TRURO — When voters arrive at this Saturday’s annual town meeting, they’ll find a confusing new wrinkle in Truro’s years-long effort to replace its aging Dept. of Public Works facility: a nonbinding citizens’ petition to cap the project’s cost at $20 million.
Submitted by resident Dennis O’Brien, Article 40 is the last item on the warrant. It asks voters to endorse the spending cap and calls for two schematic designs to be developed and presented to the select board. One would come from the town’s contracted architect, Weston & Sampson, and the other from the independent four-member “DPW Study Group,” which in 2023 floated a $15.5-million alternative plan that experts and town staff rejected as incomplete.
Supporters frame the petition as a bid to control costs. But expert cost estimates for the project are far higher than $20 million. And even if passed, the article would not legally constrain the decisions of the select board or town manager.
A Familiar Flashpoint
Article 40 comes at a critical stage in planning. After voters rejected a proposal last May, the ad hoc building committee (AHBC), consultants, and staff spent a year refining the project.
O’Brien presented his petition to the select board on March 19. When asked how he arrived at $20 million, he said it was based on conversations with Anthony Garrett, a member of the AHBC and leader of the independent study group. “He is convinced that the dollar per square foot we’re looking at right now is completely unacceptable and that it is totally realistic to reduce that cost significantly,” O’Brien said.
The select board voted unanimously not to recommend the article at its March 25 meeting. “To tie our hands with a price of $20 million I think is shortsighted,” said member Stephanie Rein.
AHBC co-chair Bob Higgins-Steele said the proposed cap undermined the committee’s work and would limit its ability to go forward.
At the AHBC’s March 27 meeting, Garrett denied supplying the number or having “offline conversations” with O’Brien about costs. He added that he thought it would be possible to bring the project into “the lower 20-million range.”
That wasn’t enough to sway AHBC co-chair Michael Cohen. He said that O’Brien’s comments on March 19 convinced him that “the AHBC had been undermined by one of our own.”
He pointed to a March 23 email from O’Brien retracting his earlier claim and attributing the $20-million figure instead to a March 14 conversation with Wes Stinson of Environmental Partners. Cohen said this was a “falsehood” and “simply impossible.” O’Brien’s petition was time-stamped by the town clerk on March 3 — 11 days before that meeting took place, Cohen said.
Cohen resigned from the committee on April 8, citing dysfunction and his inability to keep working with Garrett.
What $20 Million Won’t Buy
In January, Weston & Sampson delivered four preliminary schematic options to the town, all priced between $26.9 million and $32.1 million. Those estimates were produced before the Trump administration announced tariffs expected to drive up the cost of materials.
Paul Millett of Environmental Partners, the town’s owner’s project manager (OPM), estimated on March 27 that the 23,000-square-foot consolidated design — the most recent projected size following an inventory of DPW assets — will cost about $33 million, factoring in inflation, soft costs, and geographic premiums for Outer Cape construction.
“The reality of construction isn’t going to change,” Millett told the AHBC. He said if the target cost was $24 million, the building would need to shrink by one-third.
AHBC alternate member Bob Panessiti asked whether an alternative layout — such as the “campus-style” plan favored by the study group — could produce savings. Weston & Sampson president Jeff Alberti said no. “You have to cut space,” he said. “There would not be any significant savings by breaking it apart.”
The Path Ahead
The town’s effort to replace the DPW facility started more than a decade ago. But progress stalled last May, when voters rejected a $28-million plan at town meeting.
Since then, planners have worked to refine the project with a new focus on operational efficiency and cost reduction. The select board formally identified Town Hall Hill as the site for the new facility on Feb. 25 after declining to pursue an alternative site at 340 Route 6.
Town Hall Hill is the site of the current DPW and needs environmental remediation because PFAS was discovered there. Article 10 on Saturday’s warrant seeks $3.2 million for cleanup and long-term monitoring at the site.
DPW Director Jarrod Cabral said Weston & Sampson’s schematic design is expected by May 5. It will then undergo value engineering and targeted square footage reductions before updated figures are presented to the select board in June.
At the April 8 select board meeting, AHBC liaison Sue Girard-Irwin described that committee’s dysfunction and the need for the select board to address it. “Strong differences of opinions and internal and external pressures have made it difficult to be in alignment on key aspects of the project,” she said.
Girard-Irwin proposed a facilitated work session between the select board and the AHBC to address communication and cohesion. “It’s not about the building, it’s not about the architecture, it’s not about the schematics,” she said. “It’s about how they function as a team and how we interact.”
That session is scheduled for May 20. The terms of current AHBC members expire at the end of June.
Despite the challenges, the ad hoc committee is moving forward. Its charge is to deliver a design that can be funded and built, not just envisioned. Weston & Sampson’s design is the basis of that work. Pursuing a second schematic design, as Article 40 proposes, would likely cost the town at least $100,000.
If voters approve Article 40 this weekend, it could shape the public conversation heading into the 2026 town meeting, when a final funding request will likely be presented following a bidding process. But it won’t reduce the price of steel or build a building.
“We have an important task ahead: the new facility must be functional, sustainable, and financially responsible,” said Girard-Irwin on April 8. “For us to succeed, it’s important that the committee remains unified and continues moving forward with a shared sense of purpose.”
