Citing fast vehicle sales and firms’ reluctance to bid on something they won’t build for years, Wiscasset Town Manager Dennis Simmons on July 5 sought and got selectmen’s OK to, for six months, use his discretion to seek bids or not. These days, it can delay an order or make the town miss out on a truck on a lot, officials said.

“I do expect that this is going to be just a continuing problem, not just for public works but with some of the other materials ... we have to buy, that if we don’t jump on it ... we’re either not going to get it, or we’re going to pay through the nose for it,” Simmons said.

He explained to selectmen, the policy already gives him “some discretion” to bypass it for health and safety, money-saving, or an emergency. He asked the board to trust him beyond what the policy allows, and let him and department heads use their best judgment. The town will still go out to bid for sand, paving and the like, but vehicles, especially, are “a bigger problem,” he said.

For example, some firms will not bid on the ambulance approved in June because they have orders three years ahead, Simmons said. 

The board’s decision and the talk on the problem followed Public Works Director Ted Snowdon’s request that night to suspend the policy for one or more of the truck buys voters approved last month. Simmons said coming to the board every two weeks to suspend the policy each time the town has a vehicle to buy could mean it would be gone. The board granted Simmons the added discretion for six months, 5-0.

“Makes sense to me,” Chair Sarah Whitfield said of Simmons’ request.

Also July 5, Simmons said about $199,000, the second round of American Rescue Plan Act funding, has arrived. How to possibly spend it can be a topic for the new board’s first workshop, Simmons said. Other topics officials have eyed include the possible cannibas ordinance the ordinance review committee drafted, and board members’ goals. The board set the workshop for 6 p.m. July 26.

Selectmen nodded a pier vendor permit for Ron Leeman, doing business as Forgotten Recipes; picked their committee liaison assignments: Jones, for budget, airport, investment and broadband; Whitfield, cemetery and future of the schools; James Andretta, ordinance review and planning board; Terry Heller, waterfront; and William Maloney, appeals board, comprehensive plan and shellfish; and heard from Simmons, Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s latest sewer department inspection came back mostly satisfactory; exceptions were the finances Simmons noted the town is working to address with increased revenue; and the unfilled fourth job at the plant. The town has an applicant, Simmons said.