[MassHistPres] CPC-funding issue

[Tucker, Jonathan]

Dear Ms. St. Sure:

There appear to be several issues involved, which I think warrant separate consideration.

First, the mechanism by which payment is proceeding is a valid one.  It is not a “maneuver.”  Communities may pay for planning, inventories, etc. associated with historic preservation projects out of CPA administrative funds.  Some lawyers think communities must use that path for such projects.  Others disagree and believe that plain CPA appropriations may be used for those purposes.  No matter which position is taken, doing so is not a fiscally unethical dodge.

It is not the Brewster CPC alone that appropriates these funds.  Brewster’s Town Meeting must vote to appropriate all CPA funds, including administrative funds.  If in the process Town Meeting neglects to ask for a description of what administrative activities those funds will pay for, then the Historical Commission—which is a town body, and not a private organization like an historical society—is bound only by a general sense of civic good sense to be energetically open and forthcoming about how it is using those funds (though it must in the end account for them).

I note that on the Town website the Brewster Historical Commission’s webpage clearly mentions the project, though it does not cite the source of funds.  You can see it via this link:

http://www.brewster-ma.gov/committees-mainmenu-29/historical-commission-mainmenu-81.

So, you might want to reconsider using the term “secrecy” to describe what is occurring.  It may not only be too strong a term to use, but factually inaccurate.  If the website information is any indication, it is likely that the Historical Commission made clear to at least the CPC during an open public session what its intentions were for these funds.  However, it would be entirely reasonable to ask the Historical Commission for a manageable level of transparency about the project as it proceeds—annual or semi-annual updates, for instance, so that public can see what it’s getting.

Second, there are state procurement regulations that apply to public projects such as the one you describe.  You might want to inquire whether the Historical Commission has used a valid procedure for hiring the consultant in question, whether it has a valid, responsible, and binding contract with the consultant for the work, and so forth.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, if the product being generated by the consultant is of demonstrably poor quality and inaccurate (as opposed to simply presenting the information in a manner that some community members dislike), then the CPC should be asking the Historical Commission to review the work and, if appropriate, to ‘unhire’ the consultant.  The procurement process could then be opened up for other qualified candidates to complete the project.

Finally, in pursuing this issue, I would recommend that you stay as far away as possible from issues of personalities and personal preferences.  The approach to this local project should be as practical and professionally neutral as the advice you seek.  Toward that end, you yourself as a person with considerable depth and breadth of local historical expertise might want to consider joining the process rather than critiquing it from the outside—offering your review of draft inventory forms and your resources to the Historical Commission and through them to the consultant.  No outside historical consultant, no matter how qualified, can ever begin to have as much detailed local historical knowledge as a qualified local historian.  It is not reasonable to expect them to.

When Amherst hires consultants to prepare NHR property or district nominations, for instance, we ask that the final product delivered to us be in an editable form, so that we can finish and submit the NHR nomination ourselves.  We know better than any consultant ever will where to look to correct or augment the historical information a consultant can develop.  I very much doubt that Brewster is any different.

Good Luck!

Jonathan Tucker
Senior Planner
Amherst Planning Department
4 Boltwood Avenue, Town Hall
Amherst, MA  01002
(413) 259-3040
tuckerj at amherstma.gov<mailto:tuckerj at amherstma.gov>



From: masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu [mailto:masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu] On Behalf Of Ellen St. Sure
Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2017 3:07 PM
To: masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
Subject: [MassHistPres] CPC-funding issue

I need advice.

The Brewster CPC some months ago agreed to a request from the town’s Historical Commission to provide them with the funds to hire a researcher who had approached them with a proposal to re-do nearly 300 studies of local historical houses—up to 70 houses a year at $300 each ($21,000 per year)—to replace flawed studies done some 40 years ago.

The researcher (I will not name him here) also informed the local CPC that they could not pay for his project with a grant because such research cannot be so funded under the law—but that they could sidestep this legal impediment by paying him from funds reserved for administrative costs—and the CPC agreed to do this, despite the fact that this involved adding an additional $20,000 to the relevant fund.  The Hist Pres administrative “bucket” was subsequently up-funded from $10,000 to $30,000 for the 2017 fiscal year and re-funded for the same amount for the coming year in order to cover the researcher’s $21,000 annual payments. This maneuver, and the project it is funding, has never, to date, been presented to the tax-paying public for its comments or approval.

I have reached the end of my attempts to get public access to this on-going under-the-radar project and my frustration with what seems to me to be unconscionable secrecy has been greatly increased by getting a copy of the purveyor’s first historic house study which I found to be replete with typos, wrong guesses and factual errors.

Can anyone offer some practical advice about where to go with these serious issues, concerning the source of funding, secrecy of the project and the flaws in the final product?

Ellen St. Sure, Archivist
   Town of Brewster
estsure at comcast.net<mailto:estsure at comcast.net>
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