Unfortunately, there is not much to report. The Pleasant Street School Committee remains hopeful but the owner of the building has proven to be difficult to work with. He has not signed the contract agreement, mentioned in my previous update, which was presented to him by the committee earlier this year because we were not willing to make any major changes to it. He wanted it to include a guarantee that the property would be taken off his hands and that he would recover his full investment to date plus some profit.

The committee stood firm in its resolve to accomplish only one thing at this time... to have the proper investigations performed by qualified professionals to determine if the building can be reclaimed from its current state of disrepair and at what cost. At that point we were at a stalemate.

There was a spark of promise last month when we approached the owner and he gave us permission to have a restoration architect go into the building to evaluate its structural condition and report on his findings. As you may remember, this would have been part of the investigation process outlined in my previous updates. The building must also be checked to see if it contains asbestos and a two level environmental review must be completed, However, when we asked that his permission be written... we even sent him a letter for- his signature... the owner never supplied it. Therefore, we have not proceeded with the architect. In the meantime, the building continues to be exposed directly to the elements through a hole in the roof and more broken or missing windows than not. And we continue to keep trying!