NORWAY — Town Manager David Holt said officials throughout the state who have lost access to a $3.5 million Communities for Maine’s Future grant until 2014 hope their state legislators can get an assurance from the governor that the money will be available then.

“I do not believe there is a way to get this governor to go forward with the CfMF bond at this time,” Holt said. “We are working to satisfy our bond counsel so that we can take out a bond anticipation note so that when the CfMF bond is released in 2014 we can get reimbursed. Our legislators can help by getting assurances that this will happen.”

The town was seeking a grant to help renovate the Norway Opera House on Main Street.

In July, LePage stunned towns counting on the money when he delayed releasing the bonds, which were approved by the Legislature in 2009 and by a majority of voters in November 2010.

The grant awards provided funding for projects that restore and revitalize key buildings in the community, improve pedestrian access and safety, and are catalysts for local jobs. The communities on the list to receive awards are Bath, Belfast, Dover-Foxcroft, Eastport, Livermore Falls, Monmouth, Norway, Rockland, Skowhegan, Unity and Winthrop.

Attempts by legislators to change the governor’s mind and release the money now have failed.

At least one state legislator, Rep. Jeff McCabe, a Democrat representing Skowhegan, got a thumbs down when he received a one-page, handwritten letter from LePage on July 14, which starts out, “Maybe you need clarification on my position.”

In the letter, the governor suggests the town “sell bonds to complete the project and the state could provide the funds at some later time.”

But officials, many of whom have spent large amounts of money on their projects already, now want assurances the money will be there in 2014 if they sell their own bonds now to finance their projects.

McCabe said the governor is holding the local economy “hostage.”

“He’s asking the taxpayers of Maine to float the state a loan for a commitment the state has already made with no timeline to pay us back,” McCabe said in a statement about the response.

Holt said Norway has invested a lot of money in the Opera House. About $100,000 in architect and engineering fees have been paid and may not be recovered, he said. That money is in addition to hundreds of thousands of dollars spent over the past five years, including a $200,000 donation by Selectman Bill Damon and his wife, Bea, that originally saved the building.

The news of the grant delay came just two days after the town transferred the Norway Opera House deed to the Norway Opera House Corp. and shortly before the $1.1 million renovation project of the first-floor storefronts was to go out to bid.

Officials and residents had worked for the past five years to save the 1894 iconic downtown building after a partial roof collapse in 2007 led to it being taken by the town because it was deemed unsafe.

McCabe said in a statement released recently that the governor’s decision was “senseless” and puts Maine’s economy on a “backslide.”

“The small businesses and middle class families in Skowhegan and towns like ours across the state are counting on their Main Streets. We should be supporting our local economies not stunting them,” he said.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

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