OXFORD — To keep up with the changing times, the town of Oxford will revamp how it advertises bid notifications — taking a step away from traditional paper advertising and a step toward digital advertising — after a unanimous vote from selectmen Thursday night.

The amendment changes the requirement for bid notifications to be posted in two issues of a newspaper available in the town to just one issue. The second notification will be posted on the Maine Municipal Association’s website.

Town Manager Michael Chammings said the move will save the town approximately $180 per ad, which he said the newspaper charges for the ad.

Board of Selectmen Chairman Scott Owens said the move made sense.

“People do a lot more electronically now,” he said.

In other town news, the board approved a liquor license renewal for the Ocean Pearl restaurant in Oxford Plaza on Route 26 without a public hearing. Since the restaurant operated with a liquor license for more than five years without incident or complaint, the board waived the need for the hearing per the owner’s request.

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Selectmen approved two bids. The first bid, for a truck scale, was granted to Maine Scale as the low bidder out of two bids. Their bid was $33,495. The second bid, for a truck plow and sander, was awarded to H.P. Fairfield for $78,599.

The town accepted a donation of $1,700 from the William Dunn Foundation. The donation was divided evenly between the transfer station account, the Fire Department equipment account and the police equipment account.

With the upcoming state election on Nov. 3, selectmen also approved an updated list of ballot clerks for the 2015 and 2016 elections. Chammings took a moment to thank the two dozen ballot clerk volunteers.

“All these volunteers do a great job and we appreciate it, because that’s a lot of work they do,” he said.

The board accepted the resignation of Colin O’Neill from the school board and will consider appointing Mark Blacquiere at the next selectmen’s meeting. O’Neill took a job that will keep him in New Hampshire until February.

The board briefly considered granting O’Neill a leave of absence, but Pete Laverdiere asked if there was anybody in the audience who might be interested in serving on the school board first. Blacquiere took him up on the offer, and the board accepted O’Neill’s request for resignation to make room for a new person on the school board.

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The selectmen signed the town’s new municipal valuation, which values taxable land and buildings within the town of Oxford at $419.1 million and the total taxable personal property at $14.5 million.

Chammings reported that work on the new ball field at Pismo Beach is coming along. The plumbing for the irrigation system has been installed and sod is due to be set in the upcoming days. Once a slab and pads are set in place for the buildings, then the booster pump can be installed to test the plumbing work. Next in line for the project is installing fencing and lighting.

Chammings also reported that the new electronic sign in front of the recreation building has turned down the lights to 60 percent at night after receiving complaints about the brightness at the last select board meeting.

mjerkins@sunmediagroup.net


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