Forbes Library CPC request May 2008
May 2, 2008
Community Preservation Committee
City Hall
210 Main Street
Northampton, MA 01060
To the Members of the Community Preservation Committee:
At the request of the Trustees of Forbes Library I am writing to thank you, the members
of the Community Preservation Committee, for your award to preserve the Forbes Library
building and for your recognition of the library’s value to the Northampton community.
There were several conditions attached to this award and the Trustees want to assure the
CPC that, as always, the Trustees will proceed with total transparency in the awarding of the
contract and the disbursement of funds. The Trustees are happy to work with the CPC to devise a
procedure satisfactory to the CPC and the City of Northampton. Previous library construction,
renovation, and preservation projects have been done through the City with contracts, RFPs and
bidding and construction procedures all handled or overseen by City Procurement Officer Joe
Cook. The meetings of the Trustees of Forbes Library are always open to the public and are
posted at City Hall, on the library’s website, and in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Minutes of
those meetings have for decades been available to the public at the library’s reference desk and
now are also posted on the library’s website.
One of the conditions of the CPC’s award was that the library’s Trustees present to your
committee a plan for raising $600,000 to complete the full cost of the building envelope
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preservation project. At their last monthly meeting held April 17, the Trustees discussed the
possibility of going to the community to ask for an additional $600,000 to fulfill the CPC
condition. After serious consideration, the Trustees decided that an attempt by the library to raise
$600,000 was unrealistic. The concerns expressed about the prospect of raising large amounts of
funding include the poor economy as well as the number of other fundraising drives going on in
the area. More specifically for Forbes Library, the Trustees saw three reasons to doubt a
fundraising campaign for library building envelope preservation would do well.
1. Forbes Library has recently launched its first annual fund drive to raise money for
technology upgrades and replacements at the library. Although the library expects
to reach its goal of $25,000, the response so far has been modest and it seems that
it would not be propitious to launch a second, larger fund drive simultaneously
with the technology drive.
2. In the 1990’s the library went to the community with three ambitious capital
campaigns raising over $2,000,000 for successive renovations of the library
interior. To go back to the same donors so soon seems likely to be less successful.
3. The donors most likely to contribute to preserve the Forbes Library building, and
therefore the people to be targeted in a fundraising campaign, may feel that they
are already giving to the library project with the Community Preservation charge
on their property tax bills. In many cases these library supporters voted for the
CPA because they thought they were voting to preserve their library. A campaign
asking them to give yet more to this project would not do as well as the previous
capital campaigns.
After discussions with Mayor Higgins, Finance Director Chris Pile, and Energy and
Sustainability Officer Chris Mason, the Trustees of Forbes Library have an alternative
proposal for the Community Preservation Committee. The City of Northampton is
exploring the possibility of taking out an Energy Service Performance Contract. Forbes
Library would be included in this contract as one of the city buildings. Replacing
windows in city buildings could be a part of this energy package. With that possibility in
mind, the Trustees ask the CPC to consider taking window replacement out of the
original library project. The project phasing options sent by Forbes to the CPC March
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12 as requested at the CPC’s March 1 meeting would serve as a design for this
preservation plan. Window replacement is not required to stabilize and secure the library
building envelope as is the rest of the work requested. The cost of the library project
without the windows would be $1.2 million. The City of Northampton, according to
Chris Pile, could not provide $200,000 in capital improvement funds for several years, by
which time the cost of the restoration would have risen far beyond $1.2 million. Since
this project must be done in temperate weather, the architect’s cost estimates are for the
summer of 2009 construction. To have the project begin in the spring of 2009, it needs to
go out to bid in the fall or early winter of 2008. Since bids cannot be requested before the
money is in hand, it is imperative that the funding be received before the end of 2008 or
the construction cost will increase by an estimated 7% to 10% annually.
Therefore, the Trustees of Forbes Library request the Community Preservation
Committee to reconsider its award to Forbes Library and add another $200,000 to the
$1,000,000 already granted. Considering the unavailability of funds elsewhere and the
rapidly increasing cost of construction, CPC funding of the entire wall and roof
preservation package would be the most cost-effective way for the Northampton
community to secure the library it loves.
Representatives of Forbes Library would be happy to provide more details or meet
with the CPC to discuss this request.
Sincerely,
Janet Moulding
Director, Forbes Library