DRAFT WARRANT FOR FALL ANNUAL TOWN MEETING
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2012 - 7:00 P.M.
Draft #6 - 8.22.12

ARTICLE 4: (Board of Selectmen) Purchase property for a new DPW Facility
To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate and/or transfer from the undesignated fund balance (free cash) and/or transfer from unexpended appropriated funds and/or transfer from the Reserve Fund, and/or transfer from the Stabilization Fund and/or borrow a sum of money to fund the purchase of property and building or buildings to be used for construction of a new DPW Facility, said sum to be expended under the direction of the Board of Selectmen; and to authorize the Board of Selectmen to apply for grants and/or loans under any applicable state or federal program to be used in support of such purchase, and to expend any such grant and/or loan funds received, without the necessity of further appropriation; or take any other action relative thereto.

ARTICLE 18: (Petition)
I move to see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate, transfer from available funds in the Treasury (free cash), borrow and/or transfer from the stabilization fund one million, eight hundred thousand dollars ($1,800,000.00) to procure the services of an Engineering firm to prepare plans using construction referred to as MGL 44e to build a DPW facility, salt shed and wash bay on either the property on Providence road known as the Waste Water Treatment Facility or on Fletcher Street on the current DPW site, said funds to be expended under the direction of the Building, Planning & Construction Committee; or take any other action relative thereto. Said facility is for the storage of DPW vehicles, maintenance, shops, and materials storage. The DPW offices will be relocated to available town owned office space as determined by the Tow Manager. Any funds remaining from the 1.8 million dollars may be used by the Building Planning and Construction Committee to assist the Town Manager in removing as many structures as possible from the existing site off Fletcher Street, add loam, landscape and plant grass.

Upcoming Important dates:
08/24/12 - Town Meeting Warrant Article Closes
08/27/12 - Selectmen Meeting @ 7PM
08/29/12 - Finance Committee meeting @ 6PM
09/10/12 - Selectmen Meeting @ 7PM
09/12/12 - Finance Committee Meeting @ 6PM
09/24/12 - Selectmen Meeting @ 7PM (must sign Warrant by this Date) *** FinCom must get Town Meeting book to printer by this date.
10/23/12 - Town Meeting @ 7PM

08/24/2012 BVT: Officials review options for new DPW facility
By Adam Silva

NORTHBRIDGE — In an attempt to move the idea of a new DPW facility forward, members of select boards and concerned citizens met before the town's Construction Commission on Thursday, Aug. 16.

Neal Mitchell spoke before the Commission, stating a prefabricated building could be made for roughly $1 million at the existing location in the center of town.

DPW Director Jim Shuris, who was in attendance at the meeting, spoke in disapproval of the low sales figure after the meeting.

"It could never be done for that amount," said Shuris bluntly. "Easily over a million. If you look at the numbers that have been created, the total costs come to about $7.8 million."

Of that amount, $5.1 million would go to the building, with the rest going to "soft costs," such as project engineering, project managers, inspections, furnishings, fire protection, water, sewer, electrical and infrastructure.

In October, the public will be invited to an open house to better educate them on what the DPW actually does and what is needed for them to improve their job.

"We are always looking for ways to do it cheaper," said Shuris. "I think the main message of the meeting was needs and we've done a needs analysis. We've gone from 23,000 square feet to 19,000. It's about 17,500 square feet that's on the ground and 1,700 that's on the second level."

Currently, the DPW has 34 pieces of equipment and the majority of them, in order to last as long as they can, need to be housed indoors. Eleven pieces could be left outside or taken home with employees.

"Any businessman would go crazy to build it for $8 million," said Mitchell. "The town has been trying to build a new DPW facility for 50 years in some way shape or form. A new salt shed could be built for between $100,000 to $150,000."

The board also met with Michael McKeon from Kaestle Boos Associates Inc., who is in charge of the library project. The biggest obstacles thus far in the project come from previous work done on the roof. More tiles need to be removed to fix the problems the roof is facing.

