[Roberta Cameron]: Sign your name if you want to let us know if you support or oppose any of the projects that have been proposed. So with that, I'd like to invite our first applicant to come forward. And that is the Mayor's Office City of Medford Condon Shell Renovations. Thank you. I just want to add that if people do stand up to speak, if you can give us your name and address for the record. Thank you.
[Allie Fiske]: All right, should I get started? Great. I'm Allie Fisk, 22 Dearborn Street here in Medford. I am the business and cultural liaison in the mayor's office and today I'm presenting on an application the mayor's office submitted for restoration to the Condon Shell. So just a little bit of background. The Condon Shell is a concrete bandshell structure located on DCR Parkland between the Mystic River as well as Route 16 over near Whole Foods. It was constructed in 1956 and is a National Register of Historic Places nominee. Over the last three years, it has seen a tremendous increase in usage. Particularly in the last year, there were 50 events total that took place there. The farmers market now is there on a weekly basis. There are various festivals as well as a concert series that happen there. So there are about 10,000 people a year that are being served by the Condon Shelf. It's one of the Medford's most recognizable landmarks, and you can see it from Route 16, and it really represents Medford's dedication to arts and culture here in the city. The exterior, of course, is being used for concerts as well as festivals, and the interior currently is being used for storage for the Medford Farmers Market, which is taking place there every week now. And I wanted to talk a little bit about what the current conditions are and why I'm here today. So the Condon shell right now has a tremendous number of leaks. That's one of the primary issues is that the leaks not only of course get into the interior of the shell and can affect people's ability to store stuff there, it really can compromise the integrity of the masonry itself and over time is going to continue to wear on the masonry and become an issue. And it can also affect the electrical equipment in there if the water were to get in. So that is a primary concern right now. Also significant is the exterior of the shell has really seen a lot of wear and tear over the last 60 years. And we have all seen that it has a nice film of grime on it, and we'd really like to see it restored to its beautiful state that it was in in the 50s when it was originally built. And another concern about the space is that there's no lighting. Right now, there are two large lampposts that are directly in front of the shell that are not working, and there's no lighting behind the shell. So events that happen there in the evening, at this point, it's a safety concern that there's no lighting on the exterior of the shell when the farmer's market, for instance, loads in and unloads their equipment. So that's a big issue that we have as well. So the proposed work right now is pressure washing the exterior of the shell, cleaning, prepping, and sealing all of the cracks to fix the leaks, covering the entire exterior of the shell with a waterproof, water-resistant coating to prevent further wear, and then repairing existing lighting and installing new lighting to the exterior of the shell. So the Condon shell sits right now on DCR own property, but the city has a joint management and license agreement with this with DCR in order to be able to renovate the shell to make these restorations we do have their permission. We also have checked in with the Massachusetts Historic Commission. They have ruled that this will have no adverse effects on the historic integrity of the facility. And I'm in communication with the Secretary of the Conservation Commission to ensure that the project won't have any environmental effects as well. So the total estimate for the project is $111,520. This will cover the cost of labor, mobilization, as well as material costs for both the masonry of the shell as well as the electrical work. So the amount being requested from the CPC is $80,265. That is 75% of the project cost. The city will also be putting in in-kind donations for the electrical labor. It'll be city work, and we'll be covering the remaining 25% of the cost of the project. The quote was gathered through detailed conversations with a contractor who has experience with masonry, as well as is familiar with the shell, and we've also been working closely with the building department and the electrical department to make sure that our quote is very thorough. And DCR was approached to ask whether or not they had available funds for the project, and they do not. So that is not a possibility at this time. Once the project begins, it will take about four weeks to complete, barring any weather concerns. We did originally, when we submitted the application, say that we were ready to commence the work in June of 2018. Of course, that would be next month. But given the timing, we now realize that that's going to impair too many of the events already scheduled to use the show and could displace many of them. So we feel it would be more appropriate to begin the project in May of 2019 before the festival season and the concert season has begun. So in conclusion, I do feel like this project very closely aligns with the goals of the Community Preservation Act. Certainly when the plan was created and there were public meetings, the content shell came up on numerous occasions as being a project people really wanted to see potentially funded. And I know that it does fit into two of the funding categories, historic preservation, as well as open space and recreation, and really nails a couple of the boxes there when talking about those priorities. There's no question at all that this is a really valuable resource in the city. There are people here today who can say that as well, that they're using it on a regular basis. There's people here who likely remember it when it was first built, and we really want to see it restored to what it was at that time so it can be used for that purpose moving forward. There's somebody from the building department as well as myself available to answer questions.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. We may not be able to use the mic for every question, but I'll try to repeat people's questions so that we can be assured that it's recorded. So are there any questions from committee members?
[_Zabvvh8vxM_SPEAKER_18]: Hi. The application noted that over the last couple of years, the estimate has increased quite a bit. And if this is delayed a little bit more, is there any concern that that will go up again?
[Allie Fiske]: In speaking with the building department about this, we do know that there is a potential for an increase. We don't think that it will be substantial enough that the quote that we've provided won't still apply. I think that we will manage to do the work that needs to be done with the budget that we've been giving you. And if it is an increase, it's certainly something that the city will cover the cost of. But I do think that we're going to make a point to really try to see what we can do this winter to cover some of the leaks, even with industrial tarps. to see if we can prevent there to be further wear over the winter. So we're very aware of that. And that's a good question because we did take that into consideration when we discussed delaying the project for a year.
[_Zabvvh8vxM_SPEAKER_18]: Can I ask one more question? Will there be any, the surface that's currently there, is it just being repaired or is it actually being an entirely new surface?
[Allie Fiske]: When you say surface, do you mean the actual coating on it? The masonry itself is just being, the leaks are being sealed. The masonry itself is just being then cleaned and then recoded with weatherproof coating. The masonry itself is not being added to, if there's a word that I could, yeah, exactly.
[Roberta Cameron]: We'll ask the committee members to ask questions first, and then we'll take questions from you. Thank you. Any more questions from committee members? Yep? Just a quick one.
[Bm5-jrZInBw_SPEAKER_07]: You mentioned that it is on the historic register as a nominee. That's what the state, what about the city of Medford? What do they deem this?
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: I don't think they have any official dedication.
[Allie Fiske]: I do have a letter from them in the application that states that it's the nominee, and I do have their support for the project. I don't know what that means in terms of where it stands on any particular historic record in the city.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: I think what it means is that we value its cultural significance as a commission. Perfect. So we think it's important as a visual landscape piece in Medford that's been around now for going on three generations, essentially.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay, a question on the other side.
[Allie Fiske]: Yeah, so that's in the application. I have talked with the building department about doing quarterly check-ins on the space to, after the work has been done, make sure that these leaks that were sealed have not reopened and there aren't additional leaks. When there are leaks, to be able to employ the right contractor to fix them. The Department of Public Works does go on a regular basis to maintain the space. And we also, those who are using the space, the Medford Farmers Market, for instance, are huge advocates for it. And they let us know the minute they see something is not quite right about it. So there is a regular maintenance plan as well as a kind of as it goes along plan to alert us of issues.
[Roberta Cameron]: Can you tell me more about the vision for handicap accessibility improvements in the short term and the long term?
[Allie Fiske]: Yeah, absolutely. We talked extensively about this and we do have a long-term goal to make the shell ADA accessible, particularly the stage so people in wheelchairs have access or people who have mobility issues have access to be able to enter the stage. What we're focusing on right now is we really want to see the Shell restored to a point where we feel like its longevity warrants that type of attention. And as soon as we are able to secure funding for this, we will immediately be looking for funding through the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, as well as potentially CPA funding, to do the necessary upgrades to make the Shell ADA accessible. And we'd be doing an audit of what that would mean. In the meantime, city events that are held there are very careful to make sure that the event in and of itself is accessible. So we know that grass, for instance, is not an accessible surface. So using MOBI mats or making sure that activities are happening along the path, we focus on that. And I know that the space itself has become more accessible over time as DCR has given it attention. But the shell, at this moment, we want to focus on restoring it and then coming up with a plan for ADA accessibility.
[Roberta Cameron]: Are the Moby mats available now?
[Allie Fiske]: We have Moby mats that we use at Wright's Pond. So they are available. It's possible we could purchase additional mats to accommodate this particular space. Right now, off season, they're available. During season, when Wright's Pond is open, we'd have to find another alternative.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_14]: Allie, aesthetically, what is the final look of the product going to be? Will we maintain the murals, the graphics? Will we be all one color?
[Allie Fiske]: Right. So it's not feasibly possible to maintain the mural that exists. The wear on the mural is substantial, and it's not possible to restore it at this point in time. We have put a lot of thought into the mural. There's been a tremendous amount of community input about it. The mural, it's a beautiful mural and it has a lot of significance for the people who created it, but we do believe that moving forward when the shell is recoded, there needs to be a different surface put on the face. I think we still want to see it as a public art piece, but we need to understand that the shell is used for performers and we want to complement the performances, not distract from them, which is how we see this current mural. kind of operating, but we believe that the mural would be a community input process and would also be facilitated by arts organizations in Medford.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Are there any permits, approvals, or collaboration that you need to do with DCR that could have the potential to delay this project?
[Allie Fiske]: We don't anticipate that because we've had them on the phone on numerous occasions. The mayor and I have spoken with their entire team, legal and otherwise. We know that we need to submit a construction permit, which I can now do now that I've gotten a letter from the Massachusetts Historic Commission stating that the construction would not have any adverse effects on the historic integrity of the building. So that is the next step, is to submit that permit. We do not anticipate running into any issues. Thank you. I think once we are able to secure funding, I've spoken with the Secretary extensively about this. I believe he's spoken with the Conservation Commission. There at the moment are very few concerns about issues because what I've been understanding is that a lot of concerns would come if we were digging, and at this moment, There is minor digging that would need to be done for electrical. He did say that as soon as we know the details of the project, he would work with me to figure out what paperwork we needed to submit and what variances, if any, we'd need to secure. But he did not have any concerns that this project would be stalled because of the Conservation Commission at this time.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: LA, a couple of comments. I'm glad to hear the accessibility stuff is already being thought of. I would suggest, because you're talking about almost a year, really a year before you start, that you could do the design for that pretty quickly and have it shovel-ready so it's ready for whatever round makes sense, whatever funding source makes sense. You don't have to start from scratch and have it almost catch up as quickly as possible. Two other comments. This is very well organized. I think it's very good. I think you're selling the City of Medford-Libermatch a little short here. $4,500 is not that many hours, and it seems like the contribution would actually be more, just because of all the people in the building department, your time, other people's time. It seems like it'd be more. And also the contingency is that it's about 10%, which is typical for projects, but not for renovation projects, especially ones that probably have some hidden landmines in it once you actually start exposing stuff and you know finding it. It tends to be closer to 20 for projects that are of this nature, older buildings, a lot of unknown existing conditions. But that would be on the city's dime anyway because obviously our number is, as you know, is limited by whatever the application is. So if there's an overrun, it's on the city's dime. But it's just it's good to have a bigger number.
