CPC wants Simes House returned to the town

PLYMOUTH – It has all the elements of a good movie: a spooky, historic home; acrimonious disputes; money; and power.

But there’s been little entertainment value for anyone involved in the Simes House Foundation’s unfolding story, which seemed to hit a climax last September when board members voted to remove Randy Parker as president. The incident involved proxy votes and discussions with attorneys as conflicting views about what happened and why were aired.

The upshot was a board at apparent odds and a project lacking sufficient funds for completion.

The Community Preservation Committee now wants the Simes House returned to the town and has penned a letter to the Simes House Foundation stating as much.

“Following a long discussion, the committee agreed that when the Simes House building is returned to the town of Plymouth, an appropriate entity will be appointed to finish the work set out in the original agreement, one that was to make that building self-supporting,” the letter, dated Feb. 18, reads. “This agreement … was to provide two affordable units of housing on the third floor, business office suites on the second floor and public meeting space that can be rented for functions on the first floor.”

The CPC contends that the Simes House Foundation has failed to meet its obligation, but acknowledged the job was no cake walk.

“The CPC appreciates the work the Simes House Foundation has done to date, and recognizes how difficult it has been at times to achieve the goals set out for the Foundation as voted at Town Meeting,” the letter states.

Simes House Foundation President James Pierson said his board responded with its own missive, acknowledging receipt of the CPC’s letter.

“We’re seeking more specifics as to what they’re trying to do and what is the basis for it,” Pierson said. “Right now, we’re seeking more information on how they feel we have failed to meet the provisions of the article.”

The town took the Simes House in tax title in 2010 and gifted it to the Foundation for $1 after Parker approached Town Meeting with an appeal to save it for community use. Town Meeting approved spending $1.5 million in Community Preservation Act funds to renovate and restore the 150-year-old Simes House, which is located on Manomet Point Road. The plan is to restore the building for use as a community center, offices and affordable housing. The article that allowed the spending of the funds included provisions about what was to be done, including a requirement that the town appoint one member to the Simes House Foundation Board of Directors.

CPC Chairman Bill Keohan serves as that appointee and has been watching this story unfold.

Town Meeting OK’d gifting the property to the Foundation and giving it $1.5 million to restore the building in the interests of creating a community center, complete with office space, function rooms and affordable housing to make the property self-sustaining, he explained, but some board members want the building to be more of a museum, while others are seeking to fulfill Town Meeting’s directive. For instance, he said, members are fighting over whether the downstairs kitchen should be a full-blown commercial kitchen or a caterer’s kitchen that lacks proper cooking appliances and fixtures. In order to rent out function rooms to create a revenue stream for the property, Keohan said, the building should have a commercial kitchen, and this is only one of many sticking points.

Questions have also been raised about the Foundation’s Sept. 18 membership meeting, which removed Parker as president, questions the CPC feels have undermined the organization’s ability to raise funds effectively, he said.

“Everyone was notified if they were doing a proxy vote that they had to have it notarized,” Keohan said. “But 48 hours before the general meeting, Will Shain made a motion that you didn’t have to notarize proxy votes. This information was not sent to the general membership. They understood they would have to have it notarized. People gathering proxys without notarizing them is an easy thing to do. When everyone met on Sept. 18, there were members with different interpretations of proxy votes. When you create a controversy around your nonprofit that’s looking for funding, it’s hard to fund raise in a community where people are upset with you.”

In addition to the questioned proxy votes, the board was supposed to hold another full membership meeting in November, but this meeting has been continually rescheduled and canceled month after month, Keohan said. The board is claiming it will hold another full membership meeting in March, which raises the question: "Why the delays?"

As of this May, Keohan noted, the restoration project will have been stalled for two years.

“The community has invested $1.5 million, the building is unheated, without a fire suppression system and no money to finish the project,” Keohan said.

And more money won’t be coming to the Foundation through the CPC.

Keohan said the CPC and the Foundation do not have a grant agreement for Phase II of the project, and the CPC will not be submitting one to the nonprofit. The organization is short $900,000 to finish the interior, he added, and the CPA is its sole funding source.

He stressed that the CPC is extremely grateful for the Foundation's efforts to restore the building, which looks lovely on the outside, but progress has halted.

“All we’re trying to do is assist the Foundation in getting the project completed and, to accommodate the CPC, that the building is returned to the town,” Keohan said.

Parker said he feels the board has become simply dysfunctional, noting the Foundation’s board pushed him out as president, couldn’t agree on a plan to construct a kitchen and squabbled over whether to put the expensive interior restoration out to bid.

“The building has been sitting there for nearly two years,” Parker added. “One big issue was that the building committee wanted to roll the interior job over to the exterior contractor that we had been using, Vareika Construction. The interior is going to cost twice the money of the exterior, at $1.5 million.”

He said he and several board members disagreed with simply letting the exterior contractor do the interior work. According to Parker, it wasn’t until the September vote to have him removed as president that the tone suddenly changed and board members who had been against the plan voted to put the job out to bid.

Parker said the dissension has continued unabated since then. Some members sent a letter in response to the CPC without consulting the rest of the board, he added.

When Parker’s wife, Mary Ellen, heard the Foundation's fundraisers were taking last summer off, she volunteered to organize guided tours of the old home as a way to continue raising money. But her proposal was shot down, though the nonprofit’s insurance agent had OK’d it.

“It was very unreasonable to me because the main goal of the Simes House Foundation was to do fundraising,” she said.

The Foundation membership may decide whether to convey the property back to the town at a March 26 Board of Director’s meeting, the location for which has yet to be determined.

“The directors will, no doubt, have a recommendation to make,” Parker said. “I will recommend conveyance of the property but continuation of the Foundation. I think it’s important the public knows a meeting is coming up. It’s their money and a village and town project, not somebody’s toy corporation.”

The nonprofit may have a legal right to keep the property, but if the Foundation is committed to seeing the building preserved and restored, with an adaptive reuse that serves Manomet, Keohan said, it will work with the town.

If the building is returned, the CPC would identify a reliable historical entity to complete the project, Keohan explained, and that entity would be required to form a new organization to manage the property.

As a result of all this wrangling, the CPC has changed its application process so that projects such as this must now have a town-appointed project manager.

In addition to Pierson, Parker and Keohan, the Simes House Foundation Board of Directors includes Will and Barbara Shain, Rick Welker, Paul Williams, Galen Green, Sandra King, Tina Manter and Jeffrey Metcalfe.

To learn more about the Foundation, go to simeshousefoundation.org.

Follow Emily Clark on Twitter @emilyOCM.