Clerk cries foul over town survey

By Douglas Farmer
Turley Publications Reporter

BRIMFIELD -Town Clerk Pamela Beall has criticized a survey surrounding the fate of the Brimfield Town Hall that was recently distributed with excise tax bills, calling the committee that created it a “shadow government” and the document a likely “waste of resources.”
As a member of the town’s historical commission, she said she disliked how the survey seemed to grant equal weight to demolition of the structure as well as renovation.
But other town officials have called the distribution of the survey an innocent search for the town’s will on the ongoing project, and the tax bills a convenient method to facilitate it without costing the town additional money.
The 8,500 square-foot town hall on Main Street has been closed since last spring, after the building inspector identified numerous structural and safety concerns for town employees.
Brimfield Selectmen Chairwoman Diane Panaccione said town offices have continued to operate effectively in scattered fashion – for example, the police department has shared space with the fire department, and the town clerk has done the same with the conservation commission.
Panaccione said selectmen approved of the survey’s contents (with changes) and plan to appoint a formal building committee in the next few weeks, following a report on the state of the current town hall – along with cost estimates for repairs or renovations – from the architectural firm Kaestle Boos Associates, with offices in New Britain, Conn. and Foxboro, Mass.
In the meantime, an informal group has formed, which produced the survey with an introduction that read in part: “There have been discussions about the future usefulness of the town hall for years, (Some of those discussions led to the purchase of the annex). It is a wonderful historic structure (1878), but has always been inefficient office space…Discussions about a proper town hall office complex have begun again and a group of volunteers has formed to explore the possible solutions.”
According to the minutes of the Dec. 7, 2009 selectmen’s meeting, Brimfield Police Chief Charles Kuss discussed the informal group considering all town facilities which included Carolyn Haley, Norm Silberman, Wayne Stuart, Sue Hilker, Carol DelNegro, Kuss, Kirsten Weldon, Bob Hanna, Tom Marino and others that had formed in the wake of the police department’s move. The formation of the citizen’s group had been announced last spring, according to minutes from the selectmen in March.
“It was agreed that the proposed survey of town residents move forward…” read the Dec. 7 minutes.
The recently released survey that accompanied the aforementioned introductory letter asked questions like: “Did you know the truss in the town hall building had rotted and the building has been closed?” and “Would you favor a combination of renovation and new construction?” as well as a rating of preference for the renovation of the town hall and annex and building of new space, renovation of only the town hall with an addition, construction of a new town hall with a later decision about existing facilities or the destruction of the town hall and annex.
But therein lies the rub for Beall, she said.
“My problem with this group is that no one knows who it is,” she wrote in a press release. “They have not been appointed by the board of selectmen or anyone else. They have not taken the oath of office, they meet at a town building, but are not subject to the Open Meeting Law or the Public Records Law.”
Beall noted that the survey was sent to some 4,000 car owners, which is far more than the number of households in Brimfield – about 1,600.
She noted that the town hall was on the National Register of Historic Places, and the historical commission has asked for a special town meeting to address ongoing problems there.
“I don’t think voters can give rational opinions on this subject before the engineers the town has hired complete their study and present estimates for the repairs,” she said.
But Hilker, the town’s tax collector, said she had attended some of the group’s meetings and that as far as she can tell, no one has any preconceived notions about what should happen to the town hall. She said a number have been returned either to her office or to the selectmen’s office, but she has not perused them yet.
“The tax bills have to go out anyway, and town departments have used the envelopes as a way to get notices out, though never a survey before,” she said. “We’re just trying to find out what people want.”
Panaccione said anyone who would like to serve on the building committee should send a letter of interest to the selectmen’s office, 23 Main St. Brimfield, MA 01010.