NEW VINEYARD — Selectmen listened for more than an hour Monday to ideas and questions posed by about 25 townspeople on rebuilding a portion of Barker Road.

The board opted to stay with what voters had decided at the March town meeting unless someone presents a petition with 25 signatures asking them to call a special town meeting and revisit the article.

After hearing comments that the town meeting road decision was done hastily and there might be a better way, the board sought input from townspeople Monday before making a decision on whether to call another meeting to rescind the vote and change the article.

During the annual meeting in March, voters approved spending more than $300,000 to rebuild and pave 4,700 feet on Barker Road. The plan included a bank bond for $175,000, using $40,000 from savings and $93,000 from previous years’ Urban Renewal Program funds, Selectman Frank Forster said last week.

People have come to the last couple of board meetings, asking questions and seeking a way to receive a “little more bang for our bucks,” Selectman Fay Adams told Monday’s gathering. 

Part of the issues revolve around the proposed rebuilding of 4,700 feet of road from Bruce Turcotte’s residence to Pratt Mountain, she said. Some think another section near Herrick Mountain is in worse shape.

“We’d like to do the whole road — the worst road in town,” she said. “But there’s not money enough at the cost of paving to do the whole road.”

As with other small towns, the question arose as to whether to pave it or to just leave it as a gravel road, using the paving money to extend the work across the whole road. Several Barker Road residents in the audience quickly shunned the idea.

Some questioned why it was being discussed again and urged the board to do what voters had already approved.

Others raised the need to have more specific estimates on materials such as gravel and culverts, as well as more than one estimate from paving contractors.

A few residents questioned the material estimate, based on material estimates compiled by Road Commissioner Earl Luce Jr. to secure bank financing. One resident claimed he had called and found savings on gravel from another company.

“We could get the job done cheaper, but no one wants to make a phone call,” the resident said.

Luce explained that the figures were slightly inflated to ensure the final cost did not go over budget as they had in a previous project, where he was left using $8,000 from his summer road work to cover the costs.

“I don’t want to underestimate so it comes out of my road budget again,” he said.

The consensus appeared to be that no one present wanted a special town meeting, Adams said.

abryant@sunjournal.com