MINOT — Selectmen Monday approved a plan to tear down the dugouts at the softball field nearest the fire station and replace them, starting from scratch, rather than trying to repair them.

Lisa Cesare, newly elected chairman of the town Conservation Commission, told the board that the latest estimate shows that the cost for materials, including concrete for the dugout on the first base side, to be about $4,000.

Cesare noted that the Minot-Hebron Athletic Association had about $1,500 earmarked for the project, which would be combined with the $2,500 raised at Minot town meeting last March.

“Tom Kelly has recruited volunteers to build them if we can just buy the materials,” Cesare said.

The only hitch, as far as selectmen were concerned, was that voters at the town meeting approved $2,500 for the Highway Department to repair the existing structures.

After a brief discussion, selectmen decided that according to the original plan a fair amount of the money would have gone for materials — and what the revised plan did was to substitute some volunteer labor for what highway personnel would have done and produced some brand new dugouts.

Cesare said the work will be done this fall.

She also noted that the revived Conservation Commission, an amalgam of the old conservation commission and the town recreation committee, will be meeting at least quarterly now that it is responsible for overseeing the town’s greatly expanded recreational complex.

In a related matter, Town Administrator Arlan Saunders reported that he had made arrangements for about a dozen Poland Regional High School students to rake leaves from some of the 2.7 miles of the town’s new walking trail system.

Saunders said the students would be supervised, but that the town would probably have to buy a few extra rakes.

The students will be fulfilling part of their community service requirements in undertaking this project.

Selectmen also authorized signing pre-payment checks for the town’s newly acquired Yukon rescue squad truck and the 2012 Peterbilt dump truck, at $24,342 and $31,594, respectively. The two vehicles were approved at March town meeting.

Saunders also reported that the town had received an insurance check from the Maine Municipal Association on the phone system claim. The amount of the check was $6,273. The total bill, which included a new battery backup was $6,990. The phone system serving the municipal complex, the town office, fire station and town garage, was fried by a lightning strike last summer.

Saunders also noted that the winter sand has been piled and, as of early Monday, covered with a tarp — ready and waiting for winter.