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[Roberta Cameron]: All right, so it is 633 we're gonna try to get started on time this evening. Oh, she is here. Hi So I'm going to call the meeting to order the Community Preservation Committee we are having the second evening of presentations of Applications for our second round of funding and Just as to let people know before we get started, we accept comments from anyone on any of the applications. The format is going to be that we're going to ask applicants to give a brief presentation. about their project and then we'll entertain questions from the committee members. And then if there are any questions from the audience, we'll take questions from the audience as well. And if anyone would like to submit comments about any of the projects, whether they are the projects that are under discussion being presented this evening or the other projects that were presented in our previous evening of presentations. We have posters in the lobby that you can sign your name to or put some notes, and we also have note cards that you can leave in the comment box in the lobby. And if people are watching this on a recording and are not at the media center this evening, they can send their comments to the CPA administrator, Danielle Evans, at Town Hall. and her email address can be found on the Community Preservation Committee's website. So with that, I would like to invite our first applicant to come forward. That is the City of Medford Office of Community Development.
[SPEAKER_14]: Good evening, my name is Clodagh Stoker-Long. I'm a planner with the Office of Community Development. My application today is for design funding for phase two of Harris Park. I'm sure you recall that back last Christmas I came for an out of order application for phase one for the design and construction of Harris Park, which is located on Middlesex Avenue between 2nd and 3rd Street. It's a 2.5 acre park. Phase one was awarded $300,000 from Federal Land and Water. You also gave $300,000 and the remaining $217,000 has been appropriated by the city. We've just recently executed the MOU with Danielle for this work, and the design has just started. We were hoping that the design will take a few months, maybe go out a bit about Christmas to get into construction at the beginning of the construction season next year, probably April, and probably go probably four or five months, so be finished in end of July, early August. That would be the hoped for trajectory. So I have brought some extra little mini grant applications, you know, with the essence if anyone needs one, if anyone wants to look at them. You may recall phase one was a very highly active area with playgrounds and swings and all that kind of thing. Phase two is a much larger area. It's made up of the fields area, and as you see in your application, It involves redoing of the fields to have a softball field, but to make it possible to use the space for, for instance, at a tournament, junior soccer fields, or a farmer's market, or some community use that might be desired. It also involves the creation of a rain garden along Third Street. We're trying to be, progressive and environmentally conscious with our work now and when we have an opportunity. And then it also involves some accessibility improvements, just some extra paths around the field, and also involves street edge improvements along Middlesex Avenue. The design costs, which has been submitted as a proposal, the initial design cost is, I think, $106,000. And I have asked for the proposal plus 15% contingency. I mean, it always happens. For instance, I had an initial proposal for phase one for $100,000, and it turns out to be So I'm already at the very beginning and I'm already into contingency. But it always happens that you need it. And of course, if we didn't use it, you get it back anyway. So with that, I'm happy to take any questions. I think you've all seen the proposal. I've given a very brief outline of what it is. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Are there questions from the committee?
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: It was the first project as you mentioned was out of sequence. I think this board collectively thought it was a good project. Obviously they awarded $300,000. To be honest we took a little bit of heat from that because it was the first thing we had ever done. And it would seem to set a tone that That this was just going to be something the city of Medford kind of had as right and I don't think that was the intent but I want to kind of assure that the approaches that he takes for not only phase two but for a future project going forward is something that is the spirit in the letter of our goals and guidelines, which is obviously that it's not just, it's not maintenance, it's meant to do a certain, above, go above and beyond what the city should normally be doing on a yearly, annual basis for all its 26, 27 parks across the city. Could you address those issues in the, maybe in the context of a master plan for all the open space in the city and how this fits into that as well?
[SPEAKER_14]: Well, it just happens that we're just about to start the new open space plan update. We have literally just executed a contract with MAPC. We went out. We did an RFP. We had just two applicants, we interviewed both. And MAPC seemed to be best able to address the things we wanted. This particular open space plan is also, we got funding from EOEA for also to build in some climate action components into it. So it's going to be a bigger, a more sort of broadly focused open space plan than in the past, which was totally focused on really rehabilitating parks.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: And what year was the last full plan?
[SPEAKER_14]: The last full plan was 2011. Every seven years, you need to do a plan to be eligible for funding. So we're just about to start that process. They're going to just start doing their research. They'll do a lot of outreach. There will be also three public meetings. We'll be getting input onto what people want, so what's necessary. As you can see with this plan, it's a complete rehab. I mean, it's not maintenance, it's not maintenance of fields, it's not maintenance, of course. It's tearing it down and starting from scratch in both components, and then making a totally new state-of-the-art park which has the components that people wanted, that people have asked for. And we're aware when we do grant applications what the criteria are. And that's why we've come for a new park. It's essentially a new park. It's not like the Crystal Campbell Park or Riverside Avenue, which we created from scratch, from nothing. But it is a total rehab in two particular phases.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: And do you anticipate doing this every year, a different park of this scale and magnitude, or something different?
