The first one has already been approved and is rolled into a second request, which the Finance Committee voted to recommend for approval at our 10/28/08 Meeting. You might recall that in 2006 the Mayor requested about $80,000 to grind and re-point the exterior of two sides of the Police Department building on School Street. After much arm-wrestling, the previous Council approved only $60,000 for the work. Unfortunately (and as was apparent at the time), this was insufficient funds to make the necessary repairs.
The building was leaking and the City used a portion of the funds (about $12K) to apply a temporary chemical seal to the exterior of the building, putting off the real needs of the facility until a new request for funds could be made. In the meantime, the building's heating system failed. The Mayor requested that the balance of the original appropriation (about $45K) be allowed to be used to help replace the heating system. (The Mayor had to get approval to use those monies for a purpose other than re-pointing the brick exterior.) We approved this request at our October MC meeting.
The Mayor then brought a large-scale request to the MC to comprehensively address the exterior and heating/cooling needs of the Police and Fire Department buildings. This request is for a $600,000 bond to finance the grinding and re-pointing of brick exteriors, the replacement of 36 windows with energy efficient units, the replacement of HVAC units in both buildings and the repair of the roof at the Fire Station.
It is important to note that this is a bond request, meaning that we will be borrowing the money for a 15 year term, rather than paying it out of a single year's budget. This is how all major capital improvements should be handled, spreading out the cost of the work to all of the 'users' (meaning, taxpayers) of the asset, including future ones. Amesbury enjoys a relatively low debt service-to-budget ratio and thus is in a good position to absorb this cost in its budget.
On 10/27, a number of us Councilors took a tour of both facilities at a posted meeting. This included a visit to the roof of the Firehouse. I can say in very good conscience that the building is in bad shape and it is in the taxpayers' best interest to invest in these properties and protect these major City assets. Here is just one (cell phone) photo from the tour, to give you an idea of the bad shape they are in:
Click HERE and hit the 'ready-only' button to see a whole Slideshow of photos. There were signs everywhere of extensive water infiltration and damage, especially in the Firehouse.
It is worth noting that these repairs were prioritized at the top of the list in this years Capital Improvement Plan (2009-13). This is one of the first things that I checked. It is good to see the CIP working as it should, to identify, prioritize and schedule funding for our capital needs as a community. Maintaining and investing in public facilities is also a priority of the Master Plan.
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