WELD – At a special town meeting Tuesday night, voters in Weld approved appropriating $35,000 for the Westbrook Bridge to get a much needed makeover.

Cited by the Maine Department of Transportation as being unsafe, although the two-lane bridge has little traffic, selectmen and townspeople have seen the need to fix it up for some time now.

At the annual town meeting, voters agreed to establish a committee to look into repairing the bridge. The committee returned to the town with a verdict that it would cost $35,000 to fix up the bridge. That money already has been raised by taxpayers and has been sitting in the road maintenance account. Tuesday’s unanimous vote will not cause any fluctuation in taxes, said selectmen Wayne Dubois earlier this week. The project will be put out to bid in the near future.

Voters also opted to give selectmen the power to set a user fee at the town’s transfer station to dispose of universal hazardous waste such as computer monitors, televisions, stereo, VCRs and DVD players. Those items are taken from the town and recycled by Sandy River Recycling, who charges the town between 21 and 23 cents per pound, depending on the market.

Weld selectmen will set the user fee for disposing of universal hazardous waste at the town’s transfer station at the same price as Sandy River Recycling charges.

sdepoy@sunjournal.com