By Kenneth Roberts,Special to the Sun Journal

TURNER – Amy Landry of the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments advised selectmen Monday night on federal and state grants for the Boofy Quimby Memorial Center and a park and boat landing on the Nezinscot River near the town office.

Priority will be given to seeking money to make the center accessible to the handicapped. An addition is planned to the community center to make the entry at ground level, update bathrooms to make them accessible, and to make other improvements.

Based on advice received from the AVCOG regional planner, selectmen asked Town Manager James Catlin to work with the center’s building committee on a letter stating the town’s intention to request a grant, set a public hearing on the plans and estimated costs for the work on the center, and complete the application to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Landry advised the board that grants of up to $100,000 are available for handicapped-accessible projects, and that 25 percent local matching funds must be shown to be available. Catlin said the funds are in hand and that work will begin immediately in pursuit of the grant to meet the December and January deadlines.

An application for a $10,000 Community Planning Grant will be made by the town for the proposed park and boat landing, selectmen agreed, but its deadlines are later. The board and perhaps other town committees will work with AVCOG to pursue other grants for the Nezinscot River project.

In other action, selectmen briefly discussed the recent press conference by the state police and Department of Transportation announcing proposed changes to make Route 4, the state’s deadliest highway, safer. State officials outlined plans for the four-lane sections of the road to be reduced to three with a turning center lane.

Catlin said the Turner sites for those changes would be from the Auburn town line near the Chickadee Restaurant to the entrance to Hill View Estates, and in North Turner at the Northland Plaza.

Warren Clark of Turner asked why the town “isn’t holding the state to its commitment many years ago to make Route 4 four lanes from Auburn to Livermore?” He said he was present on more than one occasion “when the state promised to make that road four lanes right through Turner to Livermore.”

Selectmen Dennis Richardson and Ralph Caldwell as well as Clark scoffed at the state placing “turn on your headlights for safety” signs at both Turner ends of the highway, saying what is needed is enforcement of speeding laws, not signs, which Caldwell described as “belittling of our intelligence.” The signs at the side of the road were placed by the state shortly after the press conference last Friday.

Caldwell alerted the board to several items that they will have to consider shortly after the Leavitt Institute Board of Directors has dealt with them further. He said the building will require either costly repairs to a boiler, which has experienced leaks on three occasions in its seven years, or the purchase of a new boiler system; probable purchase of a camera security system; and finding and repairing a new leak in the ceiling of the Round Room on the library floor.

Catlin was given approval to negotiate the purchase of a truck for plowing, sanding and salting roads if warranty reports on the vehicle and a talk with its former owner prove positive.

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