Despite concerns and frustrations around unanticipated costs for the town’s fire station repairs, Edgecomb residents ultimately approved the use of $81,000 in tax increment financing funds for the project in a 10-7 vote during a special town meeting Wednesday, July 2.
The $81,000 will be used in addition to the $60,000 voters originally approved the use of in October 2024. At the time, the work at the fire station was set to consist of replacing the building’s five exterior doors and their headings. The project grew, however, when expansive rot in the siding and plywood was discovered, according to Edgecomb Fire Chief Roy Potter.
“The construction process was much larger than any of us had anticipated,” Edgecomb Select Board Chair Michael Maxim said.
Conscious of the potential safety hazard to firefighters working in the building, Maxim said the risk prompted him and Potter to tell the contractor to move forward with the additional repairs.
“We made choices that we shouldn’t have,” Maxim said. “It would have been a little bit more appropriate to come to the town first and not have that work continue.”
Maxim started the special town meeting by saying he regretted approving the $81,000 worth of repairs without going to residents first.
Several residents aired frustrations about the extra costs and how the process was handled. When additional costs became part of the discussion, resident Stuart Smith said Maxim should have “stopped right there and gone back to the town.”
Mike Smith, a former select board member and contractor, said the board and contractor Zander Lee, who is completing the repairs, were not to blame for the high repair costs. “A basic mistake” was made with the station’s flashing, Smith said, which failed to keep water out of the building’s vulnerable components, during construction in 2011.
That mistake and the building’s overall construction is why the fixes warranted a $141,000 price tag only 14 years after the station was built, Smith said.
“They did a bad job and it cost us,” Smith said.
Among residents’ biggest frustrations was the absence of a contract for the repairs, which were completed by Steel Bolt Construction, of Newcastle. Lee and Steel Bolt Construction were not involved in the building’s original construction.
Some residents called to vote down the additional fund allocation from the town’s tax increment financing district so that Maxim could continue seeking legal remedy to cover the repairs, which would have delayed payment.
In response, select board member Forrest Carver read an email in which Lee detailed the costs of the construction, writing to town officials that the work was done “with the highest attention and the best ability of my crew … with the best materials on the market.”
“I did the best I could,” Lee said in a phone interview on July 3. “My guys and I are the most honest guys you will come across.”
“The money’s already been spent, so we’re not going to get it back,” Edgecomb resident Nort Fowler said. “I don’t see holding up this contractor as any benefit to us.”
The meeting ended in a close vote, but a majority of residents decided to approve the article.
Fowler said the town “needs to learn” from the mistakes made, which Maxim agreed with.
“I take this as a great opportunity to learn from the process,” Maxim said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
