Bond Decision Pending—

Selectmen: Complete FFH Hazmat Remediation Project With Remaining Budget

By John Voket

Expressing disappointment that the public could not officially vote on the measure, First Selectman Pat Llodra told her board Monday evening that there is no legal way to conduct a town meeting to approve or deny increasing spending for a Fairfield Hills demolition and remediation project at Litchfield Hall.

But the board did postpone its final decision on bonding another $425,000 until the public has opportunity to comment on the matter at the selectmen’s next meeting January 3.

At the same time, selectmen did not oppose moving forward with authorizing a West Haven environmental company to begin remediation work after learning already approved bond funds more than cover the bid price to complete the hazmat aspect of the project.

“We’ll start tomorrow,” Public Works Director Fred Hurley told The Bee as the final selectmen’s meeting of the year drew to a close December 20. During his third public presentation in just over a week on the history and implications of the project, Mr Hurley echoed what he has told officials since asbestos was discovered in the sills and lintels of more than 200 windows on site during preliminary stages of demolition last summer.

“The potential for partial structural collapse is great,” Mr Hurley warned. “We’ve got to make this liability exposure go away.”

A few days earlier, on December 15, the council approved a bond amendment that would increase borrowing on an existing $1 million bond to $1,425,000. The added borrowing would ensure there is enough funding to accommodate both the unanticipated abatement and to complete the demolition.

Since the special appropriation is under $500,000, the authorization to spend cannot automatically trigger a town meeting. But several council members, including Chairman Jeff Capeci and Vice Chair Mary Ann Jacob, believed while the appropriation fell under the council’s authority, the decision should go to the taxpayers because it would increase the overall project cost beyond that half-million-dollar mark.

So the council passed an amendment to the main motion stipulating the appropriation go to a town meeting if it was determined to be legal.

Mrs Llodra told The Bee just before Monday’s meeting, however, that there is no legal provision in the charter to permit an appropriation under $500,000 to go to town meeting. And she affirmed her discontent with that ruling to her fellow selectmen, saying, “I know some folks will be disappointed. But the charter requires the Legislative Council to move [this] special appropriation.”

Since an opportunity to force a referendum on the council’s authorization passed with no apparent interest, it falls on the selectmen to approve or deny the increased spending in January. If approved, Mr Hurley said demolition crews would begin completing their task in concert with the remediation team, and the entire structure would be down and the site would be ready for planting and landscaping in the spring.

CIP/Resolution Confusion

By next summer, that new patch of grass will hold only memories of a public project that has occupied three local administrations going back to when the council first approved initiating design plans for a proposed recreation center on that exact site in December 2004.

Since then, the numbers related to the pending recreation center project — and as it turns out, responsibility for oversight of that corner of Fairfield Hills — have been moving targets that have fostered public confusion and concern, particularly in the most recent and final stage as the bills for both expected and unanticipated work came due.

The projected costs for the recreation center on the town’s official wish list, the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), have been intermingled with actual bid costs, which have then been introduced in various public venues tied to official actions to underwrite what has become a project in some degree of limbo for Parks and Recreation commissioners and administrators.

But a timeline of the project combined with reports from various meetings confirm how and where the not-formally-specified $400,000 and $600,000 components of the bond have been juxtaposed and then combined to equal the $1 million already committed and borrowed. And arriving at the point where an additional $425,000 will be required to finish the job.

The 2004 council decision originally placed a $200,000 request for architect fees in the CIP for the 2006-2007 budget cycle. The 2004 decision also projected $2.4 million for Phase 1 construction of a standalone recreation center at Fairfield Hills into the 2007-2008 budget.

After some deliberations, which included a subsequent CIP with no recreation center at all, and then a reconstituted request in the next CIP cycle for $500,000 to design a pool facility and $5 million for Phase 1 construction of a recreation center, the council approved another CIP in 2007 settling on $600,000 for design of what became a combined rec/senior center and pool complex.

This is where the numbers really began changing.

In January 2008, selectmen endorsed appropriating $600,000 for design of the rec/senior center, adding an additional $400,000 for anticipated demolition to clear space for the new building at the site of Litchfield Hall. Almost two months later, Joe Borst — who was first selectman at the time — told his board that demolition costs combined with project management and environmental test fees were bumping that aspect of the project over the $550,000 mark.

Selectmen also learned around that time the stepped-up cost could also accommodate demolition of a smaller neighboring building, Yale Laboratory, which had become an attractive nuisance because it was the site of the former hospital’s morgue, which was of great interest to thrill-seeking and ghost-hunting trespassers.

Demo Costs Flipped

By March 3, 2008, Mr Borst understood that architectural and planning costs for the rec/senior center were expected to be less than anticipated. And during a meeting that day, selectmen decided to amend their earlier January bond resolution from specifically designating Litchfield Hall as the sole target for demolition to cover planning for the recreation center and the less specific “demolition of buildings” for a total of $1 million.

The next two weeks saw that amended bond resolution pass both the Board of Finance and Legislative Council, and while the minutes of the March 19, 2008, council session reflect Vice Chairman Francis Pennarola’s “expectation” that $600,000 would be designated for rec/senior center planning and $400,000 for demolition, spending estimates by Mr Borst have held true.

Finance Director Robert Tait confirmed following this week’s selectmen’s meeting what had been alluded to, but perhaps never explicitly stated for the record at any of the dozen or more public meetings tied to the history of the current bond resolution. The $1 million in bonding that was approved after several visits to the Board of Selectmen, and at least two passes before the council and finance board over the course of more than two years, followed by voter approval, represented a pool of money that was only designated to pay for recreation center plans and demolition of buildings at Fairfield Hills.

That bonding resolution was part of a larger bonding initiative that included borrowing, among other things, for part of the high school expansion. That omnibus resolution was then endorsed by taxpayers in a subsequent budget referendum.

The closest the current resolution ever came to designating any specifics was when it originally debuted in 2008, specifically mentioning part of the funding tied to the demolition of Litchfield Hall.

Recreation Center     Spending

And what of the $289,711 already spent from the $1 million bond for the schematic design and management of a standalone recreation center project?

Parks and Recreation Commission Chairman Ed Marks views the expenditure as money well spent. He told The Bee on December 21 that an order for the plans and management of a standalone recreation center project was initiated in good faith that such a project could eventually materialize.

But today, new options have surfaced that might prevent such a standalone center initiative from ever coming to fruition. At the same time, Mr Marks said creating the plans was “fruitful, even if we don’t move forward.”

The commissioner said that as a result of completing those plans, the town now knows preliminary estimates that Mr Marks fully expected to have to adhere to are way out of whack. He said that in today’s dollars, the latest estimate for a standalone facility as planned is $18 million.

And every year further out, construction cost estimates escalate by four percent.

“That’s 50 percent more than the budget we expected to be given,” Mr Marks said. “But I don’t think it was a waste of money.”

Mr Marks explained that if no standalone project ever results from the plans taxpayers have already paid for, the expenditure of the $289,711 was still “a good exercise” because those plans will serve to guide the town (and minimize future costs) whether Newtown moves toward what is now estimated to be a $18–$20 million standalone recreation facility; a proposed reoutfitting of Newtown Youth Academy for a Parks & Rec center; or outfitting another municipal facility for Parks & Rec use is pursued.