By JEFF EPSTEIN
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WINDSOR, Vt. — The select board began its new year by immediately taking on two of the main issues it grappled with in the past year: blight mitigation and the fate of the armory.
Although the town meeting passed the authority to bond a fund to do something about blight, the “something” is now the hot question. Board members wondered if they should now create a policy for pursuing blight remediations and what that would entail.
As he has on other occasions, Town Manager Tom Marsh explained the various scenarios that the town could use on a particular property, such as extending a loan for one aspect of a project contingent on the property owner getting a bank loan for something else.
Marsh noted any large project would likely be controversial, and thought the town was not interested in getting involved in real estate matters.
“I can see this whole thing fraught with difficulty,” he said.
Marsh suggested the current revolving loan fund as a possible starting point for drafting a new policy, but reminded the board there are so many possible situations that no one policy could likely apply to every case.
The board took no immediate action on the matter.
The National Guard armory came up for discussion again, with Marsh recounting the history of the building for new members, and delivering an update.
The discussion over the past year centered on competing reports on the levels of PCBs in the building, the hazards that represented, and what could be practically done with the building. The latest word from the regional office of the federal Environmental Protection Administra-tion, Marsh said, was that the building could safely be used for any industrial or commercial purpose but they may be hazards for usage as a residence, daycare center, school, or similar high-person usage.
Some hazard could also be mitigated by paint, Marsh said, but there are no guarantees that would solve the problem going forward.
The town could get the building for free from the National Guard, or the National Guard can tear it down as it was previously told to do. That would restore it to a field, which might be usable as a dog park as some people have requested.
The board asked Marsh and each other many questions, and ultimately decided to think about the issue some more at a future meeting. No action was taken.
The board members also discussed getting consistent town email addresses for themselves, which they think might make it easier for citizens to communicate with them. Marsh said he would check with information technology management to see what was possible.
“The spirit of it makes a lot of sense,” said chair Heather Prebish.
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