BUCKFIELD — Selectmen and Town Manager Glen Holmes were taken to task on several issues Tuesday night.

Longtime highway worker and Road Committee member Dick Piper showed the board pictures of town culverts in disrepair. He explained that without compacting the gravel around them, culverts are not holding up.

He showed technical charts on how the culverts were to be bedded and then small gravel added and compacted all around to assure the culverts keep their shape.

“I know the town doesn’t have a compactor and tamper and this cannot be done well with just makeshift tools, and a compactor costs a lot of money which the town doesn’t have,” Piper said.

 Piper said the road crew needs to take the time and do things right so they don’t have to be redone at the town’s expense.

Tony Bachelder said he would like to see the road commissioner be an elected position. Presently Holmes acts as road commissioner. Phil Savage is the road superintendent.

Questions were raised about why some members of the road crew got a 12 percent raise.

 Selectman Robin Buswell said Savage had been doing the job as superintendent for a couple of years without a pay increase and the board raised his salary to what he should be making.

Resident Debbie Smith asked why the superintendent was given a raise, when the jobs were not being done correctly.

 Selectman Eileen Hotham reminded the crowd that those issues were addressed in closed sessions, not in public.

Smith requested that selectmen ask Holmes to find training courses for all road crew members.

Bachelder asked for another vote on the rescue budget, a request echoed by Smith.

“We want that revote,” she said, asking for a show of hands from the large group in attendance. “See all the people who want a revote. Can you redo that vote?”

Holmes said he would meet with the Budget Committee and Rescue Chief Lisa Buck to rework the budget.

He said Town Clerk Cindy Dunn set Aug. 19 as the date for taking out nomination papers for selectman. The papers must be returned by Sept. 28 for names to be on the November ballot.

The board accepted the low bid from Pine Tree Paving to do Gammon and Gesner roads.

 Holmes announced a joint meeting with town representatives from Buckfield, Sumner, Hartford, Jay and Paris at 7 p.m. Aug. 25 to discuss ways the towns could address the shortage of volunteer firefighters.

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