[Roberta Cameron]: Understood.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: But it looks great. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right, questions or comments from those of you who are in attendance this evening? Yes. Can you please use a mic? You can use this mic. Should I just stay static?
[Cynthia Watson]: I just. Cindy Watson, Framingham State Prison. No, 65 Alley Street, Medford, Mass. I just want to echo Doug's comments. I belong to a lot of efforts in Medford, and I don't know if anybody noticed, front page of the Globe magazine last week in the Boston Globe, top spots to live. One of them was Medford. Within the last year, There was a report that was sent out, not just in this state, in the country, that 02155 was one of the fastest-selling zip codes in the U.S. Small town in Texas was number one. But at any rate, all the more reason to come to the Condon show. I think this is a great project, so without question, here on behalf of CACHE, which is the Coalition for the Arts and Culture for a Healthy and Heightened Economy. So, thank you. Cindy Watson. You're welcome.
[Roberta Cameron]: More comments? Yes?
[SPEAKER_09]: Since the Carnton was built by the MTC and the state, I think that, I don't know, did the state totally give it to the city? Or did the state still own it? And if they still own it, I think since you're doing this a year in advance, the state should be responsible, like for the Shell and all the others. state-owned property that's now under DCR. Did I hear right that the state is not going to give funding for what they built?
[Allie Fiske]: That is true. We did ask them and they said during their funding cycle at this moment in time, they don't have any funds. We will ask them again. But at this moment in time, they don't have any funds. The state does own it. The city has a management agreement and it is the expectation that under that management agreement, we are the ones who maintain and in this case, restore the shell.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Other comment? Yeah.
[Marie Cassidy]: I'm Marie Cassidy, formerly of 38 Roosevelt Road in Medford, now of 8 Osborne Hill Drive in Salem. And for the past 24 years, I've been honored to be the director of the Medford Family Network. 15 years ago, we started family concerts in the summertime. And I've been having them at Wright's Pond and gathering all kinds of families and really wonderful activities for families. Five years ago, we started at the Condon Show. That drew an interesting new and different demographic to pull from that we had never been able to draw from before. It also invited vendors to come and invited companies and businesses to offer in-kind services and products and other things that we hadn't expected. So an incredible boon, I think, to our city, both for all of its families and for businesses. We will hope to have four concerts there again this August and offer all of our families another opportunity to be together and it's a place where our goal is to have make sure that all families know that they belong to Medford and belong to every part of Medford and we like having that another place where they can belong. So, good job.
[Roberta Cameron]: More comments? Yes?
[SPEAKER_12]: I just want to reinforce the importance of this project because not so many years ago it was idle for a long time and that's when a lot of the disrepair happened. It's kind of typical, but now that I would say about seven or eight years ago, various groups in the city, in particular Cachet in Medford, began organizing a major arts festival there. It's a beautiful location along the river. And as Marie said, it's a place where families and friends and can come together and enjoy a relaxing day. So I think that this is an appropriate project for this kind of money. The entire city will benefit from it. And I think a lot of other communities would hope that they would have something like this. Thank you.
[Heather Meekergreen]: Thank you. Heather Meeker Green, 73 Bonner Avenue in Medford. I am currently on the board of the Medford Farmers Market, as you've heard. It is an extremely important area for us now. We have had the benefit and grace of being able to be by the river. We've decided this year, because of the wonderful location, the increase in community who has come to join us during the spring, summer, and now fall. We've extended till October 25th. So it is an extremely important project for us. The foot traffic has increased. We've created a community festival event every Thursday, pretty much, we have. Wonderful support from Medford Arts Council to help us with musicians. We have all kinds of businesses that come and local food and we've been able to support our EBT snap matching program and senior share to help feed our community. So we really would love to see this beautiful piece of historic space be preserved for years and years to come so that our community can continue to enjoy it. And whatever way we can support and help as a small volunteer run board, please let us know. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Do we have any more comments? Well, thank you very much for your presentation and for the question and answer. This has been very helpful. Before I move on to the next applicant on the agenda, I just want to remind everyone, since a few people came in after the last time I made the reminder, that we have a sign-in sheet by the door, as well as comment cards. And we invite people to submit written comments if they prefer to do so instead of coming up to the mic. And also, there are posters that you can sign to indicate whether you support or oppose any of the projects that have been proposed for this funding round. And with that, I would like to invite the Somerville Community Corporation to give a presentation about the St. Clement and St. Francis Affordable Housing Unit development. Thank you.
[Danny LeBlanc]: Thank you. I'm going to do the best I can to not cough on any of you. I'm fending off a cold a little bit. My name is Danny LeBlanc, and I'm the chief executive officer of the Somerville Community Corporation. I've lived in Somerville for the last 42 years, and I've been at the Somerville Community Corporation the last 18. So you might ask, why is the Somerville Community Corporation submitting a CPA proposal in Medford? And so I'll explain that a little bit. In Somerville, for most of the years of my organization's existence, which will be 50 years next year, we've been known as the principal affordable housing organization in the city. We've developed 219 units of rental housing. We've developed about 125 units of affordable ownership housing over the years. We're also the principal organization that advocates for policies around affordability in Somerville. Does anybody here not know that Somerville's gotten pretty expensive lately? As I know Medford has as well. And we do things like first-time home buyer training and financial education and so forth. All of it in our mission in Somerville has been wrapped around the questions of affordability and diversity and trying to maintain that flavor in our community. We saw an opportunity, frankly, I first stepped foot in St. Clemens Elementary School in 1978, so 40 years ago. I've been around for a while, and we happened to notice that the archdiocese, and you all know St. Clemens, the elementary school is right literally on the line, so from a community process, most of the abutters actually residentially would be in Somerville. So we took a look at it when we noticed that the elementary school was up for sale. and began, or I shouldn't say for sale, it's actually for lease. And I can explain that in detail if you want me to. But we began to engage in conversations with the archdiocese. We had had a history of working with them in Somerville. Our organization purchased the former St. Polycarp's Parish, which some of you may be familiar with, on Mystic Avenue in 2006. And we developed some new housing there and preserved two of the buildings. Along the way of discussions with the Catholic Archdiocese, they actually asked us if we might also be interested in a convent at St. Francis. which is much further into Medford than we had originally been looking to go. But as an organization that's generally interested in questions of affordable housing and affordability in the region, we said, sure. And we began to look at both of them. And we've packaged the proposal, which I will say is still at a fairly early stage. But we've had an architect look at both buildings. In both cases, we would retrofit the existing buildings. So the intention would be to preserve the buildings. Possibly, we don't know this yet, but there may be some historic worthiness to both buildings, actually. And our intention would be to preserve the shells and retrofit the insides. I did not personally go inside the convent at St. Francis but colleagues of mine did. I did go into the elementary school at St. Clemens and remarkably the classrooms as they exist divide up almost perfectly into unit sizes. They're almost the exact square footage that you would want for unit sizes and our projections are that we could do 18 units adaptive reuse in St. Clemens. and 11 in the St. Francis convent. So we are requesting, we have a request for $600,000 of CPA funds. I fully recognize that's a lot of money, and I'm used to doing affordable housing projects. Our projection is that this would be a roughly $12 million project to do in total. And the remainder of the funds would be a fairly complicated combination of state and federal sources, which our organization is sort of used to doing. Timeline-wise, I would say that this generally takes a couple of years to put together the financing for, and then probably a year of construction. Again, our organization is used to that. We're used to sort of waiting in line with the state. That's just the way it works if you want to build affordable housing. But our intention would be to make all 29 units affordable. We are still in the process of determining what kind of population. The buildings are, they have beneficial features and some challenges. So for example, parking is a challenge at St. Clements, which is something we'd have to work on. On the other hand, it is gonna be located between two of the new Green Line stops when those finally open. So we're looking at all of that and looking at what would be the kind of the suitable population. The one thing I can say for sure is that it would be a relatively low to moderate income population that would be eligible for the kind of affordable housing and this would be restricted in perpetuity affordable housing. So I think I'll leave it at that. I'm sure there's probably lots of questions that maybe committee members and folks here would have and I'd be happy to answer any and all of them that I can.
[Roberta Cameron]: Questions from the committee?
[Bm5-jrZInBw_SPEAKER_07]: So I just bumped on, you said it's your intention to have them be affordable housing units. Is that something that may not happen as you go down the road?
[Danny LeBlanc]: No. Well, let me just say, we have never not done an affordable development in Somerville and we would not seek to do one in Medford. I would tell you quite honestly, worst case scenario, we would walk away from the project and allow somebody else to develop it before we would develop a market rate use there. That's just not what we're in business to do.
[Bm5-jrZInBw_SPEAKER_07]: And you also said 600,000, but I think in your application it was 200 a year over three years?
[Danny LeBlanc]: Right. That kind of, and we would be happy to sort of collaborate and work with the committee. I'm being realistic about the time frame for these, so it would take us two to three years to get to completion. So if it worked better, What would be important for us to proceed would be some level of commitment from the municipality. And it looks to me like CPA funds might be the most logical source. It's very hard to proceed competitively for state funds and federal allocations if you don't have a local commitment. But a commitment of 200,000 a year over three years would be perfectly fine to meet the needs of what we're trying to do and the timetable that we would anticipate anyway.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: This is a question I think as much for the board as it is for you. We're only voting on the request for this round, the 200,000, right? We, can we encumber funds to a year or two ahead?
