NORWAY — The Board of Selectmen will meet at 10 a.m. Thursday to deal with a leaking roof on the Opera House clock tower, a heat pump for the Police Department and a grant for the treatment plant.

The special session was called because the board lacked a quorum at their regular meeting last week and could not do any official business.

Town Manager Dennis Lajoie told Chairman Bruce Cook and Selectman Mike Twitchell last week that the roof leak is worse than thought, and that Hebert Construction of Lewiston offered to fix it for $5,412.

“(Hebert Construction) said that it would also reach out to Mid-Maine Restoration in Boothbay to get a specialized piece of equipment that will allow them to reach the roof from the sidewalk,” Lajoie said last week.

If the board votes to hire Hebert Construction, the work would begin Oct. 18, Lajoie said Wednesday.

“The contractor will need to do the work from the middle of Main Street. The goal is to not close the street, but to have one travel lane with flaggers. The lift truck they have rented will be leaving the state for a year on Oct. 22,” he said.

The clock tower tops the three-story brick Opera House in the heart of the downtown National Historic District. A partial roof collapse in 2007 eventually led to the town taking the iconic 1894 building by eminent domain. It reopened in 2013 after restoration work. In 2003, Maine Preservation named the building one of Maine’s most endangered properties.

Besides the Opera House, other items on the agenda include:

• An application for a $30,000 grant for the wastewater treatment plant on Brown Street;

• A request to purchase and install a heat pump for the Police Department office on Danforth Street; and

• A request to close the Town Office on Friday, Nov. 23, the day after Thanksgiving.

mdaigle@sunmediagroup.net

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