MONTICELLO, Maine — Fourteen months after the decision was made to close the Wellington School, the town’s Board of Selectmen were given permission last week to sell the building.
During a special town meeting on Oct. 27, 17 residents voted to allow the selectmen to sell or dispose of the Wellington School property in any way they deemed advisable. There was no opposition.
Town Manager Ginger Pryor said on Wednesday that the meeting was just a formality to follow up on a decision that the selectmen made in August to sell the school.
Both Pryor and Selectman Terry Wade said in interviews this past summer that town officials felt that they had no other choice than to put the building on the market after accumulating significant maintenance expenses.
Pryor said no one at the recent meeting had any objections to the decision.
A committee in Monticello has spent more than a year trying to find a use for the building and it is costing the town about $24,000 a year to keep it open.
Monticello is part of RSU 29, which also serves the communities of Houlton, Hammond and Littleton. The school was closed at the end of the school year in June 2014. The school board decided to close the school due to declining enrollment and rising expenses. Closing the school, which at the time served 66 students from prekindergarten through third grade, was expected to save the district $109,000 a year.
As a result, all pupils but the third graders from Monticello now attend Houlton Elementary School, approximately 13 miles away. All the third graders from both the shuttered Monticello school and Houlton Elementary were sent across the street to the Southside School, which had previously only served students in grades four through six. That move led to the sixth graders being moved up to Houlton High School.
The town is hoping to find a buyer to get the building back on the tax rolls.
