WESTERLO — The town’s highway garage has for years needed repair, and the town board has long talked about how to fix it as the heating bills are high and the town judges who hold court there have dealt with a ceiling that leaks during rainstorms.

Now, time is of the essence, as the board, with Councilman William Bichteman absent, decided, 4 to 0, on June 2 to authorize the borrowing of up to $2.75 million despite calls by some residents to have a public presentation beforehand. About two-thirds would pay to demolish the old garage and build a new one, and about one third would pay to upgrade Town Hall.

“This project will probably be a solid year out from when we wanted to start,” town attorney Aline Galgay said of the board’s option to postpone its vote. “Your numbers are going to be different.”

Engineers will publicly present conceptual designs for the garage’s replacement and a renovation of the town hall on June 16, and, Galgay noted, anyone who opposes the project can gather signatures and force a public referendum.

Galgay also described to the gallery of about 30 residents how the board met without public notice and directed the town clerk to withhold documents related to the project — both in violation of state laws based on public access to government business. Galgay said, once she learned of the violations, she informed the public officials.

Board members considered themselves a building committee and toured the town hall and highway garage with engineers twice in the fall, Frederick Grober of Delaware Engineering, told The Enterprise. Meeting minutes show one mention of the building committee in January, when the board voted to act as the committee with the highway superintendent.

Galgay was responding to a question from John Sefcik, a zoning board of appeals member who, with his wife, Dianne Sefcik, takes notes at town board meetings. She and Lisa Joslin, also a vocal resident during the June 2 meeting, said they and Tracey Lawson have talked about organizing a petition to force a public referendum.

Sefcik and Joslin said their roles were mainly in researching the process and preparing paperwork. Tracey Lawson's father, Edwin Lawson, is the town's code enforcement officer. He told The Enterprise he has no involvement in the project, for which he was advising the town board until it had a frustrating discussion last fall and decided to consider replacement instead of repair. Lawson believes the engineers for the replacement haven't accounted for the asbestos that is in the garage's insulation.

On June 2, Grober stood in front of the board, facing the audience, as he explained the background of the resolution, and he was peppered with questions and comments from residents.

He said an average cost to taxpayers of $100 per year was used as a starting point, to develop an overall budget for the project, and to estimate the borrowing limit, which is now $2.75 million. The average assessment used to calculate the average cost, Grober said, was $1,418.34, which includes commercial and industrial properties.

Before the highway garage is demolished and replaced with a similar structure, Grober said, the town hall will be renovated to have a new heating system, better insulation, access for people with disabilities, and accommodations for the town court and State Police officers, both now housed in the highway building. The plan for the new garage calls for five bays and a total of 8,900 square feet, Grober said.

Grober said the estimated costs are $893,000 for the renovation of the town hall, which was built as a school, and $1.8 million for the garage. The projects haven’t been designed and the money hasn’t been borrowed.

“It depends on, when we design this, how much are we going to put into it,” said Grober when a resident asked for the cost of each project.

The board received bids last fall for repairing the highway garage, which came in so high, it decided to ask a new engineering firm to look at replacement. The architectural firm’s services cost the town $33,000, Councilman Al Field said, while Delaware Engineering is charging $25,000 for the planning.

Edwin Stevens, a member of the town’s planning board, listed all the steps the board had gone through evaluating the highway garage’s fate. He spoke in support of going forward with building a new garage as several residents complained about having little input.

“At a certain point in time, you’ve got to cut bait and move on to the next thing,” Stevens said, “and I think that’s at the point we’re at, with the other firm here, right now.”

When bids were opened in the fall for repairing the highway garage, they were near $500,000, much higher than the town board anticipated. At that point, the board was split, choosing instead to investigate replacement. Frustrated, Code Enforcement Officer Lawson said he’d been involved in the discussions for 10 years and would no longer continue, warning that the cost of replacement would be too high for the town to bear.

For the renovations to the town hall, Supervisor Richard Rapp has said almost $70,000 is available, left over from a grant used to purchase the building for $145,000 in 2011.

“I’d feel better about this if we saw some better ongoing maintenance over the years,” said resident Allan Clickman at the June 2 meeting.

Correcting a comment from the audience about a public vote, Grober said the board would vote on the project, as representatives of the residents.

“Like hell,” Dianne Sefcik said from her seat in the gallery. “They don’t represent me.”

Sefcik said she supports the upgrades to town buildings but objects to how suddenly the bond authorization was announced and that the public hadn’t yet been included. (See her letter to the editor.)

Councilman Field disagreed, saying the project had been discussed at meetings. Councilman Theodore Lounsbury said he keeps track of when Sefcik, who has been outspoken, attends board meetings and said she hadn’t been to every one.

Sefcik stressed her contention was with the lack of planning and public awareness in the process.

“The court’s been leaking for years — how could that be?” she asked.

“Instead of us being able to talk in town, our town board went ahead with the process of possibly bonding, without saying to the public ‘Get on board with us,’” Joslin said during the meeting.

Updated on June 11, 2015, to include comments from Edwin Lawson.