At 5:34, we will call the select board meeting to order. If you can join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty
and justice for all. Thank you. And tonight we are here with the finance committee and with the West Street Building Committee to talk about the charge of what is going to happen before the the ballot.
So Glenn was not able to attend the meeting uh prior that we had a discussion about it. So he kind of relied on Dave and myself as to whether or not there was going to be enough time to roll out the information that the taxpayers would need to know for option
B and C. So, that was why we called the meeting tonight was to discuss what's going to happen before the ballot, how many times we're going to have anformational meeting or you guys are able to have anformational meeting and how we're going to get the information out to the taxpayers so they know what they're voting on and they know that
option A is now off the table since it was voted down at the last special town meeting. And then Glenn also brought up some of the and so did Dave some of the other requests that were on the town meeting floor. Is there a way that the Wester
building committee can look into if we do raise the building for the 2.5 million? Can there be a 5,000 square foot structure built um as a option? And then how much would that cost? That was one of the requests that Dave had
mentioned. Is that a module or So, one of the ones was to look into module and the other one was just to look into construction. So, not so much just building to code building 88 compliance, no stairs, just one level, 5,000 foot
building to keep it underneath um the range for sprinkling system. And I think you had mentioned another option. I'm sorry. Can I ask a clarifying question on that? Um, this the committee to speak on their behalf, but the committee has done a lot
of leg work and a 5,000 foot structure would not be of adequate size to address the program for either the senior center or municipal offices. So, is the intent
with the 5,000 ft building to provide some relief and it's a it's a level only to avoid putting sprinklers in the building? Like, what is the magic of the 5,000 square ft? Because it's it would appear at face value, at least to
my eyes, that it will be inadequate to address your needs. So, I'm trying to understand well where that comes from. It comes down to looking at options and I guess you know the the town owns this building here. So if there was an option to make all the town offices inside this
building and maybe move the senior center to a different location. I just say that because we want to look at different options. We one thing we know is that the annex building it's going to come to an end and and I mean so we have
to find a spot for the town offices and you know we yeah we can find temporary solutions but that's what they're going to be is a temporary solution but we need to have something to plan for the future to move forward and that's why I'm saying listening at town meeting a
lot of things were being put out there a lot of different feelings and people talking about different things and and my concern just being on the select board is okay this does not pass at the ballot question where does that leave us what other options do we
have because we know eventually down the road that you know we have to find town offices we have to find a location we have to have something in place so again so that's why I'm saying is that what are our options this that's why I want to hear about you know I know we talked
about the before about the other two options and didn't seem as feasible or as beneficial I would say as the third option that we that we brought to the town floor. Um but again if these aren't our options and what are our options
moved forward? Well, this if I may, a few years ago, you assembled the select board assembled a committee to look at buildings in two 7,000 foot buildings to avoid putting in a sprinkler system
and that was shot down. Wasn't shot down by the voters, but it was shut down by the select. You guys wanted another option. one that's going to get the the uh the west street. Um so we already know what that kind of
option looks like and even and the two 7,000 foot buildings still today would be inadequate space-wise based on our needs assessment. So I I guess we get to the point is I mean you get a just let me finish at
town meeting with all due respect you get a lot of people shooting from the hip with no background no experience on what this committee's been through or the previous committee. So say shooting from the hip to say why don't we just put up five bucks square foot because it's not adequate. If we're going to do
something let's do it right. This situation that we're in right now was supposed to be a temporary solution because we moved out of Kellogg based on a issue with uh having to renovate the building and not and it's not meeting
the public water supply. So this this building was purchased as a temporary solution and and right now with the with the the chart or the the first charge we were
given which was option A B and C is next and then I think there's some solutions or some answers to some of the shoot from the hip questions that came out of town meeting.
I mean, there's no to me, it doesn't make sense to put up a 5,000 foot building to avoid a sprinkler system, another temporary solution, and still not meet the needs of of our offices. I I think that was just more suggestions to say like, okay,
let's keep our mind open. What are the possibilities to move forward? And again, we only have eventually we're only have so much money to budget for for what it may be. and we may not get everything that we want. That may not be feasible just because of the we don't
have the money to spend it that way. So that might have to be, you know, some parts where we we just don't get and that and my concern about this building is people talk about, well, we'll just sell this building. That sounds great. What's out there for someone to buy this
building? What is this? Is there is there a need for a building like this for someone to use? That's my question, too. What's the market value? How how valuable is this building to to the market right now? Do you have a do you have a assessment that was done? I I understand the assessment being it's a
market value, but is there a need for someone to buy a building like this? Yeah. You know, it No, but that's that's one of those questions you just can't answer. No. And I and I get that, Jim, but that's a concern for the future that if this building stays on as a town
property, the town can't sell it for three, four, five years. You know, when we're looking at the economy moving forward, then, you know, predictions aren't the best in the world right now. So, that's a concern moving forward. Does all right. So, now the town has this building. This
building does it end up staying empty for a while? I just trying to think of with the decisions that we're trying to make now is gonna obviously have an impact on the future. And I I definitely love to see Y Street work. It's a it's a it's a building.
It's got all the if you will the bones that it needs to have and I think it's definitely feasible and viable. It's just that what can we do with the building? That's you know talking about the you know the second and third option is is what I want to hear and I know sure the public wants to hear as well.
Um, and I know I heard part of it, you know, previously as well, but again, just being sitting on the select, I just have, you know, where are we going to go if this is an option for us? Because everybody's saying, well, if this doesn't work, what's next? And I got to ask that, what is next? Because, you
know, you know, we're told, you know, you know, we that the annex building that the rent's going to double. They may not let us stay there another year. They're going to say, "No, we're selling the property. Good luck." I just say that. Who knows? We don't we don't have control over that.
Lyn, do you know what their square footage is at the annex? I know it's not an adequate space for them right now, but they are using it. I'm curious what their square footage is now. The annex. Yeah. So, based on existing measurements that
I took of their spaces on their own, they have Man, I have the Unless you have it. I do. I find it, but
otherwise I can add these up. The annex is uh 20. We're in 2,300 ft approximately. It's 2324. That's the town clerk tax to board of health, board of assessors. Okay.
Yeah. Carnegie is 2182. And that's both doors, right? Sure. Yeah, I would think it's both. Yeah. And here where we're sitting is 62 here. Assessor, you said board of health, tax collector,
clerk. So, um, while she's writing, Glenn, let's just say 5,000's adequate for us and we're going to build new. Well, we we can estimate that or we know that it's about a th000 per $1,000 per square foot to build
new. We also know we'd have to rate Baiton rates level. So when you add all those costs into building a a building that's smaller than what we currently are using, it comes out to the same price as
renovating West Street. So I'm not against renovating West Street. No, I'm just giving you facts. I I don't No. And that's what I'm saying that if if this doesn't pass, what are our options? Because again, we have to
have I guess what I'm saying is it's this doesn't pass at the ballot box. You know, where do we go from there? Is that you know, it's not a viable solution at that point, you know? Well, I guess that has to be said. We don't have a solution
if it doesn't pass. But the tax people have to know that we don't have the annex. We can't rely on the annex. We can't the Carnegie is too small. just here is available. Are there any other issues with the Carnegie to put to
to occupy that building on a fully basis? I have not been in that building, but I understand from what you've told me before there's an issue of the well and water supply for the public water use as a public water supply in terms of
its distance from Chris would be able to tell us because Jeremy and Chris work out of there right now as the that did have a public registered public water supply when the library was there. It was a nontrans. Okay. Okay.
We are currently having our inwater operator look at it to see if say we move three of the offices there, an additional five employees, will those three offices you
move there generate more foot traffic on an daily basis to exceed the 25 people that a non-transient has is allowed to operate at. Okay, we're currently looking at
that. So to say that the public water supply, the well issue is an issue with moving officers there, I would not say that at this point in time until we hear from our water operator. It's more it's laying a
cap on how much you can move. Yes. How many people can be on there on a daily basis? So not at one time, just in and out daily. Well, they save 25 people at one time. Okay, that's what they use. Now,
say you move the uh collector's office up there, you'll have a large crowd up there when the quarterly tax bills are issued, when the excise bills are issued, and when the sewer bills are issued. But will that be
enough generation of additional people to affect it being a non? That's what we don't know. So either or it's a limited use potential to figure that out. You have to find out where the foot traffic is.
The annex building gets to kind of take a look at a period of time to see who the foot traffic is in and out. So Chris, I have assessors, board of health, tax collector, town clerk, building maintenance, uh, town administrator, treasurer, building commissioner, town accountant, and COA
and director. Am I forgetting anyone else that needs to be in those that needs a home? But we're going to put them all in one building. Okay. Planning planning board, right? Meetings, right? So well then you're going to you can eliminate essentially some of your
larger meeting rooms. Okay. So where are you going to meet if you start say you start cutting up this place. Yep. You're going to lose a large space to be used for various activities or meetings. Okay. If you use the top floor
of the Carnegie or three offices, you're going to lose a large meeting space that is used by Con and uh PL. Okay, those are the considerations you have to to take into account also
because we don't have any alternate place unless we start using the school for large meetings for just boards and I don't think the school is going to put up with that for too long to be honest with you. Well, any nonprofit in gram
use school they don't charge you for it. But again, if we start meet using all that the school for all our departmental meetings, large board meetings, I think you're going to find some push
for goes back to started when it was our solution to a problem that we have now and we move forward. A couple questions. Yeah, it sounds but I want to make sure that uh we're now okay with something other
than one building to hold all in the store offices, right? I think we're just trying to look at our options. I think we're just options. That's what I'm saying. I'm just saying if this isn't if this isn't work the way we hope it doesn't come true, then what are our options? We're still facing the same
problem. So that would be acceptable though to if necessary keep the cost down to well yeah I mean eventually we again we're we have employees of the town in a building now that eventually is not going to be able for us to use.
Yeah that's a fact. The other the other question u have is is this um we've got 2300 square ft over there at the annex and 6200
here a little 8,500 square ft and uh you seem to say that you were preparing 17,000 square ft for the town offices. No, it's not 17,000 for town offices in
terms of the program as is cuz the the total number includes the COA space and shared space which includes the gym and the cafeteria spaces which would be flex spaces allowing for more large meeting
spaces. But in terms of the town offices alone, so trying to consolidate all of the offices and their individual smaller meeting rooms, file storage, bathrooms and break rooms, etc. the the necessary
accessory spaces for their use. That total is somewhere between, if we do it as tight as possible, we're probably around 9,500 square ft up to somewhere in the realm of 10,300. Is that what was requested or is that
what you verified as being that's been verified through the programming? So what was actually requested earlier on in terms of what was given to us was roughly just office space were just office space not including the actual
shared amenities that was around 6,100 square ft. What was confirmed via programming in terms of just office space, so not shared amenities like storage, break room, bathrooms, circulation is 4,500 square ft. So
compared to the ask of the want versus the program working through uh industry standard and numbers of people and how many workstations were accommodating and the use that they are then providing to the public.
