Harvard voters will soon have a chance to speak their minds on the selectmen’s plan for the renovation of Town Hall.
The Board of Selectmen voted unanimously Tuesday night to sign an amended contract with LLB Architects of Rhode Island to produce a detailed design for their so-called Plan 1B, but at the urging of Selectman Ron Ricci, they added a promise to take the plan to Special Town Meeting before moving ahead to produce bid documents.
Plan 1B is a design developed and approved by the selectmen that restores the deteriorating exterior of the building, moves town offices to the first floor (although the selectmen have left open the option to use some space on the second floor), adds meeting space and a “volunteers room” on floor two, preserves some semblance of a stage, and includes second floor bathrooms and a wheelchair lift.
Selectman Leo Blair reported that LLB Architects had said that they would be able to complete detailed design documents by mid-October at a cost of $63,000. The board agreed, after some discussion, that those documents should be presented to the town at STM before taking any further action.
But the purpose of the STM is unclear. During their discussion, the Selectmen proposed language that ranged from “getting public input” to “leaving it up to the voters.” Whatever the wording, according to Blair, the result of the STM would be either to execute Plan 1B or to go back to square one.
While the board agreed that some sort of reality check with the voters was necessary, Selectwoman Lucy Wallace didn’t think the board needed to wait for an STM before proceeding. She said she was concerned that waiting to hold a meeting would delay the process too long for a spring construction start date, and she proposed holding informational meetings with the public instead. Blair pointed out that sending the project out to bid by mid-winter would be ideal because contractors are typically hungry for work at that time of year. But he and Selectmen Ron Ricci and Stu Sklar all felt that STM was necessary because, as Blair put it, “It’s been such a divisive issue, and people think we’re not listening.”
A push to begin detailed design
Eager to proceed, Wallace moved that the board authorize Chairman Sklar to sign the LLB contract and begin the detailed design phase. Selectman Ron Ricci, who was concerned about going too far down the path to construction before checking in with the voters, added an amendment to spend no more than $63,000 before asking Special Town Meeting if the project should proceed.
After considerable debate about the dangers of “tying their hands” while waiting for an STM, Wallace’s motion was dropped and then restated by Leo Blair. The final motion was to “authorize the chair to sign the contract with LLB, and to authorize the architect to spend up to $63,000 for detailed design documents, but to suspend any further expenditure at that point until such time as we [the Board of Selectmen] convene a Special Town Meeting to seek input from the voters, to occur not later than October 31.”
The motion was seconded by Ron Ricci and passed unanimously, although Wallace said she cast her vote in favor “reluctantly.”
