COURT HOUSE PRESENTATION
MINUTES
PRESENT: MICHAEL
JOSEPH CAPASSO, COUNCILMAN
ERNEST KASSAY, COUNCILMAN
GINNY NACERINO, COUNCILWOMAN
ANTOINETTE KOPECK, TOWN CLERK
TIMOTHY CURTISS, TOWN COUNSEL
Salute to the Flag and Roll Call.
Supervisor
Mr. Griffin stated thank you all for coming out this evening. The first item on this evening’s agenda is a presentation on the new Court House. We will dim the lights and we will go through the presentation. After the presentation we will open the meeting up for questions and answers and then we will move into the regular Town Board meeting.
Mr. Rich Williams, Town Planner stated good evening. I’ll begin by taking you through a short history of the project. I’ll go through the financial aspects and finish up by looking at the design as it stands today.
The project started about three and a half years ago. The Library Board approached the Town Board
with concerns about the building they were sharing with the
In September of 2005, the Board reviewed the initial floor plan for a new court building prepared by Liscum McCormack VanVoorhis. The initial floor plan proposed an eight thousand square foot building complete with seating for one hundred forty people. It had multiple conference rooms and included a holding cell for prisoners.
Throughout the year the Town evaluated various properties to see if they would be suitable for construction of a new court building. Initially the search focused in the Hamlet, as it was preferred to keep the court building close to Town Hall. The search for a new location for a court house was started with a study that was completed by Ron Gainer’s engineering firm in 1998, which assessed several properties in the hamlet for a new Post Office. Other properties that had not been considered in Ron’s study were also evaluated. When none of these properties were found suitable, the search was expanded to the Route 22 corridor and Route 311 near the I-84 intersection. Nothing proved suitable. We then turned back to the Hamlet to the concept that had been proposed when we were considering construction of the new Town Hall. That concept was to purchase additional property adjacent to the Town Hall property and create a municipal complex. The original concept proposed several years ago was for a two-story four thousand two hundred square foot building right behind the existing Town Hall.
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Purchasing the Jeanniton property and constructing the new court building to the north of the existing Town Hall provided a number of benefits which produced cost savings and a more environmentally friendly project:
- It provided consolidation of facilities
- It allows easier sharing of services and technology between the buildings
- It creates the ability for shared parking, which reduces the overall amount of parking and of impervious surface that is needed
- There is existing sewer and water, eliminating the need for a new well and septic system
- Promotes redevelopment of existing developed area
The Jeanniton property consisted of three parcels with three residential buildings each with multiple rental apartments. The Town Board was approached with the concept of the potential acquisition of the Jeanniton property in September of 2006. After further consideration the Board authorized an appraisal of the property in December of that year, and negotiations began with the Attorney representing the Jeanniton’s for the acquisition of the property.
In January of 2007, the Town Board approved a contract of
sale for the property at 1167 Route 311.
A closing took place in February transferring ownership of the property
to the Library. The
It wasn’t until the spring of 2007 that the Town discovered that the property (Jeanniton) was in foreclosure by the bank holding the mortgage. To ensure that the Town did not loose the property to the bank, in May the Town retained Special Counsel to initiate eminent domain proceedings.
In June of 2008, the Town reached an agreement between the bank and the Jeanniton’s and acquired the property. Now that the property has been acquired, design of a new court building could begin in earnest. It was quickly realized that siting the building in the northeast corner of the site may not be the best location, so other locations were evaluated. It was determined that siting the building in the southeast corner of the property gave the greatest number of additional parking spaces, and had the cheapest construction costs. These changes were discussed with the Town Board in August, and during subsequent meetings. The initial location proposed placing the new building approximately 90 feet from the existing Town Hall building. However, the Town Board members felt this was too close to the exiting building, and the court building was moved another 30 feet to the north.
In September of this year, the bids for asbestos abatement to the Jeanniton buildings were awarded and asbestos abatement was completed at the end of November. In the beginning of December, Charlie Williams, Highway Superintendent and the Highway Department removed the buildings.
That is a short history of the project. Now let’s look at what the Town has spent so far.
