WARE — Conversations regarding the status of the Mary Lane Hospital demolition project continued during the Selectboard’s Oct. 15 meeting as the demolition delay was set to expire the same week.
Resident Cynthia Bourcier returned for the second straight meeting to speak with the board about the ongoing situation. Bourcier explained she has gone to the state with a complaint related to the ongoing demo delay violations out of Mary Lane Hospital as some buildings were gutted even though there was no report of asbestos within them.
“We still do not have a response from the Historical Commission, or the town manager, or the selectmen. I’ve submitted a complaint with the state. I was told twice in different meetings, ‘Well, put a complaint in with the state,’ so I did,” Bourcier said.
Bourcier said the state has requested more information from the town and that the selectmen needed to make some sort of determination in response before the state can review.
“Some of it might be complicated. I’ve been reaching out to possible consultants to possibly help the residents form an argument, or possibly for the Selectmen to find somebody to help out with this,” Bourcier said. “The [Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection] has said every single time — this is not their responsibility, all they do is make sure that asbestos is removed properly. They don’t look to see all these other things that are on the complaint list.”
Bourcier said the ambulatory building had no asbestos but was included in the hazardous list compiled by the town. This led to an unnecessary gutting of the building. She added this also happened to the Storrs Building.
“There was no authorization for that. If for some reason the contractors had to do it, they should have gone back and the Historical Commission would then approve it,” Bourcier said. “From this point here, the goal is to make people accountable. If the ambulatory building had no asbestos, then well let’s collect the permit fees. I’ve said everything I possibly can, and I need the selectmen to look into this or we can try and hire a consultant. It’s something we can’t just ignore it anymore. We have to make a determination on this.”
Bourcier was joined by Hardwick resident Judi Korzec who had been appointed to the Hardwick Healthcare Task Force with members from the town’s Board of Health and other community boards.
“This affects us greatly. By not having this, we’re actually a health care dessert,” said Korzec. “To help you guys solve this is in our best interest. We’re obviously trying to figure out how to dovetail and solve for our issues right now of having no pharmacies, no doctors, no urgent care and no emergency room.”
Selectboard member Terrance Smith said over three years ago, residents of Hardwick were active in Ware for the Hospital Review Committee meetings put together to oversee some of the regional services. He added there was no involvement from the town officials of Hardwick then and now issues have exacerbated.
“We appreciate that your community’s doing that — it is a regional concern. It has been. It’s been a big concern of my own, and some of the things Mrs. Bourcier’s brining up now is why I got involved in the town over four years ago,” said Smith. “But some of the things that are in this letter that was emailed to all of us a few weeks ago from Mrs. Bourcier are contractor related matters.”
Bourcier reiterated she needs communication from the town and has not received any responses to that point on her shared concerns. Smith said he didn’t think Bourcier had the right approach in connecting with the state on her concerns and added he felt the best resolution to these issues would be hiring a independent third party contractor to oversee it.
“The mechanism to do that should have been at this time — and maybe not so much focus on the violations — would have been to come forward to the special Town Meeting and ask the residents of the town of Ware to appropriate a certain amount of money to go to a third party consultant in order to assist the zoning commissioner, the building commissioner, to oversee some of this. I said this four years ago on the Finance Committee,” Smith said. “Maybe at the annual Town Meeting its appropriate to pull it together, but to start pulling in people from other towns at this point, in the week where the demo delay is to expire, to me this whole thing is everyone relied upon the Historical Commissions zoning bylaw to try and stop this, instead of proactively three to four years ago when the hospital announced this as to what we could do to do it. So, I support and continue to support a third party consultant coming in. If the building official is to expend all of her energy over there, that’s going to mean the other 400 permit applications that she’s responsible for are going to be delayed.”
Selectboard Chair Nancy Talbot read a letter from the state regarding the filed complaint and they determined there was no action they needed to take, and that the complaint was based on the town debating the building commissioner’s interpretation of what was allowed.
“The complaint does not specify how the building code itself has been violated. The focus of this complaint appears to be a disagreement on how the building official is interpreting their duties,” the letter said.
Talbot added with the discussion dragging on and “we’re all running off in different tangents,” she took the responsibility as representative of the Selectboard to connect with the town manager and the building commissioner to address some of these concerns before coming back and continuing the discussion at the board’s next meeting.
“Everything that was possibly done was done to the extent that it could be according to the law from where I sit,” Talbot said.
Before closing the discussion, Smith said he was concerned how Bourcier, as a volunteer on behalf of the town of Ware, was the person in contact with a potential consultant.
“That is the job of us as a board, or the town. Why are people overstepping their bounds?” Smith said.
“Because I’ve asked how many times. I’ve escalated this to the selectmen, to the town manager, and nothing has been done so that’s why I’m going to the state, and to go to the state, I need to have more information,” Bourcier responded.
Smith said he felt the cost to legal fees already this year related to the hospital has circumvented what the town manager’s responsibilities were. Bourcier said there should be a public hearing on the issue, to which Smith said to make it a warrant article for Town Meeting.
“What I have an issue with is I don’t like the attack through these types of things on town employees who are doing their job and then we get other complaints from other people waiting on permit applications and things. How much have we spent in the first quarter on legal fees associated with the hospital?” Smith said.
Bourcier said the demolition delay’s purpose was for the whole campus to be repurposed and services were supposed to be left intact.
“That is why people are upset. Abatement does not mean gutting buildings,” Bourcier said.
Smith responded saying it was private property. The conversation escalated to argument between the two before Talbot shut down any further discussion. Talbot said the discussion will continue at the board’s next meeting where they will provide a written response to the complaint following her meeting with the building commissioner.
