A new committee's expected to help answer ever-growing questions about Branford's "building swap" situation.

At stake is the future of the town-owned former post office building at 1111 Main Street (currently home to Branford's Board of Education, or BOE); a commercial building at 175 North Main Street; and the town's Canoe Brook Senior Center.

Entities involved in the swap include the Giordano family's Queach Corp. of Branford (owners of 175 North Main Street); the Town of Branford; Branford BOE; and Branford Senior Citizens.

For months, First Selectman Anthony "Unk" DaRos has been backing the swap proposal. In June, DaRos attended a BOE meeting to notify the board of the possibility of a building swap with Queach Corp. that could answer the BOE's need for more operating space. The proposal would make Queach Corp. owner of 1111 Main Street and move BOE offices into the Canoe Brook building, while the senior center, outgrown and in need of upgrading, would move into a town-renovated, like-new senior facility at 175 North Main Street.

Since then, several avenues have been taken to move various parts of the plan forward. The town had plans drawn up for a renovated senior center at 175 East Main Street and the idea was discussed at meetings of Representative Town Meeting (RTM) committees, the Elderly Services Committee, and informational meetings hosted by the town. No other options for a different location or plan for a new senior center have been formally discussed.

In the meantime, in exploring its options, Queach Corp. put a building-use change request before the Planning & Zoning Commission (PZC) regarding 1111 Main Street. In October, the PZC approved the building-use change request, allowing that the old post office can be converted from office use to retail/office use.

That was news to BOE Chairman Frank Carrano, who recently wrote a letter to the RTM asking that the BOE be informed of the town's latest intent with regard to 1111 Main Street.

"A lot is going on around us and we're not being involved in it," Carrano told the RTM at is Nov. 10 meeting.

Queach Corp.'s Vincent Giordano, Jr., also attended the Nov. 10 meeting. Giordano told the RTM his company, which forayed into the building-swap proposal in good faith, intends to withdraw from the proposal if the town fails to approve the 1111 Main Street/175 North Main Street property exchange before the end of this year.

In fact, consideration for approval of the 1111 Main Street/175 North Main Street swap was on the Representative Town Meeting's Nov. 10 meeting agenda. But the item had to be re-referred to committee, as the RTM Administrative Services Committee cancelled its Nov. 9 meeting and therefore had no recommendation on the matter for the full RTM. The committee will now hold a special meeting in order to deliver a recommendation on the property exchange to the full RTM in December.

At the Nov. 10 meeting, RTM Ways and Means Chair Sandra Reiners asked the RTM to approve a resolution to form an unbiased, non-RTM-appointed committee to review the entire proposal's "various factors and various pieces" and take the issue "out of the hot political arena."

By majority vote, the RTM passed the resolution, which urges the first selectman to appoint a committee to help resolve the situation.

The resolution, which includes latitude to explore other options for a new senior center, reads as follows: "Resolved that the RTM urges the first selectman to appoint a committee to review the proposed property exchange of the current Board of Ed building at 1111 Main Street and the privately owned property at 175 North Main Street as well as the proposed plans for development of the senior center and renovation/adaptation of Canoe Brook (or other premises) for Board of Education use and to make recommendations to the RTM. Such committee shall be chaired by a person with expertise in economic development and real estate and shall include the superintendent of schools, the director of the Senior Center, one Democratic and one Republican member of the RTM, and up to three private citizens with appropriate expertise."