[Roberta Cameron]: So the committee is not actually able to make a commitment in the future. So we may decide amongst ourselves when we deliberate whether we would want to consider making one, two, or three years worth of commitment all at once in order to ensure that the funding that you would have is available, given that we have, over the funding rounds that are available this year, two years' worth of funding that are in front of us right now. And then next year, we would be able to access the third year of funding. So that's a discussion that we'll have amongst ourselves, is how much we would want to put on the table versus leave to chance in the future.
[Danny LeBlanc]: I would just say that we'd be happy to work with the committee. I'm accustomed to this because in Somerville we're both an applicant and I actually sit on the board that is responsible for allocating some of the CPA funds for housing. So I understand how the rolling out can work.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: Two questions if I could. One is can you point to a project in Somerville or one that you've developed that would be a good model for what this is? just so maybe the committee could see it, see how it fits into the context, understand. We don't need an answer right now. Just think about it and just get back to us if you could.
[Danny LeBlanc]: I'd be happy to do that. And just to be a little bit more specific, are you looking for something that would be, is the most important thing that it be an adaptive reuse of an existing building or that it be a population roughly like what we're talking about?
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: I think it's a population in scale more than anything else. But I mean, a couple, you can give us more than one, I just want to understand, because it's a new thing for us. I haven't seen this before and I'm intrigued by it.
[Danny LeBlanc]: I can follow up with you, but we actually have a 20-year-old building that was a historic renovation, 18 units right in Union Square. So not a church property, but it was a restoration historic and otherwise, and it's an all-affordable 18-unit building. I could follow up with the address. Sure.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: A couple other questions. I sit on the Historic Commission, so I'm curious about, you know, the architecture of the building, its significance. Has it been looked at for its history, for, you know, there's a Form B that we normally develop for these properties that are going to be changed. We don't usually do it unless they're being a threat of demolition. This is obviously not that case, but it's a good thing, I think, to kind of put on the radar.
[Danny LeBlanc]: We haven't done that yet, but it would be our intention to, you know, our first steps are to actually secure the lease with the archdiocese, begin to secure funding around the affordability question. We do think, though, this is just a layman's view and our architect, but we do think, looking at the buildings, that there is some preservation worthiness there that we'd like to pay attention to once we get down the road.
[SPEAKER_15]: Yeah, I'm familiar with Davis Square Architects. They're an excellent firm there.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: Good choice there. My final question is about the population, because I think the specifics says that you'll be considered to serve homeless and or disabled vets, people with disabilities, and other low-income populations. Could you Do you know exactly what that population is in any way at this point?
[Danny LeBlanc]: We don't yet. We'd have to do more work on that. Some of it depends on funding availability. Some of it depends on a community process where the needs would be determined. I mean, I think, for example, it's It's commonly understood and accepted that vets are up against it for housing in many cases. We have not actually done a veterans housing project, but it's something that we would look at. There are certain funds that are dedicated for that kind of use. We have done housing for formerly homeless households. Huge need. It's a way to get people out of motels and shelters and into permanent housing. That's something we would consider. These units are going to be relatively small households. If you look at the unit size breakdowns, it's going to be one and two bedrooms. So it's not, the buildings aren't very suitable for large families, so we're not going to be looking at that kind of housing. So, but some of that is kind of the work that we'll do down the road in the community, see exactly what the interests and the needs are that have felt most in the community, what funding possibilities there are, and try to marry those. Okay, thank you.
[_Zabvvh8vxM_SPEAKER_18]: Hi, Danny. This is a new kind of project for Medford. So I think Medford residents have a couple of questions about the process. Could you explain a little bit more community engagement, what that typically looks like on your real estate projects and how Medford residents might be involved. And then secondly, there have been some questions I know that have arisen already about, well, why would a Somerville Community Corporation come into Medford and why would we give money to provide housing to Somerville residents? So can you just clarify exactly how Medford residents could benefit from this housing and whether there might be any local preference for Medford residents?
[Danny LeBlanc]: Yeah. Let me start with that. And what was the first question? Community engagement. OK. Let me start with the second question first, because I had heard that that had come up. And it's actually not our intention at all to build housing in Medford for Somerville residents. Our intention would be to build housing in Medford that would have a first preference for Medford residents. Now, there are laws about that, fair housing laws and others. It isn't true. And I've been in the trenches on this in Somerville for years. Every project we've ever done, the local residents and local aldermen want the people on their street to get the housing. That's kind of the way it goes. You can't actually do that legally. What we have been able to do in Somerville, though, and this is what we would do in Medford, is to create a 70% local preference. And what that means is that 70% of the units in this project, the first people who would have a crack at those, and these are all distributed by lottery, would be Medford residents. The only Medford residents would go into that pool for 70% of the units. And the only way that non-Medford residents would get them is if there's not enough Medford residents who apply, which I think is doubtful, frankly, given my experience in Somerville. And I say 70% because fair housing law, generally speaking, our experience is it won't let you go higher than that. The other 30%, Medford residents are also allowed to be in that pool, but so is everybody else, okay? So that's kind of how, and we don't have any intention in trying to preference Somerville people at all. That isn't what we would do. It's what we do in Somerville and Medford, we'd be preferencing the local community here. As far as community process, it's one of the things our organization prides ourself in. I'm a community organizer by training. That's what I've been doing for 40 years. So we would, once we actually have site control, which we don't have yet, we're very close with the archdiocese. I mentioned it's a little bit complicated because they want to lease these properties, not sell them. That creates different layers of complexity and legal arrangement on the finances. Honestly, for us, it'd be simpler if we could buy them from them, but that's not what's going to happen. Once we do that, once we're clear on that, and hopefully maybe once we have some commitment going forward of CPA funds, we would begin a process of reaching out to the community. Our method is to fly our neighborhoods, go door to door, and invite a pretty wide circumference of people to come and attend meetings and begin to tell people this is who we are, this is what we're thinking of doing, what do you think? And then work from there. We've done community processes that have been two or three meetings and everything's been fine and moved forward. We've had community processes that have been a dozen meetings before we really get to the place where everybody's comfortable. Our goal is always to be going to the zoning board because we'll inevitably need, you know, zoning approval with support from the local community. And by the time we get to the zoning board, we seek to have that, so.
[Roberta Cameron]: Actually, that brings up a question that I have, which is, have you had conversations with the city about how you would approach the permitting process for this project?
[Danny LeBlanc]: In a general sense, yes, I think we haven't gotten down to the particulars yet, but we have met with the mayor once, and we've had several conversations with Lauren DiLorenzo from the Community Development Department about proceeding and what it would take to proceed in the Medford context, because for us, you know, we're used to zoning in Somerville, but it's Somerville, and we need to do this in Medford. So we've had those conversations, I want to say preliminarily, so that we have an understanding of what we would need to do. But again, we get at it in earnest once we get past the hurdle of having site control from the archdiocese and maybe the beginnings of some funding commitments.
[Roberta Cameron]: So another question I have is, so you have indicated that you anticipate it might be a year or two that this project is in the pipeline to get funding, and then a year for construction. But prior to it being in the pipeline to get funding, do you need, how much time do you think you need for the permitting process itself before you're ready to get into that pipeline?
[Danny LeBlanc]: It depends. It depends on how that community process goes. Honestly, that's the first stage of it. We're not going to want to file for zoning without having had enough community process to feel like we know where we're at and that the community surrounding these properties is comfortable with what we're proposing. We hope that can happen in three to four months, but sometimes it takes longer, to be honest. Another element of going to the state for funding, you need to show local financial commitment. You also need to show progress locally on the zoning front. That's a factor in applying.
[Roberta Cameron]: So progress, not...
[Danny LeBlanc]: Not necessarily, but the closer you are to approval, the better your chances are, to be honest. And anybody who's in my business knows that the lines at the state level are only getting longer, unfortunately, and there's typically one funding round a year, maybe once every 10 months, but it's close to once a year. So we'll try to time everything with that and be as ready as we can to go forward.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay. More questions from the board? All right, comments, questions?
[Tom Lincoln]: Where am I supposed to stand here? Oh, OK. Sorry. My name is Tom Lincoln. A couple of things here. I'm a little unclear about something. Forgive me if I'm a little thick here. It's been a long day. I hear you. I understand that the process of putting together the funding involves many parties, many pots of money, typically, et cetera. But it's not clear to me whether if you get CPA money, whether that would be contingent on getting the rest of the money. Is it sort of earnest money, or is it certainly part of the pot, so to speak? Can you explain that a little bit first?
[Danny LeBlanc]: Yeah, it would be a commitment unless and until we secured the rest of the funding and were able to close on the financing of the entire project. So in other words, what I'm saying is the commitment would be there, but no dollars would be spent of CPA dollars unless and until the entire financial package was put together.
[Tom Lincoln]: So the obvious question is, if it takes, I have no idea, but say it takes five years, you're waiting in line with the state, you know, you're hoping that doesn't happen. I mean, how long, maybe this is a question for the board too, how long can that commitment last. It's not like a life estate or something.
[Danny LeBlanc]: Yeah, no. And one would, I would think, and I'll say honestly and with some pride, we've never bumped into this in some rule, but I would think at some point the Medford CPC would say, wait a minute, we might be able to put this money to better purposes. And I think you have that right. That would be a question that they could answer. Oh, OK. But again, My expectation would be two to three years just based on the, you know, the 30 or so years of experience we have doing this in Somerville when we get a local commitment. It used to be quicker, to be honest with you, but two or three years is more realistic now.
[Tom Lincoln]: So it will be faster than the Green Line then?
[Danny LeBlanc]: Yeah, I think so. I hope so. Okay, thanks.
[Roberta Cameron]: I just want to respond to a couple of Tom's questions there. One of the points is that the committee would be very likely to make funding contingent upon permitting and funding from other sources where there are projects that require those things. So that if the permitting and funding from other sources don't come through, then the funding that we committed can be taken back and put back into the pool for everyone else. And also, there's an understanding that for some kinds of projects like open space and recreation, they were ready to go yesterday and they'll spend the funds the moment that it's approved. Whereas for a housing project, it can be expected to take longer for it to be ready. So we will probably have to apply a different standard to affordable housing projects in terms of when we anticipate projects being completed than the other types of projects. More questions, comments? Yeah.
[Heather Meekergreen]: Just for my understanding, I'm this is all new to me You said it was on the line of Medford and Somerville. It's it would be a Medford address. Is that correct?
