about when it's time to go to town meeting and bill has the unique perspective of being someone who has fresh eyes looking at the the town hall and what the needs are so so bill welcome he want to talk a little bit about your so i be but the first issue that that that i faced when i came here was of course the town hall issue and it's and it's not a strange issue to anyone it's been around for a long time in fact i've seen reports go back as much as fifteen years in terms of how people have been trying to address this this one issue i think we're back even before you know before the new police fire facility was built because they were trying to address the police station at the same time  in that was such a major concern at the time so the police station got addressed but the town hall never did and as a result you know the situation of how is it sort of continue to evolve into something that really isn't it really isn't acceptable in terms of way it should be built today it doesn't meet the building currently doesn't meet today's standards in many different ways and so we don't have enough meeting space we don't have a the office space is a pretty cramped the you know we just have a really established a modern working environment that should be in place for a community of this nature because this is a very diverse a great community has so many things i've really been pleased to see when i when i first arrived here in that and there are a lot of things that we've done well here this is one of things is one issue that sort of are the concerns in this you know it's just totally transparent process and you're providing a lot of information one of the things that i think people aren't really aware of possibly is how many how many departments are housed at the town hall well carli there's there's thirteen different departments how's a town hall that made is likely to change over the next year maybe down to about eleven though the total number of employees in the building is about thirty four and and i think that's it's doesn't sound like that's a large number you know per se but but the town hall is the center of the town's government so therefore it's not just tax issues addressed or the or the building permits or they're there or you know any kind of major projects reviewed it's getting licensing all those things that are integral to to local government and i so therefore it's not just about those thirty four folks it's a it's a much broader perspective so a lot of people literally thousands of people will go through those doors over the over the course of several years and so therefore it's important that the building is able to accommodate the try to traffic goes through those doors on on a daily basis you know i know that there's been a lot of discussion about the private space for people to be when you think of eleven departments in the end if each of them have confidence in confidential things you're speaking about with with their with retired residents and especially in an age where everything a lot of things are technology based you know as a senior center director now so you know i feel like a senior shouldn't have to try to struggle and try to work their way through you know navigating the internet to get an answer when they could just walk in but they also don't want to walk in and have everybody be able to hear what their businesses so i just think eleven departments many of them having confidential issues they're talking about with people this is an issue that needs to be recognized that yes you know i think that's that's really well put i mean the the the town hall  is it's not just your traditional office space and i think a lot of people think of all you can be run you know pretty much like a private sector business well it in some respects a cat never say that i can't but but there are many aspects of it they have open houses at town hall so that town residents can come in and go through in look at you know what the conditions are right they haven't been very well attended i know that we have some slides about conditions would you mind going through the slide oh absolutely i guess about what what the space is and what the issue is with that space should i be allowed to do that and so if if we sort of roll those those pictures i think we can go through i'm so so here we have in the this used to be the slackness chambers and you can see now it's just a it's a it's an internal meeting space which by the way is really the only major meeting space we have an entire building which is actually it's really dysfunctional in many ways because it's not private it's still actually second petition so you can see this is kind of a very tiny space that that's being occupied by three and three separate individuals and this is just another angle of the of the wall even if folks were in the behind behind in the back of that room this is this that this is the men's bathroom they can see that they they try to make it eighty eight compliant in the way that it was a take the door off so so it's so it's actually it's got a just thing so it gets a little dicey sometimes when you want to use the bathroom just as the sink area where they were pretty pretty limited space a lot of things get stored on the neat there it's a very very limited area and this is just the hallways you can see how narrow the hallways are and typically these spaces are wider because  in a public space like that we have to accommodate folks who have a compliance or compliance issues so we try to make the space a little bit bigger but that's pretty narrow as it is and it's really that's the old old design of a building in the sixty's this is space for a copy or a mail space because we didn't we simply didn't have the space next slide please this is the front the front entrance way which is actually actually was really the back of the building that leads into the parking lot and you came in a wheelchair that would be difficult for them to actually be service at the county and again this is a new shows the narrow doorways that we have that don't allow people to go in and properly and it sort of limits the ability to access access to many of these offices i guess showing the cramped conditions in this particular area we actually house three three people in this area including the animal control officer which is which is actually behind those cabinets so you can see that's really not adequate space for that and then and then on the other side is the assistant is president and the doorway leads into the the actual building commissioner's office but you can see this be a very limited space in there lot a lot of lot of file cabinets this is the downstairs planning area plan area of