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Wilton selectboard discusses trust fund, Forster Mill bids

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The Wilton Selectboard awarded both bids for Forster Mill work to EnviroVantage, a New Hampshire-based company.

WILTON – Selectpersons discussed the management of a trust fund for the Recreation Department at Tuesday night’s meeting, as well as bids for two town-owned vehicles and the Forster Mill demolition project.

Earlier this year, an anonymous donor provided the town’s recreation department with $360,000. A trust fund is being created to benefit the town’s Recreation Department – a purpose that selectpersons as well as department Director Frank Donald stressed should be honored sooner rather than later. A discussion was held as to whether or not it would be appropriate to invest more of the donated money to the fund, or if the department should simply use the funds for projects as needed.

“It makes sense to me to maximize the trust fund, putting in as much as we can. It would still address the needs of the recreation department and would maximize investments to fund not only the needs now, but in the future as well,” Selectman Jeffrey Adams said.

The three immediate needs for the department are upgrades to both the Kinneowatha playground and the Bishop Park playground, as well as repairs to the ice skating rink building. Both playground updates are being projected at roughly $20,000 while the building repairs have been estimated at a $68,000 project.

The selectboard unanimously voted to request that Town Manager Rhonda Irish explore the interest rates of a $160,000 loan for the trust fund.

In other news, a town tractor was sold to the highest of four bidders at the amount of $2,580 while a squad truck was sold for $4,679.

The selectboard voted unanimously to award the Forster Mill demolition project to the low bidder of EnviroVantage for $372,689. The same company was awarded the work of asbestos abatement at a meeting two weeks ago for the amount of $26,895. The company was waiting to hear the results of the bidding process for both projects before moving forward with signing a contract. The official awarding will take place Dec. 19. The abatement portion of the work is required to be done by Jan. 26 with the demolition work starting no later than April 30.

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5 Comments

  1. This does not provide the details but the skating building needs a bathroom. There are no restrooms in the park off season. And in season, kids have to run from one side of the park to another to use the restroom during games and practices. There are other needed changes, as well.

  2. An itemized list of project cost should be made public of all projects such as this Rink Building prior to the contract assigned or money spent.

  3. The building in question doubles as the Rec department office for most of the year as well as the warming shack for the winter. It will be a new building to replace the existing one and will be larger both in the heated part, but will also include much need space for sports equipment plus a year round bathroom. This is a project we have talked about for some time, but did not have funds for without raising taxes. This way the job gets done at little or no cost to taxpayers while making some much needed improvements to the overall program.

  4. I encourage our citizens to come to the Selectboard meetings to ask questions and become better informed about projects and details relating to planning. In the case of the Recreation Committee’s current plans, the funding is coming from non-taxpayers dollars – a very generous gift from a bequest. The second item on all of our regular Selectboard meetings is “Public Comment” to allow citizens to directly participate with questions, comments, concerns, and ideas. I would be pleased to see more citizens at each and every meeting.

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