There are a number of categories the Town has expended funds on for the project. We have land acquisition costs, which ran a little over $426,000.00. The costs for the design work so far, which was greatly reduced by the Highway Department because they completed the work was $5,493.00 for tipping fees. As of today the Town has spent $681,139.00. Some of that has been offset by funds that we have from the sale of the library, which we will get into in a minute. We have contracts from all our design teams. The design costs for completing this project are $277,577.00. We used Transitional Builders who has also done other engineering projects for us, which has resulted in overall building costs of about $2,200,000.00. Mr. Dave Raines, Acting Code Enforcement Officer has been instrumental in trying to adjust some of these numbers. We can decrease these numbers by getting the Highway Department to do some of the
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site work which Mr. Charlie Williams has initially agreed to. All in all we are looking at just under $3,000,000.00 for the total cost of building a new Court House behind the existing Town Hall building. To offset that $3,000,000.00 we have $600,000.00 from the sale of the library and we have two potential grants from the State which reduced the overall cost of the project to the taxpayers to a little over $1.1 million. The initial project we looked at was for an eight thousand square foot building and now it is down to seven thousand one hundred thirty two square feet, which also reduced the costs. The site plan is about eighty-five percent completed at this point.
Mr. Williams and Mr. Raines continued the presentation using the diagram to describe the Court House.
Judge King stated I have had the privileged of being your Town Justice for the last twenty years. I have invited Judge Apathica here tonight. He is the Supervising Justice of the 9th Judicial District, which covers five counties. He called me this morning because he couldn’t make it due to a stomach flu. He faxed me a statement, which he asked me to read to you this evening.
Dear Judge King:
You have informed me that as of
Judge King stated in reference to what Mr. Williams was saying regarding our records, we are in a terrible position now. I am presently storing the records in the jury deliberation room. We have no other place to put them. From what I understand the County is having a problem with storing records. Even though we have computers, which I thought would have eliminated a lot of paperwork, it doesn’t. It’s becoming a real problem. The biggest problem we have right now is security. There was an altercation that happened inside the court house and since that time they are taking a much closer look at the security within the court houses. As far as space goes, tomorrow I have forty-seven cases coming in. We have defendants, attorneys, family members etc. You could have upwards of one hundred to one hundred fifty people. I work for you. I work for the taxpayer’s. What you decide about the court house I have to abide by, but I will tell you that OCA will be watching closely. If nothing is done within suitable time they will take care of the problem. That is the advice that I have and I’m just passing it on. I will listen to anyone who has any suggestions. If you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them.
Mr. Williams stated we want to now talk about how much this is going to cost the taxpayer. We are trying to get these slides on line for you to view. For the previous slide we have the construction costs that are going to be bonded for the project for a little over $1.1 million. Assuming a thirty year bond with a four percent annual cost debt with a four percent interest rate would be $61,560.00. That is the increase to the budget and would occur annually over a thirty year period for this project. That number adds four cents per one thousand dollars to the annual mill rate. The average assessed value of a
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single family home in Patterson is $352,141.00. The average increase to the annual tax bill for this project would be $14.00. There are a couple of other issues that will impact this project and that is the existing bonds and debt service we are carrying, which will be retired in the near future. In 2010, we have a construction bond that we are making the last payment on. That is $36,000.00 each year that we have been paying for several years now. The last payment on an equipment bond will be in 2011. Between those two amounts they amount to two and a half times what the court debt is projected to be. This should be a very minimal impact to the taxpayer’s. We do recognize that we are in interesting times. I spoke with Town Board members who are looking to move this project forward, but are very concerned about what the future may hold. We are going to move very cautiously on this. Based on what we have seen both on the State and Federal level there are a number of benefits with at least getting this project ready to go to bid. It is a shovel ready project. Both the State and Federal government have expressed an interest in an economic development package. There may be some opportunity for funds in the future. The Judge mentioned one grant program that we intend to apply for.
Mr. Griffin stated if anyone has any questions, please come up to the microphone.
Mr. Mike Semo stated Judge King and the Town Board has the OCA had the opportunity to review the plans.
Judge King stated not yet.
Mr. Semo stated is it the intent to do that.
