Niles Township Making Multipurpose Room Out of Former Food Pantry

Niles Township residents will have a new place to hold meetings or other events with the renovation of a room that used to be the .

Township Assessor Scott Bagnall told the township board on Sept. 26 that he has been working on the area, tearing down a wall the previous weekend. He had scheduled an electrician to come in for a half-day or so in the days following the meeting, and he was hopeful that the room would be ready for use by Oct. 3.

“The supervisor (Lee Tamraz) and I had been talking about how we had this vacant room, and how could we put it to use to benefit the residents of the township?” Bagnall said.

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The board approved expenditures of up to $10,000 to outfit the room with video screens or televisions that could be used for presentations as well as tables and chairs.

Bagnall said he doesn’t expect it to cost that much. There are some extra chairs and tables currently in the township offices that could be used, he said. Although the township would likely need a few more chairs. If the township wants to open the room up as a social gathering place for senior citizens when it is not scheduled for other use, it might be good to get a couple of round tables that would be more conducive to games like cards or for conversation, he said.

Bagnall got an estimate of $8,000 to outfit the room with networked video screens, but he thinks he can do it for less himself, he said.

He was hoping to have the room ready – if not the video system – by early October when tax bills go out, so the township would have a place more conducive than its board room to hold seminars to help people understand their property taxes. In previous years, the audience for such seminars has overflowed the board room – where seating is limited – into the office areas.

In general, the room would be available during the hours the township office is open, trustees said.

The food pantry moved out of the area at the rear of the township office building at the end of July 2010, opening in a former day care center behind the township offices the following month, said Township Trustee Marc Collins. The move was necessary because the food pantry had outgrown its previous space.

It is now getting more than 3,000 clients each month, Collins reported, with numbers this summer the same as they were last winter.

“Usually our numbers go down in the summer,” he said.

The food pantry has been so busy that its director, Cynthia Carranza, and her staff have not had time to plan for a grand opening celebration, he said. The township plans to hold a dual celebration next spring, for the food pantry and the adjoining garden that will provide produce for it.