Borough Hall Facilities Committee
August 24, 2007 minutes
Borough Hall Meeting room. Webb, McWilliams, Tovo, Urankar, Emr and Shaw
Meeting called to order at 8:30am
I. Minutes of August 10, 2007 meeting approved
-A discussion followed about choosing a secretary and chair and it was decided that Richard Urankar would chair the committee and Doug McWilliams will act as secretary.
II. -Steve Shaw presented a summary (attached) of what he learned so far about
standards and guidelines for specific building type use criteria. He met with an engineer and was referred to a book TIME SAVER STANDARDS FOR BUILDING TYPES which was quite enlightening. More study and detail to follow at our next meeting.
-He also presented a brief outline of a history of the borough’s building past, present and future in a Question and Answer format. It was suggested that the first statement really sums up our mission. We agreed to fine tune this piece and put it on a web site that we will develop.
It was suggested we focus on the big picture and not get too bogged down in the small stuff. That small stuff can take up all our time and keep us from making real progress. It was further agreed that we need to clearly identify several major issues pertaining to space, parking, and utilization. Here we agreed to concentrate on need for safety, confidentiality, privacy and storage (records on site now only go back 2 years) as they pertain not only to employees but also the public. We also agreed that we don’t need to hire a professional to tell us where our needs are.
-Ellen was continuing to pull together history and research on past efforts to provide an adequate and safe work place for all the town departments that might be part of borough hall. She has taken pictures to support our concern and suggests we use some on the web site to be developed. She presented a draft of a site outline to get us started.
-She also made suggestions about what other groups and individuals we might want to include in our process. All agreed that the Board of Education, the Planning Board and the HPC all should be involved early in the process and be invited to meetings in the near future and forward. Also, the League of Women Voters was discussed as another inclusion. Discussion on including the public more in our meetings led to the suggestion that maybe by November, we will be organized enough to start doing that.
III. Gary Webb produced a proposed timeline (attached) which we all
Agreed made sense but initially thought the proposed completion date seemed drawn out. However, with the various time restraints on planning, presenting, bidding, etc. we all agreed it was realistic. More work will be needed on the timeline while the committee work progresses. We also agreed that our mission needs to be clear as there may be changes in our membership over the timeline as we see it and the work must continue.
IV. Committee administration and jobs assigned go as follows:
Richard Urankar-Chair, committee spokesperson, Council member will;
-speak to HPC, planning Board and Board Of Education about
inclusion in meetings
-create an agenda for each meeting and structure session to1 & ˝ hours
-coordinate all public communications, including our web sight
Doug McWilliams-Secretary, Fire Department liaison will;
-produce minutes in short time for distribution and correction
-keep Fire Department informed and bring to the committee their
concerns and questions
Bob Tovo-Police Department liaison will;
-continue to work with members on completing a facilities options
list to help us focus on reasonable directions to study. The
first draft of this list will be ready for discussion by the next
meeting & include advantages & disadvantages of each option
-continue to keep the police informed and seek their input
-also continue to offer insights on the history of this subject
Ellen Emr-Council member will;
-continue to develop history and condense this information for our
website and other communications
-work with the chair, and other members as needed, to make a
clear and useful web site for posting our work
Steve Shaw-Council member, council liaison will;
-continue to work on design standards and user space needs as they
apply to our facilities.
-estimate the construction costs of the various options identified by
the committee for consideration
Gary Webb-town administrator, timeline coordinator will
-continue to fine tune our timeline and manage the process
All members will help with other committee needs/projects as requested
V. Communications issue
-Public Web site, letters from the mayor and others in Home &
School, newspaper coverage, continued work on our Q&A
format, advertised public meetings specific to public
presentation and public input
-Council Information will be given to them as developed through
the chair, along with regular updates at Council meetings and
inclusion in public presentations
-Facility users All liaisons will report to their prospective
departments and solicit input as needed. Also, non represented
departments and interested committees will be invited to sit in
on future meetings including HPC, BOE, Planning, LWV, etc.