“The cheapest way to go is to lease,” Crane said, citing one of the Grant Avenue properties as a candidate for the police department. “The last price we got was about $12 a square foot, and we would need between 8,000-10,000 square feet … It would be about $120,000 a year. That would be about two and a half percent [of a levy hike] in taxes.”
Crane, a former councilman, said the issue might have been more easily addressed if tackled years before. He said suggestions over the years that the town put away one-percent of its tax revenues for a rainy day were unsuccessful.
“We kind of all dropped the ball, because you never worry about tomorrow,” Crane said. “It’s kind of bad planning.
Quigley said the committee’s report ideally would have included “like six buildings identified that they never looked at.”
“I think the committee did an admirable job with what they had to work with,” he said. “Unfortunately it’s a very complex problem, and there are a lot of other factors that need to be considered including other spaces.”
Crane said that he’s prepared to go to bat to seek state funding for whatever plan town officials ultimately settle on as long as it’s “a good, solid plan with some timelines.”
“Things like this are important to fix, but you can’t fix them unless you go through some major money to get them done,” Crane said. “Once you get a plan in place, I’d be happy to take it up to the next level of state government, federal government and even county government to see what we can do about getting some type of funding.”
Quigley said he feels as though the town may have to follow up on the other properties before making a determination about the most viable course of action. When that can happen is still uncertain.
“We’re trying to work through this problem in the same manner that we address every other problem in this town,” Quigley said. “Running a town is like running a triage center … It’s a three-dimensional chess game. You move someplace, something else busts out … I don’t have an ultimate solution at this point.”
