Wiscasset’s lack of a planner and the impact of that have become a refrain at some municipal meetings. That’s understandable. This was a downsizing: The town eliminated a department. Voters’ decisions followed years of close calls at the polls, so barring a grant-funded planner or other ideas we’ve heard, this is the new normal. But as the new wears off, the normal can be better than it has been for some committees and applicants.

Fix the applications where they need it. That work is under way. The sooner it is done, the better, but in important matters, a jog is sometimes better than a sprint.

Also fine-tune the planner-free process to build in adequate guidance for applicants. It may not be as close guidance as a planner gave. How could it be? That's too much to ask committee volunteers who already go to meetings and site walks, study ordinances and do more, and it’s a lot to ask town staff unless they have time on their hands I haven’t seen.

Voters knew what they were doing when they axed the department. And it wasn’t to send projects’ grant prospects down the tubes or turn away business that would help pay property taxes and make more available here to do and buy. Enough voters determined the town could do without a planning department.

Now the town has to live up to that.

There’s the puzzle: How to fill the planner void without paying for it. A contractor would cost the town all or part of the money it was trying to save and, moreover, would go against the spirit and possibly the letter of the votes that defunded the department. A planner by any name is still a planner, so taxes shouldn’t go there unless or until voters warm back up to it.

Go for that free money. If it isn’t under one stone, look under three more. Like the lotteries say, you can’t win if you don’t get in. Let the ash pond cleanup grant efforts that finally landed funding be a blueprint and an inspiration.

The answer is out there. Wiscasset has attracted a number of summer and full-time residents with impressive technical or financial backgrounds. If someone isn’t already on a committee, lending their ideas for where to look and any other help, such as grant-writing, would be a great service the town should and probably would welcome.

Not every idea sticks. But every plan starts with one, or 20. And a plan to best guide new or growing businesses in town could help them and tell other prospective ones Wiscasset wants them, and wants to work with them to help them get here, to make this an even better place to live, work and shop, and for their children to go to school.

Keep planning, Wiscasset.