RUMFORD – Selectmen unanimously agreed Thursday to ask voters to discontinue a section of Railroad Street and to accept about 33 acres from the local paper mill.

They also set a special town meeting for April 23 for action on the issues.

In what mill spokesman Tony Lyons and many on the board consider a win-win deal, residents will decide whether to exchange a 1,750-foot section of town-owned Railroad Street for several mill-owned land parcels largely used by the town for recreation.

They also decided not to compensate landowner Peter Lee Buotte for the loss of that section of Railroad Street because his property, which was once an Agway store, does not border the proposed closed section of Railroad Street.

Local lawyer Tom Carey had made a plea for compensation for Buotte. “I ask for formal action of this matter (by the board) should it go further,” Carey said.

The former Agway store has been closed for several years and the land it sits on abuts another section of town-owned Railroad Street.

Town lawyer Jennifer Kreckel said Maine statute does not guarantee two accesses to property. Access to Buotte’s property can be made from the remaining section of the town-owned Railroad Street that crosses Hartford Bridge.

Former Selectman Eugene Boivin said the town is treating Buotte poorly.

“No sewer line, a first strike, and this is a second strike,” Boivin said.

If residents agree to exchange the 1,750-foot section of Railroad Street for the 33 acres owned by NewPage Corp., the town will acquire property that it has been using for years.

The parcels include Morency Park, the so-called municipal parking lot and other riverfront land along River Street, Veterans Memorial Park at the foot of Congress Street, a ball field and adjacent land in the Virginia section of town, the so-called snow dump along the Androscoggin River, the ball fields at the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Falmouth Street, and the so-called overflow parking lot along Railroad Street.

The mill plans to build a $5 million electric substation on the land it acquires from the town and adjoining property already owned by the mill.

Lyons had said when first proposing the land swap that if the exchange is approved, the mill will no longer own any land regularly used by the town.

Board Chairman Jim Rinaldo said estimates to repair Railroad Street nearly three years ago were about $325,000.

Little, if any, taxes will be lost to the land swap. The town could gain a substantial amount of tax revenue, however, when the electric substation is built.