The Town of Richford continues developing plans to construct a new town hall. Financial planning started in 2014 when the previous Town Supervisor and the town board established a separate fund for capital projects with a new town hall as the principle project of that fund.
The town board has been budgeting funds for that project ever since. The town plans to build the new town hall on town owned land on State Route 79, adjacent to the current town highway barn.
The exterior of the current Richford Town Hall, built sometime before 1940 as the Town Highway Barn, and repurposed in 1973 as the town hall. Provided photo.
Richford Town Supervisor Charles Davis says that the town board had hoped to have enough money to begin construction in 2022, but the cost of building materials and construction costs due to COVID-19, along with inflation, has made the project schedule difficult.
According to Supervisor Davis, the current town hall was originally built as the town highway barn sometime before 1940, with an addition in the late 1940s to accommodate town board business. The garage portion of the building was retrofitted to be the town hall around 1973.
The current town hall is a repurposed building that is difficult to heat and is a maintenance nightmare. It is not as handicapped accessible as it should be, according to Davis.
Davis wrote, in a prepared release, “Over the years we’ve made minor improvements like changing the lights over to LEDs, but it seems like throwing good money after bad at this point.”
A heat lams keeps plumbing from freezing in the winter. Provided photo.
He added, “It is drafty and cold in the wintertime and hot in the summertime. The pipes are subject to freezing and require supplemental heat. The water isn’t potable. Some of the electrical outlets don’t work. We don’t have any dedicated workspace so we work at tables in the assembly room and bring out our computers and files every time we need to do anything. There are always a lot of interruptions and distractions. The cost of renovating the existing town hall and any attempt to add space to the existing town hall could easily exceed the cost of building a new town hall, so we are choosing to start from scratch.”
The town is applying for an earmark through Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Senator Chuck Schumer, and Congressman Tom Reed. It’s called a Congressionally Directed Spending request.
“We don’t want any fancy bells or whistles, we just need office space,” says Davis.
In the current town hall there’s just a small Town Clerk’s office. There is no office space for the Supervisor, Deputy Supervisor, Bookkeeper, Assessor, or Code Enforcement Officer. The Justice Court is a separate room with no office space for the judge and court clerk.
If Richford gets the full amount they’re requesting for the congressional earmark, Supervisor Davis says they’d like to have roof-mounted solar panels.
“It’s an expensive up-front cost, but it pays for itself in the long run, is good for the environment, and lowers our need for foreign oil.”
If they only get a partial grant, Supervisor Davis says the solar panels are probably the one thing that can be cut.
He added, “Our plan is for a single-story 2,880 square foot building and isn’t extravagant, so there’s nothing extra to get rid of. The solar panels aren’t a necessity, so they’re the one thing we can eliminate.”
If they don’t get the grant, Supervisor Davis says it may be several more years before they can start building, stating, “[It] is a shame because we’re wasting money on heating and we don’t have the usable space we need.”
He added, “We are definitely planning on doing electrical service work for the project this year to consolidate electric meters into one so we don’t have three separate demand rate meters. This meter bank would eventually be used for the new building also. We could also do the well and septic system for the new town hall this year, because we have the money and they will be sized sufficiently to be used by the highway department also.”
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