BELGRADE — Residents breezed through the business portion of the Town Meeting on Saturday, finishing in less than 90 minutes, including the break.
They gave the green light for the Board of Selectpersons to continue with efforts to plan a new Town Office to be built in the town’s reclaimed gravel pit next to the 365 Days of Christmas store on Route 27.
That particular article was amended on the meeting floor by Ernie Rice, board chairman. Rice said the project would be put before the voters once all the plans and costs have been finalized.
In the meantime, he said, a number of permits have been obtained or are in process.
A large concept drawing of the new building was set up on a table at the rear of the auditorium in the Center for All Seasons, and some residents stopped to look at it.
“We want solid numbers on what the project’s going to cost, including paving and cement,” Selectperson Bruce Plourd said during the break. “We want to get all our ducks in order.”
The Town Office is now in a building on Route 27 that was a restaurant at one time.
The town has been planning a move for some time, and it already had amassed $178,000 in a Town Office reserve account. Residents put an additional $75,000 into that account on Saturday.
Voters approved spending $3,300 for new veteran grave markers for all the town cemeteries, with that amount to be matched by the Adams-Stevens-Cobb American Legion Post.
“It was a fixed price,” Rice told people who asked where any leftover money would be held.
Sexton Gary Foss assured residents, “We’re buying extra markers for future use.”
About 120 residents attended the meeting Saturday.
A number of items had been handled at the polls on Friday.
Residents voted to adopt a mass gathering ordinance, relocate a food bank to the North Belgrade Community Center and keep a sitting Board of Selectpersons member.
Every article on the ballot was adopted.
The mass gathering ordinance, which requires advance notice and a permit for crowds of 300 or more, was adopted 165-116, the closest vote among the articles on the warrant.
Plourd won a third term on the Board of Selectpersons with 172 votes, just ahead of challenger Gary Mahler with 162, who took the second open seat. A third candidate, Howard Holinger, garnered 117.
On the other ballot items, residents approved the operational and recreation sums sought for the Center for All Seasons, the library budget of about $55,000 and almost $48,000 for lake water quality programs.
A proposal to spend $4,500 to help support the Fourth of July fireworks sponsored by the Belgrade Lakes Region Business Group succeeded by almost a 2-to-1 margin.
About 280 people voted in the all-day election Friday, according to the Belgrade town clerk.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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