NEWRY – With town meeting less than two weeks away, selectmen Tuesday night finalized their proposed 2008 municipal budget.

They also held a sparsely-attended public hearing on a local option liquor referendum.

Selectmen pared $5,000 from $25,000 in projected tax abatements to finish with a budget of $936,209, which is $186,022 less than last year’s $1 million-plus budget.

That doesn’t include Newry’s share of the Oxford County and SAD 44 budgets, which are done later in the year.

Selectmen also decided to move $500,000 from surplus into capital improvement funds, on the advice of their auditor, to complete work on roads and bridges.

“We were told by the state that our three bridges on Branch Road are substandard,” Chairman Steve Wight said.

They also included an article to raise and appropriate $75,000 for erosion control measures by Lone Pine Road, which is washing out, and $10,000 toward a community skate park in nearby Bethel.

Regarding the liquor referendum, one question asks voters if Newry should authorize the state to allow the operation of state liquor stores and agency liquor stores on every day of the week except Sunday. The other question asks if these stores should be allowed to operate on Sundays.

After no questions were asked at the 5 p.m. hearing, Wight closed it a minute later. However, he reopened it when Bear River Trading Post owners Doug and Deb Webster walked in, joining John Amman, owner of The Barking Dog store on the Sunday River Road side of Newry.

Both the Websters and Amman, who renovated the former New York Pizza shop, are interested in selling liquor, Wight said.

Both stores can sell beer and wine, because Newry voters OK’d that in the 1970s, but they can’t sell hard liquor.

The only store in the area that can sell liquor is the IGA in Bethel, located four miles away.

“If the town votes yes, we don’t want to be dry, it means nothing, because it has to go through the Legislature,” Deb Webster said, regarding a talk she had recently with a state liquor agency official in Augusta.

To which Wight added, “The Legislature won’t consider it until the town says yes.”

“There may not even be any in the town of Newry. They may decide there to be just one,” Deb Webster said.

If town voters approve the referendum at the March 3 town meeting, Amman said the decision then goes to the Secretary of State for approval.