WOODSTOCK — The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday evening debated whether to pay $22,525 for paving it didn’t authorize, pay for half of it or none of it.

Before making a decision, officials will confer with the town attorney.

The town hired Bruce A. Manzer Inc. of Anson to pave 3,240 feet of Lakeside Drive, from Route 26 and to the entrance of the University of Maine 4-H Camp & Learning Center during the summer. Manzer’s estimate was $78,788.

Town Manager Vern Maxfield said officials cut the cost to $40,000 by shortening the project to go from the railroad tracks to the camp entrance.

He said Manzer paved between 600 and 700 feet past the entrance and charged $62,525.

Afterward, Manzer said he thought the paving was supposed to go to the end of the paved part of the road, not the camp entrance, and because the town had not budgeted for the additional $22,525, it could defer payment until 2015.

At their Nov. 18 meeting, selectmen agreed to ask town attorney Lee Bragg before deciding about payment.

“Lee said he’d like to talk to Manzer’s attorney before he makes a final decision on what we should do,” Maxfield said Tuesday. “He felt that we had documented what we had done quite well, but he didn’t say one way or the other how he actually felt about this.

“I told Lee that the board was considering taking his offer of payment next year, and he said, ‘I would recommend splitting the difference if you did something like that,’” Maxfield said.

“What does ‘splitting the difference’ mean?” Selectman Stephen Bies asked.

“It means that rather than paying the extra $22,525, you would pay half of that,” Maxfield said.

Later in the meeting, Chairman Victor Young said, “I don’t think that we should have to pay full price. That was something they did. I mean, the bid specs were very explicit. We changed the specs to get the budget to where it needed to be, and it’s his job to take care of that, not ours.”

mdaigle@sunjournal.com

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