By Carol Britton Meyer

The select board reviewed this week the proposed memorandum of agreement between the town and school committee that would allow the town offices to move to Memorial School once the school consolidation plan is complete, but stopped short of approving it due in part to concerns about the 20-year length of the license.

Board members agreed that the agreement should be changed to anywhere from 25 to 40 to 50 to 99 years, a message Town Manager Jennifer Constable will take to Superintendent of Schools Judith Kuehn prior to a planned joint meeting between the committee and board to discuss the proposed agreement, the date not yet decided.

Concerns also were expressed that the school committee has the right to terminate the lease with no shorter than 24 months’ notice. The school committee would remain in control of the building.

“This would not give the town enough time to find alternative town office space, which doesn’t exist,” board member Irwin Nesoff said. “We need to protect the town, and a 20-year lease and 24-month lease cancellation period don’t do that. The substantial cost to relocate the town offices beckons a longer term.”

While noting that “we can’t not [ultimately] sign the agreement,” board member Brian McCarthy advocated for a longer cancellation timeframe. Otherwise, he said, the town “would only have 24 months to make a plan if the school committee needs the building back.”

Town Counsel James Lampke told the board members that if they aren’t satisfied with the license terms, “you shouldn’t enter into it, discuss it further at the joint meeting, or go back to the drawing board.”

The school committee accepted the agreement Tuesday night, which would allow the town offices, and perhaps the senior center, to occupy the second and third floor once the building is vacated under the school consolidation plan. [Click here for related story.]

While Select Board Chair Greg Grey called the agreement “less than perfect,” he referred to it as “a giant step forward. We’re in a better place right now.”

Constable emphasized that whatever the relocation costs would be, which voters will be asked to approve at the upcoming annual town meeting, they would be far less than restoring the deteriorating current town hall.

In other business at the meeting…

Constable announced that Stacy Callahan, who is currently serving as the human resources director for the Town of Rockland, was recently hired to fill the new position of Hull’s assistant town manager. Her first day on the job will be April 8. Before being hired as Hull’s town manager, Constable was the assistant town administrator in Rockland.

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