JAY – Selectmen voted Monday to designate the Church Street Playground as a drug-free safe zone. Anyone caught dealing drugs within 1,000 feet of the area is subject to harsher penalties.

A state law approved in 2005 allows municipalities to designate athletic fields, parks, playgrounds or recreational facilities as a safe zone to protect children from drug dealers.

Police Chief Larry White Sr. said this summer people in the area requested more police patrols.

Police increased patrols and added a foot patrol during the evenings in an attempt to curtail drug dealing. Some people aged 18 to 25 were going as early as 4 p.m. to the park to drink beer and smoke marijuana, White said.

The drug-free zone isn’t for a person with one joint, White said. It’s for the person who has four or five small baggies of drugs ready to sell.

“I think it’s a good thing to do,” White said, adding that it would not hurt anybody except those dealing drugs.

The prohibited zone covers most of Chisholm and extends some distance into Livermore Falls, Selectman Warren Bryant said.

“I personally don’t think there is any bad side about it,” Bryant said.

White said that Rumford has implemented drug-free zones and it has worked well.

White plans to get an informational sign notifying people of the drug-free safe zone and the increased penalties for drug crimes committed within the zone.

In other business, selectmen voted to have George Merrill & Son Logging LLC of Jay harvest the town’s 184-acre gravel pit lot on East Jay Road. Merrill’s bid for the timber stumpage was estimated at $148,012.50 gross income that the town will receive.

The town’s contract forester, Steve Gettle, will get 10 percent of stumpage fees to supervise the harvest.

Gettle told selectmen five bids were received. Two were from the same person – one from his company and the other from him.

Gettle said the bid figures were quite a bit higher than he estimated.

He estimated earlier this month that there would be 2,600 to 2,900 cords of wood harvested and the town would make $103,000 to $105,000 in gross income for that lot.

Other bidders estimated gross income the town would receive from stumpage were: $91,608.75, Michael Burhoe; $136,997.50, L&A Ridley Logging Inc.; $128,210, Korhonen Enterprises; and $124,105, John Korhonen. All contractors are from Jay.

Gettle recommended the contract go to Merrill.

He said the two highest bidders, Merrill and Ridley, use similar processing equipment and get more value out of the timber.

Harvesting will start as soon as possible.

“I would like to thank all the bidders who put in time and effort to fill out bid,” select board Chairman Steve McCourt said. “I hope they put in bids on the tower lot when it comes up.”

The so-called tower lot is nearly 200 acres of recreation land located behind the high school.

Selectmen also approved the Recreation Committee’s request to use nearly three-quarters of an acre on that land for a Trees For Kids Project.

The idea is to have second-, third- and fourth-grade students plant about 300 trees next spring. The students would take care of those trees through school years and harvest them their senior year.

After the first year of the planting, only second-graders will plant to keep the project going.