NORWAY — Town Manager David Holt said there are few options available to Norway if voters turn down a recommendation by the Board of Selectmen to take the historic Opera House by eminent domain.

A town meeting gets under way at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Forum at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris and  residents are being urged to attend to ask questions and voice their opinion about the future of the damaged Main Street building in the heart of downtown Norway.

Nonresidents may also attend, but will sit in a designated area and be allowed to speak if voters approve a request to do so. Voters are expected to make their decisions by secret ballot, town officials said.

“There are a couple of options,” Holt said Friday when asked what would happen if voters turn down the board’s recommendation. Selectmen could pursue a court order that was obtained in Oxford Hills Superior Court this fall mandating that building owner Barry Mazzaglia of Bitim Enterprises in Londonderry, N.H., secure the building.

“The order is in effect and he has chosen to ignore most of it,” Holt said.

A portion of the roof on the three-story brick edifice collapsed on Sept. 21, 2007, severing a sprinkler pipe and flooding ground-floor businesses. Two engineering studies have deemed the structure to be unsafe.

Holt said selectmen’s Chairman Bruce Cook has discussed declaring the Opera House a “dangerous building,” if all else fails. That would give the town 30 days to notify the owner that it must be stabilized or it would be torn down. Then a lien would be placed on the land to recover costs of cleanup, which Holt believes would be more than the value of the land.

“The third option is just doing nothing,” Holt said.

If voters agree to continue with the eminent domain process and to accept the $200,000 from Bill and Beatrice Damon, the process will go into the court system where a judge will set the price that the town must pay Mazzaglia for loss of his property.

The town has the building appraised at $185,000, the price it expects to pay Mazzaglia for his property loss, but a judge could set a price higher or lower. The town would be obligated to pay the price. Mazzaglia would have an opportunity to appeal the court’s decision. Holt estimates that it could be spring before it is all resolved.

Because the town can not take ownership of the building until the issues are resolved, Holt said he is concerned about how the building will be secured for the winter, including the removal of snow from the roof. An engineer has estimated that more than a foot of snow and ice on the roof at one time could lead to its collapse.

“Given the impending danger, we would use the existing court order,” said Holt of the need to make sure the roof is kept cleared of snow.

“No matter what happens it will be a nail-biter,” Holt said.

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The clock tower on the three-story Norway Opera House is seen behind the roofline of Cafe Nomad on Main Street. On Tuesday night, voters will decide what direction to take with the damaged, privately-owned Opera House.