BRUNSWICK — The executive director of the local redevelopment authority said Wednesday that a decision by Gov. Paul LePage to delay selling about $40 million in bonds — including approximately $1.4 million still due to the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority — could imperil $1.7 million in matching federal grant funds for ongoing improvements at the former Navy base.

“We’re analyzing the impact it may have,” MRRA executive director Steve Levesque said Wednesday.

The funding in question is part of an $8 million bond package authorized by voters in 2009, with the MRRA slated to get $3.25 million and Southern Maine Community College $4.75 million to create a Mid-coast campus at Brunswick Landing.

MRRA has already drawn $1.8 million of the bond funds to begin improvements at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station, Levesque said, but MRRA expected to use the additional funds — along with a $1.7 million matching grant from the federal Economic Development Agency — to continue to bring buildings into compliance with life safety codes; local and state fire codes; and Americans With Disabilities Act requirements.

The funds also would be used to demolish some buildings

“to accommodate businesses” seeking to relocate at Brunswick Landing, Levesque said.

In a letter dated June 7, LePage told affected state agencies not to budget for bond revenues for major projects without his approval, even though voters approved the bonds, The Bangor Daily News reported Wednesday.

LePage wrote that state government has a duty to use taxpayer money wisely, especially when it’s borrowed money. LePage said the earliest it may be prudent to issue new bonds would be January 2014.

Levesque said he learned of LePage’s decision Tuesday night and called the governor’s office “to try to figure out what this means and see if there is a process to secure some of these funds.”

Sen. Stan Gerzofsky, DBrunswick, said Wednesday that he thinks LePage will see the MRRA bond funding “in a different light” than other bonds because the authority has already used some of the funding to create jobs.

“I believe the governor feels very strongly about the positive role MRRA’s been playing creating jobs and creating businesses, and realizes (the consequences) if we don’t have that bond money and the match for federal and (Maine Department of Economic and Community Development) funds,” Gerzofsky said Wednesday.

“The state doesn’t want to take on the added burden of MRRA being part of the ongoing state budget like Loring Air Force Base is, and other (closed) bases are,” Gerzofsky continued. “MRRA has been able to accomplish what it’s accomplished without being part of the budget. It has had help through the bonds to make the property usable, and I can’t imagine economic development or the governor or his staff wanting to pull that plug, because the alternative would be the state finding a way to put MRRA in the budget (and) we don’t want another dependent.”

But LePage spokeswoman Adrienne Bennett said Wednesday that the governor is aware that MRRA planned to use the bond funding to leverage federal grant funding, and that it is still unlikely he will be convinced to issue bonds any time soon.

“Not now,” she said. “I don’t see that happening right off. He was elected as a fiscally prudent candidate and he’s delivering on that. He said he was coming to Augusta with one constituent in mind — one that has not been represented in decades — and that’s the taxpayer.”

“We understand the federal match is there, but there are also many ways to get the funding other than bonding,” she said.

LePage has encouraged commissioners and others affected by the decision to discuss their projects with him.

Bennett said there is “a lot of misconception” about the bonding process, adding, “It’s complex … voters actually authorized (the bond), and gave permission to the governor to sell or issue the bonds when he deems it appropriate … currently we are not in a situation where we can incur more debt.”

Kaylene Waindle, dean of advancement for SMCC, said today that college officials are still sorting through the potential implications of LePage’s decision.

SMCC has already drawn about half of the $4.75 million in bond funding authorized for the college to renovate three of the campus’s five buildings at Brunswick Landing, and work on two of them is nearly completed. However, renovations to a third building “would really suffer,” she said. “That’s the project we’re most concerned about.”

The college’s nursing program, currently located in Orion Hall, was slated to move to that third building.

On Wednesday, LePage and his staff toured that building with college officials while he was at Brunswick Landing to speak at the first of a series of job creation workshops.
SMCC President Ron Cantor said nearly 100 business leaders attended the event, which he noted was timely given LePage’s decision.

“The news that bond funds were being frozen made the visit all the more important,” Cantor said today in a statement to The Times Record. “We had an opportunity to show the governor the Midcoast campus buildings and emphasize their immediate contribution to education and economic development. We had a very good conservation with the governor and his team, and we’ll be working with them to make sure this opportunity is fully realized.”

bbrogan@timesrecord.com