LINCOLN, Maine — Apparently ending a months-long controversy, town leaders plan to resume their search next month for a new town office location because the owner of a Fleming Street lot sold it to someone else, officials said Tuesday.
Developer Sterling Osgood signed a sale agreement about two weeks ago with Rick Burpee to move Burpee’s State Farm Insurance branch from 285 West Broadway to a Fleming Street lot that was due to become the town office by 2016, Osgood said.
The dispute between town officials who favored moving and residents who wanted to keep the town office at its current location in the Masonic building at 263 Main St. caused Osgood to make the deal with Burpee.
“There was just so much animosity dealing with the Masons and at my age I don’t need to deal with all this hostility,” Osgood said Tuesday. “I was trying to give the town a new town office and they were just so afraid that they were going to lose a tenant. At my age I don’t need that kind of aggravation.”
The Masons and others opposed the move, saying that the town council neglected the will of residents and did a tentative deal with Osgood hastily. Councilors agreed during a meeting Monday to place on a November meeting agenda resuming the fourth search since mid-2013 for a new home for town workers, said Councilor Curt Ring, who made the request.
Voters will still be asked in a Nov. 4 referendum whether they would overturn the council’s 5-1 vote on Aug. 25 to sign a memorandum of understanding confirming their desire to work toward building a new town office on Fleming Street, despite the sale rendering the question moot, Ring and Chairman Steve Clay said.
“I want to put it out there again that we are looking for a space to rent or a renovation of Ballard Hill [Community Center] or something else,” Ring said, adding that in his opinion, the Main Street space is “completely unsuitable” as a town office location.
As town officials have said for years, the present office lacks records storage space and handicapped accessibility and is undersized. T he Masons also were unresponsive landlords, Ring said.
Mark Weatherbee, president of Horeb Lodge No. 93, has said the Masons are responsible landlords. He has described as hasty the council’s decision to accept Osgood’s proposal to spend his own money building a town office on Fleming Street in exchange for a 20-year lease charging the town $6,348 per month.
The Masons, Weatherbee said, offer a better deal at $2,556 per month, or $30,795 annually, a rate that includes utilities. Councilors said that rate fails to include any improvements the building might need. Ring said he found it “strange” that the town, not the Masons, had to pay $2,500 for air quality testing after mold was discovered in the building’s basement. The town does not rent the basement.
The town has leased space in the 110-year-old building for 70 years. Councilors are addressing the lease because it expires in 2015.
The battle between several councilors and those who support the Masons left both sides feeling sore. Among the casualties was the friendship between Osgood and Councilor Dede Trask, Osgood said. In an email she wrote, Trask encouraged Osgood to submit his Fleming Street property to the council as a potential town office site but turned against the deal.
Trask said that according to the town charter, public hearings for ordinances need seven days advance notice, not the five given prior to Aug. 25. The town’s attorney, Andrew Hamilton, disagreed. He said that the memorandum vote was not an ordinance, so the charter stipulation was inapplicable.
Burpee said he will begin construction on Fleming Street next spring.