BETHEL – After a 60-minute discussion Monday night, selectmen and the Budget Committee resolved a road-funding issue.

However, the agreed-upon $12,500 figure to improve Railroad Street and the Bailey Road fell far short of the $37,500 requested to do those projects as well as the Taylor Smith and Chase roads.

And while selectmen voted unanimously to take the $12,500 out of surplus, it only squeaked through the committee by a 7-5 vote.

The scope of each project was initially introduced by Town Manager Scott Cole. Then officials tackled each road individually.

Cole’s supplemental request for funding included appropriating $10,000 to do Railroad Street, $15,000 for the Taylor Smith Road, $5,000 for Chase Road and $2,500 for the Bailey Road.

Approval meant each fund would have been added to the capital improvements portion of the fiscal year 2004 municipal budget proposal that goes before town meeting voters in June.

Later this spring, the town, railroad and state are committed to jointly improve the Main Street rail crossing, northerly Railroad Street shoulder, and vegetated area on both sides of the tracks between Main and Mechanic streets, Cole said.

The town is kicking in $9,200 plus equipment and labor. The extra $10,000 is needed to create a paved shoulder, three inches thick and 10-to-12-feet wide for several hundred feet along Railroad Street.

Work on the Bailey Road was originally tied to Chase Road project approval. However, both groups opted not to spend $5,000 to improve a 2,800-foot middle portion of the Chase Road, shooting down that funding request.

Thus, Selectman Al Barth and some committee members believed that the Bailey Road project was gone as well, but selectmen voted 4-1 to appropriate $2,500 for design work in advance of an eventual upgrade.

The Budget Committee shot it down by a 6-5 vote with one abstention. A reconsideration vote, however, OK’d the project by a 9-3 tally.

Completion of the lengthy discussion and voting by 8 p.m. prompted Selectmen Chairman Harry Dresser Jr. to say, “We just did 15 minutes worth of work in an hour.”

Selectmen then began their regularly scheduled meeting.

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