By Amy Batista, Special Writer
HIGHTSTOWN — The council has tabled a bond ordinance for $3,375,000 for financing a new Borough Hall, and that means the engineer and manager can’t do any more work on the project until the ordinance is introduced.
The financing provided by the bond ordinance would have included the construction of a new municipal building — empty for the past 18 months because of damage from Hurricane Irene — including portable jail cells.
”I suggest we table this until the next meeting until we get better information on where the numbers came from,” Councilman Rob Thibault said at the meeting held March 4.
The next meeting is Monday, March 18.
”You want us to do this tonight — getting broadside with this without any explanation?” Councilwoman Gail Doran asked. “I really would’ve appreciated some kind of an explanation and breakdown.”
The ordinance included reimbursement of $2,875,000 from the borough’s insurance company, leaving another roughly half million dollars for borough taxpayers to come up with.
Borough Administrator Michael Theokas said the exact cost of a new Borough Hall isn’t known yet.
”If we wait for the exact costs, we won’t be able to move forward,” Mr. Theokas said. “We have to put a number on the information we have because we have to move this forward because we cannot pay for the work that is being done by our professionals without this in place. Therefore, we cannot move forward.”
Some of those professionals are Carmela Roberts, project engineer, and Dawson Bloom from the Roberts firm, as project manager.
”There were two contracts authorized with us, and if you recall, they’re both approved subject to the introduction of a bond ordinance,” Ms. Roberts said. “So we’ve been moving forward with the project management work for what, two months now, and not been paid.”
She added, “The mechanism — as I understand it — is that an ordinance is needed to support what we are doing in order for us to continue. From my perspective, that’s very important to me. We’re a small business, and it’s very difficult for us to move forward without knowing when we are going to receive payment for all this work.”
Ms. Roberts when contacted by The Herald would not comment on how much was owed to her firm.
According to Mr. Theokas, rough figures are $2.5 million for the construction of a new Borough Hall, plus $875,000 in other costs, including payment for professionals, and that is “how we come about at that number.”
Mr. Thibault raised concern over construction of a new municipal building rather than temporary relocation and interim administrative facilities.
”I thought there was a need for a bond ordinance for a temporary (location),” Mr. Thibault said.
Mayor Steven Kirson tried to explain to council members the purpose of the bond ordinance.
”We need to have a place to be able to move this project forward and allocate the funds,” Mayor Kirson said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that the borough is obligated to pay (these) funds.”
According to Mr. Theokas, the bond ordinance is a “framework” so the borough can get reimbursed by the insurance company and perform studies — in other words, authorize money to pay architects, engineers and project managers.
The amount of money is the ordinance is “not written in stone,” Mr. Theokas said.
He explained, “It’s not an obligation to spend a specific amount of money.”
Councilwoman Lynne Woods asked how much money had been received by the insurance company. According to Mr. Theokas, the borough has gotten $850,000, roughly half of what has been spent so far.
Lexington Insurance has sent the borough an estimate of $1.9 million to rebuild or refurbish the Borough Hall. Temporary facilities for employees is part of the claim. For nearly 18 months, municipal workers have been working out of tight quarters inside the Public Works building.
According to Mr. Bloom, “the bulk of these monies” will be spent on “real construction” and not “soft costs.”
”That means that there will be a bid process, an approval of that process and an authorization to award bids so that it’s not an open expenditure” Mr. Bloom said. “It’s not an open checkbook.”
He warned, “I can’t really continue until this ordinance is done, and we know that money is available or another mechanism.”
But Mr. Thibault said the council just wanted explanations. It didn’t want to be just handed documents and told to just sign off.
”If we had gotten some explanation instead of just being expected to rubber-stamp what we were given, we might have passed” the bond ordinance),” Mr. Thibault said.
But Mr. Theokas said the issue had been discussed previously, and the council had gotten the information the previous week.
”We are not asking you to rubber-stamp anything,” Mr. Theokas said. “This is an introduction to an ordinance that is necessary. To say that you are getting thrown something without any explanation, personally, I don’t think is very fair or accurate.”
”You can all vote yes today, and you can all vote no next meeting,” said Council President Lawrence Quattrone. “It’s only an introduction, folks.”
”I would like to see more documentation attached to this with more explanation,” Ms. Doran said. “Give some more structure. Give some more explanation.”
Ms. Woods questioned paying the professionals because the ordinance was tabled.
”We accounted for some,” Mr. Theokas said. “We able to pay some of the back payments. That’s part of the emergency appropriations on the agenda that is going to account for some of that that will enable us to pay for some of the work that has been done.
Mr. Theokas told The Herald two days after the meeting that no more work can be done by the Roberts firm on Borough Hall until this bond ordinance is at least introduced by the council.
”We have made some small considerations for work already done in this year’s budget,” Mr. Theokas said in an email. “We had to do some shuffling last minute to do that, and she did have to have expenses hanging out there for longer than it should. The issue is, really, that now, there is no mechanism in place for her to charge future work. In order for Dawson (Bloom) or Carmela to work on this project in any way, there needs to be a place to charge it in the budget.”