Judge King stated yes.
Mr. Semo stated we had to do that at the County with a large building and it passed through the Judges and everything else. Are the furnishings included.
Mr. Raines stated yes.
Ms. Edie Keasbey stated what green rules and regulations are you using to build this building.
Mr. Raines stated the bid documents have not been developed for this building, so we don’t have all the mechanicals. We are looking at the highest energy efficiency system we can come up with within reason. We are not going to spend an extra sixty percent to follow a lead and have a return on an investment that is going to be thirty-five years from now. We are looking at an energy efficient heating and cooling system as well as energy management within the electrical service for the building. This building won’t be occupied as much as the Town Hall because the court hours are limited. This will be an environmentally friendly building as long as there is a clear return on the investment.
Mr. Williams stated there are requirements for both interior and exterior improvements. We are generally in compliance with all the lead certification requirements with the exception of (inaudible). We have the erosion control; we are looking at stormwater infiltration as opposed to just letting it run off. I looked at the exterior and with the exception of (inaudible) we are lead compliant to the exterior.
Mr. Odell stated the three properties that were bought are they going to be utilized.
Mr. Williams stated yes, well not all of it. There were three separate tax lots, but it was always just one property.
Mr. Odell stated one deed.
Mr. Williams stated there were separate deeds, but by our code it was always considered one property. He couldn’t sell them separately. It was an all or nothing deal. The one
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property where there is nothing proposed on right now is the
property that goes out to
Mr. Odell stated (inaudible) Office Court Administration.
Judge King stated that is correct.
Mr. Odell stated what will they do.
Judge King stated our lease is up
Audience Member stated do they do it free.
Judge King stated I don’t think so. I’m not sure exactly, that could change. As of
Mr. Odell spoke without the use of the microphone.
Judge King stated not really I do much of the criminal court here.
Mr. Dan Kutcha stated John you made that claim at the last
Town Board meeting and since then I have contacted
Judge King stated I’m not sure who you spoke to but as far as I know that was the information I had in the past. I spoke with Judge Apathica. We have to have a court house.
Mr. Kutcha stated I spoke to him as well.
Judge King stated my assumption at this point is if we don’t provide one they will. I don’t make the policy. Call Judge Apathica and ask him again. I don’t make policy; I follow policy, so I have no idea what they are going to do.
Mr. Kutcha stated I can’t find anyone in the OCA to substantiate this claim. John doesn’t want to give me the claims. It comes across as a veiled threat and I don’t appreciate that at all.
Judge King stated let me clear this up. I don’t make threats to anyone. That is the information I have.
Mr. Kutcha stated I understand what you are saying. I just want you to substantiate it.
Judge King stated I am just telling you what I heard. I am not sure what they will do. I made mention of it. I didn’t say they were going to do that.
Mr. Kutcha stated I have you on tape. You said they are going to come into the Town and build it for us and send us the bill. I have it on tape.
Judge King stated that is my understanding.
Mr. Kutcha stated tell me who told you that.
Judge King stated call Judge Apathica.
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Mr. Kutcha stated that is who told you that.
Judge King stated I didn’t tell you Judge Apathica said that. My understanding was in the past that is what they have done. If they do something different that is fine. I don’t argue with OCA, I just follow instructions. Call Judge Apathica and ask him what he wants to do with it. He knows better. I have no power here; I’m your Town Judge. I just need a place to go to conduct court. Does that answer your question.
Mr. Raines stated I spoke with numerous people at LCN and they made it clear that within the guidelines including design (inaudible). What they did say is if we don’t have a facility whether it is due to hurricane, flood, fiscal crisis or otherwise they will step in and they will mandate where a court takes place and the Town will then be responsible for any costs. If they come in and they say we will hold court in Brewster and you have to pay Brewster $100,000.00 per month OCA can do that.
Mr. Kutcha stated that is different then saying they are going to build a court house.
Mr. Raines stated they didn’t say they weren’t, I am just telling you they have the power under State statue to come in and say if you don’t have a court facility for whatever reason they will mandate where a court takes place.
Mr. Kutcha stated let’s recognize that it is different then building a building.
