Special town meeting eyed toward sewer funding
Wiscasset might have a summer town vote. Selectmen July 1 discussed a timeline with Town Manager Dennis Simmons. He will draft a special town meeting warrant for the board to consider. The topic: Tapping the undesignated fund balance for $325,000 toward a projected $4.3 million to upgrade two pump stations and upgrade three other stations' controls.
For the rest of that sum, Olver Associates' Mandy Holway said about $3.45 million could come from the $5 million the town won in Congressionally directed spending; about another $340,000 from a developer's sewer impact fee; and $200,000 in sewer reserve funds.
The undesignated fund balance is at about $5 million, Finance and Human Resources Director Kathleen Onorato said. And the fund balance stands to grow due to an expected budget surplus, Simmons said in his written manager's report ahead of the meeting.
In the meeting, Simmons reiterated the need to upgrade pump stations three and four. "We've known for quite a while (those) desperately need to be upgraded. We are at a point where we just have to do this work."
In other sewer business that will also take more deciding, the board agreed to accept from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund a grant and a loan at 2.5% interest toward the sewer plant's move. As described that night and last month, the Fund has offered the town a $10 million bond package; $1 million of that is forgivable, so officials said that amounts to a grant; as for the other $9 million, according to the discussion with Holway, accepting it by the July 18 deadline does not commit the town to end up borrowing anything. It is like a construction loan, to tap as needed, Holway said. The town would have until Sept. 30, 2026 to apply to the bond bank, she said.
"And if we said … 'Yes, we’re going to do it,' but then by Sept. 1, 2026, we don’t need it, for some reason, can we not take it," Selectmen's Chair Sarah Whitfield asked.
"That happens. There's no penalty … they reallocate to somebody else," Holway answered.
Also July 1, after an executive, or closed door, session, selectmen nodded a new three-year contract for Simmons. Via email, Simmons confirmed a 3.5% hike, to $114,099 a year.
In other action, selectmen approved a letter of interest to take part in Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission's Housing Infrastructure Study; approved applying to the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Technology Innovation Partnership Program for technical help town officials said would cost the town nothing except possible staff time; and nodded a medical storefront cannabis license renewal for Richard Petron and Benjamin Nichols doing business as Seafoam, 493 Gardiner Road.