by Dean Audet
The questions about whether we need a new highway garage and whether we should do it now are good ones. I have been working on the Highway Garage Committee for 5 years, here are some answers to your questions.
First, lets just be clear, the existing highway complex is polluting the environment and our neighbors. That needs to get cleaned up and a new salt shed is needed to prevent it from happening again in the future. We can do it now or wait for the state or our neighbors to sue us. At which point we will still do it while also paying lawyers fees.
Second, the highway garage expansion is being proposed for several reasons.
1) One of the storage buildings on-site needs to be torn down to allow for the environmental cleanup. The building leaks badly now (as anyone who went on the site visit two weekends ago can attest). We will have to build a new storage building anyways. Under this plan, this storage would be part of the highway garage building. No matter what, some building would have to be erected to replace this storage.
2) Today, we store 10 trucks and many other pieces of equipment outside. The trucks cost more than $150,000 apiece. Storing them outside shortens their serviceable life (think about the difference between storing a car in garage or outside). That costs us money today. The highway garage expansion will allow us to move those trucks indoors.
3) Even worse, their is no place to wash trucks on that site. It is illegal for the Town to wash trucks there as there is no system to collect runoff from the washing operation. It is not hard to do the math where we send trucks out to salt and sand our roads, don’t wash them and store them outside. This significantly shortens the life of our $150,000 trucks by years. The new highway buidling will have a state approved truck wash that can also wash fire trucks and school buses.
4) The existing building falls woefully short of building code and is unsafe in some areas. The improvements would also bring us to standard.
So why do this now?
1) Every day that we don’t do this we lose money by shortening the life of our expensive equipment. The people that are concerned that approving the bond for the highway garage will cause people argue against funding the schools need to keep in mind that spending money on trucks and other equipment does come from the same pot of money as the schools.
2) $250,000 in grant money has been directed specifically for the highway garage. There is a risk that we lose it if not spent on the garage.
3) This project will be financed over 20 years not the 1 or 2 years that will cover this recession.
4) The best argument for doing this now is that public works bids are coming in about 30% lower than where they would have come in two years ago. What does this mean, we pay 30% less for a project that gets paid for over the next 20 years. If someone is arguing that we should wait another 2 years until we are out of the recession, we will then pay 30% more for a project that gets financed over 20 years. That is not fiscally prudent. The cheapest way for us to get this project done is to bid and construct it now.
5) A finance plan has been developed for this project that will minimize impacts on our taxes. Long story short, but the debt service payments will be made when the debt service payments for the middle school come to an end.
Dean:
Thanks for taking the time to not only be a part of the group that researched this issue, but for presenting the findings in a clear manner.
I hope that people who are in favor of saving money right now at any cost consider the long-term implications of burying their heads in the sand and crying for lower taxes no matter the cost. It’s sort of ironic to say the least.
Dean,
Thanks. I’m trusting you on this. I hope you will follow through with the entire process and transparently communicate with the new owners of this new Highway facility and salt barn as it plays out. I think that much is at stake to ensure that this project is done with the utmost care and fiscal responsibility so that the taxpayers aren’t taken for a ride by contractors and builders. What kind of oversight and communication will your committee be providing to ensure accountability to the taxpayers and prevent “big-dig” style waste and fraud from occuring?
Thrifty, the best that I can tell you is that I work on a range of public works projects (though never a highway garage). I volunteered for this because some people knew what I did and asked me to volunteer. I purposely directed my company not to pursue the project that CME won so that there would be no appearance of a conflict of interest (small project for us anyways) with me volunteering time on this.
Over the years, I have never had to go back to a Town to ask for more money to get a construction project completed that I was leading, never. Things happen but you work creatively to keep the project on budget. Going back to voters to reauthorize more money than what had been bonded for a project would be a nightmare.
The Highway Garage Committee has nine volunteers. All are good people, some with significant building experience that ask lots of tough questions. They know alot more about what it takes to build a building than I do. You have a good group of people there that will be very hands on during construction.
I attended the Town Meeting tonight (12/1). The information presented was well-presented and made the project seem very sensible. Just to highlight a couple points:
1. The estimated costs for State/Federally mandated repairs/remediation are around $1.1 million (or perhaps more - I’m going from memory).
