NOTES OF DECEMBER 2, 2015 RYE TOWN HALL COMMITTEE MEETING
Revision B – Provided by the Rye Civic League
Present from Committee (clockwise around the table): Selectman Craig Musselman, Ed Hayes, Selectman Joe Mills, John Loftus, Jeff Quinn, Chairman Paul Goldman, Bev Giblin, Tim Durkin, Karen Stewart, Ritchie White, Joe Tucker.
Town staff present in the audience: Town Administrator Michael Magnant, Town Finance Director Cyndi Gillespie.
Persons present from the public included: Victor Azzi, Mae Bradshaw, Lori Carbajal, Peter Crawford, Frank Drake, Lindsey Josephs, Mark Josephs.
Editor’s
note: For ease in finding particular
sections using the archived video and audio on Vimeo, the elapsed time is
indicated. Use the slider and the
elapsed time indicated at the bottom of the video window to fast forward to the
desired section. You may also click on the bold times in the video description
to step directly to a section. The video
is available at https://vimeo.com/147847779/
(part one) and https://vimeo.com/147837440/
(part two).
Summary
a.
Renovate the Town Hall
preserving historic features (11-1 vote).
b.
Renovate the Town Hall with no
regard to the historic features (9-2 vote).
c.
Tear down the Town Hall and
rebuild it on the current site (7-4 vote).
Part One:
Preliminary discussions and formulation of the five options
(1:30 elapsed)
Introductory remarks by Chairman Goldman.
(6:40 elapsed)
Member Tim Durkin passes out a document that
he wrote explaining why the Committee decided to exclude the Public Safety
Building and Trolley Barn (a.k.a. Old Police Station) from consideration.
(18:36 elapsed)
Member Karen Stewart argues that the survey
indicates that the community has rejected the option of a new building on a new
site and that that option, which would involve spending $500,000 for the land,
should be excluded.
(33:09
elapsed)
Selectman Musselman, referring to a
suggestion at the prior meeting that the existing Town Hall could be repurposed
as senior housing, states that Marty Chapman of the Housing Partnership was
contacted and is excited about the possibility.
He believes that it would be easier to raise funds for that than for an
expansion of the Parsonage Apartments.
Sale of these to the Housing Partnership is currently under
consideration by the Town, Selectman Musselman explained.
(78:38 elapsed)
Ray
Jarvis, speaking from the audience, states that the Committee has been wasting
its time as the parameters of the maximum dollar expenditure and the square
footage have not been nailed down. He
refers to the use of a figure of 663 square feet (sic) per person multiplied by
10 employees to arrive at an approximate estimate of the space need. Editor’s
note: Mr. Jarvis was apparently referring to a survey done by Town Finance
Director Cyndi Gillespie that arrived at 633 square feet per employee as the
average of a number of nearby towns. See: http://www.town.rye.nh.us/Pages/RyeNH_BComm/TownHall/comparisonoftownhalls.pdf. See also 2012 Warrant Article 27 (requiring
consideration of this data).
Part Two: Voting on the five
options
Editor’s note: This section is on a different video. See https://vimeo.com/147837440/. The elapsed times for this section are
relative to the start of this video.
Chairman Goldman enumerated the five options:
1. Renovate the existing Town Hall and preserve historic features.
2.
Renovate the existing Town Hall, but do not
preserve the historic features.
3.
Demolish the existing Town Hall and construct a
new building on the same footprint.
4.
Build an additional building on the Town Hall
parcel, but leave the existing building intact with its fate to be determined.
5.
Build a new building on a new site.
Selectman Musselman argued that there was no
benefit to including option two.
(8:55 elapsed)
Chairman Goldman stated that he would push
forward to see what the position of the Committee is. Frank Drake, speaking from the audience,
pointed out that the lot under consideration for Option Five is in the center
of town and that there would be a huge cost to maintain town services during
construction with some of the other options.
Mark Josephs, speaking from the audience expressed opposition to Option
Five as he lives near the parcel in question.
(17:32 elapsed)
Selectman Musselman pointed out that Option
One would cost a whole lot less than $4 million as it is a “whole lot less”
space than was included in the proposal rejected by voters in early 2015.
