Great Barrington — For over three hours on Tuesday, January 13, members of the town’s Community Preservation Committee (CPC) debated which projects to recommend to Town Meeting for Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds.
By the end of the meeting, after some intense discussion and debate, the committee voted to table a decision on an application by the town’s Library Board of Trustees asking for $1.5 million in CPA funds to renovate the Ramsdell Public Library in Housatonic.
Located at 1087 Main Street, the 117-year-old Ramsdell Library is one of the two buildings in the Great Barrington Library system, along with the Mason Library. Built in 1908 as a gift to the town by T. Ellis Ramsdell, the son of Theodore Ramsdell who owned Monument Mills, the Ramsdell Library was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.
According to the application for CPA funds, the Board of Trustees has been awarded a Massachusetts Public Library Construction [MPLC] grant, which will cover up to 60 percent of the total costs for the planned renovation project. The board is requesting $1.5 million in CPA funds, distributed over three to five years, to cover costs associated with the renovation that align with the CPC’s priorities for preservation and accessibility in historic structures.
Two days before the CPC’s meeting, Town Manager Liz Hartsgrove sent a memo to committee members with recommendations on the applications for the proposed projects reviewed at the meeting.
While the memo was not available on the town’s website before the meeting, Hartsgrove shared a copy of the memo with The Berkshire Edge after the meeting.
In her memo, Hartsgrove writes that there is not an urgent need for the proposed project to move forward and, therefore, no urgency for the committee to make a decision on the proposed CPA funds. “The Building Condition Assessment included in the CPA application states that ‘there are no documented structural deficiencies and the building envelope is generally in serviceable condition,’” Hartsgrove writes. “While this is a positive finding, it is also a relevant consideration in capital prioritization. Within the Town’s broader asset portfolio, this assessment suggests that the Ramsdell Library does not currently present the same level of structural or envelope urgency that may exist at other municipal facilities.”
Hartsgrove also questioned what she considered a lack of details in the Board of Trustees’ application for CPA funds. “The application does not identify how the required town funding share, including any portion of the seven percent local contribution, would be funded or programmed within the five-year [Capital Improvement Plan],” she wrote. “Understanding whether and how town funds would be allocated, through borrowing, reserves, or reallocation of capital capacity, is essential to evaluating the full financial implications of reserving CPA funds for this project. Absent clarity on funding sources, scope, and operational implications, it is difficult to determine whether dedicating $1.5 million in CPA funds to this building is appropriate relative to other town-owned buildings that may have more critical structural, life-safety, or infrastructure needs, including facilities such as Town Hall or other municipal assets. This limitation reflects application readiness and funding alignment, not project merit.”
Hartsgrove adds:
[T]he application’s discussion of timing suggests the use of CPA funds to advance design work as interim financing while awaiting [Massachusetts Public Library Construction Program] funding, with the expectation of later reimbursement. While continued design development may be prudent from a project management perspective, CPA funds are intended to support clearly defined, eligible historic preservation activities, not to function as bridge funding for design advancement. Absent a defined preservation scope tied to the requested funds, this approach creates challenges related to eligibility, transparency, and fiscal administration.
Hartsgrove recommends that the committee hold back on any decision on the application to allow the trustees to add more details to their application.
At the January 13 Community Preservation Committee meeting, Chair Karen Smith went around the meeting table asking for opinions on the CPA applications.
A majority of committee members criticized the Library Board of Trustees’ application.
“I want to see the Ramsdell Library stay open, and I think that’s really important,” committee member Steve Bannon said. “I want to see it renovated, but I am also not convinced that [the building] needs to increase in size.”
Both Bannon and committee member James Mercer issued concerns about the collection of historical town archives stored on the second floor of the Ramsdell Library and whether there would be any provisions in the renovation plans to protect them.
Committee member Martha Fick echoed Town Manager Hartsgrove’s concerns about a lack of details in the CPA application. “I’m a no [for the application] because we’re talking about getting money from the state for the building, but once you build a new building, you need shelving, books, computers, and furniture,” Fick said. “You have to move all of those books out and store it for two years and move them back in. None of these costs are part of this construction budget. Also, landscaping and parking is not part [of the plans].”
Only Committee Vice Chair Kate Van Olst came out in support of the application. “I think it’s no surprise that I’ve been a vocal supporter of the Ramsdell Library in some aspect every year it has come before us,” she said. “[The reason why] we don’t have a full cost estimate [for the project] has to do with the timeline of the MPLC. We are only being asked to consider the historical aspects of the project as the Community Preservation Committee. We’re not being asked to weigh in on the total project, its scope or budget. At this juncture, I am absolutely baffled by the commission’s opposition to the preservation of one of the town’s most beautiful historical buildings.”
In regard to the archives, Van Olst said, “If the records that are in there are so important, why would you want to leave them in a building with a leaking roof that’s roped off with no public access?”
“As a resident of Housatonic, as a mother of a young family, I think differently than almost anyone else on this board because I spend a lot of time at the library,” she continued. “I’m there once a week because it’s an idyllic spot for the children in the community. My son is 10 and a half, and my two-year-old can go around there too.”
Van Olst said she would like the committee to set aside $300,000 in CPA funds for the proposed project. “We don’t have to decide on this tonight, and we can wait to see the speed of progress [the trustees] make through the MPLC waiting list,” she said. “We can wait to see what transpires between now and Town Meeting, and we can work with the town manager, library trustees, and everyone else in-between for the next many months until we arrive at all the information that we need to make a more informed decision. I am asking our board to consider voting anything but no.”
In her comments, Chair Smith echoed the concerns of committee members about the lack of details in the application. “I do not have the personal feelings that my friend to the left [Van Olst] has,” she said. “She has small children and lives in Housatonic—I get it. But I have huge concerns. I don’t want eight people on this committee to make a decision about $1.5 million on a building when we don’t know what the end cost [for the project] is. I don’t care if the state is going to give us 60 percent of 10 million or whatever the number is. Before I ever could make a decision about something like that, I need to see a drawing or a concept.”
Smith went on to criticize the idea of having a “teen room” in the library. “The whole thing about having a teen room in a library nowadays just puts me out on the edge,” she said. “What if we want to use the room for old people in quilting? I don’t want to be locked into something like that.”
Eventually, towards the end of the meeting, the committee voted to table any decision on the application.
“If I were the library [trustees], having to want this money, I would have taken everything that was said at this meeting tonight, and the memo that was generated by the town manager, and I would start getting a checklist together,” Smith said. “That’s what I would do.”
In an email to The Berkshire Edge after the meeting, despite not receiving an affirmative decision on their application, Library Board of Trustees Treasurer Ruby Chang looked on the bright side. “The CPC meeting members came together to make responsible decisions for our town,” Chang wrote. “They try to make decisions that are well supported by facts and not supposition. The Ramsdell Library project has many restrictions that make it difficult to fulfill the requirements of the CPC application. This includes the lack of the total cost of the project, the strict regulations governing the MBLC Construction Grant and long-standing issues associated with archival storage on the second floor of the library. These issues are common with any municipal building project. Bringing these issues to the forefront will allow people in our town to understand better what they really want from their library. I am hoping these difficulties will bring people together to support a common cause.”
Click here for the Library Board of Trustees’ application for CPA funds.
Click here for previous reporting on the proposed renovation.
