The Wiscasset School Committee's chairman-elect wants the panel to have a proposed school consolidation plan ready to show residents in October. The committee could then get the public's input and keep moving toward consolidation in time for year two of the school department, Steve Smith said on June 11.

“I think we need to gather all the information from our administrators, teachers and kids, come up with a plan that we can support and present it to the town of Wiscasset ... We need to have something in place ... so that the discussion can take place (and) we can actually make that happen,” he said.

The committee faces the hard task of making consolidation both save money and improve education, Smith said. “We're going to have to scrutinize everything.”

In addition to consolidation, Smith cited three other focal points for the coming year: union contract talks, an early start to planning the year two budget, and looking into possible arrangements with other towns; that will include further talks with Alternative Organizational Structure (AOS) 98 about a possible join-up, he said. AOS 98 serves the Boothbay peninsula and Georgetown.

“See if that's an option and if it's not, rule it out pretty quickly. I don't think these things can hang,” he said.

Smith, the committee's vice chairman, made the comments as he made his case for the chairmanship he went on to win; he and outgoing chairman Glen Craig will be switching roles, as Craig becomes vice chairman. The change takes effect July 1.

Committee member Eugene Stover nominated Smith for chairman. Stover called Craig hard-working, but criticized his chairmanship on one front.

“I don't think I have been informed when I needed to be, and there are times I've had to call and find out what's going on. That shouldn't be. That shouldn't be, and I would like to see a change to see if that will help.

“It's nothing personal, it's just that I think business-wise, we would be better off if the board was informed of what's going on,” Stover said.

Craig said he doesn't micromanage. “I'm not a person that's going to hold someone's hand ... Can I be a little more informative to make people happy? Probably so,” he told the panel. “My clearest thing of what I want is transparency from us as a board to the town and the community to have open conversations at all times, and I feel that being at the chair I'd have much more control of having that being available.”

New board member Michael Dunn nominated Craig to continue as chairman; then Dunn and the committee's other new member, Chelsea Haggett, both elected at the polls one day earlier, abstained from voting.

“I don't feel informed enough .... I would be just guessing,” Haggett said.

“It would be an uneducated vote,” Dunn said.

Smith and Craig voted for themselves; Stover for Smith, giving Smith the chairmanship.

The vote to make Craig vice chairman ran 4-1, with Stover opposed.