Alna selectmen said June 26, they won’t sign the next Wiscasset Transfer Station contract until they feel it's fairer, or until they need to sign it to still have a place to take trash.

Second Selectman Doug Baston said Wiscasset Town Manager John O'Connell told him Alna could pay to use the station “month to month” while O'Connell tries to work out an agreement Alna, Wiscasset and the station’s other user, Westport Island, could all support.

That was news to the station’s superintendent Ron Lear. He told the Alna board O'Connell hadn’t told him about a monthly plan for Alna. And he said he understood from talking with Baston recently, a look at the board’s concerns would start in the fall, with an eye toward the 2020-21 contract, not the 2019-20 one.

What were residents going to do July 1, when they didn’t have a place to take their trash, Lear asked the board.

“I don’t think we want to start down that path,” Baston responded.

“You already are,” Lear said.

Later in the discussion,  Baston called the path a rat hole.

The towns’ shares stem from their populations from the last census, officials have said. Alna’s board has questioned the use of 718 for Westport Island. Baston has cited Westport Island’s website that said the town has about 1,200 people in the summer. Alna has about 17 summer residents, selectmen said June 26. They also want to look at how to figure in towns’ businesses. Those make more trash than homes do, selectmen said. And they said due to these issues they question the station’s practice of barring trash from taxpayers who don’t live in one of the three towns.

Whether the towns use a system with stickers Alna would contribute or some other deal is reached, something has to change, Baston said. “It’s always going to be rough justice. But it’s got to be better than it is now.”

“Maybe,” Lear responded. “That’s to be determined.”

Baston planned to contact O’Connell again to confirm the month-to-month plan. The Wiscasset Newspaper is seeking comment from O’Connell.

Selectmen also told Lear they hadn’t received the 2019-20 contract from Wiscasset. He told them he will email them it. It’s up $505 this year, he said.

Lear told the Wiscasset Newspaper after the meeting, he was OK with Alna’s month to month use for now, if O'Connell OK’d it.

Unless they have to – for lack of time to get a commercial hauler like Riverside that serves Woolwich, or make some other plan – they don’t want to sign the contract before some change is negotiated,  he and First Selectman Melissa Spinney said. Spinney said, using figures she later described as “super gross,” if another 500 people were figured into Westport Island’s share, Westport Island would pay $17,000 more a year, Alna’s share would fall $4,000 and Wiscasset’s would fall $14,000. As for the Riverside idea, selectmen said depending on a number of factors, Alna might save as much as half the approximately $80,000 it spends a year on waste.

Resident Chris Cooper suggested selectmen have a clambake and invite Westport Island. Asked later, Baston said since it’s Wiscasset’s station, “Wiscasset holds all the cards.”

Alna has won a $16,100 grant from Davis Family Foundation for work on the 1789 Alna Meetinghouse, selectmen announced; resident Linda Abbott has weeded the town office garden that will have vegetables for the town’s new food pantry, Spinney said; and painting and cleanup continue at the vandalized former town office; selectmen expected to list it within a week, for sale by owner.

At resident Ralph Hilton’s suggestion, selectmen began the meeting with a moment of silence in memory of Korean War era veteran and fellow resident Richard Verney. Verney died June 22 at 89.

Selectmen meet next at 6 p.m. July 10 at the town office.