Alna Second Selectman Jonathan Villeneuve said that before the board starts a committee about Head Tide Dam, he would like a clearer picture of what two nonprofits have in mind for the site. That will help the board define the committee’s purpose, he said at a selectmen’s meeting Jan. 21.

“I don’t want a committee without clear goals, wasting a lot of time,” Villeneuve said. “Let’s figure out what they want,” he said about Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association and Atlantic Salmon Federation.

Earlier in the discussion, Third Selectman David Reingardt suggested voting that night to establish the committee. The board held off after mulling a series of possible motions stating the committee’s charge. Instead, the selectmen decided to invite officials from the two organizations to the board’s next meeting on Jan. 29.

In interviews, Steve Patton, the conservation association’s executive director, and Andrew Goode, the salmon federation’s vice president of U.S. programs, have expressed an interest in improving fish passage on the Sheepscot River and in memorializing the town-owned dam’s place in Alna’s history.

A draft letter that Reingardt said Goode provided describes the dam both as an important link to the Head Tide community’s history, and as an impediment to fish passage for seven depleted species of migratory fish. The draft lists several purposes for a town committee, from improved fish passage and memorializing the site, to increased public use for education and recreation; no recommendations will go to the town without the committee’s approval, and nothing will be recommended before 2016, it states.

Villeneuve commented on the draft letter’s reference to the dam as visibly aging. It may have pock marks, but there’s a lot of concrete in there, he said.

Reingardt emphasized that the paper they were looking at might never be presented to the committee’s volunteers. He said that nothing in it has been approved; that Goode and Patton told him they want the committee to be a town committee; and, he said, “The historical value of that dam is in the forefront with them.”

The board first talked Dec. 30 about the organizations’ interest in the dam, after Goode and Patton spoke with First Selectman David Abbott.

The board’s Thursday, Jan. 29, meeting is set for 6 p.m. at the town office.

Harder-to-steal road signs

Road signs get stolen every year in Alna, some of them four times a year, Town Clerk Amy Warner said. That means spending to replace them, only to have them stolen again.

Selectmen on Jan. 21 gave Warner the go-ahead to look into the cost for vertical signs on steel tubing. The signs’ added ruggedness against theft would save on sign replacement costs, she said. The road signs are important to emergency crews needing to find the roads, she added.

Abbott said he would ask Road Commissioner Jeff Verney to put up horizontal signs the town bought to replace missing ones.

Vertical signs might not be as helpful for the emergency crews, resident Terry Ross said. “People were taught to read left to right,” he said.

Looking ahead to town meeting

The board set dates to discuss parts of the next budget to go on the warrant for the annual town meeting in March. Selectmen will take up administration and salaries at their 6 p.m., Jan. 29 meeting; town buildings, at 7 p.m., Feb. 4; and the roads budget along with sand, salt and plowing, at 7 p.m., Feb. 11. Talks on other departments’ budgets were still being scheduled.