Alna residents vote to approve article six of their special town meeting warrant at the Alna fire station meeting room on Friday, Nov. 1. Article six, the most contentious item on the warrant, allows the town to spend up to $167,000 on matching an around $835,000 grant from the Maine Department of Transportation for the replacement of the Ben Brook culvert on Egypt Road. (Nolan Wilkinson photo)
Around 70 Alna voters vigorously debated several funding questions in the course of dispatching a six-article warrant during a special town meeting at the Alna fire station Friday, Nov. 1.
During the hour-and-a-half meeting, voters authorized the appropriation of $78,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds for various needs and agreed to release up to $167,000 in undesignated funds to match a grant funding the replacement of the Egypt Road bridge project.
The four articles on the warrant dealing with ARPA funds passed with little disagreement.
Article six, authorizing the town to release the undesignated funds to meet the match requirement for a National Culvert Removal, Replacement and Restoration Grant awarded to Maine Department of Transportation, garnered most of the night’s discussion. The grant would fund the replacement of a culvert and bridge spanning Ben Brook on Egypt Road.
Though the town voted overwhelmingly in favor of the article, it took an hour of explanation and clarification from present and past Alna Select Board members before residents felt comfortable voting.
According to Alna Select Board member Coreysha Stone, the town is required to provide a 20% match for the grant, which the town is currently in the process of applying for. Stone said the funds would not be spent unless Alna is awarded the grant.
“It just is giving permission to have this ready to roll out if and when this is asked of us during this process,” Stone said. “We just need to prepare, because there are deadlines that are rolling through. This probably isn’t even going to be spent for a number of months, but we just needed to make sure that the town approved it at this point so it was ready as requests were being made through this rolling process.”
According to Stone, the grant amount being sought is around $836,000.
The project is necessary because the town has received “bad bridge” letters from the state, according to former select board Chair Ed Pentaleri, who helped coordinate funding for the project. The letters stated Egypt Road is not safe to drive on because stones are shifting away from the road and could cause serious washout if they collapse into Ben Brook, Pentaleri said.
According to Alna Select Board member Steve Graham, around $86,450 has already been spent from the town’s undesignated funds account on planning and surveying work for the effort. Graham said he does not know how much the total replacement cost of the bridge will be.
Resident Ralph Hilton said he traveled to the bridge in person and saw no indication of the need for a replacement.
“I’m still absolutely against this process, because it’s a bunch of baloney,” Hilton said.
The $86,450 already spent should have had a specific voter approval, Hilton said.
Referring to a warrant article voters approved during Alna’s annual town meeting empowering the select board to accept and expend grant funding provided there is no match requirements, Pentaleri said the expenditure, which happened while he was in office, was authorized.
Pentaleri said he expects the town will be reimbursed for the money spent so far by the grants it has already received. As most grants are given on a reimbursement basis, Pentaleri said the select board had the authority to spend the money.
Stone said the town has received indication from state officials that if the town were to build the new bridge to state specifications, the Maine DOT would take over its maintenance.
“For a tiny town like Alna that’s very, very attractive because it’s a lot to manage, maintain, and worry about in the long term,” Stone said.
In the other warrant articles, voters approved $40,000 in ARPA funds to help pay for improvements to Bailey Road, including raising the road bed by over a foot and installing a new culvert, according to a request for proposal for the project posted on the town website.
Voters also agreed to appropriate $20,000 in ARPA funds to buy surface gravel for town roads.
Residents authorized the appropriation of $10,500 in ARPA funds to expand broadband infrastructure in Alna through the Maine Connectivity Authority’s Partnerships Enabling Middle Mile program. The program, which awarded a $6 million grant to a partnership between Lincoln County and Illinois-based Consolidated Communications, requires Alna to contribute $10,500.
The program will allow around 140 homes in Alna the option for fiber optic internet service through Consolidated Communications.
Voters approved $17,500 in ARPA funds for town office equipment upgrades, including a new computer and a credit and debit card machine.
At the start of the meeting, voters elected Carl Pease moderator, favoring Pease by a vote of 38-21 over veteran meeting moderator and Alna resident Chris Cooper.
