In their effort to buy and preserve the Field Gallery and its sculpture garden for posterity, West Tisbury selectmen have singled out one town body in particular for funding. On Wednesday selectman Cynthia Mitchell was blunt with the Community Preservation Committee.

“Essentially what we’re here to ask is, can we have all your money?” she said.

The community preservation committee currently has $653,020 of funds that are eligible to go towards a purchase of the property. The town has entered into negotiations with the gallery’s owners, Tim and Eileen Maley, and have received an appraisal on the 1.4-acre plot that includes the Field Gallery and sculpture garden, but Ms. Mitchell did not disclose what that appraisal was on Wednesday.

“What I can tell you that it is more than $653,020,” she said.

While the town is negotiating with the Maleys the property is also advertised in the March Martha’s Vineyard Real Estate Guide. Twelve acres of the Maleys’ property, including the lot containing the Field Gallery, is listed at $4.2 million.

The town currently has a placeholder CPA spending article on its spring warrant and the purpose of Wednesday’s meeting was to gauge the community preservation committee’s support for the project. Any appropriation of Community Preservation Act money would first have to be approved by town voters at the annual town meeting in April. Not including CPA money set aside for affordable housing, for which the purchase of the Maley property would not be eligible, the CPC’s coffers include $275,109 in an open space reserve account, $459 in historical preservation, $8,962 in an undesignated reserve account and $368,490 in an undesignated fund, for a total of $653,020.

But on Wednesday CPC members were reluctant to hand over the full balance of funds for the purchase.

“Personally I don’t think I want to use all of it,” said CPC member Glenn Hearn. “We do spend a lot of money on affordable housing and a lot of it comes from undesignated.”

CPC member Dale Julier agreed, stating that she was uncomfortable draining the CPA funds and that she wanted to see the town make more of an effort to get money from alternate sources.

In discussions with the CPC, Mr. Hearn said, the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank has said that it would not contribute to the purchase of the property. On Wednesday selectman Jeffrey (Skipper) Manter was frank about where the remaining money would come from.

“The balance will come from the town,” he said.

“I’m still not clear on the benefit to the town,” said CPC member Sean Conley. “If a private person bought the whole property it more than likely would stay the way it is.”

Mr. Manter wasn’t so sure.

“That’s basically been a town park for years,” he said. “Private people usually don’t want the public on their property and it would be a shame to not have that.”

The CPC did indicate on Wednesday its willingness to part ways with the entire $275,109 balance of the committee’s open space money, which has been accruing in the committee’s coffers untouched since the town joined the CPA five years ago, plus the balance of next year’s open space money. Taxpayers are assessed a three per cent surcharge on their property tax bill to fund the CPA, 10 per cent of which goes towards the preservation of open space.

“I certainly would be happy to empty out our open space account,” said CPC member Jonathan Revere. “This seems like an ideal thing to spend it on.”

On Tuesday morning at 10:30 the CPC will meet again in the West Tisbury town hall to craft the final language of its warrant article for the Field Gallery proposal and finalize an allocation amount.

Also on Wednesday selectmen met with members of the town library board. In the wake of the revelation of over a million dollars worth of repairs needed at the West Tisbury School selectmen have turned a gimlet eye towards future capital projects such as the proposed $5 million-plus, 13,000 square foot library renovation as well as the new police station.

“Is there anyway to make it smaller than what it is?” Mr. Manter asked the library board.

“It would be smaller than we need,” said library trustee Dan Waters. Mr. Manter said that he felt the library section of the project was too big while its proposed 70-person dedicated program room was too small to function as a much-needed community hall. Mr. Waters said that the design of the building allowed flexibility should the need for community space grow or in the unthinkable event of the replacement of books by e-readers.

“That’s good planning,” said Mr. Manter. “I’m still on the fence but I’m leaning more towards yes than no.”

Selectmen also told the library board that if it planned on selling alcohol at fund-raising events this summer the town recently learned from legal counsel that the practice was, and had been, illegal in the dry town. Selectmen said that they planned to amend a petitioned article at town meeting to approve the sale of beer and wine at town restaurants to also include a provision about allowing the town to issue one-day alcohol licenses, but not before Mr. Manter sounded a note of caution.

“I think that changing from being completely dry to some sort of wetness is of historic significance and personally I just want to be careful how we change our character in our community,” he said, adding that he did not want to see alcohol sold at nonprofit fundraisers but merely distributed complimentarily. If the town approves the sale of beer and wine it could be as long as two years before the new law takes effect.

Also on Wednesday town administrator Jen Rand revealed that the town’s legal funds had run dry. Ms. Rand asked selectmen to transfer $15,000 from the town’s reserve fund to its legal funds and increase her legal fund budget for next year from $35,000 to $45,000.

“How did we go downhill so fast?” wondered Mr. Manter.

“In the fall we had a legal case from three to four years ago that came back and went to court and cost close to $9,000, which was a pretty big hit for a case that was quite old and we didn’t anticipate coming back and as you know we’ve been in negotiations for land purchase which is not cheap,” Ms. Rand said.

Selectmen approved a transfer of $10,000 for the remainder of this year and approved an increase in next year’s budget to $45,000.

“It’s unpredictable,” Ms. Rand said. “One year $45,000 could be $15,000 too much or $100,000 not enough.”