HOULTON, Maine — The Houlton Town Council has agreed to enter into an agreement to install upgrades to run the ice system at the John Millar Civic Center, as sign-ups for recreational hockey began on Wednesday, Sept. 15.
The contract is with the multinational conglomerate Honeywell, for a total of $9,275. The upgrade includes putting in a new hardware system to maintain control of the ice system, as well as software updates, which will be installed remotely.
Town Manager Marian Anderson said the upgrades were necessary if the town wanted to continue to use the ice arena at the civic center.
“The software we have is outdated. There’s no more support for it,” she said. “So for us to be able to still use our controls and everything that we do to operate the ice plan, we have to do this.”
The Civic Center was marked by several closures last winter, as concerns over COVID-19 delayed the start of hockey season. With cases once again on the rise, Councilor Eileen McLaughlin wondered whether it was a wise decision to do further spending on the arena.
“We’re a really hockey-centered community. My daughter played and a lot of people play,” she said. “But it does seem in the last year that we’ve put a lot into the arena with less usage. I’m just wondering if we’re kind of taking a gamble in some sense, because this year may even be worse than last year.”
The ice is expected to be laid out at the civic center by the end of October. The upgrades to the system for maintaining the ice will have to be completed by that point if the season is expected to start at it’s normal time of year.