Mr. Raines stated in defense of Judge King the bottom line is that if we don’t take action and the library becomes unavailable the State will tell us where to have court.
Mr. Kutcha stated you have a presentation on building the
court house and alternative sites, but I didn’t hear anything about what OCA is
advocating. OCA has documents on their
website advocating that they want to consolidate their thirteen hundred court
houses across the whole State. I didn’t
hear anything about the possibility of sharing a court house with
Mr. Griffin stated the Town of
Mr. O’Connor stated the idea was not unheard of. Councilwoman Nacerino and I went to
Mr. Kutcha stated my point was are there any lower costs
alternatives. You just presented
properties that you looked at. Why can’t
a portion of this
Mr. Griffin stated this room is no way adequate for a court
house. The security situation isn’t
designed with a massive amount of office space.
If we wanted to turn this into a court room and partition it off we will
cripple probably fifty to sixty percent of the operations of the
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wouldn’t function very well as a court house and it
functions fairly well as a
Mr. O’Connor stated one of the problems I have with the current court house is that it is in a building that is being used mostly by children. The world being what it is there are felons coming in and out of the court room and I don’t expect that to get any better. This building is designed for children. I don’t know what we will do when they are playing basketball or dodge ball outside. Are we going to close the entire Recreation facility whenever we have court in session and felons are coming in.
Mr. Kutcha stated I’m still asking for lower cost alternatives.
Mr. O’Connor stated that doesn’t mean they exist. I ask for a lot of things in life and I don’t get most of them. We did look at these things. Maybe you could be so kind as to mention a lower cost alternative that is practical.
Mrs. Nacerino stated exactly, just because the presentation didn’t indicate that we explored alternatives, the fact is we did.
Mr. Griffin stated you have called everyone and their dog at least three times. You spoke to the Judges. You have talked to a variety of people. Did anyone sit down with you and brainstorm with you as to what an alternative might be.
Mr. Kutcha stated I haven’t gotten to the bottom of that yet. I consider that a work in progress. I would like to understand exactly what the status of the grant is.
Mr. Griffin stated as of right now we do not have the grant disbursement agreements, which means to me that we have absolutely no guarantee from the State of New York that we are going to get those grants. It is my position and I’m sure the Board would support this position that until such time that we do have grant disbursement agreement we do not put this project out to bid. A letter of confirmation is not a grant disbursement agreement or contract. We have one letter from the governor’s office saying we have stopped funding grants to DASNY through State general fund. Until such time as DASNY can go out and re-quote bonds and repay the general fund and restart to use the proceeds of the bonds sales to start funding their commitments, they are not making anymore commitments. I know you have a letter from the governor’s office or from DASNY saying the governor has said he put a hold on all the projects. What he has done is that he will no longer fund DASNY commitments from State general fund. Until such time as DASNY can go out and start selling bonds at the open market again at rates they consider reasonable, they have monies available and we have grant disbursement agreements signed and sealed that the State has the money and will give it to us, my position is that I don’t see any of us going forward with this project to the point of putting it out to bid. We want to get this project shovel ready.
Mr. O’Connor stated the grant that has been temporally put on hold is the smaller of the two for $250,000.00. The million dollar grant is still active.
Mr. Kutcha stated things change all the time. I have another letter signed by (inaudible) from the sale of bonds.
Mr. Griffin read the letter.
Mr. Kutcha stated I am concerned if the information is changed (inaudible).
Mr. Griffin stated we never told DASNY we weren’t and they also know that based on our budget their grant isn’t going to cover it. That was obviously a mistake on my part.
Mr. Williams stated I contacted DASNY and got clarification on what they were looking for.
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Mr. O’Connor stated maybe they mean it’s the continuation of the same type of bond or are you looking for other types of bonds. I don’t know what they mean by the word other.
Mr. Kutcha stated as a non-tax exempt bond.
Mr. O’Connor stated I don’t know what they mean by the word other.
Mr. Griffin stated bond anticipation notes, revenue anticipation notes; there are multiple types of bonding. What the conversation had to do with DASNY I don’t recall. There never has been any point in time that I am aware of that we said we weren’t going to have to bond this project. We know we don’t have the total amount of construction costs.
