Stick with ‘author of record’, board advised

Sun, 04/09/2017 - 4:45pm

Lynda Clancy

Although the Rockport Select Board voted April 3 to invite six architects to talk again about possibly designing a new library for the town, by Wednesday, April 5, that plan was scrapped. Instead, the board agreed, following individual phone calls between the chairman and board members, to first meet with the architect who has been working with the town for more than a year. At least one architect had chided the Select Board for misunderstanding how architects work on project, while another apparently said the process was unethical.

Following two days filled with emails and conversations about inviting the architects back to the table, and then postponing that invitation, the Select Board eventually decided to meet with Dick Reed, a principal at the Portland-based Reed and Company, the architectural firm that Rockport had originally retained to create preliminary library designs.

Reed is now scheduled to talk with the Select Board April 11, at 7 p.m., in the Rockport Opera House downstairs meeting room. The meeting will be televised and streamed live at livestream.com/rockportmaine.

The decision to change course from the board’s Monday vote was made “because we already had a relationship between the town and Dick Reed, and that has not been officially severed,” said Rockport Select Board Chairman Bill Chapman, on April 6.

Invite architects back to town

For two hours on April 3, at a regularly scheduled meeting, four members of the Rockport Select Board – Chairman Bill Chapman, Geoff Parker, Ken McKinley and Owen Casas, debated inviting the six architectural firms that had originally responded to a request for proposals in 2016 to again consider working with the town in designing a new library in Rockport Village.

Board member Brendan Riordan was absent from April 3 meeting.

The selectmen discussed at length whether to meet first with Reed and Company. The town had contracted with Reed to produce preliminary plans for $26,000. Reed and Company had met with community members, committees and library staff last year, and then drew two designs for the town to consider. The sketches were for a new library to be built on the existing library site at 1 Limerock Street, in Rockport Village.

The development of Reed’s plans had been overseen by an ad hoc library design committee. On Nov. 8, a proposal to build a new library, based on a Reed design, went before Rockport voters, and failed by nine voters.

That left the Select Board to decide how to proceed, and since then, the board has been occupied in formulating a new proposal to take to the voters, perhaps in November 2017, or later.

By the end of March, the board had decided that the library would remain in Rockport Village, that it would be approximately 8,500 square feet in size, and would be constructed with a budget between $2.9 million to $3.4 million.

Then, it was time to talk about architects.

At the April 3 meeting, some citizens urged the board to stick with Reed.

“You’ve had all this work done with Reed and the ad hoc library committee, library director and in talking with townspeople,” said Ann Filley, former Rockport library director. “It makes better sense to use someone who is really well known in library construction.”

Rockport resident Helen Shaw wrote a stinging March 22 letter to the board, advising it to: “stop channeling Sisyphus! It is embarrassing for you and for the town. The time spent at Monday’s meeting (March 20) discussing whether or not to move forward with the current library architect or to go back to the six finalists was a monumental waste. Worse, it was disrespectful of the process YOU set in place over a year ago. It was an insult to the Ad Hoc Library Planning Committee, to the Library Committee, to the Rockport Library staff, to Reed and Company, and to the residents of Rockport.”

Shaw pointed out that the 14 architects had originally responded to the town’s request for proposals, and the list had been whittled down to six.

“Reed & Company was ranked the highest of the six and was presented to the Select Board as the choice of the AHLPC to design Rockport’s new library,” she said. Shaw is the wife of Board Chairman Bill Chapman.

At the April 3 meeting, the Select Board members touched on library aesthetics.

Does the town want a Carnegie Era library, a substantial building, asked Chairman Chapman. Or a New England-style building, with white clapboards and a porch?

“Or do we want a glass and steel building,” asked Chapman. “I don’t think that’s what we want.”

“I’d be fine with that,” responded board member Geoff Parker.

He made a motion to invite six architects to again present to the Select Board.

“I think we want to be careful,” said board member Ken McKinley. “Are we asking for new proposals or just conversations with these folks?”

The board eventually decided allot 90 minutes to each conversation with the architects, and tentatively scheduled April 11, 24 and 25 for those meetings.

