FARMINGTON — Town officials are looking into what can be done to address two deteriorating monuments at Meetinghouse Park on Main Street, including the Lac-Megantic Sister City memorial.

Resident Doug Dunlap wrote a letter to Selectman Dennis O’Neil about the Lac-Megantic monument, which designated the Canadian town and Farmington as sister cities in 1991. “The base of the monument is in disrepair, causing it to lean to one side,” Dunlap wrote. “Some of the mortar is beginning to deteriorate.”

In the 1990s, town officials, business leaders, and other citizens of the two communities agreed, in a spirit of goodwill, to consider themselves “sister communities,” according to Dunlap. Each community constructed a modest monument in a spirit of friendship, he wrote.

Farmington’s monument is made of bricks on a cement base with a granite stone placed on top and engraved with the wording in both French and English: “Sister City Proclamation. On July 4, 1991, the people of Farmington, Maine U.S.A. and Lac-Megantic, Quebec, Canada set forth in writing their mutual commitment to educational, cultural, and economic growth.”

Twenty-two years after the two communities pledged sisterhood, early on July 6, 2013, about 30 firefighters from Franklin County, including Farmington Fire Rescue members, traveled to Lac-Megantic to assist Canadian firefighters there with a fire that devastated that town.

After midnight on that day, an unattended runaway train of five locomotives and 72 tanker cars carrying 1.6 million gallons of crude oil began rolling downhill from a rail yard in Nantes about 7 miles west of Lac-Megantic. The train derailed in the town of about 6,000 people and caught fire, killing 47 people and destroying 44 buildings. Within hours, Farmington first responders were on the scene to help.

Following the devastation, much of downtown Lac-Megantic was destroyed, but not the monument to Farmington, Dunlap wrote.

People of Farmington held a benefit concert to raise funds for the families effected.

Lac-Megantic “Mayor Claudette LaRoche came to Farmington to attend, and to offer deep appreciation. People packed the (University of Maine at Farmington) South Dining Hall to attend and show support,” according to Dunlap.

He sees Quebec license plates at Meetinghouse Park from time to time and people leave flowers.

“It seems fitting to make the repairs to restore the monument to proper appearance,” Dunlap wrote.

If the town has no funds available, Dunlap and his wife, Mary, are willing to try to raise funds through donations to restore the monument.

O’Neil said July 8 at a Select Board meeting that he went to check the monument after receiving the letter. There was a rose on the monument, he said. As for the monument, it is deteriorating and the bricks are loose, he said.

Town Manager Erica LaCroix said since it is on town property she will look into what can be done.

Board Chairman Matt Smith said the World War II Honor Roll is also deteriorating and needs work. Prior to COVID-19, the American Legion Post 28 in Farmington was going to take the lead to help restore it. Smith, who is a member of the Legion, said he will be bringing the project back up to see what can be done.