AGENDA #5a
MEMORANDUM
TO: Mayor and Town Council
FROM: W. Calvin Horton, Town Manager
SUBJECT: Response to Petition regarding Consideration of Selling Town Buildings
DATE: June 27, 2005
The purpose of this report is to respond to a petition submitted on by Mr. Michael A. (Mac) Clarke on behalf of the Citizens Subcommittee of the Budget Review Advisory Committee regarding consideration of selling Town Buildings. Please see the attached petition (page 4).
BACKGROUND
The Citizens Subcommittee of the Budget Review Committee in its April 11, 2005 report to the Council recommends:
We prepared a budget working paper for the Council’s consideration at it’s meeting of April 27, 2005 to provide information that we considered relevant to the proposals of the Subcommittee. Please see the attached budget working paper (page 5).
DISCUSSION
The petition states that a key element in the Manager’s response to the recommendation that the Council should consider selling one of the three buildings “was the statement that any or all of these buildings might be required in the near future to accommodate Town employees and other Town functions.” Our report to the Council does not contain such a statement. Our full report is attached and below we repeat the relevant paragraphs in which we offer our opinion of the Town’s long and short term interests in each of the properties.
Old Library (page 5): Town’s Long and Short Term Interests. The Town’s population is expected to reach about 73,000 in 2030, and we believe that the need for public services, public offices and public meeting space will increase with population over the next 25 years.
We think that it would be in the Town’s long term interests to maintain ownership of the Old Library property so that the Council could control the use of the property and preserve it for future Town needs. Finding property for Town uses already is difficult and will become more challenging and expensive in the future. Retaining ownership would not preclude the Council from seeking market rate rents from non-Town users in order to gain revenue, if the Council determines that such a course is desirable.
For the short term, we think a good argument can be made that the Town should recover the use of the Old Library for use as public meeting space and offices for the Parks and Recreation Department, which now operates out of a metal building that was formerly a maintenance shop.
Old Post Office (page 7): Town’s Long and Short Term Interests. We believe that the Town’s long term interest will be best served by retaining ownership of the Old Post Office. At least for the near future, we believe that it is beneficial to retain both the Court and Postal Service as primary tenants in the building. We also believe that the Town benefits from operation of the Teen Center.
Old Town Hall (page 10): Town’s Long and Short Term Interests. We believe that it is in the Town’s long term interests to retain ownership of the building to meet future municipal needs. As noted above, the need for town service, town offices and public meeting space will increase with population over the next 25 years. Retaining this property will reduce the challenge of finding space for Town operations in the future.
The Town already leases about 1170 square feet of office space for the Stormwater Management Utility Program. We expect additional space will have to be leased over the next few years as service demands increase in several departments.
Relocation of the Interfaith Council kitchen and men’s shelter to more appropriate space would return the Old Town Hall to the use of the Town. We believe that it is in the Town’s interest to assist the Interfaith Council in developing a new facility in a new location in the next few years. In recent discussions authorized by the Council in response to a request from the Interfaith Council, we identified Town-owned properties as potential sites for a new men’s shelter.
We expect only modest normal growth in the Town’s work force over the next several years, mainly in operating departments as a result of population increase. In light of this information, and given the limited resources available to carry out the Council’s already ambitious work assignments to the staff, we have not attempted to prepare a ten-year projection of staffing and operation changes as requested by the petitioners.
CONCLUSION
We have reviewed our earlier report and continue to believe that our assessments of the Town’s long and short term interests in the subject properties are reasonable. We will be pleased to receive any further direction from the Council in regard to this matter.
ATTACHMENTS