Topsham residents watched plans develop for a new Mt. Ararat High School this year, along with the other three town in School Administrative District 75.

In March, SAD 75 voters approved two referendum questions paving the way for a new high school as well as a synthetic turf field.

The state will pay $53 million of the estimated $60.7 million school.

By August work had begun on a new baseball field and multi-use practice field on former Navy property near Mt. Ararat Middle School and should be ready

for use by spring of 2019.

On Dec. 19, the Topsham Planning Board approved the site plan for the new high school. Major construction will start summer of 2018. The new school is scheduled to open in the fall of 2020.

Other top stories

• On June 27, the Federal Highway Administration and Maine Department of Transportation announced that replacing the Frank J. Wood Bridge is their “preferred alternative” to address the bridge’s structural issues. A federal review process continues, so no final decision has been made on the improvement project awaiting the bridge.

The Friends of the Frank J. Wood Bridge continue to fight to rehabilitate the bridge. The group wants to raise $ 15,000 to fund an independent engineering report that will analyze rehabilitation options and costs.

• A Topsham man plead ed not guilty in West Bath District Court on Jan. 3 to 16 counts of sex crimes against children. Henry A. Eichman, 57, had been arrested in September 2016 by Topsham police and indicted on seven counts of unlawful sexual contact, three counts of visual sexual aggression against a child and six counts of unlawful sexual touching. The alleged crimes took place between April 2013 and August 2016.

In April Eichman was indicted by a Cumberland County Grand Jury on a count of unlawful sexual contact, a Class B crime because it involved a minor under 12. He was also indicted on a charge of unlawful sexual touching, a Class D crime. The additional charges stemmed from Brunswick Police Department’s investigation into an allegation of crimes committed against a minor under 12 at St. John’s Catholic School.

Eichman was indicted on the same pair of charges by a Cumberland County Grand Jury in early July, stemming from another complaint investigated by Brunswick police.

Eichman has pleaded not guilty this year to all 20 counts. The Brunswick and Topsham cases will be combined and tried together. Jury selection for his trial is scheduled for next week at West Bath District Court.

• On Jan. 30, Ku Klux Klan fliers were found in Topsham and Freeport. The fliers were reportedly similar to fliers found in Augusta and Gardiner. The brochures were folded up in plastic bags and littered up and down South Freeport Road and found along Route 201 in Topsham.

The fliers were for a Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan neighborhood watch. According to its website the group is a White Patriotic Christian organization that bases its roots back to the KKK of the early 20th century.

Police were unable to identify who distributed the fliers.

• On June 8, Mt. Ararat Middle School and Brunswick Junior High School students walked from their schools to the 250th Anniversary Park in Brunswick. During the rally there four students shared personal stories to demonstrate their schools are a place where everyone belongs. The idea for the event originated from the schools’ principals and designed to send the message that all students have a right to feel that they belong and should be treated with kindness and respect at school.

• Topsham selectmen voted Aug. 4 to make temporary traffic changes on Main Street as a test to see if it would relieve traffic congestion. The last block of Winter Street approaching Main Street was made one-way. Left turning vehicles were redirected to the intersection of Maine and Elm streets where there is already a left turn signal. Selectmen voted Nov. 16 to make the changes permanent.

dmoore@timesrecord.com