Hi members of the Rutland Church Committee,

Yesterday I had a chance to talk with Rick Dexter, the fellow at the Historical Society who will review our restoration plans once the church is officially accepted for the Wisconsin Registry. (You may recall that when a property is owned by a governmental agency, the historical society is required to review and approve restoration plans.)

He essentially told me that he would not meet with us before we are officially listed, that any good architect could provide the technical information we need to do the restoration properly.

He warned that if we make any changes to the building while they are considering our registry application, the registry committee may void any approval they had given and make us reapply using new forms reflecting the changes we had made.

He also said that once the building is registered, he would prefer to see architectural drawings and a long range restoration plan for the whole project rather than meeting on many occasions to discuss individual pieces of the plan. Even if it was going to take ten years, he'd like to see the whole plan at that first meeting.

He also reminded me that any requests for service from his office must come from the town clerk or some other town official, not members of our committee. The subtext of his comments--they are operating on reduced staff in his office and no longer have time to give out free advice, to be "nice," using his word.

Thus it would appear that:

-we would be wise to hold back on doing any digging for the foundation until we have at least the state registry in hand.

-we should spend some time developing a long range plan for the full restoration, even though it might be a ten-year plan.

But that is just my opinion, and it runs counter to our immediate concern: the building is in bad condition and needs foundation work asap.

Opinions?

Our next meeting is May 24 at the Historical Society from 3:00 to 4:30. Hope you can join us.

Mark
835-9712