NEWRY – Roads, bridges, amendments to ordinances and energy efficient lighting at the town office are all warrant items expected to induce public hearings and a special town meeting next month.

But specifics have yet to be determined, according to Selectman Steve Wight and town Administrator Loretta Powers.

Selectmen will have a better idea by the board’s next meeting Monday, April 28, both said by phone Tuesday.

“We have three bridges that are well below par out on the Branch Road and that’s part of our deliberations about what to do on the roads dilemma,” Wight said.

At town meeting March 3, voters gave selectmen authority to take $500,000 from surplus and put it into a new capital improvement account for upgrading highways, bridges, equipment and buildings. They also approved moving another $259,018 in designated capital improvement fund balances into the new account.

Additionally, voters OK’d raising $75,000 for erosion control activities along the Bear River Watershed to save Lone Pine Road.

But not on the warrant was authorization to spend several thousand dollars on erosion control for the Sunday River Watershed to prevent the river from taking out Sunday River Road at its intersection with the Hurricane Island Outward Bound Road. That money would then be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“At town meeting, we only put $10,000 in for erosion control (for Sunday River Watershed), but it was going to be more than that. We knew it was,” Powers said. They just didn’t know the amount.

Regarding the bridges, a state bridge inspector has already said they’ve got to be fixed.

“We got the OK to spend capital improvement money to improve the three bridges. What we’ve got to figure out, is, do we do one, two or what bridges,” Powers said.

A bridge inspector coming next week will provide that information.

Selectmen will also figure out a road maintenance plan for this summer by meeting April 28 with the contractor whom they usually hire for such jobs.

Regarding ordinance changes, much of it is housekeeping.

For instance, one change involves the Planning Board and a proposed lighted ski slopes project at Sunday River Ski Resort. That is currently before planners and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. A public hearing on it will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 7, in the Newry town office.

Wight said abutters are not getting advance notice of public hearings regarding ski hill projects. Newry planners send notices of hearings to condominium associations, which don’t always pass the information on to condo owners.

To correct this, Wight said they’ve got to send letters to a few hundred or thousand people at a cost of $3,500.

“The state doesn’t require it, but our ordinance requires them to go by certified mail,” Wight said of the cost.

But the biggest ordinance change – pertaining to life safety issues by requiring fire ponds and sprinkler systems in subdivisions and site plans – will probably get its own separate article due to several past unsuccessful attempts to get it approved. Wight said they don’t want to jeopardize the housekeeping changes.

“We’ve played with it before and not been able to explain the way we feel about it in a way that’s comfortable for voters. There’s nothing really inflammatory with the changes, but I think there will be a lot of discussion about fire ponds and sprinklers,” he said.

The special town meeting will likely happen by month’s end in May or early June.