Board member Owen Casas urged the board to allow Reed to have priority over scheduling when he would want to visit Rockport.

Chapman expressed concern that Reed would be discouraged by the motion.

“Reed has put a lot of time into this,” he said.

“He’s a big boy,” said Parker. “If he wants our business, he will go for it. He is very good at what he does. He is the incumbent.”

McKinley said: “If Reed comes in and we like what they have to say and we think they can take us to the next step, and if the other ideas don’t blow us away, then we are going to pick them.”

The board then voted 3 to 1 in favor of Parker’s motion to invite the six architects to Rockport for 90-minute conversations.

Casas, who had advocated for sticking with Reed, voted against the motion.

The invitation

On April 5, the town office sent out six letters to the architects with the same message (see attached PDF for full letter), except for the one that went to Reed. The recipients were Reed; Stahnke and Kitagawa Architects, in Harborside; Winston Scott Architects, in Portland; Steward Brecher Architects, in Bar Harbor; Stephen Smith Architects in Camden; and Priestley and Associates Architects, in Rockport.

All the invitations reacquainted the architects with what had happened with the original request for qaulifications, and the initial process.

“That process went well given the compressed timeframe the Select Board placed on the Ad Hoc Library Planning Committee,” the letter said. “Unfortunately, the voters turned down the concept that was developed by nine votes out of the 2,300 cast.”

The letter then outlined what the town hopes to see in a new design.

Reed’s letter contained an auxiliary paragraph that said:

“Mr. Reed, the Select Board wants you to understand that we feel your work putting together the prior concept was exemplary, and we very much want you to be part of the next stage of our process. Because the measure did not succeed at the ballot box, however, we do feel the need, in part due to comments from our citizens, to consider ideas put forth by others as well, and this is why we are setting forth the process as noted above. We will be very disappointed should you choose not to continue with us through this process....”

The town also included a list of program space needs.

Several architects responded on April 5.

John Priestley requested additional design specifications.

Stewart Brecher wrote to the town on April 5:

“I have just watched the Livestream of the Board meeting. I believe that the decision to re-interview architects is significantly unfair to both Reed and Co. and to the invited firms. There was a clear expression of a preference for Reed at the meeting and there is insufficient time to "blow the Board away" with a new presentation.

“More significantly, I think the effort to further see what ideas are still out there for the new library is based upon a misunderstanding of how the architectural process should work. This was evident during the first round when we presented process ideas rather than solutions while most of the firms presented solutions.

“The Board seemed then, and still seams, unwilling to move forward until they have the solution in advance. I would prefer to base the design on dialog with the board and interested parties. I truly believe the best designs are the result of the best process. Otherwise one should just go through the catalog of other libraries and pick one to replicate.

“Therefore, I respectfully decline to participate unless Reed and Co. drops out and the Select Board is willing to consider someone as opinionated and committed to participatory design as I am.

“Please convey these thoughts to the Select Board.”

Not much later on April 6, after fielding criticism from some architects, and after the phone conversations with other Select Board members, Rockport Board Chairman Chapman sent another email to the architects. He wrote:

“I have to apologize on behalf of myself and the Rockport Select Board. We've found it necessary to take a step back from the process we thought we had set for ourselves on Monday which was communicated to you yesterday via e-mail and a letter you will receive in the next day or so.

“This does not mean that in a week or so we might not start this process again, but for now we need to work through an issue.

“Again, my apologies for this getting off to a rocky start.”

And to Reed, he wrote:

“I have to apologize on behalf of myself and the Rockport Select Board for the confusion that has reigned over the last two days. And, thank you for reconsidering and agreeing to sit down with up on Tuesday, April 11, at 7 p.m.”

A response arrived from architect Bruce Stahnke: “I was surprised to see your first notice and even more surprised to see the second. I am still very much interested in your project and will await whatever is decided in the town.”

On April 6, in a phone conversation, Chapman said the specter of improper, and perhaps unethical, process had been raised by “a couple of architects.”

He said he acknowledged that, and said Reed and Co. remained the “author of record” until, and if, the Select Board decided otherwise.

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