Bethel Village Council is digging deeper into plans to construct a new municipal building, moving discussion to finalizing a budget for the facility to present to the winning bidders.

After hearing from five engineering firms, the village has unofficially narrowed their choice to two, and will begin checking references in the near future.

“Part of when we discuss funding for that building will be to figure out how much we need to spend for that building,” said councilman John Swarthout. “While we don’t want to build the biggest, fanciest place, we want to do it right, and not on the cheap. We want it to be nice and to spend the money to make it so. We want to put things into it that won’t need replacing in 10 years. We want to do it right, but not be extravagant. We want to be pleased with it, and the village to be pleased with it and the surrounding are to be pleased with it.”

Swarthout said that the new structure should be functional, affordable but also durable and pleasing. Spending the money to do it right, he said, was an important part of the plan. Additional funding for the project may be gained from a relationship with the Bethel-Tate school district by building a new municipal building with room for offices for the school district.