MATTAWAMKEAG, Maine — A medical marijuana grower has tentatively agreed to buy the former Dr. Carl Troutt School for $69,000, a deal residents will review at a special town meeting on Monday night, officials said this week.
Vicki Stanley, a broker for United Country McPhail Realty of Lincoln representing the town, said she had negotiated a purchase and sale agreement on the town’s behalf that awaits residents’ approval. She declined to reveal the name of the buyer or comment further on Tuesday and Wednesday.
John Whitehouse, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, said the would-be buyer is from the Lebanon area and that selectmen tentatively accepted his counter-offer after initially offering to sell the building for $69,900.
Whitehouse declined to identify the buyer, at the buyer’s request. “Monday night the name will be out,” he said Friday.
The Bangor Daily News has filed a Freedom of Information Access request seeking the name of the proposed buyer and the town’s tentative purchase agreement with him.
The building hasn’t been heated this winter, which is hazardous to its longevity, but the school has a security system and some of the fencing the buyer would need to conform to state laws regarding marijuana growth, Whitehouse said.
“I think that’s why he is looking at it,” said Whitehouse, who supports the town making the deal.
The school “is doing the town no good,” Whitehouse added Tuesday. “There’s no activity going on there. I think it would be good to get an owner into the building.”
Troutt, which opened in 1973, was one of the oldest, least-populated and most expensive school buildings to maintain in RSU 67 when school and town officials agreed to close it in 2009. The facility had 49 students during the 2008-2009 school year, while the Ella P. Burr School of Lincoln, the district’s other elementary school, served 392, school officials have said.
On May 19, 2009, 114 residents voted no on the question of whether they wanted to keep Troutt open for another year. Doing so would have cost the town $367,163. Sixty-five people voted yes. RSU 67 serves Mattawamkeag, Chester and Lincoln.
Town officials estimated in 2011 that maintaining the building would cost close to $50,000 annually. Attempts to market it have failed.
Coincidentally, the school building was named for a medical doctor. A Mattawamkeag resident and school board member, Dr. Carl Troutt was an excellent general practitioner well-known for his house calls and generosity, said Dianne Buck, vice president of the Lincoln Historical Society.
“He was an old fashioned GP who made house calls no matter what the weather,” Buck said Friday. “He was a very, very generous man. He dispensed a lot of medication without payment.”
When Buck’s daughter, Kimberly, was ill with asthma in 1963, Dr. Troutt made a house call “in an absolutely blinding snowstorm and was there for probably 1½ hours. When he left, my husband had said, ‘What do I owe you, Doc?’ ”
“He stayed [at the house] to ensure that the shot would work with her,” Buck added. “He [Troutt] said, ‘Do you think $5 would be too much?’ That’s just the type of man he was.”
Use of marijuana for medicinal purposes has been legal in Maine since 1999. Larger-scale dispensaries of medical marijuana became legal a decade later and the list of medical personnel qualified to dispense it legally grew to include nurse practitioners in July. Physicians can also prescribe its use.
Cancer, glaucoma, HIV, and post-traumatic stress disorder are among the conditions it treats. Wellness Connection of Maine, the state’s largest medical marijuana dispensary group, operates four of the state’s eight licensed nonprofit medical marijuana dispensaries, which combined serve 5,500 patients. They are located in Brewer, Gardiner, Portland, and Thomaston, company official said Wednesday.
In addition to the eight dispensaries, there were 1,720 registered caregivers in Maine as of Dec. 31, 2014, Maine Department of Health and Human Services spokesman David E. Sorensen said Friday.
The town meeting will be held Jan. 12 at 6:30 p.m. at the town office, Furge said.