By MARK SARDELLA

WAKEFIELD — Wakefield will be participating in a partnership with the state whereby Wakefield will receive technical assistance in three areas identified by Town Administrator Stephen P. Maio as areas where Wakefield could use some help.

In January of 2015, Governor Charlie Baker announced his “Community Compact” program. Maio told the Board of Selectmen last night that the program is designed to offer technical assistance to communities in areas they have chosen to focus on for improvement. By participating in the program, communities can also get priority consideration for grant opportunities.

Maio mentioned some of the areas that communities can seek to improve their best practices by entering into the Community Compact program. Those areas include financial management, higher education, energy efficiency and renewable opportunities, housing and economic development, information technology and transportation.

Maio proposed three areas that the town could enter into a compact with the state in an effort to improve best practices.

Given the town’s current emphasis on economic development and efforts to improve the downtown business district, Maio identified housing and economic development as one of the areas of focus.

Another area under the broad heading of economic development that Maio identified was “competitiveness.” Under the Community Compact program, the town could get some assistance in terms of evaluating how competitive it is compared to other communities in attracting commercial development and housing expansion.

Maio pointed out that attracting more businesses creates more jobs, increases the commercial tax base and takes more of the burden off residential taxpayers.

Another area that Maio proposed partnering with the state was in improving ways of making town budget and financial data more available to the public electronically via the Internet.

Selectman Patrick Glynn agreed with Maio’s proposed approach, adding that the town should be doing more to give businesses incentives to come to Wakefield.

Maio noted that Wakefield is already doing that to some extent and cited a proposal coming before voters at the Nov. 16 Town Meeting to offer a tax exemption to attract research and development companies to Wakefield.

Glynn and Selectman Paul DiNocco told Maio that they would like to see the town explore ways to give tax breaks to local businesses. Maio said that entering into the Community Compact program would help the town to look at ways to do that.

The board voted unanimously to give Maio the authority to enter Wakefield into the Community Compact program.

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Wakefield Veterans Services Officer Alicia Reddin came before the board to talk about Wednesday’s Veterans’ Day ceremonies and to encourage the public to attend. She noted that that the annual Veterans’ Day program will take place at 11 a.m. tomorrow at Veterans Memorial Auditorium at the Galvin Middle School.

She also told the selectmen about a special ceremony that will take place at 1:30 p.m. on Veterans Memorial Common to dedicate a new monument to women veterans.

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In other business last night, the Board of Selectmen:

• Approved a request from Library Director Sharon Gilley to accept and expend $840 in gifts from various donors.

• Set the annual Tax Classification hearing for Monday, Nov. 23 at 7:40 p.m.