With Town Hall renovations nearing completion, the spacious large meeting room on the second floor might set folks to hankering for a hoedown. But unless event holders are willing to pony up for a sound system, upper Town Hall musical performances will all be “unplugged.” The $11,000 sound system proposed by HB Communications and approved at the Feb. 2 selectmen’s meeting is designed to support meetings only, and there is currently no plan to configure the highly automated system for public use.
Assistant Town Administrator Marie Sobalvarro said in an interview that the town is planning on renting upper Town Hall for public events, but that the town’s understanding has always been that private fundraising would provide any support needed to host them. That includes a sound system.
According to Town Administrator Tim Bragan, HB Communications was told to design the sound system for meetings only. HB senior account executive Chad Pierce said in an interview that the only microphones in the proposal are 11 tabletop microphones and one handheld microphone, and all of the microphones will be programmed for the spoken word. Pierce also said that because the system will be so highly automated, the soundboard could not be used by the public unless HB opened a third-party interface. If the town requested it, that could be done, Pierce said, at no cost.
However, Sobalvarro said that the sound system is being installed in the telecommunications room in the back corner of upper Town Hall where the town’s servers will also be located, so public access to that room would pose a security risk. In addition to the security risk, said Bragan, when the telecommunications room is finished, it will contain more than $400,000 worth of equipment.
If the town allows the public to use the meeting microphones, speaking events could at least be amplified, provided that event holders were trained to use the system. Board of Selectmen Chairman Ron Ricci said in an email last week that the selectmen have started working on a written policy for public use of upper Town Hall, and he expects the policy to be completed before employees move back into the building.
