ATHOL – The town’s Selectboard voted Tuesday night to give the owner of 1756 Main St. another month to make “significant” progress on the cleanup of the property, and for the town to become involved.

The property was badly damaged by fire in August of last year.

The board again continued the public hearing on whether to declare the property a public nuisance until the Sept. 17 meeting. A region-wide power outage on July 16 forced the hearing to be recessed until this week. At the July meeting, property owner Matt Alden assured the board he would make noticeable progress on the cleanup, but two witnesses who spoke on Tuesday said little had been done.

Melissa Perez, who owns a nearby property and appeared at previous meetings to discuss 1756 Main St., told the board that it appeared that piles of debris in the backyard were getting larger, rather than smaller. She presented the board with a picture of what she described as children “playing on a swing set in front of a pile of rubble.” The swings are located on a neighboring property.

“The smell, when the wind blows the right way, it’s mold, and honestly it smells like refuse,” Perez said. “I know at the last hearing, he (Alden) said that in a month he would have it all cleaned up. The front looks a little bit better. The back has not changed; in fact, it looks like it may have grown a little. I don’t want to be a bad neighbor. I don’t have anything against Matt, but I know that the neighborhood is tired of the smell, of looking at the piles of rubble, the kids trying to (avoid) everything.”

She added that the piles of refuse are encroaching on abutting properties.

Building Inspector Bob Legare told the board that it appeared a little progress has been made on the cleanup, but more needs to be done.

“Over the past couple of weeks, a dumpster was taken out – that front pile did come down some,” Legare said. “But I don’t think there’s any argument this project has not been done speedily.”

He then suggested that the time had come for the town to get involved.

“My recommendation is that we move ahead. I would recommend, to start, that we bring in a work crew,” he said. “I think I have four people who are willing to come in and start on the front and get it done quickly; to get at least two dumpsters out per week…And if we don’t do that within two weeks then we bring in larger equipment and do whatever we have to do to get it done.”

Board member Rebecca Bialecki asked if doing this would allow for work to be done on the refuse piles in back of the property.

“The focus has been on the front,” replied Legare. “After that, his (Alden’s) focus is going to have to be on the back and on securing the structure. He’s had a building permit for over a year now. A permit is normally good for six months unless people have been continually working on it. He obviously has had no chance to work on it because he’s been working on these piles. Once the piles are done, we’re going to hold him to the timetable for that building permit for him to start making repairs to that structure.”

Bialecki asked Alden if he would agree to allow Legare to bring in a cleanup crew to help move the process along.

Alden answered in the affirmative, adding, “The work goes along more quickly when I have help rather than doing it by myself. Don’t forget, I’ve already removed more than 10 30-yard dumpsters.”

“I understand that,” said Bialecki. “I know your home was very full, so when that fire happened everything sort of spilled out onto your yard and that’s what you’re trying to go through and remove. But I think at this point – before we have to take any further legal action – I think Bob is really trying to work with you to have you allow this to happen. I think we’re kind of done after this.”

Bialecki made a motion to accept Legare’s recommendation to move ahead with the cleanup and continue the public hearing until the board’s next meeting. Members Brian Dodge and Kala Fisher were absent from the meeting, but Andy Sujdak and Chair Stephen Raymond both voted in favor.

Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@aol.com.