PERU — A special town meeting will be held Tuesday to ask voters to take $75,000 from the surplus account to cover the costs of demolishing the former Peru Elementary School.

Also at the meeting at 6:30 p.m. at Dirigo Elementary School, voters will be asked to authorize the Select Board to expend any receipts as needed.

In a secret ballot vote April 11, residents voted 151-47 to get rid of the former school building. Asked whether they wished to sell or demolish the building, townspeople voted 120-16 to raze it.

On April 29, Select Board member Carol Roach said she and board members Lynda Hebert and Larry Snowman met in Peru with Don Bucci of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

She said Bucci provided documentation of a study from the 1990s that identified where asbestos was in the old school. Roach said some of that asbestos has since been removed.

Roach said Bucci also provided a list of asbestos inspectors who could take samples to determine the cost of the asbestos removal, which would need to be done prior to contracting to tear down the building.

Board Chairwoman Raquel Welch said Todd Wardwell would likely be the person to tear down the building. He gave a preliminary cost of $40,000 to do the job.

Also on April 11, residents voted that they wanted the building torn down in 120 days. Welch said that with the process to remove the asbestos before hiring a contractor, the timeline would probably be longer.

The Select Board voted 4-0 at its May 21 meeting to hire Eastern Skies of Auburn to get asbestos test samples from the school building at a cost of $2,000 to $3,500, plus $600 a day for two days. Testing is requested to begin July 2, with results available in five to seven days.

If the town votes down the requested $75,000 at Tuesday’s meeting, the building will stand empty and the Eastern Skies asbestos testing will be canceled.

bfarrin@sunmediagroup.net

 

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