We've all we've gone through that leg work. So you uh you are in agreement with them that instead of the uh 2300 ft now that they should have 4600 that's inclusive of not just what's in the an annex but
also what's upstairs here and the and the uh boards and committees and boards and committees. This doesn't include any of the program related to the COA. So if we only want to provide
town hall, i.e. all of the offices in a singular building, that's somewhere in the realm of 9500 to 10,500 ft. if we wanted to relocate the uh annex space
cuz I was looking at this and crunching some numbers while we were talking earlier based on those departments the number of people they have trying to build an accessibility and the amenities and storage which they don't have right now they're roughly around 2300 square
ft we'd probably be closer to 4,000 to accommodate what they need there's a certain amount of economy that can happen in terms of shared bathrooms, shared break rooms, shared printer facilities, shared storage, all of these
things that can be shared, the more we can put into a singular building. Now granted, if we want to keep it smaller and only do a smaller building, yeah, if you wanted to put in the 5,000 ft building in order to replace Annex and
maybe then you get a smaller or more intermediateized meeting room as part of that, that's an option. But that's something that can be considered. But it seems to me that
um that there will be two things being to be looked at. One is to move everybody in the annex in here. This should be plenty big with some adjustments. Uh since they whatever they would like, they're operating daily for
how many years? 10 years, 2,300 square ft. This should be plenty of room to floor them. And then you'd be then asking the question, how do we accommodate the council agent? What do we need to have to accommodate council? John, let me interrupt you a minute. When you when you move that many more
people in here, we'd have to do an assessment to see if the facilities would support additional staff. You have to have so many bathrooms per um occupant. And from what I can tell, what I see there, there's not a there's not a lot there. But so just to say move
them in here, it's not just to move in here. There's construction. No, it's I I don't I don't think of this as a zero cost to move them in here. Just to clarify $1,000 square foot to move them in here. Uh the other option would be to uh figure out just what to do with
people in the annex now and uh and uh do the other thing. But the if you could move everybody into here, then in one sense you've got virtually all the town offices, all the operating offices in one spot. And then you'd be asking what
can we do for the council on aging and is there a solution for the council on aging and does that say is there a way to renovate just enough space over there for the council major o over at west street. Yeah. I'm I'm not suggesting that you do
anything other than ask that question. make sure there are answers to that because I know that those are going to be the kind of questions that are asked whenever this project comes out next to the public. Well, like you said too, John, could we do a 5,000 foot building over there for just the COA? So, on slab
ongrade, the well's working, right? Did it pass it? Um, did the septic pass the title 5 or has none of that? It did. Right. So, the septic's good, the well is good. So, we wouldn't have any of those extra costs. Right now, the COA is sharing their space with the TA, the
building commissioner, um, treasur, the treasurer, right? And they have 6,200 square feet here. So, we could get them all here for town offices and then just build a C coa over there. Why would you do the opposite and build? You could, but I'm saying if we're
saying final over there, West Street, close off the cafeteria, gym, and the other 22,000 feet. Option C. Option C. Option C. No abatement. And you can get everybody in that building municipal office wise.
Yeah. Oh. Then put this on the market. And if this sells then that that could be your other. So if you cuz last time we met Yeah. Dave was very gung-ho on abating the whole building. Yep. Option
C with no abatement, no COA, no cafeteria or gym would be um total ask to the town or do you want the total renovation cost would be about 10.6 million and you subtracted 5.6 six that
would already be in the 2 million that comes out of stabilization and the total ass to the town would be about 3 million. See, I guess I just to me is I think more feasible
for people to to look at. But the one thing I like about West school, Western buildings is that it has potential for the future. There's space that is there. We're not looking for an end all for hey 10 years 20 years I don't
know maybe around for hundreds of years to go. So you know it's it's the again it's it's planning for the future not 5 years not 10 years we're talking 30 40 50 years down the road that hopefully that that building will accommodate people well up probably all of us in
this room are not here anymore. So that's what that that's the part that I like about the street building. We can start off at a certain point and say, "Okay, we're able to use the building for this particular reason. It it's accommodating what we need." Now, 5
years down the road, people might say, "You know what? Okay, we're looking to move forward and adding on some different things or doing this, doing that." But we already we have that space. We have the building. So, that's I mean, that's kind of what I'm I'm looking at is where do we get ourselves
at least to start so we can plan for the future as well. We have a a starting point to do what we want to do, but we're able to continue that path that we want to stay on. With that being said, that raising it and building a 5,000 foot
structure should be off the table. Oh, yeah. I mean, that has to come that that has to come from the select board saying, "We think that this building is the way to go to keep it, and you have to tell the public why." Because there's potential there. It may cost some money,
but there's potential there for the next 15 years to use this first 10,000 square ft and then maybe more and then more up to 44. And I but I think personally I think getting rid of the abatement and the doors and windows for a million dollars is foolish
because when we looked at the numbers that Steve gave us last an average home for the four million was what? $87 a year. Um for the five million asked for option B for no for option C option C for option C abdated option C abdated was
4.2 million and the average home was what for the median household the average average home was 400,000 so that would be a little more than 200 if it's 25 years. I thought she had different numbers
because I thought last time we were looking was like $90. Oh, what kind of less it was like $90 right here. Sorry. Um, so 4.2 million for a house that a mean
that's 350 would be $117. So you're looking at about a $3050. So you're looking about a $30 a year difference for the mean the mean house for dropping a million dollars. So the one thing to consider though is the number you have for the total ask
for option C right now that separate swag you have there on abatement is for the other half of the building the 1944 section. Oh and and abating the CO. So the COA area is
currently within that option C number being abated. So we'd have to go back. We can do that number crunch. Should I understand what you're saying? So, our option C originally was not moving its COA in. Yep. But prepping but prepping it for future. And prepping it would
mean abading the cafeteria, abading those two rooms on the other side for the COA and the gym and the kitchen and replacing and replacing windows. Windows. So, there's Exactly. So, there's a fairly good cost there.
Granted, in the grand scheme of things, is it another million dollars? Probably not. But, um, is it in the realm of maybe another half million? Probably. Um, that we could potentially pull back out again if that's something we even
want to consider. Could you just lay out what option C is then for us as of right now? Yeah. As of right now, yes. Option C would be municipal offices only with abatement of the cafeteria, gym, and COA rooms. Right.
And then and new windows. Yep. And windows and doors in all those areas. Well, for the $4 million ask, it's updating the entire building. Correct. Yeah. We haven't gotten there yet. Yeah. Excuse me. And then in addition, updating the whole building, right, with
new windows, which means the building is the building that's not occupied. It's it's show space and it's pre and it's ready. It's ready to go. It's ready to go. Ready for you to renovate, which makes sense. So that's 4.2. But on the heating system, that means
there'll be a wall, a firewall, no gym, no cafeteria, no kitchen, just municipal offices. But that gives us the ability. Yeah. I just want to be clear that you won't be using that cafeteria for voting, but you won't be using the cafeteria for
meetings or in the gymnasium if someone needs to borrow it or whatever program can't be borrowed. It's got to be all full stop, right? which which is understandable. But again, the the the the thought process is how do we get all the town offices under one roof, if you
will, and still have the the counseling I need. that that to me it makes that possible but also planning for the future because if you prep the building there's less work and obviously it's I
say more cost effective efficient now to prep the building than it would to be to do that kind of work 5 years from now. At least we're starting and then we kind of know we're in the future. You can start knocking things off a little bit here or there if you want that. Hey, now we're going to do we want to do the gym
or we want to do this, we want to do that. What's that going to cost down the road? Well, so so that's what Dave and Crystal talked about at the meeting um that you were absent at. That's what they agreed to. They said, "Well, let's go to B
first and then if that fails, go to C with full oatement." But to roll out the information, I think it might be hard like you were saying at our last meeting if we roll two options is that it's going to be confusing on what we're asking them to vote on at the ballot.
So, but I think the easiest thing is to say this is what the option we're want to move forward with. this is the best option that we have because because and and I've heard from people that if it doesn't fail at the ballot
box. Well, what's your intention? Bring it back to the town meeting. How many times you got to try this? Well, if it doesn't fail at the ballot box, it will be at town meeting because appropriations have to be made if it passed and then the town has one more decision to make as to whether or not they appropriate. No, I'm saying if it
doesn't pass at the ballot box and people are saying, "Well, then what? Just going to keep bringing it back till it passes?" Well, eventually you want to bring it back. We're not bringing it back. We're bringing back a whole different option. Yeah, that's what they although we had the three options,
they they denied the option A. So now we're presenting B, right? And if B doesn't work, then C. That's the way I would look at it. But that's what I'm saying is that that from what people are saying, I think we decide if if if C or
meets or B if if well C meets what we just talked about, wasn't it? Yeah. I think B would prep for this or B would be the B have everybody C. C would have COA actually move into the space. B does
B. Okay. Yeah. Whereas C and that's how much more money $2 million difference. So 6.2 2 to get everybody in there and full abatement of the building or
4.2 to do full abatement building, no COA in there. I just I I just say I think that the 4.2 is more that the town may look to and and so 4.2 would cost someone
$117 the mean house versus 6.2 is 174. Yeah. which doesn't seem like a lot, but to some people that it makes a difference where they want to spend and and and I hear that. I mean, again, what this is all great, this is all talk and how we all feel, but if it doesn't pass the
ballot box, or are we faced with a decision that we're going to find a solution, then the next solution would be C. And then and and the reason why I find harder than that is because the operational cost that you're going to be saving. I'll bet you Chris
would probably have someone's going to have to do a cost benefit analysis, but you're not plowing this place. You're not heating it. Everything's getting consolidated. You're saving on labor, equipment, sewage,
septic, we still got still got to plow. We still got to heat it until we don't own it anymore. So there's still a cost. Yeah. Did you price out the option of moving just to concept merging and doing minimum abatement to West Street? Yeah. Well, that was
never really No, that was that was an option that we were told to look at. Well, that's what I'm asking is that and you have no idea then what it would cost to move just the concept. If you if you look at if you look at the relative square footage, right, we had roughly
22,000 square ft that we were renovating and it was roughly half and half. So for, you know, for $16 million, you could do all of it, right? For 10, you could do half of it and it would
probably be six and six to try to do them separately, right? So just round number square footage wise it it's probably half and half. But why does the why would the Council on Aging need 11,000 square
feet? They're in maybe four here including they don't have so just they're just down many you can see. Well the council's agent was getting two particular rooms that were theirs and the rest of the spaces were shared spaces.
So and and again the intent the intent with the shared spaces was to provide a place for the community to do large pe large person number events like voting without doing that function currently in
the school. So it was we were taking advantage of the gym and the cafeteria as two very large spaces that were shared between the municipal offices and the senior center as functional space that the town could utilize. And this
sounds like this sounds to me like a very nice to have and I agree this makes a lot of sense. But um we've got a a couple of concerns. One is that it's May 90s. How much is going to change in the
economy to make people feel very confident about the next four years? Anybody got a guess? I would say nothing. So, it's going to be very, very hard to get the May 19th bill passed.