Ms. Marjorie Auteri stated correct me if I am wrong, there are six Towns in the County.
Mr. Griffin stated correct.
Ms. Auteri stated how does Patterson rank in population.
Mr. Griffin stated we are probably the smallest Town in the County. Phillipstown is probably not far behind us.
Ms. Auteri stated and we are proposing to build the biggest court house in the County. That is a question.
Mr. Griffin stated I don’t know.
Ms. Auteri stated well it is bigger than
Ms. Nacerino stated they don’t have court houses. We will be the first to have a court house in the County.
Ms. Auteri stated what is the case load compared to the other courts.
Judge King stated we are presently ranked third in the County.
Ms. Auteri stated why are we third. Is it because you are such a good Judge and you get a lot of cases from other Towns.
Judge King stated I am President of the Magistrate Association
and we just had our annual conference.
We are presently up on crime in the County. We have at the jail itself about one hundred
cells that we hold right now. According
to the Office of the Sheriff we are running at about ninety right now. Since Sunday night I put four people in jail. We have room for about six more prisons in
the Correctional Facility. We are
looking at various ways to try to save the taxpayer’s money utilizing the
courts, the District Attorney’s Office, mental health and law enforcement. Any place we can because we are getting
busier and busier. As a result crime
goes hand in hand with the economy. If
the economy gets bad, crime goes up.
It’s just the way it is. It’s
been that way for years. Southeast is
probably the busiest court in the County.
They run a criminal calendar of upwards of one hundred people.
Ms. Auteri stated how many bathrooms does this new court house have.
Mr. Williams stated four.
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Mr. Griffin stated a men’s room, a ladies room and one public bathroom for men and women.
Ms. Auteri stated at the front of the building what is the conference room used for.
Mr. Griffin stated jury pool, meetings with attorneys and clients, the Historical Society asked for use of the facility and a variety of other things.
Ms. Auteri stated doesn’t the Historical Society have room
in the
Mr. Griffin stated the Historical Society has office space
in the
Ms. Auteri stated on Patterson’s taxpayer’s.
Mr. Griffin stated it is the Patterson Historical Society.
Ms. Auteri stated I thought you said the Hudson Valley Trust.
Mr. Griffin stated the Hudson Valley Trust controls the building and they are sharing the facility with a number of other groups.
Mr. Griffin continued to explain the floor plan of the court house to Ms. Auteri.
Mrs. Nacerino stated we don’t want to build a structure and out grow it within the decade. That is an important consideration. So often you build something and then realize it could have been a little larger. That one room that you might deem not necessary at this point in time certainly will be utilized in the future.
Ms. Auteri stated I am wondering if we could make revenue to offset expenses by renting the space to the other Towns that have much less facilities once it is built.
Mrs. Nacerino stated we will cross that bridge when we get
to it. We don’t know that now. That is something we can’t predict at this
point in time. As Mr. O’Connor stated
maybe shared services would work. We
could have
Judge King stated I don’t normally discuss revenue because that is not my job. For each traffic ticket that is written we receive $15.00. If a fine is $1,000.00 we get $15.00. We bring in almost $100,000.00 per year in revenue just on the traffic cases. There is revenue to the court, but I don’t discuss revenue because it is not my job.
Ms. Pat Ploeger stated a report to the California Sustainable Building Task Force states that a two percent additional investment to produce a high performance building would produce lifecycle savings that are ten times greater than the incremental investment. For example; an additional $100,000.00 investment in a five million dollar building should produce at least one million in savings for a building with an assumed twenty year lifecycle. Just for your information.
Mr. Raines stated except you have to look at the heating and cooling days in California versus New England and that is where you run into the sixty percent.
Ms. Ploeger stated I think that their cooling is probably
higher than ours and if you have ever been in
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from the last Board meeting at which this was discussed early in December, you said that you have been kicking around with the library this whole idea for about ten years.
Mr. Griffin stated about that, maybe fifteen.
Mr. Ploeger stated when was the new Town Hall built.
Mr. Griffin stated it opened in 2002.
