By Devon Cormier
Staff Writer

A subcommittee that came out of the New Boston Community Profile is looking at adding cross walks to the downtown area to increase safety.

Selectmen discussed the idea at their last meeting on Dec. 27 and came up with one big problem: The roads are all state highways.

Town Administrator Burton Reynolds said the selectmen are looking for input from the state Department of Transportation to see if the idea can move forward.

Selectmen also decided to look into changing the health insurance policy for town employees.

"The finance department asked how we share the expenses with employees," said Reynolds. "We want to consider all the options for the future."

Reynolds said the way the plan works now is the town pays 100 percent of each employee’s health care. Then, if the employee adds a person or get a family plan, the town pays 50 percent of the additional costs. Reynolds said it may be easier and more logical to just use an 80-20 percent split between the town and the employee. Reynolds said selectmen will be looking into the numbers soon, but the change wouldn’t take place for quite some time.

Selectmen also discussed discontinuing town ownership of roads that are only used by one home. Reynolds said a number of roads only go to one person’s house, and the town is wondering if the people on these roads may just prefer to own the land and maintain the roads themselves.

Reynolds said this could be positive for some, but they need to find out who lives on these roads and where the land is before making any decisions.

"We have a limited interest in not maintaining them because it's kind of like a private driveway," Reynolds said.