If you're going to do an allout push to get the May 19th bill passed, you got to somehow figure out on an absolute minimum cost to get done what we need to get done. Now, some some additional meeting space might be okay. But been
thinking right here upstairs. It's used for some meetings of small groups. Finance committee is used and so on. Um, this floor is used for meetings, right? Of all sorts of
kinds. Why couldn't the equivalent of this floor be used for meetings over there in the school building in the west school building? Okay. So, so we looked at all that and to do what you're saying would be be because we've got office
space here, the other main office space, COA office space here, the other main office space. This is like shelf space already. So, so to say, let's let's take this piece and move it here to build this out. You're talking about an
expense that's over here. You follow what I'm saying? Just to move that over here. The expense to build those offices in inside the No, we wouldn't build any other offices. You'd have just the council on aging were there. No, no other. the other we've got
we've got this building here and we've got the annex as I mean the library as two what we learned what we learned during our programming process with the council of aging is there are a lot of activities that they provide that are somewhat personal in nature and that
occur really between an enclosed office or a smaller space. So to just drop them into a large space is not going to work for some of the services that they provide to the community. It would have to be
and I'm not saying it has to be fully fitted out, but there would have to be some private spaces that were provided in order to suit the needs of the services that they provide which were developed in the program. And and I'm not trying to be an obstructionist. just trying to look at
it from the full perspective of providing the services or enhancing or equaling the services that they're providing to the community now and balancing that with the space that's available. And part of part of what we
did for the bigger picture of looking at the school in full was to very much work within the um sort of taking what we're getting from the school and not spending money
unnecessarily moving partition walls that exist in order to make a space 10% smaller because that's what the program dictated. We we recognized that it would be far more economical to leave that wall and
push and pull on the various departments to put them in the space that made the most sense for the program that they needed without modifying the building any more than absolutely necessary. So that's sort of why there's a little bit of
a of a an economy of scale if you will. Yes, we can nail this square footage to exactly what the program says, you're probably going to spend more money to get it. And I know that seems a little bit counterintuitive, but until you look at
the whole building and the way that it lays out and where all the offices fit in the puzzle, it's kind of like Tetris. We we put everybody into the spaces that best suited their needs. Some are a little bigger, some are a little smaller, but we were able to avoid
moving partition walls unnecessarily in order to get there. So that was that was that was part of the push and pull that we did and kind of where everybody landed where they are. Well, people are not in space now
that they think they need. So, uh I'm not dismissing that as just I'm thinking that It's going to be very very very very difficult to get a bill passed to get a ballot passed on the 19th and it's going
to take an extraordinary effort I think to get the bill passed on my team and an extraordinary effort that says well we really need to accommodate this and we really need to accommodate that. That's not going to be viewed as an extraordinary effort. It just won't
because people will ask the same questions that you know we've been thinking about. We've had meetings on meetings on meetings and we're going to have more meetings. I mean, if people want to be informed, we're going to have meetings, right? I don't know what else, you know, I don't know what you can do
either. I mean, that's part of the problem. It's just that the idea of getting some support would be the first thing, honestly. Well, we got no support right now. All of a sudden, you guys are sending out emails. You're standing up there. We're baffled when you guys stood up at town at a town meeting and said
you don't support this. We were shocked. But that's because all you know why it's because because it tripled the cost. You sat there at the at the theformational meeting is that it was a good idea. You were here and you said that idea and I prefaced my information I sent out to
you with that same idea. I like the idea of having all the municipal offices together. I think that and you you look at a town, it helps identify the town. Helps the town identify with something that says, "All right, see this is Grand. Here we are. We're all right here." It's it's the way that a bis
business should be conducted in a town. But the cost is the thing that overwhelmed us. And in particular, there's one thing which we haven't really talked about yet, but um Bob looked at some work. I don't if you have a chance to read what you did,
and there are some extraordinary expenses this year compared to what budgets have been in the past. The price of health insurance has skyrocketed. Um the uh the schools have uh quite a
bit of money that they're asking for and uh something that um they're not really I don't know if they're completely aware of but there was a change in calculation which was not passed on to them were what town services cost the school and that's
another another $300,000 a year that they're kind of being gifted uh at this stage. Um the stabilization plans are going to be down to close to zero. Uh we're no longer going to be in a
position where we can say, "All right, we've set our budget in springtime expecting that come next February, we're going to get free cash certified million half dollars." I think those days are gone. Um it's going to be as about as
won't be quite as much shock as we lost the $2 million coming in a year from the landfill. But it's going to be a big shock because right now we do the budget in two pieces. We didn't in the for the spring meeting and then we do the budget
again for uh the following spring uh for stuff that we didn't want to commit the money to in the first meeting. But we're not going to have the money anymore. So if if we if we can't get something done to move the offices in the
annex, something that the people will say, "Okay, you've done your best. This is the minimum amount that we're going to have to raise money." I don't think there's a a ghost of a chance of passing. And it it was just it was just too much money. It was just too much money. Well,
you're referring to again that the meeting is option A, right? Okay. Option A is off the table. We've already discussed it. The town voted down. So, it was no longer the 15 the three times as much. That option is gone. Right. So, and the other thing I wanted to bring back is you were talking about we no
longer had the landfill. Correct. We knew that back in 200 something. That's why the town back then decided we need to do something now and plan oursel in the future because we anticipated this occurring. I remember being at that meeting and we said, "You know what? What's the easiest one for us to start
with?" They're like, "Oh, let's do uh DPW. That was an easy building. We start working on that." So, we started that in 2003 because we knew money would be stopping coming from the landfill. We knew it was coming. We knew way back then. So, we started preparing our
future plan for this town back then, saying, "Let's do DPW." After DPW, what department's next? Safety. So, we did police and fire and did a safety complex. That was a huge chunk, but we also knew it needed to be done. Okay, what came after that? The next one after
that, thank goodness for library doing all its work. The library was the next hit that we did. We took care of public, you know, use for the library. Again, a town department took care of that. What is next after that? Oh, you know what? We need a new elementary school. Boom. Another big ticket. We did that because
we anticipated back then this was going to occur. And we also anticipated at one point we will have to increase taxes in order to get what we need for the the town itself to function. And this is one of our last ones honestly is to do depart the rest of the department
offices and then COA. That's the reason why we came up with option A, B, and C. We anticipated this long time ago that this would occur because you said would no longer have the landfill that taxes will be increasing because we still need to function as a town. So this was our
next option because after this the town really doesn't need a large number that we can afford which unfortunately the high school is a huge number. That's something we have to work for in the plans with the future and the state and everything else. But right now, this was our last hurdle of our plan that started
back in 2000 because I remember you've been on the finance committee as long as I've been around. And that's one of the things you always mentioned. You got to prepare for the town when we lose the landfill. And we started back then doing each department, taking care of this, taking this was our last one. Then what
else big do we actually need to take care of? because we have a a building that's going to last 50, 80 years. Everybody's going to be in it's going to be taken care of. The town doesn't have to spend extra money again to do another large project for all town departments.
We started that planning. I don't know why it disappeared cuz I remember we started back then and that's why we started DPW and this is where we're at now. These are the last departments we have to take care of for this town to function as a town. So that's just actually was discussed
back in 2010 because I have the paperwork of putting offices into West Street building and that fell to the wayside and then the next committee came up in 2018 and that their proposal fell to the wayside and now
we're back here again. But this has been kicked around since 2010. Yeah, I don't think anybody disagrees that we need this. It's not a want, it's a need. It's just the leaders of our community need to make a decision and strategize about what
option we should go for. Tear tearing the building down. I said against it because once it's gone, it's gone. There's no future for growth. We're stuck with a 5,000 foot building. That number came out of I
don't know where um you going to just tell us what happens. No idea. Recognized Jim for some reason. So, so I think tonight's decision is that there if
if so what's our what's our next option? It's either B or C. If you want to go right to C, then you know then then fine except go right to C. Although I you know for me for a lot of you whatever it
is and I well the COA has already been voicing correct if you want to see a way you have to come out and vote chief and I met with the COA uh board last week was it? Y I think it was last week they're they're talking about how they you know they're they're going to get signs
printed. They're they're they're telling their constituents they're they're putting a big push. What was the market value in this building? Will you assess that? between six and seven 800,000. Yeah, I think 676 to 790 maybe. So, I just
have some clarifying questions, Lynn, before we move forward. So, option C was 4.2 million on top of the 5.7. Correct. Yes. Okay. And then option B was 6.2 on top of the 5.7. Yes. With taking 2 million on a stabilization on both of
them. Okay. One from capital and one from free cash. Correct. Great. Okay. That's 4.2 and 6. Yeah. And then we got the 4.2 and 6.2 with that 2 million one a million from each 5.7 plus the two. So 7.
Okay. Total ass is 6.2. The bond would be 6.2 million. Okay. And there's there's room in there for right cost. Yes. We have contingencies built in. And the other piece that can be considered,
which was originally what we were talking about with um when we left the select board meeting back in February, was the abatement of the other part of the building that's going to be unoccupied. It's easy enough. Let's just
have that alternate that you can accept if it all falls within our budget. If it doesn't, that's 1.3 additional for lack of a better term contingency to allow for overrun in the bid. That would be abatement of that part as as well as
windows that would be taken off if need be. Correct. It well the bid the just to be clear we would set the bid document up that that work was an add alternate. Okay. And it would be you would have the election at the time of the bid to take
that work and scope of the project if the remainder of the project came in favorably. And if it didn't, then you would have the right to reject it or not accept the alternate and that scope would remain outside of the project. So we'd only be renovating and abating the
work of the um municipal NCOA. Correct. NCOA. Yes. Sorry. And my other question was the um water coming in that wasn't part of this plan. So how are we going to mitigate that and how much is that going to cost?
So the water coming in um we've been talking about looking at um we're investigating the drain that's out there and on the there are two ways to deal with it. There's one which is the more
expensive. If we find that the the drain isn't clogged that's in that courtyard, that's something we're looking into. Um, one would be the more expensive but the belt and suspenders option would be to dig down outside that wall, put in a
foundation drain, tie that into your storm water system because that'll move water away from the wall. Um, based on the fact that we're only getting water through the wall as opposed to through the floor, we don't think that's as much of an issue. So, another way to do it,
which granted is going to be more reliant on maintenance in terms of keeping it up, is you can do an interior um waterproof coating on the inside face of that wall as well. I would strongly recommend the first
option as I rather than the second. Oh, yes. As would I. Yeah. going on the outside because divert the water away from because the other option the water is still getting into the meat of the wall. It's just stopped at that inner coating and that cost it's not built in
right now. So what would be a cost on something like that a rough estimate and you get something that's not planned for that that may need to be done. It does need to be done. It does need to be I honestly it would have to be
investigated because you're talking about drainage in an interior courtyard and we don't know where that drainage is currently piped. If it's piped to the outside of the building already and that pipe is intact and will free flow, it'll
be relatively inexpensive endeavor. If we're talking about, you know, uh, capturing the water and pumping it out, uh, to get it over, you know, over the building and back out to the other side, that's obviously a more costly endeavor, but it requires some more study on our
side. Right. So, where what is the contingency amount that's built in as a factor? I think we built 10% contingency into the project and inclusive of that or I'm sorry in addition to that 10%
contingency to deal with change orders during construction there is also contingency within the design side of the equation for things like this drainage that come up that we need to address as part of the scope of the project. So, we're we're at such an
early stage. There's both contingency money in the design to account for things that come up and are identified during the design process as well as separate money that's set aside for contingency that occurs during
construction for the inevitable change orders that present themselves with any renovation project. Just so the board's aware too, we basically pushed pause. These guys haven't really been doing any investigating, right? So we didn't spend any more money until we know where we're
going. A question for finance. If if the the 5.6 that's ever been appropriated was appropriate and then the other 2 million's coming out of free cash stabilization stabiliz
stabilization funds. So that's basically all the extra that we're asking for as far as an as far as a um an annual budget. So So what what does the town put the site every year
average that goes into stabilization? We we put a million dollars in stabilization over the last five years. the last five years and taking some out and I think every town meeting we take some out because of different items that
various departments want well and also um some money is basically committed though you can't actually commit ahead of time uh to pay off loans that we've taken for other things so you know the prop in the proposal was presented by this piece of equipment funding would be
coming from available cash in future years, but the intention was to take it on as big as position. And that's what happens. There's large money that comes out to pay for the principal and interest don't pass back. So, so, so to
clarify, if if the town agrees to do that to take the the 2 million that's sitting in stabilization, the rest of it comes from the override, then it then the project doesn't affect after that 2 million. The project doesn't affect your budget, your
annual Well, uh, money still got to be used to pay off the loans. Well, that's that comes from deal, right? No, no. The other the loans that are already in existence that we're using stabilization money to pay for this year's installment payment. But after that, after we take the 2 million, if we
take the 2 million, it doesn't affect what you're putting aside each year to to go into from taxes each year that goes into stabilization. So if you raise a million every five. Yeah. But that's that's what I was saying you earlier is that we've just figured out that the
fundamental uh economic position of Rambi has changed materially because of these increases in the health insurance and the increases in the school needs and there's one other but uh and the health insurance
was not a one-year expense. you know, this is an additional half a million dollars we're going to be spending forever. Uh, and a half million dollars over five years gives you $2.5 million not going into stabilization fund instead of the 1 million which we got
the last 5 years. So basically we're we're maybe in the position where we have to ask the town for an override for operations and that's going to be very very hard but it could be alternatives to cut back on operation services. So
the health is the health insurance a cost to the town or cost to the the employee? No to the town. That's the net portion to the town. Yes. The health insurance going up by about a half a million dollars. And I mean it's just I mean it's just that stabilization
fund though. Well I mean Bob said you know we if we were putting away $200,000 a year for five years at the state to try to build it up. Um, and now we've got a cost of 500,000 a year or more.
