Alna selectmen said Jan. 3, they might be ready to vote Jan. 11 on the guidelines they have been drafting for months for the road committee. They want the committee to have a document in time for its Jan. 15 meeting. The committee has multiple new members after others left it late last year.

In the selectboard’s working meeting where it plans agendas for the board’s regular meetings, selectmen said the road committee is advisory, apolitical, and its input can help with budget and long-range planning. Some of the same issues came up as in earlier talks, including how the committee, road commissioner and selectboard would interact based on the guidelines. 

Second Selectman Steve Graham said he is prepared to approve the guidelines, but he added he wants to avoid possible “triangulation ... I would be probably one of the first to step up if I thought they were encroaching on the road commissioner’s duties and responsibilities ... I look at the committee as being advisory to us, (and) not checking to see how many potholes have been filled.” He said a road commissioner in another town said he would not run for the office if he had to report to a committee.

Alna’s committee is “explicitly advisory,” First Selectman Ed Pentaleri responded. “Nobody reports to them at all ... We propose that they provide input to and recommendations to the selectboard and the road commissioner, but the road commissioner does not report to (them). The road commissioner reports to the selectboard.”

The committee has collected data on roads and can continue to, Third Selectman Coreysha Stone said.

Recalling a Whitefield road committee meeting she attended, Stone said the commissioner listened and gave input. But Whitefield hires its road commissioner, she noted. “It’s a different scenario” than in Alna, which elects the road commissioner, she said.

“We don’t know if the model we have for this town will exist forever,” Stone said. “There’s no reason we should stall ourselves out from progressively thinking about an advisory board or committee, because I’ve heard from plenty of townfolk that say, ‘Hey, why don’t we consider shifting the way that we do things’ ... multigenerational residents who have said, ‘Think it might be time to switch up our model and to think about having someone you appoint rather than someone that’s elected.’ So ... I think it would be foolish for us to settle in and to believe that things will always look this way. Because the model might change. So ... either way, (having) an advisory board still has a benefit.”

Selectmen discussed possibly asking annual town meeting voters in March if they would want to make the road commissioner an appointed position. If a change was approved, it would take effect for the 2025 elections, Pentaleri said. Road commissioner is elected annually.

Alna has moved a post from elected to appointed before. According to Wiscasset Newspaper files, town meeting voters in 2016 changed the treasurer’s job from elected to appointed; and since 2017 it has been. Proposing that change, selectmen in 2016 said it would ensure the treasurer has an accounting background.

How does Alna’s longtime road commissioner Jeff Verney feel about the idea of the change being proposed for that office? The change would be a bad idea, Verney said in a phone interview Jan. 4. He said an elected road commissioner keeps the taxpayers’ money local and can jump right on a road situation because he is in town. A hired one might not, and might not be willing to take a call at any hour, he said. Residents know they can call him anytime, Verney said. 

Also Jan. 3, Pentaleri told fellow selectmen, to seek grants through Maine’s Community Resilience Partnership, Alna would need to adopt a resolution stating the climate action committee will work to reduce energy use and costs, transition to clean energy and make the town more resilient to climate change. The board can take up the matter in February, since the committee’s 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 13 community workshop at the fire station will help inform the resolution, he explained.

And Pentaleri said, to avoid the town’s solar and mining moratoriums running out before those ordinances go to a town vote, the board can vote to extend both moratoriums a second time. 

The board meets next at 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 11 at the town office and over Zoom.