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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 th 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 thst 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