Ms. Ploeger stated why wasn’t the court house combined with
the Town Hall then. Why weren’t
provisions made to have a larger meeting room that could accommodate not only
the court but also meetings like this.
We wouldn’t have to come over to the
Mr. Griffin stated because we had meetings just like this and people were very upset that we had a two million dollar budget for the Town Hall and didn’t want to spend a dime more than we actually had to. We bare boned the Town Hall down to exactly what we felt would be absolutely necessary. It went from over a ten thousand square foot building to about an eight thousand square foot building simply because we were locked into some numbers and the public was not willing to spend any money. We sat through a meeting, we had hearings, and we revised the building numbers downwards so we could get into the budget cap that we had discussed. The debt service has all been part of a very long evolving plan.
Ms. Ploeger stated thank you. How long have we been renting from the library at $1,000.00 per month and how long will we be renting in total, if they don’t throw us out in August.
Mr. Griffin stated that is a good question. If you can tell me when DASNY is going to be able to float bonds and send us our contracts, I would say within a year we will be out of the library.
Ms. Ploeger stated how long have we been renting.
Mr. Griffin stated about eighteen months.
Ms. Ploeger stated so that is $18,0000.00 plus another $12,000.00 we are looking at.
Mr. Griffin stated they are picking up all the maintenance costs that we aren’t paying anymore.
Ms. Ploeger stated but they used to pay us rent right.
Mr. Griffin stated yes a nominal rent. Approximately $600.00 per month.
Ms. Ploeger stated and we used to get money from the Community Room.
Mr. Griffin stated negligible.
Ms. Ploeger stated but all those thousands they add up.
Mr. Griffin stated yes it starts to turn into real money.
Ms. Ploeger stated are we building enough space for
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Mr. Raines stated we couldn’t go to Southeast anyway; they use their court house four nights a week.
Ms. Ploeger stated why don’t we have more than one night of night court.
Mr. Raines stated we do, we have two nights.
Ms. Ploeger stated why wasn’t this hearing held four or five years ago. I know it is an informational hearing, but why didn’t we all get together as a Town and talk back then.
Mr. Griffin stated for the same reason we used to get four people to a budget hearing. I don’t know what to tell you. Two years prior to this one we had six people at the budget hearing and zero questions. The year before that we had four people at the hearing and zero questions. We have taken twenty-six Town Board votes on this project. We had informational meetings repeatedly and had a huge informational meeting at the library where the library invited people and we invited people, the Senator was there and it was video taped and replayed. To say that this hasn’t been out to the public, I would respectfully disagree. I don’t mean this as any admonishment to the public, but you can only go so far and if they don’t come, they don’t come. We set up seventy something chairs here tonight and we have about thirty-five or forty people. It has been advertised, it’s been on the website and various organizations and groups have sent out emails. It is a tough answer for me to come up with as to why people in this Town chose to be comfortable with the way things are being done or resign to the fact that it’s just the way things are going to go. I don’t know.
Ms. Ploeger stated maybe with the televised Town Board meetings that will change and people will become more interested. Thanks Mike.
Ms. Dede Lefgren stated what happens if the bonds from DASNY don’t come through.
Mr. Griffin stated we hope that the library would be a good host and then we can start to consider other alternatives.
Ms. Lefgren stated and the court stays (inaudible).
Mr. Griffin stated it will be a negotiated process. I’m sure the library is very anxious to have us out of there. They have a lot of programs. The worse the economy gets the greater the need for the public library. We would like to see the Town have a very good well working, serving library. I think the Judges made a very good case for why we should be looking at a new court house. This has been part of a long term capital plan. We have been working it from 1994 forward. We have tried to manage the debt service so that these things aren’t huge burdens. In 2014, the debt service comes off your landfill. This has been revolving debt. We worked the numbers and tried to keep within those numbers and budgets so we didn’t have a problem where all of a sudden we have to spend millions in a span of two or three years to get all of our facilities updated and upgraded. Mr. Kassay and I have been doing this since 1994. Through the years we recognized what would be inadequate. A lot of us wished that this plan would have moved faster. The Town Hall was necessary. The upgrades to the Highway and Recycling were necessary. Frankly over the last fifteen years we have put the Town in pretty good shape in terms of infrastructure where we won’t need to do anything more for another twenty-five or thirty years, which is what happened the last time. Any major change to the Town facilities was in 1976 prior to our coming into office in 1994.
