Oakland special meeting to decide town office issue

OAKFIELD – Local residents will be asked later this month what they want to do about a new town office and vault.

The existing office on School Street is 20 years old, and “we’re running out of room,” Town Manager Candy Roy said Friday.

Even more of a problem is that the town doesn’t have a fireproof vault for its valuable documents.

A special town meeting has been set for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 16, at the town’s Community Center to give residents a chance to review and act on some options.

Roy said the issue came up at the annual town meeting in March when local officials sought permission to repair the present office.

Several people, she said, suggested that the office be moved out to Smyrna Road next to the new Community Center.

Some new options will be presented at the special meeting. One would be to build a new office on the present site for an estimated $129,000, while a second option calls for moving the current building to land next to the Community Center for $124,000.

A third option would be to build a new office near the Community Center for $132,000.

All of the options include a new vault, Roy said, adding that with any of the options, “we thought we could do it all in one shot.”

There is a fourth option to build just the vault for $50,000.

Regardless of what is done, Roy said the vault is needed, as state law requires the town to have a safe place for valuable records.

The old concrete vault behind the fire station is in bad condition and leaks, so it is not fit to use. Records that normally would be kept there are crammed into fireproof file cabinets at the town office.

But that isn’t good either, since the duplicate copies of such items as tax records, licenses, birth and death records also are kept there.

Roy said the duplicates used to be kept at the home of Town Clerk Pansy Burton. When Burton died, the duplicates had to be moved to the town office.

“It’s a real concern,” said Roy. “This is not a fireproof building.”

Funding any of the options will not require an increase in taxes nor will any borrowing of money be needed, Roy said.

Instead, voters will be asked to approve the use of State Revenue Sharing Reserve funds and land sales funds that have been invested to cover the cost of any of the options.

“We have money we can use,” Roy said.