Cranberry Isles residents turned out in droves to attend the town’s annual Town Meeting and potluck lunch, held this year at the Islesford Neighborhood House.—OKA HUTCHINS PHOTO

CRANBERRY ISLES — Town residents voted overwhelmingly to support several green initiatives at their annual town meeting on Monday.

The green initiatives came as a result of the town’s October Sustainability Initiative, which called for the use of renewable energy, energy conservation and green building practices.

“So many people in our community have cancer – we are living in a polluted environment – so I support it,” said resident Jennifer Westphal.

During the course of the meeting, residents approved the adoption of the U.S. Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement, created in 2005 to encourage municipalities to meet and exceed international emissions targets. In doing so, the town of Cranberry Isles became the smallest community to sign onto the initiative to date.

Townspeople also authorized a fund in the amount of $10,000 to promote and support sustainable practices, and an additional $2,000 for the added expense of purchasing clean electrical power for the town.

“We’re taking the money out of dirty electricity and putting it into clean hydropower,” said Cranberry Isles Institute fellow Amanda Ravenhill.

After some discussion, town residents voted to purchase their electrical power from Maine Interfaith Power and Light, a Brunswick company that uses 80 percent renewable hydropower and 20 percent wind power.

Townspeople had no problem approving the expenditure of an additional 2 cents per kilowatt-hour to support clean hydropower, but took issue with the word ‘interfaith.’

“I support this, but the religious thing makes me think they have an ulterior motive; isn’t there another company we could use?” asked Jennifer Westphal.

Ms. Ravenhill explained to concerned townspeople that ‘interfaith’ represented the company’s non-denominational work with a variety of church groups that wanted to use green power for their organizations.

“Churches seeded the money to get the company started; without their funds, it couldn’t have made it,” said resident Jeri Spurling.

“I too was bothered by ‘interfaith,’” said resident Eve Harrison. “But we need to keep perspective. We just voted for $2,000 to repair the graveyard and this is a bigger issue.”

Moderator Barbara Fernald stepped away from her post momentarily to announce to the town and her husband Bruce that she had already signed them up for the renewable electrical power for their residence.

After a moment of surprise, Mr. Fernald addressed the issue at hand.

“If we’re not getting religion piped through the electric lines, then why are we only approving it for one year?” he asked.

“The goal is to take these islands off the grid in the long term,” said selectman Dan Lief.

Residents voted to support the commission of a transportation study to increase ferry service between the Cranberry Isles and the mainland towns of Southwest Harbor and Northeast Harbor.

“I think that this is a fantastic — it has been needed for a long time,” said resident Barbara Meyers. In order to give residents more input, Ms. Meyers moved to amend the proposed four-member committee to a seven-member committee; the amendment passed.

Ferry service for the town is now provided through Beal and Bunker Mail Boat and Ferry, the company that operates the town’s mail transportation boats. As it stands, year-round ferry service is available only with a mainland arrival time of about 9 a.m. and a pickup time of 3:30 p.m. said town clerk Denise McCormick. A seasonal ferry run by another company also services the islands.

Budget increases this year can be attributed to several improvement projects and a slight increase in school spending. The nearly $500,000-increase in the $1,952,984 budget will not affect tax rates because town officials were able to finance it through a $138,600 Small Harbor Improvement Grant, $295,000 of loans and $160,000 of previously undesignated funds. Approximately $200,000 of the 2008 budget will go to fund a new wharf for Great Cranberry Island (see related story on page 5 in section 2) and $175,000 is slated for a municipal garage to house fire trucks, ambulances and the town’s salt and sand on Islesford. An additional $35,000 has been added to a reserve fund to purchase a new plow truck.

School expenditures account for $448,543 of the total budget, and the town operations budget weighs in at $1,504,441. The approved school budget for the year marks a $54,900-increase over last year. Of the total school budget, $354,184 is set to be raised through taxation.

The largest increase to the budget is $16,000, which will go to new siding on the Islesford School and a new roof for the Longfellow School, said Union 98 Superintendent Rob Liebow. Special education funding increases were $7,000 for the upcoming year. Higher transportation costs, insurance rates, salary increases, heating oil expenses and an increase in tuitioning high school students account for the rest, he said.

The town will receive $52,000 from the state toward its $71,000 special education budget this year. That came as a relief to the school committee, which had expected only a $6,000 subsidy. “This is one of the few that went up this year,” said Mr. Liebow. Thanks to the unpredicted increase in special education funding, the total town appropriation went from $1,121,000 to $1,078,000, bringing the mill rate down from a projected $6.9 to $6.65 per $1,000 of assessed value.

Due to a mandate in school consolidation law, Maine towns must approve school budgets a second time this year, with an education validation referendum no later than 10 days after town meeting.

“I guess maybe they thought we were asleep when we passed the school budget at town meeting,” said Ms. McCormick.

The Cranberry Isles education validation vote is set for Thursday, March 20 from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Great Cranberry Island and Islesford. Absentee ballots may be requested from the town office by calling 244-4475.