WILTON – When the Wilton selectboard opened the floor to public comment they heard from resident William Rice about the proposed memorial on the warrant for the annual town meeting. Rice gave some background information regarding his father’s long and honorable service record and then made his opinions about the memorial known.
“I honestly believe we would be a better community if we paid as much homage to those who have passed as we do for those who are alive today. When we get that equality, whether it’s the Bass family entrepreneurs or the veterans that took machine gun fire on Omaha Beach, we will grow; we will be a better community if we recognize and honor that. And this is why I urge you to please, look aside, and if we have to use less money, then so be it, but let’s get a memorial at Lakeview Cemetery for the veterans and all the others that I mentioned,” Rice said.
Rice was assured by the entire selectboard that they unanimously support the memorial project and that is why it’s on the warrant.
After public comment, they heard from Chris Lynch of Matrix Design Group to consider entering into an agreement for the design, build and operation of a GPON Fiber to the Home network to unserved and underserved residents in areas where Spectrum and Consolidated Communications do not already have plans for development. Lynch gave the board an update on the grant application process, which included that they were not recipients of the competitive Connect Maine grant, and while that wasn’t good news, he explained that in 2019 the municipal right-of-way statutes were passed and that means free make-ready work from utility companies.
“This statute has not been put to the test yet, but there are a number of municipal builds that are going on now that will, so hopefully we will be able to reduce the amount of money the town is responsible for by a very, very significant amount—probably by about 80 percent,” Lynch said.
It was also explained that since the town has control of the build, it does qualify as a municipal build and is eligible for free broadband as long as utility companies don’t try to test the constitutionality of the statutes. If the statutes are successful, it’s possible that there will be no cost to the town.
The next steps for Matrix Design is a poll survey and pole application to utility companies. At the end of his presentation Lynch brought up the draft agreement for review, which was incomplete without the pole survey. The original estimate for this project was $313,000 and has been reduced to $43,000. They’re still hoping for the next round of Connect Maine grants to pay for the installation fees to everyone and reduce monthly costs across the board from approximately $95 monthly to $75.
The board voted to enter into the agreement with Matrix Design once the typos in the draft have been corrected and contingent upon the selectboard determining the funding source.
Town manager Rhonda Irish provided a town meeting update; the warrant has been completed and reviewed by the town’s attorney. The warrant was approved as presented.
Irish reported that the town manager position has been posted to the town’s website, and that the request for proposals for the windows and siding replacement has been completed and will be posted there soon. There was discussion about posting the position in other locations and possibly spending money on advertising because there has been little success so far. The board voted to spend $2–3,000 on advertising for the town manager’s position.
