NORWAY – A former selectman indicted on a charge of theft is one of eight individuals whose loans from the town will be transferred to Community Concepts.

Ron Snow, 58, of Norway was indicted in June on a charge of embezzling $29,352.01 from Norway-Paris Community Television.

Snow was a Norway selectman from 1993 to 1999, and campaigned unsuccessfully for a seat on the board in 2003. He was hired as an employee of Three Sixty Management Services in Paris to oversee the television station’s finances that same year. Station Manager Steve Galvin dismissed him in November 2006 and found discrepancies in the station funds after bringing in an auditor last March.

On Thursday, the Board of Selectmen voted to write off loans to eight individuals and transfer eight to be overseen by the Community Concepts staff. The money for the loans was taken from several community development block grants.

Documents released by the town did not indicate the outstanding balances, but Mary Ellen Therriault, associate director of public relations with Community Concepts, said the total amount to be transferred would be under $100,000.

Since the late 1980s, Norway has distributed 70 loans for housing and small business. The 16 loans addressed by the selectmen are managed by Norway Savings Bank.

The funds operated on a “revolving loan” basis, where payments by one individual went into a fund that could be used to give a loan to another individual.

“The idea was that it would continue forever,” Town Manager David Holt said.

He said the loans were given out to help the town transfer from a manufacturing and agricultural economy to a small business economy. He said Thursday that the town should “get out of the banking business.”

According to a document from the Norway Savings Bank, Snow originally had a $17,500 loan with a $13,650.90 principal. The loan was dated September 1999, and scheduled to be paid off in July 2002. The loan had a 5 percent interest rate.

Holt said Snow had taken out the loan to purchase office equipment for an accounting business on Main Street. Snow opened the business in 2001 and moved it to Paris in 2005.

Holt said many of the loan recipients had renegotiated their payment schedules.

“Some asked to take a little longer and they were granted that,” he said.

The loans were to start businesses that could not get a loan from a bank, which increased their risk factor.

“I think everybody knew going in that there would be failures,” Holt said.

He said the staff at Community Concepts would be better equipped to handle the loans.

“It makes sense to me to turn these loans over to them where they can give them more attention,” he said.

Community Concepts was founded in 1965 and is designed to promote self-sufficiency among individuals in Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties, according to the organization’s Web site. Its services include energy assistance, transportation services, home ownership services, and small business loans and programs.

Therriault said the organization hasn’t met with town officials to discuss logistics yet, but individuals would be expected to continue paying back the loans, and the organization offers “excellent” repayment rates and low default rates.

Holt said the town has placed a lien on a gravel pit partly owned by Snow to help repay some of his loan if he sells the property.

Snow’s case is pending in Oxford County Superior Court. In June, defense attorney Alan J. Perry motioned for a return of items seized by investigators. These items included Snow’s computer, bank records, paper records related to a redemption business Snow owned, and a file on the television station. The motion was dismissed earlier this month.

Attempts to reach Perry on Monday were unsuccessful.