UNITY — Starting Tuesday, Oct. 18, town residents will be buying hunting licenses and paying property taxes at Unity Elementary School.
Aftert 16 years at Clifford Common, the Town Offices are moving.
Unity Selectman James Kenney said the relocation of the Town Office on Saturday, Oct. 15, to the School Street location is temporary. By this time next year, municipal officials would be in a new building that meets federal codes and is equipped with modern technology.
Clifford Common has been home to the 1,000-square-foot Town Office since 1995, when resident and philanthropist Bert Clifford established a 99-year, $1-a-year lease with the town allowing municipal business to be conducted in the first-floor space of the brick complex.
When the lease was reviewed after Johnson Property Management, a Massachusetts-based company, bought Clifford Common after Clifford’s death, it turned out it had not been properly filed. Kenney said the new property owner opted not to honor the lease.
Over the course of the next five years, starting in March, the town’s lease would have increased annually, topping out at $12,000, Kenney said.
So last August, town officials requested temporary office space at the school from Regional School Unit 3, which agreed to provide a former classroom, an adjacent bathroom and a conference room. It will share an entrance with the superintendent’s office.
The town will share snowplowing, building maintenance, heat and light expenses with the school district.
Schoolchildren, including 4-year-olds in the pre-kindergarten program and 3- to 5-year-olds in the Early Childhood Learning Center, have classrooms at the opposite end of the one-level school and have a separate entrance, according to Heather Perry, superintendent of the 11-town district.
Town Clerk Sue Lombard said a number of people are helping with the Oct. 15 move.
“Everything will be all packed and we have quite a few people all lined up,” she said.
While the Town Office won’t be open Monday, Oct. 17, selectmen will meet that evening.
“I’ll be sitting there crying, looking for stuff,” joked Lombard, who has been town clerk for 17 years.
Kenney said before the end of this year, he and fellow selectmen Ron Rudolph and Bill Russell will present townspeople with plans for a site, building design and financing for a new office.
“We think the town would be better served with a new construction,” he said.
In addition to Lombard — the town clerk, tax collector and registrar — Kenney said an assistant town clerk, as well as a code enforcement officer, assessor’s agent and selectmen, work in the office.
A new building, he said, would likely have space where the Planning Board could meet and where special town meetings could be held.
The annual town meeting in March, said Kenney, will continue to be held at Unity Elementary School because of its kitchen and large meeting space.
General Town Office hours are from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 5 to 7 p.m. on Tuesdays.
For more information, call 948-3763 or email unity@uninets.net.
Beth Staples — 861-9252
bstaples@centralmaine.com
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