KINGFIELD – Voters shrugged off the snowstorm to attend the annual town meeting Saturday, passing all but one of the 35 warrant articles as written.

That exception was to give the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce $300, not the $2,000 requested. The lower figure was recommended by the Budget Committee, and, according to town officials, was much closer to the cost of a chamber membership.

Voters approved a $25,000 grant from the Maine Land and Water Conservation Fund to pay for a playground to be built near the town office, and took ownership of Commercial Street from JLC Mining.

Town officials agreed that Commercial Street will need repairs to the entrance, but noted the importance of taking over a street on which the Fire Department is located.

“I don’t think we would make this recommendation if we didn’t have a firehouse there,” said Selectman Neal McCurdy, who was re-elected to another 3-year term at the meeting. “It behooves us to fix it,” he said.

Fire Chief Charles Twitchell told townspeople that he has gathered pledges totaling $6,500 so far from businesses on Commercial Street to put toward repairs. “And I’m not done yet,” he said.

Chairman Robert Barnes of the Kingfield Water District spoke about the progress made toward its goals of protecting Kingfield’s water supply, some of the goals gaining new urgency under agreements with the Poland Spring Water Co.’s bottling facility in town. Some of the projects being tackled include drilling a new well and replacing some century-old water mains.

“Some of these costs are tremendous,” said Barnes, but added that the district is getting state and federal money, and money from Poland Spring to cover much of those costs.

Total appropriations are approximately $670,000.

After the meeting, Selectman John Dill noted that attendance did appear to be down this year.

“Normally we expect about 60 or 70 people,” he said. “I think we counted 53 here today.”