At 8 a.m. on June 6, opening day for the newly renovated Town Hall, Town Clerk Janet Vellante had to tell residents arriving for a meeting, “We don’t have a certificate of occupancy yet.” The meeting was eventually allowed to go on as scheduled, and employees were working, but the building did not open for business that day. Phones worked intermittently, and electricity was not available at every outlet in employees’ offices. When the building finally opened around 9:30 a.m. the next day, some glitches were still evident on the first floor, where all employees are now located. But by Tuesday afternoon, most employees had settled in well enough to start tackling the backlog of work created by the move that lasted almost two weeks.
The first thing visitors to Town Hall will note is a new entrance walkway.
(Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)
According to Town Administrator Tim Bragan, the certificate of occupancy was delayed because the state fire marshal was late getting his review of the building’s fire safety systems to the town. That review arrived late Monday afternoon, and it contained 28 issues regarding the sprinklers, which all need to be resolved before the occupancy certificate can be issued. Some of the items are small, such as missing documentation, while others are more significant. Bragan said that none of the items on the list affects public safety, and the building inspector has issued a temporary certificate of occupancy in the meantime.
Phones are back up
Phones are up and running now, and electrical problems have also been fixed, but air conditioning in the front half of the building is not operating. Bragan also reported to the Board of Selectmen at its June 7 meeting that the computerized door locks were not yet working, as residents, members of the Water and Sewer Commission, and this reporter discovered at 9 a.m. Wednesday morning. Luckily, one of the new windows on the first floor was open, and Assistant Town Clerk Jared Aponte answered an old-fashioned holler to open the door.
The custom-made counters for the reception area are still being built by local carpenter Whit Sprague. Bragan said that Sprague’s work was delayed because he could not begin until the general contractor, GVW Inc., vacated the building in mid-May. And GVW continues to work on the “punch list,” items that must be completed before the contractor can receive final payment.
HB Communications, which installed new sound and broadcasting equipment in upper Town Hall, also has more work to do. Community Cable Access Committee Chairman Bill Johnson said that Tuesday night’s broadcast of the selectmen’s meeting was hampered by a problem with the broadcasting equipment that caused it to continually reboot. About 20 minutes into the meeting, Station Manager Anya Zulawnik was able to start the broadcast using a workaround provided over the phone by HB staff. HB is looking into the problem.
While the finished upper Town Hall is spacious, hearing people speak in it can be a challenge.
Praise for new broadcast system
Johnson praised Zulawnik for her ability to get the broadcast going. “We’re working with all new equipment that is architecturally very different from what we had before,” said Johnson. “Our old equipment was analog and standard definition. This equipment is all digital and high definition. And we’re using a brand-new fiber-optic link that connects to Bromfield, where the broadcast goes out.” Johnson said that the link was just installed last Friday, and that, except for a training session, the first time that cable personnel had a chance to try the equipment was Tuesday afternoon, just hours before the selectmen’s meeting broadcast was to begin.
Sound problems in the large meeting room abound. Hearing meeting members from the audience area is hampered by noise from Ayer Road traffic when the windows are open, footsteps on the creaky stairs, or even rustling of papers in the audience, since every sound is amplified in the high-ceilinged room. The sound of voices is highly directional, though, and if microphones are not in use, only speakers facing the audience are heard clearly, a problem that this reporter can attest to after attending two meetings where microphones were not used in the large meeting room.
When the new $2,000 wireless micrphones were used for the first time at Tuesday night’s selectmen’s meeting, the mics were placed too far away from the selectmen to pick up their voices, a fact that Bragan pointed out nearly 50 minutes into the meeting after a complaint during public communication. But even when the microphones were moved closer to the selectmen, not every member’s voice could be clearly understood, although Johnson said that all the voices were clear in the meeting broadcast.
Zulawnik said that the lack of clarity from the microphones has a lot to do with the acoustic challenges of the large open room, and that HB plans to calibrate the microphones to improve clarity later this week. Johnson also said that some pieces for the wireless microphones are still missing, so cable staff had to use a mix of old and new parts to get the microphones working in time for the Tuesday night broadcast, possibly hampering their functionality.
The countertops in the main room won’t be installed for several weeks.
The cubicles are up and ready to go, though the main room’s air conditioning is not yet functioning properly.
