The Debate Is On: New Town Hall Vs Leasing More Commercial Space

By John Voket

Newtown residents may be accustomed to seeing Board of Education member Paul Mangiafico analyzing bus routes, promoting the merits of a proposed high school expansion or lending his business acumen to dozens of other issues affecting the Newtown school district. But in recent weeks, the school board member, who recently told The Bee that he is entertaining a run for first selectman, has become a leading advocate for scrapping plans for a new town hall at Fairfield Hills, suggesting instead that the town should consider buying or leasing more space at a commercial facility on Peck’s Lane where some temporary municipal offices are housed.

Mr Mangifico’s assertions in letters to The Newtown Bee, as well as during public forums, including a joint meeting of the finance board and Legislative Council last week, have characterized an $11 million town hall proposal as “irresponsible.” He has furthermore taken First Selectman Herb Rosenthal to task over the Fairfield Hills government center proposal, despite the fact that for nearly a decade, such a facility has been part of an overall plan of development at the former state hospital campus.

In a December 1 letter, Mr Mangiafico wrote, “This continued ‘full speed ahead — damn the torpedoes’ charge to build us a new town hall is not in keeping with spending our money wisely at this time in light of the other needs.

“We must immediately demand, before it is to late, from our selectmen and Legislative Council members that this rush to erect Herb’s edifice be halted and reexamined in light of our town’s real needs and abilities to fund,” Mr Mangiafico added.

In a rebuttal letter, a separate interview with The Bee, and in comments at the finance/council joint meeting last week, the first selectman countered with his reasons why the town hall initiative should move forward as planned at Fairfield Hills. “…town offices at Fairfield Hills were part of every committee’s plan going back to Julia Wasserman’s committee in 1994,” Mr Rosenthal stated in his rebuttal letter, which was published December 15.

“Not only when the original appropriation and bonding resolution were approved by the voters in 2001, but as recently as last spring, when the current budget was approved, the Board of Finance, Legislative Council, and ultimately the voters approved borrowing $7 million to begin the construction of town office and recreation space at Fairfield Hills,” Mr Rosenthal continued. “It was spelled out in the budget books given to finance and council members and discussed without opposition. I am carrying out those decisions with the continued agreement of the entire Board of Selectmen. I am not acting on my own behalf.”

Mr Mangiafico said he is against the town hall proposal because other municipal and school system needs prioritized in the five-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) have topped out at more than $100 million.

The school board official has stood firm on his idea that the town may be better served financially by acquiring the Kendro Laboratories facility on Peck’s Lane. That facility is the present location of town offices that were formerly housed for nearly eight years in Canaan House on the Fairfield Hills Campus. Those offices were relocated into about 14,000 square feet leased space at the Kendro facility before oil spill soil remediation and demolition work began at Fairfield Hills in 2005.

In a second letter published in this edition of The Bee, Mr Mangiafico further asserts that the Peck’s Lane facility offers: “81,675 sq ft available for additional town occupancy, or industrial leased space @ $6.18 sq ft …” But while this information supports his earlier suggestion that leasing the entire facility would cost about $240,000 annually for an additional 40,000 square feet, Mr Rosenthal pointed out that most of the remaining space at Kendro is raw industrial space, best suited for manufacturing.

Maria DeMarco, who provides management services at Fairfield Hills and who helped negotiate and outfit the current town office space at Kendro, said it would cost “millions more” to create 30,000 square feet of equivalent additional office space from the industrial manufacturing floor on Peck’s Lane.

Mr Rosenthal said the $6.18 per square foot industrial lease option at the facility is an accurate number for a manufacturing tenant, but does not reflect the actual cost to taxpayers for finished office space. And according to Ms DeMarco, that rate for space is incomparable to the $15.45 per square foot rate the town is paying for 13,500 square feet currently.

Besides a monthly lease, the town initially paid about $1 million to renovate and reoutfit the existing office space for the Board of Education, the Regional Health District, fire marshal, planning and zoning, Kevin’s Community Center, and several other officials. The current plan at Fairfield Hills calls for converting the 45,000-square-foot Bridgeport Hall into municipal offices.

Besides creating a centralized town hall where virtually all municipal functions will transpire under one roof, Mr Rosenthal and other officials have repeatedly quoted financial, development, and real estate professionals who say a municipal center will help attract desirable private economic development to the town-owned campus.

Mr Rosenthal said he is loathe to consider moving additional town offices to the Kendro site because it would remove a valuable tax generating industrial facility from the town’s limited commercial tax roles. “We’re collecting property taxes now on a virtually empty building, and personal property taxes on equipment being housed there by another lease holder,” the first selectman said.

Mr Rosenthal said that in an environment where he hears almost daily public outcry to boost economic development to help offset the cost of municipal services and help control residential taxes, it does not make sense to relocate all municipal functions to Peck’s Lane.

“And by developing municipal space at Fairfield Hills, we’ve been told by both consultants and experts that it will attract the kind of commercial taxpayer that could help pay for the swimming pools, cultural center, senior facilities, dog pound, and other services that will benefit all Newtown’s residents in the future,” Mr Rosenthal said.

He added that the current space crunch at Edmond Town Hall is problematic for officials who must warehouse an increasing level of public documents and records in storage areas that were designed for the town government 75 years ago, while forcing significantly more employees to work productively in cramped offices.

“There’s no efficiency of operation,” Mr Rosenthal said. “We have our Human Resources Department in a closet and whenever they need ice for the movies, they have to access the machine through our town planner’s office.”

Customer service also enters into the mix, the first selectman said.

“With the temporary offices at Kendro, people doing business between offices there and here have to travel almost three miles between the two locations. And while we are centrally located here now, traffic and parking are an issue,” Mr Rosenthal said. “Fairfield Hills is technically the town’s geographic center and the access to parking will certainly be much more convenient for anyone coming to a new municipal facility there.”

Despite the first selectman’s reasoning, Mr Mangiafico believes the town hall project should be put on hold.

“I call upon our first selectman to exercise his truly significant and capable leadership qualities to hear the dissent and do the right thing,” he writes in his most recent letter to the editor. “I call upon our council members and selectmen to assist and insist in doing the right thing: Immediately halt any further moves to bond or commit to a town hall at FFH until all needs can be prioritized for the good of all of us.”