RUMFORD – Selectmen at Thursday night’s board meeting stood firmly behind their decision last month to evict three tenants from a Prospect Avenue apartment, citing the landlord’s failure to address code violations.

“We made our decision and we’re sticking with it,” Selectman Brad Adley said following a lengthy discussion regarding 14 Prospect Ave. and landlord Brian O’Keefe.

O’Keefe did not attend the meeting.

The board said the tenants must move out by Monday, but did not address penalties if they don’t comply.

Fire Chief Gary Wentzell broached the issue after prompting from selectmen and Town Manager Len Greaney.

Wentzell said he and code enforcement officer Rick Kent returned to the building on Wednesday to see if O’Keefe had resolved code violations regarding hardwired smoke detectors and safety egresses.

They met with a contractor who O’Keefe hired to do repairs, Wentzell said. Then, they brought in Adley and Rumford landlord Jim Barnett to verify that nothing had been done to remedy the list of violations.

“The contractor called the owner and said he needed more supplies today, but (O’Keefe) said he had no money and was coming up on Saturday to close the building down,” Wentzell said. “I’m not going back up there, obviously.”

“I feel like we’re being held hostage. We really want to do the right thing for the tenants,” Greaney said.

“I wasn’t comfortable from the beginning with this, but there are vacant apartments throughout this community,” Selectman Robert Cameron said. “It shouldn’t take them 10 minutes to find a place.”

Cameron urged selectmen to stick with their eviction decision to prevent other landlords from not taking them seriously.

“I don’t like to push people out of their homes with cold weather coming. But if something happens, we’re liable. I absolutely hate it, but a year and a half is long enough,” Cameron said of the time O’Keefe has had to remedy life safety issues for which he’s been cited.

Belanger said the code is clear that if a landlord submits a plan of correction and shows progress toward correcting the violations, the town won’t force tenants out of the building.

“The idea that we’re kicking people out of their homes just to kick them out is not true. I hope all the landlords are clear on this,” Belanger said.

“This building won’t take much to fix it up so them people can live there,” Wentzell said.

After more discussion, Greaney asked the area landlord association if it had any open apartments the 14 Prospect Ave. tenants could move into.

He was told that there are 70 advertisements in the Rumford Falls Times for empty buildings and that the tenants should start calling. The man, who didn’t state his name, suggested the town give the tenants $1,000 to help them move out, but selectmen took no action on that.

In other business, the board chose the following streets in this order to begin inspections of apartments for code violations: Waldo, Pine, Hancock, Franklin and Maple streets; Essex and Oxford avenues; Washington Street and Plymouth Avenue; Piscataquis and Virgin streets; Prospect Avenue; Penobscot and Cumberland streets; Stratford Avenue; Somerset, Knox, Byron and York streets; Rumford Avenue; Kennebec, Spruce and Falmouth streets; Lincoln Avenue; Congress Street; Spring and Maine avenues; and Free Street.