NEW SHARON — Following considerable discussion on most town meeting warrant articles, 125 residents approved a $768,767 budget on Saturday, Selectman Forrest Bonney said early Saturday evening.
Social service agencies that didn’t send a representative to the 9 a.m. meeting in Cape Cod Hill School were not funded, he said. Those were Maine Public Broadcasting, which asked for $600; Work First (formerly the Sandy River Rehabilitation Center), which requested $700; and Safe Voices, which asked for $1,000.
Bonney said they took a break for lunch, and then finished the meeting at 2:15 p.m., 30 minutes earlier than last year.
Voters approved $355,500 for paving, road maintenance, salt, sand and snow removal, which had a carryover of $65,823 from 2013, and $20,000 from this year’s local road assistance. That lowered the amount to be raised from taxes to $269,676.
Bonney said there was “a big discussion” over the discount residents get from paying their taxes in full within 30 days of the bills’ date.
More people were taking advantage of the 5 percent discount, which overdrew the $50,000 account this year.
Selectmen proposed dropping that to 3 percent, which didn’t go over very well, he said.
“There was a big objection to that, so we put it back to 5 percent,” Bonney said. “People like their discount.”
Voters agreed to a $1,000 request for funding for a Maine Department of Transportation road survey to allow selectmen to categorize roads that are in the worst shape, he said.
“We’ve been intending to do that for several years,” he said. “We just never got around to it.”
Voters also approved raising $2,300 from taxes to keep the Jim Ditzler Memorial Library open four more hours per week. The library budget request was $14,000. The $2,300 was in addition to that amount.
Bonney said voters also approved a Fire Department request for $10,000 to help buy protective gear for new firefighters.
In elections from the floor, Susan Anneley of Farmington was elected town clerk and tax collector, jobs she’s held for 16 months as an assistant to Rose Mary McCormick. McCormick retired after serving 16 years in those positions, working from 1984 to 1992 and from 2005 to present.
Those re-elected were John Pond as road commissioner, Bonney to the Water District and Bonita (Tompkins) Lehigh as treasurer.
Selectman Russell Gardner was not re-elected. Instead, Lorna Nichols won a three-year term, receiving 64 votes to Gardner’s 32, Bonney said. Leona Carpentier, who also ran against Gardner and Nichols, received 28 votes. Nichols is the wife of Franklin County Sheriff Scott Nichols.
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