Since Jan. 27, when the Municipal Buildings Committee (MBC) first met with the Capital Planning and Investment Committee (CPIC), MBC has been seeking confirmation (and funding) for the first steps in renovation and expansion of town center buildings. With the warrant due to be finalized March 1, there is a major disconnect between what MBC recommends and what the Finance Committee (FinCom), and the newly constituted CPIC are prepared to support.
At the first meeting, without getting into details of the proposal, CPIC Chairman George McKenna decided to call a “quad board” meeting, including CPIC, FinCom, Board of Selectmen (BOS), and School Committee. He said that he did not believe CPIC alone could properly consider town needs and wants to determine whether to recommend funding.
Meeting a commitment to deliver its proposal 60 days before Town Meeting, MBC met with BOS Feb. 1 and gave summary recommendations, but the BOS deferred detail consideration to the Saturday, Feb. 5 “quad board” meeting.
At the “quad board,” Chairman McKenna called for 20 minutes of public comment (10 minutes for, 10 minutes against). Knowing that many board members had not reviewed proposal details, MBC Chairman Ron Ostberg offered to give an overview presentation before deliberation, but McKenna did not allow it, nor would he allow handouts to be distributed. After more than two hours of discussion, a yes-or-no vote was called on three “straw” warrant articles that were generated. The “straw” articles included giving voters a choice between expanding Hildreth House for Council on Aging use or upgrading the old library for senior and other community use. These choices did not follow from the MBC recommendation, but some members of the four boards expressed a preference for that approach, as being more aligned with what the town could afford.
In response to the comments at the “quad board” meeting, the MBC withdrew its request for “enabling work” funds. MBC’s recommendation seeks a single warrant article for $225,000 to fund the next level of design for Town Hall, with possibility (but not commitment) for expansion, and design for expansion of Hildreth House to continue to be the center for COA activities.
CPIC met the same day and voted not to support the MBC recommendation, but to ask BOS (via FinCom) to expand the single warrant to three warrants, along the lines of the “quad board” vote. In completing its work on the proposal, CPIC added money to the capital plan to fund the maintenance of Town Hall within its existing footprint and the improvements to the old library for COA use, essentially foreclosing, at least from a capital planning perspective, the full scope of the MBC recommendations.
Background
After more than a year of workshops, meetings, and forums, research by architects, civil and mechanical engineers and designers, the MBC published its final report on Feb. 8 on Harvard’s town website, including more than 300 pages of site and buildings analysis, program analysis, concepts for uses of the Town Hall, Hildreth house, and the old library, and the roads and green space around those buildings. The report includes supporting studies on real estate, funding sources, costs and analyses, and focuses on the alternatives for use of those buildings, the recommendations of the committee, and implementation planning. Based on that work, at its morning meeting on Feb. 11, the MBC voted unanimously to recommend a single comprehensive warrant article to Harvard’s Board of Selectmen (BOS) requesting $225,000 to be used for professional services to develop schematic designs for the next design phase in the renovation and expansion of Town Hall for town government offices, meeting space, and civic and community space, and for the renovation and expansion of the Hildreth House to continue as the center for senior life.
MBC Chairman Ron Ostberg said at the meeting that he wants “to present the work the committee has done to Harvard’s residents, not just other town committees.” He said, “We’ve had over a year of work, gotten a good grasp of the problems, have been prudent and judicious in our requests, and this committee believes firmly that the Council on Aging needs to be at Hildreth.” The committee voted unanimously to approve the proposed warrant article.
The single warrant article from the MBC, the FinCom advice, and the capital plan will all be directed to the BOS, which will convene on March 1 to finalize the form of the MBC warrant article(s).
