TURNER – Former fire Chief Steven A. Fish will no longer oversee the repair of Engine 2, selectmen decided Monday night.
On Charlie Mock’s motion, members declared they “wanted to get the job done, right away,” and assigned the repair job to Rodney Guptil, a mechanic in Turner, with the stipulation the work will be paid for from the fire department budget.
Department members said the truck, which has been out of service since September ’04, was still not fixed after Fish and later interim Chief Shane Arsenault had been assuring the board for months that they would get the pumper repaired, get it inspected and approved as road worthy, and get it back in service.
With confirmation that the truck remains idle, selectmen voted unanimously – with Dennis Richardson absent – to get the job done.
On another matter, the board voted to send a letter to the state Department of Transportation declaring that Turner is “not interested at this time” in paying a third of the costs of improvements to Weston Road, Upper Street, North Parish Road and Center Bridge Road.
Selectman Ralph Caldwell said “Upper Street and North Parish Road are in tragic condition” and desperately in need of work, but said the DOT is “wrong in designating them as state-aid minor collector highways” subject to one-third local contribution for improvements.
“They carry sufficient traffic for full collector status; they’re state roads, and the state should pay to fix them.”
The board also declined the state’s offer of $3,000 for 0.9 acres of town land beside Route 117, which will be getting a $5.9 million rebuilding job soon. Caldwell said he saw the offer as creating an illegal lot and felt more research was needed to determine a fair price for the lot in the general residential I district.
Glenn Holt of the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department asked the board to support hiring reserve Officer Breanne Petrini as a full-time officer for the summer for $4,200. Another officer hired by town meeting for twice that amount can’t fulfill the duty, and Petrini is available.
Concerns about her experience were answered by Holt, who said she is an Army reservist who served in Iraq and has experience in his department and in municipal departments.
The motion to hire Petrini, particularly for duty at the town-owned beach, included a motion for appointing two town constables and accepting the offer of Warren Clark for volunteer service at the beach on Bear Pond.
Research will be conducted on property owned by the town to determine the town’s interest in them and their values. The town will then determine which lots should be offered for sale and advertise for bids for them. Action will be taken at the July 17 meeting.
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