Due to issues with the Wiscasset Primary School building, the only insurance the town can get on it is liability, Town Manager Marian Anderson said May 19. 

“This is serious, because we can’t get property insurance,” Anderson said.

Now Anderson and selectmen want to know if Regional School Unit 12 knew of the building’s issues. Wiscasset’s pullout from the district took effect July 1, 2014.

According to a May 4 letter to Anderson from the Maine Municipal Association Risk Management Services, an April 23 survey of the building found evidence that water was getting in throughout the building. That evidence included water-damaged ceiling tiles as well as moss growing around degraded asphalt roof shingles.

“This may indicate a more serious condition of the roof truss and possible mold growth,” the letter states.

“It didn’t happen overnight,” Selectman Bill Barnes said of the problems. This school year is the primary school’s last; its classes will attend Wiscasset Middle School starting next fall.

Selectmen on Tuesday night directed Anderson to look into whether the district was aware of deficiencies at the primary school, and to look into determining who is responsible for them.

In a telephone interview Tuesday night, Regional School Unit 12 Superintendent Howie Tuttle said neither he nor other district officials or board members he checked with that night had known of the types of problems now being raised with the primary school building. If the district had known while Wiscasset was still in the district, the district would have had a responsibility to address them then, Tuttle said.

Reached Tuesday night, Wiscasset School Committee Chairman Steve Smith said he didn’t know about the building’s issues until the town found out about them in connection with the insurance.

The School Committee was not involved in the withdrawal agreement, so the matter is between the town and the district, Smith said.

Anderson said she has forwarded the information on the insurance issue to a town lawyer and Wiscasset Interim Superintendent of Schools Lyford Beverage.

Wiscasset voters on June 9 will consider accepting the building’s transfer to the town from the School Committee, and authorizing selectmen to sell the property. The building has not gone on the market and will not until after the vote, Anderson said after Tuesday’s meeting.

The town will need to disclose the building’s problems to prospective buyers, Anderson said.

Tarot turn-down

Selectmen on Tuesday voted against requests from a Tarot reader and a hot dog vendor to work temporarily on the town common. The common is the setting for free concerts and free holiday events, Board Vice Chairman Ben Rines Jr. said.

“I just don’t think it’s a place for people to be hawking their wares,” Rines said.

Selectmen’s Chairman Pam Dunning agreed. “We worked very hard to make that clean and green, and open,” she said.

The requests came from Wiscasset resident Lisa Fourre, seeking to do the Tarot readings; and Westport Island’s Juanita Greenleaf, asking to sell hot dogs, soda, water, chips, coffee and candy. Greenleaf was proposing to sell the food during concerts this summer. Fourre’s application for a temporary business license lists a start date of June 1.

Rines pointed out that town rules call for the selectmen to set fees for temporary businesses but for the code enforcement officer to approve or deny requests. The code enforcement officer would want to know the selectmen’s position on requests, Dunning said.

“I would be more than happy to see them come into town if they wanted to (work) on the pier,” she said about the two applicants.

School budget meeting May 27

Selectmen agreed to sign the warrant for the Wednesday, May 27 special town meeting on the School Committee’s proposed next, $8.4 million school budget. Voters at the meeting will be able to alter or keep intact each piece of the budget that will then go on to a vote at the polls on June 9.

The special town meeting at Wiscasset High School starts at 6 p.m.