LINCOLN, Maine — A private contractor tested the town office on Wednesday after town leaders and a Masonic fraternal group that owns the building disputed whether the basement had a mold problem.
Interim Town Manager Ron Weatherbee said the private contractor, CES Inc., did the tests. Any decision about evacuating the town office on the first floor will follow that work, Weatherbee said.
“We haven’t panicked and closed down shop but we are concerned. We want to know what it is,” Weatherbee said Wednesday of the substance.
Test results won’t be available until early next week, said Amanda Woodard, the town’s code enforcement officer.
Town Councilor Curt Ring and Mark Weatherbee, president of Horeb Lodge No. 93, clashed during a town meeting at Mattanawcook Academy on Monday over whether the building was safe for town workers and office visitors. More than a century old, the three-story Masonic building is located at 63 Main St. The town pays $2,566 per month to lease office space there.
Ring said town workers found in the basement what they described as a large amount of dark-colored mold — enough to overgrow a baseball hat left in the basement in July, the last time the council held a meeting there. It also covered small sections of floor and led town officials to relocate the meeting from the basement, where they planned to hold Monday’s meeting, to Mattanawcook Academy.
He passed around several pictures town workers had taken of the basement.
“Basically, what we have are some serious issues with mold,” Ring said Monday night, holding up a photo. “This is mold that is on the floor with a ruler next to it. I can’t really read what the ruler says, but the mold in several pictures is growing like grass up from the floor.”
Mark Weatherbee, who Ron Weatherbee said is no relation, chided Ring and local media for making “a sensational, inaccurate assumption.”
“Further research reveals that the interesting filamentary calcium carbonate crystals are the result of efflorescence of calcium hydroxide from the basement cement floor to the surface where it encounters (in very still air) carbon dioxide, forming calcium carbonate via this process of carbonation,” Mark Weatherbee said in an email on Wednesday morning.
“None of these naturally occurring compounds are biologically harmful and are odorless. We will easily avoid their reformation by allowing even a minimal airflow (like opening a few windows or using a fan). Calcium carbonate makes up four percent of the Earth’s crust,” Mark Weatherbee added.
To ensure credibility and the maintenance of professional standards, the town’s insurer required that a third party, a professional industrial hygienist specializing in mold recognition and remediation such as CES, handle the mold testing, Woodard said.
An optometrist, Weatherbee said that the basement might have become contaminated due to a lack of airflow in the basement. He said the town workers were not typically allowed into the area without permission and questioned whether they should have been allowed to remove items from it, such as the hat.
He said in a separate email to members of his organization that publication of Ring’s statements on Monday night caused “mental anguish, damage to the reputation of the Masonic building and it’s members, and loss of future revenues from future tenants, which has and will result …”
“Curt Ring’s inappropriate and transparent ploy to begin the sham public hearing with such a false accusation should be dealt with as well. If the hat was removed and in Mr. Ring’s possession did not belong to him then it was effectively stolen,” Weatherbee said.
When forwarded Weatherbee’s emails, council Chairman Steve Clay said, “I took the hat. He can press charges for a stolen hat.”
Ring called the use of the word stolen “a bit harsh, considering how many meetings we have had in the basement of the Masonic Lodge.”
Clay and Ring disputed Mark Weatherbee’s statement that town officials entered the basement without permission, or technically trespassed, on Monday afternoon. He said that Jerry Anthony, a member of the Masons, gave Town Clerk Shelly Crosby permission to use the basement for the night meeting after he told her that 40 group members were expected. He also gave her permission to set up for the meeting that afternoon, Clay said.
Town officials typically hold council meetings on the first floor. They often relocate them to a larger area in the basement when large crowds are expected.
“At our July meeting, also held in the basement, Byron Sanderson was present. He also stood and made a statement. At no time did he, or any other member of the Masonic Fraternity, inform town officials that the basement was off-limits without permission,” Ring said via an email.
Mark Weatherbee has said the decision to relocate the town office to a new, unbuilt building on Fleming Street seemed hasty and occurred without significant regard for a 2012 vote in which residents overwhelmingly opposed relocating the town office. A successful petition drive to overturn the move, which the group is discussing, would require signatures from 10 percent of residents who voted in the last election, he said.
Conditions in the town office have been subject to dispute intermittently since 2004. Town officials occasionally have described the office as cramped, lacking records space, public restrooms and full access for disabled residents. The masons have said the building was a good bargain for the town in a great location to support downtown businesses.