BY DOUG HARLOW

Staff Writer

Businesses in Skowhegan and Anson are among six in Maine communities to share $590,000 awarded by the state Department of Economic and Community Development through its Community Development Block Grant program.

The town of Skowhegan was awarded $50,000 in CDBG funds to be used for the Somerset Grist Mill, LLC at the former Somerset County jail, downtown. Grant money will be used to support the purchase of equipment for grain storage, along with cleaning and milling equipment for the start-up of the mill. Three jobs will be created.

The equipment would include a flour mill with sifter, grain cleaner and dust collection system and four 30-ton grain silos with continuous flow dryers, a biomass heater to burn weeds, seeds and chaff for grain drying. It would also include a grain transport trailer, a seed cleaner and a stone burr mill.

There is no local matching money to be spent to support the grant.

Amber Lambke, of Skowhegan, and her business partner Michael Scholz, of Albion, a baker and wheat grower, plan to transform the 14,000-square-foot jailhouse into a grist mill for flour production.

They want to install stone ovens for baking bread, establish a restaurant and a small retail store to sell bread and locally raised fruits, vegetables, meat, cheese and other dairy products.

A public hearing on acceptance of the grant is scheduled for 5 p.m. Tuesday in the Municipal Building council room.

"This grant is a direct grant to the business," Skowhegan Economic and Community Development Director Jeffrey Hewett said Thursday. "It passes through us, but it goes directly to the business itself."

A contract signing with the state will be later this month, with the arrival of equipment expected by late December or early January, Hewett said.

In Anson, the Board of Selectmen has approved accepting $60,000 in CDBG funds for Cousineau Wood Products, on Valley Road in the north village.

The grant money will be used to purchase wood-veneer drying equipment, a kiln and wood carving lathe to produce gunstocks, baseball bats, cribbage boards, plaques, duck calls, paddles, furniture and flooring.

Four jobs will be created at first. Selectmen hope as many as 10 new jobs will be in the offing once the grant money is invested.

The company is required to match the grant and create the jobs described in its grant application.

It currently employs 17 full- and part-time workers.

The facility currently buys dyed veneer from Canada.

"We're very encouraged about it," Anson administrative assistant Robert Worthley said Thursday. "It initially gives them better quality control over their product and we're optimistic over time that it will lead to expanded production. They have a line of credit with the bank and they are going use that to purchase inventory, so that once the equipment is installed, they're ready to go."

The CDBG program will award approximately $13 million to Maine towns during its 2009 program year.