Public Informational Meeting Minutes

DRAFT

March 28, 2005

Those present: Fred, Dot, Alan, Bob and Sandy. Also present was Architect Paul Vosburgh, Financial Consultant Jeanine Caruso and Town Attorney Bob VanVranken.

The meeting began at 7:30 P.M. Fred explained that the purpose of the meeting was to explain the status of the new town hall.

Paul Vosburgh – Began by explaining that the results of the Community Image Survey as far as characteristics regarding the site and the building that town residents found desirable.

The site: Residents wanted shade trees and landscaping, hidden parking lots with screening, low small carved wooden signs and shallow landscaped set-backs with porches and fences.

The building: Residents wanted a residential appearance, two-story in nature, peaked roofs with clapboard siding and a visible entrance.

The building will be a 2-story building with parking in the rear. It is approximately 9,200 square feet. The construction cost will be about $2,800,000.00. Site construction cost is about $307,000.00. Building construction of two-stories with a basement is about $2,275,000.00. Furniture budget is $50,000.00. There is a 10% construction contingency of $263,000.00. We are contemplating bid alternates for granite curbs of $19,000.00, full sprinkler system of $77,000.00, emergency generator panel of $12,000.00 and thin brick veneer at the foundation

of $22,400.00.

Jeanine Caruso of Fiscal Advisors & Marketing – When we began we looked at different assumptions we needed to put in place. The total construction cost will be approximately $2.8 million. The town wished to limit the annual expense to under $100,000.00. That was because currently $100,000.00 per year was put aside in a capital account. That was as at first a large constraint because if you were to go out and issue $2.8 million in bonds you would be about $280,000.00 per year in debt service expense. We also needed to look at what it would cost to operate the new facility and use that as a consideration in our budgeting numbers. The building would be wood framed. That would limit the amount of years you could amortize the debt over. This is considered a Class C building. New York State finance laws will only allow you to amortize the debt for over 15 years. We looked at the fact that the exiting town hall would remain operational.

The town has set aside over $750,000.00 in a Capital Reserve Account. We could apply that to our $2.8 million figure. We determined we should put in $1.1 million that is currently invested in CDs. This lowers the amount of Bond Anticipation Notes that we need to issue so we can stay within the $100,000.00 per year constraint. The town is seeking approximately $200,000.00 in state and federal funds for the project. The goal of the town was to have zero impact on the taxpayer. We have determined that the amount to be bonded will be $950,000.00. If state or federal monies are available that figure could go down. If we issued $950,000.00 in bonds, that would be $85,000.00 to $90,000.00 per year in principal and interest. Currently the interest rate is about 2 ½%. I have planned it at 2 ¾% because we don’t know exactly when the notes will be issued. The New York State local finance law allows a municipality to issue Bond Anticipation Notes for up to 5 years. Each year you are issuing a new note annually. Once you have passed that 5 years, you would have to go to some permanent financing and issue long term bonds. Bond Anticipation Notes provide flexibility. Should the bond rates start to go up next year or the year after, we can rethink this plan and lock in the remaining years at a fixed bond rate.

Paul Vosburgh – Paul showed us a Schedule of Services. The current schedule calls for us to issue bid documents on May 15.

John Tasse – Sweetman Road – What is the cost to issue the bonds?

Jeanine – We are financing Bond Anticipation Notes. If you are below $1,000,000.00 it will be a lot less expensive. If you are going to do it directly through a bank and you are not going to have an Official Statement or Prospectus there would probably only be some legal fees. The bank wouldn’t charge you any issuance fees. If it were above $1,000,000.00, which it is not, there would be more fees. That is one reason we planned to issue it below $1,000,000.00. Maybe the legal fees would be a couple of thousand dollars. If you were to do bonds and wanted to do an Official Statement or Prospectus I would say it probably would be about $8,000.00 for everything – the financial advisor, the bond council but I believe by the time the town goes to bonds, let’s say we’ve done 5 years of Bond Anticipation Notes and there are only 10 years left, there are local banks that will do 10 years of bonds. You probably still wouldn’t have to do an Official Statement.

John Tasse – So the administration of that would not include follow up costs.

Jeanine – No. Years ago when people issued bonds, a bank would serve as a trustee and they would charge an annual fee of about $1,200.00 but that’s not done any more. There is a depository trust company and the bonds are held by them and there are no annual fees for that.

Dimmy Miner – Vines Road – Is that a total figure or are the clerk-of-the-works and other things added to this?

Paul Vosburgh – It is a total construction cost. The clerk-of–the-works is not in this number.

Dimmy Miner- How much will it be over and above the construction costs? She just talked about financing being another “X” number of dollars. The clerk-of-the-works would be how much and some of the other things? That package that you are spouting right now is $2.6 million. What other costs are going to be added to this?

