1/27/2010 3:13:00 PM Library gets geothermal, after all Fuel-saving system expected to cost $500k extra
Groundbreaking date set
The date for the library's groundbreaking has been set, Alder Shawn Pfaff said at Tuesday's Common Council meeting.
It will be at 2 p.m. April 12.
"This is a big day for the city of Fitchburg; we're going to break ground on the new library," Pfaff said. "It's going to be exciting, hopefully there's not too much mud there, but we're going to have hard hats, shovels and you're all invited to attend, the community, as well."
After the groundbreaking there will be after-school activities for kids, he said.
The Fitchburg Public Library will be equipped with a geothermal heating and cooling system, even if the building costs more than originally planned.
The Fitchburg Common Council voted 6-2 Tuesday night on a resolution to instruct architects to design the building with the system after it had tabled the resolution at its previous meeting, Jan. 12.
Alders Carol Poole, Swami Swaminathan, Darren Stucker, William Horns, Steve Arnold and Shawn Pfaff voted for the system, while Alders Andy Potts and Richard Bloomquist voted against.
The geothermal system, which uses the natural constant temperature of the earth to help provide climate control, is estimated to cost an additional $500,000 above the $10 million price tag that was approved by voters in a 2008 referendum. It is expected to eventually pay for itself with the energy savings it provides, though there was some debate over how quickly that would happen.
Director of public works Paul Woodard said the geothermal would cost 9 cents less per square foot in total energy costs. Compared to $1.27 per square foot in a standard high-efficiency HVAC system, the geothermal would cost $1.18 per square foot and it would save around $3,400.
If the city were to borrow the extra money today, Mayor Jay Allen said, it would cost the average taxpayer in the city $6 a year for the next decade.
Poole said she struggled with the decision but in the end supported the resolution because the $6 a year is an affordable amount. She said that while she is unable to make energy-efficiency upgrades to her own home, she can support the library being equipped with the system.
"If I can make some sort of contribution on that scale for $6 and I can't do it for myself, I should do it for the city," Poole said.
Allen was asked how the city might pay for the $500,000, and he said there were a number of options. It could borrow the money outright, it could use money from the city's fund balance or even a private donor could provide some funds for the project, he said.
"The question today is not to figure out how exactly we're going to pay for this because the bottom line is we don't have find the money until 2012," Allen said. "The way the financing for a project like this works we don't actually have to come up with the money until then and there will be other money that will be raised. There may be other people who will step forward and say 'Hey, I want to contribute money to this specific project.'"
Bloomquist said he likes geothermal for the building, but he does not like the unanswered questions of how the city will pay for it or how the city will pay for photovoltaic solar panels in the near future.
"I disagree with the statement of now's not the time to worry about how to pay for this stuff," he said. "I think you cannot, in all good conscience, vote to put a geothermal system in and not ask yourself how are we going to pay for this thing?"
Bloomquist said he viewed the city's referendum as a binding referendum, not an advisory one and wants the city to stay within the $10 million.
"If the will is to put geothermal and to have this thing be net-zero, I think we live within our means," he said. "We either figure out a way to shrink the building down. We either take certain things out and we build a building with geothermal that's $10 million, which is exactly what we told the voters we would do all along."
Public works director Paul Woodard said at this point in the design, to start cutting the dollar amounts needed to fit geothermal into the $10 million, architects would have to start cutting away square feet.
