Jones Library Building Committee Report to Town Council Highlights Expansion Project’s Uncertainty

Report on the Meeting of the Amherst Town Council, September 23, 2024, Part 3

This meeting was held in hybrid format and was recorded. (Jones Library at about 3:15 on recording)

Present
Lynn Griesemer (President, District 2), Mandi Jo Hanneke, Andy Steinberg, Ellisha Walker (at large), Freke Ette and Cathy Schoen (District 1), Pat DeAngelis (District 2), George Ryan and Hala Lord (District 3), Pam Rooney and Jennifer Taub (District 4), and Ana Devlin Gauthier and Bob Hegner (District 5). Absent: George Ryan (District 3).

Staff: Paul Bockelman (Town Manager) and Athena O’Keeffe (Clerk of the Council)

In her report to the Town Council, the council’s representative to the Jones Library Building Committee (JLBC) Pam Rooney (District 4) emphasized how much was still unknown about the planned demolition and expansion project, which went out for bid for a second time on September 25. The only bid received for the project in its previous iteration was $6.5 million over budget. The Jones Library Trustees funded design changes for value engineering  to reduce the cost, but the full details of the redesign were not available at the September 17 JLBC meeting.

Rooney told the council “It was announced that there were four approved general contractors, so those are the four that would be expected to bid on the project. There were several questions asked at the building committee meeting.  The first one was, might the Section 106 review timeline affect the bid date? And If there are any required mitigation measures protecting historic features, should they not be incorporated to the bid docs?”

Rooney continued, “A concern was raised that [if the Mitigation factors were not included], the project is subject to change orders, which we just heard from Cathy [Schoen, District 1, Chair of the Elementary School Building Committee] is really critical. You do not want change orders on your project, because you cannot control what the contractor will charge. They will propose a cost for the change order, but it’s hard to keep them tight. And so you start to lose control of your budget. So, if you do not incorporate the mitigation measures, how do you protect your budget.”

Rooney added, “And then another question was, who would pay for changes to the construction documents to accommodate any mitigation measures before or after the bid has occurred? Unfortunately, there were no answers to those questions, because neither the Town Manager nor the project manager nor the owner’s project manager was able to be present at that meeting.”

Schoen commented, “My question is, hearing Pam’s report, and I had heard some of what happened in the meeting, is I have a major concern of moving forward without first getting approval from the Section 106 review for historic and environmental [factors]. It’s fairly critical, because if there were negative impacts that required remediation, both the NEH and HUD grants’ rules require that this happen before contracting. So, we’re putting $2 million at risk. The NEH said that if the process wasn’t done correctly, the town would be liable. So it’s important that we go through all the steps. I think it’s premature to go out to bid before completing the review process. Or, if we go out to bid, set the due dates for the end of the expected one-month review, so the bidders know that this process is pending.”

Town Manager Paul Bockelman responded, “These are really good questions, and I appreciate that it’s a very complex timeline, and we’re trying to abide by all the requirements. The goal has been to go out to bid this fall because there are a number of things coming into play. The last time we went out to bid in the spring, the critique was that it was a bad time of year. So, we’ve identified that this is a good time. We also have our prequalified contractors and we’re sensing that the market is strong, given what happened with the elementary school building project. We also have MBLC (Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners) funds which are supposed to be committed by the end of December. Whoever puts in the bid will have to hold that bid date for two months to allow us to hopefully complete the 106 review. This is all about the money from the federal government. And that’s on the library side of the ledger [of money owed]. In terms of the town side and the MBLC, the 106 review is not required, but we want to get those funds. The decision to actually award the bid will probably not happen until January because we want to make sure everything is in place before we move forward.

“There will be litigation, most likely, on something. There’s been enough anticipation of this and a lot of opposition, so I think that we’re also thinking about that as well.”

Schoen then asked, “Paul, did I hear you correctly saying [the town] has 60 days to respond. Once they [contractors] submit a bid, they have to hold the bid for 60 days? Does that make sense?” Bockelman admitted that usually the bid price is held for 30 days.

