By RUSSELL JONES
The Proctor Selectboard will ask voters to approve funding to make the Town Office ADA compliant at a special town meeting on Monday, June 3, and will hold an Australian ballot vote the next day for a $330,000 bond.
The board will ask voters to approve using $90,000 of accumulated surplus funds at the Monday meeting and will look for a $330,000 bond measure to be approved on Tuesday, June 4.
The front wall of the Town Office is currently braced to keep it from falling onto the sidewalk, according to Town Manager Stan Wilbur. A state grant of $20,000 was received in January to partially fund the project and other grants may be available to help the town come into ADA compliance.
Residents voted down a proposal to fix the offices for a lower cost at the annual Town Meeting in March. That bond for $161,660 was rejected by a voice vote at the meeting with many residents objecting that those plans did not make the building handicap accessible.
After that bond was defeated, the selectboard drew up a proposal that would add a chair lift to the outside of the Town Office. The chair lift would be in a structure added to the building and enclosed form the elements.
The building, constructed in 1836, was originally a schoolhouse and was used as such until 1866. After WWI, the building became the Memorial Municipal Building, and has been the Proctor Town Hall since that time.
The Monday meeting will be held in the Proctor Elementary School gym at 7 p.m. and the Australian ballot voting will be held on Tuesday in the Jr./Sr. High School gym from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