actually i should say which is downstairs in the basement and all this the downstairs actually used now is really storage area and his area the where in the process of actually cleaning up a lot of these records so what they're actually going to try and try to address some of those records issues you can a condition well it's not there's no vents you can see in the ceiling areas those are those are only eight foot ceilings in the in many cases and so as a result if you try and cover those it's going to be even lower if you try to cover those why is it's going to be  you can see that the stairway is leading off the back it's actually leads into my office on the right hand side but you can see the stairways and there is no elevator in the building so as a result that's going to have to be addressed and this is actually in the outside select health hazards while this is so yeah those are concerns to us i mean we're certainly certainly very concerned about that but so far we've not been up in the time that we had to evacuate the building but we're trying to get a point we don't have to do that be forced to do that you can see the water conditions continue to that this is actually the treasurer's office which is across the hall so it's and it's on both sides of the building so if you can see that's really being a problem and you see the windows the windows aside the right around the edges as well they're into it when we when we build the new building and that is the recommendation by the way of the of the working group is the bill in new building so we want to recapture because we do like that i mean a lot of us like that so there's no there's no issue with that particular concern and this is the back of the building position that has been taken is that we've done some things but we haven't spent what we don't want to spend a lot of money because especially if either renovation or knew we would have we would spend some significant money on the building but i want to be clear though that th working group is recommending a new building there are just too many things that have to be addressed in this existing building for it to really make sense and it's been it's been it's been said by one of our members of the  seven million why would we want to destroy that and it's like is it worth one point while the shell of a building is that really worth one point seven and that's just that's the rate major question here was likely because i would none of us really have reached that conclusion because in the end if you if you're able other than this one person so if you wanted to do it you saw how the water is getting behind the brick and the in the walls inside so you want to you have to really wonder is there further damage beyond  that and you wouldn't be able to do it unless you actually took apart the lot of the facade that's actually on the building so if the end of the day we keep asking ourselves what are you really going to save you right and i think that's that's really the bottom line so we believe in the working group successful one is that this is the most responsible way to spend the taxpayers dollars and that's really what it comes down to is that at the end of the day and i i was to check the guy here because i had no knowledge of this process at all up to the first day i walked in the office and i looked at this project i've been involved in many different building products in the course of my career is i look at this building in i talk to other experts in the industry they all say the same thing what is it that you want to save and what's the redeeming value want to save in this building yeah that it's true that that you know you can renovate major federal buildings you know state buildings buildings that have some historic significance bill with certain materials such as model of granite or have mahogany finishes inside you would definitely want to save those because it's because you can't replace that today i mean it would be just cost prohibitive to do that right so i think really the point that we want to drive home only you know if he was we look at this building there's nothing really that's redeemable that there's no there's no particular types of significant materials that were there were put into this building initially that wouldn't that would lead us to the letelier going to direction of renovating and as you say the out the outside of the building is attractive and i know that when this question came up mom for town meeting a couple of town meetings ago there was an artist rendering of the new town hall and that some senior said to time modernize it to the point where we can address it within it with an elevator with with all the structural requirements that are built on that required under the new state building new state building codes and and have it have a novel up that is much more energy costs and i know there's a big debate about renovating versus re you know building a new building is there a cost involved if people had to be moved out of town hall to a different space for renovation i mean does is that a significant cost well we the only thing that we can estimate in the working group is made up of you know fourteen or fifteen folks who with varying backgrounds ones who who you know academics engineers plan is building trades folks so people that really know buildings and also folks have been involved in previous projects in this town and they can only go by what was the most recent project which was a library  think the back it was like night ten thousand dollars but but the space requirements for a town hall would run somewhere anywhere about thirty two thousand thirty to thirty five thousand dollars based on the most recent estimate that was in from the from the leasing estimate that we looked at and it's the cost per square foot to lease space so by doing that if you if you calculate the you know and we used an estimate of fifteen five years as a building requirement we might maybe it's a little bit less maybe it's a little bit more depending upon the parking lot directly behind the existing building and that way we can stay in the building while it's being constructed parking will be a little bit of a challenge we know that but we'll try to figure out that and work with an architect or an engineer that figure that out but i think  disruptive to a degree a construction typically is but i have to give the employees kudos here because they put up with a lot over the past several years with the conditions that are there and that's not self serving i mean it's so so yeah and i really do think that that they will be fine with that in there because they've been very cooperative up to this point i don't see that