[SPEAKER_14]: Well, I wouldn't be surprised, but the open space plan and what the people define will inform that. I mean, we'll go through this process, which I anticipate taking about six months, and that will inform the next plan. And we generally try and follow the plan. There's a seven-year plan, which is part of the open space plan, and you have to identify what you want to do, and how much we will cost. Sometimes an opportunity comes up, and something different happens. For instance. Most of it, we did several. We completed several of the projects that we hadn't originally in the 2011 plan. But for instance, the Crystal Campbell Peace Garden had not been envisioned in that plan. And then you had the bombings and all that kind of thing. And so that changed that. And we were able to go after this funding and that funding. And there was very strong support from a lot of different sources for that. So that happened, which it wasn't in the plan. But in general, we will be trying to follow the plan which has been informed by what the public and their participation has asked for.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: Is there a metric we can use from the last seven year plan to see what percentage of projects the city did complete in that time period?
[SPEAKER_14]: I haven't analysed that. But we have certainly done four or five large projects. And of course, you never know whether you'll get them funded. I mean, we've been very successful in getting funding. Years ago, when the city was poorer, we were able to use HUD funding for this kind of thing. But there are very, very few places now where HUD funding can be used for a park. So we have to try and get funding from other sources. I always go after whatever I can, and for every single source. And that's the way. You're just trying to do the best you can with what you can get.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Other questions? All right, I have a couple of questions. My first was, will there be a process for providing neighborhood input into the design of the park?
[SPEAKER_14]: Yes. Now, there was, the initial grant application, which was done, which was for the land and water funding, there was a public process for that. And so there were concept plans drawn up, they're just concept plans. We're working on phase one now, just started, but there will be, and we're working on the basic pieces that are in the concept plan, because that's what's been funded. But we will go to the public with, at some stage, before we finalise the plans, we'll go, but we'll have a neighbourhood meeting, and we'll get input, and we will do some tweaking, and as then when we get, When we go forward and we get nearer and nearer to actually getting final drawings, when the real cost estimates are done, it may be that things have to be tweaked there because we may not have enough money for this. downgrade something or put in alternates or something so that, yes, there will be an opportunity and there may be changes to get minor changes. Because when you're grant-funded, and it's the same with the grant that you've given us, you have, you know, we've said we want to do blah, blah, blah, and you have said, yes, we're funding blah, blah, blah, blah. So we cannot, you know, stray from that very much, but we will be getting input and they will be. people always have things to say and there are tweaks depending on what the public want.
[Roberta Cameron]: And the other question was whether shade trees would be incorporated into the park design, particularly for both the play areas and along the sidewalk.
[SPEAKER_14]: We're not at that stage because we're at the concept stage. There are quite a lot of trees in the phase one area. They happen to exist, a lot of trees, so I don't know there'll be some plantings. You know, at the moment in the budget we have plantings. We don't have the design. There'll be a preliminary concept design, which will be a slight development of what you see. Then there'll be sort of a 25% plan. And then eventually, after our public meeting and after we've tweaked everything, there'll be a final plan, which will be developed into plans and specs and go out to bid.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Are there questions? Yes.
[SPEAKER_14]: At the time, you know, we were understanding that it was a girls baseball or softball field that was necessary. I think that if we say we go out, that there's, you know, when we, with the open space plan during the period, that there's a need to change it or there's, you know, And if it's possible, I don't know. That is not completely out of the question. However, we would have to get permission to change it.
[Bill O'Keefe]: And the reason I say this is because the last three PACs that were done But you know what this is the reason that when you see especially the first one when you see the
[SPEAKER_14]: The notices for the open space plan need to come and need to make your case. It's going to be the plan for the next seven years. Everything we do, it has to be.
[Bill O'Keefe]: Sure, so even with the stadium seating too as well, are we going to have bleachers?
[SPEAKER_14]: I know we're not at that stage, I doubt it. Yeah. But we're at the concept phase. We're at exactly, if you've seen this, have you seen the... No, I can take one. Please do. This is just a very quick version of the... That is what we're looking at right now. It's a very, very basic ideas phase. Sure.
[Bill O'Keefe]: I'll definitely email you on some of the other things, too, as well, in terms of the speakers. All our parks, none of them basically meet that standard. The other thing I just wanted to basically bring up, a concession stand.
[SPEAKER_14]: That would be something that we couldn't deal with. I think that would be maybe something that might be done afterwards by the city or with the city. That's not the kind of thing we could deal with.
