Old Town Hall bathroom problems hang around

“The bathroom renovation work (in the Old Town Hall),” has stalled, said Selectboard Chairman Andrew Livernois last night.

He could have added, “again.”

The ongoing saga of updating the bathroom facilities in the historic structure has now started a new chapter.

And selectman Dave Nickerson says he’s concerned that the $35,000 the town earmarked for putting in a new unisex handicapped-accessible bathroom in the old “woodshed” area at the rear of the building will not be enough to pay for the project.

“We have $35,000 and if it (the cost) comes in over that we won’t be able to build it,” he said last night. “I don’t believe we have the money to do it…. I’m afraid it’s going to come in at more like $45,000 or $50,000.”

The problem, according to Nickerson and Jeff Jenkins, the chairman of the Selectboard’s Building Committee, is that there’s not a stable foundation under the woodshed portion of the building.

“Jeff Jenkins and I went up and looked over this project very closely about two months ago,” Nickerson explained. “We climbed underneath and found that the building (itself) has a rock foundation. It sits on rock piers, it’s not a (stone or cement) foundation. There’s just a dirt crawlspace underneath that building.”

The woodshed area is even more primitive, the selectman said. “There’s no foundation down there… It’s a dirt floor.”

The set-up is especially complicated now because a traditional cement foundation cannot be placed over the woodshed area, the selectman explained.

“There are wooden beans (under the main building) that would have to be taken out — or at least not have any cement put up against them, or they’ll rot.”

As a result of the research, Nickerson told his fellow selectmen recently that it was not practical to build a new bathroom over the old woodshed space — even though that’s what the board decided to do several months ago.

The other selectmen agreed — but that created a new problem for the town, according to Livernois.

That’s because the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) ordered Sanbornton several years ago to have handicapped-assessable bathroom facilities added to the Old Town Hall and the agency was growing inpatient that the town has not resolved the issue, he explained.

“We asked them (the DOJ officials), what if we simply did not have bathrooms at all in this building? And they said, that would be fine. Then, it’s not a problem if they’re not handicapped accessible.

“So we made the decision to decommission the bathrooms,” Livernois said. “There are bathrooms in the (Sanbornton Public) Library and in the (Sanbornton Congregational) Church. And if there’s an event we could use porta-pottys, and they make porta-pottys handicapped-accessible now.”

That what the town did during last weekend’s Old Home Day celebration.

Jenkins said it was because the Justice Department had “drawn a line in the sand” and ordered the town to resolve the issue by Aug. 1. With that possibility not in sight, the selectmen decided to close down the bathrooms.

Nickerson said the porta-pottys will only be used for special event or on voting days until the bathroom problem is resolved.

But what happens next seems to be a source of some confusion among the town officials.

Both Nickerson and Jenkins said the town recently distributed information requesting bids on drawing up plans for both tearing down the current woodshed portion and replacing it with a similarly-sized addition that would house the unisex handicapped-assessable bathroom the Selectboard originally supported several months ago.

Nickerson said the bid deadline passed recently and the selectmen are waiting for a recommendation from the Building Committee about how best to proceed at this point.

But Jenkins said his group is waiting from direction from the selectmen, which is the only group with authority to open bids.

Although both men agree the current plan is to build a new structure, Livernois said his memory was not as clear.

“I could be wrong about what we (the selectmen) decided,” he admitted. “But if whole idea of building over the woodshed was to save money by not having to build an addition, now my thought is if we’re going to build something brand new there, that opens up a whole host of other possibilities. Why not go back to the drawing board and look over other things? You can change the footprint (of the new space). Maybe having two bathrooms is a good idea if you’re going to do all that (work)?”

This is not the first time dealing with Old Town Hall has caused some controversy.

After the Justice Department first told town leaders to deal with the lack of handicapped-accessible facilities several years ago, the Building Committee studied the issue and decided to decommission the two old “privy” hole/rooms in the back of the meeting hall and put in a unisex bathroom over the “woodshed”, and off the kitchen.

But two members of the committee brought the issue to the Selectboard. Carmine Cioffi and Don Foudriat said the two existing “restrooms” could easily be converted into handicapped accessible men/women bathrooms that would save space, save money and ease any “embarrassment” or possible health issues related to having a single bathroom in the front of the meeting room off the kitchen area.

Last spring the three selectmen toured the Old Town hall with the committee members and, based on the input offered, decided to support the majority’s recommendation.

Then an initial bid to do the renovation work for $35,000 was received by a construction firm in Kingston and the Selectboard awarded it the contract. But the company never followed through on its obligation so the selectmen cancelled the agreement.

Now the board is waiting to sort through the bids for a new design before sending a full set of plans out for the now-more-complicated bathroom project.