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- Category: Past Issues
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM --- The plot thickens for musical town offices.
April 15 the former Connecticut National Guard Armory became town property. The deed for the 3-plus acre property near Murphy Park was filed in the Town Clerk's office last Friday afternoon. Town meeting voters, last year, had authorized town officials to pay the fee of $500 to close the sale. April 18, Allan Rawson, chairman of the newly appointed Facilities Study Group, said officials are trying to get the keys to the armory.
Rawson said he anticipates that although the group was appointed for a year, members may well be asked to extend their commitment. Because the use of the armory and town offices are intertwined, the group's work may expand.
Rawson and group member Douglas Cutler Jr. both said that the group's top priority now is to set a public forum, to gather comments and ideas from taxpayers. Rawson said he would like the forum to take place within the first two weeks of May. He added he'd also like to have an email address where folks who cannot attend the forum could send their thoughts.
"We want to get as much input from taxpayers as possible," he said. He added, "This will be a great way to find out what everyone thinks of it."
The state offered the property back to the town with the proviso that it be used for municipal or recreation purposes. Rawson said those are possibilities, as is razing the building.
Group member Cutler said what the best uses for the armory might be are "wide open." He added, "Any one decision affects the bigger picture. We have to have a 'macro' look at it, not a 'micro' look." The sale price was $500 and estimates for cleaning up the inside of the armory building are about $150,000, but beyond that, the cost of actual renovations and the cost for remediation of the grounds are not nailed down. Some naturally occurring arsenic was found near the Little River section of the property.
Looking at the "macro" picture, Town Administrator Douglas M. Cutler said town officials are still working on trying to bring the town's Economic, Community and Redevelopment departments into the Town Hall. Because of a change in the state's rules for the use of Small Cities grants, the town cannot use funds from a second Small Cities grant until at least 65 percent of the current grant is used, according to Community Development Director Delpha Very.
That second grant would have been used to pay the rent on those offices at Belding, as well as the salary of the assistant director for redevelopment. Very said she is in the process of writing up the next Small Cities grant and the town would know by August if it has won that grant. In the meantime, the Belding mill complex owners, Donat Charron and Ellis Paine, have offered to let the offices stay in Belding for about $500 per month, way below the almost $2,000 per month rent tab paid before by the grant. Very said the offices would be able to stay at Belding "at least until the start of the fiscal year." She added she felt it was important that, "in the spirit of redevelopment and community development" those offices should be within a community building or mill building.
That timetable would work very well for the town, said Town Administrator Cutler. "If they stay at Belding until July 1, that will give us time to rework space in Town Hall," Cutler said. The salary for the assistant director for redevelopment and the grant-funded part of the salary for the administrative assistant to Putnam Economic and Community Development are already rolled into the proposed town budget for the next fiscal year.
To that end, Administrator Cutler said, the town is in the process of asking the Special Service District if it would be willing to move its clerk from her office in Town Hall to the district office adjacent to the Police Station. The former assistant zoning enforcement officer's office could also be available, as well as other spaces in the building. The conference room near the school department and the selectmen's chambers could be used for any sensitive discussions with developers, grant awardees, etc.