[Bill O'Keefe]: Well, one of those things that you definitely want to consider Because the way meth is evolving right now, we have so many new people moving into method. That's how you build that camaraderie, the partnership, and it's one of those investments where you're basically recycling community money, where the PTOs or some other organization, civic or otherwise, can utilize that, not only for branding of method product, but also just basically for 5G. resources for adaptive students because of the culinary arts programs that are available. So there's something to look at that I think would be beneficial when we start to look at these open spaces in order to basically give access and opportunity for everybody to basically participate.
[SPEAKER_14]: But I appreciate- That's a good thing, and even if a grant application couldn't provide for a concession stand, it is conceivable that a space might be identified.
[Bill O'Keefe]: Yes, exactly. And that's just one of those things in terms of when you start to build that stuff out in terms of a big picture.
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it going to be natural grass? Yes. Is it lights?
[Roberta Cameron]: No.
[SPEAKER_04]: No lights, so just daylight.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm sorry, can you give us your name?
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I'm sorry, John D'Orazio. If you'd like to take it again, it's- I'm also a benefit, really.
[SPEAKER_14]: You must remember, these are just conceptual plans. And it's just a, yes, sure. These are a very quick little synopsis.
[Bill O'Keefe]: for the parks in our community. We have a lot of parks in our community that, you know what I mean, the return on the value in terms of the car parks, you know what I mean, the Tufts parks, having this type of design, conceptualizing this, will only engage kids in the community a lot more to be active. So we'd appreciate any type of information on it forward. I'll send you my information. But I think this is a great start, and I think to build on that in terms of
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: If I could just chime in on that, thank you Mr. O'Keefe, that's helpful. I think there's obviously with 26 parks across the city, it seems like there needs to be a more comprehensive plan in terms of funding beyond grants for both CPA, federal, I mean you can do a lot with grants and I appreciate, I'm sure the taxpayers appreciate that their monies are being leveraged as much as possible with as much. but just doing what seems to me to be a fundamental investment for the city by majority grant doesn't seem like the right solution. We were lucky on phase one that we were able to fund every single project that came before us, including yours out of sequence, which I was pleased with, because that means that we didn't have to say no to anybody on phase one, and I'm hoping we do the same thing on phase two, but I'm sure there'll come a time where that won't happen, the tough choices will have to be made. And I just want to see the city have a longer term plan and vision for how to fund the infinite needs of the parks across the city for all sports. And this neighborhood in Wellington is well deserving. This is underutilized, this park. We know that. That's why we supported it in phase one. We realized that, as you mentioned in the proposal, it did hit many of the requirements, many of the goals from the preservation plan that was put together by this committee. I just think if we can understand the larger context and vision going forward, not tonight obviously, but how you're going to tackle the other 26 going forward over the next 10, 15 years, whatever it is, I think that would be useful to this committee and to everyone in the city. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. So thank you very much. Thank you. And we'll ask the next applicant, which is the Brooks Estate Land Trust to come forward.
[Tom Lincoln]: Good evening, Tom Lincoln, President Medford, Brooks Estate Land Trust. We have three applications here. You can tell me which one you want to talk about first.
[Roberta Cameron]: We have first on the agenda the trail restoration.
[Tom Lincoln]: Oh, OK. I didn't see the agenda. My apologies. The Brooks Estate, as you know, is 50 acres of conserved and protected open space on the northwest corner of Medford. The CPA committee and the CPA folks have been kind enough to fund three grants in the round one, which we're hoping to get started on soon. We need to get the grant agreement, et cetera. And this is, these grants here, including the trails grant, are a continuation of our overall vision for the Brooks estate. which has been worked on for a long time. Pieces have been done, but not all of it. It's a very large project. The trails restoration project, basically fairly simple. There are some core trails, walking trails that are heavily utilized by dog walkers, joggers, birders. My favorite statistic in the last few years is that bird watching is the second fastest growing hobby in the United States, and I bet you didn't know genealogy is the first. So, anyway, we want to make these key portions of the trails more aesthetically pleasing, more sustainable. more user-friendly. And this also, I think, has some other benefits, collateral benefits, as we've described the project. So we want to remove, on a volunteer basis, there's some asphalt, probably dating from as far back as Brooks Village, after World War II, on some short portions of the trails. We want to use wood chips. to, in a standard way, used in many, many open space projects to enhance the trails. This is better for people's legs running, et cetera. It looks better and it's more sustainable. That's about 1,300 linear feet, as we've estimated it. On the base of this area, near the, what we call the boardwalk, The parking area, which has been provided for a long time since the boardwalk was installed in 1994, we want to provide a simple and tasteful informational kiosk with a reference map. You've seen these