Randolph Selex Back
Pleasant Street Site

By Pamala Yerrington & M.D. Drysdale

In a 4-1 vote Tuesday night, the Randolph Selectboard backed the Municipal Building Committee’s recommendation to move town offices from the current Summer Street location to the Pleasant Street condominium recently offered by Jesse Sammis.

The Building Committee had requested that the selectboard weigh in on the issue before Town Meeting. That’s when voters will be asked to "change the use" of a $1.2-million bond approved in 2004 to expand and remodel the current Municipal Building, and instead spend it to transform the condo into town offices.

The Building Committee believed it would be of help to the townspeople to know where the selectboard stood on the matter. Five of the seven Building Committee members are in favor of the move to Pleasant Street.

Prior to voting Tuesday night, the board heard a detailed presentation from Building Committee member Michael Penrod, who compared the two proposals on both physical character and cost.

Information Outreach

Voters will have ample opportunity to learn about the costs and pros and cons of both options in the next two weeks.

Penrod will give the same presentation he gave to the selectboard again in an informational session, Thursday, Feb. 28, at 6 p.m, in the Old Dorm Lounge, at Vermont Technical College.

Also, display boards with cost comparisons, drawings, and other information about the two municipal building options will be posted in businesses throughout the town.

A final chance to ask questions will be at the regular pre-town meeting informational hearing, Monday, March 3 at 6 p.m. at Chandler.

Joe Voci, former public works director and candidate for the selectboard, asked Tuesday night about the legitimacy of the bid numbers used to estimate the Summer Street expansion costs. He said the numbers came from a bidding process that was subsequently disallowed as not following established bidding. However, both Penrod and Selectboard Chair Jim Hutchinson both stated their belief that the numbers used are valid.

Voting against the proposal was Selectman Ken Goss, who cited his ongoing belief that the Pleasant Street location would better serve Randolph as commercial or retail space. He is concerned with the economic growth of the town.

Other board members indicated the cost effectiveness of the move, based on the building committee’s presentation, weighed heavily in their decision to recommend the Pleasant Street site.

A Second Look

The question of relocating the town office will be perhaps the most controversial item at Randolph Town Meeting.

In a special vote December 11, voters rejected the idea of moving the offices to Pleasant Street, 223-173. The vote, however, seemed to take many residents by surprise, and both sides admitted that insufficient information was available.

Shortly afterwards a petition drive gained enough signatures to force a re-vote of the question, which will be by Australian ballot at Town Meeting.

This time around, Building Committee member Michael Penrod presented figures which, he said, represents the Committee’s thinking on why moving to Summer Street would be a better option for the town.

That option, he said, will be at least $150,000 less expensive than expansion and renovation at Summer Street. And that doesn’t count the money the town could get from the sale of the municipal building. The building could bring about $340,000 according to three local realtors, he said.

Thus, the committee believes, there is about a $500,000 financial advantage to moving to Pleasant Street.

The next important advantage, the committee believes, is that it will be much easier for town employees to be able to simply move into new quarters when they’re complete than to continue working at the municipal building for many months while construction swirls around them.

Thirdly, the committee believes the switch can happen more quickly, putting an end to almost 10 years of planning and controversy. That’s because, Penrod said, the bonded money available for construction will not be quite enough to build what was hoped for at the current location, so that new plans would have to be drawn up.

(Enlarging the current location could result in new lawsuits by neighbors, but the committee said that threat is not part of their thinking.)

If the offices are moved to Pleasant Street, however, the shell of the building would be unchanged and the only construction involved is to fit-up the interior, Penrod said. According to Zoning Administrator Mardee Sanchez, this would be a permitted use in the building and the project would need only site plan review.

The town previously got a permit to expand the Summer Street location, but that permit has since expired, Sanchez said. Renewing it should be a fairly straightforward matter as well, she said.

Penrold estimated that the new offices could be ready for occupancy at the end of this year, while enlarging and renovating Summer Street would take a year longer. In addition, he noted, local contractors would be given a substantial portion of the work.

Finally, Penrod said, the committee notes that the construction estimates for Summer Street are from May 2005 and have probably risen substantially since then, even though these are "down times" in the construction business. Construction costs have gone up 10.7% in the last three years, he said.

The construction estimate for Pleasant Street, on the other hand, has been guaranteed by the owner and developer, Jesse "Sam" Sammis, Penrod said.

Thus, the committee feels that the cost gap between the two projections—one an estimate and the other a guarantee—will grow even wider, in favor of the Pleasant Street location.

The proposed renovations at Pleasant Street were produced by the same architect who produced the Summer Street specifications, Penrod noted.

Opposition to moving to Pleasant Street has been centered around that fact that the space for the town offices will be a condominium—just the first floor of the former Merrimaids building.

The town will own its property outright, but it will be part of a four-part condominium when it comes to certain decisions involving the site as a whole.

It will also pay condominium fees, but Penrod said those should be very low and mostly would include the town’s share of the insurance. That cost should be far less than the $4400 the town currently pays for insurance of the municipal building, he said.

Other condominium fees are typically for such things as water, sewer fees and snow plowing, but those will not be an issue for the town, he pointed out.