NEW GLOUCESTER – Selectmen on Monday agreed to hold a special town meeting in mid-December. They also accepted a municipal solid waste management report to manage the town’s transfer station.

In a lengthy agenda that also addressed setting parameters for the 2005-06 fiscal year budget, selectmen discussed capital improvement budget requests for next year.

The board scheduled a town meeting Dec. 13 to ask voters to allow spending roughly $16,000 from a portion of a $25,000 capital reserve account earmarked for upgrades at the New Gloucester Fairgrounds.

Cliff Andrews, chairman of the New Gloucester Fairgrounds Committee, and member Carlton Wilcox presented plans for long-term and short-term goals for the town’s 31-acre former race track on the Bald Hill Road.

A soil enhancement project is proposed on the 11.3 acre infield of the half mile gravel track. The plan calls for spending $16,000 if 20 percent compost is added to the soil. Sections of the field is sandy with little nutrients.

The field is being plowed voluntarily by resident Luther Gray with his team of horses. Then the field must be harrowed three times and tilled twice before spreading manure, lime and phosphorus and finally planting grass by late April.

This winter volunteers are building an ice skating rink in a level area behind the former horse barn with $1,365 in contributions donated by the public.