Washington Planning Board

Washington Planning Board

Working Meeting Minutes - DRAFT

September 12, 2016

0.0       Assembly: 8PM

            0.1       Members present: Crandall, Schwartz, Hatch and Williams

            0.2       Alternates present: Terani

0.3       Members and Alternates Absent: Kluk, Dulac and Russell

0.4       Visitors: Brian Moser, Paul Renken, Ed Thayer, George Marvin, Dave Wood, Dave Hunt, Dave DeFosse, Herb Killam, Garry Crane, Lolly Gilbert, Marianne Thayer, Lorrie Carter, Bob Wright, Jed Schwartz, Shawn Atkins, Bob Hofstetter, Dave Early

The Planning Board joined the F/R monthly meeting, which was in already process, at 8PM

1.0       Crandall opened the meeting and introduced Andrew Hatch, who would speak for the board. Schwartz passed out copies of the proposed plan and the statement document. Hatch said the PB has been working on plans for the town buildings and said this is a conversation and open meeting. He said the PB looked at old plans and tried to figure out what worked and what didn’t, he said the needs are there and are not going away. He said the strong message that comes through is that costs are rising by double digits. This is an effort to increase community support and leverage the savings now that the school bond has been paid off. He said the PB felt that using the existing station is important and renovation is cheaper than building new. Over several meetings the new plan came up and we would like feedback on the interior space. He said the new plans for the Town Hall are aimed at saving money while covering the needs there. He said the next step would be to confirm feasibility and get numbers for this plan. Moser said many of these options we considered by the earlier committee, did the board look at those plans? He said it was determined that the most reasonable was a new structure; a very large committee discussed this. Crandall said that they were going to leave the existing station empty. Moser said no, the Police Department was going to move into the building. They had a whole plan that the new building would be built and F/R would move into it without any disruption of service. We would then do the Town Hall renovation and the Town Hall departments would move into the existing station to do the town’s business during that construction period, then when it is done move back to the TH. Then PD would move in and they would keep some space for storage of seasonal equipment if PD didn’t need all the space. Atkins suggested that Welfare could use part of the space. Crandall said we have an empty building problem and the town feels it is a negative to leave an empty building. DeFosse added that we planned on PD moving in, not just the cruiser. Crandall feels that “vote wise” it make sense not to talk about PD. Moser says the overall plan needs to be sensible and make sense to the community. Hunt said that no town separates their safety services, EOC, Rescue, Fire, and Police all need to be available to one another in an emergency. Hatch said that PD feed back has been that the Schoolhouse is adequate, a sally port is not vital to PD at this point and less space is needed at this point so there is no firm immediate use. We are trying to keep square footage down to save money. Moser asked if the renovation would be more that 50% value of the building, saying this would trigger the need to add a sprinkler system to the building. Schwartz said she thought it would easily be over 50%. Crandall said the jury is out on that he has gotten conflicting answers to the question. Atkins said we need to look out and build for the future, we already have per diem rescue personnel now which was talked about as happening in a few years. Crandall asked if they plan to buy additional equipment. Thayer said realistically they might get rid of one truck but used replacement trucks are bigger. DeFosse said that moving trucks to get at equipment is very problematic in the stacked design. J. Schwartz said that Hillsboro stacks trucks but the building is old, if they had a new building they would not choose to stack trucks. He said he wanted to echo Atkins’s; we worked to do our job for the town to come up with a reasonable and appropriate solution for the safety services. He said the PD should have a proper facility as well as everyone else. He said we didn’t have an empty building in the plan; they were planning on putting seasonal storage and had other practical ideas for what would go into the existing building. He said you could use the Schoolhouse for the overflow of the Town Hall instead of building in the cellar. People think that the town isn’t growing but the town has grown and will continue to. He thought we should look around at proper facilities and see what other town’s have. He feels investing 2% of the town’s value is worth it to take care of the town’s needs. He feels we have a good plan; the PB is tying their hands with this new plan. Hatch asked if stacking the trucks is bad. DeFosse said especially in the wintertime. You have to have room to pull a truck all the way out and out of the way in order to get another truck out. Atkins said that problems he sees with the plan are many, first snow loads and winter maintenance. The snow coming off the roof lands 15 feet or more from the building. The metal roof dumps between the buildings, keeping the drive open for cars will be difficult. He sees safety issues; the apron is not big enough to pull all the trucks out safely. Parking is not adequate. The programming is problematic, the EOC is a long distance from the Fire Barn, when a call comes in you dispatch people and equipment, there is too much separation. The kitchen is too far from the action for rehab. Recue is in a separate space; they are a part of the company and need to be in the same building. The interior of the barn building is smaller, shortened by 9 feet, he feels stacking limits the size of the trucks we can get. The building is narrowed by 18 feet, reproducing the problems we have in the existing building. He said we bought the land to build for the future; this floor plan has come up at least 3 times already. The plan from last year never made it to Town Meeting. Atkins appreciates our efforts but the building they came up with is the best solution. A two building solution and attaching the buildings has been looked at before. They are trying to provide a quality service to the town. Hatch said your points aren’t lost on us. Moser added we would have to sprinkler two buildings and there would be other system duplications. Hatch said the purpose was an attempt to bring a fresh look to the problems. Moser asked about cost estimates. Hatch said we didn’t have one as yet; we are here because several attempts at Town Meeting have not passed and we needed to look again at the problems. Moser said that last year was unsuccessful because the cost couldn’t be raised on the floor; people were ready to vote for it. Wood said that a 10’ X10’ bay for the UTV is not big enough; you need to put the trailer inside to be prepared to go in the winter. DeFosse said they appreciate what we are doing and not trying to tear us apart. Woods commented that vehicles are always backed into buildings. Hatch said we couldn’t come up with costs because we aren’t there yet. He said that perception is reality with these projects and the first plan was considered a Taj Mahal. He said the Fire and Rescue have a history of great service to the town; we respect you and thank you for your service. He feels we can’t put this together with Band-Aids; we need to find something that makes sense.

