Emotions ran high at Monday’s joint meeting of the Council on Aging Board and the Hildreth House Improvement Committee, as Keith Cheveralls and Marie Sobalvarro from the Capital Planning and Investment Committee provided details on CPIC’s decision to recommend deferral of the $3.7 million renovation and expansion of Hildreth House.
“The constituent base is on a fixed income. You wouldn’t go to kids and tell them they’ve got to sell brownies to get their playground.”
—Lucy Wallace,
selectwoman
“Are we considered a luxury?” asked one board member. That question got to the heart of what many were feeling as Cheveralls and Sobalvarro explained the project rating system used by CPIC and how the Hildreth House project fell short. Toward the end of the HHIC and COA voted to submit a warrant article asking for funds for design development only, at a cost of up to $158,000. Additionally, the COA board voted to submit an article “To repair the Hildreth House parking lot for safety reasons.”
Cheveralls started the meeting by providing some context. He explained that CPIC is charged with presenting a position on each project that comes before them from the various boards. In order to do that, six questions for each project are scored one through five. The maximum score for a project is 30, but Cheveralls said he’s never seen that. The five members of the committee each fill out a rating sheet, and the scores are added to obtain the project’s numeric rating. This year, 23 projects were rated. The highest score was 80, and the lowest was 47. The threshold for recommendation this year was 67, and only 11 projects were rated 67 or higher. The Hildreth House project received a 65.
‘How do we get a higher number?’
HHIC member Ann Taylor asked, “How could we get a higher number?” Cheveralls responded that the factors that had a negative effect on his rating of the project were that the Board of Selectmen was not solidly behind it, and that he felt the risk of cost overrun was “quite high.” He also mentioned fundraising. “Had we seen a meaningful contribution already in the bank, that would have definitely swayed me,” said Cheveralls.
Sobalvarro explained the negative factors that affected the rating that she gave the project. “It would likely not pass, it would likely not have a detrimental impact to defer, and other funding would have helped,” said Sobalvarro.
Taylor questioned CPIC’s desire to see fundraising on this project but not on other town building projects, such as the DPW building. Sobalvarro answered that the criteria is different when “constituents are not identifiable, such as the DPW.” On projects where there are “identifiable constituents that you can tap,” the CPIC looks for fundraising.
But Board of Selectmen liaison Lucy Wallace disagreed with that assessment. “This constituent base is on a fixed income. You wouldn’t go to kids and tell them they’ve got to sell brownies to get their playground.” Members of the new Friends of the Council on Aging, the non-profit fundraising arm of COA, lamented that fundraising has been slow getting started. One reason is that without design plans, “they’re not in a position to show people what they’re buying,” said Wallace. She added, “Fundraising for the town library didn’t take off until there was a design to get people excited.”
Few signs of senior support, says Sobalvarro
Sobalvarro said that she also wasn’t hearing support for the project from town seniors. “I think it would be terrifically powerful to stand up and say, ‘I’m on a fixed income, and I’m willing to pay $150 more a year on my tax bill for this.’ To my ears, that hasn’t been out there.” That angered some board members. “The state says that 31 to 32 percent of all revenues that come into a town are from seniors, and they get less than 1.8 percent of that back in funding,” said COA Board Treasurer Bruce Dolimount. “We live in this town. I see money flowing all different ways, but we have to come begging. I don’t think the seniors should have to beg.”
“We’ve been paying our taxes for ump-teen years,” said COA Board Co-ChairwomanSue Guswa. She added that 24 percent of Harvard is over the age of 60, and by the year 2020, that figure will be over 30 percent. “The senior center is overcrowded, and it has accessibility and safety issues. How does a sense of urgency come into your calculations?”
Cheveralls said that safety figures highly in their evaluations. “If we can see a justification for safety for 100 percent of the project, that project will be done.” He added that if safety is an issue in one component, that could be split out; that could give CPIC room to suggest staging the project. HHIC member Richard Blinn brought up the possibility of detaching the site work as a separate project, which would include the driveway and the parking lot, both safety concerns. Wallace disagreed with that approach. “If we do the site work according to the plan, that’s a phased project,” said Wallace. Sobalvarro and Wallace agreed that there would be no assurance of funding for any additional phases.
Financial picture “dark”
Cheveralls said that the financial picture of the town over the next five years, painted by some as “dark,” weighed heavily on CPIC’s decisions to recommend deferral. He brought up the other town buildings that need attention, including Town Hall and the DPW building. “We’ve got to have some intelligent, tough conversations about not whether or not we should be doing these projects, but how can these projects be staged.”
COA Board Co-Chairwoman Pam Frederick asked, “How would you prioritize municipal building projects?” “We don’t know,” Cheveralls and Sobalvarro agreed. Cheveralls said, “We need your help. We need to bring everyone to the table and take the intensity of the competition out of the picture.”
“You have to be competitive,” said HHIC member Laura Andrews. “There’s a limited amount of money, and we’re competing for it.”
COA asks for design money
As the meeting came to a close, HHIC chairwoman and COA board member Connie Larrabee focused everyone’s attention on what the next step should be. Larrabee brought up the existing warrant article requesting funding for design development and construction and whether or not that article should be revised to ask for funding for design development only. A completed design would give the fundraising arm of COA something to show prospective donors and would also allow COA to apply for grants that might help cover some construction costs. A motion to revise the existing article to request funding for design development only was made and carried with a lone dissent. Member Ann Taylor wanted the article to include construction money as well.
Prior to the joint meeting, the COA board had already agreed to submit a separate article to the Town Warrant for repair of the existing parking lot for safety reasons.
