After weeks of debate, the selectmen finally appointed a volunteer advisory group this week to oversee the hiring of two key professionals who will work with the town to create designs for the renovation of Town Hall and Hildreth House, a major project approved by voters in April that will cost the town at least $1.5 million before it is complete. Board of Selectmen (BOS) Chairwoman Marie Sobalvarro also appointed herself and selectman Ron Ricci to serve as BOS liaisons to the new committee. But the discussion that preceded the board’s action was contentious. Members disagreed over the extent to which a “statement of intent” read to voters at Town Meeting should bind the work of the committee. Members also disagreed over the committee’s scope of work and whether candidates who did not support the statement of intent should be appointed.
—Selectman Tim Clark
But in the end, in a series of 3-2 votes, the selectmen created a seven-member Advisory Committee to the Board of Selectmen (ACBS)—two more members than originally planned—and appointed all seven of the candidates who were present to serve a term yet to be specified. The committee’s immediate task is to write a request for services (RFS), a bid document, for a qualified Owner’s Project Manager (OPM) and one or more architect-engineers (A/E) who will manage the creation of schematic designs for Town Hall and Hildreth House. The committee will also screen and recommend candidates for those positions, a process that is expected to last until October.
Two selectmen, Ricci and Bill Johnson, lobbied to restrict the new committee’s work to only the job of writing the RFS and recommending a finalist to the BOS, which they say (and unapproved minutes confirm) is the scope the BOS voted for at its May 17 meeting. Though a majority voted down that restriction, the BOS still needs to decide whether the newly appointed committee will remain in place, be disbanded or join one or more follow-on committees to oversee the creation of schematic designs once they have recommended a project manager and architects to the BOS. In its final report, the outgoing MBC recommended that a single committee choose and work with the OPM and A/E “from cradle to grave.”
Selectmen Tim Clark and Peter Warren argued Tuesday that the just-formed advisory group includes some of the most qualified and experienced architects, engineers, and builders in town, whose experience in renovating schools, town halls, senior centers and other civic buildings—in Harvard and elsewhere—is unmatched. “It’s a superb group,” said Clark. “The best thing the selectmen can do is get out of their way.”
Allegiance to the statement of intent: A ‘litmus test?’
During time set aside for the selectmen to question committee candidates, Ricci and Johnson insisted that each candidate state whether he would agree to work within the constraints of the “statement of intent.” That statement first appeared the morning of Annual Town Meeting, where it was read to voters by then-BOS chairman Warren after a majority of the selectmen and members the Capital (CPIC) and Finance (FinComm) committees endorsed it prior to the call to order by Moderator Bob Eubank. Clark said the question amounted to a “litmus test”; Ricci said it was important and was his prerogative to ask. Johnson agreed. So, each of the seven candidates walked to the Town Hall meeting room microphone to answer the question. Pete Jackson answered “no” and Ron Ostberg gave a nuanced answer that did not satisfy either Ricci or Johnson; all of the other candidates answered that that they could work within the guidelines of the statement of intent.
“That’s what architects do,” said former MBC co-chairman Doug Coots. “They listen to their clients.” Once the town has hired the right OPM and A/E, he said, “You will get exactly what you want.”
As for the force of the statement of intent, Ricci and Johnson insist that Town Meeting voters passed Article 17 with near unanimity only because of the limitations it set forth. Article 17 authorizes the expenditure of $185,000 for schematic designs for Town Hall and Hildreth House, but does not specify how the work is to be done. In the opinion of Ricci, Johnson, and others, the statement is an integral part of Article 17. While it does restrict the kinds of schematic designs that can be developed, Clark and others say the statement only expresses the wishes of the BOS, FinCom and CPIC, and is not formally a part of Article 17 (see the Harvard Press, April 8, for the statement of intent as well as the final version of Article 17). Moreover, argues Clark, the statement of intent was developed behind closed doors, revised at the last moment, and was seen by BOS, CPIC, and FinCom members only 30 minutes before the start of Town Meeting. The public did not get a chance to hear the statement until it was read, along with Article 17, to Town Meeting attendees later that morning and no copies were made available. In his answer to Ricci, Pete Jackson said he doubted that more than a handful of voters were aware of its content.
In the absence of a legal opinion on the matter, there seems no immediate way to resolve the dispute. The Press was unable to locate the minutes of this year’s Town Meeting to see how the vote was recorded for the benefit of the state Attorney General’s office, and with Town Clerk Janet Vellante away at a conference, Town Hall staff was not able to immediately produce a hard copy for review.
A split decision
The final vote to appoint the committee was 3-2, with Sobalvarro, Clark, and Warren in favor and Ricci and Johnson opposed. Johnson told the Press that he and Ricci voted against the motion because they opposed the appointment of Ostberg and Jackson, who had failed to affirm their support for the statement of intent. “Ron’s and my ‘nay’ votes reflected deep concern over the two candidates who rejected the statement of intent approved at Town Meeting,” Johnson told the Press in an e-mail. “However, I intend to respect the 3-2 decision and not undermine it.”
The members of the advisory committee are:
- Mark Cooper, an architect and designer who served on the Westford School Building Committee before moving to Harvard
- Doug Coots, an architect and co-chairman of the Municipal Buildings Committee for the past two years
- Chris Cutler, a Harvard-based residential builder
- Wade Holzman, a construction project manager, local entrepreneur, and a member of the Town Center Sewer Building Committee
- Pete Jackson, a civil engineer, a former member of the town library building committee, and also a member of the Municipal Buildings Committee for the past two years
- Ron Ostberg, an architect and co-chairman of the Municipal Building Committee since its creation
- Lou Russo, a developer, who was the contractor for the recent renovation of Westford Town Hall and its new addition.
An eighth candidate, Maggie Green, volunteered to serve on the committee, but was unable to attend and was thus disqualified from selection.
Although it was on the Tuesday agenda, the BOS decided not to craft a final charge that night for the committee that will ultimately have oversight of the development of Town Hall and Hildreth House renovation designs once an OPM and A/Es are selected. Peter Warren and Marie Sobalvarro had prepared drafts for discussion, but neither was distributed in time for the meeting. The selectmen will return to that issue later this summer, when they will also have to decide whether to assign that ongoing role to the advisory committee or to create a brand new body to handle the job.
