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10/02/2018 02:15 PMThe Town of Guilford owns numerous properties and buildings ranging from the schools to the community center to garages for public works. As town services continue to expand and various program usage continues to climb, the Board of Selectmen (BOS) voted on Sept. 17 to form a Facilities Task Force to analyze how well the town uses its facilities and to help plan for future space needs.
Ensuring facilities are used in the most efficient and effective manner has always been an area of interest for the BOS, but First Selectman Matt Hoey said there are a few challenges on the horizon that sparked the need for a facilities task force.
“We have a challenge down at Public Works right now,” he said. “Parks & Recreation has their maintenance crews in one of the bays. Already they need probably six more bays to house the equipment and vehicles, many of which now have to stay outside all winter long and things freeze and break and those kind of things. Also the foreman has an office in one of the garage bays and the crew has their break table and lunch table in that same large bay without restroom facilities.”
Hoey said other issues include the fact that the town is running out of space for records retention and the food bank needs to be updated and a larger space might be needed in future.
To pull the task force together, Hoey said former selectman Gary MacElhiney volunteered to head up the committee and the town is looking to recruit others to join the task force.
“Gary has already reached out to John Ireland, who in a previous career actually did facilities planning for major universities,” said Hoey. “That was his business for a very long time...He said you should allocate up to $50,000 for a consultant to use with the facilities taskforce.”
Selectman Charlie Havrda said he was pleased to see MacElhiney and Ireland heading up this task force.
“That is a prefect bipartisan effort,” he said. “Those are two good key individuals.”
The BOS unanimously approved the creation of the taskforce and allocated $50,000 from the undesignated fund balance for the use of a consultant. The funding request then went to the Board of Finance (BOF) where it received some pushback.
Ultimately the $50,000 appropriation was approved by the BOF 4-2 with Jonathan Trotta and Ken Mackenzie casting the dissenting votes.