SKOWHEGAN — Selectmen welcomed newly elected board member Soren Siren on Tuesday night en route to naming the new board chairman, vice chairman and finance directors.

Selectman Donald Skillings was elected by board members to serve as chairman and finance officer for the coming year, and Selectman Paul York was voted in as vice chairman and deputy finance officer.

Siren, a high school physical education teacher and recent Planning Board chairman, was elected to the board earlier this month from a field of five candidates for two seats with 366 votes. His term of office is three years. Incumbent Selectwoman Darla Pickett was re-elected with 404 votes.

The Board of Selectmen now has a full complement of five members for the first time since January, when Selectman Newell Graf assumed his elected position as a Somerset County commissioner.

Selectmen on Tuesday night also gave Road Commissioner Greg Dore the go-ahead to apply for a grant for $95,000 from the state Department of Environmental Protection. There is no local match for the grant, which would be used for stream-crossing public infrastructure improvements to Steward Hill Road over Cold Brook. The money would pay for the construction and installation of a culvert to divert Cold Brook from the flood-prone road located past the town transfer station.

Dore said there are additional chances of acceptance of the DEP grant if the town provides in-kind services, which would include Dore’s work time overseeing the project and the town supplying equipment and labor for some of the work. The in-kind services also would include preparing the site, the installation of signs, asphalt removal, traffic control and the installation of a guardrail.

Dore said the project was listed with the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2008. The crossing typically overflows in the spring and has washed out partially several times in the past 10 years. When the stream overflows, it cuts off residents from all emergency services, he said.

In other voting Tuesday night, selectmen were divided on the way construction bids are handled, but voted 3-2 to award football field construction work to Manter Construction of Maine, of Sidney, to do the work for $47,280, a price that did not include a bond on the job. Pickett, Austin and Siren voted to accept the Manter bid, but selectmen said they would continue to discuss how the bidding process is done as computers, websites and smartphones increasingly become part of the process.

There had been five bidders for the work, and time was of the essence to get the field in and seeded while the weather is warm, selectmen agreed.

Doug Harlow — 612-2367

dharlow@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @Doug_Harlow