Alna selectmen want to know if any changes to Head Tide Dam would fit the deed’s covenant that bars the dam’s destruction. Otherwise, there is no point in exploring ways to help fish get through, selectmen said Feb. 10.

“If there’s not enough wiggle room (on the covenant), then it’s game over, I think,” Third Selectman Doug Baston said.

The board plans to meet with town attorney David Soule.

“I think a half-hour with him would make me feel a lot more comfortable,” Baston said.

The meeting may be called as an executive, or closed-door session to consult with Soule, Baston said.

Legal questions on the covenant came up as selectmen were recapping Feb. 8 talks with their Head Tide Dam Committee and an official with the town’s partner on the committee, the Atlantic Salmon Federation.

Some committee members were being unreasonable in the options they wanted to keep open, First Selectman David Abbott said.

In an email to Baston Feb. 9, a day after the two panels met, committee member Cathy Johnson describes herself as very frustrated with the process.

“I have participated in dozens of stakeholder committees over the last 25 years and I have never seen an attempt to keep the committee members from exploring ideas in the way that I have seen in this process,” Johnson writes. “It is only by having the freedom to gather information, explore ideas and consider creative alternatives that a group can hope to come to a conclusion that most members support. 

“Like you, I do not want this to become a publicly divisive issue in town,” the email continues.  “I have lived here for 24 years, and god willing, hope to live here another 24 years. But I strongly believe that any attempt to tell the committee what it can and cannot talk about will only lead to greater divisiveness.”

The email suggests changes to the committee’s charter, among them to seek a proposal that family members of the dam’s former owners support, or that has broad support in town through a vote, survey “or some other reliable method ...”

Selectmen on Feb. 10 reiterated that they are going by the covenant, and that they have consistently said they would not give voters a proposal that goes against it.

They mentioned, but did not further discuss Johnson’s suggested charter changes.

The federation’s vice president of U.S. progams, Andrew Goode, is preparing for a town vote in Whitefield on a dam there. Abbott wondered if that project might put the Alna committee on the federation’s back burner.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled the plug ... temporarily, at least,” Abbott said.

That would be OK with committee member Ralph Hilton. “It would be good just to put this on the shelf for a while,” he told selectmen. Fish passage problems stem from the rest of the watershed, not the dam in Alna, he said.

Selectmen said they don’t know what will become of the committee, in part because, even though the board recently renewed the committee’s charter, the federation has yet to follow suit. The charter’s 2016 version stresses selectmen’s opposition to any proposal that would substantially change the dam.

Reached Friday, Goode said no decisions have been made on the federation’s next steps in Alna. He is still going over the ideas and comments from the Feb. 8 meeting and exploring options for moving forward, he said.

Resident Lynne Flaccus asked selectmen Feb. 10 if the deed’s covenant requires the town to maintain the century-old, concrete dam as it ages. That could be an expense 20 years from now, for the next generation of Alna residents, Flaccus said. She suggested asking Soule.

Baston called that a fair question; they could ask him, in addition to asking about the flexibility to improve fish passage, Baston said.

On another point, Planning Board member Peter Tischbein told selectmen that if a proposed alteration to the dam impacts tidal flow, the project would need approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

If the committee goes forward, selectmen plan to add resident Roger Whitney, the latest in a series of additions selectmen have made to the membership. Whitney’s wife Beth Whitney told selectmen at the Feb. 10 meeting that he had said he would be interested in serving on it.

Resident gets updates

In response to questions from Hilton, selectmen said they haven’t heard back yet from the Maine Department of Transportation on the board’s request for sample interlocal agreements; and they have yet to receive proposals they have sought from ambulance services.

The board has eyed a possible switch from Wiscasset Ambulance Service to Central Lincoln County Ambulance.

Selectmen want to look at interlocal deals that might work as a model for one with Whitefield. The board talked with Whitefield selectmen in 2015 about the possibility of Alna maintaining a stretch of Bailey Road, so that, if Whitefield considers making the road a dead-end, a series of steps involving Alna would kick in.

Alna selectmen want to prevent the road from becoming a dead-end. Their Whitefield counterparts don’t want to make it a dead-end but there was no telling what a future Whitefield board would say, Alna selectmen said.

Comments on codes officer

Selectmen decided to speak with Code Enforcement Officer Stan Waltz after hearing comments from the planning board. Tischbein said there have been planning board meetings Waltz was expected at, but that he did not attend; Baston said Waltz had also been a “no-show” at a selectmen’s meeting.

The planning board would like to see Waltz at least annually, Tischbein said.

Reached Feb. 11, Waltz, who is also Wiscasset’s code enforcement officer, did not recall any time he was asked to come to an Alna meeting but did not attend. When he is asked to come to a meeting, he does, he said.