(2/9) At its February 9th meeting, Town Manager Sean Williams updated the Town Council on the status of town Hall renovations, including the upgrading of the building’s audio and visual equipment. The new equipment will greatly improve capabilities in Town Meetings. The newer technology will allow for the projection of maps and more during meetings for better understanding of discussion topics. Citizens will also be able to attend the meetings via phone.
Renovations are scheduled to begin on March 1 and overall should take about 8 weeks of work with some breaks in between. Construction is expected to take about four weeks to complete upgrades to the old meeting room, kitchen area, and bathrooms. After a one-week break, construction will continue on the offices for two weeks, and after another one-week break, they will begin on the front area.
Williams also received bids to replace the audio and visual equipment around Town Hall. Some of the upgrades will need to happen during construction on the old meeting room in order to run wires for the new equipment. Most of the installation, however, will happen after construction on Town Hall is complete.
Originally, the plan was to update only the downstairs audio visual equipment, but Burgess Chad Weddle requested replacements be made to up stairs equipment to ensure all audio visual equipment works properly. As the upstairs equipment runs off of the main system downstairs, the additional work only made sense.
Williams received two bids that included the upstairs equipment installation. Audio Design Solutions, Inc, the Town’s current contractor, provided a bid of $65,184.10, while Avitecture, Inc. presented a bid of $81,765.07. Both bids include the purchase of televisions to replace the ones in the downstairs, which can also be purchased separately to reduce costs.
The Council did not debate long on the best choice as they all expressed pleasure Audio Design Solutions’ work in the past. The fact Audio Design Solutions came in as the lowest bidder made things easier. Audio Design Solutions is also a local company, unlike Avitecture. The decision to award the contract to Audio Design Solutions passed with unanimous smiles all around.
The biggest concern brought up amongst council members was ease of use. Williams assured the Council that the new equipment would be similar to the old, making it easier to learn. There will be a controller rather than the laptop currently used, but Williams doesn’t think that will be difficult to learn. Weddle suggested each board have at least one person who knows how to use the equipment as back up, to which everyone agreed.
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