The push is on in Alna as a June 12 deadline nears for the town and Tidewater Telecom to apply for a grant to aid broadband access and internet speed for about 120 underserved properties. Over pizza Tidewater ordered from Alna General Store, about two dozen residents heard a pitch and asked questions in the fire station Thursday night, May 30. The talk was part of the company’s and selectmen’s bid to gather support for the ConnectMe grant and the project it would help fund.

Tidewater will drive the roads involved, to see if it missed any addresses that would raise the house count and lower ConnectMe’s average cost for each pass by a home from the projected $770, Marketing and Sales Director Alan Hinsey of LCI said. LCI and Tidewater are Lincolnville Communications members, according to tidewater.net

A lower average would get the application more points, but the $770 “puts us in good shape, we think,” Hinsey said. And selectmen and residents discussed plans to contact people on those roads to make sure they know about the proposal and how to report if they support the grant request. Hinsey told the room, Tidewater and Alna plan to jointly apply for a $92,500 ConnectMe grant. Matches of $18,500 from the town and $74,000 from Tidewater would round out the $185,000 project.

In a May 28 town email, Second Selectman Doug Baston said the project would serve Rabbit Path Road from 1 to 290; Bailey Road from Rabbit Path to the Dresden line, 374 to 476; 22 to 173 Golden Ridge Road; 1301 to 2282 Route 218, or Alna Road; 21 Dock Road; 1274 to 1410 West Alna Road; 16 and 36 Colpitt Road; Route 194 to the Whitefield line, 685 to 820; 4 to 15 Head Tide Church Road; 1 Peaselee Road; and 7 to 26 Christopher Road.

Hinsey said the application will score its best with at least 85 percent support from those addresses. A handout listed the survey at tidewater.net/alna and attendees could sign a sheet. About 20 people signed it that night, Hinsey said.

Baston said early Tuesday, June 4, the count of signatures from the underserved addresses stood at 43. "We need to more than double that."

Asked how he was feeling about the chances of reaching the goal, about a week before the application is due, he said he was cautiously optimistic.

"I feel like a lot of people still don't know about this. Tidewater is going to do a mailing," and he hoped news reports would help get the word out, he said.

June 12, residents at a special town meeting will consider tapping cable franchise fees to meet the town's match. The board signed the warrant Thursday. The meeting at the 1789 Alna Meetinghouse starts at 6 p.m. Selectmen tentatively set their next meeting for 5:30 p.m. there.

Those fees otherwise go into the town's general fund, Baston said in response to a question from resident Jeff Spinney.

"So but at some level, it's money we spend somewhere else (than broadband)," Spinney said.

"It is, but at least theoretically, we're taking it from people who benefit from the system and giving it to people who could then benefit from the system," Baston said.

Rejection of the article would kill the application, Baston said in a text response May 31.

Voters also face a proposed shift in how the town uses the sale money from the former town office. In March, voters chose to put 25% toward finishing the new one. Selectmen propose making it 50%; the part to put away for bond payments on the new one would fall from 75% to 50%. And the board proposes setting property taxes after July 15, with 90 interest-free days to pay.

According to the warrant the board signed, the special town meeting is at the fire station. Baston said Monday, it must be a typo. 

The ConnectMe grant is not the only one the town is seeking. Selectmen announced they are trying to get a $16,500 Belvedere Fund grant for clapboard, sill and other work on the 1870s Village School at Puddle Dock, a $21,000 Davis Family Trust grant for ceiling and wall work on the meetinghouse, and a National Park Service grant, sum not yet set, for recreation including the planned trail behind the town office.

More goods are coming into the town’s new food pantry. Selectmen announced Lincoln County Gleaners and Twin Villages Food Bank as donors. “Lots of people are donating,” First Selectman Melissa Spinney said. “And finally people are getting stuff (from it).” Three dozen eggs went in two days, she said.