"Based on the previous repairs, they were not done in an appropriate manner," said McKeon. "The tiles were glued together with asphalt and not nailed down. We saw asphalt on the back row and the entire first row of tiles need to be removed. We need 1,200 additional tiles and only 100 were carried. The price was negotiated down from $45 to $10. The tiles are normally $5 or $6 in a store. That is an excellent price for tiles."

Hairline cracks in the chimney have been noticed and "for reasons I can't explain," said McKeon, they were not part of the scope of the project. He went on to say that it would cost $3,000 for the equipment for the roof and would not make sense to do the job separately. Contractors are liable for their projects for six years with faulty workmanship, noted Construction Chairman Tom Pilibosian.

08/22/2012 T&G: Northbridge engineer has seen it all
By Bill Fortier

NORTHBRIDGE - Neal B. Mitchell Jr. has been all over the world, but local people know him best for the beautiful property on Sutton Street where he and his wife, Kristin, live.

Local lawyer W. Robert Knapik said some streets in town have beautiful homes, but in his view, the approximately 30-acre property, with its tree-lined driveway and fields, can't be topped.

"To me it's the most beautiful house in town," said Mr. Knapik, who has known Mr. Mitchell for about six years.

"We built those fields," said Mr. Mitchell, who bought the property in 1988 for his daughter, Jennifer Doe, so she could raise Dutch Warmblood horses.

Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell moved from Sudbury to Sutton Street about 12 years ago.

Mr. Mitchell, 77, owner of Neal Mitchell Associates, has built things all over the world, and they are far more complicated projects than the tree-removal and ground-smoothing work that transformed the property into one of the town's showplaces.

Mr. Mitchell has developed a system for building low-cost structures using a concrete frame with reinforcing steel rebar. The system can be used for building low-cost housing, hospitals and other structures that he said have been built on every continent.

"That system allows you to put anything you can put your hands on around the frame," said John D. Evans, director of project development for Erhardt Construction Co. of Ada, Mich.

Mr. Evans met Mr. Mitchell in 1976, when he was teaching a master's course at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. They have been working together ever since, with their latest projects the construction of housing in Iraq and Afghanistan, a project they can't elaborate on because contracts have not been signed.

Studies that Mr. Mitchell completed to determine how high winds affect skyscrapers are included in the state's building code, and he has given lectures all over the world on his work and its effect on society. Among the projects he has been involved with was the building of a medical facility in Libya that featured an outside wall several inches from a second wall. The space between the two walls would force rising hot air up through a hole in the roof, negating the need for air conditioning.

"When I was working on a project in Egypt, I studied how the ancient Egyptians built things," he said.

"Of all the places I've done business throughout the world, Northbridge has proven the most frustrating," he said recently, while sitting at his kitchen table filled with architectural and engineering magazines.

Mr. Mitchell was a member of the building committee, and his knowledge saved the town thousands of dollars over the years, according to longtime friend John A. "Jack" Davis, who was on the committee with Mr. Mitchell. Mr. Davis also said Mr. Mitchell saved the town several hundred thousand dollars when he was the manager of a project that transformed Church Street in the Whitinsville part of town.

"He's very civic-minded. He's done a lot of things in town," Mr. Davis said.

Mr. Mitchell graduated from Brown University in 1958 with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering, and he followed that up by getting a master's degree in structural engineering from MIT before becoming a full professor of architecture at Harvard University in the early 1960s.

That professorship started him on a career that has seen him do work in more than 50 countries, by his estimate.

Through the years, Mr. Mitchell has met some of the world's most famous people, and he said being a professor at Harvard in essence opened the door to the world for him. For example, he oversaw the rebuilding of airports in the southern part of Poland, where he met Solidarity leader Lech Walesa.

He talked about the idea of building a city in Lebanon with the late Yasser Arafat, before the PLO leader told him it wouldn't be built because he thought low-cost housing would mean people would be more comfortable and less willing to fight his battle.

