PERU – Selectmen are proposing to take money from surplus to pay for heating and maintaining the Rockemeka Grange Hall through the end of the year.

Chairman Norman DeRoche said Wednesday night the town has only $286 left of the $2,500 raised to operate and maintain the building in 2003.

Peggy Turner of Peru, who heads the nonprofit Families in Crisis Task Force, charged Tuesday that the town, because of its poor money management, is denying her group use of the building.

Turner also claims that the group, under the original agreement, was supposed to have use of the hall three days a week, but that has been cut to two.

“To balance your budget on our backs is not OK,” Turner told selectmen Tuesday night.

Selectman Jim Pulsifer said there are two ways to get more money: hold a special town meeting to raise more or draw some from the miscellaneous account.

Selectmen denied accusations by the task force that the money shortage is due to poor planning. They said they had not anticipated the hall to be used as much as it is. The price of fuel plus the severe winter cost more than expected, they said.

“We raised $2,500 for the maintenance of the building,” Pulsifer said. The amount is based on what it costs the town to use the large two-story colonial for town functions such as voting and public hearings and for the task force’s food pantry, he said. The money pays for utilities and some maintenance, he said.

The town took over the building in the mid-1980s, Pulsifer said. It received a grant to make it handicapped accessible by putting in a wheelchair ramp, installing an elevator, widening doorways and building a handicapped bathroom, Pulsifer said. That work is finished.

The Peru Historical Society and the Worthley Pond Association also use the building, he said.

Several years ago the task force asked to use the hall and the town authorized it for a food pantry and distribution center two days a week at no cost, Pulsifer said.

However, the use has grown, he said, so that now “they want to use it for a lot of stuff.”

“The issue of cost was not properly resolved at the beginning,” he said. “Selectmen understood they were going to have the use of that building up to 10 hours a week. They are now using it considerably more than that.”

He said the task force uses the hall 20 hours a week regularly and runs a “soup kitchen” there once a month.

Pulsifer stressed the task force is not a Peru organization. “It covers many towns,” he said.

“Use is an issue and who is going to pay for it,” he said.

Turner has said other groups using the building have not been asked to supply insurance as the task force has.

Selectmen said the insurance request was because the task force uses it for cooking.

The building is insured under the town’s property coverage, Pulsifer said.

DeRoche said for the town, “It’s a matter of we’re running out of money to heat the building.” So the board will take money out of the surplus account.

“We’ll take a look at last year,” he said, to calculate heating costs and use a percentage of that figure to cover the last three months of 2003. The building will be open to those who request to use it on a first come, first served basis, he said, including the task force.

“They can use it for what they asked for,” he said, which is two days a week for a food pantry and food distribution site.

“My position is as a selectmen, I’m supposed to be making business decisions,” DeRoche said.

Staff writer Mary Delamater contributed to this article.

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