Jennifer Taub (District 4) also asked for clarification of the process, “The bids go out and then the Section 106 review proceeds and if there has to be changes to the bid, that will be made after the bids go out?” Bockelman reiterated that the town cannot wait until the Section 106 review is completed, because the MBLC wants the town to commit the funds by the end of December. “As we’re reviewing the bids, the request for proposals (RFP) may have to be changed. We’ll be working through the 106 review simultaneously as we’re reviewing the bids,” he said. Taub then asked if it wouldn’t be easier to ask for another extension from the MBLC, and Bockelman admitted that that may need to happen as well.

Taub also asked about the $900,000 that the Jones Library Trustees were supposed to turn over to the town in January, 2024 as part of the $2.5 million in the payment schedule set forth when the council allocated another $10 million to be borrowed for the expansion project. Bockelman replied, “The trustees have turned over $1.6 million to date and so, I’ll try to give a little framework and I think we can have our finance director come in and help give you more. We’ve received $15.5 million in the MBLC grant. This is an unusual grant in that they give you the money up front. They’ve given us $2.74 million so far. That’s what we have in the bank. So far, we’ve spent about $2.3 million, so we have not touched the Community Preservation Act money that’s been allocated. We have not touched any of the $15.7 million that the town has allocated. We have about $1.6 million that the Library Trustees have turned over from their fundraising, and that’s just sitting there, so there’s no need for funds right now. 

“We want to make sure that they’re going to be able to raise their money, and they publish their sort of status report every month from the capital campaign, so I’m confident that they know they have all these commitments of funds. And before we move down into actual signing a contract, we’re going to need real money on the barrel head. They’ve given us $500,000 for the value engineering. That’s on top of what’s actually coming out of the library side of the ledger as well.” 

Schoen clarified that the $900,000 was on the spreadsheet of a payment schedule provided by Council President Lynn Griesemer (District 2) prior to the council vote to borrow more money for the project.

Taub then asked how the project went out to bid the first time without the Section 106 review.  Bockelman stated that the review was not a requirement for going out to bid. But Taub noted that the bids came back and the review still hadn’t been initiated. Bockelman said that, if the bids had come in on target and we wanted those $2 million, which we do, well how would that have happened? I don’t know. We would have had to figure that one out. Quite honestly, we have to see what the numbers come in on when the bids come due. You know the threshold point. Where’s the number going to come in? And, in many ways, learning that number earlier than later is important to us.”

Griesemer asked if the project would still need the 106 review if the Massachusetts Historical Society had approved the historical tax credits, and Bockelman replied that the review is a HUD and NEH requirement. 

Public Comment on the Library: Petition and Name Calling 
Maria Kopicki reported that the petition circulating about the Jones Library project has achieved more than 1,000 signatures to this point. The petition aims to take the pulse of the community, and people were asked to sign if they opposed cuts to sustainability and historic features, if they opposed authorization of any additional town funds over the $46 million authorized, and to tell us if they would like the demolition/expansion project to stop now and pivot to an affordable renovation option. Of the respondents, 87% said to stop now, 31% of the online respondents said they were once supporters of the project. Signatures are still being accepted at https://tinyurl.com/JonesPetition

Arlie Gould said, “I’d like to talk about the name calling that is going on around the library issue. So far, I’ve been called a naysayer, a stinker, a nimbyist, a vocal minority that ruins all of Amherst’s projects. These don’t really bother me that much, but there is one comment that does. It goes like this. If you are interested in historic preservation and sustainability, which are interrelated, you are a privileged, self-centered complainer who doesn’t care at all about children, teenagers, English language learners, people with disabilities, the poor, and the homeless. This is a narrative that has evolved in response to those who disagree with the project. Let me be clear. I have and do support these groups in my personal life. I just don’t feel that an overlarge, over-expensive project that destroys a significant portion of the historic building is the best way to support these groups, and I have heard other proposals and ideas about how to support these groups.”