The vote in favor of
including Option One in the list for consideration by the architect was
unanimous, with the exception of Selectman Mills, who voted no.
The vote on Option Two
was 9-2, with Selectman Musselman and Member Bev Giblin voting against.
After the motion to
include Option Three in the list for consideration was made, Mae Bradshaw,
speaking from the audience, asked whether it mattered whether the citizens had
opposed the tear-down option in the survey results. Chairman Goldman responded that they were
trying to be complete by including it.
The vote on Option Three was 7-4, with Members Karen Stewart, Selectman
Musselman, Tim Durkin and Bev Giblin voting against.
No vote was taken on
Option Four as it had been included among the options in a vote at the prior
meeting.
Option Five was linked
to a specific parcel at 541 Washington Rd.
Editor’s note: This parcel is immediately north of the
Public Safety Building. Lindsey
Josephs, speaking from the audience, stated that the house had not been lived
in for six months. Mae Bradshaw, speaking from the audience,
asked whether the house, which is in the Historic District, would be torn down
if this option were to be ultimately selected.
The response was yes. Selectman Musselman
suggested that the Committee keep this option on the table. He asserted that all of the other options
have fatal flaws, and that he did not believe that the community would coalesce
behind any of them. Member Karen Stewart
enumerated various reasons why this was not a good option. Chairman Goldman acknowledged that this
option was not exactly within the boundary conditions of the survey, but argued
that it should remain as it is in the center of Town and would demonstrate that
the Committee exercised due diligence.
Member John Loftus provided a number of reasons why leaving the existing
Town Hall in place would be a bad idea.
(39:25 elapsed)
The vote on Option Five
was 8-2, with Members Bev Giblin and Karen Stewart voting no, and Member John
Loftus abstaining.
(41:34 elapsed)
Selectman Musselman
suggested that the contractors and others with building knowledge on the
Committee review the proposed scope of work for the architect.
(44:16 elapsed)
The motion to include
funding for a survey after the architect presents his results carried
unanimously except that Member Jeff Quinn voted no.
Member Jeff Quinn
argued for including the Recreation and Sewer Department administrative
functions in the Town Hall. After he was
informed that the Sewer Department was based in Rye Beach near their customers
in the Rye Beach and Jenness Beach Village Districts, Mr. Quinn pointed out
that, in 20 years the sewer may not be constrained to those areas. Selectman Musselman stated that this was a
“very expensive” topic for another day.
(54:18 elapsed)
A motion was made to include Selectman
Musselman, Members John Loftus, Ed Hayes and Joe Tucker on a subcommittee to
look at the architect’s scope of work. Selectman
Musselman indicated that, given the five options selected, it might not be
appropriate to require elevation and 3D models for all five options. The motion carried unanimously.
Selectman Mills raised the issue as to
whether the subcommittee would be subject to the right-to-know law. The discussion appeared to indicate that it
was not. Editor’s note: In fact it is
subject to right-to-know. See RSA
91-A:2, I (all meetings of a quorum of a “public body” must be open to the
public, with certain exceptions); RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) (subordinate bodies of
committees are considered to be public bodies).
Selectman Mills referring to a statement
made at the November 19, 2015 meeting of the Heritage Commission.
Editor’s note: See in particularly
the video of that meeting, accessible from the Town website, at 6:37:19
p.m. Selectman Mills asserted that,
based on statements made at the Heritage Commission meeting:
“You people right here are nothing. You’re lower than whale, you know what, in
the water, let me tell you that. Okay,
and Craig, turn your keys in to the Town Hall because you no longer own the
Town Hall. Okay. The Town owns it. You.
And I turned my keys in today and Priscilla’s got to turn hers in
because the statement made ‘you think you own the Town Hall.’”
Chairman Goldman then opened the meeting to public
recognition.
Public input (61:28 elapsed)
Mae
Bradshaw asked why after picking Option Five despite the survey results, the
Committee would not consider the Parsonage as a suitable site inasmuch as it is
about to be sold for one dollar. The
existing Town Hall could possibly be used for elder housing she asserted.
