BARTON — Voters at Barton’s Town Meeting displayed a curious mixture of austerity and generosity on Tuesday evening. While some items were discussed at great length, others passed with little or no discussion. The level of discussion seemed unrelated to the amount of money in question.
One of the more contentious issues on the night surrounded an appropriation request of $1,500 for the Lake Region Senior Center in Orleans. The motion was amended to increase the appropriation to $5,500, an amount equal to the appropriation granted to the Barton Senior Center. Moderator Bill May called for a division of the house. The amended appropriation request passed with 36 in favor and 29 opposed.
Likewise, appropriations for the Barton Public Library and the Jones Memorial Library passed with a 10 percent increase attached to each. The voters approved appropriations of $5,500 and $2,750, respectively.
The town highway budget faced a pair of challenges targeting the equipment capital fund. Kristin Webb proposed suspending the annual $70,000 line item. The town’s taxpayers could use the relief of a nearly 20 percent cut to the highway budget, she said.
Chairman of the Selectmen Robert Croteau defended the equipment fund. It enables the town to replace equipment as it breaks down or becomes outdated, he said. The $145,000 currently in the fund could easily be consumed by the purchase of a single plow truck, he said.
Ms. Webb’s motion died for lack of a second.
Frank Fischer proposed a second amendment, this time calling for the fund to be cut in half to $35,000.
“I rarely agree with Mr. Croteau, but this fund has saved the town a ton of money over the years,” former town clerk Kathy White said. “We need to maintain this sinking fund.”
The second amendment was also defeated. The voters ultimately approved the selectmen’s highway budget of $439,800.
The selectmen were interrogated as to the cost of operating the town’s recycling program. Ms. Webb asked if the town might not save the $16,000 it spends on running a recycling center if it opted instead to join a waste management district.
Though the town would save the money as direct taxes, that cost would instead be shifted back to the taxpayers as consumers paying trash haulers. The waste district operates its recycling programs through tipping fee surcharges assessed to trash haulers, Mr. Croteau replied.
Mr. Fischer asked why the recycling program costs money at all. Given the premium paid for scrap metal over the last year, the recyclables should be generating income, not expenses, he said.
“As we all know the price of scrap metal was so high this past summer that people were stealing copper from live wires,” Mr. Croteau replied. “We really didn’t see any appreciable amount of scrap metal at the center. As for the plastic and the glass, we pay someone to take it away. With cardboard and paper, we’ve been lucky to have someone take it away at no charge.”
Voters ultimately approved the town budget of $365,183, including the $16,000 line item for the recycling center.
With no contests to speak of among the town officers, the results of Tuesday’s Australian ballot voting was predictably anticlimactic. As Mr. May pointed out, the only way the candidates could lose would be if no one bothered to cast any ballots at all. Ms. White was elected the new town lister and Patsy Tompkins is the new selectman. She replaces outgoing Selectman Dan McMaster, who declined to run for a second term owing to the fact he is moving out of town.