things if you've walked on DCR properties, et cetera. to help users orient themselves, also provide a place to put up interstitial information. We also want to use the graphic basis from that to provide both an online and perhaps hard copy trail map and guide. We've used a variety of informal publications to date, but we'd like to up our game here for the There are a couple of interesting possibilities here, too. The general thinking is that the initial wood chips will be purchased but installed by volunteers. Warren on our board has had extensive experience with this, working with the Appalachian Mountain Club. But we think there's an opportunity to help the city out on a mutual basis in later maintenance, I guess is the right word, of the trails. The DPW produces a certain amount of wood chips. In fact, they have a large pile of it down at the DPW. I've talked with Brian Cairns about this. That's number one. More interestingly, there is a huge mass of tree trunks, et cetera, in the so-called stump dump area in the middle of the Brooks Estate, which is ripe, is that the right word, ripe for conversion perhaps to wood chips. And the beauty of that, of course, is literally a couple hundred yards from where it would need to be. applied. And that, frankly, the amount of wood there has built up greatly in the last three or four years, and it would be a win-win situation to reduce that biomass to some extent. But certainly the wood chips, as I understand it from Mr. Cairns, are available pretty much now at the at the DPOW. The DPOW has always had, at least the time I've been in med for the last 30 years, has had a shortage of space for stockpiling and that kind of thing, you know, wood chips, mulch, et cetera, so that, you know, things that can be removed from the DPWR, which I think will help them also in that respect. Our intention is to contribute 25% of the grant. We're asking for 6,500 and the total cost is 8,655. Probably a more specific number than might otherwise be possible. So that's what we got here for this.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Questions from board members? I have a couple of questions.
[Tom Lincoln]: Okay, good, go ahead.
[Roberta Cameron]: The number one question that we discussed before and we've been continuing to try to do some research on this question is whether wood chips are actually ADA compliant for a trail surface. And as we continue to try to get a solid answer on that question, do you see an alternative at the moment?
[Tom Lincoln]: Or do you consider alternatives for trail surfaces? The basic design for what we're here is based on what's been done at Habitat in Belmont, which is owned by Mass Audubon, who is certainly an organization that's entirely cognizant of these sorts of issues. And again, I'm not an expert, and there are probably a number of alternative services, depending on how naturalistic you want this to look, and we want this to look naturalistic. The other thing about wood chips is as they decay, they return to the environment nicely. But I think what I would suggest is that we get back, I certainly can do this, get back with Mass Audubon and see, you know, how they've addressed this issue. Because they have multiple properties, and they're certainly going to be.
[Roberta Cameron]: Actually, an appropriate place to get the information might be the Massachusetts Access Board.
[Tom Lincoln]: Oh, sure.
[Roberta Cameron]: Oh, sure. Because Mass Audubon may not themselves be doing things in the way that they ought to be for ADA accessibility. So I wouldn't.
[Tom Lincoln]: I can talk to MAAB.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, so it would be, that's I think our greatest concern about this is the use of wood chips and whether that will be a problem. And then what follows from that is if the answer is not wood chips and we need to look at another surface, whether that might dramatically change the cost of the project, the estimate for carrying out this. It's certainly possible.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: If I could ask on that, the MBOW board has dealt with the MAB, obviously, on the accessible lift in the manor in the past, so we know them, I suppose I could say. But one of the challenges here, as opposed to just about any park in Medford, is that the geography here and the grading, there's like a 50-foot change from the part of the estate in the northwest corner closest to the Winchester Grove Street ADA requires 2% slope, and there are places in this state where it's probably 10%, 12%, or anything in between. So it's a real challenge. There's limited accessibility, but I think our goal, the goal that Tom has always had is to make the entire state as accessible as possible wherever we can, and I think that's certainly a good point to pursue this further to understand what is possible.
[Roberta Cameron]: Unfortunately, we may not be able to get an answer on that before we officially end this funding cycle. However, I think maybe it might be possible to extend especially given that we have flexibility with the funding requests that we have this time, that we might be able to give an extension to answer that question so that we can fund the project the way it ought to be completed rather than rushing to give an up-down answer before we know really what it's going to take to do this project.
[Tom Lincoln]: That's excellent. Sorry, I don't have the second one you want is maybe the other questions.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm just checking my notes to see if I have any further questions on this The only other question or suggestion that I might have for this is that you're the second applicant to come to us this round with a request for placing a kiosk in a park. And this is a valid accessory to passive recreation. But I wonder whether if we're building two kiosks at the same time, especially if we're going to be asking the city to provide the labor to do those kiosks, whether we can coordinate. It's also the historical commission, I believe. Yeah, exactly.