[Danny LeBlanc]: It's a Medford address, right? 595 the the st. Clemens property the st. Francis is well into it, you know It's a Medford address but when you do zoning processes do it legally but also just the way we run a community process a lot of the Immediately surrounding community is actually in Somerville because it's right on the line No, I understand that.
[Heather Meekergreen]: I just want to make sure it wasn't one of those where you have half the residents have a Somerville address, half have a Medford, but it's all Medford.
[Danny LeBlanc]: All the approvals will be Medford. That's right. And all the residents will be Medford.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Other questions and comments? Yes.
[Susan Campbell]: Hi, my name is Susan Campbell-Trainer, and I've been a parishioner of St. Francis for 41 years. Now, where do you intend, if you want to take over the convent, where are we going to park? Because if I'm not mistaken, you have to have almost two parking spaces per unit.
[Danny LeBlanc]: The exact parking requirement is something that we would have to determine down the road with the city and the planning board, the zoning board approval authorities. And we do understand that that's a tricky question at St. Francis. One, we've only had conversations so far with the pastor and I'm forgetting the woman's name but a woman who does. Laura. Laura that does business at St. Francis. Yes. As well as with the, you know, the guys from the archdiocese that do the real estate there. That's a question we're going to have to work on. It's also a question we're going to have to work on at St. Clemens, too, for anybody who's familiar with the elementary school. So these are things that we'll discuss with folks in the community and try to figure out an answer that works. And, you know, honestly, at the end of the day, if you can't come up with an answer that works, then you don't have a project. But we think that it's possible over there.
[Susan Campbell]: Because we don't have a lot of land around the convent. It's very, very small. There's just a small parking lot that has a parking, like three cars. There's nothing. I mean, the nuns had a porch in the back, a screened-in porch. And that's where they sat. There was no place for anybody to be around, children. It's really, really, really tight space here. And the lady next door will not sell to anybody.
[Danny LeBlanc]: I've heard that. Yes.
[Susan Campbell]: I wanted to make an offer that she couldn't refuse, but she wouldn't because we could mow it down and that would take care of our parking lot. Well, really, it's a very, very tight spot. And the people who bought the school, they paid $750,000 for the condo on the top floor. And that's nothing to sneeze at. And they have a beautiful parking lot. And now this is some... this whole thing coming in, and I just was very concerned. I'm very concerned, as you can tell. But the preservation, I just couldn't picture why you'd even come and ask for money from them. This is the first time we've heard of this. We did not hear about this before. We heard about the convent. Because I'm on the parish council. But none of this was mentioned about you coming to the city and asking for money for this. And my honest opinion right now is I don't see why we should give it to them. However, this is just in the preliminary whole thing. And there's going to be a lot. I'm sure I'm not the only person in town who feels this way. And I mean, this is nothing against you, because you have a business. And you're obviously here to make money. And that's the life. There's a lot of people, and the people who live all around there, they have a beautiful neighborhood. And the people who abut it, I mean, it's such a small piece of land. It really is. And I don't know if any of you have been down around our convent or anything, but it's very, very tiny. So, well, I didn't mean to upset anybody, but it's just a point of contact.
[Danny LeBlanc]: If I could, the first set of questions you're raising, completely understood, as I said, I live and work in Somerville, so I'm used to tight parking and all that kind of stuff. We would expect to have that conversation with folks in the community. As to the second question, I just want to explain it has to do with the affordability. I think one of the funding priorities for Community Preservation Act funds on the state level is to support affordable housing. This would be a 100% affordable development. And it actually, part of the reason why it takes two or three years, just to be honest, I'm used to doing these numbers, it takes about a quarter of a million dollars per unit to make something permanently affordable. That's a huge figure, I realize. So some amount of local money along with all the other state and federal money, that's just what it takes to make housing affordable permanently as opposed to five or six or $700,000 condos that we see everywhere. So that's, we're pitching that, and obviously if there's support for that, that's what we would like to do, and if there's questions and concerns about that, we'll be there to have conversations for sure before this ever gets to the zoning board.
[Susan Campbell]: Okay, thank you.
[Cynthia Watson]: I left the prison, now I'm in the convent. Cindy Watson, 65 Valley Street. I think one of the problems is that we were a little bit blindsided. I'm a parishioner of St. Francis. So there's a couple of issues going on here. These are the folks in the audience that have really made St. Francis what it is. So we just had to collaborate with St. Joseph's over the last couple of years. So that was a tough. hit. Second of all, the convent, we were generating $10,000 a month. That's $120,000 annualized that we're losing. That's what we were getting, $10,000 a month from that property.
[Danny LeBlanc]: We've rented it. I can address that one a little bit if you want to, but go ahead. You continue first.
[Cynthia Watson]: So now we're in a position where we need transparency. Folks didn't know about this until Saturday or Sunday, Danny, and we're all for having those units remodeled, whatever, but there's a couple of other issues too. The way that you have it stated, it will be allocated for people with disabilities, homeless, veterans, special needs, et cetera. So it's a wide array, which is great. My background is actually, I used to be a cop surveyor. So I used to go across the country and evaluate facilities to make sure they were in compliance with the law, et cetera. But now we've just... built a condo, okay, which is within, I don't know, 25 yards, and I had a friend's son come in yesterday to look at the second level. A million dollars they're asking. As Susan said, the top floor just went for $750,000. Okay, it was a million dollars as of yesterday. They went to the open house. So that's going to be the other elephant in the room, too, is that, you know, you're going out to buy a condo, and again, I'm all for, you know, mixed use, integration, heightened people with disabilities, the AD Act. But there's a number of issues that we need to address and we need to start now, whether it be, you know, the pastor, the archdiocese. The archdiocese just gave $500,000 to Arch Street for a mental health clinic for women who are homeless, which is great. So it's not that we're opposed to it, but it has to be done properly and there has to be some transparency.
[Danny LeBlanc]: So two things I will say. I'm not going to speak for the archdiocese because I don't represent the archdiocese. And it's a little challenging for us because we don't have the agreement yet with the archdiocese. So it would actually have been inappropriate for us to come around and start talking to people at this point. And I'm not going to answer for the archdiocese. any questions of transparency on their side. The one thing I can say, though, because I do know the business side of this, is that the parish will still be getting a comparable, if not slightly greater, lease payment out of this. That's why the Archdiocese wants to lease. They want that regular flow of funds to the parish. That's why we've been in negotiations. For 99 years, well, 99 years we treat as forever. None of us will be around 99 years from now. But I suspect there would be a renegotiation for anybody who's around then, and payments would continue. They don't want to sell the property, I think, in part because they want to retain cash flow to the parishes. This is true of St. Clement's too. But I'm not going to speak to the transparency question. I'll let you take that up with the archdiocese and the parish leaders.
[Cynthia Watson]: All right, thank you.
[Susan Campbell]: Shouldn't you talk to the abutters and everybody before this goes much further to let them know what's going on and to, I mean, as Cindy just said, a million dollars for a condo and it's like, you know, a stone's throw away from this building. I think that the abutters, do they know about this, this coming in, this section eight or the, you know, and I don't have a problem with helping people, believe me, but this is a beautiful neighborhood all around it. And it's very small land, extremely small.
[Danny LeBlanc]: Yeah, I mean, I accept that all as part of the process that we'll go forward on. And I think as you've heard, I guess all I can say is that it's a reasonable question to say, how come we're here? And we haven't started that part of the process yet. Our experience in Somerville would say you kind of have to assemble things in pieces. And typically, we wouldn't start a community process until we actually have an agreement with the seller, or in this case, the entity that's going to lease to us. It's the archdiocese. That's the way we've done things in Somerville. We are often in the position of having to put in funding requests because of timing and cycles before we engage the community. I fully expect to get the full brunt of this when we do go out into the community, all the questions that people would have, all the concerns, so forth. We'd be prepared for that, I guess is all I would say.
[Bm5-jrZInBw_SPEAKER_07]: Okay, thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Do we have more questions and comments? Yes?
[_Zabvvh8vxM_SPEAKER_18]: There was one thing I don't think you mentioned, Danny, but I heard in the comments about the development side of things. Can you just clarify that you're a non-profit developer?
[Danny LeBlanc]: Yeah, I'm sorry. We are a non-profit developer. And I will say, I guess it came up that we're in business to make money. We're kind of in business to sustain our business so that we can keep doing affordable housing. And yes, people, we have to make enough money for people to get paid in order to do that. But that's, this is a non-profit development. And the way the finances get structured, there's a fixed fee that comes from this that our organization earns. And frankly, if we don't build, we don't earn anything. We spend our time and we don't make any money. But all of the proceeds go back into the organization to try to keep doing more work like this, basically.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: Just a couple quick comments. In a previous affordable housing application at our last meeting, the issue of parking came up and obviously Medford has zoning that's decades old requiring two cars per unit. I think believe the applicants in that application, which is a site that is actually not as connected, doesn't have a red line and a green line stop literally five and ten minutes away from this property. They didn't think it would be a lot less than two for the demand side because of the population, because of your population. Experience with that. I think that's an important thing when you go out to the community and obviously it's clear You have work to do here. Yeah for multiple reasons that you need to Show those debt show the demographics show the demand side. Yeah, you know that people are not gonna have two cars per unit This is almost no apartment built today in Medford or some of them comes anywhere near that demand wise It's just not happening anymore. It's dropping every year and So I think that's an important thing to keep on top of.
[Danny LeBlanc]: Yeah. And I will say just thanks for that invitation. And we would produce this data for people. But in the units that we own in Somerville, and I realize Somerville is not Medford, it averages out to a half a car per unit across our whole 219 units that we own right now. Some of that is it's low income people. Some of it is the availability of transit. And that's a cheaper alternative for people. Thank you.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_07]: Yes.
[David Brosnan]: Hi, I'm David Brosnan, 32 Cotting Street in Medford. I'm also a board member at Medford Community Housing, so I'm very much in favor of affordable housing. But I'm curious about a couple of things. The first thing is that in your application, it said that you would deal with zoning issues through the use of 40B, Chapter 40B of the state law. And in our experience, that has never really happened before in Medford. So I'm wondering. Have you had discussions with the city about doing a 40B development?
