WILTON – Voters will tackle 60 articles during their annual town meeting this month. Elections will take place from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, June 10, at the town office. The town meeting will then reconvene at 6:30 p.m. June 16 at the Academy Hill School Gymnasium.

Voters will decide whether to enact a subdivision ordinance and make changes to ordinances relating to adult businesses and gravel pits.

The town currently has no subdivision ordinance. But there are 19 state criteria that voters can use as criteria. That criteria, however, do not spell out the details of what would be required of an applicant. A subdivision ordinance proposed by the town’s Planning Board seeks to adopt standards recommended in the town’s Comprehensive Plan adopted in 1995.

Planners also want to regulate where adult businesses can be located. Under the proposal, adult business would only be allowed in commercial zones. In addition the business would have to be 500 feet from any church, school, library, residence or other adult business. The distance would be measured from the entrance of the establishment to the boundary of the adjacent property.

Planners also said they are trying to protect the town from all adult business, not just those dealing with nudity. There is currently nothing in place that would stop anyone from putting an adult establishment anywhere they would like to in the town.

Under the proposal, an adult business is defined as any business that derives at least 50 percent of operating income from the retail sale or lease of any goods or services that can not legally be sold to anyone under 18 or that excludes anyone under 21 from entering the premises.

Currently gravel pits can also be located anywhere in town. If voters approve planners’ proposed changes, gravel pits will no longer be allowed in residential I and II, Limited residential, downtown village, or stream protected zones. They will be allowed only in farm and forest, commercial, industrial and resource protection zones with Planning Board or code enforcement officer approval. Gravel pits will not be allowed in resource protection if the area is in that zone to protect wildlife.

Planners said the changes will only affect those who use gravel pits as an actual business, not residents who sell small quantities because they are landscaping or building a home and have extra gravel to get rid of.

Voters will also decide whether the Wilton Free Public Library will receive any monies for a reserve fund that was established in 1997 to make the library handicap accessible. The library received no money for the fund last year and this year selectmen recommend the same, however, Head Librarian and Director Vaughan Gagne she would still like to ask voters to approve $7,500 for the fund.

This year the library is asking the town for $89,072, with a total budget of $99,098, a 5 percent increase over last year. The proposed budget includes a 25 percent rise in insurance costs and a 3 percent salary increase. Last year Gagne gave back her 1 percent raise so her. The only addition to the budget is for a professional service accountant to do compilation audits and 990 tax forms.

The net amount to be raised from taxes is $1,846,363, for the proposed SAD 9 budget, an increase of $84,341; $186,098 for the Franklin County budget , up $15,980 from last year; and $1,097,278 for the proposed municipal budget, a decrease of $3,572 from last year. The three budgets represent a total increase of $96,749, which would result in a property tax increase of .6 mills. The current mill rate is 21.60.

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