John Tasse – Is the architect’s fee in this figure?

Paul Vosburgh – No it is not. We haven’t solicited proposals for the clerk-of-the-works yet. That could be in the $50,000.00 range.

Jeanine – There is $100,000.00 in the budget annually. Let’s say you issue Bond Anticipation Notes this year and use the assumption that you issue $500,000.00 and the interest rate was 2.75%. Your interest expense for 2006 would be $13,750.00. Between that and the $100,000.00 will go a long way to paying some of the additional costs of the project. Even if you went to bond and there was about $85,000.00 per year in principal and interest expense, that is another $50,000.00 annually going forward. Because the $100,000.00 is already in the budget, that is a constant and you don’t have to raise taxes. We are trying to be somewhat conservative because you bring up an excellent point. There are going to be extra costs associated with this.

Alan Grattidge – If we were to bond the whole amount now, what are you seeing the actual rates at compared to using the ban? There was quite a spread between that.

Jeanine – Today when I ran the $950,000.00 I used 4.25% vs. the 2.75%. Last week when the feds adjusted the rate we saw quite a movement up. History shows it settles back down. If you were to sell tomorrow, you would probably be at a 2.4%. We don’t know exactly when we are issuing. If you were selling bonds tomorrow or late summer, you would probably still be around 4.25%.

Laura Linder - Route 67 - What state and federal funding would you be going for? You were talking $200,000.00.

Sandy Verola – The $200,000.00 is a request I have to our congressman and senator to help us offset the cost.

Laura – When we were building our fire department building at Harmony Corners there were specific kinds of funding available for municipal buildings. What is available for the town hall?

Jeanine – You might be referring to the Rural Development Loan Project. The problem with that is that that provides a 30-year financing vehicle, which is great, except we can’t issue these bonds for 30 years. We can only issue them for 15 years. They were offering a 30-year fixed rate of 4.75%. We looked into that. My recommendation was that that was not the best way to go because you would still get 4.75% for issuing 15 year bonds and we can sell that in the market for 4.25% and if we are going to do notes at 2.75% or something less than that it doesn’t provide a lot of flexibility. For this particular project it is not a good fit.

Laura – I know there is money available for our records management and storage. We need to know some kind of schedule on when to apply for those and how that fits into the plan.

Sandy – Sue Lombardi is looking at grants. As soon as she comes up with some I will bring it to the board.

Fran Miner – Am I to understand that there has not been a total dollar figure estimate on this? We know that basically the building is $2.8 million but we don’t have all of the figures added together including the interest on the loans? It looks to me like this will come up to something in the neighborhood of $3.3 million compared with the $2.1 for the Town of Ballston addition that was 11,000 square feet.

Alan – I think at this point were are anticipating putting together some final numbers when we start getting the bids in as far as seeing where the construction costs are. The construction costs are obviously the lion’s share of what the debt will be. As far as the additional debt of our debt service and our associated costs of the architect and construction manager, those will be added in as we get together our final numbers with our bids. At this point, we can make projections. We can come up with the best guesstimate of what the plan calls for.

Fran Miner – Does this have to go to the residents for approval?

Attorney Bob VanVranken – You have the capital reserve money which is approximately $750,000.00. That fund was set up in 1996. That money has basically been authorized and as long as it is spent for a building, which is what the original fund was set up for, that does not need approval in advance. The surplus funds that were on the screen at $1.1million, those can be spent by the town board at their discretion. The town board can approve the expenditure of the $950,000.00 by resolution but it is subject to a permissive referendum. You tie the expenditure from the capital reserve with the authorization for the additional monies. There is a publication notice. Within 30 days of the approval and within 20 days of the publication, because it has to be published within 10 days of the approval, if there is a request for a vote by the residents, then it becomes required to be voted upon by the residents in the same form as you would any special election. If there is no request for a permissive referendum, then after that 30-day period and publication of something called a final resolution and astople notice, then that becomes an authorized obligation of the town.

Kevin Stone – Charlton Road - In what form does that request have to take place?

Bob VanVranken –For permissive referendum you have to have 5% of the voters at the last gubernatorial election. They would have to file a petition with the county clerk within a 30-day period.

Dick Lupi – Beechwood Avenue – The projected $2.893 million, is that a conservative number

(could not understand) or is that an actual 10# of nails estimate.

Paul Vosburgh – It is conservative. It does factor in our recent increases in concrete, steel, plywood and gypsum and things like that. It also contains a 10% contingency of $263,000.00.

On top of that, we planned the alternates to allow some flexibility in what the final cost of the project will be.

