When the Twin Villages Alliance and the town of Damariscotta meet next year, the expectation will be ideas for new revenue streams.

At least, that was the request during the Wednesday, Dec. 2 board of selectmen’s meeting.

The Twin Villages Alliance and board of selectmen will have a joint meeting in January to again discuss how to raise revenue to pay for the upcoming parking lot project. When the two sides met earlier in the fall, the Twin Villages Alliance spoke out against the potential of having pay-for-parking in Damariscotta.

Selectman James Cosgrove said the meeting will have to offer solutions.

“I think the meeting needs to start with the premise that a great many people in town are frustrated with the level of taxation,” he said. “They are frustrated with (the inability to lower costs) or push back when we try to cut costs. Now we're trying to raise revenue and the Twin Villages Alliance is pushing back on that.

“This is their meeting, their agenda; they offered to come in and show us ways to raise revenue, so I would like to hear their ideas.”

The two sides met in October to again broach the subject of paying for the repairs needed in the municipal parking lot. TVA Chair Mary Kate Reny said that adding pay-for-parking would hurt the business community.

At the end of the October meeting, the two sides agreed to reconvene to discuss other possibilities for revenue.

Selectman Joshua Pinkham said during Wednesday's meeting that the selectmen were happy to hear Twin Village's ideas, but that they needed to have some.

“We asked for ideas, and they said they have them,” he said. “I want to hear what they have to say.”

Parking and revenue was an unintentional theme of the meeting, as the selectmen also authorized Police Chief Ron Young to pursue an agreement with Advanced Collection Services to track down delinquent parking tickets.

“Since I've been here we've sent out mailings after mailings after mailings,” Young said. “Since (administrator) Joanna (Kennefick) has been downstairs we've been able to send out at least two mailings to each person.”

Young said that while delinquent fines still come into the department, there's at least $5,000 to $6,000 since 2012 in parking tickets that haven't been recouped. By going with a collections agency the lion's share of that money could potentially be coming back into Damariscotta.

“Advanced Collections will take 35 percent right off the top, but to me it's the thing to do,” Young said. “We've done pretty well to get things back, but I think we've exhausted what we can do. For the locals, it's easy. Once (delinquent ticket holders) are out of state it gets a lot harder. That's when you can get a call from a collections agency that says 'If you don’t pay, it will affect your credit.' Then 25 dollars looks pretty cheap.”

The town will try Advanced Collections for a year. Town Manager Matt Lutkus said the town would still send out two warning letters with the second one warning that a collections agency could become involved.