LIVERMORE FALLS – Selectmen tabled a request to allow Area Youth Sports to build a two-story concession stand/restroom facility at the recreation field and to have AYS call it the Livermore Falls Recreation Field, Home of AYS.

Selectmen decided to get answers to several questions raised Tuesday and even after they make their decision, they would put the question out to voters.

Residents started making plans for a recreation field in 1975-76, Town Manager Martin Puckett said.

Voters raised $18,700 to match about $140,000 in federal and state grants and after final approval, it was voted to put $10,000 of state revenue sharing money toward the project to meet grant requirements, he said.

AYS is a nonprofit athletic organization that serves children in grades kindergarten through eight in Fayette, Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls.

Organization leaders would like to set up a football and soccer field to go with the baseball and softball fields already there.

“AYS has been around for quite a while,” President Jim Ouellette said. “We have never had a place to call home.”

Ouellette had sent a letter in 2006 to the board requesting the use of the field for football and selectmen asked for a plan to show how it would work.

“We’re trying to present something to the town that won’t cost the town of Livermore Falls anything,” Ouellette said Tuesday.

They were not asking for money, he said, but would maybe ask to have the field mowed and to have trash containers handy.

“You already have the field mowed. We would have to do it once a week for football games,” he said.

AYS has been run by fathers and mothers since 1968 who have children in the program, he added.

The proposal would be to use the field and to build a two-story building with the bathrooms at road level and the concession stand on the bottom level.

The field would still be open to the public, he said, and if there was an Apple-Pumpkin Festival, AYS would open up the concession stand to sell items to benefit the program and the public could use the bathrooms.

Just for football, you’re talking about 300 people coming to the games, he said.

The field would have removable goal posts for football and if they had a concession stand, they could hold baseball tournaments.

Selectman Louise Chabot asked how it would impact other teams such as the school that may use the field for practice or games.

It wouldn’t affect them, Ouellette said, AYS football games are held on Sunday.

Town Manager Martin Puckett said working out a schedule of use would be needed to avoid conflict, similar to what is done to use the library auditorium.

Concerns raised by residents included checking the flood plain ordinance to see if a permanent structure could be installed, parking, adhering to grant stipulations, working with the school, mowing costs, and not losing the fact that it is the Livermore Falls Recreation Field.

There are issues to look into and resolve, AYS board member Scott Hall said.

“It’s not something that’s going to happen overnight,” Hall said.

Puckett said he researched the field and could find no deed restrictions when the property was acquired from International Paper. They did request an easement to get to the hydro-plant, which is the gravel road off Foundry Road.

Resident Ron Chadwick said he helped write two comprehensive plans and during that time obtained a copy of a contract that he’d be willing to share to help the board make its decision.