Three weeks ago in the Harvard Press, Willie Wickman, chair of the Pilot Project Working Group, asserted that the Board of Selectmen’s April 17 decision to relocate town government to the old library during Town Hall renovation was too hasty and without “regard for community impact.”
I respectfully disagree.
—Bill Johnson, selectman
The process and timetable for making this decision was jointly set five months ago by Ms. Wickman, Board of Selectmen chair Marie Sobalvarro, Town Administrator Tim Bragan, and me, in a December meeting where (from meeting minutes reviewed and approved by all participants):
- The four of us jointly agreed that timely resolution of the Town Hall relocation issue is “a critical decision for Pilot Project planning!!!”
- The four of us developed a collaborative action plan to “pick [a] relocation option to be included in [the] Town Hall renovation proposal to Town Meeting.”
Hardly a hasty non-inclusionary process as Ms. Wickman claims.
And the April 17 discussion and decision was all about community impact. Let’s review this impact objectively.
First of all let’s agree on the common-sense notion that Town Hall offices need to stay co-located in town for efficient and effective governance:
- Town Hall serves and services every resident in Harvard, whether it’s taxes, permits, voter registration, notary, dog licenses, Board of Health, building inspector, general questions, or specific complaints. It also services outside visitors to our town.
- Most importantly, Town Hall coordinates and integrates the in-town activities of all town departments, including Police Department, Fire Department, and Department of Public Works. The finance director serves both the town and the schools, shuttling constantly back and forth between Town Hall offices and the Bromfield House. The building inspector and town land agent are constantly conducting inspections within the town borders.
- Moving this function out of Town Center and into Devens would significantly impact the effectiveness of town government to manage daily operations, and immeasurably inconvenience town employees and a broad spectrum of the residents who would now add a 30- to 40-minute round trip to Devens for each town government visit.
There is also a real dollar cost to taxpayers to relocate town government to rental space in Devens, above and beyond the efficiency and convenience costs outlined above:
- According to the comparative cost estimates assembled by the Town Administrator Tim Bragan, relocation to Devens would cost the taxpayers $94,704 to $107,904 (depending on whether town meeting space was included in the rental), versus $51,410 if the old library was utilized.
- Only $60,000 was budgeted for relocation in the Town Hall renovation project approved last week. If, as some selectmen contend, there is sufficient “fat” in the project to pay the differential, it begs the question as to how much “fat” there is in total, and whether any excess will ever be returned to the taxpayer.
- And while some selectmen also contend this $43,000 to $57,000 difference in taxpayer cost is “negligible” in the context of the total $3.97 million price tag for Town Hall renovation, $57,000 is significant in the context of other cost trade-offs we make in town. It could pay for two future police vehicles, or for our much-needed town planner, or for resurfacing of the Hildreth Elementary School roadways, or for 50 computers for the Bromfield language labs, or for…
The Pilot Project, while not a municipal function, also provides a useful service to residents of the town, albeit a much smaller cross-section. If only the focus of the Pilot Project was more on the rich collection of programs it attracts and coordinates, than on the building it occupies, it would open some viable options to keep and grow the program within Town Center:
- While the individual program offerings want the synergistic benefits of co-location within a single facility, they are not dependent on it. In other words, these programs could be spread out over several buildings and still succeed individually.
- We have many other underutilized community spaces in town center: large group meeting areas in each of our three churches, unused classrooms in our schools, Volunteers Hall in our new library. While any one space cannot handle all the Pilot Project programs, collectively, they offer more available space than currently available in the old library.
- Utilizing these available spaces would just shift the scheduling focus from multiple rooms in one building, to multiple rooms in several buildings – all within walking distance of the old library and each other. Sure, there may be scheduling conflicts from time to time that will inconvenience the individual program providers and their clients, but that has far less overall community impact than moving town government out of the town for one to two years.
- If the Pilot Project leaders and participants feel so strongly about the value of co-location, they can decide to rent the communal space they think they need anywhere they choose. But the cost of that rental would be and should be borne by the subset of residents that avail themselves of these services, not on the shoulders of the general taxpayer.
It is the Board of Selectmen’s responsibility to ensure the delivery of town government services at the lowest cost and greatest convenience to residents. Since Town Hall offices depend on co-location in town center for efficient communication and coordination among the various departments, any breakdown of this synergy has vastly more negative impact to the town and its residents.
It is irresponsible to compromise town government services for all, in order to subsidize enrichment experiences for the fewer that can actually be accommodated in other underutilized community spaces. And that is what minimizing community impact is all about.
Let’s spend less energy arguing about a common-sense, well-considered decision to keep town government in town where it belongs, and spend more energy working together to find a creative solution to keep the Pilot Project growing within town center. I’ll help.
Bill Johnson, of Warren Avenue, is a member of the Board of Selectmen.
