By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — A five-year lease for the Longshore Sailing School, with the possibility of an extension, was granted last week to Jane Pimentel, the school’s current owner and operator since 2017, without public comment.

The Board of Selectwomen voted unanimously to grant the lease to Pimentel, one of two bidders, for an initial five-year period with rent payable in annual installments. The first installment will be $10,000, with each subsequent year in the lease increasing to the Consumer Price Index, according to Tom Kiely, operations manager for the town. Pimentel will have the option of extending the lease for one five-year period, he said.

Allegations that the Parks and Recreation Department and Board of Finance had not followed procedures when selecting Pimentel were aired last February when a one-year lease extension was granted to her.

However, after then-Parks and Recreation Director Jennifer Fava said that three lease bids had been carefully reviewed, the selectwomen granted the lease extension. The critic of the process was a bidder who did not win the contract, Fava said at the time.

The new lease awarded to Pimentel was approved by the Board of Finance on Oct. 9, and the Planning and Zoning Commission signed off on an 8-24 land-use report Nov. 4, Kiely said.

“I’m thrilled,” First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker said after last Wednesday’s vote, which garnered a round of applause from people in the Town Hall auditorium.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman and has taught journalism at New York and Southern Connecticut State universities.