Have the School Administrative District 6 board members voted to rescind their vote to demolish the historic, structurally sound, and useful Hanson School building? Will Hanson be leased, licensed, sold or torn down? This is what we know.
These were questions CHARM (Community Heritage Alliance of Rural Maine) members were asking on June 10. At that time, the answer to the first question above was “No.” On June 10, the board voted not to rescind their decision to demolish Hanson over objections of a good number of emails and local citizens in attendance, as well a strong letter from Maine Preservation urging their reconsideration.
At that time the answer to the second question above of whether the historic 1930 classroom section and the 1952 gym annex would be leased, sold or torn down seemed still up for grabs. The details were complicated.
We knew Hanson could be sold, but the school district was reluctant to relinquish the 2 acres of land required in the Buxton village zone for such a sale. The state requires a range of 17-21 acres for a school the size of the Buxton Center Elementary School, which now sits on 21.7 acres. Selling Hanson with 2 acres would have retained 19.7 acres for BCES, well within the state required acreage range. Parking was a non issue since it could have been shared.
We also knew that there was at least one group coming in at the eleventh hour this spring with the superintendent’s permission to walk through and inspect the building for a potential lease. We learned this group had expressed interest in purchasing the building four years ago, but their interest was not shared with school board members or others. Of course, selling, leasing or licensing the building then would have removed it from the shoulders of taxpayers and eliminated the $170,000 demolition expense we face today. It certainly appears that someone in the school district had no interest in allowing others to consider the possibility of a sale or conveyance of the building even then.
The school district has not held a district-wide referendum to demolish, as required by state law, and therefore does not have the authority to order demolition by that method. In order to demolish the building, the only other option for the school district was to get the building condemned, which they proceeded to do with assistance from the Buxton selectpeople via Buxton’s code enforcement officer, who had previously been supportive of rehabilitating the building for community use with comparatively minimum requirements. Add to this that the interesting fact that the school district has been housing their facilities and technology departments at Hanson for the past few years, as they addressed accreditation issues at Bonny Eagle High School.
The school board continued to pursue RFPs (requests for proposals) to demolish, so that a contract could be signed by June 30 and the approximate $170,000 to demolish could be taken from the 2014-15 budget year. On June 18, a decision was made by the SAD 6 Facilities/Budget Committee to make a recommendation to the school board that a contract for demolition of Hanson be signed with Dearborn Brothers Construction of Buxton, with demolition to begin on July 1 and end on Aug. 1, 2015.
CHARM and the Buxton-Hollis Historical Society go on record in stating that the best use for the Hanson School complex is for the community, in whole or in part. We also feel that the most fiscally responsible and best use of our taxpayer dollars is to get the building off the school district’s shoulders by either selling it or entering into a license agreement with a community group, not by demolishing.
Over a period of almost give years, Buxton-Hollis Historical Society and CHARM have managed to preserve and re-purpose two out of three abandoned SAD 6 buildings. Not too bad a track record we reason, but still, the taxpayers and citizens of SAD 6 continue to shoulder the burden of fiscally irresponsible decisions. Hundreds of such buildings like Hanson all over Maine have successfully been rehabilitated and re-purposed with a cooperative will and a vision toward positive change and growth. We deeply regret the lack of insight, the waste of historic and community resources and taxpayer dollars by the leadership of our towns and SAD 6.
Jan Hill is a member of CHARM.
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