LIVERMORE FALLS — Selectmen voted Monday to apply for a road opening permit for the town’s right of way to Treat Memorial Library off Main Street.

The library currently doesn’t have any spaces for handicap accessibility, but people park in front of the library on Main Street, also known as Route 4.

Town Manager Kristal Flagg said she spoke to a representative of the Maine Department of Transportation when he came in and she asked if parking would be available in front of the library after the road reconstruction project is done next year.

The answer was absolutely not, Flagg said. The lane where people currently park but are not supposed to will be the lane leading onto the bridge over the Androscoggin River.

It was advised that the town apply for a road opening permit to widen the entrance, she said.

The right of way could be used as an entrance to drive around back of the library to the parking there, Flagg said.

A handicap parking spot could be put on that right of way so people who need it could have access to library, she said.

Flagg said the town’s Highway Department could do a lot of the work and save money. The library’s trust fund would pay for the work, she said.

It would be less costly than putting in an elevator, she said.

The library doors are at road level at the front of the building, but in the back it is two stories with an auditorium underneath, and people have to climb an outside set of stairs or walk up the right of way to get into it.

“It is a necessity,” library Director Elaine Smith said.

A lot of senior citizens and people with handicaps use the library, she said.

The DOT is expected to start digging for the reconstruction of 1.1 mile of Route 4 from Bridge Street to Pineau Street in Jay in April 2011, Flagg said she was told. They hope to advertise in February and award the contract in March, she said.

The project has been delayed since 2003.

It is going to be a nearly two-year project with completion estimated for October 2012.

Flagg said that the DOT representative planned to go to every business that may be affected by the work on Main Street to find out concerns and what could be done to minimize the project’s impact on them.

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