Selectman Musselman
responded that the Parsonage site, although difficult to ascertain as it is on
the same parcel as the Library, has 209 feet of frontage and is about 80 ft.
deep. That is 16,000 to 17,000 sq. ft.,
or about a third of an acre. The site at
541 Washington Rd. is 1.47 acres and another under consideration is 1.37
acres. He stated that he did not believe
that the Parsonage site was large enough.
Editor’s note: The
standard in section 500 of the Rye Zoning Ordinance is that there should be one
10 ft. by 18 foot parking space for each 300 sq. ft. of office space, which, if
followed, would mean 30 parking spaces if the building were 9000 sq. ft. A two story building of that size would
occupy a 4500 sq. ft. footprint and the parking 5400 sq. ft. Additional space would be required for
setbacks and aisles between the parking spaces and there are lot coverage
limitations. The space would be tight,
but it is not clear that a Town Hall and its parking would not fit if variances
for setbacks and lot coverage were obtained or the Town took advantage of its
right to be exempt from its own Zoning Ordinance.
Member Ritchie White stated that the
estimate associated with Option Five could be adjusted by the land cost to
arrive at the cost of Ms. Bradshaw’s proposal.
Mark Josephs asked
whether the Committee was more interested in new construction. Selectman Mills stated that the main thrust
was new construction. Selectman
Musselman stated that there was a sense among members of the Committee that the
cost of renovation would be higher.
Lori Carbajal stated
that she wanted to see something that would last, well-constructed and was willing as a
taxpayer to pay for that. However, she
noted that there was apparently additional cost associated with the Public
Safety Building to provide for the possibility of a second floor but it has now
been determined that that cannot be used for anything. Joe Tucker added that the word “deplorable”
is close to describing the situation at the Public Safety Building.
Lindsey Josephs pointed
out that the Public Safety Building, which occupies the site previously
occupied by a little fire station, became a giant building not in keeping with
the neighborhood. Now they are doing the
same thing again.
(72:26 elapsed)
Peter Crawford
expressed concern about the cost associated with the warrant article that was
to be written. The written comments in
the returned surveys indicate that people are getting tired of the Town Hall
being raised again and again. In 2012, a
$135,000 warrant article for an architect was voted down. The same may occur if the cost associated
with this warrant article if it is for $100,000, particularly as the square
footage has not been nailed down. He
referred to the earlier comment of Ray Jarvis and noted that Member Jeff Quinn
had also made such a statement. Member
Quinn interjected “absolutely.” Mr.
Crawford stated that the square footage should be 7500 sq. ft. since
Recreation, Sewer and a Great Hall are not to be included. Perhaps it should be 7000 sq. ft. if the
circulation associated with those is also deducted.
Mr. Crawford asked
whether the architect was going to be asked to start over with the space needs
determination. He stated that the
townspeople had thought that 10,500 sq. ft. had been agreed to when they voted
money for Town Hall in 2013. However,
the design ended up being 12,500 sq. ft. and almost twice the $2.1 million cost
estimated in 2013. The Committee had the
support of the Town at that point, but it was gradually lost over time due in
part to feature creep.
Member John Loftus
stated that there are three surveys on the square footage, the one by AG
Architects, the Committee, and by SMP.
He asserted that the 2012 Committee had not done a good job as it
appeared that they had simply reduced everything by 10-20 percent. Editor’s
note: The AG schematic (i.e. sample)
design, in 2011, was for approximately 15,000 sq. ft. The warrant article to continue the design
process based on that failed to pass in 2012.
Similarly, the SMP design, which resulted in a $4.1 million warrant
article was voted down in 2015. Neither
received even 40 percent of the vote.
Selectman Musselman
referred to a document that stated that the estimate would be based on the SMP
design with reductions for the absence of space for the Great Hall, Recreation
and Sewer. The space was reduced as much
as it could be in the SMP design.
Mr. Crawford stated
that this statement adds to his concern.
The SMP design was for 12,500 sq. ft.
Deducting for Recreation, Sewer and the Great Hall brings that to about
9500 sq. ft., perhaps a bit less if the associated circulation is also
deducted.
Member John Loftus
stated that he had arrived at a net square footage requirement of 6864 sq. ft.
and a gross requirement of 8923 sq. ft.
The meeting then
adjourned.