[Bill O'Keefe]: Good point. That's what I was going to bring up. I thought Tom, that was a great idea. The garden club has $1 garden club. I worked with the garden club back in 2015 in terms of that whole kiosk mindset. That would be ideal, not only for branding and for parks, but also advertising in terms of what the money's going to in terms of, hey, it's that whole project scope. What they do with every other project, and it becomes a community door too as well.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: That's a very good point because once we get a couple of these built, obviously we'll know exactly the cost. The design can be replicated, can be adapted to any park. I think it's a really good idea.
[Bill O'Keefe]: And if I can too, you have the top of your department here for the vocational school. Okay.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_07]: It should be noted that the first kiosk we funded is in the same geographic area at the Oak Grove Cemetery. We haven't actually funded it yet. That's right. I'm sorry. We've just considered it. That we've heard. Thank you. Jumping ahead.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. So your second project on the agenda. I'm sorry. Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'd just like to make a comment on that. As Mr. Carr pointed out, the 2% slope, my name's David from Methodability.
[Roberta Cameron]: David Wheeler, okay.
[SPEAKER_05]: 30 years in construction, done a lot of projects with DCR. They basically flatten anything out to make it handicapped accessible and do a gravel base. When you go into a walking trail or something like that, they just run the grade as it is, there's no way to flatten a mountain out and that's how they handle it, that it's a natural terrain and they do the best they can to it. Their attitude on some projects is that you can't destroy nature to get into nature and there's all kinds of products but they tend to go with gravel and sand which isn't really woodsy, but it's a flat level surface that can sustain ADA. Woodchips are their next choice, so I think he's heading in the right direction. I don't think you're going to get anyone to give you an official stamped answer because there is none. As Mr. Cowe pointed out, the law is the 2% slope, so they can't deviate from that in making something accessible.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right, thank you. All right, so the next project on the agenda for you is the stone wall restoration.
[Tom Lincoln]: Okay, there is a 1,475 foot, by our estimates or our measurement, stone wall along Grove Street put in, we believe, by the Brooks family in the 19th century. This is a major design element defining the edge of the property. It's very visible. Grove Street gets a remarkable amount of traffic. And we've been studying this. We've been working to think about, you know, what would a restoration look like? How would it be accomplished? Some of the some of the issues. And what we did back in October, back in February, when the vegetation is less, is basically divide working with Dana Gallop, who is our volunteer consultant, years and years of experience as a landscape designer and architect and landscape contractor. divide, you know, what needs to be done into some categories, ranging from there's no wall left to they're all, you know, virtually intact. And assign some linear lengths to that, did some bottoms-up cost estimating for a dry dry stone wall construction. We know the historic size of the wall based on about 40 percent of the walls left, more or less, what's left. But the proposal here, this is a very large wall, obviously, 1,475 feet. The proposal here is to really call this phase one, and to work from south to north from the historic entrance where the blue sign is, as we call it, along the right side of the building. of Grove Street. And using the analysis that we conducted earlier, we've also applied, since it was February and now it's, you know, not February, applied a An inflation increase of, I think, 9%. We've reached a total project budget of $50,750, in which we were asking for $45,000, and we'll pay the balance. And we always want to contribute to the bottom line here. This is a pretty simple wall. I'm not a mason, obviously. It's about two feet high, about two and a half feet deep. Basically, it's built on gravel or several inches of gravel, at least modern construction. I'm not sure they did that in the 19th century. And really, it's a matter of materials and labor per foot based on existing. conditions. We're going to contribute $5,750 to the project or estimate at 11.3%. So a wall is a wall. And we think this will give us a very good start on the overall project. We didn't want to come and say how about funding a 1,475-foot wall or 60% of it, that sort of thing.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Are there questions from the committee members? Okay, I have a question. How much vegetation removal do you anticipate is going to be required for this?
[Tom Lincoln]: Well, it varies depending where you are along the wall. There's a certain amount of vegetation on top of the wall, mostly a vine. There's one portion actually in this 300 feet, I'd say it's about 20 feet long, where there's some weed, trees, or sumacs, I guess you'd call it, that sort of thing. The land actually, the general topography kind of slopes away back from it, in back of the wall. And it's actually fairly clear. There's a few, maybe some larger bushes here and there. But it's also the kind of thing, you know, you clear it once, bang on it periodically. I mean, this vegetation's had a long, long time to establish itself there.
[Roberta Cameron]: My question was inspired by the recent controversy along Boston Avenue of the removal of all the trees. And so I just want to anticipate whether there's going to be a similar shock if there's an area where trees, even if they're weeds.
[Tom Lincoln]: I can't envision that. Most of the vegetation is growing on the wall or is bush-like vegetation. What happens is a wall, organic material decays, it gets in between the stones and plants can get a foothold. There are a couple of dead trees, smaller dead trees that are very close to the wall that would have to be removed. But it's basically, the idea here is this is a defining historic and aesthetic element. You have basically understory, an open area there, and then the woods kind of moves in there and then starts going uphill to the east.
