Knox board adopts plan for town hall



KNOX — After years of talk, Knox has a plan for Town Hall.

A committee charged with reviewing plans to renovate the 30-year-old building recommended a conceptual plan to the town board last month. All four board members present at Tuesday’s meeting voted for the $1.21 million plan. They now hope to obtain grant money for the project.
"The board is going to try and keep the cost as low as possible," said Supervisor Michael Hammond yesterday. "We would like to include local contractors as much as we can."

Last month, members of the Knox Town Hall Renovation Advisory Committee presented the board with three conceptual plans.

Helene O’Clair, a member of the committee, said last month that, whatever the town board decides, it should move quickly because labor and material costs are rising. The committee formed after O’Clair recommended in January that plans to renovate the hall be revisited. Her husband, who was disabled and could not access town hall, has since died.

Community members have been concerned about the hall’s accessibility to those with handicaps.
Most importantly, Hammond said of the plan, it brings Town Hall into compliance with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. "That’s what’s driving the whole thing," he said.

Councilwoman Patricia Gage did not attend Tuesday’s meeting; the other four board members voted for the plan.

The plan includes a fireproof storage area for town records, offices on the lower level for the assessor and the tax collector, judges’ chambers, an elevator, and a multi-purpose room where the town’s boards would meet and town court would be held.

Hammond said the plan also includes a conference room and a much larger office for the building department with storage space for plans. Renovations also include a room divider for the multi-purpose room, which could be used if two events are occurring simultaneously. An entrance would be constructed to allow access to the lower level and a new roof would be installed.

On Tuesday, Councilman Dennis Decker asked Charles Sacco, the architect who designed plans two years ago and also drew up new conceptual plans, about differences between the two.

Sacco, who met with the citizens’ committee, said that additional corridors on both sides of the judicial offices for judges to use in an emergency were cut down. A lot of people, he said, were questioning whether the square footage was necessary.
"But I feel the compromise hasn’t lost the integrity of what we were looking for. We still have a judges’ office, a judicial clerk space to house files, and the judge still has an escape route," Sacco said.

After approving the plan, Hammond said, the next logical step is to forward the plan to Susan Lombardi, the town’s grant writer for the project. Hammond said Lombardi needs officials’ signatures on application forms and specific information to apply for grants, such as the site plan, the floor plan, and the construction plan.

The town has long considered renovating the town hall, built in 1977. Initial plans were drawn up by Sacco-McKinney Architects over two years ago, estimated at $1.05 million. The town board then ruled the costs too high.

While the project under consideration is higher than initial plans, Hammond cited high residential construction costs, and said the higher prices are probably driven by fuel prices, which affect everything else.

Sacco said Tuesday that some minor changes may need to be made to the plans because of new building codes. The current plan includes a bathroom to be used by men and women, accessible to those with handicaps, he said. A new code, which may be in effect in January, calls for two bathrooms, one for each sex, he said. Sacco said he didn’t anticipate the change to add any costs to the project.
"When I did the plans recently — two years ago — we were experiencing 3-percent inflation...on materials, and that really spiked up dramatically on projects...and who knows where it’s going to go," said Sacco

He was in shock, he said, when he worked with the town hall committee while reviewing elevator costs from two years ago. He said he’d thought he’d made a mistake.
"Those were the right numbers. Elevators have escalated that much as various products did," Sacco said.

Sacco said there shouldn’t be a contract between his firm and the town until the voters of the town approve the project.

Other business

In other business, the town board:

— Held a public hearing for Section 8 Housing, a federally-funded program for low-income families in the town. Terry Ray, of Joseph Mastrianni, Inc., which handles the program for Knox, said there are currently 20 families in Knox eligible for the program; 18 families are receiving aid and three are on the waiting list.

Knox first entered into the program in 1995. Councilman Nicholas Viscio said the federal government provides funding of over $100,000 annually, and none of the money to fund the program comes from local tax dollars;

— Heard from resident Grace Cunningham that she is still concerned about Whipple Road. Cunningham, along with area residents, petitioned the town board in August to take ownership of an unpaved portion of a road between Whipple and Carick roads. Recently, Cunningham said, the road was blocked.

If the wall is not taken down, Cunningham said, she plans on publicly demonstrating;

— Voted unanimously to renew the town’s contract for tipping fees with the city of Albany to remove refuse from the town’s transfer station. Albany charges $52 per ton of garbage, the same rate for the past several years, said Hammond;

— Discussed proposed sites for a cellular tower and interest that has been shown by companies and individuals to place a tower in the town. Officials have considered two sites for a cellular tower.
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One site is in the hamlet near the town park on property owned by Knox. The other is a 5-acre property along Street Road that was donated to the town and is located near the town’s transfer station. Part of the parcel is zoned residential, and another part is in a land conservation district.

Members of the planning board have voiced concerns about a tower being placed on a property on Street Road. Officials are uncertain where the conservation district is located and discussed hiring a surveyor.

Robert Price, the longtime planning-board chairman, said three people have expressed interest in constructing a cellular tower in the town.
He called Knox "kind of a hotbed of activity" and said that eventually there will be more towers in Knox. A cellular tower, he said, may be placed in the nearby town of Berne, with coverage that would overlap Knox.

Price estimated it would cost $1,500 for a surveyor’s services. Councilman Joseph Best estimated a surveyor would charge $100 per hour, and the work would be completed in 20 hours.

Price said he would obtain quotes for the board to address the matter at its January meeting;
— Discussed purchasing a new Case backhoe for the town’s highway department. Gary Salisbury, the highway superintendent, said he had spoken with a company, which requested a letter of commitment and will right now credit the town $36,000 for its backhoe, purchased in 2003. Salisbury said the new backhoe would cost $66,709.19 with options, and production of the backhoe, due to new emissions requirements, is scheduled to shut down in three to four weeks. "We’re jumping up to a much bigger machine," Salisbury said.

Hammond was concerned about signing a letter of commitment without having the funds and said the purchase would be subject to permissive referendum.

Salisbury was uncertain how long the quotes would be valid, as the town’s backhoe will decrease in value as it is used and a new one could increase in cost due to emissions compliance.

Board members said they will discuss purchasing the backhoe at their January meeting; and

— Scheduled its annual re-organizational meeting for 9 a.m. on Jan. 1.