HAMPDEN — The Hampden Selectboard discussed potential plans for the use of municipal buildings. The board has met with department heads twice so far and plans to have another on Feb. 4.
Selectboard member John Flynn said the board must “get behind” a plan for the buildings and “fish or cut bait.” He said a plan for the existing town hall can be developed concurrently with a plan to reuse Thornton W. Burgess School. Chair Donald Davenport agreed that the board should move forward on an estimate of the costs connected to moving the town offices. Member Craig Rivest said Hampden also needed an estimate of technology maintenance costs for the Thornton W. Burgess School from its IT management and support company, Entre Technologies.
Town Administrator Brian Domina said that he had met with Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District Information Technology Director Bill Powers to walk the former school and assess its technological needs.
“It’s actually in pretty good shape. There’s at least two [or] three drops into each classroom of CAT 5 cable,” Domina said. CAT 5 is an ethernet cable that can transmit computer data, video and telephone signals. The fiber infrastructure for the building is from Charter, rather than the Massachusetts Broadband Institute’s Last Mile Program, which would be needed to connect it to the town’s fiber network. Security cameras and door access hardware would also need to be purchased and installed.
Domina explained that the network switches, used to connect devices to the same network, are 10 years old and at the end of their useful life. HWRSD plans to remove the switches and the wireless access points in the building, he said.
“Switches are not going to be cheap,” Flynn commented. Domina said he will be including a list of materials to bring the school technologically to date in an application for a $200,000 Community Compact IT grant, due to the state on Feb. 6. He said it should pay for a portion of the building’s IT costs.
Flynn and Rivest questioned the school district’s plan to remove the switches and wireless access points. Because the building was owned by the town and leased to the district, the technology was purchased with taxpayer money. On the other hand, Flynn said the district has been “fairly cooperative.”
