Town Hall Restoration Comm. Confers With Bethel Selectboard

By Mary Anderson

Members of the Town Hall Restoration Committee met with the Bethel Selectboard Monday, June 9. The main topic was funding to complete renovations at the town hall building. The committee had suggested bonding for $600,000, which when added to the $305,000 grant received in January, would leave them approximately $300,000 short of funds needed for completing the building.

Selectboard chair Neal Fox said he wanted "an adequate sum to finish it. I want to know that when the money is spent, the building is ready to use."

Joe DeFreitas concurred and suggested some public relations work to bring the project to the forefront of people’s attention.

Fox said they needed realistic projections of income. He said he did not expect that the building would pay for itself.

Bergamo agreed, saying that it was an old building and would need continual fundraising to keep it up. She said that this was the norm around the state for buildings such as these, but that once people were in and using it, they were more apt to contribute to the upkeep. She referred to the building now as a "money pit" that the town has to keep paying on, but cannot use, and suggested that the best public relations would be making it ready for use.

Town manager Dell Cloud told the group that Laz Scangas, the architect hired to work on the project, said that he would not be able to do much, if anything, before November.

When Janet Burnham asked if the town should hire someone else, Cloud replied that the town has already hired Scangas and it would duplicate costs to go elsewhere. Responding to questions from the group, Cloud added that Scangas owned the specs and would not have biddable ones ready until at least November.

When Victoria Weber voiced the concern that Scangas "has never come through on time," Fox replied, "We haven’t been an ideal client."

Eric Benson suggested that the bond vote would take a few months. "We could have biddable specs by November, do demolition in winter and start construction next spring," he said.

Bergamo voiced concern over waiting that long to get the $305,000 in grant money, which must be matched. Fox said that he was certain there was "no deadline" on the grant.

The group also discussed windows for the building. Fox said that the next steps would be to "get a hold of Laz," "refine the numbers," "hold public meetings" and "get a not to exceed number" for the bond vote. He said that they would include in the bond over $100,000 needed as a result of the July 11, 2007 flood.

Bergamo said now that they had support and commitment from the board, the committee hoped, with town support, to be able to start work on the building this coming winter and have it ready for use within one year.

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