Mr. Griffin continued to explain the plan of the court house.
Ms. Lefgren stated is there a time limit that (inaudible).
Mr. Griffin stated I don’t think it would be entirely fiscally responsible for us to say we are going to put this project out to bid and go full steam ahead without contracts and
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commitments from the State. We would essentially double the debt service, which would take us to approximately $2.2 million. The way things are right now in this economy. Some of us are and some are not hopeful that the Patterson Crossing will come through and be a significant help to our tax base. Tractor Supply will be another commercial project. None of those projects are chiseled in stone. The responsible thing for this Board and my recommendation would be that until we have contracts from the State we mark time.
Ms. Lefgren stated and you don’t know when that will be.
Mr. Griffin stated if you have a crystal ball to tell me when the credit markets are going to loosen up, I could give you an answer on the other part of it. I do not know when DASNY is going to go out and sell bonds in the market place the way it is right now. It could be six months or eight months. We are hoping it is going to be a lot sooner than that. As soon as we have contracts from the State and the guarantee of the grants, I will come back to this Board and highly recommend that we put this project out to bid and move forward. If we are able to get federal monies through some sort of a stimulus package that would be anywhere equivalent to the monies that we get through the State, I would also recommend to the Board that we move this process forward. To put all of this on the backs of the taxpayer’s at this point in time, I think this is unrealistic and unreasonable.
Mr. Ron Taylor stated I am the President of the Historical Society. I would just like to go on record to say that we did not ask to be included in this building. We appreciate it, but we did not ask for it. If it would help to eliminate that little corner we would be all for it. Since the building is going to stand empty so much of the time, is there any way of using space in some other way. It is a lot of money to just sit there all day long. I see your need but is there any other way to utilize this building.
Mr. Raines stated we did talk about one of the things it is going to help us do, but we can’t do now. We are very limited with Planning and Zoning meetings, hearings and work sessions. It allows us to utilize the meeting room to have those work sessions. We don’t have that luxury now. We go into Mr. Williams’s office, which is not big enough. We did talk about how we could configure it to utilize it. Some of the OCA regulations require us to have hard walls and not partitions.
Mr. Taylor stated but you are investigating.
Mr. Raines stated yes.
Mr. Semo sated Mr. Raines OCA is going to have certain requirements on new construction. Those requirements do not exist in the current environment that we are in. Would you agree.
Mr. Raines stated can you clarify what you are saying.
Mr. Semo stated in other words the court house where it is right now does not have any of these nice facilities that would be desirable in a court.
Mr. Raines stated correct.
Mr. Semo stated I think this is a great project. Do I want to see it happen now, absolutely not. The economic times do not allow it. I went through some analysis not too long ago and I sat down and spoke with Judge King. One of the key issues that was there was the number of people he has to deal with. The other area is security. You are dealing with that now. Can it wait, yes it can wait. It can wait until somebody gets hurt. That’s the sad part. Let’s say we put an additional day and night for the Judges. Each one would receive $500.00 a piece for each night and $1,000.00 for the rental. Do you know how long it takes to recover the total investments. It would take forty-six years. Do I want to
PATTERSON TOWN BOARD
TOWN BOARD MEETING
see it go forty-six years, absolutely not. We are going to need it. Do we have to go under construction now, no. It may be desirable if you had the money in your pocket, but you don’t even have that. I think you have to work on this very judicially. Be careful what you do because it is taxpayer’s dollars.
Mr. Griffin stated I think you just heard us say that tonight.
Mr. Semo stated I think the library has been very generous in what they have done. I think they also realize that this may take longer than desirable.
Judge King stated whatever it takes us to maintain a secure facility and run a safe court we will do. If it means more nights, then we will put in more nights.
ADJOURNMENT
There being no further business the meeting ended at
Respectfully submitted,
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ANTOINETTE KOPECK, TOWN CLERK