[Danny LeBlanc]: Yeah, we have. And let me characterize it. We would call this a friendly 40B. In the world of 40B, there's friendly and unfriendly. The unfriendly is when a developer is trying to move forward despite significant opposition in the community. We have had conversations with Lauren DiLorenzo in particular. And we're aware that this would be new. for Medford and some of the conversations that my colleagues have had with Lauren around what would that look like and would it work and is it something to be feared or not. The reality of Chapter 40B is that it allows you to go forward comprehensively in some ways that It sort of streamlines the zoning process in ways that you can't do without using 40B. And of course, as you know, in Medford, the community is under the 10% statutory standard for the use of 40B, although it is true in other communities, you can actually use 40B for the streamlining impact even if you're above 10%. So that would be our intention because our experience says that that's the most effective way to go forward. But we would, again, we wouldn't want to do it in an unfriendly atmosphere. So we would work our tails off to have the conversations with the community and the city so that everybody was comfortable when we went forward.
[David Brosnan]: Okay. The other little Curiosity in my mind is that with one of our applications, the issue had been raised I think by Roberta of the anti-aid amendment that it was somehow unlawful to use city money to support a non-profit organization directly. I'm wondering how does that work when you're paying a lease to a church? Does that actually? Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: So where we would have to have a concern about the anti-aid amendment is that city funds, in this case CPA funds, could not be used to benefit a non-profit organization. But in the case of developing affordable housing, the city funds are being used to develop affordable housing. And so if their organization has a long-term relationship with another organization, that's outside of the process of developing affordable housing. I think that was, so I think that addresses the anti-aid amendment. I don't think that that would be an issue here.
[David Brosnan]: Are you basing this on a legal opinion you've gotten from something? From the city or from the state?
[Roberta Cameron]: This is my understanding of how the NTA amendment applies and why it is that we can provide, we can use CPA funds to support projects that are creating an asset for the city and affordable housing is defined as one of the assets that we can use. City funds to create. There are many, many of the organizations that may be eligible to utilize CPA funds have additional activities that are not creating new assets and we are not funding those activities. but we are funding activities that are eligible for CPA funding. So creating new affordable housing is an eligible activity. Supporting the operating, the operations of an organization may not be an eligible activity. That's the anti-aid amendment to the Massachusetts state constitution. Yeah. All right, thank you very much. Next on our agenda, we would like to invite the Medford Housing Authority to talk with us about LaPrize Village gas conversion.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: Good evening. My name is Jeffrey Driscoll. I am the executive director of the Medford Housing Authority. With me this evening, Arlosa Janvia, who is the chairperson of the Medford Housing Authority Board of Commissioners and also a resident at LaPree Village. and Gabriel Ciccarella who is our Director of Modernization and Procurement. I'm here this evening to speak about the oil to gas conversion of the heating systems at LaPree Village and I'd like to pass out a handout to each one of the board members. This is intended to provide a supplement to our application to provide you with some additional information. LaPree Village is one of eight public housing developments in the city of Medford. The Medford Housing Authority has 843 public housing units that provide subsidized housing to individuals, elderly, disabled, and families. LaPree Village is one of seven federally subsidized developments. It's subsidized by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. There are 142 units at LaPree Village. LaPree Village is a family development. And it is, we are requesting, excuse me, 138 units to convert from oil to gas. The primary emphasis of this is the fact that it is an extreme hardship for our residents to maintain oil tanks, in particular during the winter, when the cost of oil is in the vicinity of approximately $700 per tank. It's the responsibility of the residents. What occurs then is that the residents who don't provide sufficient oil for their heating system utilize their ovens, and in some cases, space heaters. for the heating of the unit. You'll see in the handout that we have a letter from the MedFed fire department, in particular the chief, indicating concern with the use of ovens to heat apartments. This was an issue that was raised to us by the residents. Majority of the residents who live at this site are 30% or below of the median income. That's $16,000. There's a definitive need for us to be able to address their needs, their concerns. They are all residents of Medford. There are over 400 individuals who reside at that development. The Housing Authority does not have the ability at this point in time to address this, and that's why we're looking for $452,000. That price has been developed through our modernization department. That is an estimate that we anticipate will be a solid estimate. We have also gotten from National Grid a commitment of over $100,000 for them to provide gas lines into the development and up to the building. We will core the building. We will pipe inside the building. We will change the gun on the heating system, the boiler right now. And we will also dismantle, remove the oil tanks. And we will safely dispose of, through certified contractors, the remaining oil that is in the tank. The significance here is that the Housing Authority has a concern insofar as we do not want to see our residents put themselves in danger. The buildings themselves have units that are adjacent to each other. If there is a fire in one, very likely that it is going to impact up to possibly six total units. There's a significant concern for the residents who are providing the appropriate level of oil and heat in the units that other folks are not doing that. And as much as we try to counsel the residents to work with them, we have situations where we do have fires. We do address that. In discussions with the fire department, they indicated that there is a great and significant concern for individuals who do this in order to heat their units. We have an anticipation that if we were funded for this, we would have this complete by the next heating season and that's next fall. I have for the committee a project manual for siding replacement at Willis Avenue. There we're replacing siding, we're replacing windows. January 31st of 2018, we began this construction this past week. So that this is a similar project, similar amount of money, approximately $450,000. I'm going to leave that here so the committee can take a look at it. We will have the ability to immediately immediately begin to bid this. It will be publicly bid. Housing Authority has statutory requirements to ensure that we do publicly bid that. We have requirements from HUD that we have to follow. But we're fully prepared to be able to expend the money. There's a contingency that's built into that. We will have our modernization department working with an engineer to ensure that this is done correctly and expediently. If we can just take a look quickly at what I've provided to you, there's on the first page, you'll see that there's some pictures of LaPree Village, a short synopsis of the project. There's an aerial view of LaPree. You'll see on the third page is the correspondence from the fire department. You'll see on the fourth page is correspondence from National Grid indicating their willingness to provide 1,500 feet of 4-inch gas main, 2-inch services to 28 buildings with 142 new meters. As I said, there are four buildings, excuse me, four units that have already been converted because they're accessible. We also have a design that we provided, a schematic that we provided to you in the application that we provide to you again. In addition, the Housing Authority has received in-kind services of approximately $2 million. over the course of the last few years in cooperation and in coordination with National Grid. The Housing Authority has changed out the majority of its boiler systems, its hot water systems, has undertaken a significant improvement of the lighting, all with the attempt to go green. The Saltonstall building, where our office is located, it's an 11-story building, has solar panels on the roof. We feel that this, and this is only a secondary aspect of this project, but we feel that in going from oil to gas, we will be impacting significantly the environment because the burning of gas is much cleaner than the burning of oil. So we would ask your support, not for the Medford Housing Authority, but we would ask your support for the residents at LaPree Village, because this really is a safety issue, and this is something that needs to be addressed, and it is something that we need to do. As I indicated, and I need to emphasize, our residents, the majority of our residents, are 30% or below the median income, $16,000. They do not have, and they are required to have, cash, not a credit card, not a check, but they're required to have cash available when that oil truck comes to deliver oil when it's three degrees out. And they have to make a choice as far as whether or not they're going to heat their apartment or feed their children. And so that's what we're faced with. We have an anticipation and a hope that we are going to be of assistance with them, and we ask for your assistance to allow us to do that. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Do we have questions from the board?
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_07]: Thank you. I note that on your application, it is noted that the MHA may be able to consider phasing for the project over a few years, but only be able to do so if there was a commitment of funds for future years. And that in addition, that you do not have a commitment from National Grid for their donation of their services for anything less than the $138 And do you have any documentation of that commitment from National Grid?
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: We have the correspondence that they provided to us indicating a willingness. They sent us also a contract. I was going to include that, but it's just a basic service contract for them to come out and do that. That correspondence is our acceptance of going forward with what they proposed in the letter that I provided to you. And if I can just address the first comment, and that is to do this phased in. We would hope not to do that in a phased-in project or process simply because of the significance that we place on this. When we were looking for a project to undertake, and to provide to this committee for consideration. We had numerous projects to think of and we could have come forward with any one of that. But this was of significance to us. It was raised by the residents who indicated to us that this is a legitimate safety concern. And quite frankly, I think that's, to me as the executive director, that's my responsibility to ensure that our residents are safe so that any other project was certainly at least in second place to this. I thought I was going to get off easy here.
[SPEAKER_14]: I understand the cost factor with the oil and they have to pay up front, but if they can't pay for the oil, what happens with the gas when they can't pay? You know, it's a lot longer before they shut them off, but there's still a monetary cost there that they have to pay for the gas. So how does National Grid address that?
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: It's my understanding that National Grid will work with them during the wintertime as far as the shutoffs are concerned. More importantly to us is the fact that we would be able to work with our residents. We have a vested interest in the building. We don't want to see the pipes freeze. And we had some issues this year with frozen pipes when it was three degrees out. We don't want to see that occur. We are going to have a discussion with National Grid because I know From my experience at other housing authorities that there's an ability to be a backup So that when someone's heat is going to be shut off it's transferred to the owner of the property which would be the housing authority I Know on the residential side a national grid in the past that's come across with a lot more funding to convert to gas Why are they not doing in the public sector where they're still going to get a customer out of it? It's my understanding that, and I said that it's over $100,000, which they're providing. That's an estimate on our part. It could be in excess of that. Their willingness to bring in 1,500 feet of gas lines is something that we could not accomplish without their assistance.
[SPEAKER_14]: I understand that, but at the end, they're walking away with, more customers. Wouldn't it behoove them to bring in the gasoline?
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: I'm willing to discuss that further with them as far as if there's anything else that they will be able to provide to us. At this point, that's what they have offered to us.
[SPEAKER_14]: I mean, at Medford High Project, they brought in a high pressure line.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: Right.
[SPEAKER_14]: And the cost was, as long as we used the gas, they were providing it.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: There's no cost. There's no national grade cost here at all. They're bringing those in to us free of charge.
[SPEAKER_14]: They're bringing the gas lines in. Yes, sir. Yes.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: All the way to the buildings.
[SPEAKER_14]: So just the conversion?
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: We're looking at the conversion costs.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yes, sir. Are they kicking in for any of the conversion costs?
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: No, they're not. What they're doing is they're bringing the lines to each one of the 28 buildings. And in some case, that's a fairly long distance.
