PARIS – Selectmen voted Monday to sponsor a $100,000 community development block grant to be used in the Enterprise Maine Micro Loan program.

At a public hearing that night, Lori Allen of Western Maine Finance, along with Barbara Olson and Teri Stevens of the Oxford Hills Growth Council, explained the grant and loan program and asked selectmen to allow Western Maine Finance to apply for the grant on behalf of the town.

Allen said the grant must go to a municipality. Western Maine Finance cannot apply for the grant on its own behalf. The money would be loaned in amounts of about $15,000 to existing or new businesses, and must either create or retain jobs that benefit low or no income people.

Selectmen had reservations about the wording of the grant. As proposed by Western Maine Finance, the loans would go to “small businesses in the western Maine region.” Selectman William Merrill noted that “something that started out as eight little towns, the Oxford Hills, has turned into the whole western half of the state.”

Selectman Nancy Record agreed.

“If I were doing this, I would like to see it stay in the eight towns,” she said.

Stevens assured selectmen that “you get to work out whatever arrangement most suits you.”

Selectmen voted unanimously to apply for grant.

In other business, selectmen approved an application from Al Bancroft to represent the town on the growth council’s board. Town Manager Steve McAllister reported that Paris will apply for financial relief from the federal government to help with recovery from washouts that occurred after recent rains. McAllister pointed to ice jams on Oxford Street as an example and said that fast response from town workers kept the situation from worsening.

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