Legislators to meet with Norway over bonds

NORWAY — Selectmen will meet with State Representative Tom Winsor and State Senator David Hastings tonight to discuss the effect Governor Paul LePage's refusal to release voter-approved bonds until 2014 will have on the town's attempt to restore the historic Opera House. 

The governor's decision has frozen funding for the project and tonight the group will discuss what can be done to minimize the loss of the iconic 1894 building. 

"It's been a big problem," said Norway Town Manager David Holt. "We are just looking ... to find a resolution. It's really caused us a lot of problems. Not only that it [the project] was stopped, but that it stopped when we were right on the edge of going to bid." 

"If we were notified sooner, it would have saved us a lot of money and aggravation," he said. "What we are looking for now is a way to save the project." 

Town officials and residents have been working for the past five years to renovate the downtown building – which has been vacant for decades – and have the five first-floor storefronts ready for lease by November.

However, a refusal by Governor Paul LePage to issue $40 million worth of bonds until 2014 has put the project on hold – Holt said that instead of waiting for funds to be released, the town would look into alternative funding – the tax credits needed to complete the project expire before 2014. 

A couple days after the town of Norway transferred the ownership of the Opera House over to the Norway Opera House Corporation, and shortly before the project was to go out to bid, the town learned of the Governor's decision to freeze a $25 million bond issue passed by statewide voters in 2010. 

Of that $25 million, $3.5 million was allocated toward the Communities for Maine's Future program  for downtown revitalization in Maine's communities – $400,000 of it was a grant the town received in September 2011 to fix up the Opera House. 

In total, the Norway Opera House project costs $1.1 million. 

Earlier this month selectmen voted to seek out a Bond Anticipation Note (BAN) as an alternative method of funding – but before taking out a BAN, selectmen agreed that it would meet with state legislators to discuss and try to come up with an even better alternative. 

State legislators have been trying to get assurance from the Governor that CMF funds will still be available in 2014, so it can take out a BAN. That way, once the bonds are released, Norway can get reimbursed, he said. 

But Holt said he believes there isn't any way that Norway and the other affected towns can get the Governor to reverse his decision. 

"In David Holt's perfect world, the Governor would change his mind," he said, "but I don't see any indication that that's going to happen." 

"The only other way that I can see us save the project is if the Governor were to say, at some point in the future, he will release the bond," he said.