PARIS – Brett Doney took a good deal of heat Monday from Paris selectmen when he spoke about the new draft strategic plan for Enterprise Maine, the parent corporation of the Growth Council of Oxford Hills.

Selectman Bruce Hanson was upset that Doney didn’t get personally involved in a request for help in developing a plan to bottle water from the town’s public water supply.

Selectman William Merrill wondered if the growth council wasn’t getting “too big for its britches.” And Barbara Payne quizzed Doney on loans made to businesses outside the Oxford Hills – the eight-town region that the growth council was created to serve.

Town officials had asked Doney, the chief executive officer of Enterprise Maine, to give an overview and update on the organization. He went over a list of strategic priorities, in draft form, and acknowledged that given the growth council’s limited staffing and money, not everyone who needs help will get it.

Hanson wondered why the town’s request for help with its bottled water proposal wasn’t handled by Doney, instead of being given to the growth council’s vice president, Barb Olson.

“I would hate to think that somebody coming through would go to you and get the same response we did,” Hanson said.

Doney said Olson is in charge of the efforts of the growth council, which oversees business and community development. “We take a team approach,” said Doney, who said the agency in recent years has been working more from a network, “to get more bang for the buck.”

Doney said the growth council has created the Oxford Hills Business Development Network in an effort to provide businesses the help they need, whether it be loans, job training or promotion.

Hanson said he expected that a request from the town of Paris about a private-public bottling plant proposal would warrant Doney’s direct involvement.

“This plant has a potential, a potential that’s been overlooked in this area for a long time,” said Hanson. “We’re going to do it without your help.”

Merrill asked whether as many development requests would be “falling through the cracks” if Enterprise Maine had not gotten involved with business development in the Lake Region area.

“Could it be that you’re getting too big for your britches?” asked Merrill.

Doney replied that all of the growth council’s business and community development services are focused on the Oxford Hills. The agency’s financing arm, Western Maine Finance, doesn’t have set boundaries, he said, but does 90 percent of its lending in the Oxford Hills.

Under questioning by Payne, Doney acknowledged that Western Maine Finance has made loans in the non-Oxford Hills towns of Bridgton, Casco, Hiram, Bethel and Buckfield.