SUMNER – Voters at a special town meeting Tuesday night accepted $20,000 to build a helipad and gave selectmen authority to hire a contractor.

The money was given by the Sumner Fire Department Auxiliary, and voters expressed their appreciation.

The pad will be used by medical helicopters to pick up patients and fly them to area hospitals. It will be behind the fire station and town office.

Selectman Mark Silber said a committee from the auxiliary and Fire Department should be appointed to manage the helipad. The cost to the town would be for snowplowing and maintaining the lights.

Silber also reported that a more than 100-acre lot of town land off Redding Road is being considered by KEAN Engineering as a site for up to three wind turbines. There will be a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 3 in the Town Office to discuss the possibilities of wind power.

Silber, who has been working with a regional wind power committee, said that in order to get a reading of how much wind is available on the site, it would be necessary to erect a tower for a year at a cost of $30,000.

Selectman Mary Haxton said she was not comfortable with having only one engineering firm looking at the possibility of wind energy.

Silber said the town did not have nearly enough information to make any commitments now.

Selectmen’s secretary Cyndy Norton said the whole project was too much money. The payment on leasing the land would only be $9,000 a year and would in no way cover expenses, she added.

In other business, Buckfield Town Manager Glen Holmes said repairs were made to the drainage system under one of the Dumpsters at the waste transfer station the towns share. He also said workers are stockpiling recyclables until they reach the capacity of the building or prices rebound. Presently the towns have to pay for getting rid of recycled material rather than getting paid.

And there was more to consider in regard to waste, Holmes said.

“I expect a large increase in computer monitors as people go to flat screens and televisions go to digital programming,” the town manager said.

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