Board: Minot Selectmen

Met: Monday

Town budget

Issue: Selectmen are responsible for gathering reviewing and making recommendations on all requests for funding, except for school budget items, that townspeople will vote on at March town meeting.

The scoop: After considering funding requests for 2008 totaling nearly $1.5 million, selectmen prepared recommendations closer to $1.35 million that they will take to the budget committee for review. The selectmen’s recommendations are about $48,000 higher than the $1.3 million budget approved for 2007. Significant new requests that the budget committee will review includes up to $50,000 to purchase land for a town cemetery and $15,000 to allow Minot residents full privileges at the Auburn Public Library.

Up next: Selectmen will meet with the budget committee at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 3, at the town office to review funding requests.

Recreation grant

The scoop: Town Administrator Rhonda Irish announced that the town has received a $29, 300 grant from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to help finish the Babe Ruth baseball field and expand the parking area in Minot Community Park. The award is contingent on town meeting voters approving an equal match.

College scholarships

Issue: Each January, selectmen award scholarships from the Leonard Simion and Elsa Simion Fortin scholarship and Arthur Harris scholarship funds.

The scoop: Selectmen announced that college students from Minot have until Jan. 11 to file applications for scholarships from the two funds they manage. A student must have completed at least one year of college to qualify for a Leonard Simion and Elsa Simion Fortin scholarship; and the Arthur Harris scholarship is available for any student attending a two- or four-year accredited college or technical school, including anyone who has just completed their first semester. For full details and an application, interested students should contact the town office at 345-3305.

Resource protection

Issue: Letters have gone out to 60 or 70 property owners informing them that their properties may be affected by amendments to rules governing the protection of wetland and water bodies.

The scoop: Selectmen fielded many inquiries on the letters and confess that they are quite in the dark about what the changes involve and what they might mean for landowners.

Up next: The planning board will hold a special meeting Dec. 26 to set up a public hearing in January to go over changes that the DEP’s Bureau of Land and Water Quality proposes.

– Winslow Durgin