Unless a miraculous burst of clarity and simplicity is visited on Harvard in the next week, voters will face a decision at Town Meeting that should have been resolved weeks ago—whether to endorse the recommendation of the Municipal Buildings Committee (MBC), or to reject it in favor of a maintenance-only proposal from a "citizens petition" crafted by two selectmen. Or to do neither.

We agree with the Finance Committee comment in the warrant, for both articles 17 and 18, that says it is urgent to move forward with the long-delayed maintenance and compliance issues. Doing nothing is not an option. Those who characterize the MBC's request as a building commitment of $9 million do a serious disservice to the deliberation process. Article 17 asks only for funds for schematic design plans.

Deciding which camp to support is complicated by the fact that they are moving targets. In his Viewpoint article in last week's Press, MBC Chairman Ron Ostberg characterized both proposals as having the same cost to taxpayers, reaffirming the committee's willingness to find grant or private funding for the difference between maintenance only and reconfiguration for a degree of nongovernmental uses.

Until this week, there has been no detail behind Article 18, other than clarity about what would not happen (no expansion of Town Hall, no expansion or renovation of Hildreth House). Now there is a bit more detail as to rationale behind the citizens' petition and some of the absolutes seem to be softening (e.g., Hildreth could be reconfigured later).

At the end of Tuesday night's candidates' debate, a glimmer of hope emerged when George McKenna, the architect of Capital/FinCom's opposition to article 17, challenged proponents of the two articles to get together and negotiate a single proposal both sides could support. It should be possible. After all, neither proposal is for any actual construction, but rather, costs and plans for a variety of construction options. All of the conflict is over ultimate scope, which doesn't have to be decided now. The FinCom/Capital advisors could do their part to make it easy for Town Meeting to support the proposal, without requiring a two-thirds vote and a ballot question. When the $1 million plus of free cash is allocated at the beginning of the meeting, they could keep aside the amount not needed for this year's unbudgeted expense ($300,000) or next year's capital items ($445,000). The remaining $260,556 could be used to fund, by majority vote, $225,000 worth of cost estimates, schematic design plans, and construction options, as well as most of the Planning Board's initial need for consulting support of the required Master Plan update.