Wiscasset Primary School and the Mason Station properties are now in the hands of a local real estate agent to try to sell.

The school property will be listed at $895,000, Sherri Dunbar of Tim Dunham Realty states in a July 21 email response to the Wiscasset Newspaper. “But the town is highly motivated to sell and welcomes any offers,” Dunbar adds.

Selectmen on Tuesday called on Dunbar to aggressively pursue the school's sale for six months and Mason Station's sale for a year. They also announced that anyone interested in leasing the school building should contact Town Manager Marian Anderson.

No immediate information was available on what the town may ask for the Mason Station properties. Being asked Tuesday night to also pursue that sale was a surprise, Dunbar said.

Earlier Tuesday night, the sale of Mason Station and the recovery of Mason Station’s more than $800,000 in back taxes were among goals that selectmen discussed for this year. At an April proceeding, Maine Supreme Judicial Court justices estimated the debt may now exceed $1 million, including interest.

Selectmen Tuesday gave the go-ahead for the town’s lawyers to resume legal pursuit of the taxes, now that the state’s highest court has rejected Mason Station’s appeal. Mason Station had argued the town should not be able to double dip, by taking the properties and continuing to seek the tax money.

Marketing Mason Station is an excellent idea, Selectman Bill Barnes said. “I think that is probably one of the most valuable pieces of property there is in this town .... There is certainly a lot of opportunity for that harbor down there and ... opportunity to bring a lot of revenue into this town, and that’s what we need ... to help the taxpayers.”

“I’d like to see it sold and inhabited by a business, several businesses,” fellow board member David Cherry said.

While board members commented on the good it would do Wiscasset to sell Mason Station, at least two attendees Tuesday night were interested in the short-term and long-term use of the school property.

A Lincoln County Healthcare official said in a brief interview that the organization has contacted the town to ask about possibly leasing the school for training that would run from November 2015 to April 2016. The training will prepare staff for the standardizing of electronic medical records throughout the organization, Lincoln County Healthcare Director of Operations Patrick Parson said.

Parson said he had come to the selectmen's meeting because the primary school was on the agenda; after board members decided that Anderson would field any lease inquiries, Parson said he would follow that protocol.

Barnes said he has heard from someone interested in leasing the school for a year, for educational purposes.

Wiscasset resident and salon owner Desiree Bailey has offered to buy the school at a low cost and turn it into a holistic health and healing center, salon and day spa. At Tuesday’s meeting, she asked if the town would be making sure the building is kept up if it goes under lease while the property is on the market.

“I just have to know because I have big plans to figure out,” she said.

The town would not let the building go into disrepair, Cherry told her.

In an interview Tuesday, Bailey said that since her July 7 presentation to the board, she has heard from six people seeking jobs at the center she is seeking to open.

Federal Street weight limit

The board on Tuesday instructed Anderson to work out a date with the Maine Department of Transportation for the town’s planned public hearing on the Federal Street weight limit. At board members’ request, Anderson will also look at what if any restrictions the board can put on who can speak at the hearing.

An MDOT official has said that no final decision has been made but that the state will most likely change the street’s 6,000-pound limit, and that the most likely change is that the limit would be removed. If it is, the town could try to get a weight limit for a certain time of day, but not around the clock, the official said.

Selectmen decided July 7 to hold a hearing, but on Tuesday the board’s vice chairman Judy Flanagan suggested first forming a committee to help prepare the town’s approach. The board favored going forward with plans for the hearing.

Other action

The board set a closed-door session for 6 p.m. July 28 for its town manager review in connection with Anderson’s one-year mark in the job. “My birthday, bring a cake please,” she said, adding shortly after that she only brought it up to see if Rines would bake her a cake. 

Chairman Ben Rines Jr. joked back that if he did, she wouldn’t live to see another year. “None of us would,” Rines said.

Also Tuesday, the board picked this year’s Spirit of America award winner —  everyone who helped restore the town’s 1861 cannon and return it to the municipal building lawn, including a team of Wiscasset High School students, teacher Rob Cronk and local wrecker service operator Bob Blagden.

Anderson announced that the town is getting a $20,000 Maine Coastal Communities grant to start an engineering study to address the possibility of flooding at the waste water treatment plant.

Rines called the grant “such stupidity on the state’s part” and an incredible waste of money. “That river is very wide. That river is not going to flood.”