Let’s hope Wiscasset has an easier time filling the rental space in its airport terminal than it’s had trying to fill seats on the airport advisory committee.

Two seats have been vacant many months, leaving the panel without a voting quorum because, by town rules, member Steve Williams serves as a non-resident, non-voting member. Wiscasset has a few thousand-plus people in it, but the fact that no one, other than the two already serving, pilot Bryan Buck and airport neighbor Pam Brackett, is willing or able to commit to one meeting a month has become a source of fascination for me.

Like any town panel, no one bats an eye, rightly so, when someone misses once in a while. People have jobs, lives and families, and offhand I can’t think of anyone who serves in area towns who makes it to meetings 100 percent of the time. So there goes that concern of any would-be candidate.

Plus, airports are an interesting enough subject, aren’t they? I think so. Some of the same issues larger and even international airports face on a daily basis can be found on a smaller scale in a town airport. Not to mention, potential spending items come up at the meetings. And we know from comments on our Facebook page, letters to the editor and the meetings we report on, property taxes (and last year’s 14 percent hike in them) are on townspeople’s minds.

As an advisory panel, the committee’s recommendations are only that. Airport Manager Frank Costa, Town Manager Marian Anderson and selectmen take it from there. But the committee can’t even make formal recommendations until it’s got three voting members. That doesn’t mean the workshop sessions the meetings currently are reduced to are without merit altogether. But it’s not the same. And an equally important flaw in a partial panel is the absent voices  from other parts of the community.

The panel’s current members serve earnestly and contribute their knowledge as pilots, neighbors, residents and a tax-paying non-resident to the airport. Why not have someone with no association with the airport step up to join them? There might be a learning curve about airport business and some of the lingo. But someone unfamiliar with the property and the business it does might be the fresh eye that can benefit any business that’s been around a long time.

Costa put it well the other day when I called for an update on the rental space. I asked him about the committee openings, like always these days, and he said he hopes people aren’t hesitant about applying because they picture the airport as a social club. It isn’t a club, it belongs to the townspeople, he said. And he hoped, as he always does, the seats will get filled.

Anderson sent a letter dated Dec. 2, along with committee applications, to 32 neighbors of the airport. No takers yet for a seat. But she said one resident, a pilot, is interested. That would still leave one to go. If interested, call or stop by the town office. Ask to serve on the committee, or ask more about it. If you go on the panel, give it a while and then find it’s really not for you, you won’t be the first person in Wiscasset to leave a term early. But however long you serve, you could be in on the ground floor of discussions that impact your taxes and your and everyone’s use and enjoyment of the airport. Wiscasset is the prettiest village, among many lovely ones in the Midcoast. But how many of them have their own, town-owned airport?

I think that’s pretty cool.