By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

NAPLES — It was discovered that there was more damage than appeared to be on the surface when plumbing work was being done inside one of the brick buildings on the Naples Village Green.

The structure was once the town hall. For the past three years, it has been leased for the Maine Blues Heritage Foundation and the Maine Blues Festival.

When the water quit running, a plumber was called in. Now, a carpenter will be needed, too. The building will be repaired, but the exact cost has yet to be nailed down.

“There was a water leak. There was a frozen pipe underneath the bathroom due to a poor plumbing repair job however long ago — years and years and years ago,” according to Naples Town Manager John Hawley.

In mid- December, “they took up the floor in bathroom to try get in there and fix that and they discovered the plumbing needs to be completely replaced,” Hawley said.

“More importantly, the 100-plus-year-old floor joists that are underneath is rotting out,” he said.

“We are now into a bigger construction project that is going to require some floor joist replacement and the complete replacement of the flooring,” he said

Hawley brought up this building maintenance issue during the Naples Board of Selectmen meeting on Dec. 16. This was the selectmen’s only meeting in December. On the agenda was the lease renewal between the Town of Naples and the Maine Bluesfest organizers.

Again, a cost estimate was not part of the discussion because it was an unknown factor at the time, but Hawley said he thought that the work would be done by the first week of January.

When the extension of the damage was initially brought up, Chairman Jim Grattelo asked why a lease was being negotiated when it might not cover the cost of repairs.

Hawley said, “We didn’t know at the time we needed to do repairs.”

 “We are going to do the repairs regardless,” he said a few moments later.

Selectman Kevin Rogers agreed.

“We need to maintain the town property,” Rogers said.

Selectman Jim Turpin questioned whether the damage might be worse.

That’s an unknown, Hawley said.

“Without crawling under that crawlspace and inspecting the whole building, we don’t know,” Hawley said.

Maine Bluesfest Kevin Kimball was at the meeting for the lease renewal, which was ultimately approved.

Kimball asked about a timeframe that the construction and plumbing might be completed. His concern was that the Bluesfest planning meetings start in January, with the first one being Jan. 9.

Hawley said it was highly likely the construction would be done in a few weeks.

“The work is in progress currently,” he said.

There was some talk about how the maintenance of this older building been neglected.

“For a lot of years, that building has not been addressed,” Bob Caron II said.

Selectman Rogers made a comment.

“It is a historic building,” he said.

Kimball mentioned that Bluesfest volunteers have also invested labor and money into up keeping the building.

“We’ve put a lot of blood sweat and tears in it, too,” Kimball said. 

At that point, Caron expressed his concern that the public will keep tabs on how much the town spends on this construction project.

Going back to the issue of where the Bluesfest planners will meet, Grattelo offered the use of the town hall as “a temporary place for the meeting in January.”

Hawley said, “We are hoping the work would be done by then.”

Grattelo told Kimball to contact the town office to arrange a time to meeting — if the construction is not wrapped up.