Municipal Building delay? No!

The Valley News article “Looking forward to a renovated Municipal Building? Give it a couple more years” misrepresents what happened last night. Our board voted unanimously to begin the building renovation process immediately, exactly as it was presented to the voters at the public information sessions. Work on selecting a design and an architect begins this evening, when the Municpal Building Advisory Committee (MBAC) will be meeting at 5:30 PM in the town hall, if you wish to attend.

Independent of that timetable, we decided to float the bond for the renovation in May of 2014 instead of 2013 because we believe doing so will save us money. This discussion was accurately captured in the Valley News article. Floating a bond this May, knowing we won’t need a dime of that money for at least half a year, will cost us in excess of $100,000 in interest payments while the money sits unused in the town’s bank account. If we had reason to believe that bond interest rates were about to rise dramatically, that $100K might be seen as cheap insurance. But since we have no indication that bond rates are about to escalate significantly, we believe the taxpayers will save significant money by floating the bond next May instead of this May.

Meanwhile, the process for renovating the building has not been delayed at all, despite what a headline-writer at the Valley News seems to suggest.

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