Alna Facilities Planning Committee

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Date: February 26,2008

Time: 07:00 PM - 09:30 PM

Location: Fire House

Meeting Minutes:

Alna Facilities Planning Committee Meeting, February 26, 2008, held at the Firehouse at 7 p.m.

Present: Tom Albee (TA), Nick Caristo (NC), Gordon Davis (GD), Fred Gumkowski (FG), Kathy Pendleton (KP) and Cliff Russell (CR)

Absent: John Green (JG), Brian Lawrence

Also present:   Mike Trask, Roger Whitney and Paul Ouellette from the AVFD and, from 7:45 on, Chris Cooper (CC).

The first item on the agenda was follow-up to the public information meeting of Feb. 19^th.   NC reported that he had talked since that meeting with all but one of the 11 non-VFD attendees.   His impression from these conversations is that response to the meeting and the information provided has been positive.   He also commented on the sensitivity of a part of the Alna population to the existing Town Hall, both as a structure and as an investment.   The feeling is that the town made a mistake in its original purchase and in continuing to put money into the property.) He opined that selling the house and 2 acres and transferring the town offices to the existing firehouse might be an important symbolic action, providing, of course, that the town’s decision on the fire station makes that feasible.   This triggered a discussion of revisiting the multipurpose building option, which would also allow the town to sell the Webster House.   This discussion ended with a unanimous vote (6 – 0) to stay with the two options: a new, stand-alone firehouse plus town meeting room, and renovation and enlargement of the existing firehouse.

After Chris Cooper’s arrival, the committee turned to consideration of how to structure the warrant articles that will represent the culmination of the committee’s charge.   This was informed by an exchange of emails between Bille Willard and a lawyer in the Legal Services Department of the Maine Municipal Association that set some limits on what would be considered acceptable form for these.   It was decided that the Warrant material should consist of what would amount to two separate articles, one for each of the project options.   The town could then reject both; accept one and reject the other; or, at least in principle, accept both (though this seems very unlikely).   How the matter of financing would be phrased was left up in the air at the meeting, though CC agreed to draft the necessary language and circulate it for review on the 27^th.   (The general outline will involve: a construction loan, followed by a mortgage that would probably have a term of 20 or 30 years, and an interest rate that would be “the best available to the town”.)   The committee agreed with CC and the VFD representatives that having the new firehouse project come first in the Warrant makes sense for several reasons.

The final matter considered was that of a committee recommendation to accompany the articles on the Warrant: whether to make one and what it should be.   The committee decided that, yes, it should make a recommendation, and subsequently voted 5 – 1 that its substance should be a recommendation that the town choose the new, stand-alone firehouse and town meeting room.

The committee discussed and approved 6-0 to have an assessment performed to determine the current value of the Town Office builiding. The estimated cost is approximately $350.

The committee’s next meeting will be held on March 4^th at 7 p.m. in the firehouse.

Cliff Russell