MECHANIC FALLS — The Town Council determined Monday night that until a thorough master plan for a new municipal complex is explored, the Police Department will stay in the municipal building on Lewiston Street.
However, the town’s administrative offices and the library will move from the municipal building to the former medical building on 22 Pleasant St.
The council approved the architect’s floor plan for the new town office.
Town Manager Zakk Maher said, “I don’t think it’s appropriate for the Police Department to be downtown,” since its garages and facilities are on Lewiston Street. Having the department remain at the present location “buys us some room to do a redevelopment of the plan down here.”
He added, “We can’t mothball the building right away . . . we can’t just shut this building down.” The municipal building’s furnace also heats the fire and public works department buildings next door.
It makes logistical and administrative sense, he said, for the town offices and library to be downtown, so they can “be that hub, have more of a community integration aspect of it.”
Councilor Stephen Bolduc said, “This building costs a lot of money. This building needs a lot of work … this building is a money pit. How much money have we spent and it just keeps sucking money. A couple of years ago we spent tons of money getting rid of mold and mildew and made people sick and it doesn’t go away. It keeps coming back.”
Councilor Wayne Hackett said, “This looked like a great opportunity to put all the departments in one building.” But an engineer wasn’t called in until after the town approved the plan to buy and move all the departments in the medical building, he said.
“There was no engineer to decide where the rooms would be,” Hackett said.
Councilor Kieth Bennett said, “When this whole deal was brought to us in the first place it was everybody going. We’ve done a disservice to our public.”
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