HATFIELD — Nearly two months after Town Meeting voted overwhelmingly to save the long-vacant Center School for reuse as senior condominiums, some residents say the Select Board is dragging its feet on the sale of the building.
Members of the Hatfield Redevelopment Authority, which submitted the article for Town Meeting vote this spring, allege board members are eating up time on the 270-day window from May 10 in which the sale must take place by “waiting as long as possible to release a request for proposals,” according to Christopher Smith, vice chairman of the authority.
Town Administrator Marlene Michonski rebutted that idea Wednesday, saying she is “fine-tuning” the request for proposals and waiting solely on necessary information from a surveyor to be inserted in the document.
She said the board wants to attach a map outlining property lines that will be conveyed and needs the surveyor’s information to do so. Michonski said she is planning to have it ready this month, which is consistent with the time frame set in a June 8 Select Board meeting.
Select Board members also firmly addressed what they called inaccurate speculation as to what the minimum bid price on the building would be during a June 30 meeting.
Michonski on Wednesday reported a number of emails and Facebook posts alleging that the Select Board was setting a minimum bid price for the school in the range of $200,000 to $1 million — a claim she said is unfounded. She said the assessed value is over $1 million, but board members haven’t even considered using that number.
“There has been absolutely zero discussion about what the price will be,” Select Board Chairman Marcus J. Boyle said during the meeting.
He said there is no one on the board, that he’s aware of, who doesn’t want to close on the Center School issue.
“These agendas that are alleged are just absolutely ridiculous,” he said. “Some people find a conspiracy behind every old tobacco leaf.”
Board member Brian F. Moriarty seconded that, saying Boyle was kinder than he was going to be.
“Everything that’s being spread around here is a bunch of crap, quite frankly,” he said, adding that his remarks were “probably not what a selectman should be saying.”
“It’s becoming very, very frustrating,” he said. He said the rumors “flying around” are absolutely not true.
Moriarty then read an email he said was received by Michonski from Smith of the redevelopment authority.
“I am a bit worried about you. You seem to be suffering from short-term memory loss a lot, lately,” he read. “And unable to understand what I’m asking for.”
Moriarty then said this kind of interaction is making it difficult for people to work together.
During a brief public forum at the June 30 meeting preceding the Center School discussion, Smith said townspeople’s victory in voting to save the school is “not likely to be realized.” He attributed this to the board having “a very different agenda,” referring to the rumors of the bid range.
Michonski said Wednesday that seven or eight years ago, the bid minimum had been set at around $165,000 but the intent now is “to sell the building and see the town turn it around and start getting tax revenue.”
Town Clerk Lydia Szych, a resident, also spoke on the matter, urging the board not to set a minimum bid in order to attract as many prospective buyers as possible.
Authority Chairman E. Lary Grossman said he’d like to “see the market tell us what it’s worth.”
Resident Michael Cahill said a no minimum or low bid would “dramatically increase” the likelihood of proposals and the eventual sale of the building.
Putting any claims to rest, Moriarty put a $100 minimum bid on the school with no deposit required.
Smith said Tuesday the board was “embarrassed into the decision.”
A related debate involving remediation of the school — what town officials called the second phase of the sale process — has also caused friction among the Select Board, the Redevelopment Authority and residents.
The article passed during Town Meeting also authorized $200,000 in town money to prepare the building for sale, including funds for required asbestos abatement.
Redevelopment Authority members voiced concern that the board might move forward with a pre-existing contract with Associated Building Wreckers to remove the asbestos. Michonski said that contract was set in 2014 on the premise that the building would later be demolished.
She said the board planned to submit a change order to that contract, excluding the abatement of the roof because that would require taking it apart. But, she said, the inspector general “took the position that because the scope of work to be done had changed significantly, the abatement must be re-bid, excluding the demolition and roof abatement.”
Boyle in the meeting said the board was “back to square one” in regard to the remediation process because it had to “go back out” and rebid the job.
Another requirement Michonski said was not in place in the 2014 contract involves boarding up the windows and doors once the abatement is complete. Authority members and townspeople also spoke on that matter, including Cahill, who asked the board to consider waiting to do that work until after a buyer was secured. Because the building was once set for demolition, that task was not previously set.
“That involves removing windows, it involves actually removing doors and cutting into the bricks because the hazardous materials seep into the porous materials,” Boyle said.
Cahill and others present during the meeting agreed that any necessary alterations should not occur until after the sale, because the appearance of a boarded-up building could dissuade interested parties.
Smith felt strongly that “the historical facade features of the building not be substantially altered on north, south and west (street) sides” as cited in the Town Meeting article. Boyle addressed his concern, stating that Town Meeting also voted to remediate the building before the sale, and boarding up the windows and doors is part of that asbestos cleanup.
He said it appears there might be a potential conflict. However, board officials said they are not in a hurry to complete the remediation process.
Moriarty said the plan was never to alter features of the building as they stand today, before prospective buyers viewed the property.
“The sale would just say contingent on the town of Hatfield remediating the building,” he said.
Despite supporting this spring’s Town Meeting article, Smith said Wednesday he still believes the board’s primary mission is to demolish the building. The board had supported demolition in the past.
“In any other town, the hard part is to find a developer,” he said. “Here, it’s these issues with the Board of Selectmen delaying the process.”
But Michonski said the town has 270 days to complete the whole process of the building’s sale. That leaves until early February of 2017.
“Clearly, if we have a valid bid and are a week or two over, the selectmen won’t close out the process,” she said.
Sarah Crosby can be reached at scrosby@gazettenet.com.