Mon, 12/18/2023 - 8:45am

SUSAN JOHNS

File photo

Alna’s planning board is getting technical help with the mining and blasting ordinance it drafted. Selectmen Dec. 14 authorized spending up to $1,500 for consultant Carol White to review it and maybe take part in the eventual public hearing on it.

Third Selectman Coreysha Stone and First Selectman Ed Pentaleri said making sure the language is right is better and cheaper than finding an issue after voters approve the ordinance. Second Selectman Steve Graham also supported the spending request.

Town counsel reviewed the draft ordinance and recommended a consultant also review it, Planning Board Chair Cathy Johnson said. She said White is based in Yarmouth, is a hydrogeologist, has worked with many towns and was recommended by a retired consultant and by a Whitefield resident who helped develop that town’s mining ordinance, which Alna has used as a template.

“I think she’s just exactly what we need,” Johnson said of White.

Pentaleri thanked the planning board for its ordinance work this year. The board has also been working on a solar ordinance. Voters last March passed moratoriums barring the siting, installation, operation, permitting and approval of any commercial or community solar facility and any new mineral extraction facilities and operations, or the “expansion of existing, actual, and substantial mineral extraction facilities,” according to Wiscasset Newspaper files; July 27, selectmen put another 180 days on both moratoriums.

Also Dec. 14, selectmen thanked Paul Crandall, Anne Simpson and Carl Wilson for putting up the Christmas tree again this year at Head Tide Dam. The tree has solar-powered light-emitting diode (LED) lights; Pentaleri on Dec. 15 planned to add the star he said Crandall provided.

Dec. 17, Pentaleri said voters in a special town meeting Dec. 16 approved tapping the undesignated fund balance for up to $8,500 to cover the higher pay for the code enforcement officer selectmen hired in November, Bruce Engert.