CANTON — The Select Board on Thursday hired Andrew Conant of Hartford as public works foreman.

He will begin his duties Monday, succeeding Paul McKenna, who announced his resignation March 17, effective April 1.

Looking at the annual elections on June 13, the board announced there are three selectmen seats to be filled — one for two years and two for three years.

Robbins and former Selectman Brian Keene are seeking three-year terms, and no one has filed nomination papers for the two-year term to succeed Don Hutchins who resigned in March citing divisions on the board.

Chairman Russell Adams is not seeking reelection.

The other members of the board are Kristi Carrier and Michelle Larrivee.

Other officials to be elected are a Regional School Unit 56 director and a Planning Board member, both for three years. school Director Natalie Sneller and Planning Board member Diane Ray are running for reelection.

The 2023-24 budget will be voted on at the annual Town Meeting at 6 p.m. June 15 at the Town Office meeting room. Selectmen discussed including between $3,000 and $5,000 in the budget for a new town website. Adams said the board is reviewing Civil Plus, a company based in Kansas, to create the website.

According to Carrier, there is a one-time fee for uploading material “and then you can choose different levels of what you want to have (for) features.”

Larrivee said the website options include “a lot of really neat features that would definitely increase transparency (in town business) and communication townwide.”

Also at Thursday’s meeting, Robbins presented the board with the town’s third book of vital records from 1866-1896, which was cleaned and restored by Northeast Document Conservation Center in Augusta.

“If anybody saw this thing before it left, you’d be amazed,” she said. The book “had like three different covers on it because nobody seemed to know which the right one was, so it was all kind of wrapped up with a big elastic.”

Canton has first town vital records book professionally restored

The first book, from 1821-1839, was restored in April 2022 and the second is with the conservation center for cleaning and preservation, Robbins said.

According to Robbins, the company also created a recording of the restoration process and a thumb drive of the book’s data, which was also uploaded to the Digital Maine Library. “If anyone wants to access it, there’s a whole bunch of records in there,” Robbins said.

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