WPCNR CITY HALL CIRCUIT. By John F. Bailey. November 17, 2005: It’s budget season. In the second of three budget meetings scheduled this week, the Capital Projects Board met Wednesday afternoon to review Department of Public Works projects for the budget year 2006-07 and beyond. A timetable for infrastructure revitalization presented by Commissioner of Public Works Joseph Nicoletti indicates the city will need to schedule approximately $30 Million of needed infrastructure improvements in the next four budget years on City Hall and replacement of the city’s drinking water holding tank that is showing signs of decay.

The Capital Projects Meeting. Wednesday at City Hall. Photo, WPCNR News

The Commissioner proposed spending $400,000 to update the study executed four years ago on renovations to White Plains beloved city hall. This was met with resistance by Commissioner of Traffic Tom Soyk who suggested rather than update a study that work begin on the city hall renovation.

Commissioner Nicoletti noted the study needed to be update for code changes, but agreed that costs of redoing the study might be limited to $300,000.

Councilpersons Tom Roach, Rita Malmud call for a pricetag on the City Hall Makeover. Photo, WPCNR News.

Councilperson Rita Malmud in attendance,  spoke up and suggested that before any updated study was commissioned, the cost of any city hall renovation should be made clear, and the council input on whether to begin the project should be sought.

Mayor Joseph Delfino sarcastically thanked Ms. Malmud for “bringing that up,” noting that Mr. Nicoletti’s warnings about the crumbling infrastructure of City Hall had been ignored by the council the previous four years since the study was done. The Mayor said the council would be briefed on the total cost implications of upgrading and expanding City Hall in the near future.

Don't Drink the Water in City Hall. Annex the Answer.

In the course of the discussion Commissioner Nicoletti noted you cannot drink the water from the faucets at City Hall, the air quality is poor, the wiring needs to be upgraded to support city hall technological demands, the heating  and air conditioning needs upgrading, and the building brought up to code.

He said the current plan for upgrading City Hall called for building a new annex in the rear of city hall to accommodate the Department of Recreation and Parks, the Building Department and the Department of Parking, and most likely the Department of Planning.

Building and Parking currently rent office space at 7-11 South Broadway at a cost of $300,000 a year to the city.  Nicoletti told the meeting the present study on renovation he wants to update consisted of 90% construction plans which needed to be adjusted for inflation.

After the meeting, Nicoletti told WPCNR the cost of renovating just the present City Hall was approximately $6 Million, and when the cost of building a new annex to the rear of the building, the total price tag would rise to $12 Million, the factor of rent savings achieved by consolidating the Parking and Building departments into the new City Hall annex would mitigate that cost.  The Commissioner told WPCNR this was a rough figure at the present time, and a rough estimate only.

White Plains Water Tank Deteriorating.

The other major expense the city has to look at over the next three years is the replacement of the city’s drinking water storage tank which dates back to 1928 The tank holds 9 Million gallons of treated drinking water. Commissioner Nicoletti told the Capital Projects Board that  inspections by scuba divers in the interior of the tank have shown the sides of the structure are deteriorating.

Nicoletti recommends augmenting  the old tank with two new tanks, holding 9 million gallons of water each. The three tanks, Nicoletti said would give triple the city’s present water supply. Currently he said, the city of White Plains consumes 12 million gallons of water a day, and in the summer, the Commissioner said, the consumption level reaches as high as 15 million gallons a day.

Nicoletti said the cost of installing the two new 9 million gallon tanks would be approximately $11 Million. The agreement was to move that project out to budget year 2007-2008 to 2009-20010.

Blacktop is On the Way

In other projects of note, Nicoletti announced $3 Million was going to be spent this year on repaving Ferris Avenue up to the cemetery, in conjunction with water main replacement.

He said Westchester County was going to repave the entire length of Old Mamaroneck Road through the city this summer. He said rumors of widening Saxon Woods Road to 24 feet were unfounded, saying “nothing could be further from the truth.” He said storm water drains were going to be installed, and that Saxon Woods Road needed repaving because it had become essentially “a dirt road.” He said it would be widened about 2 feet at the most.

The meetings on the budget continue this afternoon at 4 P.M. with discussion of Public Safety and Parking.