JAY — The Jay Select Board reviewed a proposed ordinance Wednesday night that would impose a moratorium on rent increases for mobile home lots.
If certified by the board, the ordinance would go before voters at the annual town meeting April 28.
The board also met with the town’s Budget Committee before the regular Select Board session and approved 16 expanded spending articles for the fiscal year ending in 2027 to be placed on the annual town meeting warrant.
The board meeting was postponed to Wednesday from Monday because a storm dropped as much as 15 inches of snow on Jay, Livermore Falls and Livermore.
The moratorium on rent hikes would be retroactive to Dec. 8, 2025, the date a state law took effect allowing mobile home park residents to negotiate their rents. Any rent increases imposed after Dec. 7 would be canceled if the moratorium were enacted.
“This looks great,” resident Joan Gray said. “I think it’s really going to happen.”
Gray, 82, lives at the mobile home park on Lambert Street. She was one of 26 people who attended a Nov. 24 board meeting to urge the town to freeze rent increases on the lots where mobile home owners place their homes.
The park’s new owners raised her rent by $50 on Oct. 1, bringing it to $325 a month. It had been $210 in 2014 — an increase of about 65% over 11 years, with roughly half of that jump occurring in the past year.
“And did you see that the governor talked about little old Jay in her speech the other night?” Gray said.
In her televised State of the State address Tuesday, Gov. Janet Mills told a joint session of the Maine Legislature, “Just yesterday (Monday, Jan. 26), residents of a mobile home park in Jay became the first to sign an agreement to purchase their park under our new ‘right of first refusal’ law.”
According to the legislative summary, the law Mills referenced “gives a group of mobile home owners or a mobile home owners’ association the right of first refusal to purchase a mobile home park that the owner of the mobile home park intends to sell.”
Lorri Nandrea of the Maine Labor Climate Council said outside the meeting that the owner of the Hidden Circle mobile home park had “accepted the residents’ offer” to buy the park and create a cooperative to own and manage it.
She cautioned that much work remains before Hidden Circle can shift to resident ownership.
“Jay is leading the way in how a select board can provide for the people,” Nandrea said.
Lambert Street, with 13 lots, Hidden Circle, with 37 lots, and Pine Haven, with 53 lots, are owned by New Riverside Farms LLC of Holmes Beach, Florida. Earlier attempts to reach the company were unsuccessful after its general partner said he would return a call from Monitor Local, but he never did.
The presentation of the moratorium draft ordinance Wednesday is another step in a long process. Town Manager Shiloh LaFreniere wrote in an email Thursday that at its Feb. 9 meeting, the board can “certify the moratorium ordinance to the town clerk to include on the town meeting warrant.”
If voters pass the ordinance, “the intent would be to prepare a stabilization ordinance for the residents to consider” at the Nov. 3 election, she wrote.
In the annual budgeting process, the five members of the Select Board and the nine members of the Budget Committee voted separately on each item. The Select Board’s votes send each item to the town clerk to be placed on the warrant for the annual town meeting, while the Budget Committee’s votes serve as recommendations to voters on each spending article. The budget year begins July 1, 2026, and runs through June 30, 2027.
Budget proposals for 13 of the 16 items increased, ranging from 2.65 percent to 35.91 percent, while two decreased and one stayed the same as in the 2025‑26 fiscal year. All but four passed both bodies unanimously.
The Select Board split one item — trash and recycling — into two, and divided another — donations for various activities — into nine warrant articles. Twenty‑five warrant articles were handled Wednesday.
LaFreniere presented an overall budget increase of 3.04 percent, slightly above the national inflation rate of 2.7 percent and just below the Northeastern states’ rate of 3.1 percent.
She said she expects expenses to total $3.397 million, an increase of $100,000 from 2025‑26.
LaFreniere projected town revenue at $3.79 million, about $393,000 more than expenses. She told the board and the committee that revenue is difficult to forecast until the town learns how much it will receive in state revenue sharing.
She said that figure usually arrives in February.
One of the longest discussions centered on whether to separate the trash and recycling expenses into two articles, a step the board ultimately approved. The trash expense is expected to be $200,000, to be paid to Riverside Disposal of Chelsea.
The recycling expense was set at $10,000. Jay does not require recycling, and John Johnson, director of the Public Works Department, said, “Few people use it – maybe 20 percent.”
The board voted 3‑2 to ask voters to raise $200,000 for trash pickup, with Selectmen Thomas Goding and Gary McGrane opposed. The Budget Committee voted to recommend the amount.
The board then voted 4‑1 to ask residents to raise $10,000 to haul recyclables from the town’s transfer station to a recycling station, with Goding opposed. The Budget Committee also voted to recommend the recycling article.
On July 1, Riverside Disposal is scheduled to replace Archie’s Inc. of Mexico as the town’s trash hauler. The 2025‑26 cost was $154,511.
The board decided in September to seek new bids after many residents complained about Archie’s scheduling and service. Archie’s bid $290,000 for the 2026‑27 contract. The Riverside contract is 36 percent higher than the current cost.
Recyclables taken to the transfer station will be compacted and trucked to depots in Bangor or Portland.
In other budget matters, organizations seeking town donations include: insurance for the Spruce Mountain Ski Slope, $14,043; July 4 fireworks, $2,887.50; Spruce Mountain Ski Club, $1,000; the Food Cupboard of Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls, $3,000; Area Youth Sports insurance for players, $2,750; Area Youth Sports heat, $2,500; the July 3 parade, $300; the Memorial Day parade, $250; and the North Jay Grange, $600.
Each request is expected to appear as a separate article on the town meeting warrant.
Municipal accounts expected to increase faster than the inflation rate include: professional services (legal, engineering, etc.), up 13.85 percent, to $215,327 from $189,133; the Jay‑Niles Memorial Library, up 8.34 percent, to $316,834 from $292,434; town government, up 9.93 percent, to $739,725 from $672,875; and the Police Department, up 9.05 percent, to $1.179 million from $1.082 million.
Insurance costs and debt service are expected to decrease by 5.99 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively. Summer recreation is expected to remain steady at $21,926.
Mike Ventrella, chair of the Budget Committee, questioned the increase in the library budget, saying it did not align with the 3 percent salary raises.
Librarian Tamara Hoke said the town’s share of health insurance contributed to the increase, along with catching up on some deferred maintenance.
“Don’t anticipate this kind of increase year after year,” she told Ventrella.
The board and the committee voted unanimously for the library amount.
Ventrella also expressed concern about the increase in the town government budget.
“I have trouble with a line that goes up 10 percent,” he said.
LaFreniere said several long‑term employees are leaving, and the town will need to find “experienced help” to fill the positions. In the end, the board voted unanimously for the increased amount, and the committee voted 7‑2 to recommend it, with Ventrella and Darryl Winter voting no.
Kathleen Reed of the Budget Committee told Chief Joseph Sage that while the Police Department’s budget is expected to increase by 9 percent, she was encouraged that he was saving money by purchasing used State Police vehicles and adapting them for town use.
Jay bought four cruisers for $3,000 each. They had been driven between 64,000 and 145,000 miles by State Police troopers. The town must install cages, radios and laptops, at an average cost of $12,000 per vehicle. New cruisers can cost $70,000 or more.
The board and the committee approved the police and fire budgets.
The Select Board’s Feb. 9 meeting is likely to have a full agenda. In addition to acting on the mobile home park moratorium, it is expected to hear a presentation from the Wilton-Jay Police Collaboration Committee on merging the two police departments or exploring other ways to work together.
