The Future of the Notch Road Municipal Building
By James Bruner, Kelly Regan, and James Aldrich
November 4, 2007
The process to find a fix for Town Hall has been going on for over 8 years. The time has come for the community to support an affordable and long-term solution for the needs of municipal government. For many years the focus has been on renovating the Notch Road Building. Recently the Board of Selectmen have been pursuing a new vision based around the purchase of the Pistritto property and the sale of the northern part of the Notch Road Municipal Center to the King’s School. In September the King’s School announced they were going out of business. The future of this building is now in limbo.
What is best for the taxpayer and the town employees? In 2003 the renovation of Notch Road for Town Hall and a significant expansion of the library went to the voters and were rejected. Some speculate that if the projects had been listed as separate referendum questions, Notch Road would have been approved by the public. A complete recent history of the plans for Notch Road building is enclosed for your reference at this link.
As members of the Board of Finance we support the Selectmen’s concerns about the need to provide town staff with a quality work environment. The BoF is also concerned about the growing cost of municipal government. Year after year the cost of local government grows at a rate much greater than inflation or the average increase in incomes of our citizens. Even last year when we were able to limit the tax increase to 1.45%, municipal spending grew at 4.9%. This trend is not sustainable.
To renovate 15,000 SF of Notch Road would be approximately half the cost to renovate 5,000 SF of the existing Town Hall and to construct a 10,000 SF addition. Town employees clearly need a significant improvement to their work environment. Many citizens and town employees have emotional ties to the Notch Road building because they went to school there. They are not in favor of demolition of this historical building.
It seems clear that we need an unbiased evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of renovating the Notch Road Building. We owe it to our town employees and taxpayers to take a fresh look. The time has come to include the renovation of the Notch Road Municipal Center as a potential solution for the long-term space needs of Town Hall.
James Bruner
Kelly Regan
James Aldrich
(Note: This article was written by the above members of the Board of Finance. The opinions expressed however do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other members of the Board.)