Staff Writer
ISLAND FALLS — Voters said ‘no’ last week to a request for extra funding for an emergency services building project. Town Clerk Cheryl McNally said more than 100 residents came to the Sept. 17 meeting, and in the end the crowd voted 41-32 against appropriating additional money for the construction project.
At their regular town meeting March, voters OK’d up to $200,000 for an addition to the municipal building. The extra space would have brought all of the town’s emergency services under one roof; the old fire department building is in need of work and short on space.
“The bids that we received were more than what we had for money,” explained McNally. “The board of selectmen had made changes which drove the price up. The style of the roof for one: instead of a metal roof, they opted for a rubber roof which upped the cost quite drastically. They had decided to put in a bathroom and a whole separate heating system instead of hooking on to the one in municipal building. That’s what put the price up beyond what we had to work with, but they figured if we’re going to do a building, we should do it right the first time around.”
Selectmen have been working with an architect and engineer on the project, McNally said, and they’re hoping to meet again in the coming weeks to decide where to go next.
“We are going to call a meeting with the architect, engineer, potential contractor, selectmen and fire department to see what we can do to bring the cost down to the money we have available,” she said. “We do want to make it happen; the voters have said they want to make it happen for amount they approved in March.”
The need isn’t going away, but for now, it’s just a matter of figuring out how to meet that need.
“We don’t want to put it off any longer,” added McNally. “We want to move this project forward.”