This isn't going to work. But one of the things that concerns me is that our our interest on investments has gone up dramatically in the last couple of years. And the money that's in the stabilization fund, unspent
appropriations, those are all money that's available to invest. They're going to be all gone. So you're going to knock down your investment income every year and that's part of that what eventually would normally
become free cash. You're going to start with lower money. But I guess too looking at what that's said too is that uh I think one thing we pride ourselves on in grant was one of the things is that our borrowing and
how we can borrow such at a low lower rate. Um, is it feasible to borrow additional money and leaving some of that money in the stabilization fund for things that could happen? You know, it's almost saying, you know, as as us, do you wipe
out your savings account or you kind of leave some savings money in there? You know, do you buy it? Do you buy a car and spend all cash on it? Or the beneficial say, "Hey, I'm gonna leave a few thousand dollar in my savings account if it rainy day and then, you know, and finance some of the car." Um,
you know, but I think not in the best shape right now and moving forward either. They're not talking about, you know, great days as years to come either right now. So, after you use up your savings account, then you max out your credit card and now where are you? Well,
that's what I'm saying. At what point do we you know it's and you know we we have to have a solution. We don't have and that's what I'm saying. So do we to me is it is it worth it to spend less money now and build on the
future right now. If if the difference between our borrowing rate lending rate is is 1%. better than that. Then you could make the case that yeah, sure that's that's worth it just to make sure you've got some of this cushion. But um then what
you have to do is convince the people to borrow the money and have this annual outlay of property taxes go up. And that's what the hard part of it is. It's easy to talk financial people into saying the 1% a year, 2% a year is well
within our tolerance and it makes sense for the protection we're getting from it. It's another thing to try to tell a voter that your property taxes are going to go up. Okay? And they're going to go up by these many dollars more a year because we're not electing to use money
that are in our savings account. Uh and it's very hard it's very hard to uh this this new change with the big big increase in health insurance and what it's going to do to we thinking things. It's going to be very very hard to talk
about we have we haven't had chance to sit down and really I just would hate for us to get the the future to borrow money to keep the town going. That doesn't make sense. Yeah. when insurance don't at certain point
we're contracted or something so we do uh a negotiation of prices and stuff like that is not what they do when insurance like like the whole town you know you supply the whole town with health insurance and don't you negotiate with an insurance company to finagle a
price to fit into the um what works for the town we belong Chris who we belong to for us tonight in Hampshire to trust. Yeah, I don't know how that works. They they bid it out just like the same just like the Commonwealth does, right? They they bid
it out as a group to get the best. You get better price. But in general, health insurance cost, they're bidding out for a group of about 3,000 subscribers. Okay? They'll get a better deal than if the town of Grammy goes out looking for
300 subscribers. But even with that said, cost health insurance is going up. Well, that's the other question. Some some insurance companies do not want to do business in Massachusetts anymore. So, it's limiting the the insurance companies that are out there. Well, it I
think this fiscal year we did not have very much of an increase in health insurance at all. I think it was very small. Uh so that was a one-year benefit. But this is more the making up part
because the reason was they had excess capacity in the reserve funds at the trust and they're using the tr the reserve capacity to artificially keep the rates low. They no longer have that.
So now they have to charge you the true cost of what the rates have been going up for the last 5 years. That to me sounds exactly like the stabilization part. The stabilization fund is no longer there to comfort us. You you'll be at the point where you say
you can't absorb a year of this because the stabilization fund can't take it. So and again I we haven't done studies yet to try to object that further but just in principle if you can understand that a half a million dollars for absolutely no change in benefits for anybody. no
change in services or anything. It's a it's a lot of money for it to our funds. I think where I have a hard time with allocating the money myself as a taxpayer is the fact that we don't have a fiscal 5year to 10year plan on where
we stand. We don't have one in town. So I hear mish with all the projects that we've had. Um, but we don't have when the loans are going to fall off, when that amount's going to be paid off, and then what we can now use those funds for in allocating them. We we do have that piece of it. So, you guys have a
document because the select board, I've been on it for three years. I've never seen it. No, not a not a whole financial plan, but the thing about the the uh future payments on all the debt that we've taken on, that's all worked out. That's and that's in a document that the taxpayers can see because it should be out there for us to see where things
fall off when things are getting paid and then what that money can then be used for. I don't like say the west street. It's not our document. It's towns office. Okay. So accountant really.
Yeah. It's we get it every year as part of the budget package. So we can see uh we can see u what the roll off is going to be. Actually it's been the treasur's document document. I guess that's one of the reasons why you know I I talk about
the the lesser of it too. It's just be because of something like that. We know uh curbside collection that's going up the bid. Excellent. We know track the the cost of waste disposal has has dramatically gone up. The money that's been funded years ago doesn't cover it
anymore or won't cover it for the future. So, does that, you know, does does a town pick up that absorb that piece or does that go back out and look for additional funding from the the the residents? Yeah, that's going to that's happening. We have too many
whatifs is my issue as to why I don't want to pay more in taxes. I don't know what's going to happen with the trash. What's what's that? Well, the way you guys are all, you know, because I'm just listening in and no matter bottom line under whatever direction we're going, taxes are going up. healthcare, trash,
building, maintenance. The way you guys are doesn't matter. Taxes are going up, right? But how much they go up does matter because we're going to hit our cap. And if they're going to go up just to do business in town as far as municipal waste, whether we I know the
select board has a job to look into as far as getting a transfer station or something like that. Maybe that's more feasible for our town. But I mean, these are all things that are coming down the pike, but we don't have answers to them now. So to ask people to say, "Okay, we're going to, you know, this option
will increase your taxes by $174." Okay, well, what next year? What the next year? What the next year? And I know you guys can't answer that. That's not your charge. But that's what I worry about down the road in 5 years. Am I going to be so outpriced that I can't afford my house anymore that I built? Yes, I understand that. That's everybody's
concern because I just built as well and I know what my finances are and everybody's that's everybody's concern. That's just normal. And that and the thing is you still can't predict the future even for yourself. You can prepare as much as you want, but you still can't predict it. You could just do the best you can with what you have
to try to that's the job of the select board right now, right? Is is trying to prepare for the future and do the best that we can with the information that we have going forward. And that's why to me, you know, I I say it nothing against anything, but I just think it because
there's it's a piece to save $2 million at this point in time. It but it solves the problem that we have at hand is office space. We need office space for town offices. That's our need right now. Like I said, it's not a want. It's a
need. That's real. that that there accomplishes that what we need but it also leaves us ability for the future to do other things. Maybe down the road as you said down the counseling agent we can move forward and keep on doing additional
just so just another perspective and and I can I totally appreciate and respect the position that the town is in and weighing these different priorities. I I I totally get it. I see it all from not just this community but also many others that we serve.
One other thing just to consider, right, is that the cost of construction, right, that's our specialty historically and most likely in the future will not go down. So your your best value, if you will, right? And
again, I'll I'll put my blinders on and admit that they're on, right? Your best option, your best value for this particular project is to bite off as much as you can now because it will only cost you more or you will get less for
the same money later. Right. Everybody gets it. I agree 100%. It just helps me sleep at night when I say it out loud and I can hear myself and I agree. That's that's a true statement all day long. However, it comes down to a need and a want, right? What is our need
right now? What is our want right now? We need office space. There's no ands if buts about it. We need it. How are we going to get it? So, so we're going to present something. What if you're saying option C, you
think option B, John, and and the finance committee say is leaning towards nothing. C or D. Um, we need a charge. That's what we're here for. or tell us what you want us to push and hopefully this the finance committee and we're united front right
wrong or indifferent we all present that this is the best option for the town giving everything we talked about so just to be clear though we can present it as the select board as the finance committee but we are individuals who can vote how we wish you can but you're representing the town right but and I
vote as a taxpayer representing myself I just want to be clear on that because that's what we did for option A that was what was recommended. That's what we brought forth as a select board. And then like um Jim had said and other people said, you guys were very upset that we voted the way that we felt was
right in our hearts and in our minds. And you guys can be upset about that. We all have varying opinions. We were expecting a building for 5.7 million. That was the charge. That was what was allocated in December of 2023. In
February of 2025, it had tripled. So that is something I was not on board with. So I understand that we can't build something for 5.7 million. I know that it's going to be too expensive, but that's what the taxpayers are holding on to because we were told in December of
2023 that we would not come back and ask them for more money. And that's on camera. We can go back and watch that meeting. We know that. We all know that back, right? But that's what they're holding on to. And that's that's why John is saying that he doesn't think
it's going to pass because that is what they are holding on to. You said you didn't need more money. You said you could do it with the 5.7 buyer two and a half. It's not going to stay the same, but we're looking for your support also. You as you said, if you had the support of the select board and the finance committee saying, listen, we know we
said that, but it's been 3 years. We have investigated with money now. No money was expended back three years ago. We did the best we could. And all those quotes we got are right on par with what they're getting for quotes. It's just the other stuff, the unforeseen stuff.
So, we need support. I mean, if enough people tell the town what Neil just said, it's now or So, is it unforeseen, Lynn, because we're trying to renovate an older building or can we build a building with
the money that we already allocated towards it and not clean out our capital, not clean out our free cash so that and not have adequate space? It's somewhere to start. It's somewhere to start, but it's kicking the can down the road again with no future. If you're going with a smaller building without
this, but you have to pay for the roof of that building before you tear it down. After you tear it down, that's going to cost you money. That's at least $2.5 million. You're aware of that. Now, you take consideration, put up a building, and then you have and then
after you put up the building, you're going to say, "Well, in future, we can do this, this, and this." Well, we have a building that already exists that we've worked on for two and a half years that you guys get gave us the grace to do that and I this committee should be
commended above and beyond. The problem is is that I'm listening the insurance you know I'm listen it's hit me too but taxes are going to go up. Well, regardless of what you
do, 2 and 1/2 years ago back, the insurance has gone up and materials have gone up. So, I mean, you you you the the town should be unaware be totally aware that yes, everything's going up. So,
where do we start when we don't have a building to put our municipal offices in? It's ridiculous. I understand it's going to be very costly and it's going to be a burden on the town, but there should be some way
that the support how we can figure it out and move forward in a positive manner that we have a building that we can consider. How many times have we been approached by other committees in this town? Are we going to have the
opportunity to have office in that building? We have been inundated by people coming. If you guys haven't, there's something wrong. But the situation is now we're you're looking at a building that exists. Is it going to
be costly? No one's saying it's not. So my view on the situation is you go for gold and if they shut it down, go for C. After that, I don't know the tar and
feathering is going to commence because where are you going to put all these offices? You everybody we can debate until we all turn blue. The problem is we need the offices. It's come to the point this town is
consistently now it's a rusty old can that we're kicking down the road on a consistent basis. Yes. I I do I want my taxes to go up? Not necessarily. Is it a necessity? Unfortunately, in this particular in
this particular situation, everybody's between a rock and a hard spot. We have no choice. The choices that we're giving are totally inadequate for the for the benefit of this town and the future of this town.
Consistent. I I've heard it when I was a select board member and I'm hearing it now. All we're doing is kicking this can down the road that is inadequate for the necessity of running a town. Yes, I understand it's not funny, but we need
to do something right now. And I and I think I don't think at least from my point of view, I don't think we're having kicking the can down. You actually were. I don't mean to be rude, Flynn, but you were. said, hi. You said, and it it's it's something we're all guilty of
saying, do what we can, the minimum we can now, push the rest out till later. Well, that's but that's not kicking the can down the road. It is meeting the needs that we have right now. Not a want. The needs right now is office
space. Okay. The needs and office space. 5,000 square feet. I can I can sell a need. It's a need. And people understand, okay, if we don't do this, we don't have any office space for our Okay. Sell the need. 5,000 square ft.
