OTISFIELD — Town Administrative Assistant Anne Pastore said told selectmen at their meeting Wednesday night that there has been “a lot of positive feedback” about the new electric sign outside the Town Office.
Pastore said she got a call from the local snowmobile club asking to put a message on the sign.
Selectman Rick Micklon said he had “mixed feelings about this out of the gate.”
“If you let one club have a message, where do you draw the line?” he asked the board.
“At this point, if you asked me, I would say I’m not in favor of extending (the sign) out to civic organizations,” he said. “I think we should keep it to town business, such as information about the transfer station, and (due dates for) dog licensing and taxes.”
Chairman Hal Ferguson and Selectman Lenny Adler agreed.
Pastore pointed out there is only a certain amount of information the town can put in a message so people driving by can read it.
“I told the club that what they wanted was too much information to get on the sign for people to read while driving by,” Pastore said.
Selectmen unanimously voted Sept. 6, 2017, to accept a $21,859 offer from NeoKraft in Lewiston. The bid came three months after voters authorized spending up to $25,000 from the timber reserve account to buy and install an electric, digital sign to replace the changeable letter sign in front of the building.
In other business Wednesday, Ferguson said the town was looking to take its share of the dissolved Oxford County Regional Recycling Corp. and reinvest it in a compactor for the transfer station.
In July 2016, 12 of the 15 municipalities involved with the corporation voted to dissolve it and disburse the remaining equipment and funds to the towns that had invested in it.
Ferguson said that the town’s share of the dissolution amounts to “about $24,000.”
“However, we would need a special town meeting to approve that purchase, since it’s not money that was approved at our annual town meeting,” Ferguson said. “We’re hoping to get an estimate for the total cost of the compactor (project), not just what it costs for the compactor itself. We want a valid estimate for our project costs.”
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