Few topics in Marion have been more hotly discussed in recent weeks than the Town House renovation project. At Selectmen meetings residents have shared concerns about the cost and scope of the project after the Town House Building Committee agreed upon a $12 million plan.

Following the acceptance of the VFW building, residents have also been wondering if that could provide a cheaper alternative to renovating the current Town House. The Building Committee had originally chosen the $12 million plan because it would allow the historical integrity of the building to remain in tact while also allowing the building to serve its purpose more efficiently.

However, since hearing the backlash to the cost, the Building Committee has been revisiting other options, including building a new Town House on the site of the VFW.

At Tuesday night’s Selectmen meeting, the agenda packet available contained a copy of a letter sent in six different times from a handful of different families to the board about the renovation project.

The letter, sent in by John and Mallory Waterman, Hans and Ann Ziegler, Lawrence Hall, Peter Kirschmann, Will Redway and Judith Redway stated that building a new Town House could save the town millions of dollars.

“Building a new town building on the VFW site, by some estimates, will save the town of Marion $5-6 million in comparison with renovating the Town House,” it says.

The letter also outline reasons why the VFW site is a better option, citing that new construction is significantly cheaper than renovating a historic building, that building a new one story building would eliminate costs such as stairs and elevators at the current Town House and that there are unknown costs in renovating such old buildings.

The letter also suggested that turning the Town House into housing, such as condos, assisted living or apartments, would generate tax revenue, and that a senior center and community center could be part of the new complex at the VFW site.

In order to preserve the history of the building, it is suggested that the Town House be sold with a deed restriction that would require the developer to maintain the historical character.

The board is also encouraged to put an article on the Annual Town Meeting in the Spring to provide funds to hire an architect to come up with cost estimates for building on the VFW site.

“This work needs to be done as expeditiously as possible to give the [Town House Building Committee] time to educate the citizens of Marion on both options: renovating the existing Town House and building new a the VFW site before a special Town Meeting in October 2017,” it reads.

There was also another letter in the packet, written by Edmund OConnell. OConnell focused on the future generation of Marion residents, who he believe would look back with resentment at the choice to spend millions of dollars on fixing the Town House instead of something like education.

“Will their principal concern be whether town administration is centrally located or historically housed? Or will they be looking at the Town House with regret that twenty years ago their parents and grandparents spent tens of millions of tax dollars on an edifice that, in their day, will sit mostly empty, while the business of the Town is done cybernetically and remotely?” he asked.

He also mentioned the money should go toward the town’s need to continue to update and modernize schools to keep up.

“We know that we should be pouring more resources into our schools, but we know that there are other pressing needs to those scarse tax funds, and it’s not easy to find the best apportionment,” he writes. “Our facilities are aging and upkeep and modernization cannot keep pace due to budget caps and limitations.”

OConnell urges the town to build a new Town House on the VFW property to save money, and cites Elizabeth Taber as the reason to move on from the current building.

“Elizabeth Taber gave the building that was her Tabor Academy to the town, as a gift,” he writes. “…However, when that building no longer met the academy’s needs, it was, to her, just surplus, something to be handed along. I can’t imagine that she would be happy if we, her posterity, proved we did not learn from her example, that we did not focus on the functions of the government and diverted our tax money to preserve what she had declared surplus.”

At Tuesday night’s Selectmen meeting, the Building Committee did say that they would be looking further into the idea of developing a new building at the VFW property, but that for now they still had all their options out on the table. The committee also plans to include questions about the project on the annual census to get a better gage of the community’s feeling.