Hope you have many personal things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Here are some thoroughly Wiscasset-area reasons to be:

Senior housing developer Optimus set its sights on Wiscasset, for a senior living community that keeps the former Wiscasset Primary School on the tax rolls and eventually paying the town added taxes it can keep. More housing? More jobs? New use for a high profile site? Another chance to show developers Wiscasset’s willingness to consider tax-increment financing like it did with Molnlycke? Yes, please.

Two words: Ash ponds. Two more words: Going away. The ones near Mason Station are being sucked up this fall, no thanks to the rains Town Manager Dennis Simmons said have been adding to the work. The closer that area comes to clean, the better for its future and Wiscasset’s.

And two plus one makes three Alna selectmen. Absentee ballots are available and Dec. 14, sometime that night, hopefully, the town will name a first selectman to fill the seat for the first time since spring, and the board will have a new team member to share its work in an often rancorous era for the town. 

Week’s positive parting thought: Towns seem to be making some good choices so far for their American Rescue Plan Act funds. Money creates options and, if well used, sometimes  solutions, savings and increased safety.