Alna voters will decide again if the town will borrow up to $260,000 for the new modular town office. Selectmen signed the warrant Monday morning for a 6 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 22 special town meeting at the 1789 Alna Meetinghouse on Route 218.

Selectmen also propose paring property taxes with up to $300,000 in revenue; tapping the $37,763 historical building maintenance account for up to $18,000 to continue that work; and repairing the salt and sand shed with up to $10,000 of the $39,801 reserve for that. Besides those balances, another $5,000 was passed for each of the two reserves at the annual town meeting in March, the warrant notes. Also on the warrant are subdivision rule changes the planning board worked on this summer.

The warrant states the vote on the town office replaces the one residents passed in March. First Selectman Melissa Spinney said the new vote results from a lawyer's recommendation "to dot the i's" with new wording and a statement from Town Treasurer Amy Stockford on the town's debt.

The statement lists $171,556 in bond debt as of Aug. 11. Selectmen said that's the remains of the fire truck loan with less than a year to pay off, and the rest of the paving loan with less than two years to go. The current debt is microscopic for what a town Alna's size can carry, Third Selectman Doug Baston reported after checking with the Maine Municipal Bond Bank. It's below 10 percent of an acceptable debt, he said.

According to Stockford's statement, 30-year bonds for the town office, at about 3.5 percent annual interest, would put the interest at an estimated $83,417.

Voters will consider amending the subdivision ordinance with a new section limiting a lot's length to width ratio outside the shoreland zone to 3-1, and barring the use of "odd shaped lots" that join other parcels to meet lot size rules, the warrant reads. The amendment would also limit any of a subdivision's lots to at most a 5-1 lot depth-shore frontage ratio.

The meetinghouse has long been a site for warm months' special town meetings. It's one of the historic buildings the reserve tap will aid, Spinney said. She's never been inside it. "So I'm excited."