Boothbay selectmen said they have realized that as technology changes, it's in the public's best interest to preserve the valuable planning codes and zoning files stored in the archives of the Boothbay Town Office.

Nearly 138,000 individual documents belonging to the town will be loaded on a truck, shipped to Bangor and scanned for preservation and permanent record storage.

“We are one sprinkler system malfunction, or a fire away from losing our files,” Selectmen’s Chairman Steve Lewis. “If they're digitally stored, it's in the cloud, so to speak.”

For the two months, the selectmen have considered transporting the documents 2.5 hours north of Boothbay to Records Management Center in Bangor, but a few selectmen have been hesitant about the risks involved sending valuable documents in transit.

Scott Richard, a consultant for Records Management Center, attended the April 23 selectmen’s meeting. Richard assured the selectmen that in the 19 years of business, no documents have been damaged. Each truck is locked and tracked with a GPS device, Richard said. If the truck is off route or stopped too long, an email alert is sent back to main office.

The costs for scanning off-site was quoted at $6,900. But the costs of transporting the scanners and doing the job on-site in Boothbay would cost the town an additional $5,000. In the end the selectmen opted for the lower price.

The selectmen voted 4-1 to accept the center’s proposal to transport the documents to Bangor. Selectman Chuck Cunningham dissented.

“I think this is an acceptable risk to take,” Town Manager Jim Chaousis said. “All documents are important, but these documents are more important to us if we can take the acceptable risk and have them put in a format that we can use more efficiently.”

While the original records will be kept and stored, copies of the digital records could soon be available to the public at the town office. If the conversion process proves successful, the town could continue converting its documents with Records Mangement Center at the cost of $360 per year.