FARMINGTON – SAD 9 is holding an informational meeting and straw poll Wednesday, Dec. 10, on the recommended site for a Mt. Blue High School/Foster Career Technology building project.

Registered voters in attendance from the nine district towns will be asked if they support keeping the school where it is and acquire 12.4 acres nearby.

The meeting is set for 7 p.m. at the high school auditorium.

SAD 9 learned in 2006 that its high school and tech center, and W.G. Mallett School in Farmington were among a list of 20 state protected major capital school construction projects.

Though the straw poll is only for the site development, the object of the building project is to integrate some of the vocational programs into the academic areas and put everyone under one roof.

“We need space to replace the portables and we need space for what we have, and some of the space we do have is inadequate and undersized,” Superintendent Michael Cormier said.

The Mt. Blue/Foster Tech Building Committee is recommending the project remain on Seaman Road and about 12.5 acres be bought along Whittier Road, west of the existing athletic fields, for $59,000, Cormier said.

The district has an option to buy the land, if the project moves forward, Cormier said.

If the straw vote favors the plan, the site selection will go to the state for approval.

The project, number 17 on the top-20 for state funding, would include renovating and expanding the existing building, and rebuilding of drives, roads, parking lots and service areas. Some of the building will be demolished and some of it completely retrofitted, Cormier said.

The school is 40-plus years old and doesn’t meet codes, he said.

The project will also involve rebuilding athletic fields and adding fields, tennis courts and stormwater management detention ponds.

The cost of the project is unknown at this time, Cormier said, but it is estimated the state will pay for more than 90 percent of it.

The district raised $200,000 over two years for both the high school and Mallett School projects and cut expenses in other areas in the budget to support what has been done so far, he said. About $370,000 has been spent in local money on the projects combined, he said, and it is expected if the project is approved, the district will be reimbursed for most of it.

The Mallett School calls for a new kindergarten-through-third-grade building behind the present school on Quebec Street for an estimated $18.9 million, Assistant Superintendent Sue Pratt said. The state will pay 99.6 percent of it and the district $75,000,

A referendum on that project is scheduled on Thursday, Jan. 22, in each town, Pratt said. If approved, it is due to go to bid in December 2009, construction to begin in early spring 2010, and be open for school in September 2011, she said.