Erecting a new Public Works building "is long overdue," said Councilman David Garber, liaison to the Department of Public Works. "There are compelling reasons to accept this bid."
By John Tredrea
Pennington Borough will get a new Public Works building.
Urged to do so by about a dozen residents at Monday night’s Borough Council meeting, the council voted to accept the lowest bid of $1,336,000 from the Pennington-based firm of Valley Contractors to build an 11,200-square-foot Public Works building on borough-owned land.
The land is in Hopewell Township just outside the borough line, off North Main Street between the CSX railroad line and Route 31.
Voting in favor of accepting the bid were David Garber, Tony Persichilli, Eileen Heinzel, Joe Lawver and Weed Tucker. Jim Lytle abstained.
Erecting a new Public Works building "is long overdue," said Mr. Garber, council’s liaison to the Department of Public Works. "There are compelling reasons to accept this bid."
Mr. Garber described conditions at the current dilapidated Public Works building as atrocious.
"Our public works employees work in a dump," he said bluntly. "It’s shameful they have to deal with conditions like that."
Mr. Garber said the state has told the borough that, due to new stormwater regulations, it must stop washing equipment at the current facility, which borders Lewis Brook. Also due to those regulations, the borough must stop storing road salt at the current facility.
Borough officials say the state is allowing the borough to continue these practices for now because of ongoing plans to build a new Public Works facility, where vehicles would be washed indoors and salt stored in a closed dome. A dome would not be allowed on the current site, Mr. Garber has said.
The borough has been fined repeatedly by state inspectors for health and safety violations at the current site. Explaining his affirmative vote, Mr. Lawver said: "I came into this process very skeptical (about erecting a new Public Works building), but I find a greater risk in deferring this project than in going ahead with it now."
If the borough, which has been grappling with the issue of the new building for nearly a decade, continues to wait, it will have to deal with "price escalation for raw materials and labor," Mr. Lawver said.
"What we have now doesn’t work," Mr. Persichilli said of the current Public Works facility. "I’ve been there it’s like the worst place in the world."
Councilman Tucker said of the new building: "There’s no question that it’s much needed and long overdue. The project has been scaled down by about a third (from 16,800 to 11,200 feet). The more we delay the higher the price will be. This will be one of the most important decisions this council will make. It will be our legacy. A unanimous vote would demonstrate our support for the Public Works staff and our residents."
With Mr. Lytle’s abstention, the unanimous vote did not occur. "There’s no question we need a new facility," Mr. Lytle said during the council discussion that preceded the public hearing and council vote on the bid. "I completely agree that it’s long overdue. My concern is about how we will pay for it. I feel there are other cost-savings areas that could be realized." He did not say what any of those areas are.
Mr. Lawver, who chairs council’s Finance Committee, said $872,000 already has been spent on the site on which the new building will go $311,000 to buy the land, $308,000 for design and engineering work, and $252,000 on an underground stormwater drainage system and other site work completed in May. He said all the expenses of the project, including the new building, can be paid for over a 20-year period with already approved municipal bonds.
If the project were paid for this way, the owner of a property assessed at $235,000, the borough average, would pay $127 per year for 20 years toward the new Public Works facility. Mr. Lawver said the borough is looking into alternate means of financing. The manner in which the project will be financed will be put to a vote at an upcoming Borough Council meeting.
About 30 people attended the meeting, an unusually high number for a Borough Council meeting. About a dozen residents spoke on the issue of accepting the bid. All but one of them, a Hopewell Township woman who lives near the tract where facility will be built and who would not give her name to the HVN, urged the council to accept the bid.
Former Mayor Sue Riley said it’s evident thee new building is needed.
"The public has demonstrated over the years that they want to maintain local control of their services," she said.
Resident Bill Ducharme agreed.
"It’s very important that we do this," he said. "Let’s give our employees and the people of the borough their due."
Resident Mark Godfrey said officials and residents should remember Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina when thinking about this issue.
"Public Works is our backbone," he said. "We need to have them in a good place. We’ve been very lucky to have such dedicated people in public works. It’s remarkable they’ve given us such good service all the years they’ve been working out of such a terrible place."
Resident Stewart Schwab, a 25-year employee of Hopewell Township Public Works, was joined by fellow Pennington residents Mark Blackwell and Tom Blackwell in urging council to add outdoor paving and tiling of the rest rooms to the project.
"Do the complete job," Mr. Schwab said.
He and the Blackwell brothers said delaying the paving and tiling would wind up costing the borough more down the road.
"You’re going to have trucks rolling around in the mud, road salt and gravel," Mark Blackwell said.
Mr. Schwab suggested replacing a road salt storage dome with a lean-to at the new facility as a possible way of recouping enough money to pay for the paving and tile.
Those were "good suggestions," Mr. Garber said after the meeting. However, they could not be acted on during Monday night’s meeting because they were not in the contract on which council voted.
Mr. Lawver said the current plan is to spend another $130,000 on paving, grading and fuel tanks after the building is done. Like eliminating the tile from the restroom, the paving was delayed to defray the cost as much as possible, he said.
Former borough Councilwoman Susan Porcella urged council to approve the bid.
"You’re elected to do good things for people," she said. "Just remember: justice delayed is justice denied."
Like Mr. Schwab, Jeanne Donlon, a longtime member of the borough Planning Board, urged council to see if any state or federal grants could cover part of the cost of new facility.
Just before adjournment, longtime Public Works Supervisor Jeff Wittkop, who has been calling publicly for the new building for years, said: "I would like to thank the council members and all the residents who came out tonight to support the new building."

