WILTON – Selectmen on Tuesday turned down a request by Western Maine Community Action representatives Irv Faunce and Fenwick Fowler to put proceeds from the sale of a High Street property into the agency’s revolving loan account.
According to Fowler, the agency’s executive director, Western Maine Community Action purchased 9 High St. years ago as part of an initiative to provide affordable housing in Wilton. A few entities, including the town, invested in the building, Fowler said. Wilton paid for its part of the house with money from a federal Community Development Grant.
Western Maine Community Action sold 9 High St. in December after spending the past 13 years renting the three-unit building at a fixed rent to low-income tenants. It was “the best money we ever lost,” Fowler said.
According to the agency’s purchase agreement with the building’s original investors, part of Wilton’s investment, in this case $16,887.60, reverts back to the town upon the sale.
Fowler and Faunce argued Tuesday that because the money Wilton spent on 9 High St. came from a federal grant and was earmarked for affordable housing, Wilton should, legally and morally, be spending its cut from the sale on affordable housing. The two agency representatives asked selectmen Tuesday to put the money into a Western Maine Community Action revolving loan program earmarked for Wilton residents that provides home-improvement loans at low-interest rates to low-income families.
Chairman of the board, Russell Black, said he thought putting the money into the revolving loan fund would help more Wilton residents than would benefit if the money was put into the town’s general fund. I would be better to help a few families “winterize their homes” than help many families a little, he said.
But Selectman Rodney Hall contended that, since the $16,887.60 Wilton got back from the sale was only a fraction of what the town originally put into it, the town had “really already donated another $12,000 to the cause” of providing affordable housing, and should not be required to donate any more to Western Maine Community Action.
According to Fowler, though, since all the money Wilton spent helping the agency purchase 9 High St. came from the federal Community Development Grant meant to help low-income Wilton residents with housing costs, “I believe if they accepted the federal dollars that there is an obligation to use those federal dollars on behalf of the original purpose.”
The issue “died” when Selectman Paul Gooch made a motion to bring the question to voters at town meeting, and Keith Swett, Rodney Hall and Terry Brann voted against it without saying why.
“We were totally surprised, we thought it was a win-win situation,” Faunce said Wednesday.
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