Selectmen and Transportation Committee members are at odds about the priorities of the traffic calming project on Route 101 and the fate of a memorial rock at the town’s center oval.

At a Select Board meeting on Monday at 3 p.m., selectmen discussed how to proceed with the traffic calming work planned for the center of town in light of concerns raised about the plan to relocate a memorial rock from the oval to a location in front of Town Hall.

The rock, placed at the oval in 1916 as a memorial to a prominent family that summered in Dublin, is to be moved for pedestrian and driver safety, according to selectmen, as a new crosswalk is planned for just west of the oval. Transportation Committee Chair Elisabeth Langby has questioned the need to move the rock, as well as the possible safety hazard of a crosswalk in the proposed location without traffic calming measures for eastbound traffic.

“I don’t see the point of fighting this tooth and nail with the Transportation Committee,” Selectman Charlie Champagne said. “It seems to me we need to do something to get this back on track.”

Selectmen made references to a letter from Transportation Committee Chair Langby and Vice-chair Alan Greene dated Feb. 8, in which they asked for an explanation from engineers as to why the rock has to be moved, postponement of the project to explore priorities and a public hearing on the final design of the plans.

“The rock is a Dublin landmark and to move it away from the oval would do violence to the cultural heritage of the town,” Langby and Greene wrote.

At the meeting Monday, Champagne advocated the immediate need for a public meeting, but the other selectmen favored holding off until the final designs for the work are completed.

Selectman Sterling Abram said about moving the rock, “It’s a safety issue. What do we do, hope the rock lives forever, but let a kid get killed?”

He said he doesn’t see a reason to hold a public hearing until after the final designs for the project are completed sometime in the spring.

Abram also said he stands by the Select Board’s decision to use the grant money now available to do work in the center of town, rather than the work planned for the Route 101/Old Common Road intersection, which the Traffic Calming Committee had recommended in order to slow down eastbound traffic entering town.

“The crosswalk is the most important thing,” Abram said, referring to the crosswalk planned for the west side of the center oval.

Champagne said he agreed that the center of town should be the priority with the funds available, but a public meeting would give residents a chance to see the latest designs for the oval.

Champagne objected to the fact that Transportation Committee members had not attended selectmen meetings and were now complaining about decisions made at those meetings. Champagne suggested disbanding the Transportation Committee, if they weren’t going to be a positive force.

“I think the backdoor approach isn’t appropriate,” he said, but added, “I think if we’re going to modify the center of town it has to be a positive experience for most of the town.”

He said holding a public meeting would give selectmen a chance to gauge the majority feeling for the plans for the oval. Abram said the selectmen couldn’t hold a public hearing without the final designs and selectmen agreed to wait until the designs are done.

On Tuesday, Langby said, “It’s a little tense in town about the rock and how this has been handled.”

She said she subscribes to the town’s e-mail distribution of the Select Board’s agendas, but those e-mails often don’t get sent until the day of the meeting, which is part of the reason Transportation Committee members have missed meetings in which the traffic calming project was up for discussion.

“We were the ones that got the funding 11 years ago and developed this. That they want to disband us just because we’ve been critical is discouraging,” Langby said. “We are an advisory committee.”

She said developing the project was an open, public process for the first nine years but since the Select Board took it over two years ago, it’s been a closed-door process. A public hearing as soon as possible is necessary, she said, but there’s no point in having a hearing if public input won’t be considered.

“People are incensed about the rock. I can’t go anywhere — the post office, the store — without hearing about it,” she said. “People have a right to having a say on moving a major landmark in town. ... It’s not for three people to decide.”

Langby said it is not necessary to move the rock from the center oval for sightline reasons. Having safe crosswalks is a goal of the traffic calming project, but slowing eastbound traffic is critical to achieving that end, she noted.

On Wednesday, Nancy Campbell and Henry Campbell, who wrote a letter to the Select Board on Feb. 7 challenging the plan to move the rock, hadn’t received a response.

“I haven’t heard anything that’s changed my mind,” said Nancy Campbell. “There hasn’t been much information coming out about it. We’re kind of in the dark.”

One alternative to moving the rock is to do nothing — no traffic calming work at all — Campbell said, but she added that she doesn’t have enough information about the design plans to know what should be done.