MEXICO — The Board of Selectmen agreed Tuesday evening to look into purchasing a new electric stove for the Calvin P. Lyons room in the Mexico Town Office.
Town Manager John Madigan said that the stove located in the Calvin P. Lyons room “is beginning to get expensive to maintain.”
Town Clerk Penny Duguay agreed, adding that she recently found the stove left on when she went downstairs to check on it.
“There have been a few times that the Gramps Community Lunch group has left the stove on, and I’ve had to go and turn it off,” Duguay said. “You can’t tell on the dial where you need to turn it to shut the stove off, and the oven light doesn’t always stay on. The electricity that the stove uses must be horrendous.”
Madigan told the board that the cost of replacing two of the burners on the stove was “around $700.”
“It’s a clunker, and it’s becoming more and more expensive to keep up with it,” Madigan said.
Resident Randy Canwell said that the Dixfield American Legion had a similar stove that required a lot of power to operate.
“Whenever we ran that stove at 440 degrees, it’d suck all kinds of electricity up,” Canwell said.
Duguay said that the town had $650 in the kitchen replacement account to purchase a new electric stove.
While discussing the stove in the Calvin P. Lyons room, Madigan said that at a certain point, the town would have to address the “old chairs and tables located in the room.”
“We’re going to have to deal with those things pretty soon,” Madigan said. “We had a little reprieve when we were able to purchase 30 or 40 used chairs for about $100, but the chairs and tables right now are looking used.”
“It’s a busy hall,” Duguay said. “A lot of groups use those chairs and tables. I’ve noticed that the upholstery on some of them are torn up.”
Selectman Reggie Arsenault later joked that the selectmen and the Mexico Police Explorers should team up and host a toll road to raise money for the Town Office building.
Duguay agreed to look at local stores to find an affordable electric stove.
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