1st.  Please send your checks to:



LWPWSA

C/O Doug Watt

P.O. Box 1773

Greenville Maine 04441


If anyone has items they would like placed on the agenda before the meeting please send them over to me and I will make sure to address them on August 6th. If anyone speaks to a neighbor and they state that they didn't get this notice via email that means I don't have a good email for them.  Please ask them to reach out to me.
Thanks for your time and I hope to see you all soon.
Have a good week,

Doug

207-232-5391

Kindly provided by Max Hall

Welcome. At our annual meeting, along with road agenda items, the association agreed to set up a web site.  This web site will be available as another means of communication to association members.