Wiscasset Town Manager Dennis Simmons told selectmen Dec. 17, he expects to get them a draft 2025-26 budget by Thursday, Feb. 6. The board set budget talks for Tuesday, Feb. 11, Tuesday, Feb. 25 and Wednesday, March 5, all at 6 p.m. at the town office. 

Tries at filling the budget committee have failed: Simmons said one person was elected to the committee and another has applied, "but two is not a committee." He twice invited last year's members to apply. "Only two ... got back to me, and (they) said 'No' and 'Hell, no..'" The openings have been announced on Facebook and the town website and at the town office, Simmons said. He and the board discussed possibly seeking to abolish the ordinance that calls for a budget committee.

The committee was created before Wiscasset had a town manager, Selectman Pam Dunning said. "The selectmen needed someone to oversee what they did with the budget. We now have a town manager, and essentially the selectboard is the de facto budget committee overseeing what he does with the budget. So putting a third layer of a budget committee in doesn't make a lot of sense to me anymore."

She and Selectman William "Bill" Maloney voiced support for an ad hoc committee instead, for work like the budget committee did on the change to light-emitting diodes, or LED lights, and not having to meet monthly. Dunning said such a committee might get more takers.

Also Dec. 17, the board kept Karl Olson, Peter McRae and Allen Cohen on the planning board, Olson on the ordinance review committee, Heather Jones on the climate action team and Pamela Brackett on the airport advisory committee; nodded business licenses for Marketplace Cafe, 681 Bath Road; The Peaceful Pagan Vintage, a vintage clothing, art and antiques shop at 6 Railroad Ave.; and Grounded, a coffee shop at 147 Gardiner Road; and nodded Big Al's Outlet Inc.'s annual license to sell consumer fireworks at 300 Bath Road. The board voted 5-0 after renewed objections from Thomas Bryant, neighbor of the applicant's storage facility on JB's Way. Superior Court Justice Daniel Billings last month denied Bryant and wife Kathleen Bryant's appeal of a prior decision by the selectboard.

Simmons said work on the town's new website is moving along, with preliminary designs expected in a couple weeks and the site going live by the end of February. The new site will have more information and be easier to use, "so I'm pretty excited," he said.

Tuesday, Christmas Eve, the transfer station will close at 12 p.m.; town office will close at 1 p.m., Simmons said.

"Merry Christmas, everyone," Chair Sarah Whitfield said at the meeting's close.