WILTON — Town Manager Rhonda Irish presented the Select Board on Tuesday, August 4, with finalized plans for the upcoming August 17, Town Meeting to be held at 6 p.m. Weather permitting, Irish’s primary plan is to hold the meeting outside, in LEAP’s parking lot at 128 Weld Road.
“We’ll hold it there, facing the building with a 100 chairs divided into the two groups of 50 that we need,” Irish said to the board. “We have not been getting more than 100 people when it’s held in June. I don’t think we’ll get more than that now.”
If people prefer, they will be able to remain in their cars parked behind the chairs. Portable toilets will be provided by the town as will a sound system and lighting if the meeting proceeds into the night.
“If it looks like the Friday before it’s going to be bad weather, we will set up so that we can have 50 people go into the former Lovett Woodworks warehouse site,” Irish said.
The remainder of the people will have to participate from their vehicles if the town has to go with Irish’s rainy day back up plan.
The board also listened to Police Chief Heidi Wilcox’s report regarding the search for the Massachusetts fugitive fleeing state police in the woods of Wilton. Wilcox clarified that the town of Wilton was never on lock down during the search. She also thanked Steve’s Market for providing food to a crew of almost a hundred people that participated in the search for Derell D. Guy who was captured Tuesday, July 28.
Board member Tom Saviello requested a revision to the town’s emergency response plan so that new Facebook notifications would be released every four to six hours providing updates. The Wilton police department was able to reach over 106,000 people by posting updates regarding the search for Guy.
“I do respect that you would have liked more information every four hours. Rhonda and I talked about that, and I do understand that so I’m happy to entertain a review of that policy,” Wilcox said in response to Saviello.
Irish requested that two board members volunteer to review correspondence documents with Ransom Consulting regarding development plans for the Forster Mill site. Board members Tom Saviello and Keith Swett agreed to look over the documents and organize a workshop for the board to proceed with plans for the site.
Irish is organizing a public meeting to be held on September 23 for Sevee & Maheer Engineers to present an overview of its proposed plans for replacing Wilson Lake’s retaining wall. If more than 50 people sign up for the meeting, the town will schedule another meeting for September 24.
The board was not able to approve the police union contract since Irish has not yet received a finalized copy of the contract.
In response to Selectperson Saviello’s request at the previous board meeting, Regional School Unit 9 school board directors have agreed to attend Wilton select board meetings. One Wilton school board member will attend every quarter starting September 15.
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