MINOT – Road Manager Arlan Saunders told selectmen Monday night that he received quite a surprise when he opened the bill from Rent It for the use of a bucket truck to put up the lights on the tree on the town office front lawn.

“The bill was marked ‘Merry Christmas’ and also said ‘no charge.’

I think we ought to give special thanks to Rent It,” Saunders said.

Selectmen agreed that a thank-you letter to Jim Pittman, owner of Rent It, was certainly in order.

“Jim is Minot-born and raised and he does help out the town whenever he can,” Selectman Eda Tripp said.

Tripp noted that this is the first year a bucket truck has been used for the lights.

The tree, a balsam fir, which, according to Tripp, came from Ferland’s in Hebron, for a number of years stayed small enough so that a tall person could string the lights with a moderate amount of help.

In recent years, however, the fir really started to sprout and, uncomfortable with leaving the lights on the tree year-round, and not wanting to risk violating federal safety regulations on stringing them by other means, selectmen figured the only way to continue the tradition of lighting the tree during the darkest weeks of the year was to go the bucket-truck route.

And that, Saunders said, normally would have cost $150.

Selectmen took note that this spirit of generosity could be seen in townspeople’s response to the victims of two recent house fires.

Tripp reported that the Grange and the West Minot Church had collected so many goods for the Destefano family on West Minot Road and the Moulton family on Woodman Hill Road that a considerable excess was turned over to the Salvation Army.

Selectman Ralph Gilpatrick added that the freshman class at Poland Regional High School had held a special fundraiser, and Sue Callahan said that staff and students at the Minot Consolidated School were, among other things, holding a raffle to benefit the two families.

In other business, selectmen approved revisions to the town’s personnel policy, agreed to begin developing a plan to finish off the town office basement and appointed Hester Gilpatric to serve as registrar of voters and Wendy Gilpatric to serve as deputy registrar of voters, both through December 2008.