Recently I watched the video of the recent presentation by the police station building committee, courtesy Adam Cohen and the North Street Neighborhood Association. You can watch the video here.
The building committee consists of police lieutenant Scott Savino, captain Ken Patnaude, Hampshire juvenile court probation officer Susan McGuire, John Hite from the Northampton Housing Authority, police officer Michael Allard, Rob Ostberg who runs an investment firm in the city and also serves on Northampton’s capital improvements committee, Dave Pomerantz the central services director for the city, Ray Kinghorn(?) of Pinnacle One-project manager, police captain Joe Koncas, Juanita Forsythe who has previously represented Cooley Dickinson Hospital before the planning board, Jeanne Hoose, area teacher and former campaign chairperson for Ward 4 councilor David Narkewicz and a facilitator of the Veterans Field skateboard park. Councilors Narkewicz and David Murphy, who is a local real estate broker, also sit on the committee as does building commissioner Tony Patillo, who was not present. No local architects are on the committee to my knowledge. The committee has secured the architectural services of Caolo & Bienek Associates of Chicopee. Ken Jodrie of the planning board is on the staff of Caolo & Bienek.
Only two people spoke when comments were taken. One of them was local architect Tom Douglas. Some of Mr. Douglas’ questions and the responses from the board:
Douglas: What percentage of the architecture fee is spent now? I’m wondering where you’re at in the drawings.
Chief Seinkewicz: I don’t have financial spreadsheets in front of me.
Tom Douglas: Do you know, well, when are you going out to bid for the project?
Seinkewicz: That process is about to be completed tonight.
Douglas: When will you start construction?
Seinkewicz: That’s completely up to once the construction management firm is…
Douglas: Is it, are you talking a year, or one month, or six months or…
Seinkewicz: Yes, we’re hoping some time in the fall, the original plan was made…
Douglas: If you’re going out to bid some time in the fall, which about a month away, you’ve probably spent 90% of your design fees now, right? At least.
Seinkewicz: I didn’t say we’re going out to bid in a month, I said we’re about to hire the construction management firm
Douglas: I’m just trying to figure out, my basic question is um, what’s the point of this meeting and is there real room for public constructive criticism if almost all of the design work has been spent already. Because if you’ve already gone through 90% of your architecture and design fees you’re pretty locked into what you’re going to do and there’s very little wiggle room right now. So you’re just showing what’s going to happen.
Ray Kinghorn: There’s three significant phases in the design, the schematic design, design development, and then construction documents. We’re just in design development now. We’re not any further than that.
Douglas: So you could actually get to finish your construction documents with all of the mechanical drawings done in a month or two?
Kinghorn: No, we’re hoping that what we’ll do is we will go out early with site, concrete and steel, and get those three packages out on the street and bid those three to get that started and then the reminder of it will begin after (muffled). Our attempt is to get out on the ground this winter. We may be stuck until the spring.
Douglas: Okay, so just in terms of the design process, I mean you still have to get through the downtown architectural commission. If they were to suggest any radical changes to the facade, are you too far along now to backtrack?
Seinkewicz(?): I would say no.
Douglas: Because the hotel project they came to that board during schematic design so they were very very early on in their design phase and they made a lot of changes after the first few meeting with the downtown architecture commission. So it seems like if you’re waiting that long to go to downtown architecture you got, you’re going to go out to bid very quickly afterwards. There’s very little room for change so I’m wondering what level of constructive criticism actually will be available.
Seinkewicz: Well we’re having the meeting sir and if you have specific comments this is the time to share them or put them in writing and provide them to us.
Douglas: Okay.
Mr. Douglas continued with a question about an easement that runs through where the garage is proposed, but the board decided not to address that matter due to ongoing negotiations with the holder of the easement.
Other than that, it was a tidy meeting and the committee next approached the city council for funding approval. Last Thursday the council took two readings in one night on borrowing about $13.6 million for bricks, concrete and steel due to their escalating costs.
According to finance director Christopher Pile, the project has been incorporated into the city’s long range capital borrowing schedule, using capital stabilization funds during the first five years of debt payments. Annual payments under municipal bonding are declining payments since each year’s interest is calculated on the remaining principal. Mr. Pile indicated that the city might very well realize a more favorable rate than the 5% projected and added that the use of stabilization funds does not affect the issue of debt, rather it is a financing source to the general fund in lieu of tax support.
The annual principal payment on $13.6 million over twenty years is $680 thousand and the average annual interest payment is projected at about $357,380 or a total of $7.147 million. Added together the annual payment would average about $1.037 million. The city council established this stabilization fund in fiscal year 2006 and appropriated $1.18 million to it in that year and $.565 million in fy 2007 for a total of $1.745 million. Present estimates indicate that the new police station costs could exceed $20.747 million.
Under this plan it would seem as though the city council will have to continue the practice of allocating free cash funds to the capital stabilization account over the next five years, leaving fewer funds available for the city’s other needs. It is not clear how the city will make its payments for the latter fifteen years. Though it has been said that this project will not require an override, it is clear that the fiscal resources it requires will drain funding from other city agencies increasing the need for more funding overall. As principal and interest payments must be made, it is a probability that the school system will lose out if the override planned for next spring fails to pass muster with the voters. From a tactical standpoint, selling a general override to the community on behalf of the schools is probably preferable to selling a debt exclusion override for a new police station, as there is ample political activity mobilizing within the school system, something lacking in an agency like the police department.
