Last week I wrote that I favored choice. At Thursday’s public forum, we saw a choice and I thank the Municipal Building Committee for their work in providing that. I thank selectmen Ron Ricci and Bill Johnson, the Finance Committee, and the Capital Planning and Investment Committee for pushing for a cost-effective design. Fiscal conservatism is not a guise. It’s a reality. We’ve been running on a flat budget for three years now and we have millions of dollars of capital projects to fund over the coming five years. It’s important that we don’t get carried away with our spending and it’s a good thing that we have checks and balances to keep us on track.
So while it may have cost us a couple of extra weeks of work and debate, I think it was the right thing to do to further analyze a design alternative that would permanently divide up the upper Town Hall. The majority of the town is not actively engaging in the meetings and because they are the ones who will be voting at the polls to fund the project, it’s important that all of them—whether they want the performance hall or not—know that the people representing them explored all options and presented the best return on investment to the town.
I’d also like to say that while my initial thinking on this was that we needed more meeting space, not a big hall, based on the new designs that have been presented, I feel comfortable that we have enough meeting space and that there is a strong community benefit of restoring upper hall. Now we need to turn our attention to making sure we make good choices in our detailed designs and building process to get the best building for the best price.
Lori Granville
Bolton Road