Dave Stafford – Peaceable Street – Are these alternates or additions?

Paul Vosburgh – They would be add alternates.

Ralph Rusilas – Stage Road - Are these part of the project or are these things that you can add to the existing dollars we are talking about?

Paul Vosburgh – Depending on how the bids come in they can be added to the project. Let’s take the site development of $306,000.00. If I go to the next page there is an element of site work -- granite curbs of $19,000.00. Depending upon how the bids come in, we can upgrade the curbing from concrete to granite and we are anticipating that that has a construction value of around $19,000.00.

Ralph Rusilas – All of these numbers (the add alternates) will be added to that bottom number.

Paul Vosburgh – Correct. They total about $130,000.00 or approximately half of our $263,000.00 contingency.

Ralph Rusilas – The $263,000.00, that is part of the $2,893,000.00?

Paul Vosburgh – Correct.

Dave Pohl – Crawford Drive – Are we spending all of our reserves?

Fred – No.

John Tasse – Roughly what do we have left in there?

Kathy Hanley - $800,000.00. (Could not understand)

Steve Caine – Charlton Road – I assume landscaping is in the $300,000.00.

Paul Vosburgh – Yes.

Steve Caine – A lot of the attractiveness of this depends on screening. Are you putting mature things in there so that when the project is done it is screened or do we have to wait a few years?

Paul Vosburgh – The hedgerow that is out front will remain. In addition to that there are substantial plantings. The town planted 40-50 maple trees. In addition to that, the project is well landscaped including screening in various areas. The foundation is well planted. We have money in there for signs and things like that.

Steve Caine – I am not counting on those trees to screen anything. I am thinking of those 6 air conditioning compressors, the 1,000-gallon propane tank and the dumpster. Will that all be screened when the project is complete?

Paul Vosburgh – Yes. The dumpster will be screened with 7 ft. pines. The air conditions are screened with a boxwood type hedge.

Bob – You sent the specifications for the sizes when you put your bid out?

Paul Vosburgh – Yes.

Fran Miner – How large is the meeting room?

Paul Vosburgh – 1,920 square feet. It seats 80 people. It stands about 120.

Fran Miner – Rather small isn’t it. The Town of Ballston has a 400-seat auditorium. It has an elevator?

Paul Vosburgh – Yes. It has 3 stops.

Kevin Stone – On the town reserves, we are using roughly $1.2 million and another $800,000.00 is left over.

Kathy Hanley – Could not understand

Chris Nelson – Sacandaga Road – Do you have any handouts in terms of financing and the information you have been showing?

Paul Vosburgh – There are no handouts but there are actual construction drawings that reflect what you are looking at. I believe some of this information is on the web site.

Catherine Caine – Charlton Road – What is the juvenile room?

Paul Vosburgh – It is associated with the justice court. There is a requirement to separate juveniles from the adult population.

Laura Linder – We want to break ground as soon as we can. How long is it going to take and when will the building be ready?

Paul Vosburgh – We are anticipating going out for bid on or about May 15. The bids bill come back on or about June 15. It will take a couple of weeks to review bids and check qualifications, etc. We could have contracts on or about July 1.

Alan – Ground breaking is scheduled for July 12.

Dave Pohl – If it goes out to vote, when can we break ground?

Bob VanVranken – We would have to push that schedule out 60-75 days.

Paul Vosburgh – The projected construction time frame is approximately 9 months.

Alan – It would be helpful to have the 6 month building season starting in July to get the site work completed, the framework completed and the building fully enclosed so that when the bad weather does come, the outside would be done. People do build through the winter but it tends not to be as good a quality job if you have to work in the dead of the winter on the outside elements of the building. The building season is really from May 1 to December 1 as far as the good weather. If the building is enclosed you can do your interior work in the cold months.

Dave Stafford – What is the architect’s fee? Is it 10% or something like that?

Paul Vosburgh – It is a percentage of construction. It is 11%.

Dave Stafford – That is $300,000.00.

Dick Lupi – Could not understand

Paul Vosburgh - We have done test pits and deep tests. The depth to rock ranges from about 4.8 feet to about 8 feet. You have about 5 feet of soil under the grass. The finished floor of the building is set up high enough so that the basement will start right above the rock layer.

Marv Schorr – Imperial Lane – Will you have to use a built up septic system?

Paul Vosburgh – It is in a fill area. There is approximately 3-4 feet of fill that that septic system……

Marv Schorr – In addition to the 4 feet to bedrock so it is about 7 feet.

Laura Linder – Are just Sandy and Alan the committee for the town hall or are there other people on that committee?

Fred – The whole Town Board but they are the co-chairmen.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:45 P.M.

Respectfully submitted,

Gail Hanchar

Town Clerk