The Board of Selectmen may take longer than expected in solidifying a new draft of the Ambler Farm lease, with at least one member suggested they wait on approving it until after the planned renovation of one farm building is completed.
The selectmen continued to debate a number of points and engaged in a limited discussion late at their meeting on Monday night, July 7, broaching questions about utility costs and shared maintenance responsibilities but agreeing to table the matter until their next meeting.
First Selectman Toni Boucher has said that the attorneys representing the town and the nonprofit Friends of Ambler Farm, respectively, have had some discussion about where the lease now stands, but BOS members have said they want to see a document largely firmed up before it’s officially presented to FOAF.
The BOS made the decision to bring the official approval of the lease to a Special Town Meeting at a future date, where at least two other items will also be presented to the public for a vote, including changes to an ordinance on the demolition of historic structures, and the approval of a new Capital Non-Recurring Fund.
Boucher and FOAF negotiated an initial version of a lease with attorneys in private, bringing it to be voted on by the BOS the day before the Annual Town Meeting in May. Following significant concerns expressed by the Board of Finance, however, as well as some members of the public, the four other selectmen set out to take a closer look, reexamining the document based on comments and suggestions submitted by the BOF.
Boucher continued to express her concerns about legal costs associated with , having previously tried to dissuade the BOS from spending a lot of time working over the lease.
Boucher reiterated her concerns about escalating legal costs, as any continued questions and proposed revisions to a lease she believed had been finalized would keep attorneys engaged in the process.
“Remember, $25,000 — $25,000 in legal fees in two months and we’re still accumulating more legal fees,” she said. “I just hate to see that investment without a result, without a product.”
Selectwoman Kim Healy, however, said that it might be prudent for the town to wait on committing to a longterm lease until after the renovation work on the Raymond Ambler House is completed.
“There’s a lot of unknowns until this property is fully renovated,” she said, “and I worry if we lock into a lease, there could be huge expenses that we don’t know about.”
A lease would help delineate responsibilities as spelled out in the deed that
The Town sees a formal lease with Friends of Ambler Farm as a way to clarify responsibilities and set clear terms for property use and maintenance. While the deed for the property places building upkeep on the town, FOAF’s growing role in operations and improvements has made a structured agreement necessary.
On Monday night, in a seeming reference to the Town’s unsuccessful attempt to secure a STEAP grant for Raymond-Ambler House repairs, Healy suggested a lease explicitly stating the town is ultimately responsible for all maintenance and repairs could make FOAF ineligible for many grants.
“I’m sure we were declined because they thought this … lease was going to be approved. if we go for a grant, why would anyone give us any money, or give Friends of Ambler Farm any money, when they know, if this is approved as it is, that the town is obligated to pay for all repairs and maintenance?”
Following Monday’s BOS meeting, Ambler Farm Executive Director Ashley Kineon said Healy’s statement was incorrect, and that the lease was “irrelevant” in the STEAP grant denial because it’s a town-owned building.
“It’s more likely that the municipal STEAP grant application was not approved this year as the Town of Wilton [already] has an open STEAP grant for $500,000 awarded in 2023 for the new police building. Also, [required matching] funding from the Town was not clear cut because the vote on the bonding for the RAH hadn’t taken place yet. And we learned that only half of the STEAP grant applications submitted were approved,” Kineon said.
Moreover, in an interview earlier this year, Kineon told GMW that a primary reason for the move to a formal lease is to increase eligibility for grants.
“Two years ago, I had applied for a great grant through the State Historic Preservation Office, SHPO. We went through the whole process, and they said, ‘Okay, great, upload your long term lease or document,’ and we had nothing. That was unfortunate — that grant was perfect for the Raymond Ambler [White] house. That was a turning point.”
Healy and others continued to argue that unknown elements of what certain costs will be, particularly utilities, make it problematic to put numbers into the lease.
Selectman Josh Cole suggested that the numbers currently in the lease for utilities were too low, and that FOAF should be responsible for carrying a larger cost amount.
“My suggestion there would be to increase the minimum [utility costs FOAF should be expected to pay] to $12,000 a year, to $1,000 a month,” he said, though Cole noted that he wasn’t entirely sure what the right number should be.
BOS members also questioned the amount FOAF should be expected to remit to the town based on how much revenue third-party events and rentals would generate. While there was consensus that FOAF shouldn’t be required to return funds to the town, members suggested that — depending on the success of those events — FOAF might internally allocate some revenue to cover minor repair and maintenance items.
“That’s a point of contention,” Cole said. “I think we all have different viewpoints on that, but that was kind of my thought.”
Cole also suggested that $1,000 for individual maintenance or repair items, coupled with a $10,000 annual cap, were not sufficient.”
“I just think those numbers are too low and too opened-ended for what the town can wind up paying … By including a low number in there, we’re kind of setting the stage for anything over those amounts for each year going forward,” Cole said.
While outgoing Selectman Bas Nabulsi said he hoped to see the FOAF operate like Wilton Library in relation to the town, Boucher emphasized that it was a different kind of entity with different elements — Ambler Farm is town-owned while the library is an independent organization that receives town funding.
“I very much want us to appreciate it’s not the library … That’s where our mindset, I think, differs,” Boucher said, stating it was not comparable in her opinion.