[SPEAKER_14]: Thank you.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Other questions from the board?
[_Zabvvh8vxM_SPEAKER_18]: Thank you for all the work that you and your colleagues do. I'm a neighbor actually on Riverside Ave, just a few blocks away. Definitely interested in seeing improvements and investment in the property. My question is around It looks like the stoves are electric, so I'm just curious as to how that will address the public safety issue, if there's still an issue. And maybe part of it is what you just answered with Mike around, You know, the housing authority can be the backup so that the gas won't get shut off, but it looks like what's the incentive not to continue using the electric stove?
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: Very good question. The incentive is that there will be no necessity to do that because they will have heat. They'll have the natural gas. What's happening now is that the oil tanks run dry. They have to pay to have them primed, and they have to pay for the oil to be put in there, and they don't have the ability to do that. So in the meantime, they use the electric stoves, which overheat. And anything in the vicinity of that, there's a very high likelihood that they will catch on fire. And we have had burned out stoves on a number of occasions.
[_Zabvvh8vxM_SPEAKER_18]: My second tough question is how does the CPA investment relate to the housing authority's ongoing capital and maintenance plans? You know, my question always when a public agency is asking us to fund them is, you know, we want to make sure that we're funding things that the public can't fund, right, that the, you know, nonprofits and others need assistance with. So I just want to understand, you know, is this a one-off thing? Is, you know, how does it fit in with overall investments in the property?
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: Well, if you were to look at the President's budget that was announced within the last month to maybe month and a half, you will see that he has eliminated the capital fund program, which the housing authority would utilize to rehabilitate its property, which the housing authority would use to pay for this. The difficulty is that even if that program is not eliminated, Neither the federal government nor the state government provide the housing authority with sufficient funds to be able to modernize its developments. The eight developments that we have do not get anywhere near the sufficient funds that are necessary. To do that, we have to look at those things that are most important, and this to us was extraordinarily important, and that's why we're coming here today. because we think that this is, the funding for this would not be in the forefront if it weren't before this committee. We would not be able to do this, certainly not before the next heating season.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm going to follow up with a question related to this, and that is, would this project be eligible for CDBG funding, and have you sought CDBG funds for this project or projects like this?
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: We haven't. We have sought funding for our state development, Walkling Court. Just recently, we had requested approximately $160,000 worth of funding for projects that we want to undertake at Walkling Court. Those were also priority issues for us. It was with sidewalk repair, it was with curb repair, which were trip and falls. It was with the replacement of smoke detectors, seal tube detectors, things such as that. We're always looking at, we would love to have additional funds to be able to do things. that don't border on health and safety, but unfortunately we don't get sufficient funds to be able to do that. The way that the Housing Authority works is we don't receive a tax dollar. We don't receive tax dollars. We have to exist on the rents that are collected. So that if it costs us a million dollars to run 121 Riverside apartments, and our rents equal $800,000, then the federal government will give us a subsidy of $200,000. If we collect $1.1 million, and the cost to run that development is $1 million a year, then we will have an additional $100,000 that we would put into our reserve account, our savings account. And we would be able to utilize that to be able to undertake projects such as this and developments such as L'Pree. That's the way it works across the entire spectrum of our public housing developments. We're dealing with people who pay 30% of their income. 51% of the people who live at L'Pree Village have an income of $16,000 or less. 30% of their income isn't sufficient for us to be able to run LaPree Village without the assistance of CDBG or without the assistance of you folks here.
[Roberta Cameron]: So you have used CDBG funds for LaPree Village in the past?
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: That I'm not aware of. Lohser, I will ask you that. I'm not aware that the authority has. I've been the executive director since June of last year. Kind of a difficult question. A little bit more difficult than the ones you asked. But I can tell you that we are interested in partnering with the city in any way, shape, or form that will help our residents.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay. Another question that I have, I'm kind of curious, how typical is it that in a public housing development serving this population that they're paying for their own fuel?
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: They are paying, oftentimes they are paying for their own fuel, and there is fuel assistance. We don't have numbers on that. The difficulty that our residents are faced with, though, is, like I said, they have to come up with cash at the time of delivery. And I have sought out an answer to that question, and I have not yet received it. The difficulty I have is that if someone is on a fuel assistance program, then the individuals who deliver to that development, and from what I understand, there are 41 delivery companies, oil delivery companies in this area who participate in that. I don't understand why the individuals at LaPree Village have to pay cash up front. And I haven't been able to find that answer out.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay, thank you.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Hi, my name is Losa Julie Genevieve. I am a resident of the pre for the past 17 years. And also, I've been serving on the board on the chair. This time around, when residents seek out for fuel assistant. you have to imagine that it's not only the Medford housing resident that seek out for this type of assistance. It's everyone that needs assistance, regardless if they own a rent apartment elsewhere. So whatever the state provides for the year to address for the city of Medford, all these folks are going and dip into that amount that they provided for. So, therefore, for the year, for the heating system, that sometime that people provided that depend on your income and also on the people that you have children and so forth. And unfortunately, sometimes people only get $400 for the whole heating season. And could you imagine that when you called the oil company that's going to deliver it, and then you let them know that they already received the information from the fuel assistant how much that person is, you know, allowing for the heating season. And once that happens, so if they only are giving that person $400 for the whole heating system, and the price of oil is more, say it's 500, that person is going to have to cough up the remainder, you know, $100 or more to match up because if they don't have that, they're not going to deliver it. They don't deliver it over 100. If you're not ordering 100 gallons, they're not going to come. Don't bother to call. It's 100 gallons of oil per delivery. And also that when you consider the fact that, like he mentioned, I myself, I lived in L'Apprit, like I said, for 17 years. I have kids and I have grandkids. Even if I don't heat my apartment with the stove, my neighbor made, which means putting my life, my granddaughter, my son, my next door neighbor's life in jeopardy. Because it could happen in the middle of the night when a person is eating their popcorn on the stove, and God forbid, something, anything could fall. A piece of paper could fall. During the day, a kid could be playing. Something could just jump right into that oven, and there goes So, you know, when you talk about the cost, it's just like you get assistance, but it's this much assistance that you get. It's not that much. And again, when you call for delivery, if you don't have the cash on hand, they're not going to deliver. So this is what the residents are facing, you know, when it comes to things like that.
[Roberta Cameron]: More questions, comments?
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: Could you break down the ROI if you could? You said the savings would be 77,000 a year in the application. Is that the residents all saving that over the course of one year is your estimate?
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: total amount of the savings that we anticipated from the residents, the payments that would be made, the residents on behalf of the not having to spend for oil. And that it would be the difference we think that there would be between the oil cost and the gas cost. Thank you. Per unit.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: Which is an ROI.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: Per unit in total, yes.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: Okay. Per unit in total. Very good. So that's an ROI of roughly five to six years to actually get that savings back, obviously. Yes. Okay. Yes, as we anticipate. Which is pretty good, I think. And it seems crazy to me that, obviously, the $700 cash in the middle of the winter, that's obviously an insane system that this would solve. And I believe all these companies, certainly National Grid, have the ability to spread it over payments over the whole year, regardless of how much. So you don't have a big bump in the middle of the year. You've got $100 a month rather than $400 in December, that kind of thing, which will also help, I assume.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: And it takes more than one tank of oil to heat throughout the season. And I thank LOSA for explaining that to me. That's not something that I was as familiar with as LOSA is. But that's the issue that we have, is that the residents don't have the ability to come up with that money to pay whomever it is that's delivering.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: Makes complete sense. My last question is about the schedule. You mentioned you want to get this done before the heating season of this calendar year. Yes, sir. Okay. So that's, I'm just, just the schedule here in terms of award, in terms of You know, the city's bidding process is, from my experience, bidding, it's been, it's like a month minimum. It's not the city. It's the housing authority. We're separate and distinct from the city.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: Okay, so that's, you have the ability to speed that up then? Yes, sir. Okay, that's good. Okay. Gabe, do you want to address that? Yes, so. Come up to the mic.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: Sure. Appreciate it, thank you.
[Ciccariello]: Yes, once we have a preliminary design in place, National Grid is all set to go once we give them the okay. Once they get started, or as soon as we get the okay, we can have our plans in place. We have to go out to bid for two weeks. And then our board has to approve, but we could hold a special meeting as soon as we get the bids in place. And the, all the materials to perform this installation or there's no long lead times for anything. So part of our award would be a contractor that is ready to go, you know, within a short timeframe, we could specify that on. on our bid package that we are, you know, we need someone who's ready to hit the ground running.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: One of the challenges I have experienced on projects is that utilities aren't always very responsive. I don't, are these, is National Grid going to, are they absolutely committing? Because if they were off by a month, obviously that could really hurt you.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: It's my understanding that they have committed to us. It's my understanding that they want to prioritize this. We've utilized them, as I said, for close to $2 million worth of work. They've been very generous to the Housing Authority, and we've benefited from that. I wouldn't expect anything different. I know that Gabe is the one who's had the direct conversations with them.
[Ciccariello]: Of course, the sooner we can give them an answer, the quicker we can line things up. But they said they can get to us this year. Yeah. And I think we can get things going simultaneously.
[Roberta Cameron]: More questions, comments? Yeah.
