MEXICO — A special town meeting will take place at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 20, at the Town Hall to act on four articles.

The first article will ask voters to approve up to $180,000 from surplus to continue working on storm damage from the Dec. 2023 and May 2023 storms. This work is part of the town’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) claim.

Town Manager Raquel Welch-Day explained to the Select Board on Aug. 6, “We need money for roads (at least five roads). We’ve got to get the paving done of the flooded areas. This is all FEMA work. We need the $180,000 so we can get Spencer (Paving LLC, Turner) up here to do the paving. We need gravel; roads that need work. We had to drain our reserves for the first storm.”

“There’s so much work out there that needs to be done,” she noted.

The second article asks voters to approve up to $145,000 from surplus to complete work at the Mexico Rec Park that will mitigate future water issues. This work is part of the town’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) claim.

The $145,000 is for repairs in the Mexico Rec Park.

“Mitigation work with culverts to try to vent those fields from flooding every time we get a big rainstorm,” Welch-Day said. “That falls under FEMA as well. We get at least 95 percent of that money back, whenever we get the money.”

Article three asks the town to adopt the Property Maintenance Ordinance.

Welch-Day said this ordinance will issues with people who have piles of rubble in their yards, things like residences with multiple unregistered vehicles, broken machinery, roofs that need repair, etc.

“It will support the efforts of the Code Enforcement Officer, who will be able to say, we have an ordinance for this. Time to clean it up.”

Article four asks the town to adopt the Food Sovereignty Ordinance.

Welch-Day said many Maine towns have this type of ordinance.

“It allows your small vendors, your private homeowners that want to sell jams and jellies, and things like that, to be able to sell without having to go through all the licensing and whatever that Augusta puts out.”

This became more of an issue when the Farmer’s Market started up this summer in Mexico, she added.

The regular meeting of the Select Board will be held following the special town meeting, at the same location.

In other business, the board voted 5-0 to go with the town manager’s recommendation of $29 per thousand for the town’s tax rate for 2024-25. This is two-tenths of a mill less than the current tax rate.

The board voted 5-0 to accept a bid of $2,500 by TW Inc. (Todd Wardwell, Mexico) to tear down a tax-acquired building at 34 Middle Ave. This was the lowest of three bidders.

The board accepted a $2,000 bid from Gary Savage of 133 Granite St. to purchase a small lot at 140 Granite St.

The board appointed Jamie O’Leary to the sewer board.

At the July 16 board meeting, there was a public discussion after the Planning Board proposed eliminating three old ordinances — the Yard Sale Ordinance, the Fireworks Ordinance and the Curfew Ordinance.

As a result of that discussion, the decision was made to keep those ordinances as is for now. Had the board decided to eliminate them, they likely would have also been placed on the Aug. 20 special town meeting warrant, to be voted on by citizens.