What's that going to cost? Glenn, I thought I said before I talked about keeping West Street building because it allows us to expand for the future. It's a building we have. It expands for the future. It's
going to cost close to $3 million to tear it down as Steve talked about paying for a roof that we're still paying for that's on there. And you're going to sell if you sell that property, we're not getting a lot of money to make a difference in that property. It's going to it's going to cost us more to
tear down that building than it is for the property value. Then why did you guys want to go over option A when we gave you the three options initially when we came to your meeting when we discussed the price then? I'm just trying to figure because as D talk about I want I I want us to to succeed and to
me option A was to succeed. I voted for it. I believe in it. I voted as a selected for it. I believe as a taxpayer voted for it because I believe in it. Mhm. But I also got to look at too is that if it where are we going to be? We need office space and and and like I
said, we hear that, well, we'll we'll extend your lease if you want to, but it's going to cost this or we want this, we want that, which is again is costing a tax additional money and that is a temporary solution to a problem that that's still there. So, that's what to
me saying, you know, the 4.3 million I'm behind that 100%. Option B, I can get behind that probably 70%. because it's still it's more than what it's it meets our needs but it's still also the want I as a
select board member I got to figure out so you're saying the need is municipal offices the want is the COA with it yes because right now we don't we have office space up there that reality is a year from now year and a half now we're not going to have we may not have
anymore is abating the whole building a want or a need it's a want I think right now and as the gentleman talked about is that if we're able to do it makes sense
but if we're not able to do it we need to do what we can do so we can prep prepare for the future. So who makes that decision if we're able to do it because there is a cost difference between a 1.3 million cost difference between evading the whole building with
windows or not. So option C would be a 2.92 or a 4.1 9999. And the voters the voters might say might just agree with that and say why
wouldn't we spend that little bit more and take care of the building. I don't know. I don't know either. That's that's fact for the amount of for the amount of people that showed up at the meeting. I mean it doesn't well the elderly might say why are we spending 2 million more for COA 2 million we can't
build 2 million may not mean option B that's what I'm saying because I think because what is what what my question is what does that new COA get us that this building here doesn't have so the primary thing it's going to give
them is each of the spaces over there they've known and in terms of getting private space and so the office over there. So we have the whole upstairs which they could potentially use the upstairs. The other piece of it is that they get more
program space with which granted they'd be scheduling and coordinating with the town in terms of shared use but they get the gym and the cafeteria which assuming we do option be I think still had the
partition in it. Yeah. Then potentially that is three separate spaces that can be programmed as opposed to one space here for activity. So, we're getting a little bit more
because like I said, the office space is for them to collect conduct meetings and things like that and some of that's by law they have to have. Well, it's both meetings as well as um elder care. Yeah. Well, so so what what piece of this
puzzle can we all get behind? Yeah. and and move forward with it and and that includes finance committ. Yeah. If we're going to do something for the panel, there's got to be some compromises here and and uh give the best the
best providing for the not saying it's easy, but we need to turn around and pick the future. I I'm for option B right now full abatement. Mhm. And and the only reason why is because you can abaiting a building.
It's not easy. I I even asked about charging the the system um the sprinkler system for the rest of the building and they would put in I'm assuming it would stop at a certain point but give us the option to continue
on the I believe that the sprinkler design as it is has the capacity to support the whole building. Correct. But option C has as well. Yes, it would still have the full capacity. The piping in terms
of the distribution just stopped short. And and truly, if it's the town's preference, that could be backed out and we could only provide the bare minimum that we need to support just the municipal offices and you would have
to find excess capacity later if you chose to expand into the school. it. There's just there's an infinite it's like an onion, right? Layer on layer on layer. We're trying to give you the best value that we can today
based on the intended full use of that facility at some point in time and all of that can be pulled back if that is the town's desire. But it wasn't what the committee was originally charged with.
I mean, we're we're running out of time here to get behind whatever charge you want to start. But I but I also think we need to knock down a few of these suggestions of building a 5,000 square foot new construction or putting
a modular on that. I've moved on. But no, no, maybe you have, but I'm not sure that my only point with that uh Lynn was to say, well, it people didn't want the White Street building and they said, "No, we still want to tear it down." Okay, what are our options? We still
need office space. That's what I'm saying. So, that to me is we just respond to you what those options are. A modular costs more than what we're paying for renovation of West Street School per square foot. It would be
new. They'd be temporary. Do you have numbers? No. Um estimates, right? I I know that um was 500 500 560 a square foot or uh a project that male has been working on for the last couple years and
today's numbers turn out to be 660 a square foot. But you said but to renovate it was a,000 square feet. No to renovate new less than 550. less than 5. So, new constructions of thousands of that point and that's important for the
taxpayers this year. Yes. So, that's why I wanted to get it out to you guys so you would understand that because we're hearing from the finance committee. John had talked to me separately and said, "What about how do you looked at modulars?" So, I looked into that. Um, I've been I've gotten phone calls from other people in town saying, "What about
modulars?" So, um, working with the architect and the OPM, they're just giving us rough estimates right now, but those numbers aren't going to go down. No. Right. So, um, and a big differentiation between what we're what we have proposed and what they're with
the other parent doing. We're not gaining any we're not saving anything. But the but again, I think the underlying factor to consider is that the 5,000 square feet doesn't solve your problems. and it just creates another 5,000 ft roughly deficit that you'll
need to address in the short term. I I right. So I I just again we just I just want to make sure I agree with that again and I numbers wise there's no not much difference, right? I think West Street the building is our solution to the problem we have right here. I just
want to make sure Crystal is on same page as you because she is asking questions. Chris, I do have a question about the CEOA upstairs. Is would you say that's roughly 2200 square feet that you guys are using upstairs because the whole building is
6,200. So there's four give or take. Yeah, there's four offices up there plus the four offices at the annex. That puts us at 4524 ft that they're currently using. And I have many people who work in the annex who said that they are more than happy to work in the space that they
have now. that yes, would it be nice to have more? Yes. But that they can work with what they have. And they even said they can work at Carnegie Hall if need be. So they're willing to go down to smaller spaces if that is what the town needs to do in order to fix the annex
issue as of right now. So if we have to move them temporarily, why we figure out whether it's West Street, new building, what have you, that they are willing to do that. And then of course you have some people who say that it's a waste of time, waste of money. So you've got two different sides. So I just want to make
sure we're exploring all of the sides. So a 5,000 square foot building would be more than what they have now. If for just the annex for just the No, for the annex and the four offices upstairs because I calculated them both together based off the square footage
you gave me. But the new building would cost That's the point. You're you spend just as much just as much and we have future future expansion compared to 44,000. Correct. What will it cost to raise the building? 2.5
million. No, no, it's more than that. 2.9 million. Okay. And that's a low estimate because we have we have soft costs that aren't in there. Okay. Yeah. Let's say $3 million. Yeah. Okay. All right. Would you like to do this? Raising no additional money because you
got 59 allocated already 57. All right. They're living in 2300 23 24 square ft of work. Put the four departments into two each. Move half of them into the
library. And they're half of what they have. Instead of,200 ft, they're going to move into 2,000 ft. uh build a 1,200 foot building for $1,000 a square
foot. That's 1.2 million. 1,200 foot building for two people for two offices. Two of us. So we're splitting the office of three buildings, keeping people here for building a putting them in the Carnegie and building a new He's giving an option so that it doesn't cost any
money. So build 1,200 square foot building to fit the rest of them. Everybody's in an office and your costs are what? Your costs are 1.2 million plus three is $4.2 million. Everybody's housed. It's
temporary solution because we're spread out all over the place. Everybody's house cost $4.2 million. Take the original allocation of 5.9 and you get money back. what you just said that would work just said John that's a temporary solution right to to
a permanent problem that we have but that only works if this if the studying doesn't go through about the foot traffic in the buildings in order for the for the office that all sounds good but then you got other factors you got to I don't want a temporary solution I want a permanent solution for the future so you have to add in some money for
those sorts of things I'm just it's not going to be not going to be an extra $2 million and uh but if if What you're saying is that we need a solution because we need office space. Well, the office space you need is what? So, we're in the annex. That's the office
space. It's different to say we need office space to put everybody together because that's better for the town operations is to go together. But it's different to say need someplace to put the people that are in the annex. You can do that. You can do that for 1.2 million. But now we have three different
locations. The annex is wonder. They only triple if they have. Yeah, but there we fiscally it doesn't make sense to spend that kind of money for two offices for two rates offices. And I'm kind of shocked that they said that they were okay with the space they
had because their needs assessment, we had to bring all of them down. Yeah. All those all those people over there wanted double and triple what they had and we brought it down to not much more than what they had a lot more gives us a lot more
space. You're you're saying spend four 4.6 million for,200 foot building. It would be 5.6 if you do if you get rid of the building, right? because that was 3 million and then he's saying three million to get three million to get rid
of the building and all you need just to replace the offices that are in the areas is about 1,200 square ft. So, and that's given them more space than they have now because it's 1,200 plus. But John, that comes out, do the math, that comes out to
$4,000 a square foot. No, $1,000 a square foot times not not to not to to take that building down. 3,000 or 3 million to take the building down. 4.2 million or 4.6 million to gain 1,200
ft. you look at any of the individual pieces, all those things are true. But what I'm saying is that in a big picture, if you say that our problem right now is we have to figure out what to do with the people in the annex, here's a way voted down. I I would I
would agree with it. I mean, how fiscally responsible is that? But but I I would agree with that. But to me, that is just throwing money away. Yeah. At this point, because now we just spent 42 $4.2 2 million. Um, how many square foot building that houses two offices? Two of
them. But John, just to be clear, that's if it gets if whatever option we go with gets shot down. No, I think he's saying we could do it for the 5.9 if we get because we do need a solution. So, it's not necessarily a bad solution if this does get voted down, whatever option we
end up going with. Yeah. What I'm saying is that imagine that the ballot votes famous. What are you going to do? Yeah. We Well, if nothing else, here's an option. Yeah, that's what I thought you were saying, but I think everyone thought that that was the that's what you want to propose moving forward. I
don't You don't think that's throwing money away? Yeah. I don't think it's I think it's going to fail if we get behind it and start promoting. That's that's we have to have agreement and start promoting this. That's what we thought last time. Matter of fact, I stood I stood up at theformational
meeting and said I was in favor. I like the idea. the one that you presented but then at town meeting you the finance committee said otherwise and the select board said otherwise or the board talk. Let me ask you so from for the finance committee. Is there either one of those
proposals either B or C that the finance committee could stand behind and say makes sense we I can see us doing this. Yes, it's going to cost the town some money but again for our future and I' I've been on select board now eight years. I've been in town for almost 30
years now. And again, it's what's the future? Someone started off saying we bought this building as a temporary solution. Well, it seemed like it became a permanent solution. Yeah. I mean, personally, as I said, I liked option A. Well, option A is not
feasible because it's not happening. I like half too but and uh I misguided how the finance committee would react to option day obviously uh we had them talk about other options. So it's Lyn's point to it and I think
that's where the finance committee gets together and says okay we can stand behind this option support this option. The select board gets together and says yes we can support this option. It's it goes back to that united front. Okay, we're all behind it. This is what we can
support moving forward. And I understand as as individuals, we we we vote on our own part. But as a forward, you vote for the town. We vote for the town. To me, it's a as a solution for the future. Are you getting
clickers for the meeting? I'm not talking about I'm not I'm not being a moderator at this meeting. No, in June. No, no, for the town meeting if the ballot. I have not even thought about that yet. And I would be talking to the TA about that. If there's a special town meeting,
it would be at the same time in the same time as the first of the annual town meetings or the second June the second of the annual time in June. Second, pardon. I don't I don't know. Um why would you think there'd be a benefit to clickers? Because then people
could as people could present as a committee what the committee thinks and could vote individually. No. No. Before the vote, the committee should have presented how the committee feels and then you can vote when the vote happens the way you want to vote personally. But the committee as a committee should stand up at some point and when
discussion starts and say the finance committee agrees this is a great project for the town. And this is why bing bang boom and then you sit down and if you vote differently as an individual then you vote differently. Right? That's what we're trying to say. But but someone
from the subboard has to stand up during town meeting and say we brought this forward and here's why and then the defense committee stands up obviously and backs up and then then you vote the way you want to vote. I'm not saying there's not going to be clickers. I'm just saying there's a
there's a united front that the people that are invested say yes as the select board that represents the town the finance committee that's represent the town and the building the building committees look at with the building we're saying yes we feel this
is our best option right now not just to meet our needs now but hopefully meet our needs in the future. So so I think to go right to C. I don't I think we're cheating the the the the
people in town out of taking a look at B. And if we can't put two options or you don't feel comfortable putting two options to our two options to vote, then I say put
B in front of them. And if they don't like that, then the last you can do an amendment on the floor, which Well, you can't do an amendment after it's voted down. Well, you can't do an amendment. You'd have to We're talking ballot the ballot first.