[Tom Lincoln]: I'll speak quickly so that Doug doesn't cut me off here. It seems crazy to me to have gas heat and electric stoves, unless I'm missing something here. And we certainly hope that if you put gas heat in, that you wouldn't preclude the possibility of adding gas stoves. In fact, I don't even know if electric stoves and gas lines are a good idea. I've just never heard of a residential unit that had an electric stove and gas lines. So I'm just curious about that.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: That does happen. My own residence, I have natural gas and I have an electric stove. You too. It's certainly a very good suggestion and it's maybe something that we might come forth to the committee in the future if you so choose to allow us to put the gas lines in. It might be a nice project and I would hope that you would show up in support of that if we do.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Hi again. Another thing that I felt to mention is that most of the reason why the people that actually utilize the stove is because we use the oil all year round because this is what we use for hot water to shower. So what they in their mind is thinking that I'm only getting the fuel system for the winter. So I'm going to utilize it and whatever else that I, if I have to force to take money out of my pocket to pay for extra, I'm not gonna heat my home because I have to use that hot water to take a shower during the summer. So this is where they're thinking like, okay, I'm saving, but they're not thinking about the safety of that comes along with that, you know, because again, I'm a single mom. I know how hard it is for me. And it's people that's worse off than me. So, and this is also, you know, the concern. And at first when we, when Medford Housing had came on board that people were, you know, kind of wasn't, you know, thing, but they were so, I thought they wasn't going to really wanted to go for it, but they were so happy that actually, you know, Medford Housing was going, and myself, was going to take, you know, over and do something like that. So it really will be, great thing not just for myself but I'm speaking on behalf I represent all the expert housing residents you know that lives there that couldn't be here and and if this is something that you guys really will think about it will be very appreciative not just for us that lives here right now but for the people that's coming my my reason I serve on the board is not because I wanted to be known. I served on the Medford Housing Board because I was lucky enough to have found Medford Housing when I moved here 17 years ago, that I'm hoping that I'm doing something so when I leave 17 years later, someone else could utilize this and they will benefit from it. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. I have one last question which is, how old are these heating systems and is there a concern that the oil burners themselves are potentially dangerous regardless of how the stoves are being used?
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: The development was constructed in 1951. Gabe, can you answer the remainder of that question?
[Ciccariello]: So the boilers that are in place now are about nine years old. The manufacturer of the boilers makes a conversion kit that you can convert. It's called a gas burner. It's the front part of the burner. You just swap that out and replace the oil burner with the gas burner. So it's a quick turnover. can hopefully do an apartment in about a day, two days tops.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: Can I just, before you end, just give you some insight into LaPree Village. The Housing Authority on April 3rd underwent an intensive two-day inspection of LaPree Village. HUD mandates that housing authorities have the Real Estate Assessment Center, as they call it, which is a separate entity that comes in and evaluates housing authority properties. They did this for us in the fall at Bradley Road, Weldon Apartments. I think you all might be familiar with that. Housing authority, on a scale of 1 to 100, the housing authority received a 95. It was 95.3 or .7, something to that effect. Points off for things such as one resident didn't have a rubber stopper in the tub, so they took off 0.7 points. There was a wall that had a small crack in it on the outside, and they took off three points for that. We had the inspection at LaPree, and we have in the vicinity of a 93. We went out and inspected each one of those apartments, each one of the 142 apartments. And in some cases, we went back and inspected them a second time or a third time. And out of the 142 units, we had two residents who were not cooperative. Two residents who didn't move their furniture so they weren't blocking a door. Two residents who, in the pictures that you see there, the basement, didn't have their belongings in the middle of the basement. We had significant cooperation from the residents. And to say that a family housing site, the inspection results from HUD, no nonsense inspection, is comparable to Weld and Gardens is a compliment to the residents there, is a compliment to our modernization staff, and to our maintenance staff. So that when you, if you have an opportunity tomorrow, drive through L'Esprit and take a look at it, and you'll see that the Housing Authority has done a significant amount of work. We're moving into Willis to address the difficulties we have at Willis. We're addressing all of our projects, excuse me, our developments, and we have projects ongoing through modernization. We're trying to utilize the money that the federal government gives to us and what little the state gives to us to maximize that. We, though, need your assistance to be able to do what our residents deserve. And when I say our residents, I'm not talking about the Housing Authority's residents. I'm talking about MEDFED residents.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. All right, so I think that concludes the Housing Authority, and we would like to invite our final applicant up for this evening, which is the Medford Historical Society and Museum, which has two projects, textile collection preservation and museum quality HVAC improvements.
[John Anderson]: Would it be all right with you if we did the building improvements first?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes.
[John Anderson]: Well, it looks like I've lost most of my audience. I'm John Anderson, president of the Bedford Historical Society and Museum. And I just want to say briefly about our museum. We've been here for over 100 years. We have something like 20,000 to 30,000 items in our collection, which we curate in addition to providing public programs. We're open on Sundays. People come in to do research about primarily genealogy, house history, We also have scholars who come from time to time to use our collections. I just want to quote briefly from the National Park Service regarding collections. They say, many objects will come to your museum collections damaged and deteriorated from use and exposure. Because of their history, some objects will need treatment. You should develop a treatment plan for immediate problems in your collection. Your primary goal, however, is to create a facility that will minimize damage and maintain the collection through preventative measures. That's what the focus of this project is. What I'm asking your support for, in particular, is a new HVAC system that will enable us to convert from oil to gas and also replace very obsolete air conditioning equipment. Let's see. Since I last spoke with you, which was when we were asking to be qualified for this grant, I just want to bring you up to date on some of the things we've done. Since I submitted the application, what we've done, we've met with multiple HVAC installers. We've also completed projects on our own to upgrade the building. And volunteers have continued their efforts of cataloging the collection and making improvements throughout the building, such as building shelving, painting, cleaning, and so forth and so on. So I'm ready to take your questions.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you, that was very quick. You caught me with my pencil still going.
[John Anderson]: I could rattle on if you like.
[Roberta Cameron]: That's all right. Any questions from the committee members? So, I have a question for you. You know, given where you are today and what you expect to be able to do with the CPA funds to improve your building, what other capital improvements do you see necessary to bring this building up to the level that you feel it needs to be?
[John Anderson]: Well, we had a reserve study done, an engineering study done to look at the long-range requirements of the building. Other than maintenance, I would say the biggest thing looming perhaps would be window replacement. We had windows replaced maybe 25 years ago. They're sort of conventional vinyl windows. They were certified as appropriate by the historic commission at the time, but I think When we get around to doing it, when we need to do this again, I suspect that the historic district commission will be a little more particular about what we put in. I would see that as the biggest looming capital thing, and it's not an immediate need.
[Roberta Cameron]: I just have to ask, is there any hope for handicapped accessibility in this building?
[John Anderson]: I had Ms. McLeod check the building out, in fact, when we first moved in there. She told us she had good news and bad news. The bad news was we weren't handicapped accessible. The good news was there was no practical way to make it accessible. The problem is, You see the ramp that goes into the front door there? If you constructed a ramp the way our property is situated, the ramp would be running downhill. And the sidewalk is actually steeper than what a ramp allows. So you keep going, you'd have to go across High Street or something. You'd have to have a drawbridge on the ramp. So she said there was no real practical way to do it. The same situation applies to our neighbor, the medical building at 0 Governors Avenue, where handicapped accessibility is even more important.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Other questions, comments?
[John Anderson]: Come on, Doug. You've got to have a question.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: I do. First of all, I want to just remind that when the inappropriate windows were put, non-historical windows were put into the Historical Society and Museum building, I was in college, I had nothing to do with it. That's a small disclaimer, but I do appreciate you undoing a mistake of the past. That's really important for building an organization like yourself to maintain a high standard. I know because You've been communicating with the commission and others about things you're doing, your shopping list of things that you're doing to the building is actually even longer than what you described because you've been reaching out to us for years about that stuff and we appreciate the diligence of putting that building and making it good for the next hundred years. I guess I do hope at some point there's some creative way to think about ADA. Obviously, the street is what the street is. You can't do anything about that. But within the building, you know, whether we just we had a real challenging time and... Sorry?
[SPEAKER_10]: No, I mean, in the building, the steps are too high to go to the next level. Again, you'd have to have a ramp down.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: I understand, but we spent 150 grand doing it in the Brooks Estate and that was not easy either. Perhaps we had less of a challenge, but it was not easy.
[John Anderson]: Well, I'll come back next year.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: Yeah, maybe. In terms of schedule, can you talk a little bit about that, about would you do this in the next 12 months? I think it's probably buried in here.
[John Anderson]: Well, the logical way to do it would be to do it during the summer. and it's going to be tight because there are a lot of moving pieces here. I've worked with the gas company. I've reached out to the gas company and determined that there is a gas line in the street. I mean, I've kind of already knew that but you have to get them to say it. So we have gas in front of the building. The problem is scheduling it so that it can get done and the line can be put in in time but you really have to have a contractor and finalize the equipment that you're using before they can really schedule it. So we're going to have to get busy soon.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: And you've talked to a number of HVAC because there's some that are more less intrusive visually than others in terms of where the equipment goes and what it looks like within the building. Are you satisfied that you have the best solution in front of you?
[John Anderson]: We're planning on using the furnace room that we currently have. We have this little room down in the basement. And in terms of the air conditioning, there's already two compressors in the back. which were used for the kind of 25-year-old splits on your split systems. So the condenser or whatever you call it, the outdoor unit would be in the back.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: OK. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Further questions, comments? Yeah?
[_Zabvvh8vxM_SPEAKER_18]: Just a couple of questions. One, and I don't mean this in any way to be offensive, but given the level of- With all due respect. Given the level of investment that the property needs, have you explored at all co-locating with another organization or, for example, you know, the Medford Library is going to be undergoing a major project potentially being incorporated into that? I'm just curious about all of that because I know this isn't going to be the last project that you need done.
[John Anderson]: Well, we have explored from time to time options like that. At one point, one of the Medford Square redevelopment plans anticipated maybe having some display space in Medford Square. We like our location because there's actually parking there. Certainly, working with the library is an intriguing possibility. We cooperate with them extensively. We're kind of working out an understanding where certain kinds of records such as city records would reside there. Other things would reside with us. I really don't think the library would have a lot of time to spend figuring out how to do this given the schedule they're under. We have thought about it from time to time. We sort of like Our meeting room seems to be about the right size. It accommodates up to 40-45 people and that's our typical sort of audience. There would be advantages, but I haven't found a really plausible way of doing that.
[_Zabvvh8vxM_SPEAKER_18]: My second question is whether you have any base of deep-pocketed individual donors who could match if matching funds were provided.
[John Anderson]: What do you mean by deep-pocketed?
[_Zabvvh8vxM_SPEAKER_18]: If you got half of the money for this, do you have people who could contribute the other half?
[John Anderson]: We do double handstands when we get $500. Let me put it that way. We did have one Bluebird donation of $20,000 a couple of years ago, which is what's really funding all the other improvements we're doing, such as the stucco repair. Now that the stucco has been repaired, we have to repaint the building, improving the drainage around the building, things of that nature.
[Roberta Cameron]: Any further questions, comments?
