Mold closesTunbridge Offices

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http://www.vnews.com/12292006/3694797.htm

Mold Closes Tunbridge Offices

Clerk Made Ill; Officials Work From Homes

By Corriveau

Valley News Staff Writer

Tunbridge, VT -- Anyone needing to do business with Tunbridge officials

during the next two weeks will probably have to drive from one makeshift

office to another, while a contractor cleans out the black mold that

infested the little-used basement of the town offices and sickened the town

clerk.

Tunbridge Health Officer Betsy Stratton last week ordered the town to close

its 102-year-old office building in the middle of the village, and a Barre,

Vt.-based cleanup firm began gutting the basement this week. In a notice

posted on the locked front door, Stratton referred to “air pollution from

molds significantly affecting the health of employees and the public.”

So, until further notice, Town Clerk McCullough and the town listers

are doing what work they can out of their own homes, while Treasurer Anne

Mallary is working in an office at nearby Tunbridge Central School.

Judie , chairwoman of the board of listers, said that a couple of weeks

away from the town offices is “not utterly tragic” at this time of year for

her department. Nonetheless, “I really feel for those people who would like

to get a birth certificate or close on their house,” she said.

McCullough appears to be the employee most sensitive to the kind of mold

that the town expects to pay more than $49,000 to clean from the basement of

the town offices and in the former town hall on the other side of Tunbridge

Congregational Church.

“For people with upper respiratory illnesses, people with things like

asthma, it can be deadly,” said Aubut, co-owner of Advanced Basement

Technologies of Barre, the company hired to dispose of the mold.

McCullough declined to comment yesterday about her illness and referred

questions about the mold to the selectboard.

In her order, Stratton wrote that McCullough “has seen medical professionals

regarding her health, and it has been determined that toxic molds in the

building are making it impossible for her to work in the town office

building.”

Anyone entering the building -- including town officials -- must wear a

surgical mask and can stay for no longer than 30 minutes, according to the

health officer's order.

“Mold affects people differently, depending on your history of allergies,”

selectboard Chairman Shane Craig said last night. “The treasurer showed no

signs of it bothering her.”

said she noticed a stuffy nose and sought medical attention, but said

yesterday, “I don't have any kind of infection.”

The closing of the town offices also is forcing the selectmen to hold their

meetings at the parsonage of the neighboring Tunbridge Congregational Church

until Stratton decrees the offices safe.

“It's an unfortunate setback for everybody,” Craig said. “But there's not

much we can do until the work is done.”

When the company completes work at the town offices -- “Hopefully within two

weeks. Two to three, max,” Aubut estimated -- it will start work on the

former town hall, now a recreational and cultural center.

Aubut said black mold thrives in humid, warm places. In the case of the town

offices, “they've had some existing leaking for a while now, coming through

their foundation.”

Craig confirmed that erosion at the southeast corner of the town offices,

which overlook the Tunbridge Fairgrounds, led to the leaks in the basement.

Craig and Mallary, the treasurer, said the mold did not reach public

records, most of which are kept in a vault.

Vermont State Archivist Sanford said he hopes, for Tunbridge's sake,

that the mold stays out of town records. He said that in Milton, Vt., voters

last month approved a bond issue of $3.5 million to pay for cleaning black

mold from its elementary school.

The Vermont Department of Education will reimburse the Milton school

district for a little more than $1 million of the costs to gut parts of the

building, clean the structure and rebuild classrooms and offices. Craig said

the selectboard still is looking for ways to recover at least some of the

money the town expects to pay ABT.

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