SOUTH HADLEY — The commissioners of the South Hadley Electric Light Department decided without taking a formal vote Thursday to delay discussions on whether to build a new headquarters for the municipal utility on Old Lyman Road until a new general manager starts working. Chairwoman Anne Awad said she hopes that would be by mid-to-late fall.
Board members also agreed to have a firm independent of the architects who developed initial plans for a new headquarters to do a structural analysis of the existing headquarters to evaluate it for safety.
Edward Morrin, the supervising foreman of operations, now co-interim manager of SHELD with business manager Paul Byrne, told the board that he would be glad to show them areas of concern with the current facilities. Both attended Thursday’s meeting.
Awad said she is aware of problems with the current building, such as a crack in a second-story wall and that “the roof is flimsy,” requiring that someone shovel it off after every snowstorm. That is a primary reason why she would like to get a structural engineer to evaluate the building.
Awad said it would probably cost in the vicinity of $25,000 to conduct the structural analysis and she was not sure if that meets the threshold requiring the board to issue a formal request for proposals to do the job.
Commission member Kurt Schenker said he still favors moving ahead with a $10 million project to build a modern facility on residentially zoned land the utility owns on Old Lyman Road and noted that more than $500,000 has already been spent on initial design drawings and permits.
John Hine, the chairman of the Select Board who is serving a one-year term on the SHELD commission, said “my druthers would be to do nothing” for the time being.
Hine said it will take much of the board’s energy to hire a new general manager to replace Wayne Doerpholz who has been on paid administrative leave since last October and whose contract expires at the end of May.
“I don’t think we have the bandwidth to take on such an important project at this time,” Hine said of the effort it will take to decide how to move forward with a new headquarters.
He also said the business of municipal utilities is changing and that he expects a new general manager “will have a vision of what the department will be five years from now and plan accordingly.”
Hine said, “I hate to see the money spent and not reap the benefits” of the planning that has gone into the Old Lyman Road site so far, adding that he does not want to see the utility spend more money on something that might turn out to not be the best decision moving forward.
Board member Vernon Blodgett noted that the location of a new headquarters “was a hot topic in the recent campaign,” and that “holding off at this time” makes sense while alternative sites are explored.
In other business, Awad and Blodgett agreed to form a subcommittee to study options for purchasing insurance for the utility and to report back to the full board.
Similarly, Blodgett and commission member Gregory Dubreuil agreed to form a subcommittee to study how the utility could improve its budget process so that its financial documents constitute a plan for how money will be spent while still remaining nimble enough to handle unexpected expenses.
Dubreuil, an accountant by profession, said he has spent considerable time in the last few weeks studying how other municipal utilities, specifically in Ipswich and Shrewsbury, keep their books.
Eric Goldscheider can be reached at eric.goldscheider@gmail.com.