Wellington residents may get safer new route to town
By Caitlyn Kelleher JOURNAL REPORTER

The residents at the Wellington Apartments may have a new way to get to the center of town via a new sidewalk.

A representative for the residents approached the Westminster Board of Selectmen about the project, which immediately got support. The only question the Selectmen had was about funding.

"Would the Advisory Board be willing to transfer $2,000 of the $30,000 in the Reserve Fund," Selectman John Fairbanks said.

The Advisory Board members later suggested that the Reserve Fund might not be the right place for the expenditure to come because anything transferred before the end of the fiscal year had to be used by July 1.

They suggested the Department of Public Works try to use Chapter 90 funding, which is state money used for road and sidewalk maintenance. Selectmen agreed to talk to the DPW but wasn't sure that was the right course of action.

Town Coordinator Karen Murphy said she has walked the area with the highway superintendent and that there are two options. The first is a permanent sidewalk, while the other cheaper option is a temporary walkway.

She said the cost is about $2,000. Murphy said the DPW would like to contract it out so that it is done sooner.

"We need to get some sort of safe passage for the residents of Wellington from there to Church Street," Selectman Thomas O'Toole.

The Wellington Apartments is a senior citizen, 30-unit apartment building located off South Street just south of the Town Hall.

O'Toole and the other two Selectmen were in support of the temporary option, although all agreed temporary was a vague state of affairs.

"South Street has to be done," O'Toole said about the reconstruction project that is on the state's list.

The project would reconstruct the part of South Street closest to the center of town as well as the junction of that road with Main and Leominster streets.

Once South Street is done there will be a sidewalk associated with it and this temporary path could be removed. The Selectmen said this is a temporary but they also said the project is at least three or four years away.