TURNER – One month after negotiating an agreement with SAD 52 for use of the Leavitt Institute building, selectmen, under pressure from Leavitt Institute Committee members, have voted to throw the deal out and renegotiate.

The earlier agreement, made at the May 5th selectmen’s meeting, would have allowed the SAD 52 administrative offices to stay in the town-owned building, with a 10-year lease to take effect next year.

However, this Monday after two hours of discussion punctuated by raised voices, snide remarks and threats, selectmen left the final decision on the terms of any agreement with SAD 52 to Leavitt Institute Committee members. The Leavitt Institute Committee is to draft a letter with its terms.

No one in the room questioned this procedure, in spite of the fact that the entire Leavitt Institute Committee resigned in protest in May over this issue

Don’t like the terms

A majority of those Institute Committee members said Monday that a 10-year, long-term use lease with the district for 1 floors of the town-owned historical building was the problem. Other committee members said the negotiated price of $3 per square foot was too low.

Referring to the SAD 52 administrative offices, Selectman Ralph Caldwell, who also serves on the Institute Committee, said Monday, “I just want them gone.”

Other Institute Committee members said they had no problem with the school district being a tenant in the building but they didn’t like the terms.

A large number of the Institute Committee members who made their case to reverse the agreement on Monday night also were part of the negotiations on May 5. They had participated in the multiple closed-door sessions at that May meeting and were present when proposals and counterproposals were discussed then.

“We went into closed doors several times. No one spoke up. We agreed. We negotiated. …We made an agreement, a sort of handshake,” Budget Committee member Kurt Youland said.

‘Look like fools’

Selectmen’s Chairwoman Jennifer Wadsworth echoed Youland. “At the end of the evening (May 5), consensus was reached. In my mind, the town made an agreement. …We look like fools.”

Those Institute Committee members who had attended the May 5 meeting said they felt helpless and overwhelmed by the process.

“I think we were all unified when we went in there,” Institute Committee member Jim Talbot explained. “But as the evening developed, it began to slip away.”

The $3 per square foot rate negotiated for the 10-year portion of the school’s lease was a point of contention for many.

“Why did you rent it for a third of fair market value?” Caldwell questioned although, as a selectman, he had also been part of the May 5 negotiations.

“That ($3) is fair market value. You have no land, no parking and it is in the middle of the school campus. That is all you are going to get,” Youland responded. The Institute building sits in the middle of the Turner school campus.

When SAD 52 sold the building – but not the land it stands on – to the town, part of the purchase agreement with the town was that SAD 52 has to approve any tenant in the building. This ultimate control of the building’s use would be greatly limited by that school control, several people pointed out.

Caldwell believes, however, that is not a problem and the town can exercise more control than it thinks, he said.

On a vote to approve the lease agreement with SAD 52, Caldwell voted no. Selectwoman Lori Fish voted yes. Selectmen Lawrence House and Henry Gibbert refused to vote, not once, but twice. When it was explained to them by both Wadsworth and Caldwell that they couldn’t abstain on the question but had to vote yes or no, they still refused.

“I don’t like the way this is being done at all,” House said.

Wadsworth, as chairman, could have cast the deciding vote but chose to declare that the motion failed due to the 1-1 tie.

The second vote was to renegotiate the agreement with SAD 52. It was approved 3-2. Wadsworth and Fish voted against renegotiating; Caldwell, House and Gibbert voted for it.

“We made the last proposal to the school board (during negotiations), they voted to accept it, we allowed them to accept it and now we are withdrawing,” Wadsworth said. “This is unconscionable.”