To the Editor:

At the Westerlo Town Board meeting April 5, the Building Committee reported its current recommendations to the town board. As I recall Mr. [William] Bichteman reporting them, they were:

— Solicit proposals for removing asbestos from the basement of the town hall;

— Consider rehabilitating the town hall overall as the only reasonable course of action; and

— Consider eventually going forward on the entire plan for the town hall and highway garage, financed by “long-term borrowing.”

Each of these got discussion from the public (something Mr. Bichteman continues to prohibit in the meetings of the Building Committee, leading to big backlogs of questions and concerns).

Removing (“abating”) asbestos from the town hall basement is relatively non-controversial, but the cost to do so is not known, despite estimates made both by Delaware Engineering and PSI.

The still-open grant from the New York State Dormitory Authority for $53,000 for this purpose will be applied, and the town board resolved to authorize borrowing up to $80,000 to pay for this work, but the town board assured the public that the work is not expected to cost $133,000. The town board also assured the public that bids for this work will be quoted on a lump-sum basis (not just hourly and other rates for kinds of work), and that the town board may not proceed if all bids are too high.

Rehabilitating the town hall remains controversial. The town board resolved to regard this rehabilitation as the only reasonable course of action, but the cost of doing so is still unknown and may well exceed the cost of other approaches the Building Committee has refused to consider. Residents of Westerlo will continue to investigate such alternatives, present findings to the Building Committee and town board, and request either or both to consider these.

The Building Committee’s recommended next step to rehabilitating the town hall is to retain and pay Delaware Engineering to conduct the “design phase” of DE’s overall plan, out of which will come better estimates of costs (the $2.5 million plan rejected by taxpayers and its more expensive phased variants described since then are not based on firm estimates; both the Building Committee and Delaware Engineering have made clear when pressed that the numbers currently in that plan are not reliable and could be, among other things, much bigger in actuality).

It will only be after DE does its design phase that anyone will have any reliable notion of what it will actually cost to re-do the town hall. Since the current plan already calls for over half-a-million dollars, and that has low numbers or no numbers for some significant items (for example, demolition of any walls, partitions, floors, etc. that may contain non-friable asbestos, which will need to be done by specialized contractors at high rates), the numbers coming from DE’s design phase will be higher.

Only then can the town board responsibly decide whether to rehabilitate the town hall or replace it, and it can only do that by comparing DE’s cost estimates with estimated costs of alternatives.

Mr. Bichteman went on at some length, saying Westerlo taxpayers had to give back to the town to pay for the work recommended by the Building Committee so Westerlo would have a town hall of which it could be proud. This remains controversial in view of taxpayers’ express concern about not having rates rise, and the town’s “stressed” financial situation.

At the very least, there’s no immediate need to start any expensive building program, and there’s plenty of need to seek out less expensive ways to provide the town staff, town court, and highway department with stable, useful facilities over time.

The town board did not yet resolve to have DE conduct its design phase. No one on the town board knew at the recent meeting what DE would charge for that, so someone will call DE to find out what the company will charge. It continues to be an issue to taxpayers how much the town board and Building Committee have been paying and will pay DE over the course of planning and actual work.

On the third recommendation, Mr. Bichteman assured the public that the “long-term” borrowing recommended by the Building Committee will indeed be subject to a permissive referendum.

The next Building Committee meeting (at which the public will not be allowed to ask questions or speak) is scheduled for Wednesday, April 13, at 7 pm. The next town board meeting — at which public questions and comments will be permitted, and the town board is likely to resolve to pay Delaware Engineering to conduct its design phase — is scheduled for Tuesday, May 3, at 7:30 p.m.

Leonard Laub

Westerlo