The cleanup that Alna selectmen sought for a vacant Golden Ridge Road property is under way, Second Selectman Melissa Spinney said May 18. She saw saw someone with a truck there May 17.

Debris was no longer on the ground near a dumpster at 251 Golden Ridge Road and the yard was being cleaned, Spinney said. The dumpster was still there, she said. She did not know who the person was.

“So they are doing something. That’s good,” First Selectman David Abbott said.

Selectmen have said a bank foreclosed on the property several years ago and that the town’s attempts to pinpoint the latest property management firm had hit dead ends. In March, the board agreed to send the owner of record, American Home Mortgage Servicing in Coppell, Texas, a letter stating that town officials found garbage bags in the garage and found trash scattered around the home’s perimeter.

The letter called for a plan to remove trash around the home, out buildings and the rest of the grounds, remove the dumpster and secure any openings where vermin could enter the home. If the town had to do the work, the costs, including legal ones, would fall to the company, the letter stated.

The company recently informed Third Selectman Doug Baston it would work on the property, but Baston couldn’t make out much of what the person said, Abbott said.

“They’re in motion. So we can forget about that for a while,” Spinney said.

Baston was not at the board’s meeting at the town office.

Selectmen reported they had received this year's county tax bill of $101,537.78.

They agreed to pay Island Sign Works Co. of Wiscasset $180 for vinyl lettering. Jenny Jordan of Alna will put it on the vertical signs Chris Cooper, also of Alna, has built for roads whose name signs have been repeatedly stolen, selectmen said.

The board signed letters informing four delinquent taxpayers the town now owns the properties. The four have until July 12 to buy back the properties by paying the taxes; 30 days after that deadline, the town would issue a public notice and seek sealed bids, the letters state.

The board would rather not take properties for taxes but has a responsibility to other taxpayers to recover the money and get properties bringing in taxes again, Abbott said.

The board meets next at 6 p.m. June 1 at the town office.