Yeah. Okay. And then appropriations for the article is what you're talking about. Well, the ballot the ballot says for municipal space, right? So, the ballot doesn't say option A or option B. It just says B or C, not A. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay, just so people So the
ballot if it passes, what what is the select board going to bring to town meeting? Option B, option B and option C and only get to option C if B, which is what you ask way back in the beginning, right? I have no
problem supporting both saying choose. But reality is we need something. It's not a want. We need this. Yeah. Pick one. Pick, you know, to move forward. We got to pick one. not picking an option is really not the best solution for us. Well, but we can't have the select board
behind option B and the finance committee behind option C. So, we have to So, I guess my question for the finance committee because what I'm having a hard time with is taking away from our capital, taking away from our free cash where we have no savings. So, I don't know how you guys feel about
that. And I think whether we do option B or C, we're doing that. We have nothing in those two accounts. Well, we will have to free cash at the at the end of this fiscal year. There's there's another piece of this too that uh Steve Nally spoke to us about that he's going
to do a a short term. So So by the time we we burn through the the money that's been appropriated that the cash would have the 5.6 plus the the other two we'll be at the towards the end of the project which will be what another year and a
half out. I mean, we assumed that with uh pens in hand, say, let's say July 1st, just because it's an easy date. July 1st, we probably have documents together in 3 months.
Yes. No. Yeah. Is that okay? Yeah. Grieve. Don't say two parting, but we've got to back out. He's got his hand already. So, so just to follow the timeline out, right? July, August, September, you've
got documents ready. You go to bid October 1. It's a 6 to 8 week minimum to get documents um bids received. So, you're looking at somewhere around uh October, November, December 1 to award a
contract and then you're plus 9 months to a year for construction. So you're so you're probably looking at you know close to the end of calendar year 26 before occupancy could be anticipated
and that's just sort of back in the end the 26th the 1st of 27 give or take. So still need a place for our offices. So so with that being said we don't even touch most of that money until right the tail end.
Yeah. say the last half of the year, you'd have to arrange for temporary uh short-term financing. So, so we're still project. So, we're still sucking a little bit of money into cash. We're still collecting a little interest on what's there. But to your point, Jim, so
you need to have the free cash from the current fiscal year fiscal year 2026. We have you have two years of free cash whatever if we don't spend it at town meeting. for operating costs. Well, all the money
that's in the allocated switching money from other projects to solo all of that looks just like stabilization fun money at this point. It's money that we have and to the extent that that's spent, it doesn't make any difference which pocket it comes out from. Right. Right. It's money that town doesn't have too. But to
to kind of say there there's reality that's some of that money that we're taking out with the next two years or before the building's actually finished will be replenished. But the question becomes when when are we able to take out a loan and is the final loan only going to be
granted after the project is Are you talking the bond or you talking the bond? So he told us he's going to short-term borrow. Well, no. He's going to use cash reserves first and then he's going to go into short-term borrowing and if the risk because if the rates don't look good, he's going to hold off and then he's going to go probably in
2027 for bond. the the idea, well, at least as I understand it, the idea is you can't overbond, right, a project. So, often times you will get short-term financing until the final numbers are known and or highly predictable and then
you would go for a long-term financing plan. So, you can make a bet against rising, but you can't make a bet against them falling. He disagrees. He thinks interest rates are going to go down. Yeah. He's out he's actually been meeting with uh Hampton with East Hampton bank I think this week but he
thought he five and a half he's giving us high he started these numbers are high five and a half% rate one of the things I wanted to touch base cuz we listen at every meeting just like you guys do listen to everybody else and one of the things people keep bringing up and I think it needs to be clarified is people keep
asking about grants you know that's one question we're ask why aren't we going for grants for this people also need to realize we need to appropriate the funds first because we're never guaranteed a grant. We can apply for grants and everything else and then when we do it does get put on this and then the the
price will come down less time and everything else but unfortunately in order for us because everyone talks about it why are we doing grants? We have to appropriate the funds first. We have to we have to have a shovel ready project for state sholing anything but correct there was an ADA uh grant this
year but work because we didn't have next month right so we are we are thinking about because we're talking a lot of things and I know a lot of people are going to be watching this meeting and I want to make sure that's also cleared clarified for people to understand it's not like we're not thinking about it but we need to get certain steps in order for us to do that. So, it's not so much the money
appropriated because you had 5.7 appropriated, it's being shovel ready or being ready for construction indoors. Yeah. The project for like the kitchen grant. No, cuz doing a commercial kitchen isn't part of this. So, we'd have to go back to the town to
appropriate say a million dollars and then um we could go to the rural fund. Yeah. Okay. Everything else has to be appropriated first. Yeah. I just want people to know we are thinking about that. Are there ways? We're not just here like, oh, let's just raise everyone's taxes. That's not our thinking. They're not giving you a grant
till they actually show that you actually have something to work. Yeah. That you can do it yourself. Well, fingers crossed if B is what we all agree on and this building goes out for sale and it sells, that's going to lower the Well, yeah. Yeah. everything we try to
do so if this building does sell for7 $800,000 we're looking at additional two it's really additional $1.2 2 billion dollars, right? Which is is feasible. It's a practical matter. I think you'd be better off keeping the money and
sticking them sticking on the stabilization because otherwise you've got the debt there. Yeah. Yeah. Right. The debt's down then goes down the right number. Same same thing but different
way of doing it. the same concept. Yeah, that's what you're Jim. You mentioned Steve using up all the available cash. Well, the interest I didn't say used up. He would use the cash reserves. Cash reserves
that are appropriated for the project. The money. Is that what he said or or No, no. You know what we talked about was the money that was appropriated 5.6. Yeah. We would go through that first. Oh, yeah. And then and then and then do a
short-term borrow. No, no. 5.6 first and then 2 million. So 7.6. Okay. When you when you say cash reserves, that that pretty much is our cash reserve bill. Yeah. Well, the 5.6. I'm talking about the money that was
already Yeah, that's that's our cash reserve as a practical matter. I mean, there's probably some other cash around. Yeah, there is there's a the money that we borrowed for the ambulance which we haven't paid for yet. So that is right
today free cash or not free cash but it's it's cash could be going to come September. I also think too that the town we we appropriated some money some time ago for the fire truck and for a fire engine that we're not going to go forward with. I know I didn't put that
in my projection at all. So because that would have been I mean that might get comes in there in the his position and looks at everything and stuff like that. But it is something we can consider. That was a borrowing article. That was Yeah, that was not
cash. That was a borrowing. No, but to the point where people are think we're spending that money. Oh, I see. That's what I'm talking about. We'd have to still borrow that money. And at this point in time, we wouldn't be borrowing that money. Just uh so I can understand it. When you say taking the money for
the ambulance, didn't the ambulance get paid from the billing that we collected from? So it's not actually taxpayers money that we're purchasing the new ambulances. It's from the funds we received from the department. Be a question.
What Bob is saying? Yeah. Yeah. I'm just trying to understand. We have $399,000 that we borrowed from the ambulance. Okay. as the ambulance has not been delivered, right? Currently is investable cash. Okay, that would be
allowed to gain interest once you pay get the ambulance and pay it. That cash is gone. It's no longer investable. Okay. It's not like we raise taxpayers money for it, but I understand now it's for investing you were referring to. Yeah. Okay.
So if you use up all your cash reserves, we we last year ago in June, logged into that fiscal year, $460,000 of interest. As soon as the cash reserves
are gone, we've got a big hole in the following years free cash because there isn't any excess anymore. But to Jim's point, most of that money is going to sit there until through most
of fiscal year 26 because Oh, yeah. timing wise, it's it's a different issue. Yeah. Right. So, fiscal year 27. Yeah. Don't count on any Don't count on that 460,000 interest rate. Yeah. I was just trying to give you a
timeline of how the money will be dispersed. So, then we're back at the question. Yeah. option B or option C. And so I was asking you, Bob, which one you preferred. Oh, you were asking. I was
option B or option C. I'm I'm torn on between the two C, but I'm torn whether I can support either one because I really feel that down the down the road, two years from now, three years from now, whenever the the timing
all washes out, we're going to have some real problems being able to meet the the budget. And I'm sort of a believer that operating the the services the town provides more important than where they're housed. Even though
obviously that is providing a service. So what that same philosophy what are what where where are we without office space because we need to have office space. We had the one John talked about doing something like
that. But again we're spending $4.2 million to house two office spaces. To me that is ridiculous. to spend that kind of money and two for two
that that's just crazy. No, you're also tearing down the turning down West Street School. I I get that, but the reality is we tore down a school to put up an office space for two offices for two people for $4.2 million. We'd be better off renovating. Yeah. No, no.
That's what I'm saying. I can't wrap my head around that. But instead, I'm focusing in on what is our problem today? Our problem today is we need office space. What amount of money would you spend to do this? Well, the problem is is I
just on the back of my hope here figured out that you wouldn't have to spend anything more than what you've already allocated. That's the problem that solves if the problem is stated as we need office space to move people out of mechanics into something different. That
problem is easily solved by what we've already allocated. It doesn't involve it doesn't involve the West Street school building remaining as a standard. Do you agree that that solves it on a short-term temporary basis or on a on well it solves it on a
short-term basis clearly whether it's temporary or not depends upon how you feel about the office being spread out in different places but that doesn't include either what it would cost the old library to move to to confirm form that into office space I think when the
town voted to appropriate the 5.6 The town agreed that our opposite should be in one spot for that. So our town I know all I know.
I get that. But the town agreed that we should all be in one spot. All the offices should be in one spot. Obviously the the the the budget grew. We're asking for more. So if if we
can't compromise between B and C, then I that your your option there, John, just tear down the school to get,200 square feet ruins our future in that building. And then
anything we do beyond that is going to be who knows how far down the road it's going to and and what it'll cost at that point if we decide to do it. The future the future is not free. Um, if we if we
spend a lot of money now and refurbish what we can in the West School and prepare the rest of the building for possible expansion in there. That's not a cost-free option in the future. You don't get to just move into an empty
space. Uh, so where's the money going to come from? is going to come out of the budget or another increase in taxes or operating expenses. How I'm if you think that at some point the town is going to be perfectly willing to raise additional
money then but raise additional money for what the rest of the for what you want to do for the expansion. The idea of ex the idea of doing everything that was planned for keeping the western school is so that we can expand into the space 15 years from now people might
feel a lot different than we feel. You may say, you know what, we want to do this. We, you know, it's a different town 15 years from where we are now. And who knows what required space the town's going to need because of offices that the the government says they got to have or whatever, you know. So John, could
then could you get behind the fact or Bob to do option C without the full abatement of the do closing up the rest of that building and just getting the municipal offices into West Street 2.9
and that would be a 2.9 million bond assuming that you're going to get 2 million out of take 2 million out of stabilization and 2.9 Well, the
5.6 and then the 2 million. And that's going to leave us with a borrow of 2.9 million. It'll leave us with 22,000 square less than 20,000 square feet rent. Um 12. You're going to
be about 12,000 rent paid. You know it's it's difficult to say because as I said we haven't really done any kind of projections about what kind of financial burden probably learning services run into. I mean given given that these given that
these additional amounts of money are there except for let me ask then probably the toughest question to ask. Is everybody in here willing to say the school should operate at minimum requirement? there's the other source of money. It's
like we've been saying that if you don't like the way the schools are operating now and you like them to have more money, we're going to come to a point very very quickly now where either the police department, the fire ambulance department or the private department has got to be gutted because those are the
only other big budgets. Every other fun, every other business, every other department we have in town is basically a small budget. And for example, we can't do I guess you can't do away with the assessor support. Why would they? But why would they have been gutted?
We're still bringing in tax revenue that pays for those services unless unless the those budgets for some reason just went skyrocketed. No, skyrocketed. But what I'm saying is that all of a sudden we're not completely confident that we are going to be having all those revenues coming in to cover all the
expenses because we're suddenly we've got this big big chunk that we didn't think about even two years ago that we've got. But my my thing I guess I look at John you talk about this piece going through there's people building
four five $600,000 homes in this town and they're building they're bought. They're not building them to sell them. They're people are building them. So that that says something right there. Yeah, I know. And and um that was one of
the things that surprised me about the disparity between saying are we growing or are we not growing by looking at population clearly with population we're decreasing but people are building houses and what people are
building houses are coming in. Yeah. Yeah, let me clarify that cuz I I made a comment about that after the meeting. Yeah. You said 40 years ago we were at 6,000 and today we're at 6,000. I said 40 years ago we were at 5300 or something like that. Our school
population is decreasing but our housing market is increasing. Yeah, population is clearly decreasing. That's the figures I put you getting smaller. We're getting smaller in population, but it's because and the reason we keep bringing
in money is because the number of households on town is it's gone up 74% in the last 50 years. Well, the population has decreased in the last in the last since the mid2010.2.
