Forget the fancy crosswalks and focus instead on rehabbing housing.

That was at least part of the advice Selectmen had for Community and Economic Development Authority Director Salvador Pina when he came asking for their input Tuesday night.

Pina, whose agency oversees expenditure of the town’s annual federal community development grant money, explained that $250,000 of the annual $900,000 grant is needed to run the CEDA office; $125,000 is provided to “public services” such as Damien’s Pantry, the Boys and Girls Club and Turning Point; $125,000 is put toward housing rehabilitation; and $400,000 is in the current year being spent on the Main Street “streetscape” project.

Pina and the CEDA board are now in the process of deciding how to spend that $400,000 next year. Elaborating on four ideas pulled from a longer list provided to Selectmen, Pina talked about:

--  Rehabilitating the CEDA-owned Recovery Road building now leased to the Christopher Donovan Day School

-- Paying for final plans and “possible implementation” of a system to prevent storm-water runoff from Merchants Way from polluting the nearby river.

-- Spending about $190,000 to redo the 18 crosswalks in the streetscape area with a “stamped brick” design to make them more visible and attractive.

-- Investing in implementing some of the recommendations to come out of consultants’ studies of the parking situation in Wareham.

While praising Pina for being open to their input and that of citizens, Selectmen immediately turned thumbs down on a couple of the ideas and expressed skepticism about rehabbing a building that i used by a tenant at an already-agreed-upon price.

Selectmen Alan Slavin said he’d seen the preliminary storm-water plans for Merchants Way. “I don’t think it fits in,” he said.

The crosswalk proposal prompted a lot of discussion. Selectman Judy Whiteside suggested “the old zebra crosswalks.” Chairman Peter Teitelbaum asked what happened to the old green crosswalks bordered with white lines. No one expressed enthusiasm for pavement stamped and painted to look like brick.

“It is clear that housing and housing stock is a real problem in this town,” Whiteside said. “Enabling someone to put a new door in, to reroof, enabling older people to stay in their homes” are the kinds of things she’d like CEDA to focus on.

Others agreed, with some suggestion that parking was also a worthy investment.

In the end, Selectmen agreed to try to arrange a Jan. 6 joint meeting with the CEDA board to continue the discussion.