JAY — Selectmen voted Monday to accept a bid of $2,500 for a three-story apartment building the town took for back taxes.
Becky and William Rider of Jay submitted the high bid for the property at 38 Main St.
Another bid of $1,000 was submitted.
There is $11,000 owed in back taxes, Town Manager Ruth Cushman said.
A former building inspector brought the building before selectmen in 2009 for safety code violations. Since then it has been foreclosed on by a lender. An attempt by the lender to sell it at public auction failed.
There is a furnace and there is some copper left in the building, Cushman said.
“It’s pretty gross,” she said. “It needs a lot of repair.”
The sale of the building will be done through a quitclaim deed, she said.
Selectmen also voted to sell a third of an acre at 108 Intervale Road for $1,300 to high bidders and abutters Elmond and Cheryl Dyar. The town had also foreclosed on it for back taxes.
Another bid of $1,014.99 was submitted.
In other business, selectmen extended supervisory contracts to forester Steve Gettle of Jay to continue to oversee harvesting of town wood lots.
The board also agreed to extend a harvesting contract with Ron Ridley of L & A Ridley Inc. of Jay for the town’s tower lot behind the schools, and to sign a new agreement to finish harvesting the transfer station and landfill lot on Route 4.
Selectmen also agreed to have Ridley harvest 6 to 7 acres of town land near the bus garage before it is transferred to the new Regional School Unit 73 on July 1.
Proceeds from the tower lot will go into the town’s recreation fund while the money from the transfer station and bus garage lots will go into the general fund.
In another matter, Cushman said the school system will let the buses be used for four trips during summer recreation program in Livermore Falls. The program pays for the drivers and buses.
Cushman said buses will also be provided to drive Jay children to Livermore Falls for the program.
She had included $4,000 in the budget for it but requested permission to spend up to an additional $2,520 from the recreation fund for the busing costs.
Selectmen approved her request.
Resident Bill Calden voiced his concern on the proposed Route 4 construction project and students traveling back and forth from Jay and Livermore Falls schools on Route 133 and Hyde Road.
“Do we need to wait until somebody gets killed?” he asked. The intersection of the two roads is dangerous. There will be inexperienced kids driving back and forth through the intersection, he said.
Cushman said she and Public Works foreman John Johnson had met last year with a Maine Department of Transportation engineer over the intersection.
Johnson said it was added to the dangerous intersection list.
Calden asked what he could do to as a resident to help get something done.
Cushman suggested he call DOT traffic engineer Gene Uhuad and she and Johnson will do the same.
dperry@sunjournal.com
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