“People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” Isaac Asimov, scholar and author

I am guessing that I should give up guessing at politicians and their decisions. I was pretty sure that the Windham town councilors would approve the TIF for Mallison Falls Mill project, and yet it was turned down by a vote of 5-2. I was fairly certain that the vote would be 4-3 for the TIF, but I guess (again) strange things do happen in politics.

In one way it is a shame for the owner of the mill, but I have to wonder if someone promised something that they could not deliver, which is not a strange coincidence in Windham. Take the condo project proposed for the Keddy Mill site in South Windham where a $2 million sewer project was done and then the remake of the area fell apart. But then again, so did the Windham skate park.

I guess (oops, again) that one or the other or maybe both mill projects might have been completed if Windham could ever get better at successfully applying for grants of some sort. I hear comments like there is no grant money to be had, and yet I have read many stories in newspapers where towns and even corporations have received millions in grants. I don’t know where the problem lies within the Windham Town Hall, but it seems to me it’s time for the Windham town councilors to fix the problem instead of putting an ever-growing tax burden on the wallets of residential property owner in town.

Of course, all of that is better than the breaking news about the sewer project in Kittery where at least one resident is facing a bill of $300,000. According to WCSH-6, another resident has to pay $275,000 within 10 years and isn’t even connected to the sewer.

I will definitely be doing a lot of research on this one, because the one common theme I see so far is those connected to the government in one fashion or another in Kittery are blaming the people, not the government. I guess (oh no, again) even the Windham government bears watching when it comes to its next attempt at some type of sewer project for North Windham. Luckily, the Windham voters disposed of the previous attempt for a sewer in North Windham, which would have placed a financial burden on every residential property owner in the town, although most would have never been connected to it.

But wait folks, I am guessing (yikes, again) we just might be paying for something else, too. On the 3rd of May the Windham town councilors should have discussed the 21st Century Downtown Plan as far as preliminary engineering and cost estimates. This plan has a long way to go and a really hard way to get there, especially with somebody’s wallet if you know what I mean. It’s not that I disagree that the North Windham business area needs a serious makeover, it’s needed that since Day One of its conception. This town can’t even maintain a skate park properly, so it makes me wonder if this project will suffer the same as several other plans have. Just look at the attempt to build a place for children to enjoy riding their BMX dirt bikes beside the town’s skate park. Well, it did get started, and it’s still nothing but a pile of dirt and gravel and shame on the town for allowing that to happen.

Sorry, I digressed there, but North Windham does need a serious makeover, and what is proposed so far will cost all of us dearly. It will cost several million dollars just to put all of the utilities underground and at this point is it really worth it? That’s just a preliminary estimate, and I am sure that figure will be much higher than estimated. I state that because if the electrical service is updated, many of businesses will have to do the same which more than likely will be expensive.

Lane Hiltunen of Windham will keep on guessing he guesses.