changing at all i think folks will be will truly be repression of the fact that they're getting something something new one of the other it wasn't the right way to go and here's the fundamental reason why it doesn't work is the fact that we don't own the land underneath it and we don't own the building itself and in leasing something you're always paying sort of  capital cost into that process and you know i think that if we could if we could do it if more people would do it if it was if it made sense what people would do it right a lot of people don't do it right and that's th e fundamental difference here is that we don't own the land and we have we did our analysis of all the different options we looked at the many many folks that we did we looked at pace and road is whether that be an option to build  with what we understand today and i think that's probably true because once we that decision was made and there were another word about it so if it was really wrong decision i'm sure we would have heard about it so we but we haven't heard about it so i think that's that really speaks well speaks well of that  town hall is the hub of the community it's here kind of gateway to a town where do you want to be in a commercial building that's right that's a trick question i can tell you know i think that you know i've actually had experience in those areas in my most recent job where  out have not have regretted it later it's also has worked in some areas so i can't you know you can't have the same both ways but i think generally speaking if you were to ask most people they'll say geez i kind of like the idea where it's worse look at  so when we have town meeting in november what is it we're really being asked to vote for or against it well the answer is that we're asking folks to support building and they will also pay for at the same time in that same amount of money to pay for what is known as an overall project manager of the of the short term is o p m and that's required to understand the state laws when you build a capital of a structure anything over a hundred thousand dollars i believe or four million dollars i assure that point but it requires that you have to have a project manager for that project so we're going to deal with that meeting and we don't know what th about thirteen folks that are really serious about this so that's a good sign that's a gets a good number and the number of folks looking at this and then the o p m process is in addition to that as well but they'll all be one amount of money for this project and that's  that's an amount that we'll ask for so we did present to the to the ad com the other night the advisory committee and got a pretty favorable response we did they haven't voted on it yet but  generally speaking i think there was a lot of support for for the for the work that we've been doing so these soft costs are really to help us determine what the plan will be what the real the true costs will be yes based on the square feet and the t we traditionally done in this town what i'm told pete people said that we you know we've actually taken one number and got the timing and said ok well for this entire project we've done it differently this time in and i think it was actually done one a year ago when they asked for this money as well but what happened is that we've broken that out because by doing it this way it gives it gives the voting public they understand what it cost to design the building and  project well it's true be can have it both ways i mean if you want want that information broken out you have to you have to be able to accept the fact that this is this is how we've done it to try to provide more information and more and more openness towards the process so shying away from that the thing that makes sense to me though financially is you know and this is something as a manager i can advocate for is that you never want to borrow for something you can pay for right because you're paying for the additional interest cost and everything else that goes with that  the capital project absolutely you really should draw for that because that's a that's a much bigger impact on your budget and your operating skill i would try to pay for that within the existing ability of the ta the paper without going to a two and a half over we're trying to pay for the entire project with an existing revenues or existing within the ability to pay with an existing tax structure so as opposed to adding for asking for additional capacity so i think that's that's our goal we're trying really hard to do that  i've got an excellent group of folks that work on this committee any and even even those who disagree on the committee i think it's very very important to have that disagreement because we have that debate and i've said this in other forums so it keeps me balanced in terms of how understanding the issues and why people feel so strongly about certain issues and so so that once i know that we can then chart or course accordingly it in the day we have to we have to come up with a decision and we have done that a  recommendation that you know they were for a very comfortable with but i think you know the process has been a very very good process and it's been very helpful to me as a new person on the on the book well and you know i just have to tell you how much i appreciate how open you are about you can you have coffee and conversation at the senior center regularly and going to be a speaker at breakfast and i think that you've you know done due diligence to try to get a lot of to be available to people and to be able to answer questions and i know the last time that you were at the senior center people were saying this was the best meeting i just found out i just felt like i learned so much just coming this because they can have their own questions they should so thank you well they're all knowing respect for the scene as i'm getting there myself by the way i've got my working and working towards that goal but but but quite honestly i've enjoyed immensely working with the c s a people have been very very good and they give me a lot of good insight because the history of knowing the history between is important  how we can charter a future right and it's really important that we understand and don't forget the past as some other that we build off of that as opposed to just dismiss it ok did you have anything else you wanted to say about the project or you think we i think we've pretty much covered mary beth but who will be starting on monday monday october sixth and just a terrific gal and i'm really really looking forward to her her level the expertise that she brings to our organization with respect to hiv issues as well as