ROXBURY — Selectmen will meet Thursday morning with a former snowplowing contractor for the town to try to get a lower price, Selectman Tim Derouche said Wednesday morning.

That meeting will be held at 10 a.m.

The board has also asked Oxford County Sheriff Wayne Gallant to come to a future board meeting to discuss better law enforcement coverage.

Both issues came up at Tuesday night’s selectmen meeting. Derouche said the town advertised for snowplowing and received only one bid, which was from Pat Gorham. He said Gorham plowed Roxbury roads for many years, but the last three years the town has hired a different contractor.

Gorham’s bid was $6,700 per mile for a three-year contract.

Derouche said it was a 22-percent increase from last year. A motion to accept Gorham’s bid failed by a 2-1 vote.

Selectmen discussed readvertising the contract but decided to meet with Gorham to see if he would reduce his bid, Derouche said.

The police-coverage issue stemmed from complaints from a couple of residents about fireworks, and speeding on the town’s newly reconstructed and paved roads. Roxbury doesn’t have a fireworks ordinance. It relies on the state guidelines.

The residents wanted the town to look into hiring a constable.

Derouche said selectmen checked with Gallant and learned that a constable would cost $60 an hour or $30,000 for the summer.

“It’s quite costly,” Derouche said.

He said selectmen decided to have Gallant attend a board meeting to discuss coverage for Roxbury. Currently, Maine State Police and Oxford County deputies provide law enforcement coverage.

“But because of our location, it takes them an hour to respond here and by the time they get here, what happened is all over,” Derouche said.

In other business, selectmen heard from a surveyor who’s been working in Pine View Cemetery. Derouche said the town is in the process of reducing its larger grave lot sizes.

Lots are sold in plots of two, four, six or eight for families, but Pine View doesn’t have anymore two-person lots available, he said. So they are getting the bigger lots downsized.

“We don’t have any two-person lots, but it doesn’t have to be that way in this day and age with cremation available,” Derouche said.

In addition to meeting with Gorham on Thursday, selectmen will tour area roads to review work being done.

Derouche said new signs have been installed, and the board will now pursue getting bids for the last part of the summer roads’ projects — paving the Town Hall parking lot and constructing a gravel loop road in Pine View Cemetery.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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