The New Town Hall Proposal Is Excessive

Neighbors:    

The Board of Selectmen (BOS) and Building Committee (BC) want to nearly double the size of the usable square footage in our current Town Hall from about 5,500 square feet to about 10,300 square feet at a cost of $3.5 million.  Some
KRTC members and other opponents to the plan want to keep the temporary pods
and pay for repairs along the way. My contention is that nearly doubling the size of usable square footage in our Town Hall is excessive and continuing with temporary pods is shortsighted.

There is some middle ground. Why not just build a one story permanent structure to replace the 3,300 square feet of pods with roughly the same square footage as the pods (i.e. around 4,000 square feet)?  This would make the usable square footage of our Town Hall increase from about 5,500 square feet to about 6,200 square feet.  I suspect the cost of such a plan could be reduced from $3.5 million to less than $1.9 million based on a reduction of 4,000 square feet ($400 per sq. ft. x 4,000 sq. ft. = $1.6 million). 

If you ask me what space can be eliminated, at this point I would say the size of any meeting room can drastically be reduced and a permanent emergency management center is not necessary since the Town can prepare a temporary center to be set up at either Killingworth Elementary School or the New Middle School. 

The tone of the debate going forward can be elevated.  On one hand some opponents recently named the plan “Iino’s Barnyard” and handed out a paper with an image of a barn with animals inside.  Is this what we want from our elected officials, or those individuals seeking elected office?  I strongly disagree with the BOS and the BC on this New Town Hall proposal, but I respect their efforts and service on behalf of our Town.  In the future we may agree on some other matter that affects us all, so why unnecessarily burn bridges?

The recent barnyard handout also states, “[t]his is not a Republican or Democrat  issue” next to the KRTC logo and states, “Paid for by the KRTC.”  I agree with the first statement, but why then did the KRTC take a position on the plan?  I believe such a handout loses more support than it gains.  If you took offense to
the handout, please do not use this as a basis to ignore the facts for or
against the plan. 

On the other hand, one BC member suggested opponents of the plan
were acting like a bunch of “vigilantes.”  Does such a comment further the debate or educate the citizens as to why the plan is what it is and why it should or
should not be approved?  

At tomorrow night’s meeting (July 17th) I would hope the BC brings their reports, data, quotes, and estimates.  Last week they did not have any supporting documentation with them and could not answer some basic questions about the costs of some aspects of the $3.5 million proposal.  For example, how much does it cost for the temporary trailers to be used as offices during the construction phase of the proposed plan?  If this cost is part of the $3.5 million quote, this simple question and others like it can and should be answered.

Lastly, it is my understanding that at last week’s informational meeting, three members of the BC acknowledged businesses they are affiliated with will be submitting bids on parts of the New Town Hall project.  If this is true, then voters should take this into consideration when assessing arguments put forth by the BC why nearly doubling the usable square footage in our Town Hall is “necessary.” 

Scott Perry