CARRABASSETT VALLEY — Carrabassett Valley voters overwhelmingly approved a $1.7 million irrigation project for the Sugarloaf Golf Course at their town meeting Wednesday.

Resident and contractor Pat Mitchell requested the vote be taken by secret ballot. It was 63-5.

Selectman and chairman of the golf course Greens Committee, John Beaupre, pointed out this is not a new request. It’s been a consideration since 2003 when a consultant from the U.S. Golf Association said replacing the irrigation system was absolute and “on the verge of going down.”

Boyne Resorts and Sugarloaf agreed to take on half of the 20-year loan to finance the system. Once the Greens Committee found that out, Beaupre said he approached the Board of Selectmen and they moved the project before town meeting.

Ross Forbes of Forbes Golf Design LLC, of Derry, N.H., a consultant hired by the town to help them navigate installing the system, explained that because of the rock at the golf course, the PVC pipe on the main lines was in poor condition.

In more than two hours, about 100 people approved 57 articles, and an $810,431 budget. The school board had decided to apply $450,000 in surplus toward the town budget, lowering the town’s share for education to $344,847. It put Carrabassett Valley in very different financial situation, Town Manager David Cota explained. Cota anticipates the mill rate will fall from $6.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value to $6.35 per $1,000.

Rather than having the property tax rate take a huge swing down and then go up again next year, voters endorsed the selectmen’s and the Budget Committee’s recommendation to take $250,000 and replenish the recreational endowment fund that once stood at more than $1 million. Another $50,000 went toward the town’s share of the $300,000 repairs to the “S” turns on the Narrow Gauge Trail destroyed by Tropical Storm Irene. The other $50,000 went toward lowering the school budget.

Selectmen Beaupre and Thomas Butler were elected to three-year terms with 422 and 145 votes, respectively. They defeated Christopher Parks with 119 votes and incumbent Stephen Pierce with 42.

School board director Danielle London was re-elected to a three-year term with 137 votes, defeating challenger Catherine Wilson, who got 62.

Incumbents Stephen Pierce and Richard Smith were unchallenged in their bid three-year terms as sanitary district trustees.