To: Harvard Board of Selectmen
Protect Harvard Citizen's Right to Public Assembly
We, the undersigned, assert that Article 17, as approved by majority vote at the 2011 Annual Town Meeting, establishes a clear directive to the Board of Selectmen to expend funds for the development of schematic plans for the renovation of Town Hall and specifically requires that those schematic designs be developed so as to meet not only the needs of town governance but also to provide for public assembly space including meeting, civic and community space.
Why is this important?
Last year at town meeting , the town overwhelmingly passed article 17, Municipal Buildings.
The Board of Selectmen(BoS) appointed a committee the Municipal Building Committee (MBC) to come up with plans for to renovate Town Hall and the Hildreth House. The Hildreth House is less controversial so we are leaving it out of this petition. The MBC has done an excellent job of soliciting public input over the last 9 months and is coming close to picking a design.
Two Selectmen continue to try to pressure the MBC to scale down their proposal for town hall. The main point of contention is what to do with the second floor. The history here is: up until 1985 the second fl was used for performances, town meetings and many community functions. In '85, "Temporary" offices were put up there and are still there today. By restoring the 2nd fl to a useable space we would fill a huge void in our community, an intermediate size meeting room, that could hold up to 250 people, and be used for town government, civic and community space.
We’re calling upon the Board of Selectmen to instruct the MBC to develop a design that upholds the intent of Article 17; a plan for renovating town hall that would provide for town government and a public assembly space for the citizens of the town.
An excellent video on the history of town hall can be found here(sorry you may need to cut and paste the website url):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ6A5fJYf0M