WINDHAM – The Windham Town Council Tuesday night hired a Maine-based public relations firm to create educational material surrounding the proposed sewer project that will appear on the November ballot.

Barton & Gingold of Portland will receive $18,500 to analyze the pros and cons of the proposed sewer system and communicate to voters how the system would benefit the town. Councilors, who will review the material before it is released, also asked the firm to spell out the alternatives to a new sewer, answering critics who argued that the material is aimed only at convincing residents to approve the project.

“It has to be educational,” said Councilor Kevin Call. “It’s important for voters to know the ins and outs.”

Councilor Tommy Gleason, who at the start of the discussion said he would not support the expenditure, joined four other councilors in voting for the proposal after councilors agreed that alternative proposals would be included. Only Dennis Welch voted in opposition.

The discussion was at times heated. The sewer project is likely to initially cost about $37.8 million, much of which, recent discussions have concluded, would be paid for by taxpayers. The exact project scope and how much sewer users would contribute have not been determined.

Public comment on the expenditure mostly chided the council for foisting the project onto taxpayers in the midst of a delicate economy.

Liz Wisecup, a former councilor, labeled the public relations expenditure as a “so-called education plan,” predicting it would be nothing more than a “pro-pamphlet,” offering no alternative vision.

Patrick Corey, who writes a column for the Lakes Region Weekly and ran for council last year, also lambasted the council for spending taxpayer money on “propaganda” designed to lobby those same voters of the value of a sewer. He also criticized Barton & Gingold for its previous sewer-related work, which Corey described as a “phony baloney sewer survey” that didn’t offer respondents a chance to express blanket opposition to the project.

Martin Shuer, an independent candidate for Senate District 12, said the $18,500 price tag isn’t “justifiable” because the town is already paying consultants to offer an unbiased view on whether the town needs a sewer. The town so far has spent about $100,000 for consultant work by Woodard & Curran, work that councilors have defended as helpful regardless of whether voters approve the proposal.

Councilor David Nadeau, who decried the public speakers as offering “rhetoric … that is nothing but negativity that I take great offense to,” said he sees the expenditure as a needed step in an important process. Nadeau said an independent PR firm offers an outsider’s perspective and the ability to speak in layman’s terms that the average voter can relate to. And, he added, the more education the public has, the more meaningful November’s vote on the proposal will be.

“This has to get out to the voters,” he said. “There’s a small majority who come to meetings, but a larger majority who are at soccer games on Saturday morning that have no idea what’s going on. Something has to get to them.”

When contacted for comment, Randy Seaver, a senior associate at Barton & Gingold who has worked with the town of Windham in the past, said the final product will be in line with the public’s and council’s expectations.

“It does have to be completely unbiased and the only way you can do that is to give people as many information sources as possible,” Seaver said. “So you have to look at information from the DEP or EPA about storm water. You’re just going to have to let people make their own decisions, but they have to be able to have all the information. And that’s the crux of it. In the Woodard & Curran outline, doing nothing is an alternative and it is an option; whether it’s the right option is for those people to decide. It’s for us to help explain what are the pros and cons, equally, of each one of the alternatives.”

Seaver said the delivery of the information has yet to be determined but he is eyeing a brochure as well as online distribution, especially since the town of Windham has its own website.

“We’re going to be making sure that as many people as possible get as much information as possible,” Seaver said. “It’s just going to be a public education effort.”