It was fitting that on the first day with recorded snow, the Newcastle Board of Selectmen would be discussing who gets to plow that snow for the next several years.

The board opened bids for future years, and although the board didn't pick a contractor, roads were the main topic of conversation.

Currently, Hagar Enterprises plows the roads and sidewalks. The bids received Monday would be for the next three years beginning next year.

Selectman Christopher Doherty said someone approached him about when the plows take to the road.

Selectman Ben Frey said that not every storm merits a clean-up. Storms like Monday morning's, which resulted in less than an inch of snow, shouldn't necessarily warrant a clean-up from Hagar Enterprises.

“Plows are not on the road at the first flake of the year,” Frey said. “(Having the plows running for a small storm) would be a waste of gas, manpower. There's no formula, inches or anything like that it's just when they are needed.

Board Chairman Brian Foote said the plowing has been at the discretion of the contractor. For the past several years Newcastle's contractor has been Hagar Enterprises, which submitted a bid of $728,543 over three years. Gordon Libby, the other bidder, submitted a bid of $907,166 over three years.

Seth Hagar, Hagar vice president, said that last year saw the contractor respond to 27 storms that totaled more than 130 inches. In most years, those totals are closer to 18 storms and 55 inches, Hagar said.

One way to get a leg up on the storms would be to pre-treat the roads with salt, Hagar said.

“A little bit of a salt allowance would go a long way,” he said. “We'd be willing to participate in having a makeshift building to store the salt.”

Hagar said that the town could save money by buying the salt itself, then allowing contractors to use the salt before storms to get ahead.

He said he couldn't give a concrete answer on how much salt the town would need, because first the town would need to determine which roads it would want salted.

“I'll use for an example Academy Hill, Route 194, and the Sheepscot Road as major commute roads,” Hagar said. “You don’t have to do (the roads) every storm but sometimes a little extra to make that move would go a long way.”

Also in road news was the position of road commissioner, as the town decides how it wants to manage its roads moving forward. Newcastle and Damariscotta recently split apart from their shared public works department, and while Damariscotta has reverted back to a contractor-based roads service, Newcastle has yet to decide how its department will shape up.

Frey said that a book prepared by the Maine Municipal Association was helpful in showing how other towns use their road commissioners.

“I think we need to start a conversation, and the info we had given to us about the different types of road commissioner setups in a town, their relationships to the select  board ... I learned four or five things I didn't know.”

But one thing Frey said he didn't want the town to change, was how its road commissioner was picked. In some towns, commissioners are elected by voters at the town meeting, regardless of experience or expertise,he said. In Newcastle, road commissioners are selected by the board of selectmen.

Frey also said that having a contractor act as the road commissioner, which used to be the case in Newcastle and is still common throughout the state, was not something he would embrace.

“I think we need to have a separate road commissioner who oversees the work, makes sure it's being done in a timely manner, and it's on budget,” he said. “I don't think we want someone to be overseeing their own work quality.

“I would lean towards maintaining a selectmen-appointed road commissioner. I have no interest in seeing a contractor acting as road commissioner. I think that would be a huge backslide for the town.”