[Roberta Cameron]: I would just want to know ahead of time and be able for the neighbors to know ahead of time if there's going to be a really stark difference in the landscape outside their door.
[Tom Lincoln]: Of course, the interesting thing is if you drive up Grove Street and you look at the color of the stone on the wall and look across the street at the other stones.
[Roberta Cameron]: But you're not going to raid people's yards, do you? We're not quarrying from the neighbors.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. Thank you. Question?
[Bill O'Keefe]: The southern portion which is actually closest to the entrance where you want the aesthetic effect most immediately is also the place where
[Tom Lincoln]: Anything that is going to be done, as you know, people access over that wall all the time so they are basically climbing over it.
[Bill O'Keefe]: So my whole thing is if there'd be an opportunity to make an egress, something that'll allow people instead of going over the wall, there's an entrance way or a pathway that allows them to go behind it. Both from a safety standpoint with the winter that comes, as well as just the whole aesthetic.
[Tom Lincoln]: If you go behind it, you're not accessing the trails.
[Bill O'Keefe]: No, but they walk behind it instead of walking in the street at night because of the lighting and stuff like that. But maybe that's on a different phase or something like that where the lighting can accentuate both.
[Tom Lincoln]: The first guiding principle is there's an historic wall there in terms of that. There is a serious wide opening at the northern end and there's one final piece that takes you to the Winchester line. There's about a 50 foot gap there.
[Bill O'Keefe]: Yeah, it's more towards the restoration.
[Tom Lincoln]: The other thing this will help with, it will certainly improve the aesthetics of the entrance itself. In our long-term plan, this entrance never had a gate, as far as we can tell historically. In fact, the two big stone things were moved, I believe, by the city probably 70 years ago from the Winchester.
[Bill O'Keefe]: And I'm sure when the design scheme's done, lighting will emulate it, so I'm sure that'll be spoken for when that phase comes in, too, as well. Okay.
[SPEAKER_08]: Thank you. There is a lot of stuff. We did a historic landscape analysis working with Harvard some time ago. These are pieces of the master plan. The thing about the Brooks Estate is the
[Tom Lincoln]: The historic core with the manor and the carriage houses, that's where the built environment was. This is not something where there were scattered farm buildings across the landscape. So you basically have the historic core, the hand-built road access drive from Grove Street, this wall along Grove Street, completely naturalistic ponds. I mean, the landscape's changed a lot. I mean, you have a forest succession that's taken place over the last seven years. We're not cutting down 40 acres of forest.
[SPEAKER_08]: I guess my question is, of all of the historic restoration or renovation projects that the Berkson State has to do, how is this identified as being historic?
[Tom Lincoln]: Well, it's something, starting with our thinking about the entrance and moving from there. And I think, frankly, it's the visibility that's important. It's not an attractive face for the Brooks Estate in terms of a major naturalistic built historic built thing. It's hard to think of nobody built a wall or a patio along the pond, et cetera, historically. So you basically have the manor, the manor yard, that historic core landscape there, the access drive. But most of the trails at the Brooks Estate were not there in the 19th century either. In fact, there's a certain number of social trails, I think.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: Tom, if people are interested, they can get the master plan. It's probably 200, 300 pages long, but there's probably 50 or 60 or 70 pages on a landscape that would be part of that. So if anyone's interested, they can certainly plug in, I think, through the MBEL website
[Tom Lincoln]: The whole plan or whatever piece they want to see I think I think I you know earlier around I provided The entire plan on disk, I'm pretty sure.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm happy to give you a CD. We don't have, print versions cost a fortune to make.
[Tom Lincoln]: I still remember, yes. And of course, that part of the plan actually is fairly timeless. Some of the other aspects.
[Roberta Cameron]: It might be helpful if the plan was entirely available on the Brooks Estate website, is it? And maybe in sections?
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: I think it is. I think there's a PDF per chapter. It's a very large document. I'll double check on that. We can certainly get a hard copy for this group, I think.
[SPEAKER_08]: Particularly as it looks like we're getting multiple projects, which is great.
[Tom Lincoln]: I mean, the thing is, it's an historic landscape, but it's really an historic naturalistic landscape. vicissitudes of time from a open field farm like gentleman's farm, I don't know quite what the right word is, to a mixed oak and maple forest. The pond looks remarkably like it does in the 1880 photographs. It's a good hockey rink. What's that? It's a good hockey rink. All you need is ice. Yeah, I think last year, I don't know, I remember going by and seeing about four pickup games. It's a wonderful scene, actually.
[Bill O'Keefe]: It is, it is.
[Tom Lincoln]: I mean, I couldn't skate to save my life.
