LIVERMORE FALLS — About 10 people showed up for a public hearing Thursday on the proposed closing of the Livermore Falls Middle School.

Voters in both Livermore and Livermore Falls will decide the issue on Tuesday, May 10. The polls will be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the town office in Livermore, and from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the town office in Livermore Falls.

If voters reject closing the 45,138-square-foot building, then the taxpayers of the two towns will be responsible to pay $578,434.65 to keep it open and still pay a share of the cost to run the Jay Middle School. The students from Livermore and Livermore Falls would still attend the Livermore Falls Middle School.

If the majority of the voters in Livermore and Livermore Falls opt to close the school, then students from those towns in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades will attend the Jay Middle School next fall.

“My biggest fear is people won’t realize the cost if they vote to keep it open,” Livermore Falls Board of Selectmen Chairman Bill Demaray said during the hearing.

Fellow Selectman Louise Chabot said she hopes people realize that the $578,434.65 the two towns would be responsible for, if the school stays open, amounts to about $4 per $1,000 of property valuation. Of that, it is estimated that Livermore Falls would pay about $1.50 of the $4, she said. Livermore would pay the remaining estimated $2.50.

If the vote goes through to close the school, Superintendent Sue Pratt said, RSU 36 directors would meet and decide what to do with the building. Pratt said among the options are the school could be demolished, partially demolished and the gymnasium wing saved, shut down, or given back to Livermore Falls. Residents in that town would have the final say on whether they wanted to accept that building as town property.

If Livermore Falls voters decide they don’t want the building, then it would go back to the board to decide what to do with it, Pratt said. The board could decide to sell the school and the proceeds would be credited toward the Livermore Falls portion of the budget.

“My concern is losing an auditorium,” Director Denise Rodzen of Livermore Falls said. She said she doesn’t think the community is affluent enough to build another gym.

Demaray said there have been several options discussed that he has heard about.

Among the options are to take down the school portion and use the gym , another is to tear the whole thing down and use the space for parking, and another is the possibility of  Area Youth Sports using the building, he said.

It’s been talked about, he said, but nothing has been formalized.

Funding would be needed to pay for tearing down the building, he said

Chabot said she has heard that the preference would be to keep the gym for the children.

Resident Bob Jones, a former SAD 36 director, asked about the $42,906.61 cost listed as savings if the middle school kitchen is closed. The cost doesn’t add up to that for savings for two staff members, he said.

The children still have to be fed, Jones said.

The money is based on staffing wages and benefits and other associated employment costs, Pratt said.

The state also based the amount of savings on 2009-10 data.

Rodzen said back then there were three staff members but one retired and the position was not refilled.

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