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Shaftsbury Board Discusses Flooding at Cole Hall After Heavy Rainstorms
Posted: August 8, 2024
SHAFTSBURY - The Select Board is seeking a solution to water making its way into the first-floor town offices at Cole Hall.
"There was flooding in this building," said Chair Naomi Miller at Monday's meeting. It occurred on the first floor recently after a very heavy rain storm and was cleaned up by mopping. Town Operations Coordinator Jennifer Holley sent photos of the incident to Miller who shared them with the other members of the board.
"It sort of brought front and center the really disabling effects, for lack of a better word, of this as a work environment. We really have to do something urgently," Miller said. "They can't continue to work in a flooded space, keep important documents down there and breathe the mold and all that."
Work on Cole Hall, as well as developing a town green and community center nearby, have been the subject of ongoing discussion. A new community center building is foreseen as part of the project, which is being planned by the Community Center Development Committee (CDCC). Whether or not the center building would house any municipal offices is still under consideration.
"We haven't yet figured out exactly what we're going to do with the community center," Miller said. "So there is some lag time before the CCDC gets a chance to prioritize, figure out and allot to the two potential buildings the various functions that will be served by these buildings."
Town Clerk Marlene Hall, who works in the space, said she doesn't think the water is coming in through or around the windows.
"When the old windows were in down there, every time it sprinkled, it leaked. They were bad. We had leaks constantly. And since the new windows have been in the past couple years, it hasn't been nearly as bad," she said. "But I don't think it's been coming in around the windows per se. I think its coming in the walls, because when we had the walls torn apart down there last year, there was almost a fire in one of the electric boxes. Those electric boxes were wet and rusty. Water and electricity do not mix. The only way they could become wet is if the water's leaking in the rocks someplace."
Holley said that when it rains at night, workers come in in the morning to soaked carpets and the water comes to within a foot and a half of the computer server. This will be put on a cart to avoid any water problem.
Miller asked Hall where she wanted to be working in a month.
"We've done this for a long time. I think we're all going to wait for a new building to go up, if we know we can have office space out there, because we won't have the issues. We won't have mice droppings on desks, we won't have fires in the electrical boxes, we won't have mold we're breathing in, we won't have water leaking into our offices," she said. "And we've done this for quite a while …. It's not as immediate as maybe it could be."
The board reached consensus on consulting with the Bennington County Regional Commission to see if climate resiliency or other grants are available for preservation of historic structures to pay for a consultant to come in and determine the source of and solutions for the water problem. The next step would be to consider at the next meeting whether to put out a request for proposals for the work.
According to the town website, Cole Hall was built in 1834 by Uriah Cole with stone quarried from the nearby Cole Farm. It originally housed a Universalist Church. In later years the Cole heirs donated the property to the town with the understanding it could be used for no religious sect except the Universalist but could be used for town purposes. The town offices have been located at Cole Hall since 1973.
Compliments of:
The Bennington Banner
Posted/Author: Mark Rondeau