            Moser said that we don’t want to build and have to revisit it in a few more years. It only makes sense to do it right the first time. Hunt said we have to anticipate that anything can happen; you can’t think they have done it all and seen it all. We need to learn from the past. He said the Space Needs Committee visited everyone years ago and F/R and Police were found to have the biggest needs. Then the Town Hall committee came along and they were two parties bidding for the same dollar. Hunt said he wouldn’t vote for this plan it is throwing your money away. Wood asked where is the cistern? Schwartz said it is not in the plan, this is a sketch, but it would be in the final plan. Wood feels this is not a plan that you could add on to, if you need bunk rooms it locks you in without room for growth.

            Hofstetter said the first plan was a Taj Mahal and it was voted down, we came back the second year with a scaled down version, he remembers all the iterations and so much work and attention to detail. He feels we aren’t considering all that went into that plan. He says we need to go with the best plan, not this plan, you don’t even have drive through bays, this is an antiquated plan, it might cost less but it won’t pass, he would vote for something more expensive. He said that 30% of the town will never vote yes for anything, we don’t need to worry about them. We need something that is safe for the F/R people and for the town. M. Thayer said that we need a safe environment to work in, safety for personnel, Fire, Rescue, Police and Road crew and safety for the public when they are in our facility. Crandall asked about whether there was a maximum dollar limit or some magical number for the tax rate $4 million, $3.5 million? Hunt asked about a number for the Town Hall, Crandall said the second year it was $1.863 million.  J. Schwartz said you are on to a good thought about not leaving an empty building; you need a complete story about how you are taking care of all the services. He said Williams presented for us two years ago with a pretty complete story but we weren’t allowed to talk about the Police. He said the school took 10 years to pass, Hunt added that the school was built and they had to add on a few years later and it cost as much as the original building. J. Schwartz said we worked with two architects and worked with two construction management companies to figure out all the details, all we needed was the vote last year, if we could have upped the price it may have passed. He said that Eastman said the maximum number was $3 million then BoS said $2 million, it was always changing and not based on reality. Hunt said you need an official contractor to give you a price. J. Schwartz said we could update the price for the building with BPS and get a GMP. M. Thayer asked what is the cost of your friends and family; that is what we should consider. Carter said people have said they wanted to wait for the school bond to be paid off and it is now, we (F/R members) put our lives in danger for your families, what is our value?

            Hatch said this is true and should be presented along with hard numbers. It has been frustrating that we are so close but no cigar, having to go back to square one is soul crushing. What happened last year was unfortunate, but something had to change because the BoS were not going to move anything forward. He said the PB is trying to bring something forward and bring people together. He said this is important feedback but doesn’t know what the next step will be; we wanted you to give us feedback through your building committee. Gilbert said that last year’s plan didn’t get voted on but might pass. Hunt asked if we would consider putting up the full plan. Schwartz asked if the F/R are still willing to do some of the finish work on the admin space. Crandall asked if the F/R members support the Meeting House. Hofstetter said people say one thing and do what they want when they vote. Crandall asked if the projects are together in one article would everyone vote for it. Schwartz said it hasn’t been tried and it should be tried. Hatch said that Canterbury did it and it worked, a joint article hasn’t been tried. Schwartz agreed, she said Canterbury’s project was massive and took care of many departments at once, building new for some and renovating other buildings, moving departments around. J. Schwartz said you need an intelligent plan that says what the town will look like in 5 to 7 years and how it will work. Hunt said we all need to support each other. Hatch said we need to make progress. J. Schwartz asked Williams, as the only BoS member in attendance, what the BoS is thinking. Williams said that he has real concerns; he thinks the real issue to understand is the cost issue; he isn’t convinced that there isn’t another solution. Hofstetter said that speaking as a citizen, some people want to know you have done everything to cut costs.

            Hatch thanked everyone for the thoughts and brainpower they showed us tonight. He said what should have been done last year to get it passed was write the article so it can be changed. Hofstetter said we need to include more people in talking to us to get all the expert input. Crandall said we aren’t giving up. Terani wanted to go back to something that came up before; he feels we should have had a member of F/R on our committee.

            Hatch thanked everyone for his or her time tonight.

2.0       Next meeting, purpose and date/time: We will set another meeting soon.

3.0       Adjournment:  9:20 PM

            Respectfully Submitted,  

Nan Schwartz