RUMFORD — The clock on the iconic tower of the 1915 municipal building on Congress Street will be evaluated to determine why it is not keeping time and what repairs would cost.
The Select Board voted unanimously to spend $3,500 to have it checked.
“At the moment, the electric drive that operates the lock is losing time on a consistent basis and that is resulting in an incorrect display of the time of day on the clock face itself,” Town Manager George O’Keefe told the board at its Dec. 19 meeting.
The assessment will be done by Balzer Clock Restoration in Freeport, which specializes in pendulum-operated tower clocks and manufactures electric drive tower clocks.
“The thing they bring to the table is complete and total expertise and knowledge of how to work with this type of hardware, which is old but quite durable, O’Keefe said. “However, it does require a high level of skill to repair it. We have been using a variety of informal vendors for a long time.”
“The last indication of any kind of maintenance contract or any type of formal work done by a skilled professional was something I came across in some meeting minutes from the 1960s,” the town manager said. “So it is advisable, in my opinion, for the town to have a complete evaluation done of the clock, to have it done by skilled professionals, which is certain Balzer Family Clockworks, and to move forward from that point to understand what the options are in terms of restoring the clock.”
Selectman Theresa Sax asked if $3,500 would cover all costs.
O’Keefe said that amount is an estimate just to have the clock evaluated.
“Would you say that this is a historical piece of Rumford that is worth maintaining?” Sax asked.
“Absolutely it is,” O’Keefe said. It’s one of the most historic pieces of the Town Hall’s architecture and one of its most unique features.
He said there probably is some electrical work that needs to be done to the tower, as well. “The wiring to the back of the building and especially up in the attic is quite old,” he said.
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