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Grant grab draws fire
By Pru Sowers
Banner Staff
PROVINCETOWN — Selectmen last week added another article to the Special Town Meeting warrant, this one aimed at reducing the cost of the proposed repair of the exterior of Town Hall.
However, where the money would come from is causing some controversy because it involves the questionable handling of a bond the town took out in 2002 to purchase 7.5 acres of land that now make up the Shank Painter Pond conversation area. While two state grants totaling $496,000 were received in 2000 and applied to the purchase price, the town, for unexplained reasons, took out a general obligation bond for the full amount in 2002, leaving $493,000 sitting in a capital projects account that is not needed to pay off the loan.
Selectmen agreed to ask residents at Town Meeting to vote to move the money out of the land acquisition account and over to the Town Hall restoration project, where it would reduce the estimated $2 million cost to repair the outside of the building by almost 25 percent.
But that has some members of the open space committee crying foul, since Land Bank funds are being used to pay back the bond. Municipal Finance Director Alix Heilala said that as a result of the town taking out a $1.6 million bond instead of a $1.1 million bond, Land Bank funds will pay almost $93,000 in extra interest payments over the life of the 10-year bond that should never have been needed. And that has both confused and angered Dennis Minsky, chair of the open space committee, which administers Land Bank funds.
“I still think this is a shell game. Something is amiss here but I’m unsure what to do about it,” he said.
Sympathetic to the town’s need for additional revenues, particularly in the case of the $8.5 million to $9 million estimated cost to renovate Town Hall, Minsky said he expected only a “slim chance” at ever recovering the money and using it for open space purchases, even though it was borrowed for that purpose and currently sits in the land acquisition capital projects fund. And Celine Gandolfo, who was instrumental in helping the town win the two grants, said at the very least Land Bank should be reimbursed the $93,000 in interest payments it is paying for the town.
“It’s just disappointing. It has to do with our town government and mismanagement of funds. It has nothing to do with Land Bank or the Community Preservation Act,” she said, referring to the other three-percent surcharge on local property taxes that is used in part for open space land purchases.
Lynn said she had not given any thought to whether the Land Bank should be reimbursed.
“That’s another can of worms,” she said.
Selectmen agreed last week to have a separate article on the Nov. 17 Special Town Meeting warrant that would explain where the funds were coming from.
psowers@provincetownbanner.com
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Outer Cape Worship Services
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Oct 23rd, 2008