News

Council's idea is Capital
Decides Library will expand into basement
By Elizabeth Prata

Gray-Faced with too many buildings and not enough money to maintain them, Monday night the Gray Town Council grappled with the reality that something has to give.

The Town owns 67,103 square feet of space, and the problem is not all of that is used. The Village Fire Barn is unused except for storage, the old Post Office is unused except for storage, the second floor of Stimson Hall is not used at all and the Hall itself only for meetings, Dry Mills Fire Station is barely used, and there were many other buildings that are now or soon will be presenting expensive capital repairs.

When a Council develops their budget they look at operating expenses, which is money that keeps what exists going, such as salaries and utilities. They also look at capital projects, which is setting aside money for current and future expenditures that will maintain, repair, or renovate buildings, vehicles, and bridges and roads. In Monday night's workshop, the Council reviewed the current reserves and future needs for Town-owned buildings, grounds, and vehicles, and said there's not enough money to fund them all.

Vice-Chair Andy Upham noted that the current capital requests presented by Manager Mitchell A. Berkowitz totaled 1.4 million dollars this year, and balanced against a 5 million dollar budget such as last year's, and combined with the taxpayers having to pay for the School Department bond that passed in November, it was too much. "That's a big piece of dough for a 5 million dollar budget," Mr. Upham said.

The Council began a long discussion on how to break the gridlock of the dilemma of which buildings to keep and which to release. The sticking points have been Pennell Institute and the old Post Office. Pennell is a 129 year old building owned by the School Administrative District 15 (SAD 15, Gray and New Gloucester) and one which the SAD wants to get rid of since they don't use it any more. Also, the Town asked the taxpayers to buy the old Post Office property next to current Town Offices in order to expand into the building and make the Town Office handicapped accessible with more room for the staff as well.

That was three years ago. Meanwhile, the Post Office has remained empty and no decision on how to dispose of Pennell had been solved, tied up as it is in legal issues because of a binding trust which complicates its disposal.

Library to stay put

One known and immediate capital renovation that has been requested of Council is from the Library. The Trustees presented the Council with a report based on the Cohen Report, a space needs assessment that outlined appropriate building use with projections of square foot per patron. The basement stands ready to renovate, and would almost double the Library's space that the Cohen Report states that it needs. The Trustees have requested of the Council that they be allowed to move into Pennell if and when the Town becomes proper owner of the building, or best of all, build a new Library.

"The Library is one of our most decent buildings," said Mr. Upham. He said that with all the capital needs coming forward, he could not see abandoning usable space that stands ready to use and more than fulfills the Library's stated space needs. The Council agreed, with Councilor Crane saying that "This is immediate space and would put them ahead." The Council decided to ask the Trustees to ask the GPLA to raise funds to renovate the basement. Capital funding from the Town would be provided to fix the sill, finish the space, and install an elevator. The rest would be up to the GPLA.

Oh no, how will they react?

Councilor John Welch worried about the reaction of the Trustees and the GPLA. The Gray Public Library Association is the fund-raising arm of the Gray Public Library, incorporated specifically with a "focus on raising contributions and making grants and otherwise contributing to and otherwise supporting the Library," according to their bylaws. They were incorporated as a tax exempt organization last March but have not raised money to date.

Their President, Ray Clark, who is also a Trustee and is also Editor of The Gray News, has been publicly bemoaning the GPLA's inability to raise money due to the fact that the Council had not decided whether the Library would be based at its current location or at Pennell, as has been proposed. Though their bylaws are address neutral, and specifically states that the GPLA is a fundraising support for the library, the GPLA has been dormant, except for weekly bad press against the Council.

It was the bad press that worried Mr. Welch, who said he was tired of it and said he has decided not to read any newspaper any more. He also wanted to meet privately with the Trustees and GPLA so that the Council could ask them gently what they thought of the Council's proposal.

Chair Gary Foster reminded Mr. Welch that there had been mudslinging, but that it has been coming from one direction. "Nevertheless, the GPLA exists, so we will inform them and the Trustees of our decision."

Berkowitz wants a meeting

Mr. Berkowitz said that the Council should bring the Trustees in and the GPLA to discuss the Council's proposal. Mr. Upham said that "Part of the regulatory quagmire is everyone kissing everyone's [butt] and not enough getting done. We appoint the Trustees, who are advisory, and I do not care what the GPLA thinks. What I care about is what's best for the entire town. It is immediate, usable space. Just do it."

Chair Gary Foster said that "It is our recommendation to renovate the basement as per the Cohen Report and as for the GPLA they are welcome to raise funds as per their bylaws and we hope and recommend that they do."

It was decided that the Chair would speak with the Trustees and inform them of the Council's decision, gently. They are also invited to the next televised Council meeting for airing of any Trustee concerns.

Other Capital News

The Council decided that it was more expensive to keep maintaining all the myriad scattered fleet of aging buildings than it was to look for land, build new, and have it be scalable. Councilor Welch objected to this idea, saying it would not be easy to reduce the fleet of buildings due to the political backlash.

Mr. Upham replied that he didn't have a political bone in his body and that he was thinking of what was best for the Town, not what was easy.
The Council decided to minimize next year's capital expenditures as a temporary hold until the Manager could deliver a departmental town-wide space needs plan. Mr. Berkowitz said that he would have that ready after the January 17 deadline of budget delivery. The Council will look at consolidation after the space needs study is provided and that next year's budget would begin the substantive capital development, incorporating the new ideas.

New ideas

The Council also noticed that several capital reserves were grossly overfunded, and several were grossly underfunded. The bridges program didn't have enough money it yet Public Works had over $300,000 reserved. The Council will re-allocate reserves to balance them out.

Councilor Skip Crane had attended a regionalization seminar last week and brought back information that indicates that the trend is for towns to partner with other towns or the County in their capital needs, such as sharing employees, vehicles, buildings. That is one direction the Council will be looking at in the near term.