In the mid-1990s, he met with Osama bin Laden, whose family ran the Caterpillar equipment dealership in Saudi Arabia.

"I liked him. I got along very well with him," Mr. Mitchell said.

Mr. Evans said people might be skeptical of some of Mr. Mitchell's stories, but he recalled seeing a message from the Swiss ambassador one day praising him for work he did in Switzerland and reminding him he could stay at his house for as long as he wanted the next time he was in the country.

Mr. Mitchell said Switzerland is his favorite country.

"When you spend a lot of time in the Middle East and you fly into Switzerland, well, it's quite a change," he said.

Along with the housing projects in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. Mitchell has been working with medical instrument specialist David T. Harrington on building up to 10 hospitals in Ghana.

"We go back about 10 years to projects in Turkey," said Mr. Harrington, who lives in Medway. "Who would think that two men who live, what, 20 or 25 miles apart, didn't know each other until they met in Turkey?

"Neal will admit when he doesn't know something, but there isn't too much he doesn't know. He's a colorful guy and he seems to have contacts all over the world," Mr. Harrington said.

Mr. Mitchell was recently given a plaque by parishioners at Mater Dolorosa Church in Holyoke for his three engineering reports on the church and its steeple that led to the dismissal of a lawsuit against the parishioners and the removal of scaffolding surrounding the 111-year-old church. The dismissal of the lawsuit allowed church members to occupy, for about a year, the church that the Catholic Diocese of Springfield wants to close.

"I was embarrassed by that plaque," he said. "I've never looked for credit."

Mr. Mitchell said his projects through the years have resulted from what he calls word-of-mouth contact, and the effort to get the reports on the Holyoke church is a good example. Victor M. Anop, a church member and lawyer representing the parishioners, said he was looking for somebody to give a thorough, unbiased report, and he was told Mr. Mitchell was his man.

"He's amazing," Mr. Anop said. "His report was so matter-of-fact. When he says something is so, it is so. He's going to tell you the truth, no matter what. He's a diamond hidden in the rough of Northbridge."

Mr. Evans, who worked for four years at Neal Mitchell Associates when it was in Sudbury, said his former boss has a "heart of gold."

Mr. Evans remembered, for example, when a man working for him couldn't afford to visit Israel with his family, which prompted Mr. Mitchell to pay for the tickets for the man's family. He also said he will do whatever possible for students who want to go to Harvard or MIT.

"I love working with Neal Mitchell," Mr. Evans said.

Mr. Mitchell said he still works 60 hours a week and he plans on doing that as long as he can.

"Why would I retire? I'm having too much fun," he said last week.

Mrs. Mitchell has joined her husband of 55 years on many of his projects around the globe.

"I loved Switzerland and Norway," she said. "I can't think of a place I didn't like. It's been a nice life, a good life."

08/17/2012 BVT: Selectmen discuss Town Meeting warrant articles
NORTHBRIDGE - The Northbridge Board of Selectmen put forth a rough draft of several of the articles that will be on the warrant at the Annual Fall Town Meeting that will take place in October at their meeting on Monday, Aug. 13.

While nothing is set in stone currently, many of the articles are simple housekeeping measures, according to Northbridge Town Manager Ted Kozak.

One article currently being worked on deals with the American Legion, which keeping it afloat has been a long-standing problem.

“The Legion came to us at our last meeting and they are having financial difficulties,” said Chairman Daniel Nolan. “Because we use their fields, they are looking for us to contribute an amount and numbers like $10,000 to $15,000 have been thrown about. We are looking to put an article on there for the people to vote on and I think people will vote for it.”

The board met with DPW Head Jim Shuris to discuss many topics, including a new DPW facility, which has long been in the works.

“The board doesn’t have any consensus right now on how we are going to go forward with the new facility,” explained Nolan. “We would have to put forward a motion that would allow us to purchase property and come back and retrofit. (This is the Old Colony Building)

We are still a long ways away from that. We can put that on as a placeholder if we choose to do that in the future.”