Woolwich’s annual town meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 30 at the elementary school on Nequasset Road. The selectboard set the meeting date Feb. 5. The board decided to continue holding the meeting mid-week rather than on a Saturday morning. “The concern is if we have it on a Saturday and it’s a nice day people won’t bother coming out for the meeting,” commented Chairman David King Sr.

Woolwich resident Todd McPhee who was recently elected a Sagadahoc County commissioner attended the meeting. McPhee said his goal was to attend a selectboard meeting in every town in Sagadahoc County. King thanked McPhee saying he hoped the commissioners would be more receptive to concerns regarding proposed increases to the county budget. King was recently reappointed to serve on the commissioners' Budget Advisory Committee.

EMS Director Danny Evarts reported the ambulance department finished January having made 33 calls; 26 patients were transported and MC1 was called for assistance nine times. Woolwich ambulance responded to six calls during the first week of February, seeing six patients and transporting five. In his report, Evarts wrote ambulance personnel had attended their annual mandatory training this month and they took part in electrical lines training facilitated by Central Maine Power Co. “Two members will be attending a pediatric advanced life support (PALS) training session this week, and our Medical Director Dr. Michael Schmitz has agreed to teach a course on sepsis,” wrote Evarts.

Assessor William Van Tuinen of Madison was hired to access recent upgrades to CMP's transmission grid. Dirigo Assessing Group based in Sidney recommended hiring an assessing agent specializing in utilities to carry out this part of the town's revaluation, the town’s first in over 15 years. The purpose of the revaluation is to even out the tax burden and ensure Woolwich continues receiving its share of state aid, including homestead reimbursement and reimbursements for veterans and properties in tree growth. 

The board signed the annual Fish Commissioners Memorandum Agreement governing the alewife fisheries on Nequasset Stream.  The agreement reads in part: “In consideration of $13.00 per bushel of alewives harvested, or 44 percent of the sale price should it exceed $30.00 per bushel, to be paid on or before June 15, 2025, the inhabitants of the Town of Woolwich do license and authorize said Stephen E. Bodge of the town of Dresden to fish, take and sell for his own purpose and profit alewives from Nequasset Stream and Back River Creek during the period from April 15, 2024 to and including June 5, 2025.” 

The alewives harvest and fishway are under the management of Woolwich’s five Fish Commissioners – Bob Stevens, Bruce McElman, Pat Hennin, John Chapman and Bill Potter.  More information about the Fish Commission can be found on the town’s website and in the annual Town Report.

Absent from the meeting was Selectman and  District 49 Rep. Allison Hepler, who was returning from a trip to Washington, D.C. on legislative business. Hepler serves as house chair of the legislature's Marine Resources Committee. “I am one of three commissioners in the Atlantic States Marine Resources Commission,” she wrote in an email to Wiscasset Newspaper Feb. 6.

The board will tour the new Tedford Housing facility in Brunswick at 11 a.m. Friday, Feb. 14.