A Long Range Plan Based on Long Old Data

It is incumbent on our town’s newspapers, both our web-based sources and those still made of paper, to disseminate information to the public that is accurate, especially when reporting on committees that are not providing “full disclosure”. Specifically, I am writing about the Long Range Planning Committee, its recent public meeting and the subsequent reporting on both. In Patch, that the LRPC’s public meeting was to “supply the town with information regarding the possible renovation and relocation of 13 buildings”. While technically correct, the truth was that the LRPC wasn’t supplying the information that they themselves gathered, but rather the LRPC presented re-packaged old information that already existed. Frankly, it should be noted as such.

In reality, it appears that the folks at Perkins-Eastman are not using many of their own measurements. All of the information that was provided at the June 27 public LRPC meeting was from previous sources, combined with a few in-person interviews asking for a list of wants, not needs, from department officials. I mean no harm to Perkins-Eastman, as they are just doing what Christine Wagner, Jeb Walker and the developers on the LRPC committee are asking them to do. However, let’s at least report what is and what is not really taking place here. The ideas presented by the LRPC are not any where near ideas based on the true long range NEEDS of our town, as they are not even slightly based on 2011 data. 

Specifically, at least 25 minutes of the June 27 public LRPC meeting was taken up with both presentation and commentary on the needs of the Board of Education. What was inexcusably left out was that the information of the needs of the BOE came directly from a 1999 report done by the Relocation Study Group. That report of the BOE’s work area needs is 12 years old! Just think of what wasn’t invented then… small cell phones, laptops, digital (not physical) storage, tele-commuting for office workers, Skype, meetings done as webinars, rather than face to face. What part of the idea that the 27 workers at the BOE need more than 6,500 sq. feet of space rings true as long range planning? Simple division, taking away space for a conference room and bathrooms, still yields offices for 27 individuals that are more akin to bank presidents than municipal workers! Heck, their individual offices are greater than the combined work areas of four to five tax-paying trading floor employees!

The facts were lifted from a needs assessment study done five years ago in 2006 by Jacunski-Humes Architects, combined with the Savin Five Year Capital Facilities report done in 2010. The physical statistics dated back decades! Even the information in the Stern plan for the library was assembled nearly three years before e-books existed and the recent monumental growth in web-based research replaced physical in-library research needs.

As stated in their own documents, the point of the Long Range Planning Committee is to address our town’s space needs and operational efficiencies and then create long range alternatives. Where is the information based on today’s technological and spatial realities, let alone on those that will be available in the future? Perkins-Eastman themselves have said that a different consultant must provide information on future information technology options. How can the LRPC assess operational efficiencies when the data is, in most cases, based on the area and technological realities that existed 10 or 15 years ago? Simply stated, much of the LRPC’s future town plan is based on data that came BEFORE everything was done by and on computers.

It takes simple common sense to know that the need to have every town employee under one roof, for face-to-face meetings has long passed. Real futuristic planning is going to require flexibility in spatial needs, rather than the “mega-blocks” of space (their words, not mine) that the LRPC is assessing. Further, looking even 20 years out, human nature is still going to have people wanting to walk as little as possible in order to get where they want to go. So why do all of the “ideas” proposed last Monday showcase taking away existing parking in the center of town and replacing it with underground parking that security-minded people will avoid like the plague?

Lastly, why are we spending SO MUCH TIME on plans that show on the Center School lot with the current library lot being sold to a developer in order to pay for a new library building? Shouldn’t we have a town vote as to whether the townspeople are willing to give up this multi-million dollar asset of Center School land free of charge to a private organization? Not wanting to give up a town asset, by the way, does not equate to not loving the library, any more than giving in to a child’s every desire equates to responsible parenting. We can love the library and say “no”.

How can the LRPC realistically plan for the future of our town when they are using out-dated data, land that may not be available and absolutely no real budget? In 2010 the Savin Report let our town officials know what has to be done. Why is Jeb Walker and his current administration continuing to let buildings deteriorate, rather than acting upon the information they have now. Why is the ready-to-go plan for renovating Town Hall that was completed seven years ago, the one piece of “old” information being discounted by the LRPC? Could it be that by letting things deteriorate more, the developers on the LRPC can make a better case for tearing down buildings rather than repairing them?