2. The estimated debt costs in terms of the mil rate is very reasonable. Currently, the mil rate cost for debt service is .7 If the project is approved it would be .73 om 2010-11, .77 in 2011-12, .69 in 2012-13, .51 in 2013-14, and .5 in 2014-15. Of course it is possible that unforeseen expenses could arise, but the Selectmen didn’t anticipate any other projects requiring bonding in the next several years.
3. Interest rates are very low. Construction costs are very low. The same project in the future would likely cost hundreds of thousands more than if the project started now. So, yes, we could save money and taxes now, but have to spend more in the future to do the same work. Some people just didn’t quite seem to grasp that notion.
4. A former First Selectperson offered the suggestion that the current Selectman look very closely at the Selectman’s budget to see what could be cut. I don’t think I was the only person who saw the irony in that, as this same person oversaw increases in the Selectman’s budget as well as a salary increase for the First Selectman.
The pictures that were shown of the current facilities along with the many aspects of the facilities that are not even up to current codes were rather unsettling.
I believe this is a project that is necessary for the Town of Woodstock.
Regardless JK, Ms. Wholean is RIGHT…and the TRUE irony of it is that she is a liberal Democrat speaking as a conservative SHOULD.
Good for her!
My point was more along the lines that it is obvious to just about everyone that budgets need to be closely scrutinized - I’m not sure that the Selectman really needed to be reminded, and again, it was a bit ironic. That’s all.
I still don’t follow what you are saying JK.
In 2006 when Ms. Wholean was First Selectman, the economy was booming, unemployment at record lows, housing values at a peak…and still no one wanted to spend money. It’s not like we were looking to refurnish the town hall or put a lap pool in at the middle school. If you look at the capital project that Becki posted, you will notice that all of the items were fairly essential to maintaining our infrastructure.
So when is it a good time to re-invest in mandated, badly needed, basic services? Now, in 2009, when our economy is “the closest we’ve come to the Great Depression” or in 2006 when everyone was fat and happy?? So tell me again,JK, where did you see the irony in Ms. Wholean’s statement last night?? Because I’m just not seeing it.
Bottom line is, no one wants to spend money any time. We pinch a penny and lose a pound as a result.
So what we need to do is spend smartly, invest wisely, and avoid politicizing important issues by making crass statements about a former selectmen or diminishing the valid arguments by Mr. Richardson. Convince the voters we can do this, and you’ll have your Highway station.
Kudos to all who have worked so hard on developing this project and bringing it forward.
Tax:
Our discussions never go anywhere. I do have explanations and reasons behind my statements, but I’m not going there with you again. We’ll just have to disagree.
This is yet another example of disguising a bad idea. The object seams to be deface and degrade people in the past to disguise the facts. The whole idea is to fix the roof repair the neglected building and make corrections to reduce and remove the Sault problem. How much money has already been wasted to CME and others? We don’t need a heated plush place for our highway crew to hang out. When they are working they should be on the road. Have I got that wrong? We should have enough equipment to rotate the soil, why do we have to hire contractors to the job of the highway crew.
Sorry to disappoint you Farmer. The object was to highlight the difference between what has been offered to the taxpayers before compared to the project before them now. This project isn’t a Christmas Wish list where everybody has piled on something for themselves. This project has been well reasoned, researched and designed to get the biggest bang for our taxpayer bucks. The design isn’t anywhere near providing ‘plush’ places for the highway crew to ‘hang out’. The difference between the Town’s highway facility and a private enterprise… like a farm… is the multitude of state/government requirements that govern publicly funded/owned facilities. If you want to go without potable water, sanitation facilities and a place to sit down and eat your lunch on your farm, that’s your call. You aren’t under the purview of state regulation; the town of Woodstock is. (apologies to any farmers, no offense intended… I do realize that ‘Farmer’ isn’t necessarily what his/her moniker implies)
Farmer:
I didn’t see any mention of “plush” facilities in learning about the proposal. Just because you call it a shrine, doesn’t make it so.
I’m not sure what you mean about rotating the soil? I don’t believe that contamination issues cam be remediated by pushing piles of dirt around.
As to disgracing and degrading people, how would you characterize your comments that the selectman are on drugs?