Borough Facilities Committee

November 30, 2007

8:30 AM; Borough Hall

Meeting starts at 8:35am

 

Members:  Borough Manager, Gary Webb; Police Chief Robert Tovo;  Former Fire Chief Doug McWilliams;  Councilwoman Ellen Emr;  Councilman Stephen Shaw;  Councilman Richard Urankar(chair), Board of Education Member Mark Cohen; Planning Board Member Joan Nix;

Absent: Historic Preservation Committee member, Pat Rusak and Board of Education Member, Mark Cohen.

 

Guests included residents Mary Rosseland and Fred Kanter

 

I.                    Approve minutes of November 7, 2007 meeting (McWilliams)    

 

II.                 It was noted that all Committee meetings are open to the public, yet rules regarding participation by non-members had yet to be specifically discussed and approved.  After a brief discussion, the Committee unanimously decided that the rules followed at Borough Council meetings would be used during our Committee meetings, with the exception that the chair could recognize non members for up to five minutes of comment at the chair’s discretion.  This means that each meeting will have a Public Session at the beginning and then an opportunity for public comment at the end if the chair thinks it is appropriate.

 

III.             Public comment:  Mary Rosseland, a Borough resident, commented that in her opinion, and she represented to speak on behalf of other residents as well, that the general public thought the Committee needed to have a non-affiliated ‘professional’ evaluate the buildings needs before commencing a building program.    She further stated that, in her opinion, most residents agreed that improvements and repairs needed to be made to Borough Hall to improve working conditions and bring the building up to code. 

 

IV.              Public Presentation Discussion                                                             

 

                  It was generally agreed that things went as expected with some helpful      

                  comments from the attendees, and critical comments as well.  Some members

      thought the Committee needed to find a better forum to answer the questions. 

      A panel discussion was suggested.  It was also suggested that more detail

      could have come out of our session and that we may now be in a position to

      bring in an expert to check our findings and help us move forward. 

 

Richard Urankar thought the presentation was useful and that he was encouraged by the comments.  He noted that no one spoke against repairing the existing building, nor the need to assure safety and security at Borough Hall.  The criticism he heard was in relation to adding workspace for employees, space for possibly unnecessary storage, and the possibility of missing opportunities of sharing services with neighbors.  He also noted that some members of the public were concerned that the presentation was an ‘insiders report’ generated by the building’s users, and that some residents thought we needed to bring a professional architect or space planner in to evaluate the Borough’s needs.

 

Stephen Shaw stated that he counted 37 people from the ‘public’ and noted that only three of those had strong negative comments.  Those three objections were, as he remembers, that the Committee should suspend our work and pursue shared services to eliminate the need to enlarge Borough Hall, that the Committee membership was user based and therefore bias, and that there were other options that were not given.

 

Joan Nix commented that she thought the chair’s explanations during the presentation were incorrect as they related to the committee supporting the need for 5200 additional square feet of office space for Borough Hall users, and that she thought adding space for Borough volunteers to do their work was a primary priority of the Committee and not a ‘tertiary’ priority as stated by the chair.  Joan went on to state that the Committee should look further at moving Borough Hall to Midvale Road to help create a ‘Town Center’ and that while she supported any new building to be done in the ‘building green spirit,’ she was not especially concerned about using ‘green materials’ in future construction.  Joan also voiced concern about the accuracy of the discussed ‘Timeline’ and the fact that the Planning Board had not met the last few months, not allowing her to bring comments from the Planning Board to the Committee before we issue our report. 

 

The chair acknowledged Joan’s concerns about his comments at the public presentation and noted that the comments she referred to were made during the Council comment portion of the meeting and he thought the record would show that the chair had stated that those were his opinion alone, and did not represent any other member of the Facilities Committee.  The chair further stated that if he had not made that clear he was sorry, and that he would never misrepresent the position of the Committee.  Regarding the priorities of the Committee, it was his impression from Committee discussions that the primary concerns of the Committee about Borough Hall were the building’s security and safety of the occupants, with storage issues and volunteer needs being tertiary.  He pointed out that the priorities exercise to be discussed next would show that his comments were correct.

 

Pat Rusak commented that the public does not understand that many records need to be stored in hard copy at Borough Hall, or in permanent storage, and that the comments about computerizing records retention from the public were inaccurate.  She further stated that we did not make that clear at the presentation and that we need to get that message out to the public. 

 

Chief Tovo thought the presentation was good, but the Committee needed to be careful about talking about needed square footage too soon.  In his opinion, exact square footage needed was not known at this time and representing that it is known could harm the Committee effort to move the study forward.

 

Doug McWilliams, speaking on behalf of the Fire Department, noted that the public comments about shared services as it relates to the Fire Department are mis-informed because the Fire Department is already doing everything possible in regard to ‘shared services’ through their mutual aid agreements with neighboring communities.  He thinks the Committee needs to be focused on establishing the ‘need’ of Borough Hall users and then ‘hand off’ the project to a new committee to move it to completion.

 

V.                 Results of Priorities Exercise                                                               

The results (attached) were interesting and may help in a rough and informal way, to understand the priorities of the Committee.  The priorities according to the exercise in a general way are Police safety and security,   followed by Facilities for the Fire Department, additional space for the Building department, general storage needs and space for volunteers.  Providing additional parking was the lowest Committee priority.   It was generally thought that a professional space planner or architect would be able to help design a space to meet those needs.   

 

The chair recognized Mary Rosseland, from the public, and she made the following suggestions and comments:

1 – the Committee should post answers to the public questions on the Borough Web Site

2 – While the Committee understands the issues, the public does not and we should try to get the information to the public

3 – the Committee should hire three ‘professionals’ to walk through the building and give us advise

4 – she believes it’s too soon for the committee to work with an architect to design a building and that we should focus on our needs assessment

5 – she suggested we visit other municipalities recently constructed municipal facilities to gather information about what they did, and

6 – Mary thinks the committee should invite the public to participate in our priorities exercise.

 

Fred Kanter, from the public, was recognized by the chair and in addition to agreeing with Ms. Rosseland, he made the following suggestions and comments:

1-              He thought the Committee opinions were not based on ‘facts’ but on guesses and he suggested the Committee slow down to be certain we ‘get it right.’  At his company the motto is “do it once and do it right.”

2-              Mr. Kanter thinks we have the “cart before the horse.”  He is an industrial engineer and doesn’t think we understand our building users work process enough to make decisions on needed space.

3-              We shouldn’t try to reinvent the wheel.  Look at what other towns have done.

4-              Focus on effective cost and not productivity

5-              Use zero based budgeting rather than hiring an architect and saying we need a certain sized building.  It may be too large if we follow that approach. 

6-              Consider outsourcing Borough functions. 

7-              Don’t focus on ‘needs,’ focus on systems.

 

Gary Webb believes we need to stop studying the issue and take action currently. 

 

 

VI.              Options                                                                                               

The Committee spoke briefly about generating a report to Council on December 10^th, and agreed to meet on Monday, December 3^rd at 11:30 AM to begin.   

 

VII.            No communications issues were discussed at this time.  Both the report and the Timeline will be discussed at our next meeting.

 

Richard will put together and outline of our options to guide Committee discussion on Monday.

 

VIII.         Next Meeting Monday, December 3, 2007; 11:30 AM       Finished at 10:30AM