Sutton Town Meeting Day Preview

Details: Created on Thursday, 22 February 2018 19:22; Written by Chelsi Byrnes

SUTTON- Voters in the town of Sutton will have to decide on whether or not they should move or tear down the town's current grange hall. As town meeting day is approaching people will have to decide on what they should do with the town grange hall.

The original grange hall was built in 1917, but it had burnt down around 1937. The current Grange Hall was built in 1939 and is currently vacant. Grange Hall's are typically designed to hold town meeting spots for people in the community to gather for farming. According to Wikipedia, The first ever Grange Hall was founded in 1868 in Fredonia, New York. Grange Halls were originally used as religious purposes and meetings .They then were created for farming practices as there was a lack of farming skills in the 1800's in America during the Civil War. In 2013 the granges are continued to be used as the press for farmers. Most towns are using them as rental spaces and other town gathering places as well.

The main concern is the town's safety. The people in the town of Sutton is that the Grange hall is a danger as people can't see other cars. If the town votes to tear it down they will be able to decide on moving it the opposite direction so it isn't blocking traffic. Their current Grange Hall is located on the corners of Calendar Brook Road and Underpass Road. They would like to either move it so it's not in the way to either the piece of land by the school or turn it completely so it isn't in the way.

Since the town does not have a community gathering place, they would like to create one possibly in the Grange Hall. The town would like to make it a place for the community to gather for different types of community events.

“There's a lot of unanswered questions you know they've proposed different things, a community center you can do many things with it, even the towns clerks office can be moved.” said Selectboard Member Tim Simpson. “I think the main thing right now is what do we want to purpose it for as to what we put in for a foundation.”

Some of the ideas include a place for town business like meetings, a daycare, a meet locker, a meal site or before and after school programs or town history display. The total project of moving the Grange Hall will cost around 150,000 dollars. It will be funded by a 100,000 dollar loan and a 50,000 dollar grant from the USDA's Rural Development Program.

”It’s a good old building its structurly moving it,” said Simpson. The cost of it concerns me the most with having a total price of 150,000 grand to fix it concerns me. I don't mind moving it but there's only so much money you can put into that."

Town Meeting Day is on March 6th at 10 am. This will be an Australian ballot vote that allows people to go and vote from eight in the morning until seven at night.