Back to Permanent Building and Facilities Management Study Committee Meeting Minutes
November 3, 2010 Meeting Minutes
Hingham Town Hall
Present: Committee Members Fernandes, MacKinnon, Manley, Seelen, Wilcox.
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1. Call to order
Jerry Seelen called the Committee meeting to order at approximately 5:30 PM.
2. Approval of Minutes
Minutes from the October 21st meeting of the Permanent Building and Facilities Management Study Committee (PBFMSC) meeting were reviewed and approved.
3. Overview
Chairman Jerry Seelen presented a brief overview of the purpose of the PBFMSC in which he shared some of the Committees initial findings and outlined the main objective of the Committee, which is to have a draft warrant article containing the Committee's recommendations to be presented at the 2011 annual Town Meeting by mid-December.
4. Open Discussion
As discussed at the Committee's last meeting, several guests representing user groups of building projects, past building committees and building project practitioners were invited to this meeting to provide their initial feedback on the merits of establishing a permanent building committee. In attendance were Bob Garrity, Dick Amster, Hal Goldstein, Blase Reardon, Andrea Young, Dave Killory and Tom Belyea. In addition to those who were present at the meeting, the Chairman shared some written and anecdotal feedback gathered from other individuals who were invited, but were unable to attend the meeting. The following is a summary of the feedback and common themes that the Committee heard, broken down into three categories, the benefits of a permanent committee, concerns about a permanent committee and suggestions that the Committee should consider if it moves forward with a proposal for Town Meeting.
Benefits
• Institutional memory for future projects
• Consistency
• Preferred design and building standards
• Efficiencies with procurement, bidding, legal and regulatory requirements
• Long term capital planning for all the Town's properties would be a significant benefit
• Advocate for smaller on-going maintenance and improvement projects that does not really exist today
• Would reduce the likelihood of "diluting the talent pool" in the Town of qualified people to serve on ad hoc committees when multiple projects are going on at the same time
Concerns
• If the existing process with ad hoc building committees has delivered high quality projects, then why change? (If it ain't broke, don't fix it.)
• Permanent building committees may lack the passion for a particular project that an ad hoc building committee would have
• Ad hoc committees have an end goal to work towards, where a permanent committee may not have that sense of urgency
• Probably will not reduce town/staff workload
• Permanent committees may have a "know it all" attitude and not be as open minded to input as an ad hoc committee
• Permanent committees could become complacent—more like a job
• Burnout—too many concurrent projects could take a negative toll on a permanent committee
• Favoritism toward particular vendors, contractors, architects etc.
Suggestions
• Permanent committee should have jurisdiction over all projects regardless of the dollar amount with the right to exclude any projects that they don't feel are necessary for their involvement
• Town department heads should not be members of a permanent building committee. They should be more concerned with their day to day departmental responsibilities.
• Permanent building committee members should have term limits
• Transparency is key. Committee should have an on-going communications plan to the public through the Town website
• Each project that the permanent committee takes on should have some component of end user representation
• Permanent building committee should have some staff to handle day to day administration
• Keep it simple!
• Need to ensure that historical guidelines are taken into account with projects that are of historical significance
• Need to carefully consider how a permanent committee would interact with the Capital Outlay process
• Ensure that if the schools are part of the jurisdiction of a permanent committee that the MSBA requirements are adhered to as necessary
• Specifics as far as committee member requirements need to be thoroughly fleshed out as part of any proposal presented to town meeting
• Carefully consider who has the appointing authority for a permanent committee
• Solicit feedback from all the impacted town groups early on the discovery process of the PBFMSC
• Make sure there are clear measurements of success of a permanent building committee
• Carefully consider the size of a permanent building committee, taking into account how the committee would function when multiple projects are going on concurrently.
• Need to define the role that a permanent committee would have with the on-going maintenance of existing properties
• Clearly delineate the responsibilities of a permanent committee vs. an end user group on a project with regard to setting department policies
5. Next Steps
The committee discussed possibly incorporating a facilities study of all the Town properties into a separate warrant article for the 2011 Town Meeting.
It was agreed that the next meeting of the PBFMSC would be on November 18th at 5:30 PM.
Chairman Seelen will be presenting an overview of the mission of the PBFMSC to the next School Committee meeting to be held on November 8th at Foster School in order to solicit feedback from the School Committee membership. Members of the PBFMSC will also attend the presentation.
6. Adjourn
Meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:30 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
John Manley
Secretary