So, we've got this all this housing there and that's where the property tax comes from. Well, yeah. Almost all of our money comes from property taxes, residential. But the point is though, too, you have people that are moving into town that this time may have no children, may have one child. In the
future, they will have additional children maybe. But I mean, you but if someone moves in says, well, you know, those families of three, four, five, six, they're not allowed anymore. But you still see these three thou 22 25500 3,000 foot houses that are being built
because that's what people are building and and and to my point they're building for the future. They're not building what they need. They're building well we we need four bedrooms cuz we're going to have more kids. I'm not going to buy a two-bedroom. I'm not going to build a two-bedroom cuz I have one kid now. I know in the future I'm going to have two
or three kids. I got a plan for that. So I mean you look around, these are brand new houses going up and it's just been consistent over the past five or six years. This isn't nothing new. I mean, there's land that that people thought would never build houses and there are houses on it.
And that's exactly I think what I was saying is that if you look over the last short term, there's been this big increase in the number of um households in Grand and it's also been a big decrease in the per people per household.
So, how long is it going to take for what families to appear in these new houses? I I mean I don't I don't think you also take on consideration happening for so long and the decreases but but true but you also take
into consideration that um someone like myself and and and other people the children the children the children they're the children are growing up and they're moving out they're going to other places. So, yeah,
the population is decreasing, but still when someone moves out, someone moves in. And I think what you see now is people that are building houses because right now there's not enough houses in Grand for sale. So, people are taking the option to build houses. It's costing more money, but people are doing that
because that's the option they want to take. So, to me, what does that say about our town? If if people didn't want to move here, I don't think they see the type of houses that are being built, but how many are being built? 5 years ago, we're going to
Morgan Street, that was all land. Yeah, it's all houses now. But it doesn't matter, does it? How many people are in the house? Your taxes are the same. You got taxes. Taxes, right? It doesn't matter how many people in the house. The value of that house is what it is. And the tax the property taxes
are what they are. And not everybody turns in their census, so you don't truly get an accurate because you talk like I don't fill that out. So you really actually get a true population. That's why that's why I use US that's why I used US figures in the in the document. Absolutely. I mean I I don't
think saying our population. Okay, that's in a lot of places because for many different reason like I said the family sizes. So if you look at our country has decreased from where it
was 10 years ago, 15 years, 20 years ago. Yeah. You don't have five or six, seven kids in a two-bedroom or three bedroom. Yeah. But there's still, and again, I say I'll say it again. There's something about Rambi that's making
people move here and build houses because if it wasn't, it's a big expense. all the places you can build a house and these are big houses that are again probably between5 to $700,000 they can build anywhere they want where they
building in grandy so if you ask the question why are they building here and we want to keep that going I think that's what the I guess the taxpayers got to hear people are doing that so if you start saying well we don't want to do this we want to do that does that stop the people from
moving here well I'd be a little upset if I just bought a built a $7,000 home and think, "Well, my gosh, all this stuff I'm hearing, people who just don't care about the community. Why did I move here?" It's not that they don't care. I can
also play devil's advocate on the other side. I just built a house for 700,000 and now my taxes are already going up and I don't even live there yet. So, you could also say the other side, too. My taxes have gone up for the past 25 years, every single year. And you're still here? And I'm still
here because and and I look at what other and other towns and cities face the same situation and it's okay what do you get again? Why are people building those houses here? Grammy must have something to make people come
here. Now I make a humorous comment. He's cracking himself up. The reason people are coming here is because we don't have centralized town offices. That's why they're coming here. Yeah. Well, you should talk to Stop it. I
mean, central office is going to bring more people. No, but it's going to bring convenience. Absolutely. It's going to bring continuity and efficiency and and camaraderie. But it sounds like I'm not but I'm not
even saying and Kevin's pointing it earlier. I think the town voted that's what they'd like to see. So the vote the town's saying, "Hey, we like to see all the town offices under one roof. We don't want to pay $13 million for that."
At what cost, too? At one cost. They may be willing to spend a little bit less to to accommodate that. you again what's what are the options if this isn't the option what's the next option and there was that there that's that's costly what
I'm what I'm what I'm suggesting is that you have just changed what you said our current problem is you start off by saying our current problem is we got to figure out we need some offices now you're saying we need some offices in a space which all offices are in that's a
different No no no I'm saying what Kevin spoke about earlier what the town voted on to appropriate money. They like the idea of putting all town offices under one roof. They like that. That's why they move forward with the 5.6 $6 million worth. That's why they like that
idea. What they don't like is the the additional cost that it costs. We're not willing to spend that amount of money on that. Okay. So, if we can still give you that option that you like for less cost, would you buy that? So, but and yeah,
and that basically is what I'm saying, I think, in a different direction that the first thing that they were offered putting all the offices together for 5.6 million. Fantastic. Everybody was for particularly because we really didn't
have to raise any taxes to do that. We had money that we get from different sorts of things. They did not vote that they wanted town offices together. They said they wanted the town offices together for $5 million. $6 million. You
now have to put a different question in front of them. The different question is, "Do you want town offices together for $10 million?" Well, first of all, the question you asked was, "Do you want town offices together for $15 million?" And they said, "Uhuh." Okay. So now
you're going to say the question we're asking you is, "Do you want town offices together for $10 million? How can you do any better than that? Well, they haven't said that they want town offices together. They said they together for a certain amount of money. How certain are you? But they did say
that the for a certain amount of money. I get that. And and I get that. I understand that. So it comes to a point saying, "Okay, do you want to still keep the town offices together?" Okay. Are you willing to spend this? Uh, no. That's too much. Okay. Are you willing to spend this? Well, that's a little
more reasonable. How about this? Oh, I can see us bending that. Okay, where is that point? What What is that number? We have two options. We have B and C. One chance. B or C. Those are the options we have, right? Well, we have
B, C, B1 and C1, meaning B1 and C1 with full abatement or no abatement. So, there's four options right now. Which of those four options are you willing to bring to town meeting? Or which which two of those four options or do you want all four options? Or do you want to make
it an amendment and say, "Oh, can we get this lower by not abating?" You can't you can't think bring this to town meeting. You have to think of bring this to the ballot box, which is what Lynn's been trying to do this whole meeting is figure out which one option can we all get behind. Right.
Great. And I'm not 100% sure I even want to keep West Street building because of the leaky basement coming in through the wall. Um I dealt with an old house. You never know what you're going to get when you start tearing things down. How much more costs are going to you're going to
have to get. You have a a bond. You think it's only going to cost this much. Oh, the whole wall's rotted. This whole section needs to be redone. Now you got to go back for more money. So except that there's contingency built in. Number one. And number two, they've done they've done extensive
um research in the building to determine if the wall is rotting on the outside. The the water in the basement wasn't something that we were looking at, but doesn't appear it's going to be a major problem to either of our experts. So, I can't imagine we'd ever go back to the town because that's going to add another
two or three million to the project. It's going to maybe add money, but we have the contingency for that. the 10% uh that there's how much contingency are we at it? It was 10% he said there's 10% on the design right now and there's
money within the design budget for other scenes that haven't been flushed out yet. So those for so so thinking think of it thinking it thinking it like it's a house versus a building. The building's already been looked at. That's why we triple. I can't imagine
it's going to go much higher. That's like doing a a renovation. You have someone came in and give you all the cost. So, you know what's going to cost to renovate it. There shouldn't be any there may be a surprise here there, but you you anticipate as you said it cost. That's why the numbers went up because
the architects went in and problems. And can I just ask you a question about the new construction cuz I have a general contractor that currently builds houses and builds buildings that said 500 a square foot. So, why is it a thousand? That's really even with prevailing wage.
He said he piece of debt that's not prevailing wage. Okay. This is 100% prevailing wages and it and it doesn't include professional services. That's just instruction. Yeah. Yeah. So you have to add in sock costs
and professional services meaning sock. Okay. Okay. Things that would require Okay. No offense, guys. It would be nice if you guys wore a wand. Not hurt at all. That's her fault.
That's her. My other question, when you said the 500. Yeah. Was he referring to this as a residential build or a municipality build? I guess business construction, which is different than a residential. So, how is it different? Because right now we're in a house.
We're renting. We're renting. We're rent. Talking about the annex. No, right now we're in a house. But this is a business. Okay. But it was built as a house. A business. It was always a business. Yep. But the
annex is a house. Yes. And that's the problem. If we keep it and changes, we have to change. Walls have to get wider and Yeah. I know there's a lot that goes into That's why I was just trying to make sure to clarify that part. Okay. Cuz that was one of the questions on town floors. Yes, I can do it for 500. We
still had the same question at the Q&A. We tried to talk about that and then after town meeting we actually talked to that particular person about why could it be that is there anything wrong to make an impression but saying
that I can support both options moving forward. I like the town to make that decision what they feel is best for the overall town. So is a way to say to the develop to to get to that ballot box to move on from the ballot box to say, "Hey,
yes, we we want to hear those two options that you want to bring forward so the town can make a decision at the at a town meeting." Yeah, that's what we're trying to do by havingformational sessions, you know, one a week for the next four weeks, having people come ask questions and say, "This is what if you
go to the ballot box and you vote yes, that yes means there will be funding for municipal offices space, municipal space in the West Street building, some form of municipal space in the West building." Whether you decide at town
meeting it's option B or option C, right? And at the beginning, you will be presented with two options. Yes. An option which will have municipal offices and a COA and potential future building or just municipal offices and potential
for a COA in future building. The the goal price tags attached to each of those. We could we had price tags. Go in and try to tell someone to vote to we would go give any kind of a sealing to it. Mr. lesson. We've been all of our
meetings, we've had different things. Steve Nally has come and spoke at we always have price numbers, but at the ballot different housing numbers. If your house is valued at 250, it's going to be this. I don't think that's what I meant on the ballot. On the ballot on
the ballot, it's it's blank exclusion to take care of municipal. So the the people at that moment have to decide are they willing to pay more taxes and they don't know how much it's going to be. Right? So now
we have to start informing the public of what that potential is going to be. Whether that means having a mailing go out that says a yes vote means this and it's going to be this much money at town meeting that you can decide on. A no
vote means no West Street building renovation. Period. That information has to get out there somehow. And whether that's a, you know, a little yes, no that get in the mail or that we hand out at the voting. I mean, we've been here two hours and it's going to go round and
round. But what I can say for myself is I'll I'll support that either like because I I think to me it's important that this makes it to the town fair to let people decide. These are two options. choose what you like to
choose if you think if if if they come back saying well we're not choosing you then sitting up in that chair I got to figure out another solution I guess with the with the board members but if you can support that option how are you going to educate the public so we
actually at our last meeting um had brought up the um if the committee would be willing to do anformational video that can go on YouTube through Gcam that says this is what option B is this was this is what option C the ballot would be voting for either
option B or C. You're just saying yes, we want you to take it to town floor so we can decide on which option we want. So there's a lot of videos that other towns are doing out there like for various issues that they have going on and I think because a lot of people aren't going to be able to make theformational meetings whether it's
sports whether it's their job but if we get it on YouTube and we push it through the various social media pages through the Graanby uh town meeting and such I think that will help educate the people that are unable to come to the meeting. So why would you have the committee do
it and not the select board do it? because you're you're the ones that called the town meeting and you're the ones that put it on the ballot because with the options and you guys are knowledgeable about the options. So really you're just educating them on option B would include this this and
this and have your boards like you had at yourformational meeting where you walk them through what each space what each option actually entails. You can evade abate it or not abate it. This is what you would be abating and doing windows with and just walking them through the options. We don't have the
knowledge of the options besides what you've told us. So, we're going to stumble on our words during the video as we're trying to explain what option B is and the soft cost and whether you could do the um add alternatives and all that other stuff. We're not going to have
that information. You guys have that. So, are you going to go on this video and say that you support this project with option B and C? Are you going to go up there and say that? Do we have your backing in this video? Otherwise, it's just us talking again. But it's anformational video, correct? But you
want us to sell this project. Are you behind us? You're talking to her. Talking to both of us. I I just said I just said I just said what I was I I will support. I mean I we can have this informational all ourformational informationational
sessions do this video and say we've met with the select board and they this is what they think is the best thing to do. Put it on the ballot and then bring forth these two options that the committee has worked on. Option B says
this, option C says that. And here's where I stand from a select board. The select board had the ability if they wish to resend that completely. Right. Right. The select board did not. The
select board said no, we'll resend this piece of it, but we're going to hold this piece forward for the ballot. So, I think that to me, but people don't understand that. Well, to me it says it's your decision. Let the people decide. It's it to me that says as a
select board member I'm moving it forward cuz if not I could have voted to rescend it and I had a long discussion with the other two board members going back and forth with them because I I want my concern was hey can we get all this information out there enough time to get it to the voters cuz the last
thing I wanted is not to get enough information out there and it failed and then people say well you had your chance but you going to bring it back again and that's what someone said to me. How many times you going to bring it back? Do you get what you want? No, we're giving you different options this time. So, you
know, so that's so that's moving it forward was saying to me saying that Crystal can speak if she Well, it's not really are you doing it to get what you want. It's no because what are our other options if this doesn't go through? No. And I know that, Lynn, but I'm just telling you what people ask because
people that's what they they feel. Well, you you Tom Ford voted it down. Why'd you take it off the ballot? the town floor voted down. Why why are you still pushing it? Because we need it. We need town offices. We need space.
