By Jodi Hausen,Staff Writer

RANGELEY – Town Manager Perry Ellsworth said Thursday that selectmen are willing to negotiate with Franklin County commissioners to accept trash from residents of nearby unorganized townships. He will meet Friday with Commissioner Fred Hardy to discuss the issue.

Ben Bowditch, a seasonal resident of Kennebago Lake Camps in nearby Davis Township, attended a commissioners’ meeting Tuesday morning to ask them to negotiate trash disposal with either Rangeley or Eustis. During budget negotiations, commissioners allowed only $10,000 for solid waste services to Rangeley, instead of the $17,129 the town requested, to provide transfer station services to people in the townships of Davis, Stetson, Seven Ponds, Township D, Township E, Redington and part of Langtown.

The new budget goes into effect July 1, and selectmen had voted not to accept trash from the townships as of that date.

The naval training base in Redington alone produces eight cubic yards of trash weekly, Ellsworth said. Unorganized towns’ trash disposal costs exceed $17,000 annually, he added.

At their meeting Tuesday, selectmen agreed they may accept partial payment from the county while an agreement is hashed out, allowing residents from unorganized townships to continue using the Rangeley transfer station. Ellsworth said selectmen will be inviting commissioners to a meeting in mid-July.

“We’re not shutting them off July 1,” Ellsworth said. “We’re going to try to be good neighbors.”

The sale of the town’s two ambulances to Franklin Memorial Hospital was completed this week after selectmen approved the deal Tuesday. The hospital will pay $45,000 for the two trucks and associated equipment, Ellsworth said.

They are also working toward a rental agreement with the hospital for ambulance storage and crew living quarters in the public safety building. Ellsworth said the agreement will be similar to that which NorthStar, the hospital’s newly named combined ambulance service, has with the Carrabassett Valley service. He expects the hospital to agree to pay $1,000 monthly, with the town footing the utility bills.

Ellsworth said selectmen nominated him to serve on the hospital’s ambulance advisory committee.

He said he was also honored to have them nominate him as the state’s rookie town manager of the year, an annual award presented by the Maine Town and City Managers Association to a town manager who has served for less than five years in that capacity.

Selectmen said goodbye to Mark Beauregard and Don Nuttall, who attended their final meeting as selectmen. Newly elected Dennis Marquis and Rob Welch will take their seats at the board’s next meeting July 5.