To the Editor:

On the ballot Nov. 8, Westerlo voters will be asked whether to permit the town board to borrow up to $887,000 to pay for the current plan for renovating the Town Hall.

Here are some things to consider:

— There’s no need for any construction work now. The town hall is usable as is, and so is the old town hall with the town court and the highway garage. The recent roof repairs there are good for several years.

— That’s a lot of money for the town to spend anytime soon. With interest (at 4 percent over 20 years, as the town board estimates), this borrowing will cost Westerlo taxpayers about $1.3 million. The town has financial issues (the state of New York says it’s “financially stressed”) and Westerlo’s residents are not rolling in dough these days.

— The actual cost of doing the planned work is unknown. All the town board has gotten so far from the tens of thousands of dollars spent on Delaware Engineering is an overall estimate based on numbers that haven’t been disclosed. When bids come in, its total may be higher or lower.

— That amount is for a plan that won’t do a lot of what’s needed. The big windows in the auditorium will remain as is, leaking lots of heat (and costing money for heating oil and electricity for air-conditioning). There won’t be a standby generator to keep the lights and heat on in a power outage; so much for the emergency refuge this building was supposed to provide. Only the auditorium will be air-conditioned. Access to records storage will require going outside in any weather. And lots more that either will leave the building less than needed or call for more work (for more money) to be done later.

— Almost all the planned work aims to fix a building that turns out to be an old wreck and not suited to being a town hall. When the town board bought the building, voters were told it was basically free, with the price of buying it and some specific interior work covered by grants and nothing more needed. Now we’re shown a long list of no insulation, unsuitable floor plan, deteriorating exterior, unrepairable heating system, no parking for or path to the front door, asbestos in the walls, code violations, and on and on, that will take an estimated $887,000 to fix.

— All the things wrong with the town hall that the town board wants to spend $887,000 to fix would automatically be right in a new building built for the purpose. This could be done when needed years from now on town land, perhaps at the town park (with whatever variance is needed), behind the current town hall, or back by or in replacement of the old town hall. The current town hall and its land could be sold. The Building Committee has refused to seriously consider any such alternative. Delaware Engineering told the committee that a new building would be too expensive without providing any information to support that or allowing any information or plan from any other source to be considered.

— The one plan we’re told is the only plan the town board will consider raises all sorts of questions. Delaware Engineering was brought in when fixing the old town hall and highway garage became an issue and Delaware Engineering had developed a new building for another town. Their plan for a new highway garage bounced because it was too expensive. Now they’re focusing on the town hall, but it’s not clear they know what they’re doing. Contrary to what we’ve been told recently, Delaware Engineering appears to have little experience renovating and repurposing old buildings, and that shows in the many open issues regarding the planned work.

— Nothing in the current plan does anything about the highway garage. Delaware Engineering provided a plan for replacing that which would cost over a million dollars before interest on borrowing. That was part of the $2.4 million plan that was rejected by voters.

So think carefully about this. Even though the vote is just to permit borrowing money, that money will only be used for the current plan to fix the town hall, so a “yes” vote is really a vote to proceed on that plan. If you don’t think anything’s needed now, or you don’t like the current plan, consider voting “no.”

Leonard Laub

Westerlo