[Bill O'Keefe]: And now we'll have someplace warm to go. Thank you, Tom. All right, thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: So we'd like to move on to your last project.
[Tom Lincoln]: I'm sorry I'm taking so much of your time here. This is the restoration of, for lack of a better term, the third floor wood trim and associated elements on the manor, as we've talked about. Earlier we've made, starting way behind the eight ball, made tremendous progress and historic restoration of the manor, both the interior and the exterior. This is a tall building. It's a large building. It's, I think, almost 70 feet from top to bottom in the back. And the third floor trim, including the size of the dormers and associated elements, needs scraping, painting, repairs, that sort of thing. So the application has a lot of detailed photos, I believe, and drawings. This is pure historic restoration of existing architectural fabric. Again, we're proposing we provide 10% of the funding, basically pay for the drawings, detailed drawings of the building. of the project. This, and I think I'm probably anticipating a question, this kind of work requires MHC approval. I think we have an excellent relationship with Mass Historical Commission in terms of all the other projects that we've either managed or funded ourselves.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Are there any questions from committee members?
[Bm5-jrZInBw_SPEAKER_07]: Just curious, how much of the manor is restored to this point?
[Tom Lincoln]: Basically, on the interior, the rooms are all serviceable. We're missing some historic elements, restored historic elements, like chandeliers, a couple of chandeliers. It's very difficult to find a perfect chandelier, apparently. I've joked about that before. I don't want to take your whole day here, but they worked on the electrical. We provided a new caretaker's kitchen. We provided an EDA bathroom. We've done a new boiler. I mean, it's not brand new, but put a new boiler, a new electrical panel, and some associated wiring over the years, 70 new windows and shutters, slate roof. Related elements, the west porch, which is a two-story Victorian porch on the west. It's actually the back of the building. The veranda, the south veranda. Restored some historic elements that had been turned into doors over the years. Refinished the floors. Not a lot of painting. Provided new door hardware. We've upgraded the alarm system. You know, we've spent a lot of money and a lot of time working on this. The first floor, as somebody mentioned, the first floor is handicap accessible. We have a handicap entrance. On the north end of the building, we have a lift that will take people to the second floor so they can access the very nice second floor back west porch. And the room is on that end. of the building. The vision here has always been this is not a museum. It's not the kind of place where you're going to have a red velvet rope and look at a room full of Victorian furniture. It's really designed to be used. We provided a certain amount of Function furniture, tables and chairs, that sort of thing. And as we've said in round one, the major impediment to a lot of use of the building at this point is the condition of the access drive.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. I realize that you have a tremendous amount of experience in doing restoration work on the building, so I just wanted to see if you can comment on the estimate that you included in this proposal.
[Tom Lincoln]: Well, this is the bottom-up. estimate based on standard measurements in terms of the type of work, linear footage, that kind of thing. We have measured drawings of the exterior that allows us to do this of the building. This is pretty straightforward work. It's scraping and painting, some replacement of cedar shakes, that sort of thing. you know, if you look at Appendix B here on the cost estimate, it's almost all scraping and painting. Part of the cost, the higher cost, I think, compared to, you know, a ranch house or something, is the height and the accessibility for the work. The good thing is, is this place was beautifully built. I mean, it's 139 years old, 138 years old. We've made a lot of improvements, we hope to finish. This will really, I think, pretty much finish off the exterior restoration. The other thing I forgot to mention, we rebuilt five chimneys, which have a 55 foot draw, I will have you know.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Thank you very much.
[Tom Lincoln]: Okay, thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: So then we would like to call the next applicant, which is the City of Medford Mayor's Office and the Housing Authority.
