CFAL Funding To Come From Free Cash

CHATHAM – Officials won’t have to agonize over mustering a two-thirds vote of town meeting to appropriate money to expand and renovate the existing Center for Active Living on Stony Hill Road to better serve the town’s seniors.

 The select board last week agreed to tap free cash to fund the $5 million price tag for the project, which will require a simple majority vote at the May 10 annual town meeting.

 Previous proposals called for borrowing the money to build a new home for the council on aging, which required two-thirds votes at town meeting. At least three times in recent years funding for a new building for the town’s seniors failed to reach the two-thirds threshold, once by just one vote. 

 Select board members said they weren’t trying to avoid the need for a two-thirds vote, but with an unusually high amount of free cash available — $11 million, due at least partially to an accounting blip — it’s appropriate to tap it to avoid interest costs.

 “The money’s there,” said board member Dean Nicastro. “It doesn’t make sense to me to go out and bond this.” Board member Jeffrey Dykens said he believed the proposal would pass even if it needed a two-thirds vote, but he felt that using free cash was a “really good compromise.”

 Chair Michael Schell said he wasn’t quite as confident about a successful two-thirds vote, but with its tortured history, Center for Active Living (CFAL) funding shouldn’t be “burdened” by that requirement. “A two-thirds vote is not something it must bear,” he said.

 Using free cash will also allow the project to get underway immediately after town meeting approval rather than having to wait to borrow the money. That is a factor in the accelerated construction schedule being proposed by officials which would see the design finalized in June, bids put out in July, and construction begin in August. The 43-week construction schedule calls for the project to be completed by June 2026, said Principal Projects and Operations Administrator Terry Whalen. 

 “It’s pretty tight,” he said of the schedule. Schell said he had “real doubts” that timetable will work, but agreed waiting to bid the project in the winter — the approach municipalities often take — would set the timetable back too far.

 “I don’t want to be around to say I told you so,” Schell said. “I want to be around to say you got it done.”

 Town Manager Jill Goldsmith added that pushing the project out to a later date would create “some challenges” with the COA sharing program space at the community center during construction. 

 The cost of the renovation and expansion project rose from $4.4 million to $5 million after a number of contingencies and soft costs were increased, and money was added to rent trailers, said Whalen. “Challenges” in the marketplace related to material costs and other factors also contributed to the price hike, he said.

 The project will increase the usable space in the building at 193 Stony Hill Rd. by 22 percent, from 8,035 square feet to 10,191 square feet. Lower level improvements will better accommodate the COA’s adult supportive day program and create a more accessible drop-off area for clients, while other upgrades to the building will improve the flexibility of the multi-purpose rooms, upgrade handicap accessibility, expand dining and storage areas, reconfigure offices and add dormers to the top floor to increase the functionality of program and office space. The lifespan of the project is estimated at 40- to 50-years.

Goldsmith said some of the design issues, including parking and traffic patterns, are still being worked out, another reason she would like to get bids out early. The alternative, said Whalen, is to push the project back by a year.

That would not be palatable to the town’s seniors, who have waited more than a decade for a new facility. The initial plan for a new senior center on town property off Middle Road failed to win the required two-thirds vote, and subsequent proposals for a new facility at 1610 Main St. — land that developer William Marsh offered to donate to the town — failed twice, once by a single vote. After the last defeat, officials turned to renovating the existing Center for Active Living as the best alternative for upgrading COA facilities.

 The council on aging board endorsed moving forward with the project last month. The finance committee reviewed the project last Thursday but did not vote. Chair Stephen Daniel said he expects a vote this week, adding that he was confident the committee would support the measure based on members’ feedback at last week’s meeting.

 At town meeting, voters will be asked to appropriate more than $10 million of the $11 million in free cash for the Center for Active Living project ($5 million), completion of improvements at the transfer station ($3 million) and capital improvement projects ($2,575,950). If all three projects are OK’d, the free cash balance will drop to $610,888. Free cash includes funds left over from previous years appropriations as well as revenue that was higher than budgeted.