NEW GLOUCESTER – A nationwide search to hire a new town manager for New Gloucester’s 5000 residents has drawn 73 applicants.

Selectman Steve Libby said Monday, “We have very qualified applicants and will review their resumes tomorrow night during an executive session.”

The board plans to appoint an interim town manager to fill the post vacated by Rosemary Kulow on Sept. 18.

Kulow resigned after five years on the job and was recently hired by Greater Portland Council of Governments to a staff position.

Application reviews are expected to begin immediately with background checks and reference reviews, board Chairwoman Lenora Conger said.

In other business, Steve Chandler of the New Gloucester Historical Society told the board that the society has received a very significant donation to build a history barn.

Last May at the annual town meeting, voters turned down, by one vote, approval of a lease to the society to locate the structure on a former school house lot in Lower Gloucester.

In July, the society told the board that raising the funds to construct the living history barn would not be swift.

But a substantial donation from society member Nancy Wilcox has changed the plan.

The building will allow the society to bring together its collection, which is now scattered throughout the town in private homes and barns.

“This radically changes the timetable for actions that could be taken,” Chandler said. The board at an earlier meeting said the society could discuss locating the barn on the Lower Village Town Complex to blend with a long-range planning process for the site.

Chandler said the first tentative location is an existing stable that citizens approved removing. The stable is 28 feet by 48 feet and the proposed barn is 30 by 40 feet.

“This particular location is prime as it would not require much change in the tentative plan that now exists, particularly as it relates to future traffic flow and parking,” he said.

Chandler said the society agrees to take down the stable with no expense to the town.

A second, less preferred, location is at the southwest corner of the property across a stone wall where site preparation would be required.

A site plan will be developed and further information will be sought by selectmen from the town attorney to see if there exists any limitations to authorizing the Historical Society to build a building on town property.

The project requires Planning Board approval also.

In other business, Carol Swanson’s proposal to have a dog park at either the New Gloucester Fairgrounds or the former dump – both on the Bald Hill Road – continues to stall. The issue has been ongoing for 10 months.

Recently Selectman Steve Libby and Code Enforcement Officer Deb Parks made a site inspection at the capped dump site. The location prevents parking, which could disturb the cap, Libby said.

More than 300 signatures in a petition to locate the dog park have been gathered.

Selectman Libby offered instead a 40-acre former sand pit on the Morse Road, remotely located up a hill and about one fourth of a mile off the public way, as an alternate site.

Swanson told the board that the 31-acre Bald Hill Road fairground site would be best and not in a remote area. “The fairgrounds seems underutilized. Why can’t we use a piece of land on the fairground that is not a bother to anyone?” Swanson said. She said the project would be privately funded and supported.

Swanson’s proposal to have the dog park at the fairgrounds was not supported by the New Gloucester Parks and Recreation.

Libby said he would defer the use of the fairgrounds to the Parks and Recreation Committee.

“I’ve been at this for 10 months and been jumping through the hoops,” Swanson said.