Town offices upgrade is priority for 2019
The renovation and expansion of the town offices at the Comeau property is among the top priorities for Woodstock Supervisor Bill McKenna in 2019, he said this week.
McKenna said the space does not lend itself to convenient municipal operations.
“The goal [is] to make this a more energy-efficient, green building and handicapped-accessible,” he said. “We need to bring everybody [who works] upstairs downstairs because we have seen people who just can’t get up and down the stairs, and people with disabilities who end up having to do business in the middle of the room.”
The main building at the Comeau site is occupied by the town clerk on the ground floor, and the Building Department, Planning Department and Assessor’s Office upstairs. A cottage on the property is used as the supervisor’s office, while a garage is used for the storage of maintenance equipment.
McKenna said the office project still needs to be designed but that it will be smaller than a 5,200-square-foot addition proposed 10 years ago.
“We’re talking about a small addition ... and adding a basement,” he said.
Also in 2019, McKenna said he would also like to see foot traffic be able to move further west on Tinker Street and is working toward removing a barrier that limits how far pedestrians can go.
“We’re going to do a foot bridge on the Christian Science property, across from the hardware store,” he said.
“Right now, there’s no sidewalk and you have to go out [into the street] and around,” the supervisor said. “When people get there, they turn around and walk back. So we want to create an atmosphere where they’ll continue on.”
McKenna said he also wants to make the Mountainview municipal parking lot more user-friendly.
“We’ll be putting fencing and bumpers out to delineate parking spaces,” he said.