Inaction on tannery angers Camden board

CAMDEN – When it comes to the dormant and decaying Apollo Tanning building, a majority of the Select Board agreed Monday night that the time to write polite letters is long past.

Board members Susan Dorr, Paul Cartwright and David Miramant made no effort to hide their anger at the plant owners for the poor condition of the building, and also expressed frustration with Town Attorney Terry Calderwood for preventing the board from taking action on the problem.

The board was scheduled to hold a hearing and then possibly declare the vacant Washington Street tannery a “dangerous building” at its Monday night meeting. But the board was unable to do so because Calderwood had written to the attorney representing Apollo Real Estate Ltd., the company that controls the property, promising no action would be taken Monday.

A fire in the building two years ago resulted in layoffs at the tannery. Several weeks after that, the business closed. Two months after the tannery ceased operating, a chemical spill at the plant filled downtown Camden with a putrid odor and brought the state Department of Environmental Protection onto the scene.

The DEP later hired an independent firm to remove barrels of hazardous chemicals from the building when Apollo’s management failed to do so.

While the company’s owners are snarled in litigation over who is responsible for cleanup at the property, neighbors are worried that children can enter the building through broken windows and doors.

“We are so lucky that it hasn’t caught fire,” neighbor Carla Ferguson told the board. If the building did go up in flames, she continued, much of the neighborhood would be threatened.

She said the town’s fire chief has told firefighters not to enter the building if it does catch fire because of the danger posed by hazardous chemicals still stored there.

Ferguson disagreed with Calderwood’s and Town Manager Roger Moody’s observation that Apollo Real Estate seemed to be moving in the right direction by recently removing a decaying chimney at the town’s request.

“They’re not going to work on it,” she said. “Nothing is going to change.”

Melissa Marchetti, another neighbor, said she also was out of patience with the status of the building.

“It’s been dragging on and on,” she said. “I feel like it’s been unsafe for a long time.” Any measures the town might get the company to take to secure the building would be only Band-Aids, she said.

Tim Doran addressed the board holding a piece of rigid foam insulation he said had blown from the building onto his lawn. He said shingles from the roof also have blown onto his property, even though there are some houses between his and the plant.

“I’m not sure if it’s dangerous,” he said, holding the insulation, “but it’s pretty annoying.”

Doran told the board he sees raccoons running in and out of the building, and last year had to call police when he saw children on the roof.

“Some of the neighbors are wondering when is enough is enough,” he said.

Neighbor Todd Bosscher asked what kind of deadlines the board planned to put on the repairs it would ask the company to undertake.

Before and after the comments by neighbors, board members Dorr, Cartwright and Miramant expressed anger that no action could be taken because of Calderwood’s letter telling Apollo’s attorney as much.

“I’m really disturbed,” Dorr said. “No one asked me if I was prepared to take action [tonight].”

Cartwright twice told Calderwood he was disappointed with the attorney.

“This building is clearly dangerous,” he said. “They’ve been blatantly negligent for a long time and they know it. Why would I be inclined to trust them?”

Miramant said Apollo’s effort to date “hasn’t amounted to anything. We’d be irresponsible to leave it to their good will.”

Calderwood defended his recommendation that it was better to try to get Apollo to do the repair work. He said if the town declared the plant a dangerous building and no repairs were made, the town could hire a contractor to do the work and bill the company.

The attorney seemed to intimate that getting the company to pay for the work after it was done might be difficult. And he said the company could appeal a “dangerous building” designation in Superior Court.

Calderwood apologized to the board for telling the Apollo attorney that no action would be taken Monday.

The board voted to send a letter to Apollo demanding that windows, doors and holes in the foundation be secured by June 1. The board also scheduled a hearing June 18 to consider the dangerous building designation.

Dorr said even if the repairs are made, she still might vote to designate the building as dangerous.