BUCKFIELD — Selectmen opted to ask voters at town meeting to accept something many thought always belonged to the town: the Zadoc Long Free Library.

At their Tuesday night meeting, selectmen received answers to most of their questions regarding whether the library was a town-run department or a separate nonprofit entity.

Town Manager Cindy Dunn said the library’s Board of Trustees, who own the library, met last week, making clear they wanted the town to take over the library and all of its property.

Dunn and Board of Selectmen Chairwoman Martha Catevenis agreed there’s been a longtime assumption that the town owned the library, because Buckfield pays utilities and the librarian’s salary, insures the building and made repairs to it.

“Many of the things that have been done for all intents and purposes (were because) it was believed that it was a town department from the beginning,” Catevenis said Tuesday evening.

Dunn realized in October there was a conflict between the library being a nonprofit organization and a town department, after the town auditor suspected there were two sets of books for the library at 5 Turner St. A former librarian applied for nonprofit status with the state in an attempt to secure grants, which was given in April 2009. The nonprofit status has since expired.

Recently, Dunn, town attorney Curtis Webber and the trustees’ lawyer, David Dow, have attempted to unravel the mystery of the library’s ownership and how to move forward. Upon reviewing the original deed by library founder and Secretary of the Navy John Davis Long, who erected the library in 1901 as a memorial to his parents, Selectman Scott Violette previously said he believed that Long gave the library to the trustees, not the town.

Webber told Dunn in an email that there’s no legal obstacle for the library to remain in a separate building. If the town wanted to maintain the status quo, the trustees could keep the library and its belongings, but it would not be a town department. As he understood it, the trustees were ready to turn the library over to the town.

“They are empowered by the original deed to the trustees to manage the library’s real and personal property ‘for the benefit of the inhabitants of the Town of Buckfield,’” Webber wrote, noting the interests and purpose of the library are the same as the town. “It therefore seems to me that the trustees have the power to transfer the library property to the Town of Buckfield.”

“From what he’s reading through that, legally, the deed would not have a problem transferring those properties and he didn’t feel it would break the trust,” Catevenis said of Long’s original library trust.

Selectmen unanimously voted to put the issue in two separate warrant articles for voters to decide at the June 13 town meeting.

Catevenis said one stipulation in Long’s trust is that the library must always remain a library. If voters approve the acquisition and the town takes over, if for any reason Buckfield can no longer support a library, it has to be sold to an organization that will run it as a library.

The town started giving funds to the library in 1901. The building’s structural issues include work for the first landing stairway to the front entrance and relocating access to the front entrance. The librarian is working on a list of assets and the trustees do not have any debt.

If voters approve the donation from the trustees and make the library an official town department, the Board of Trustees will dissolve after the town meeting, Dunn said. Selectmen can then appoint a Library Committee after accepting applications from residents.

The Zadoc Long Free Library also serves the towns of Hartford and Sumner.

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