The town of Edgecomb has a web designer, now all it needs is a domain name. The selectmen voted, 2-0, on Jan. 19 accepting a Wisconsin firm’s bid to design the new municipal website. The selectmen chose Town Web Design, LLC. of Madison, Wisconsin to host, maintain and set up the site and pay the domain name’s annual fee.

Town Web Design will provide those services for $802. The annual maintenance fee in following years is expected to cost around $600 per year, according to Website Committee member David Nutt.

The selectmen will use funds in the municipal incidentals account to fund the first year’s operation.

Town officials are hoping the new website’s domain name will be the same as the current one, edgecomb.org. The current municipal website’s domain name is owned by former Selectman Stuart Smith. He began the municipal website in 1999. He has retained ownership over the domain name ever since.

Earlier this month, Smith and the selectmen reached agreement on a price to transfer the domain name’s ownership. Smith requested $1,196 to relinquish the rights. On Jan. 4, the board sent him a letter indicating an article requesting funding for the transfer would be placed on the May town meeting warrant.

Town officials hoped Smith would transfer ownership prior to receiving compensation. In his letter, Selectman Jack Sarmanian indicated payment would take place by July 2 if voters approved funding. According to Sarmanian, Smith hasn’t had enough time to consider the offer. 

“He’s received the letter, but he hasn’t had time to give it much consideration,” Sarmanian said.

The Website Committee favors using the old domain name. But they want Smith’s response by Jan. 31. If the town and Smith can’t reach an agreement, the committee recommends using an alternative domain name. The committee has already reserved two potential domain names: edgecombme.net and edgecombme.me.

“Don (Kroitzsch, a committee member) has spent hundreds of hours creating links to a new site. The sooner we have a domain name the fewer switching and changing links are needed,” said committee member Janet Blevins.

Based on past comments between Smith and town officials, Website Committee member David Nutt believed the town would receive the old domain name before month’s end.

“I’m completely confident we can work something out with Stuart in the very near term, but if not, we need an alternative,” he said.

In other action, selectmen approved the purchase of a new office computer. The board voted 2-0 to buy a 64 GB computer from Burgess Computer in Bath. The cost is $1,073.88.

The selectmen also approved a tax abatement. The board voted, 2-0, approving a $517.98 abatement plus interest to James Thomas of Orono. The town assessor erred in calculating Thomas’ property acreage in 2013. The Cross Point Road property was reduced from 27.42 acres to 8.58. Thomas was due an abatement for two years, but only received one for 2014. The selectmen corrected the error by approving an abatement for the 2013 taxes.

The selectmen will meet next at 6 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 1 in the municipal building.