Right. And you're saying that to us and we understand that. But that has to come from you to the public also. The that's what the public's not seeing. It's hearing right now. They're hearing me. I don't know. But I can't street corn.
It's been It's been two weeks since town meeting. So there's been a lot of misinformation going around and I and you know I know on the 9th when we met it was discussed putting something out to clarify what we're doing at this point meaning unfortunately Gam wasn't at our last meeting and that's
unfortunate because I think the select board members had a really I forgot that there a really good uh communication conversation to a point debate back and forth and everything and I think a lot of information came out um like I said even for So
sh from my perspective if I was sitting in your your chair I would be this is I would be saying whether I can't afford it or whether I this is the best option going forward for the
town right this is what you believe that this you assemble a committee to do your work right we're armed with a select it. We went out and did your work, did what we were charged with. We came back with an option, downloaded it down. But going
forward, I think the select board and the the finance committee have to agree that this is the B or C or whatever combination we put together to for that building is the
best option for the the the and you and you got to get behind it. say this is even though you don't want your you don't want your taxes to go up personally then vote the way you want but you got to get up and say this is this is the best option we've we have going forward period I can get behind
option C okay because it's a need we need municipal offices I can get behind that I don't know for another $2 million and I get it it's only another $2 million I don't know that I can add the COA because it's not a need at that point it's a want we have a COA So I can get behind an option C.
So we got a 50-50 split here. I hate to keep on asking this, but I I have to clearly understand is it B or C with abatement or not abatement because Oh, you can't you can't do without
abatement because your vote says to abate all 44,000 ft, right? So yeah, it's going to be you cannot use any option does not include full abatement. So it will be the 4.2 that we're asking
for. Yes. For a bond and it would be for a full abatement of the 44,000 ft with 12,000 square ft,000 square ft municipal space. I thought he the gentleman just said that the COA and the gym and the rooms would
be abated, but they would not be usable. Correct. Correct. Sorry. Yes. In option 22,000 square ft. That's what we go to option. That's what we put on the ballot question. Option C means no COA moving
in but prepping those rooms and the cafeteria and the gym for future renovation. So you're still renovating 22,000. Okay. But you're going to put a firewall up. Okay. So you not inhabiting 22,000. Will there be a door on that
firewall? you a little pickle court for you. Well, okay. So, thank you for clarifying that. So, it is full of now you're slipp down the middle. So, that's what we are bringing forward though. Correct. B and C. Correct. And
one. Yeah. Let the town decide. Let them decide. And like I said, if if the town says no of both and get some work ahead of us set up there. If it's a no, it's a no. And then you have to go back to square one and figure it out. And maybe you will bring it back again at some point. Well, and
again, it gets it's it's frustrating to the people that are sitting up there as a select board to the point to say, okay, if it gets voted down, all right, we know what space in the future. We know we're not going to have the annex building in the
future. That that's, you know, it's just it's just what time amount what amount of time we have with that. Reality is the landlord can say, "H, you know what? July 1st, we're done. Your lease is up. I'm done. You know, we we've talked about a lot of things here tonight. One
thing that hasn't been mentioned, how about our employees that serve us? They deserve a better facility. I agree. I agree. And I I made the comment if you said, "What about this with all this?" Well, what if the annex building burnt
down? What would we do? What if this building burnt down? What would we do? We'd find we figure out a way. We find a way. Well, we got to find a way. We got to get ourselves there. But that and one thing you might do is
move half the people into the old library and build a small building for the other half. But then I totally you would be you wouldn't be raising West Street building. you'd be finding a piece that's a lot to put that building on because Yeah. because otherwise it to me is here's a
brand new Chevy but you're paying Maserati rice for two offices. That's how I see it. When you're like I'm spending this much money for two offices. Yeah. I want a you know I want a Maserati but you give me a Chevy but
I'm paying the Maserati price. That's how I see it when you said two offices in this uh square footage. 1,200 1,200 ft for two points. It does it does accomplish get
down for square. It does that does happen, but again is that is that reality for our future with gran? Yeah, that's just what I'm saying. It is an option and I can say it's not an option. It is an option. But I hope everybody understands that the role of
the finance committee is much different your roles either in your in your roles or what you do for the town or just purpose. And that uh as I said I believe that the whole finance committee likes the
idea that's different from what our responsibility is just to point out fiscally what happens and fiscally what are the options that you might be thinking of as they would be in favor of or I think what Glenn's saying is fiscally the alternative that you're
suggesting to keep it under 5.9 5.6 6 million isn't really fiscally responsible for Graanby because it's not it's temporary. It's spending a lot of money for something that's only 1,200 square ft. Yes, it's using existing buildings that will have to be upgraded a little bit. So, we're spending money,
but we're spending money that is temporary. Now, this this entire that portion of the conversation depends entirely upon how tied you are into keeping up West Street School as a as a building intent. If you think that the West Street School should be a building
in town for whatever purposes, then you're going to vote or you're going to want to vote for whatever people bring up for vote just so you can keep the West Street School. If you don't care at all about whether the West Street School stands or if you don't care at all if we sell it for a dollar to somebody and
then let them do whatever it is they want to do to raise it and build something else in that spot to refurbish the building themselves. Want to sell it for a dollar and get rid of it? that then you're not spending then you're not spending anything what was allocated at the time. So that's what I'm saying is
that these things are all intertwined but they're not all just the question of do we do this it it doesn't involve that it's much much broader question so and and the way you got it phrased what I've been hearing is that a lot of people are tied into the idea that West Street
school should be preserved for the town because it's got good bones. And well, it's been three years of studies to prove that. Y that's and but that's what you're saying. That's basically I think how I hear this is being presented. And I'm saying a lot of people aren't going to care about Western. Well, the other
the other thing that hasn't been brought up is and I as I said before about the the separation between public water and public sewer, the separations for and Chris Chris is working on the other ones
to see what the the the occupancy of the building is going to be. But if you're ever ever going to put everybody in one spot, you the town doesn't have the property to do it unless you go on school property because that's the only piece of property the town owns that's large enough to put a well on one corner
and a septic system in another, which is what we have already, right? A working septic system and a working well. I don't know if I want to argue with that. So, you know, if the town had deep pockets, I say tear it down. Let's build a the
Taj Mahal. But we don't. This is the the the least amount of money whether we do B or C and okay that gives us a future down the road if the pound has money 20 years from now to or 10 years or 5 years from
now we do something and that's the other that's the other separate issue in this little problem is one issue of do we want the West Street school and the other issue is do we want or require all the town offices to be in the same And people are going to have different
opinions about those two things. They we know pretty hard. The state has different opinions about but this but this committee's worked pretty damn hard over the last two and a half years and thinking out of the box knowing that in
the long run this is the best option for maybe some future expansion. Maybe the schools need some more classrooms. We can put the offices at at the uh phase two of this building, the backside, and open up more school space. Um, we can
rent the backside. We Yeah, there's a there's a lot of different things that that if we tear it down, it eliminates those options down the road. Eliminates that as an option down the road. So, so we're going to go ahead and have
informational meetings explaining option B and C and answering your questions. We're going to talk to Gcam, put something together to put out on GCAM. At town meeting, if it passes at town meeting, someone from the select
board needs to passionately say what you just said. You know, someone has to I have no problem saying that. And someone I said it once. I'll say it. Someone has to speak up from the select board and say this is why we need to do this project. Any other alternatives has have been
discussed and they're temporary and we have a long-term need. Could you even at your next meeting is April 29th, your next select board meeting? Yeah. On Tuesday. Tuesday. Would you guys be able or would you feel it's reasonable that you speak of the last meeting that was not taped and just
say how you went back and forth debated and kept it on the ballot and why we kept on the ballot? Yeah, we could do that. We have a lot of meetings, but we can do it when we get to old business because we have a lot of scheduled meetings already. We can do a quick
recap so people say unfortunately that previous meeting wasn't uh Yeah, none of them would take that week. I know meetings. So, we'd appreciate that. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. So, we have our firstformational meeting on Tuesday at the Carnegie. Is that the
29th? Yeah. Tuesday the 29th at the Carnegie at 6 6 o'clock. Okay. So, we'll have Kathy put it on the website. When can you give me a list of when you have one? Well, we we haven't haven't met yet to decide the other. When when
you do that and if there's someone that I can show for I'll show up. Okay. What time is that? Said six. We're trying to we're going to try to space the time a little different. So one night for the for the seniors
like 4:00 so they and we tried 6:30 to figure people would work would be home by then. So could the roboc call um my question is could you roboc call and inform people these are going out so
if they want to or say we have meetings coming out you can go to gcam because there's some people like it still boggles my mind the way we have communications out and everything in our website and everything they go I didn't hear it and I wasn't sure is that
feasible use of the robocall to ask to say be advised this is going out to I don't know if that's feasible or not. I think it's because we're we're we're informing our residents of something that matters for our town. Whether you agree or disagree with it, we're
informing them that this has taken place. Well, that way they can look on the website. They can look on so we'll try to as a committee um get to get those four dates together very quickly. So been on and miss just to um also talk
about the robocall. I've been on there. My number's on there. I've just continue to re-upd it. I still get the calls. I don't know why. Yeah, people still come in. I get a text. I get there's a glitch in the system or you told me I get two
calls. Two times. My husband gets the call. I don't get the call. Only because sometimes if you look on like the social media of the website, you might get 2,000 people. And you know, if you look at the numbers and stuff, I've been watching the numbers, who's in what um group or who actually reads the paper
and I've been trying to actually pay attention that so we can inform people, right? Um that's still if we can get 4,000 people aware of unfortunately that 1% or that percentage that we weren't able to reach, at least their spouse or a significant other might get it. Well,
anybody watching this wants to get on the code red is that robocaller talking about gravity pd.org in the middle of the website says something about cool grid. Click on it and it gives you prompts on how to sign up. Sign up for it. I'll try it again.
I think I'm good. I'm good. Is it filtered now? Well, I'm not sure the parents committee is on board. What's the you. Do you? Well, John, is that something you can bring up at the next meeting? Whether or
not they Yeah, I'm gonna ask Lynn to draw up something for me that as much detail as possible about options B and C and then we'll have a discussion about those. Uh and uh but I want want to tell everybody it's it's our charge is a little different
but it is we and I understand that you're looking at financially well we're looking at for the future not say not looking at the future but there's a cost involved in what's again it's a choice you give them the facts of the financial aspect of it
they've got the facts we're informing them you're informing them let them make their own decisions. Well, thank you. Entertain a motion to adjurnn the meeting. Well, I'll make a motion. I will second that motion. Any further
discussion? All in favor? I All right.