CHESTERVILLE — After the Board of Selectmen hired Mike Cote as a highway department employee Thursday, pending a criminal background check, another employee demanded to know why Cote was the only one interviewed.

“I think other people should be interviewed,” Lyle “Buster” Paul said.

“This guy came with very strong credentials,” Chairman Guy Iverson said.

Paul, though, was adamant that the board needed to broaden their selection process. So much so, in fact, that he tendered his resignation.

“You hire who you want to hire,” he said.

Paul said he felt the only reason Cote was hired was because he had worked for road foreman Ron Powers before.

Iverson said selectmen looked at other applicants and Cote was the best one.

Selectmen thanked Paul for his service to the highway department.

Resident Matt Lord asked the board why it hadn’t addressed a petition submitted by resident Patty Hastings asking to keep town office hours as they are.

“You have to honor it,” he emphasized.

Iverson said at the previous meeting, when the board discussed the petition with Hastings, they tabled it and would address it later.

“Nothing is changing until a new board gets in,” Iverson said.

Lord said he talked to a representative of the Maine Municipal Association, who informed him that selectmen needed to make a decision one way or the other on the petition.

“It was more a request to the Board of Selectmen to keep the (town office) hours the same,” Selectman Scott Gray said.

Lord said he would contact legal counsel on how the town should handle the petition.

In other business, Powers said he posted the town’s roads Thursday morning. The town also needs to get another load of salt because there is very little left, he said.

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