Alna selectmen are right to listen to residents about the future of the town office, Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission (LCRPC) Economic and Community Development Director Mary Ellen Barnes told the board Aug. 24.

“I appreciate that, because you want the citizens with you,” she said.

The LCRPC recently gave Alna a $2,000 technical assistance grant to help compare costs and other factors in either updating the Route 218, former cape home that serves as the town office, or moving the town office into the fire station across the road.

Selectmen recalled for Barnes that they had first discussed only the possible move, but the idea got a mixed reception among town meeting voters. Residents agreed 24-19 to spend $10,000 on engineering, architectural work, or both. Some asked for transparency as the idea is explored.

“We realized that, well, maybe everybody wasn’t cool with us moving, so now we’ve decided to weigh the two (options),” First Selectman David Abbott told Barnes.

“I think you’re being very thoughtful about that,” she said about the board’s approach.

Selectmen on Westport Island, where she lives, form committees or hold hearings before they make recommendations on projects, Barnes said.

Members cited no plans for a committee but said that after they hire someone with the LCRPC grant, and the person comes up with sketches and cost estimates on the options, the board will have a public hearing.

“We’ll get a pulse of what people think,” Third Selectman Doug Baston said. “And then probably bring one or the other choices to the next town meeting and see how the town votes.”

At selectmen’s request, Barnes said she would do some thinking on a possible designer for them to consider for the upcoming look into the options. Baston said he appreciated that, and the help her office has given them.

“Well, as towns, you’ve got to make a lot of decisions, and you’re trying to collect a lot of information,” Barnes said. “You’re trying to keep it out there in the public so people are aware of it and are able to chime in. But the few thousand dollars it takes, sometimes you think, ‘Oh, we can’t do it this year.’ The few funds that we’ve had for these types of technical assistance projects (have) really allowed you as community leaders to bring it to a better decision point.

“It’s not like it’s a $20,000 feasibility study, it’s just biting off a little bit at a time,” Barnes added. “Expensive feasibility studies that are all fancy, that big architects or consultants give, can be overwhelming to a small-town process.”

Also Aug. 24, selectmen reported that two of them, and one of their families, put up road name signs at three intersections where they were missing. The town had heard from the son of a man CLC Ambulance went to help on Golden Ridge Road; the crew found the location, but selectmen said that when they heard about it, they decided the signs needed to go up right away.

Abbott and Second Selectman Melissa Spinney said they and Spinney’s husband Jeff and son Chase completed the work Aug. 20 with equipment Kennebec Equipment Rental donated for the day. Spinney said she had first contacted Road Commissioner Jeff Verney who offered to install the signs with an excavator. “I thought that may be a little too much right now for just three signs,” so the other plans were made, she said.

Except for Chase Spinney, 8, who will get town labor wages for his help, all the work was volunteer, selectmen said. The signs were installed at the intersections of Golden Ridge and Cross roads, Golden Ridge and Alna roads, and Alna and Dock roads, members said.

In response to a question from Fire Chief and former road commissioner Mike Trask, selectmen said they are still working on getting an estimate for damage they said a logger did by unloading equipment onto Rabbit Path Road. The equipment dug into the pavement and broke a couple of pieces off the road’s edge, Baston said. The board is waiting for the estimate before contacting the logger, he said.

Selectmen welcomed back Judy Greenleaf as deputy town clerk. Greenleaf, of Wiscasset, a past Alna town clerk and deputy town clerk, said she had missed the people she got to see in the town office and she loves being back. Abbott and Greenleaf noted they were born the same day at the same hospital, Miles Memorial Hospital, and later attended Wiscasset High School together.