Would more people visit Alna's veterans memorial benches if they were in a different spot? Alna Fire Chief Mike Trask thinks so.

He'd like to see them outside the fire station. A lot of landscaping has been done there and more residents come and go for town meetings and other events than at the Alna Meetinghouse, Trask said.

The two benches were installed and dedicated on the lawn of the 1789 building in 2008 after the Coleland Transportation Museum in Bangor donated them.

At the September 6 Alna Selectmen's meeting Trask asked if the benches could be moved a short way south on Route 218, to the station.

“More people would have an opportunity to use them,” Trask said.

First Selectman David Abbott and Third Selectman David Reingardt didn't weigh in on the idea; they tabled the discussion until their September 13 meeting when Second Selectman Jonathan Villeneuve was expected to be able to attend. The meeting at the town office will begin at 6:30 p.m.

Former First Selectman Billie Willard was involved in getting the benches for the town and she would like them to stay where they are.

“The place was picked because you could sit there and look out across the fields. It was such a serene place to put them,” she said September 7.

The two backless granite benches, held into the ground by concrete, both read: “In memory of all veterans.” In addition to that sentiment, one of the benches also reads “Freedom is not free” and the other “All gave some. Some gave all.”

If they are going to be moved, Willard hopes the selectmen would first bring the issue to a town meeting vote.

“Those benches were given to the town of Alna. It should be up to the town,” she said. The fire station is owned by the fire department, not the town, she added.

Following some contentious public discussions a few years ago, voters agreed to let the fire department, a nonprofit, keep the station property. But in a September 7 interview, Trask said everyone would be able to come there, whether just to sit on the benches and reflect, to bring their families, or even to use the basketball hoop if they wanted. The fact that the land isn't town-owned would have no impact on access, he said.

Former selectman Chris Cooper has offered to help design the space for the benches, and the town would not have to pay to move them, Trask said.  

For Galen Cole, founder of the museum that donated a couple hundred benches around Maine, the land's ownership is not as important a question as the nature of the setting. The benches were intended to give citizens a place to ponder patriotism and the service people gave for their country, he said. An American flag would help to create that sense, he said.

An honor roll near the benches, wherever they are, would also be good, said Korean War veteran Albert Gibson, a Brewer resident and museum volunteer who helped distribute the benches.

There was discussion of an honor roll at the meetinghouse around the time the benches were received, but cost was an issue, Willard said.

As for the flag, Trask pointed out there already is one outside the station, but not the meetinghouse.

“We're just trying to see the benches get more use,” he said. “We're not trying to stir up any trouble.”