The lights are going out at the Old Allenstown Meeting House inside Bear Brook State Park after selectmen decided to flip the switch.

Public Service of New Hampshire sent a bill to Allenstown Town Hall saying it would cut electricity service to the meeting house Oct. 29 because the town hasn’t paid its bill since April.

According to minutes of the April 20 selectmen’s meeting, the board voted 2-1 not to pay that month’s bill, which was $10.76. However, no one bothered to call PSNH to cut service to the building.

A copy of this month’s bill is for $46.51, which includes late fees.

Selectmen Tom Gilligan and Roger LaFleur voted against paying the electricity bill.

Gilligan said the town Steering Committee, a volunteer group that maintains the building, was told through e-mails and memos to come up with the money themselves, whether it is through fundraising, grants or other means.

“The town of Allenstown is in a default budget for the third year in a row,” Gilligan said. “This was an unbudgeted expense … Therefore, the board decided we weren’t going to pay for it on a default budget.”

After the April vote, Roland Martel of the Steering Committee sent several e-mail messages to Town Hall requesting selectmen take up the electricity issue at a future meeting. According to those e-mails, Gilligan denied the request.

“The BOS (Board of Selectmen) is not interested in discussing this matter any further at this time,” Gilligan wrote June 3. “If the OAMH (Old Allenstown Meeting House) is looking for future funding for this bill, we suggest that you provide a budget request as part of the FY 2010 budgeting process.”

The refusal to pay the bill marks another blow in the fight to preserve the meeting house, which advocates say is needed to keep part of the town’s history alive and for educational purposes.

Steering Committee members are already angry with selectmen for refusing to sign off on a Land and Community Heritage Investment Program grant application twice since last month.

The grant would have brought $23,700 to the meeting house, which was built in 1817.

The deadline for the grant has passed. Selectman Jason Tardiff was the only one who voted in favor of signing the grant application and for paying the electric bill.

Gilligan said he voted against the grant because he had too many open questions about the town’s financial obligation tied to it. LaFleur did not return calls for comment.

During a heated debate about the building in a Sept. 28 selectmen meeting, LaFleur said, “Ninety-nine point nine percent of people in town said they have no use for it.”

“I’d like to see those letters against it,” Steering Committee Chairman Carol Martel said in response. LaFleur later admitted he had none.

Martel has since said publicly she thinks LaFleur and Gilligan are trying to rid the town of the meeting house, which used to belong to the state. In 2004, Town Meeting voted 496-130 in favor of the town purchase and to maintain the building.