The idea was proposed by Selectman David King in an effort to provide five day a week service to the town's growing population.

In the past year there have been 90 building permits and over a third of these are for new homes, according to King.

"I look at it as providing more service to the public for not much more money," King said.

Selectman Phillip Skillin said he was nervous giving both jobs to one person. King said the assistant fire chief could fill in for the fire chief's position and a short term CEO could help out in an emergency.

Codes enforcement officer Bill Longley said he would remain the town's plumbing inspector.

The selectmen called an executive session "to discuss the specific purpose of combining the CEO and fire chief's positions and deciding compensation."

After the session, which lasted about half an hour, the selectmen voted 4-1, with Todd McPhee against,to call a special town meeting to vote on combining the positions at an annual salary of $36,400.

King said the insurance costs for a full time employee can be worked out before the meeting.

"From my perspective this would help out the fire department a lot," said one firefighter. Revaluation

The selectmen met with David Ledew, Supervisor of Municipal Services for the state's Property Tax Division and John Hocking, an assessing agent from Cole, Layer and Trumble to discuss the town's revaluation.

According to state rules, the selectmen must meet with the assessor and state representative before beginning a revaluation. The last revaluation was done in 1996. According to assessor Roland Monroe the town is assessed about 71 percent of the state valuation.

When a town falls below the 70 percent ratio it is required by the state to do a revaluation. Falling below 70 percent will affect the town's reimbursements of state funds.

In discussing the difficulties with Woolwich's assessing system, King said it is hard to keep track of sales because some houses are selling for 400 percent of their assessed value. Different people have different opinions of their property, he added.

Ledew suggested the selectmen define the difference between different types of homes, which are given an A B or C classification.

"The difference is very much a judgment call," Ledew said. He suggested that Hocking's company might be able to provide further information.

Referring to the current system of defining property, King said "It has gotten to the point where the system is so band-aided it is unmanageable."

Ledew said he would assist the selectmen and agreed, at Skillin's request, to send the town an updated assessor's manual. Landfill Monitoring Wells

Instead of spending $1,175 for Pine Tree Waste to repair the town's landfill monitoring well, which has been vandalized, the selectmen agreed to look into the cost of a local business doing the repairs.

"Two or three businesses in town could do the job. We could save the town some money," he said.

He agreed to call Pine Tree for the dimensions of the covers. The selectmen agreed to table the issue until then and look into paying a local business to do the work. Copier

The selectmen decided to continue renting the new copier for $125 a month. King said he had some problems with the machine not printing from one computer but those have been fixed by the company.

He said $125 is about the same price as the old machine, and that copier needed about $900 in repairs.