The Newcastle board of selectmen want to the keep the interlocal agreement.

They might just have to find a new partner.

The board met Monday, July 6, to discuss the future of the interlocal agreement, which is a pact between Newcastle and Damariscotta for a shared public works department. The agreement was scheduled to expire, but was given a two-week extension to July 15, when the Damariscotta board will meet to discuss its future.

But Newcastle board chairman Brian Foote said he wasn't ready to discuss divorce just yet. If the two sides can't come to an agreement, Foote said Newcastle would look to its neighbors, such as Edgecomb, to try and continue forward with a shared public works department.

“In a conversation I had with a (Damariscotta selectman), they talked about a possible extension and it might be three months, six months, a year or maybe nothing,” he said. “Overall, I think it's worked. I think that if Damariscotta doesn't want to continue with the agreement, we could pick a new town to be (the other half of the agreement).

“I think it's worked, we just picked a town that is dysfunctional.”

Foote said new members on the Damariscotta board have sought to end the agreement. At Damariscotta's town meeting, newly-elected selectman Joshua Pinkham, who was not serving on the board at the time, attempted to amend the budget to return the public works department to Damariscotta.

Pinkham said at the meeting that Damariscotta's taxpayers were paying for a service that wasn't being utilized in their own town. Pinkham also said that if the interlocal agreement were to end, it would allow the town to use contractors for projects and potentially support local businesses, as the town currently does with Hagar Enterprises, which has been contracted to plow for the town.

During the town meeting it was revealed that the interlocal agreement had not saved money, which was one of the original reasons the two towns signed into the agreement. During town meeting, Damariscotta Fire Chief John Roberts cited a $60,000 increase from 2011, when the agreement was first penned, to 2015.

In the end, voters agreed to save the interlocal agreement from the chopping block by a 36-21 margin, but most of the June 10 town meeting was centered around its future.

Foote said at Monday night's meeting that Newcastle's first option would be to continue with the agreement, but stated that he was apprehensive of continuing with Damariscotta if the current trend continued.

“We're not going to worry about what direction they're going in, but it looks like they're going south,” he said. “I think people in town know it works, and it may not save money, but the value there is huge.”

Foote said the interlocal agreement hasn't been just large improvement projects — the shared public works department is also available to take on small jobs that a contractor wouldn't agree to do, such as replacing road signs that periodically fall down, or kill weeds in the downtown area.

Fellow Newcastle selectman Ben Frey said what worried him was the time-line.

“It's now July 6; it's been half a month since voters approved the interlocal (agreement) and it's already come before the Damariscotta selectmen,” he said. “I think people in town know it works, but if (the Damariscotta board of selectmen) doesn't want an extension, we can't stop them.”

One of the terms of the agreement was that either town could back out of the agreement for any reason. The two towns met repeatedly during the winter to discuss the fate of the interlocal agreement before ultimately deciding to keep in place throughout the spring and into town meeting season.

At one point, Damariscotta selectman David Atwater resigned from the board, citing its direction shortly after the interlocal discussions began.

In the end, Foote and Frey called for Damariscotta residents to turn out for the July 15 meeting to discuss the future of the department.