GREENE — Voters will decide Saturday whether to fund $3.4 million to build a public works garage.

The annual town meeting will begin at 9 a.m. at the Greene Central School.

If voters approve funding the project, at 3 percent interest, the total cost would be $3.9 million over 10 years.

In a separate article, voters will be asked for more money for the public works garage, including $30,000 from the Garage Study Fund and raising $130,000.

Voters will also be asked to consider a 180-day moratorium on establishing retail marijuana shops and social clubs.

According to the proposed ordinance, those businesses would be a burden on public facilities and resources, and the Legislature and state agencies have not developed regulations for governing them.

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Selectmen and the Budget Committee each recommend that requests for charitable donations be left to voters. Selectmen recommend donating $7,650 to social service agencies, including Androscoggin Head Start, Safe Voices, SeniorsPlus and the Rural Community Action Ministry, which matches last year’s spending. The Budget Committee has recommended no funding.

Voters will also be asked to approve:

• A 4.2 percent increase in compensation for town employees, or $226,300, including a $2,500 raise for the town manager;

• A $50,000 appropriation from the Fire Department Capital Reserve Account to buy a pickup truck;

• The sum of $120,000, over five years, to buy a new dump/plow truck using $50,000 from Capital Reserve, trading in the town’s 2004 dump truck and raising $25,000 for the first year’s payment;

• A 5.7 percent increase in compensation for public works, including a $2,550 raise for the foreman; and

• A 353 percent jump in spending for equipment at the transfer station, with selectmen and the Budget Committee recommending $30,600. Voters approved $6,750 in 2017, and the town spent $2,827.

Expenses for the Fire Department, legal fees, utilities, building maintenance, supplies, animal control, parks and recreation, transfer station, assessing and computer purchases and maintenance are at or near the amounts budgeted in 2017.

Voters will elect one selectman, one SAD 52 director, all members of the Budget Committee, two members of the Ella Augusta Thompson Committee and a member of the Julia Adams Morse Library Committee.


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