Tying any big change to a calendar date seems arbitrary enough to doom it, but we figured if people can have New Year’s resolutions, why not towns.

Here are some for 2016:

Wiscasset, its selectmen and lawyers have tried for years to recoup the hundreds of thousands of dollars Mason Station owed in back taxes. Let this be the year that some of it, through lot sales or other outside investments, or more legal wins, comes into the town coffers. Getting all of it back may or may not be an unattainable, single-year resolution, but some would help and would show that all the effort and money spent has had results.

The Wiscasset School Department is midway through its first year with two schools, and already a proposed hike is likely for the next budget. Let the next one, higher or not, be pretty close to the size that taxpayers can expect to pay going forward. The up-and-down numbers since leaving Regional School Unit 12 were understandable, but should be able to settle out in time for the department’s third year.

May Woolwich this year finish hashing out whether to pay as it throws or go back to doing trash the old-fashioned way. There have already been multiple petitions and another is now being considered. We marveled throughout 2015 at the democracy in action over the Sagadahoc County line, but it will be nice when the PAYT petitions, votes and property owners’ uncertainty over the future of trash disposal, reach their end. At 616-453, the most recent vote, in November, to repeal PAYT may not have been resounding, but it had a much greater margin than Wiscasset has decided some items by in recent years.

May Edgecomb’s planned new website flourish with information and help for residents and those looking to do business in town. The town has been working toward it; it’s time for the select and planning boards to come to terms and finish the job, with a single site that is updated regularly and does not hinge on arrangements with one or two citizens for maintenance, a domain name or anything else. Like other town programs, websites are supposed to be built to withstand turnover among volunteers or other changes, hopefully without interruption.

Reasonable goals stand the best chance. We think these are all attainable, thanks to the groundwork the towns laid for them in 2015 or earlier.