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_08]: Can I just make a comment? Yes. Remember, we're building an average new library. And we have literally, I was working with Barbara today, there's not going to be any space for 20,000 to 30,000 additional items, reading and research spaces, et cetera. We are not building a library that is beyond average. You heard that great speech by that gentleman the other night.
[Bm5-jrZInBw_SPEAKER_07]: I'll be consulting with you on the color. So my one question relates actually to your next presentation. So it says that in the next presentation for the preserve and protect the historical textile pieces that they will not be available for public access and display after the cleaning. And I'm thinking if we're spending money to cleaning, we can't see them after that. So is that not what it said in the application? I'll have to re-read it. Should we let them come up? Okay. I was thinking maybe the updated HVAC upgrade would fix that issue.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_08]: You can't display all of them because there are 400 items. Hold your fire. Okay.
[Bm5-jrZInBw_SPEAKER_07]: I'll hold my question until you present the next one.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Would you like to come and present? Thank you.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_08]: And do you mind if I not use the microphone just because I'd rather face you, if that's okay? It's okay. We have permission from our, yeah, we have permission.
[Roberta Cameron]: Or you could take this microphone and talk into it. That's okay. I think I would.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_08]: So I also just want to point out that this sign was literally installed today. Hi, I'm Heather Shampney Anderson, a member of the Collections Committee, and I'm here with Beth Hayes, who is our textile expert. We are very fortunate to have her as a member, which means we've gotten hundreds of hours of free work, which we would not be able to afford from a consultant. The textile project, and I think this is kind of what you're referring to, we have spent approximately 500 hours over the last two years inventorying our textiles. This is the resulting kind of work. We also have photographed, et cetera, this research. When we found most of these textiles, and they still are, they have already shown damage due to mildew, to dust. There was a smoky oil fire a number of years ago, which some of the textiles, as we went through and inventoried them, we had to actually dispose of because they were in such bad shape and would never be able to be taken care of. What we're asking in this grant is we have looked at over 400 items, not all of them are textiles, because we did include accessories, for example, that would not necessarily be made of material. We went through and very specifically picked out 35 items, some, and we have two of them here for you tonight, one which is 200 years old, one which is 100 years old, which we feel will benefit and have already discussed with a specialized dry cleaner in the community. Many, some of our textiles will require very specialized handling and cleaning at places like the Smithsonian, etc. We are not, have not included the cost for such within this grant, but we have chosen a 35 that we feel that we can have cleaned. that we can buy archival boxes for and archival tissue so that once they are cleaned, hopefully in a building that is dust, mildew-free and without oil and other chemical pollutants, which is very damaging to textiles, that we will be able to then store them And yes, show them. But right now, for example, I can show you everything that we have because I photographed everything and it's on a computer. From that, people can then tell us what they would like to either research or look at. Now remember, when you're looking at old textiles, too, you want to do this very carefully with gloves and under supervision and careful handling. We have already had, since we started this project and just finished it, we've already had two very successful textile exhibits, one on samplers and another on wedding gowns, which we purposely chose not only because they were some of the I'm sorry, what? Oh, and we also had three, I'm sorry. We also had a World War I exhibit. We had two exhibits primarily looking at household and women's items, because those are frequently overlooked, and we also had military uniforms and a few male items, but we had plenty of other war implements and material to do many more war-related exhibits and deal with men. So basically what we want is to clean 35 of these things. Because of best skills, many of the repairs we'll be able to do ourselves, so another in-kind service. Also, many of the items that we have that we can do ourselves with hand-washing, with very specific materials that we can buy, we can do through volunteers, with volunteers, et cetera, under best supervision, which would be another in-kind aspect of what our continued volunteer time will hopefully offset costs. The archival boxes, I know it looks ridiculous when you look at paying this amount of money, $25 to $40 to $50 for a box, but that's what they cost. They're made of materials that do not give off pollutants or gases and are specifically made and designed for storing antique textiles. We brought a couple of things tonight just to give you an idea of the kinds of things we have. And Beth can speak better than anyone. We're about to open an exhibit on Lydia Marie Child for a year. Lydia Marie Child was one of the most famous abolitionists. She was born here in Medford. And we just happen to have a dress which she made by hand, which is approximately 200 years old, which will go, hopefully, into our exhibition. We'd just like to show it to you up close.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, I want you to look at it closely to see what damage can be done when it's not properly
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_10]: And it's so dirty. I cannot possibly wash this because it is clearly falling apart. It is so worn from being left out wherever it should be kept. I researched this category. There's one like it in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. This, and it's dated in the Victorian alphabet to 1810. This one's dated to 1821. The fabric is called broadleaf inlays, and it's very rare. And you can see, like, how rough and old it is. You can see where it gets worn through. You can read through it. Especially that key. You can see why it can't be washed. You can't freshen it. You have to put it in the new exhibit. They wouldn't put it in just the way it is, unfortunately. There was no need for this. Had this been preserved correctly, it would not look like this. Because I've seen enough of it to know that it would be not pristine, but it certainly wouldn't have holes in it and be this color. This is not the color it's supposed to be, but it's still fun. But it's a fun piece from the 1920s. Which we can't watch, but it's a soapy one. And it is a valuable piece, one of the target pieces made. Somebody had a great time wearing it.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: You can pull it off, Hendo, I know you can. I don't think I'm tall enough to.
[SPEAKER_10]: And we're lucky someone kept it and didn't just, you know, give it to the public.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_08]: And this is 100 years old.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah. Now, the classical lounge thing feel the weight of it.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah. It's an incredibly interesting, I mean, it's not like the stuff we've either done.
[SPEAKER_10]: These are the things we have.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_08]: Shimmy, though.
[SPEAKER_10]: And many more than that. We've got a wonderful coat on the mantle lock from 1800, all hand-woven, hand-quilted. We have some beautiful pieces, unusual when you get into our collection, and it would really be a shame if we couldn't preserve them. And to be able to show them to you, I mean, we're putting them together as fast as we can. We've shown 16 bridal gowns. We've shown 18 pieces of uniforms of different types. And believe it or not, half of them were women's uniforms from World War I. We have 17 samplers made in the schools in Bedford in the early 1800s. And we have so many pieces that it's really a marvel. And they've been kept, especially the way they were kept. So we want to fix that.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_08]: Stop the bleeding. Stop the bleeding.
[SPEAKER_10]: Yeah, that's pretty much it. so that the next generation will be able to go use them. We're now fixing our cases so that we can put these in, and everybody can come and see them. So really, that can help.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_08]: And basically, unless the stucco was fixed, which has just been finished, unless the French drains go in to change the water flow, thanks to the house that was built next door, which has now changed the flow. You're smiling, Doug, so I know that you understand that. And thanks to, for example, we've done things like eliminated and opened up space and cleaned spaces and plastered walls and tried to create as much, I laughed when, I didn't mean to, but when we're talking about would someone share with us the amount of space that's required. If you start putting, for example, 35 of these in their individual archival boxes, all of a sudden our stacking storage space needs to double.
[Roberta Cameron]: That's actually a question that I was about to ask you. Yes. I've heard stories about the storage conditions of the materials that you have in the historical society. And were you to begin to take care of them and to store them in the way that they should be stored, do you have the space to accommodate that? And have you addressed a need for more storage space?
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_08]: You are looking at two members of what we call the Tuesday team, which is a very aggressive group of five people who go in every Tuesday. And our goal has been for the last year and a half to increase and improve all space. We have done so significantly, including our collection area. So yes. I believe that, I can only speak to the area that I work in, which is the collection rooms downstairs. We now have two small work rooms, which we never had before. Mostly because of my husband's individual volunteer labor in building, painting, and plastering. We do have, he just finished a build out for all of our framed items, which has gotten them off the floor. It's allowed us to put in large flat file storage, which I don't know if you know what that is, but it's for oversized paper items, et cetera. We have deaccessioned a lot of use items that were not needed in the facility. We have changed out a water heater from a giant water heater to service a family of 10 to a small water heater, which is all that we need, which we were able to then open up. It sounds crazy, but we were able to open up a space that is now an alcove that is now usable for displays. We also have been able to do things like we removed a sink. which occupied approximately the area, this kind of an area, which has given us all of a sudden a large amount of space again for display area. In the basement, we are currently going through not only inventorying what I call sub-collections, you know, like housewares, or like military, or like framed artwork, or maps, or whatever the case may be. But as we go through that, we are consolidating it, we are looking at copies and things that we have, so we are creating space by doing the inventorying that should have been done over the last 25 or 30 years, and really assessing each collection determining what needs to be restored, determining what needs to be archivally cared for. We also have another group coming in to advise us on that this summer. And paper goods will be back on paper, I'm sure. And deaccessioning where appropriate. And with that, we have created space, at least in our collection area, for what we have. Now if suddenly we get an influx of all kinds of donations, then of course, we would have to look again at what we're doing. But we're trying to be very specific, stick to our criteria, related to items in Medford. We don't just accept anything. We no longer accept things in just any condition, which is not apparently the way things were done in the past.
[SPEAKER_10]: I want to add one thing to it. As we have in the collection different things that other museums could use, such as the GAR Museum. We've called, we've asked that they want it, and if they want it, we deliver it to the museum.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_08]: We've done them on permanent loans and that sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_10]: And we have some affidavits. Things that we can't use that don't pertain to NEDFED, certainly somebody else would like to be using, and we're happy to put them on public homes and let them also free up some more space for us.
[Susan Campbell]: Thank you. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_10]: Any other questions?
[Roberta Cameron]: Other questions from the board?
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_08]: It's kind of difficult coming after you're hearing about people who are $16,000 and under and trying to struggle to heat their homes that we're bringing in. But this, literally, we are the only place but as any collective history of med for itself. Thank you. I'm going to let you do that one. Any more questions for the committee?
[Roberta Cameron]: This concludes all of our presentations. No? I'm sorry. So this concludes all of our presentations for the projects for the first funding round. Amazingly, we finished our second evening also on time. So the next steps are that next week we're going to be meeting to deliver deliberate about what our funding recommendations will be for this round. And should that not be sufficient time, we have reserved the following week as well if we need to continue to deliberate. And we will also be meeting in a few weeks to talk about the eligibility forms which have already been received for the round two applications for this year. So with that, I believe that we have concluded our meeting for the evening. All in favor of adjourning? Right. Thank you very much.