Officials consider shuffling town services to other buildings

Town Administrator Derek Sullivan has proposed reshuffling town services — including moving the Council on Aging and most of Town Hall to the now-empty Decas School and converting the Town Hall to a police station.

He pitched the idea to the Select Board on Tuesday, Aug. 9, to a very enthusiastic response.

Sullivan began by talking through an inventory of town-owned buildings before presenting his plan, which he said would make best use of available space.

Here’s his proposal: The Council on Aging would be given one wing of the Decas School, which was left empty after the new Elementary School was completed. The rest of the building would be occupied by town hall services, including a land use wing, a finance wing, a general government wing, and a one-stop-shop for beach, transfer station and parking stickers. 

The old school also has plenty of room to host meeting rooms, he said.

“It would really be a municipal complex,” Sullivan said.

The current Town Hall would be retrofitted to serve as a police station — an idea Sullivan said Police Chief Walter Correia was interested in. Sullivan said the building has the same square-footage as specified by the feasibility study commissioned by the Public Safety Complex Committee. He pointed out that the Town Hall once hosted cells and a judge’s office. 

Public Safety Complex Committee chair Claire Smith said Wednesday morning that Sullivan had pitched the idea to the committee a few weeks ago.

“That’s one of the things that we will look at,” Smith said, referencing the several options the committee is considering for the future public safety building. “As a committee we have to look at all alternatives.”

Sullivan also noted that would put the police next door to the Middle and High Schools and closer to the elementary school, citing recent school shootings nationwide as a reason to put police close to schools.

The Multiservice Center could then become a community center, he said. Headstart could rent out space if it wanted, and that location — between schools and the library — would work well for a community hub.

“The Multiservice Center has always been our community center,” he said. 

Advocates have been working for more than a year on a proposal to convert the Decas School to a community center, and the Decas School Steering Committee plans to share its final report on the idea’s feasibility at the upcoming fall town meeting.

Council on Aging Clerk and steering committee member Jody Santagate said she’s very excited that the council programs could be moved to the Decas School, and that she hopes some version of the community center will come into being.

The plan isn’t final yet, but the Select Board was unanimous in their support for the idea.

Member Alan Slavin said it’s likely the best option for the town, especially because building a new police station could cost upwards of $40 million.

Fellow member Jared Chadwick was especially enthused about the idea of putting police next to the schools — “There’s so much protection right there.”

From member Tricia Wurts and chair Judith Whiteside, the idea got a “wow” and a “double wow.”

“It checks all the boxes in my opinion,” said Whiteside.

Sullivan also mentioned that he would recommend the town sell the vacant East and West Wareham Schools, noting that while interest rates have risen, the real estate market is still fairly hot, and those schools could bring in profits similar to that from selling the Everett School.