On June 5, something happened at a Windham Town Council meeting that I never saw coming and surprisingly I agree with most of what the town manager said about the proposed North Windham sewer project.

In case you didn’t watch the meeting, Tony Plante stated now is not the time to put the proposed sewer project in front of Windham voters in November. I also agree with his reasoning because that’s why I have opposed the sewer project several times in my column. But I do caution the readers because the town councilors can still vote to put the sewer project on the ballot because after listening to councilors Hayman, Nadeau and Call I believe they would vote for it no matter what the town manager says. Time will tell.

Many probably think I am opposed to the sewer project because it costs so much money ($37 million for the so-called spine into Westbrook or somewhere around $67 million for the entire project). It might surprise you but I do believe that the Town of Windham will eventually end up having a public sewer system because either the Maine Department of Environmental Protection or the federal Environmental Protect Agency will force us to have a town-wide sewer. No, what I am totally against is paying for a sewer that I will never use and at the same time have to pay for the maintenance and/or repair of my septic system.

From my understanding of the Plante’s comments during that meeting, I think that he realized that the proposed sewer project would be a tough sell not so much because of a lack of an immediate need for it, but more so because financial figures are vague. Just like the column a few weeks ago in this newspaper by Rick Roberts titled “Windham’s Big Dig” stated, what would the actual cost of the proposed sewer be? But there are also other reasons I believe that the sewer should not move forward at this time and it deals with who’s pushing for the sewer while committing the property taxpayers of Windham to pay for it.

I will never support any sewer that I have to help pay for and will never use in the foreseeable future. The cost of any sewer project should be paid for solely by the users of the system just like the Maine Turnpike users do. But I have to say what scares me the most is that Windham has a history of starting something and instead of completing a project it moves on to another project. I don’t want to beat a dead bird to death but just look at Windham’s Comprehensive Master Plan as a perfect example. It was never approved by the state of Maine, often isn’t followed and is about outdated as a steam locomotive. Actually the only difference is that the steam locomotive is still useful. One of the points Windham’s town manager made was that Windham must undertake the 21st Century Downtown project along with updating the town’s Comprehensive Master Plan which the state declared incomplete about a century ago (just kidding, but I probably wasn’t shaving then).

And I have to finish this column by airing one of Windham’s dirty secrets and that’s appointments to Windham’s numerous committees that have either become vacant and even worse, useless. I have to suspect that’s either by design or stupidity or both. It’s either that or Windham has a town council a few clowns short of a circus. I have noticed meeting after meeting appointments to the Windham Economic Development Corporation are discussed without ever mentioning who the candidate or candidates are. Do we have councilors that are afraid to mention that one candidate is Windham’s former Economic Development director who left employment in a mysterious manner and seemed to be the cause of two female town councilors resigning as well. That is the same William Tracy who resigned as a town councilor.

Lane Hiltunen, of Windham, believes Windham is chest-deep in alligators because the town council doesn’t know how to drain the swamp.