HAMPDEN, Maine — The Town Council voted Monday night to appropriate funds to buy the old Hampden Academy property from SAD 22 and approved an environmental assessment of the property.
Councilors voted 5-2 to approve borrowing $86,000 to purchase the property from the school district. The council will pay $20,000 the first year and $33,000 in each of the next two years.
Later, the council voted 6-0 to approve funding for a phase II environmental assessment of the property by Credere Associates of Westbrook. The assessment will cost $24,950 — down from an initial estimate of $35,000.
Credere is a women-owned business that specializes in redevelopment planning, engineering, hydrogeology and environmental sciences. It will provide services including a survey for PCB and asbestos, and taking aboveground and underground water samples.
The assessment study will be paid for from the $100,000 “set-aside” fund the council created for the Hampden Academy property purchase to cover extraneous costs.
Also Monday night, the council:
• Unanimously approved for referral to the planning board Hampden’s 2010 Comprehensive Plan for land use and regulation.
• Unanimously approved a contract with Harcros Chemicals in Westbrook setting the price of road salt for $57.21 per ton — a significant decrease from last year’s price of $63 per ton. Comparatively, Bangor will be getting its salt from Harcros for $59.87 a ton this winter. The salt will be delivered by a Hampden company, H.O. Bouchard Inc.
• Approved paying $750 from the municipal building reserve fund for a used multiviewer system to broadcast council meetings. It also sent a request for approval for a $1,500 portable sound system back to a committee with the recommendation that it approve the purchase of a $1,800 system using wireless microphones.
• Unanimously approved an item left over from the last council meeting two weeks ago that was unable to be voted on then due to the lack of a quorum. The vote approved the payment of $205 to Scott’s Lawn Service for grounds work at the Edythe L. Dyer Community Library after grubs ravaged the library’s front lawn.
• Took up a rash of absences that have hampered the council’s ability to take votes due to lack of a quorum over the last two months. No vote or action was taken, but the matter will be discussed further by members of the council’s finance and administrative committee.
women owned .. umm discrimnation right there
It doesn’t say that’s why they got the job. Perhaps they were the low bidder, and the writer simply thought the bit about the company’s ownership was an interesting aside.
I hope that they can make a year round flea market with the property and a gym for us seniors. I had heard that this was being discussed and I for one, would really like it to be. As a senior who does not swim I would like to do something local besides drinking coffee at Dysarts or the coffee cafe oh, I forgot, eating too. Seniors need a place to go and a flea market like they have in Florida with new stuff, would produce revenue for the town. Here’s to hope.
If it wasn’t good enough for students why is it good enough for anything else. This just proves what a farce spending $60,000,000 on that new school really is. I wouldn’t care if only Hampden residents had to pay for it but the rest of us got suckered too.
Sure glad I am not a Hampden tax payer. Heat , Maintenance, Utilities, not to mentionall the enviromental issues that are going to be exposed and will need to be taken care of. . Thia is the reason so many old schools are sitting vacant all over the state.
Now the town will have to maintain this building, when high ongoing maintenance costs were a major reason given by the school administration to justify needing a new building. Plus, WHY are the Hampden taxpayers now buying a property they already paid for once before?