I received a memorandum from Town Attorney Tim Lewis advising me that “the library contracts that have been executed by the prime contractors became binding and enforceable contracts when the contractors were awarded the respective bids at the December 13 Town Board meeting.”  Mr. Lewis indicated that “the town’s failure to sign and return the library contracts to the prime contractors would expose the town to damages suffered by the contractors.”

In the event that the Town Board is not satisfied by the work of the contractors the Board has the “ability to terminate the contracts or suspend the contracts” at a later date.

The Town Attorney indicated that the geothermal contracts include a rider. The rider expresses concerns about borehole stability, water quality and well yield with respect to the geothermal wells and proposes to amend the geothermal contracts to address these issues. Amending the contract in this matter is impermissible since these provisions were not included in the original bid documents. The rider in the geothermal contracts are being detached from the geothermal contracts.

Since the contracts were awarded by the Town Board in December – the architect has decided to amend the geothermal system. Originally, the town was going to use an open loop geothermal system. Groundwater is withdrawn from a below ground aquifer thru the supply well, pumped to a heating or cooling exchange device and then returned to the below ground aquifer thru the return well. A closed loop, which is now being planned, does not involve wells but rather a series of deep boreholes fitted with narrow u- tube configurations of piping. Rather than use water from a natural below ground aquifer, closed loop systems rely on the soil mass and groundwater to act as the heating or cooling source. The water within the closed loop u- tube pipes will be supplied thru normal water mains at the site.

I had expressed concern during the meeting – why was the closed loop not proposed initially? Will there be significant design specification changes? I was assured by our legal and construction team that the change did not require re-bidding and complies with NYS law.

GOOD NEWS---READING ROOM TO OPEN AT SATELLITE LIBRARY

During the past two months I have advocated having a reading room at the Town Hall satellite library. I feel a reading room would provide people with the opportunity to enjoy the library even more – will provide library patrons with the opportunity to read magazines, newspapers, books. Progress is being made! The auditorium at the Town Hall will become a reading room area for library patrons. I hope that magazines, newspapers will be made available to the public at this room.

PAUL FEINER
            GreenburghTownSupervisor

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