A private school in Alna wants to put up two yurts for added classroom space. A driveway expansion the school is also planning also drew some discussion at the July 26 Alna Selectmen’s meeting.

No one took issue with the expansion itself. But Alna Fire Chief Mike Trask said the school wanted him to have a bigger role in planning it than he believes he should have.

On July 9, the Planning Board conditionally approved a new business permit for the Juniper Hill School for Place-Based Education, Planning Board Chairman Doug Baston said. A new permit was required due to an enrollment increase, Baston said.

The board instructed the school's representatives to obtain written statements from Trask and Alna Road Commissioner Jeff Verney regarding the driveway's expansion to create a loop that will increase efficiency and safety. Verney's note would address drainage, and Trask's would say whether or not the driveway would provide adequate access for fire trucks.

“We just wanted to make sure the new driveway is OK,” Baston said.

If Verney's and Trask's notes indicate that it would be, the school, located at 180 Golden Ridge Rd., does not have to return to the Planning Board.

Verney said he told the people he spoke with from the school that two 20-foot culverts should be “more than enough.” However, Trask, at the selectmen's meeting and in a subsequent interview, said the school's representatives wanted him to provide specifications for the driveway. “That is not up to me. That is between them and the Planning Board,” Trask said.

Access to the property via the existing driveway is a “tight” fit for a fire truck, Trask said. He wasn't questioning the new driveway's suitability, only the school's request that he write the specifications, he said. “I wouldn't get too nervous” about the new driveway, he told selectmen.

Telephone messages left July 27 for Willard Morgan and the school's director Anne Stires, both listed as the applicants for the business permit, were not immediately returned.

The school's application is a Planning Board matter and not something the selectmen should be discussing, Second Selectman Jonathan Villeneuve said following Trask's comments. “I don't even want to take this up. It doesn't sound like selectmen's business to me,” he said.

In addition to the two, 24-foot-diameter yurts, the school plans to add a composting toilet, according to papers submitted to the town.