By Donna M. Perry,Staff Writer

JAY – Selectmen authorized the town manager Monday to call the municipal building committee together for a meeting.

Voters have set aside $100,000 each year for a number of years for a new building, and there is now $642,000 in the account, Town Manager Ruth Marden said Tuesday.

There have been no meetings of the committee recently, but there have been more problems at the municipal building, she said.

The building that houses the town government operations, the police and the emergency dispatcher’s office was formerly a school.

A couple of years ago, the environmental code enforcement officer’s office was moved upstairs from the basement in the municipal building to the selectmen’s meeting room due to air quality issues.

Selectmen and Planning Board members and other committees now meet at the Community Building attached to the Jay Middle School.

Voters had previously rejected building a new $1.5 million complex.

But the project was trimmed back, and the last cost estimate was about $900,000.

Marden said she told selectmen Monday that there are green plants growing up through the cement basement floor. She also said there have been electrical problems, and that new outdoor lighting has been installed. The ramp was rebuilt two years ago and needs to be rebuilt again because the area is so wet, she said.

Selectmen also directed highway foreman John Johnson to do some research on what it would take to make the School Bus Road acceptable as a town road, Marden said.

The road where the school bus garage is located runs off Tiger Road, behind the elementary school and out to Hyde Road.

The road was closed for a while after the school bus garage caught fire and was recently re-opened, Marden said.

There are concerns about trucks and buses backing out of the garage and vehicles zipping by, she said.

Once construction begins to repair the fire damage to the garage, Marden said, the road would probably be closed again.

In other business, selectmen appointed Assistant Fire Rescue Chief Jim Shink as deputy chief until February. Shink’s brother, former Deputy Chief Scott Shink, was appointed as chief recently after their brother, Brian Shink, resigned as chief because he was moving to Livermore.