FARMINGTON — County commissioners assured members of the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday that one of their members could be on a committee that will review applications for projects requesting TIF funds.

Chamber members voiced concern over the organization not having a member on the committee.

A new committee is being formed to review applications for projects that will request money from the $4 million Franklin County is expected to receive to benefit economic development in unorganized territories.

The money will come to the county over a 20-year period from a tax incentive financing agreement commissioners entered into in 2008 with TransCanada for a wind turbine project in northern Franklin County.

The committee being formed will rank the applications on established criteria and submit  recommendations to Franklin County commissioners.

The commissioners will have the final say on what applications are funded and plan to review all applications, Commissioner Gary McGrane said.

He suggested the chamber members read the TIF guidelines and management report to become acquainted with the criteria.

In other business, commissioners voted to have a representative of Eaton Peabody put the amendments to the agreement together at a cost not to exceed $2,000. The final document will be presented to commissioners later this month for them to vote on.

Commissioners also voted to award the contract for video conferencing to be installed at the jail to Maine Connected Technologies for $13,840.98. The conferencing will be done between inmates and the courts if no judge is available in Franklin County courts. The money will come from the current budget.

In another matter, commissioners voted to hire Keith Barton as a temporary full-time patrol deputy for the time Deputy Heidi Wilcox is out on maternity leave. They also hired Angela Blevins as a part-time dispatcher.

Commissioners also agreed to put the cruiser maintenance and repair contract out to bid for the first time in 16 years. Chief Deputy Ray Meldrum said the agreement is supposed to be renewed annually. Main Street Services in Strong, which has the contract, has done a great job, Meldrum said. It’s just the clause in the agreement that calls for renewal. He suggested the new contract be worded to be renewable upon good service.

The panel also heard both sides of a tax abatement appeal regarding Norma Durkin’s property on Cottage Road, off Route 17 in Rangeley and the town of Rangeley assessing agent.

Durkin maintained that she is paying 85 percent of taxes for a lot that is 0.58 acre with 100 feet of waterfront property and a right of way that goes through her property when two other property owners have shared access to it. She didn’t think the 15 percent discount on property valuation was enough, since former assessors had given her a 50 percent discount.

Rangeley Assessing Agent Robert Duplisea argued that he gave her a 15 percent decrease in valuation using an approved method. There were no comparable properties in Rangeley with the same situation, he said, so he used his 20 plus years of experience of assessing property in Belgrade and Greenville to assist him.

He said the biggest issue to him was fairness. Another property that is unbuildable in Rangeley was given a 50 percent discount, he said. Her property does have a camp on it and he didn’t feel it was fair to give her the same discount.

The half-acre was valued by the town at about $137,500. The 15 percent decrease in the land valuation dropped the property valuation to $116,900, not factoring in $17,000 for improvements.

Durkin asked for a $46,000 decrease in property valuation for 2010.

After listening to about an hour of debate, commissioners voted to reduce the property valuation by an additional 5 percent, making it a total of a 20 percent reduction. That brought the property valuation down about $6,900 more.

dperry@sunjournal.com