The Oneida County Town of Newbold fears its town hall and town shop are too small, too old, and too rundown.
Next month, it will ask voters whether to borrow millions of dollars for an upgrade.
Newbold Town Clerk Kim Gauthier says it’s both a modernization issue and a space issue.
Town trucks can’t even fit into the current town shop.
“There are some huge deficits with our town shop. Our equipment literally is not able to go into those facilities unless the plows are taken off. They’re really old buildings. We’re talking 1960s,” Gauther said.
One side of the town hall is just an old garage bay that has never been updated.
Newbold has a plan to borrow $4.1 million to upgrade the town hall and shop.
But it wants to know what its voters think.
On the April 6 ballot, an advisory referendum will ask voters whether it’s a good idea.
“This is kind of the initial step so that the town board can see what the interest is. We posed it as an advisory question on the April 6 ballot,” Gauthier said.
The town board will use that information to make decisions on the future.
Next Tuesday, Newbold will host two informational meetings in advance of the vote.
“The idea behind that was to allow people to come and see, actually, what the deficits are, what the committee has done, what proposals have been brought before us, actually see renderings of buildings, and then be able to do a question-and-answer period,” Gauthier said.
The meetings will be at 3pm and 6:30pm at the Newbold Fire Department on Highway 47.
That larger facility is being used to allow for better social distancing.
Click here for more information about the referendum question and building plan.
