Officials in Tisbury are stepping up the hunt for new office space, as building conditions at both town hall and the town hall annex have deteriorated to the point where worker safety may be at risk.
A town task group formed earlier this year to consider the future of municipal offices said mold at town hall and a rodent infestation at the annex have added urgency to the search for alternative space, leading the group to recommend taking over some of the modular buildings now in use at the Tisbury School when they become available next summer.
“We’re trying to find a quick opportunity for a safe and respectful place for employees of the town,” task group chair Amy Houghton told a joint meeting of the planning board and the finance and advisory committee last week.
The Tisbury select board meets Wednesday to discuss the task group’s findings and plan next steps.
“I don’t think we saw keeping employees in their current location as a viable option, based on what we’re seeing and hearing about the state of affairs,” Ms. Houghton said.
The task group was created in June to seek a consolidated solution for the town’s municipal offices. Tisbury currently has a town hall on Spring street and an annex on High Point Lane, where the building, planning and health departments have been in trailer-like modular buildings for more than a decade.
Planning board administrator Amy Upton, who works in the annex, said it’s barely fit for use.
“The actual building needs to go away,” she told officials at last week’s meeting. “It’s garbage. There’s nothing to be done.”
On Monday, Ms. Upton gave the Gazette a tour of the annex, where a recent paint job on the exterior trim did little to distract the eye from holes shielded by plywood.
Planning board administrator Amy Upton looks over EduComp building plans.
— Ray Ewing
Inside the crowded annex, linoleum floors are patchy, one toilet can only be flushed by reaching into the tank and the ceilings are stained.
Ms. Upton said she and other employees suffer from respiratory problems they suspect are connected to a recently-quelled rodent infestation above their offices.
“There are no currently-living mice up there, we’ve been told,” said Ms. Upton.
But no cleanup followed the exterminators’ treatment, leaving nest materials and excrement just on the other side of the thin ceiling tiles, she said.
“And what are we going to do about the new mice? We’re right next to the dump,” Ms. Upton said.
Some records at the town hall annex are stored in a shipping container.
— Ray Ewing
The annex also has run out of storage space. When documents are needed by the planning, health or building departments, Ms. Upton said, employees trudge outside to unbolt a shipping container stuffed with file boxes.
At town hall, one office is permanently locked due to mold, with town administrator John (Jay) Grande and his staff relocated to the Department of Public Works building on High Point Lane.
The single-story hall, a converted church built in 1844, remains crowded with a dozen employees, including town clerk J. Hillary Conklin and finance director Jon Snyder.
A sign on a bathroom door at the back of the building, near the stairs to Katharine Cornell Theatre, reads “[P]lease make sure to leave door open after use so pipes do not freeze.”
The proposed modular units would serve as a stopgap to ease the space crisis while the town proceeds with its long-term goal of consolidating its offices in a single location.
“Realistically, I think it would be at least 10 years,” finance and advisory committee chair Nancy Gilfoy said.
Modular buildings used by the Tisbury School could be a temporary solution.
— Ray Ewing
The task group has talked with two owners of private properties that could accommodate a consolidated town hall: the old Educomp building downtown, now owned by Xerxes Agassi, and Brooke Katzen’s miniature golf course on State Road.
Those options were less appealing, Ms. Houghton said, because the town would have to either rent a limited amount of space in Mr. Agassi’s mixed-use development or buy and develop Mr. Katzen’s land.
Mr. Grande told the Gazette Monday that he still likes the Educomp concept if a rent-to-own agreement could be reached, and that nothing is off the table for a long-term solution to the town’s space woes.
In the meantime, he said, relocating some employees to modular offices on town property would ease the immediate crisis while planning continues for a consolidated municipal hall.
“What this does is give us some breathing room,” Mr. Grande said.
Wednesday’s select board meeting begins at 5 p.m. in the emergency services building on Spring street, with online participation available.
