BELFAST, Maine — Councilors wrestled at Tuesday night’s regular City Council meeting with the question of how much the city can spend to maintain one of Belfast’s legacies from its high-flying MBNA days.
“Everything that MBNA built was really over-the-top,” said Councilor Lewis Baker. “I think we need to bring this down to a reasonable level.”
The facility in question is the state-of-the-art baseball-softball complex Walsh Fields, which credit card giant MBNA built in the 1996 to replace the dusty Little League field that was destroyed when the company expanded its Belfast operation. Bank of America, which purchased MBNA in 2005, donated the complex to the city in 2007.
At that time, the land and facilities, which feature an irrigation system that keeps the fields immaculately green, were valued at $426,900. It’s one of the top three Little League fields in the state, according to City Manager Joseph Slocum, but councilors debated at length whether or not to continue paying outside groundskeepers to maintain the facility.
Despite advertising and personally soliciting bids for a three-year maintenance contract, only one company — Farley & Sons Landscaping of Rockport, which maintained the complex for years — put in a bid. But councilors balked at signing off on spending more than $47,000 over three years to keep the complex in top condition.
Slocum said that if the city maintains the fields, the startup costs initially would be higher than paying an outside contractor.
Mayor Walter Ash Jr. said he thought that keeping the complex in pristine condition could be good for local economic development.
“If we can’t take care of it, maybe we shouldn’t have accepted it to begin with,” said Ash. “I support keeping it a class A facility. I know it’s a lot of money — but I’d rather see my tax dollars go to that.”
Ultimately, councilors voted to request that Farley & Sons give a one-year bid on the same terms as their three-year bid, with Baker voting against the measure.
In other business, councilors unanimously decided to allow the Friends of the Footbridge to hold a re-dedication ceremony at the bridge on Oct. 8. The friends would like the bridge, which was rebuilt in 2006 and connects the two sides of the city, to be officially named the Armistice Bridge in honor of World War I.
About 8.5 million soldiers were killed and 22 million wounded in that war. Fifty-five Waldo County soldiers died in European trenches, and Tammy Lacher Scully of Friends of the Bridge wants to remember them.
“Our little bridge honors a time when the world thought there would be no more wars,” she told the councilors. “By recapturing the history of our little bridge, we’ll help make sure our children and our children’s children don’t forget why it was so important to honor those 55 local soldiers who died so long ago.”
The nation’s only surviving World War I veteran — a 109-year-old man named Frank Buckles of West Virginia — is working to have a national memorial for the war constructed.
“I’d like to let him know that in Belfast, Maine, we did what he wants our country as a whole to do,” she said. “It might be some comfort to him.”