Hartland
At Monday night’s Selecboard meeting, the board appeared to agree that the project’s potential scope and cost have changed enough to warrant bringing it back to the voters.
Town Manager Dave Ormiston was charged with further refining the total cost of the project, which now would include burying utility lines and removing an unsightly pole in the middle of a new green space created with the rebuilding of the intersection.
Ormiston said firmer figures would not be ready in time to be on the Town Meeting ballot in March, which would mean either a special meeting, likely around September, or a vote at the 2020 Town Meeting. When one resident told the board to get updated cost figures and take the project to the voters, Selectboard Chairman Gordon Richardson said that was the direction they were headed.
“I think this is a voter decision, not a Selectboard decision,” Richardson said.
He said getting new cost estimates from the engineer is a “big process” that will push the project back at least another year and add more expense. But waiting for those new estimates was something most in the audience appeared to support.
“This nothing I want to vote for until you have more information,” said resident David Dukeshire, whose comment was similar to others crowded into Damon Hall on Monday night.
Resident Matt Dunne also urged the board to take its time to fully understand all the costs and options before presenting the full project to voters.
The rough estimate mentioned at the meeting by Ormiston for reconstruction, burying the utilities and building a sidewalk from the post office to the library entrance is about $960,000. That figure is more than double the $450,000 cost of the original proposal to reconstruct the intersection with only a four-way stop for Routes 5 and 12 and Hartland-Quechee Road and eliminate the confusing spur that brings drivers north and south on Route 5.
“The next step is to pull the engineer into this discussion,” Ormiston said on Tuesday.
He also said he wants to bring the five utilities involved together to talk about the design for putting the lines underground. There will be additional cost to design the work and have the engineer on-site during the building of an underground conduit.
While most in the audience appeared to favor the added expense of burying the utility lines, board member Matt Peeler suggested that perhaps not all residents feel the same way and reminded them of a petition a couple of years ago from a group of residents who opposed the project altogether.
Board member Mary O’Brien also wondered about the town’s appetite for a project that seems to keep costing more.
“These ideas are great, but maybe the town can’t afford to address (the intersection),” O’Brien said.
If the proposed project of about $1 million is presented to voters, Ormiston said, financing could be a bond of either 20 or 30 years to reduce the annual payments. Under the original project, which was proposed to create a safer intersection for drivers and pedestrians, the $450,000 was to come from the town’s capital projects fund and be paid back over five years at $90,000 a year. Bonding the intersection work would free that money up to pay for some deferred maintenance on town buildings, Ormiston said.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
