WILTON — The candidates for Wilton’s upcoming municipal elections for the Select Board and Regional School Unit 9 board of directors met on Thursday, May 30, to personally introduce themselves and answer questions from the public.

The public meeting took place in the meeting room of the Wilton Town Office, located at 158 Weld Road, at 6 p.m.

In attendance was Wilton Selectperson Philip Hilton, who is running unopposed, RSU 9 Vice-Chair Gwendolyn Doak and her opponent Louise Hiltz.

Town Manager Maria Greeley and Selectperson Keith Swett were also present at the meeting. Former State Senator and Wilton Selectperson Tom Saviello served as moderator.

Gwendolyn Doak currently serves as vice-chair for the RSU 9 board of directors and shared that she is married to a disabled veteran and is the mother of a nine-year-old.

“I really enjoy being on the school board and serving in other roles here in town,” she shared. “It’s something that I do to give back to the community and do the best that I can to improve our lives, and the lives of our kids.”

Apart from her role as vice chair, she also serves as chair of RSU 9’s Educational Policy Committee, RSU 9 board representative for both the Foster Career and Technical Education Center Advisory Committee and the Academy Hill PBIS [Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports] Team.

Following Doak was Louise Hiltz, who shared that she was born in Maine, but lived in Virginia for 15 years due to her husband’s service in the military. They returned in 1995 and her children, all fully grown, went through the Mt. Blue school system.

Hiltz has worked at the post office for 26 years, she said, and she also runs a support group for NAMI [National Alliance on Mental Illness] at Franklin Memorial Hospital.

Rounding out the introductions was Selectperson Philip Hilton, who shared that he moved to Farmington in 1999 to attend the University of Maine at Farmington and fell in love with the community and “never left.”

“I actually have a lot of friends from college who did that,” he said. “We came up and just forgot to leave.”

Hilton will be closing out his second term on the board and stated that he is gracious for the opportunity to serve the community.

“I have a very service-oriented view,” he said. “I don’t view it as like, ‘this is my board, this is my town.’ This is the board on which I serve and the town in which I serve.”

The first question of the evening came from a resident from Temple Road, and she asked Hilton how he felt about the recent decision with ATV access road. In May, the Wilton Select Board revisited the issue of the level of noise and traffic on Temple Road from ATVs and voted to keep the access road open despite heavy criticism from residents.

“So last year, when this came up, it was very highly contentious,” he said.

“What I said at the time, and I’m not sure if I said it out loud or just to the other board members was unless I see improvement next year, I’m not voting for it again. I did see improvement, it wasn’t a lot, but it was improvement, so I stuck to that and I voted for it again.”

He added, “Next year, I want to see numbers from businesses and that they’re benefiting from it. Concrete numbers that I can actually point to and say numbers are up specifically because of the ATV and this is how I know.

“If I don’t see those numbers,” he said, “I’m probably going to vote against it, but if I see those numbers, I’m gonna have to weigh that against everyone saying.”

For the candidates for the RSU 9 board of directors, one resident asked what their opinion was of banning books.

“No books are ever banned,” Hiltz stated. “I was checking into that, obviously it’s a big issue. When books are banned, you go to prison. That doesn’t happen because obviously you can get a book anywhere you go. I do think they should check into that to make sure that it is age appropriate.”

“We have really, really popular and good libraries,” Doak added. “A lot of our children’s librarians are responsible for picking out those materials and making sure they’re available.”

“We haven’t had any of those real issues,” she added. “I think people understand age appropriateness, and it’s important to have a parent’s input in what their child is reading. So I think as long as you have that good communication and you know what materials your child is exposed to, that doesn’t have to be such a contentious issue.”

Swett, who is also a former director for RSU 9, addressed Doak and Hiltz with a question regarding special education classrooms being evacuated due to one student “acting out.”

“So when a child with special needs acts out,” he said, “it’s my understanding that they empty the room of all the other students, so all the other students stopped their learning process to leave the room for the kid that’s acting out, instead of removing the child that’s acting out.”

“It doesn’t happen that way in all cases,” Doak shared. “I’m sure that there are instances of that, where for the safety of the other students, they’ve decided to evacuate the classroom, but in most cases, those students have people that they’re paired up with or behavioral specialists that work with them more closely than the other children. They help to defuse those situations and get them into a safe space or quiet space. ”

“We’ve heard the same thing,” Hiltz added. “There is a lot of things that I’ve heard, and that was why I was thinking about getting on the school board. I could actually find out more things about it so that [when] the community has questions, I would be able to help people with their concerns. I feel like sometimes that might be missing. You know, being able to talk to people about what’s going on in the schools.”

One audience member added that she felt it was “way underreported” from when she worked in the school system.