Key Points

  • The Board of Selectmen unanimously approved a consultant to complete a $20,000 conditions assessment of the historic Gilbert & Bennett School, funded through a state-administered federal grant.
  • Selectmen sought changes to the contract requiring the consultant meet with the Board if requested, reflecting lessons learned from the Town’s recent experience with outside consultants.
  • Officials hope to complete both the conditions assessment and a separate feasibility study for the property before year’s end to help guide future decisions about the historic property.

Why It Matters: The assessment is intended to provide the first comprehensive roadmap for preserving and evaluating the historic building before decisions are made about its long-term future, while the Board’s contract revisions reflect a broader push for accountability following recent consultant controversies.

Hoping to avoid delaying progress on a long-awaited conditions assessment of the historic Gilbert & Bennett School building, the Board of Selectmen unanimously approved a consulting agreement earlier this month, while directing that additional accountability provisions be added to the contract.

Architectural Preservation Studio of New Canaan will be engaged for a $20,000 assessment report on the condition of the G&B School building, along with doing a cursory evaluation of the adjacent buildings owned by the town.

“We were very fortunate to have really good proposals, all across the board,” Historic District and Historic Property Commission Chair Lori Fusco told the BOS on Monday, July 6.

The work is being funded through a federal grant that is being distributed through the state. The town also received another $20,000 grant from the state for a feasibility study to explore options regarding what to do with the building.

While the BOS is supportive of the new report and in favor of engaging ARS, Selectman Rich McCarty raised a question on two points in the agreement that he felt needed to be amended. Along with clarifying that the firm would pledge to execute its work based not just solely on its own judgment, as the agreement stated, but also on its industry’s best practices, McCarty also said he wanted to see the contract specify ARS’s obligation to meet with the BOS if requested to do so.

“We should learn from prior relationships,” McCarty said, appearing to reference the agreement that was executed with Joseph Centofanti, who was brought to town as an interim chief financial officer before transitioning to accounting consultant. Over the course of his time working for Wilton, Centofanti has drawn wide criticism from town officials who said he has failed and/or refused to meet with them to discuss his work, despite their numerous requests that he attend meetings and answer questions.

“I would almost go as far as, we are obligated to insert a meeting clause,” McCarty said. “And if they don’t accept a meeting clause, I think we’ve had our experience with people who don’t accept meeting clauses.”

Other BOS members agreed, emphasizing to Fusco that it was no reflection on ARS but a concern for past events.

McCarty said that these contract amendments should be prepared and reviewed by town counsel, but the consensus was that in order to advance the assessment work quickly, the BOS needed to approve the agreement that evening.

Regarding the feasibility study, Fusco said a Request for Proposals had been completed by her team and had been reviewed by the state, but at the time they were still waiting to get final document approval from Wilton’s town counsel.

“We’ve been in a holding pattern on that,” she said.

First Selectman Toni Boucher defended town counsel, stating that the attorneys had been doing numerous reviews over the prior month and were very busy.

Fusco said she was hopeful that both the condition assessment report and the feasibility study could potentially be completed before the end of the year.

The town-owned G&B School and adjacent property came under closer scrutiny at the beginning of the year when it came to light that a private local brewing company had expressed an interest in opening up a brewery in the school building and adjacent property.

The company, Twelve Gods Brewery, was involved in private discussions with Boucher, who was ultimately called out on these discussion by some elected officials, local historians and members of the public, all of whom believed that no negotiations regarding the facility should have been taking place at all before the town reached a consensus on what it wanted to do with the building.

Boucher said that discussions were informal and that no offers were made by the company, but this later turned out to be untrue.

Fusco and others have been active over the past six months in bringing the G&B School attention. Specifically they secured the two grants in order to gather more information on what could possibly be done with the property prior to any leasing or sale.

The school building itself, which was deeded to the town by the Gilbert & Bennett Manufacturing Company for a nominal fee of $1.00, is part of a town-owned parcel known as the Georgetown Cluster, which includes two residential properties to the south along the adjacent New St. totaling 8.5 acres. Town officials have discussed selling off those properties in separate sales.

According to ARS’s project scope, the purpose of the Conditions Assessment Report is to “document the current existing conditions, provide prioritized timelines and budgets and produce a roadmap for future building maintenance and projects … The report will review, discuss, analyze, compile and present our observations and findings based on the existing buildings and site conditions.”