The Wiscasset Historic Preservation Commission is a pillar of the town’s comprehensive plan and has granted nearly all the two dozen project requests it has handled, commission member John Reinhardt said Monday night.

“That’s a pretty good batting average,” he told the Ordinance Review Committee. The two panels are working to report back to selectmen. The panels received a letter last spring from Town Manager Marian Anderson stating the select board had voted to refer to them its request to repeal the 2015 historic preservation ordinance. Repeal would take a town vote.

Selectmen acted after hearing complaints about the commission the ordinance created. Reinhardt shared a different theory Monday. He told the ORC, he doesn’t think it was about any applications the commission has handled,  it’s because the commission is a “roadblock” to the Maine Department of Transportation’s downtown project. The commission has maintained MDOT should come to it for a certificate of appropriateness.

Reached Monday evening, Selectmen’s Chairman Judy Colby said she had no comment at this time on Reinhardt’s comment.

ORC members questioned the idea of doing away with an entire ordinance years in the making, and members agreed with Reinhardt, the ordinance ties into the comprehensive plan. “We’re doing what we were appointed to do,” said commission and ORC member Gordon Kontrath. Repealing the ordinance would be a letdown for organizers of both the ordinance and the comprehensive plan, he said.

ORC member Jason Putnam said a repeal doesn’t make sense. He asked Chairman Karl Olson if seeking one would be within selectmen’s rights. Olson said the ORC works at the direction of the select board. “That doesn’t mean we can’t give them our two cents’ worth,” Olson said. 

Members discussed possibly including a summary of their views in the report, along with the required parts, which they said may put the repeal in the form of an amendment to the ordinance.

Olson plans to have a draft report ready for members to critique at the ORC’s next meeting, set for 5:30 p.m. Aug. 28 at the municipal building. He will work on it as he has time, as a volunteer, he said. He noted the ORC previously had the town planner’s help drafting documents. Voters rejected the planning budget last month.