PARIS – Selectmen voted unanimously at Monday’s meeting to participate in the state’s Pine Tree Zone project. Two other area towns, Oxford and Waterford, voted to be included in the Androscoggin Valley Region zone at their town meetings in March. Recent changes in the program’s rules allow selectmen to make that decision.

Pine Tree Zones provide a tax advantage to new and expanding businesses to spur new business development and create high-paying jobs in economically distressed areas of the state.

Barb Olsen of the Growth Council noted that “the program doesn’t really ask the town to give anything.” The state will provide tax incentives with no penalty to the town. Area businesses involved in manufacturing, financial services, or one of the state’s seven targeted technology sectors may qualify to participate in the program.

Ron McKinnon, of the Department of Economic Community Development, said that the program is modeled after similar programs in other states, including New York, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

The program tries to “essentially package existing benefits and tax incentives that we have and simply enhance those tax incentives,” he said. “Frankly, compared to what’s available in other states, it stacks up very well.”

Twenty-three Paris businesses have expressed an interest in being included in the Pine Tree Zone. Six have committed to the program.

In other business, Oxford County Recycling and Solid Waste board member Reggie Morey reported that after five years of service on the board he will be leaving when his current term is completed.

Morey advised selectmen to push for mandatory recycling in the other towns served by OCRSW. Currently, only Paris, Norway and Lincoln Plantation mandate recycling. Norway and Paris create an average of 0.112 tons of recycled material per citizen. “All other towns,” Morey said, “are at 0.057. Half of what Norway and Paris does.”

If other towns in the Oxford Hills were to raise their tons per citizen to the same rate as Norway and Paris, by implementing mandatory recycling, Morey estimates that the cost of OCRSW to each town would go down by two thirds. For the town of Paris, the current annual cost of $14,000 would drop to $4,000.

“And then if everyone just increased one tenth of one percent,” he went on, “this corporation would break even.”