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HIGHTSTOWN: Council continues Borough Hall debate

By Amy Batista, Special Writer
   HIGHTSTOWN — From downtown to uptown, council members have been debating the future of the Borough Hall facility for months, passing a resolution in September advocating that the facility stay downtown.
   However at a special meeting on Feb. 15 all options were up for discussion.
   ”Since this is a workshop involving the future of the Borough Hall I thought maybe it might be time for me to share some thoughts with you, I haven’t done so to date,” said resident Jeffery Bond, a former council member “I’m a concerned taxpayer. As you know, I own some property in town and pay some taxes. I’m concerned as to the direction in which this whole thing is going in.”
   While Mr. Bond said he “appreciates their opinion” about Borough Hall remaining downtown, he continued, “Buying an existing building makes a lot more sense.”
   Mr. Bond suggested that council consider moving into the Lucas building.
   ”It’s obviously available,” Mr. Bond said of 415 Mercer St. “We kind of know what the price is going to be. You know it’s going to be somewhere around a million bucks. Maybe I am wrong, but I have a good feeling based on my experience with real estate in town that a million bucks is going to get you that building. You might get it for a little bit less.”
   Lexington Insurance has sent the borough an estimate of $1.9 million to rebuild or refurbish the Borough Hall, damaged in the destruction caused by Hurricane Irene in August 2011. Temporary facilities for employees is part of the claim, however. For nearly 18 months municipal workers have been working out of tight quarters inside the Public Works building.
   According to Mr. Bond, there are seven acres and an office complex short of a police station at the Lucas site.
   ”I don’t think anybody would deny that you couldn’t move in there tomorrow and you could have all of your offices in there, I’m not talking about a court, I’m not talking about a meeting room, but all of your offices could go in there tomorrow,” Mr. Bond said.
   Councilwoman Lynne Woods questioned how Mr. Bond could know the exact amount of rent on the Lucas property since council had just received those “confidential” numbers that evening at its executive session.
   ”I would really like to dispel here, and I think it is very unfortunate, that people think that there is some sort of conspiracy thing going on with that building up there, when in fact it’s only about the numbers,” Mr. Bond added. “It’s only about the best thing for the borough as far as space and costs and insurance and everything else.”
   ”You spent six and half, seven months going through this whole exercise last year,” said resident JP Gibbons. “It resulted in a 5-1 vote to build downtown. It was based on the numbers. Pure and simple. It was based on the practicality of it.”
   ”If this is a ‘let’s go back to square one and decide that the purchase of the Lucas property is a better deal for the borough,’ the reality of the situation is the public has a damn right to know that. The public has a right to understand what is going on.”
   Dawson Bloom, project manager of Roberts Engineering Group, started off the workshop reminding council why they were there.
   Council at the previous meeting had only one viable bid for review, from Mobilease Modular Space Inc. of West Deptford. It offered to supply an administrative temporary facility for $159,200 and $275,100 for a modular police unit. While the council tabled the bid Feb. 4, it has 60 days from the time the bids came in to award a contract.
   At Tuesday’s council meeting, members approved the introduction of an ordinance to lease lot space behind the Ely House, owned by Greystone Capital Partners Inc., to place the modulars there for employees and the Police Department.
   ”At the last council meeting there were some questions raised and there seemed to be some either misunderstandings about where the current situation with both the insurance company in terms of having discussions with them and also where the overall strategy for moving the entire project forward,” Mr. Bloom said.
   He informed council that there were three basic issues that needed to be addressed to move the project forward, including: 1) Establish an end point in order to set a goal; 2) interim facilities for Borough Hall now (originally the temporary trailers — police and administrative facilities) — where does that stand now and the property for the Ely House; 3) once the decisions are made based on those two items developing an overall strategy to get from where they sit today to final construction of Borough Hall.
   ”As per council’s previous resolution, Borough Hall is going to be reconstructed at its present location,” Mr. Bloom said. “That is what we currently understand it to be.”
   Mayor Steven Kirson asked the council to answer the questions that Mr. Bloom laid before them.
   Councilwoman Susan Bluth said she voted for the September resolution stating the Borough Hall should stay downtown. It passed 5-1 with Council President Lawrence Quattrone voting no.
   ”A lot has happened since then, No.1 being Hurricane Sandy,” Ms. Bluth said. “If that resolution was brought before me today, I would be voting no.”
   The Planning Board rejected the council’s September resolution, on several counts, as previously reported in the Herald. One was that the location is in a flood zone.
   ”I am not in favor of putting that building back in a flood area,” Ms. Bluth said last Friday.
   Councilwoman Selena Bibens brought up how the council is always making decisions and negotiations on the “maybes” ands need to make a decision now.
   Ms. Bibens said, “We haven’t been given a number for temporary facilities. We haven’t been given a number for temporary settlement because we haven’t had a physical talk with the insurance company. Granted we finally got off the pot and said go ahead Carmela (Roberts, borough engineer and Borough Hall project engineer), go ahead Dawson (the firm). Do it for us because we obviously couldn’t do it for the past 18 and a half months. Shame on us.”
   Ms. Bibens then looked to office conditions of municipal employees.
   ”We have employees who have been shacked up in a 12-by-12 (feet) space for 18 months but nobody in here goes and talks to them,” she said.
   ”Well, I got an earful today. They are not happy. They need decisions to be made now.”
   Councilwoman Gail Doran “agreed” but noted the Police Department is “not functioning there and cannot continue to function there the way it is.”
   ”They are in violation of state law,” Mr. Thibault said.
   Since Irene, the Police Department lost its North Main Street address after the floodwaters overcame the police station, which was part of the Borough Hall complex. The department eventually found its way to rented space at the 7.5-acre Lucas property — 415 Mercer St. — the same location being proposed by some people to house the administrative offices of the municipality.
   Also since Irene, the Municipal Court has been operating out of Robbinsville.