At Town Meeting Saturday, March 12, voters in Industry will be asked to raise and appropriate $50,000 more for the town garage project. Seen is the architect’s design for the proposed garage. Submitted photo

INDUSTRY — Municipal elections and the annual Town Meeting will take place Saturday, March 12, at the Town Hall.

Elections are from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Town Meeting will begin at 2 p.m.

Incumbent selectman Stewart Durrell is seeking another three-year term on the Select Board. He is unopposed.

No one is running for a two-year seat for the Regional School Unit 9 Board of Directors. Mark Prentiss currently represents Industry on that board.

The proposed budget for 2022 is $608,402.21 or $3,171.61 less than the current budget of $611,573.82. The difference is a 0.52% decrease.

There is $13,258.54 less proposed for summer road maintenance this year and $20,264.43 less for winter roads. Last year $75,000 and $80,000 was raised respectfully for those accounts.

They had a surplus left that was carried forward, Town Clerk Angelina “Angel” Davis said during a phone interview Tuesday, March 8. “We don’t need to raise as much,” she noted.

There is also a $4,623 reduction in the paving line. “The paving line is a loan payment,” Davis said. “It’s a bit less.”

There will be no large trash weekend this year, no money is being raised for that, she said. Funds are not being raised for the swim program either.

“The swim program hasn’t been used in years,” Davis said. “If someone did want to use it, we would take money out of administration.”

With no general assistance requested last year, the whole amount is left and was carried forward, she said.

Voters are being asked to raise an additional $50,000 to add to the $22,000 raised last year for design and construction of a new town garage.

“The roof is leaking, there’s a lot of issues with it and we can’t get the new truck into it,” Road Commissioner Joe Parody said last year. “We can go in but we can’t close the door and it’s like, we’re buying this new equipment we outta have room and a better work area to take care of it.”

“The architect and engineer don’t have their final figures to us yet,” Davis said. “We want to put some money in there to hopefully get started on it this year.”

“We hope to have everything to present to the voters at a special town meeting in the month of June, before we go to commitment,” Selectman Chairman Earl “Lee” Ireland said in a text Tuesday.

While writing this article a Sun Journal report on the 2021 Town Meeting was referred to. That article indicated voters at the meeting passed 38 articles and the town’s $620,533.26 budget.

Davis was contacted about the discrepancy Wednesday afternoon. She planned to research the matter further but was unable to find an answer before the Franklin Journal went to press.