Voters at the May 5 New Gloucester town meeting. Rory Sweeting/Community Reporter

New Gloucester residents voted on 41 articles, largely related to the budget and capital projects, at the annual town meeting on Monday, May 5.

The meeting began with Kristin Collins, the town attorney, being named moderator for the meeting. Ahead of the voting, Select Board Chair Dustin Ward dedicated the annual report to Kathleen Potter. Potter, who Ward said “embodies the very spirit of New Gloucester,” is not only a member of multiple town committees, but also volunteers as an election clerk, library staffer and traffic director.

Tammy Donovan, another member of the select board, also honored the Semiquincentennial Committee, which helped plan celebrations around the town’s 250th anniversary last year, culminating in a massive event on Sept. 7 that featured appearances by Sen. Susan Collins and the mayor of Gloucester, Massachusetts.

As Town Manager Bill Kerbin told Lakes Region Now ahead of the town meeting, New Gloucester uses a card system, where voters hold up different colored cards to express approval or disapproval of an issue. While all of the articles were passed by the town, several of them were the subject of contentious debate.

There was much discussion around two articles concerning the town’s aging transfer station. When asked by a resident why Article 18 specifically appropriated $50,000 for the Transfer Safety Capital Reserve, Kerbin said the plan was to reverse the flow of traffic for the transfer station to make pedestrian traffic safer. One resident said the fund was made in 2008 and asked why it took 17 years to be put into action, noting that it costs a lot more money to execute in 2025. Another resident voiced a similar sentiment by claiming that the Select Board has taken an inordinate amount of time to get some projects done, specifically citing the three years it took to repair the leaking library roof.

Regarding transfer station repairs, Ward said that the intent was not to completely demolish and rebuild the building, but rather to repair the existing building. Board members Peter Bragdon and Stephen Hathorne spoke more about specific faults in the building, which has not received major repairs since it was built nearly 50 years ago. Bragdon said the area had uneven paving, while Hathorne said the concrete floor had exposed rebar. In the end, both Article 18, as well as Article 36, which appropriated $50,000 for transfer station repairs, were passed by the town.

Another heated discussion concerned Article 41, which authorized the town to retain its former ambulance, A-1, with one resident making a “negative motion” to discard the ambulance before proper discussion began. Bragdon said that, although the town voted to replace the ambulance in 2022, they should keep it for a few more years as a spare, noting that other towns have two ambulances. Meanwhile, Hathorne said he was opposed to keeping the ambulance due to staffing issues, and questioned keeping the ambulance because they had voted to replace it in two different town meetings.

A paramedic with New Gloucester Fire and Rescue said that A-1 would be used as a spare ambulance if the main ambulance was out of use. The paramedic also said most places replace their ambulance every seven or eight years, and that if they trade it in to a dealer for $78,000, it will be used by someone else as a spare. Meanwhile, a resident said that, although the town had voted for 24/7 paramedic coverage last year, the coverage had not fully gone into effect, and retaining the older ambulance would be a waste if they did not have the staff to justify two ambulances. Eventually, the article passed by a margin of 81-23 after two votes, the narrowest vote of the night.

Article 28, which would appropriate $111,000 for fairgrounds restrooms and storage, also polarized the town, particularly the construction of a new bathroom. Hathorne, despite having pushed for a new bathroom in the past, was opposed to the bathroom as budgeted, calling it the “Taj Mahal of Toilets” and noting several features that he considered to be a waste of money. Donovan argued that the new bathroom was not only a necessity for park users, but could also serve as a source of revenue for the town, while Parks Director Sarah Rodriguez compared several other municipal buildings to the Taj Mahal.

Regarding Article 24, which would appropriate $95,000 for the purchase of a replacement H-1 pickup truck for interdepartmental use, there was considerable debate on the meaning of the interdepartmental use, and whether it was worth it to replace the vehicle. One resident said the H-1 needed to be replaced, rather than adding a new vehicle and continuing to use the older vehicle. Another resident proposed an amendment to make it binding that they not keep the vehicle. Another resident suggested that, rather than purchasing a new vehicle, the town should lease one, saying that owning the vehicle might not be in the town’s best interest. Ultimately, the motion passed as read.