With change, baby steps are easiest, Third Selectman Coreysha Stone said. Alna Road Commissioner Jeff Verney’s willingness to work with the roads committee is “a huge indicator that we should continue with this new way ... We’re human, it won’t be perfect. We’ll have to make changes, and that will be based (on) feedback on what goes well and what’s a disaster, and everybody will tell us, because you’re all really good at that,” Stone told a room full of residents at the town office and over Zoom June 29.

The board was taking up the relationship between the year-old committee, the road commissioner and selectmen. Second Selectman Steve Graham said “tension” that has developed between Verney and First Selectman Ed Pentaleri was “the elephant in the room,” and the committee should draft a document guiding the board-committee-road commissioner relationship. “The sooner, the better.”

Stone said it can go on the committee’s task list.

Resident Jeff Spinney asked if the committee is, as it looked to him, becoming more than advisory. It is not, selectmen said.

Citing Maine Municipal Association’s officers’ manual earlier in the discussion, Pentaleri said due to selectmen’s management of funds and contracts, personnel and public property and safety, the board’s responsibilities overlap with and extend beyond the road commissioner’s. According to MMA, a town can clarify the relationship via an ordinance, Pentaleri said. 

He said the point of the committee is to help identify and prioritize roads’ maintenance needs. This adds to the selectboard’s, road commissioner’s and community’s confidence in recommended spending, and avoids any one party’s getting the blame “if something goes sideways,” he said.

Stone said the whole committee collected data on the roads; something data-driven is hard to argue with, she said. She sees the road commissioner as the expert, the selectboard dealing with the money, and the committee only helping with assessing and recommending. “I don’t see (the committee) steering anybody.”

Also June 29, selectmen said a plan will be prepared to restore to its prior condition a walk-in ramp to the water at Pinkham Pond. Graham said he and the code enforcement officer have talked with Maine Department of Environmental Protection about the “large aggregate” of rocks added this spring. Restoring it will satisfy DEP and avoid seeking permits for improvements, Graham said. The restoration plan will have to go to DEP, he said.

Verney and Pentaleri disagreed June 29 on what the directions were in the spring. Stone said the committee will look at how to avoid such issues.  

And Spinney said the town lacks a document he said the town’s shoreline zoning ordinance refers to in determining compliance for erosion control. In a phone interview Monday, Graham said information needed for the restoration plan will be gathered, and he will look for the document Spinney told the board about. 

Anyone with items for an anticipated fall art show may contact Jon Luoma, Gerry Flanagan, or Jeff Philbrick, Luoma said.