MINOT — Selectmen voted Tuesday to recommend approval of a $1.35 million town budget for 2012.
The amount is approximately $50,000 more than the current year and includes requests to fund two major capital improvements for the Fire Department.
Fire Department officials are requesting $150,000 for a new firetruck and $432,000 for an addition to the Central Fire Station, both financed over 10 years.
The selectmen’s recommendations will be forwarded to the Budget Committee, which is scheduled to meet Tuesday, Jan. 10, to begin its deliberations on what it will recommend at March town meeting.
Selectmen also approved including a warrant article asking town meeting voters to provide $750 stipends to the town’s five representatives to the RSU 16 School Committee.
Selectman Eda Tripp said that, as approved in the November referendum by voters in Mechanic Falls, Minot and Poland, RSU 16’s stipends were cut from $1,250 to $500. She noted that board member Steve Holbrook wanted to see whether Minot town meeting voters considered the stipend a fair one.
Selectmen also appointed Holly Packard as town treasurer, to replace Connie Taker, who is retiring after serving in that position since 1999. Packard was also named deputy town clerk and deputy tax collector.
Packard, a resident of Hebron, is leaving a similar position with the town of West Paris and has eight years of experience with the Trio software operating system that Minot has recently adopted. She is scheduled to begin work in Minot this week.
Meeting with Planning Board Chairman John Geismar, selectmen made arrangements for town planners to look into having the town adopt the Property Assessed Clean Energy ordinance at March town meeting.
Town Administrator Arlan Saunders also told selectmen that he had received an email from Norm Rattey, the town’s attorney, informing him that the Maine Supreme Judicial Court will decide on developer Chuck Starbird’s lawsuit against the town, based only on briefs submitted, without any oral argument.
The case stems from the town’s refusal to grant Starbird a building permit for property he owns on a section of York Road that has not been accepted as a town way. The case goes back two years, with the latest issue being an appeal by Starbird of a Superior Court decision to send his appeal back to the town’s Board of Appeals.
Saunders said it could be a month or more before the state’s high court issues its ruling.
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