SUMNER – Selectmen wrote a new policy at Tuesday’s meeting to address payment of the stop-payment fee on a lost check. The town’s policy has always been that the person to whom the check was written should cover the stop-payment fee if a check is lost in the mail. This month, though, that practice was questioned.
A check sent last month to Maynard and Pamela Farrar, who subcontract winter road maintenance for the town, never arrived. Since the loss of the check was the fault of neither the town nor the Farrars, Town Clerk Cynthia Norton agreed to split the $20 stop-payment fee with the Farrars.
Selectman Clifford McNeil said he began to receive phone calls from citizens “voicing the opinion that the Farrars would suffer hardship” if made to pay half of the $20 fee. He and Selectmen Thomas Standard and Mark Silber personally reimbursed the Farrars $10 to cover their share of the fee.
In order to avoid this situation in the future, selectmen decided that if a check has been picked up in person and then lost, full responsibility for the stop-payment fee will fall to the recipient of the check. If the check has been mailed and lost, however, the town will split the fee with the recipient.
McNeil noted that the policy applies only to checks written to individuals. Selectmen will revise the policy as necessary.
In other actions, selectmen approved a revised draft of the Arrabine J. Dunn Relief Fund bylaws. The bylaws will go before voters at the August town meeting.
Standard gave the board a draft of an adult business ordinance. The draft is based on one used in Livermore Falls. Standard said that since the town of West Paris recently found itself unprepared to deal with a proposed adult business, he would like to have an ordinance in place before the issue arises in Sumner. Selectmen will review and revise the draft.
The town received a schedule for the state’s new radar trailer, which clocks and records drivers’ speeds on state highways. The town wants to use it on Route 219.
Sumner is scheduled to have use of the trailer in November. The schedule notes that this is “as requested” by the town.
Norton said the town didn’t request November and would like to have it sooner. She will contact the Department of Transportation to request the trailer in spring or summer.
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