NORWAY — Work has begun to expand the town’s storage capacity for everything from birth and death certificates to trash cans.
Police Chief Rob Federico, a member of the Norway Storage Resolution Committee, said the brick building that housed the 1851 Oxford Bear hand tub pumper owned by the Fire Department is being cleaned out. It is on Lynn Street near the town office building and fire station.
“We have a long ways to go” to clean it out, Federico said.
The horse-drawn hand tub was used to fight the Great Norway Fire of 1894 that nearly wiped out the downtown business district. It is usually kept in the lobby of the town offices.
Federico said the old brick building will be used to store town records and some trash that gets picked up weekly.
In August, selectmen were told the town safe needs to be expanded to at least three times its current size to accommodate hundreds of records the town must save by law each year.
The Storage Resolution Committee, which also includes Town Clerk Shirley Boyce, Recreation Director Debra Partridge and Administrative Assistant Carol Millett, recommended the safe be expanded to 16 feet by 16 feet, or three times its current size.
Millett said Tuesday that the town is waiting to get an estimate on what that will cost and whether the town has money in the building account to proceed with the project.
Other storage spaces under consideration are:
* The “Y” building at Lake Pennesseewassee where repairs to the roof and inside ceiling are needed.
* The Norway Memorial Library where an outdoor outdoor shed is needed.
* The fire station where metal shelves are recommended to replace wooden overhead shelves so there is more space for files.
* The former Norway Water District building which needs roof repairs to keep stored items there dry.
Other items that need to be addressed, according to committee members, are: building roof over the oil filler pipes outside the fire station; placing signs at the Highway Department; putting an old sign that used to be at the entrance to Lake Pennesseewassee Park on the outside of the “Y” building.
ldixon@sunjournal.com
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- Volunteers work on the brick building that formerly housed Norway Fire Department’s 1851 Oxford Bear hand tub pumper. The building is on Lynn Street near the town offices and is being cleaned out to use for storage.
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