TURNER – In a last-ditch effort to avoid fining more than 50 percent of the town’s residents, selectmen have voted to make an all-out effort to gain citizen compliance with the E-911 numbering requirements.

More than half of the town’s homeowners haven’t placed the required street numbers on their homes and mailboxes, according to emergency workers and Town Office workers who did small area inspection tours.

The numbers were to be in place a year ago. They’re required under the statewide Emergency 911 order. Selectmen could fine each homeowner who does not comply $50 per day for the offense.

However, board members agreed during their recent discussion that they did not wish, if they could avoid it, to take that action.

Instead, the board voted to turn the project over to the Firemen’s Auxiliary, which will organize a weekend door-to-door canvass, in conjunction with other area groups, for the end of April. Homeowners will be given the option of purchasing the required 4-inch reflective numbers for their home and/or mailbox post or having two weeks in which to acquire their own numbers and put them up before fines begin.

The weekend activity can be used as a fund-raiser for groups involved and a community service activity for any school groups that may also take part.

For further information on the numbering requirements or to help with the weekend canvass, contact the town office at 225-3414.

Move town office?

In other business, Selectman Ralph Caldwell asked the board to consider adding two articles to the annual town meeting warrant.

The first asks citizens to consider having the Town Office Committee investigate and gather costs to move the office to the second floor of Leavitt Institute Building in Turner Center. Selectmen, after a fairly contentious series of meetings last year, had voted to enter into an 11-year agreement with SAD 52 to lease that space to the school district to house administrative offices. Those papers were signed by both town and school officials. The town signatures, however, were contingent upon a vote at town meeting giving selectmen authority to lease town-owned space.

The Town Office Committee in a unanimous vote, except for Caldwell, has already rejected the use of the Institute building for town office space, citing its location in the middle of the school campus and adjacent to the elementary school. Two votes, one at a public hearing and one a straw vote at annual town meeting, confirmed that townspeople did not wish to have the town office moved to that location but wanted it to remain where it is and be expanded. A survey taken by the Comprehensive Planning Committee also showed overwhelming support for the present site.

Selectmen told Caldwell that he would need to obtain signatures on a petition to put the article on the warrant for the April meeting.

The second article he proposed considers whether selectmen should have the right to lease space in the Institute building. This will be looked at further since the board is already considering a general article in the warrant regarding the selectmen’s legal right to lease any town-owned properties, including space in the Institute building.