Damariscotta had been planning a badly needed sidewalk improvement project on Elm Street and Theatre Street for several years. The town hoped to get a Community Development Block Grant in 2015, but was narrowly edged out by other towns, Damariscotta officials have said. They were encouraged to reapply.

This year, the town lost the grant because several other towns were under a mandate to get work done, and Damariscotta was under no such mandate, according to town officials. They were told that the likelihood of getting a grant was very low in the future, because there were a lot of towns with mandates in the queue.

But Damariscotta had already set aside $90,000 for its own match for the project, and the Great Salt Bay Sanitary District had also set aside funds. Tidewater Telephone agreed to push up their plan to change out poles, so there would be no cost to move their utility poles. So they decided to see what could be done with the funds available. They fully expected to do only a fraction of the work they had planned.

On Friday, May 20, Damariscotta Town Manager Matt Lutkus met with engineers and Scott Abbontoni of Great Salt Bay Sanitary District to determine what portion of Elm Street could be redone.

The happy answer turned out to be, nearly all of Elm Street will be able to be completed.

Abbontoni had secured funding for the whole water project through a low-interest loan, and the engineering company, Wright-Pierce, said that given that information, there was no reason why most of the sidewalks on Elm Street could not be completed with the funds available.

Issues still remain, including whether or not it will be necessary to obtain easements, and remove certain trees.

“It’s a very tight budget,” Lutkus said. “But it is good to know we can do most of this work this year.”

The Theater Street portion of the project will not be done this year. Work is expected to begin in the autumn, and last for about six to eight weeks, according to Lutkus.