Next spring’s Alna town meeting may have some Pinkham Pond questions, selectmen said Oct. 16. Both ideas involve parking and the state’s proposal could include a path to take canoes and kayaks to the water, Third Selectman Greg Shute said.

He said Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (IFAW) staff will get him wording for an easement the town would have to give the state on a roughly one-acre lot on the pond side of Rabbit Path Road. The state would make and maintain about four parking spaces and the path, Shute reported.

“That sounds great,” First Selectman Melissa Spinney said. Second Selectman Doug Baston called it good news. The town has multiple parcels there it either took for unpaid taxes or bought, selectmen said. Parking on the road, including near a dry hydrant, has been a problem, selectmen said.

The only thing the state might ask the town to fund is a survey, if the site needs one, Shute said. Selectmen didn’t know.

The board also mulled asking the town to fund a parking lot on about 10 acres the town owns on the other side of Rabbit Path Road. Spinney said a parking lot there could hold at least 30 vehicles and would take a town vote; so would the easement to the state for the pond-side parking. Selectmen expect to wait for the March 2020 town meeting for any of the votes.

“I don’t think there’s any great rush,” Baston said. Shute would like some of his fellow recreation committee members to look at the projects’ prospective sites.

The state’s project would take about two years, Shute said.

The food pantry at the town office is getting good use and is downstairs now, Spinney said. The town may seek a non-profit sponsor to tap Good Shepherd Food Bank. Resident Tom Albee has donated a freezer chest, Spinney said.

The board added Jay Verney and Chad Hilton as surveyors of lumber, bark and wood following the death of Verney’s father, longtime appointee Richard Verney. Ken Chaney will remain an appointee; he has been one about half a century, selectmen said. Except for a reference in the annual town report, the surveyors do no town business, Baston said. They used to count loggers’ lumber when the town taxed it, he said. 

Selectmen meet next at 6 p.m. Oct. 30 at the town office.