[Allie Fiske]: My name is Allie Fisk and I am the business and cultural liaison in Mayor Burke's office and I'm here to present the application for two bocce courts to be installed on Medford Housing Authority property, an initiative led by the City of Medford. So just to start very quickly, for those of you who aren't familiar, bocce is a social competitive pastime where people toss or roll balls and displace one another's balls to score points. In a court that's typically 60 feet long by 15 feet, 12 feet, wide that's covered with gravel and sand. And so that's kind of the scene that we're talking about here. So the location that we've been discussing, as you can see here, is behind the Medford Senior Center and adjacent to a gazebo that's on Medford Housing Authority property behind the senior housing. So this is on Riverside Ave. The reason that this site has been selected is because of the proximity to the seniors who are already active in that area, both at the senior center as well as in the apartments. The other reason that this particular location was selected is that there are already amenities available in that space. So the gazebo has seating, there's lighting, there's parking, and it is already prime for the type of activity that BOCCE would be promoting. The proposed location as I had said is is next to the senior center the bocce courts will be at the South and the West this is a little bit switched with the south and the west of the gazebo there. The proposal for the Bocce Court is really important because it's gonna provide an opportunity for the community to be able to take advantage of the court recreationally at their own leisure, but it also gives the Medford Recreation Department a facility to utilize for senior programming. It's something that they've been really prioritizing lately, and this will be another opportunity for them to utilize an amenity for both formal and informal recreational activities. The Medford Senior Center, Pam Kelly couldn't be here today, but she has written a letter in support and has done a tremendous amount of research on her end to see if the senior community, how they would respond to this. The senior center themselves will also be utilizing the botchy courts for their own programming. They have tremendous indoor programming, but they do not have a lot of outdoor recreation programming, in part due to a lack of facilities, particularly in close proximity. The Bocce Court is gonna complete or participate in an ongoing network of recreational spaces in Medford Square, so the Riverside Plaza has been newly renovated. There's the Crystal Campbell Peace Garden in front of the Senior Center, and the soon-to-be-constructed Clippership Connector actually is going to travel right next to those Bocce Courts, so it's going to complement everything else that's happening in that area. The project is going to proceed in close partnership between the City of Medford and the Medford Housing Authority. We're going to be engaging a designer to, we have some concepts that are based on conversations with the housing authority and particularly the director of modernization who did do some initial plans to see if this would fit, which we've determined that it will, but we will be engaging a designer to actually fine tune the plans, look at them and see how it's gonna fit into the landscape that's there. There will be some landscaping to accommodate it, but for the most part, the amenities that exist already will stay there, and there will be ADA upgrades as well to make sure that the space is ADA accessible, especially considering the audience and the population that's gonna be using the botchy court. So the partnership between the Housing Authority and the City of Medford will be, the City of Medford's gonna manage the contracts with the designer and the contractors who are selected to do the project. They will be handling all procurement. The Medford Housing Authority will actually be overseeing the construction of the project. It's on their property and their director of modernization is on site and will be overseeing the property, the project during the time that it's being constructed. The actual maintenance itself will be performed by the housing authority, but the costs for maintenance and repairs will be shared by the city and the housing authority in agreements to be determined. So the total estimate for the project is $69,100, which covers the cost of design, landscaping, the actual installation of the botchy courts. infrastructure changes to accommodate the ADA accessibility needs, as well as the actual tools of maintenance and bocce court sets themselves. The Medford Housing Authority will be providing $6,000 in in-kind services in the form of the Director of Modernization, who's going to be the project overseer. The amount being requested from the Community Preservation Commission is $51,825. which is 75% of the total cost of the project. The city will be covering the remaining costs, which is budgeted at this moment to be $11,275. The quote for the bocce court was actually secured in April of 2017. We had originally selected a site for these bocce courts then at the intersection of Clipper Ship Drive and Riverside Ave, where the farmer's market used to formally be. We determined it was not a safe or adequate location, and at that point, went to the Medford Housing Authority to see if they would be open to allowing us to put the bocce courts on their property, and of course they agreed. So the quote at that time that was for the Riverside Out Clippership Drive bocce courts is largely transferable to this new site. It's the same thing, it's construction, it's prepping the site, it's the cost of the fill that's going in there. So we used that quote and we adapted a little bit with some additional quotes from the Medford Housing Authority. and the Department of Public Works for the additional work that's gonna need to be done in the area. In regards to additional funding, we did seek a grant from the AARP Livable Communities grant and we were not selected as a funding recipient at that time. The work is estimated to take about four weeks and will commence probably in April or May of next spring, making it so that it's ready by the late spring, summer, and fall for when that is most likely going to be its usable time period. We are very confident that the project is going to serve a very important community need. It aligns completely with what the Community Preservation Commission has outlined in its plan, particularly the goals related to recreation funding. For instance, goal three, provide diverse recreation opportunities serving residents of all ages. And then within the second priority, create additional amenities, specifically create outdoor recreation gathering spaces for seniors. This is essentially what that is. This will be a gathering space for seniors on property where seniors are already living and playing, so we feel confident this will serve a very important need in Medford. So I'm available to answer any questions, but Jeffrey Driscoll, the Executive Director of the Housing Authority is also here as well, and he can answer some questions for you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Questions?
[SPEAKER_18]: Could you repeat who you said did the design or figured that out? We couldn't hear that. And also, you know, our concern when we were looking at this was for the south location. It seems very tight between the parking and the existing landscaping there, and there's two light poles in the middle. So it's not clear to me how that would work and whether it might not be better to have both of them side by side in the other location.
[Allie Fiske]: Would you like to speak to that, Jeffrey? Sure.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm sorry. Could you actually step up to the microphone so that you're recorded? Thank you.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: My preference is to have the bocce courts side by side. And right now they're designed one on the south and I think one on the east. And so that at this point in time, actually I think that's the west. At this point in time, uh... what my anticipation is is that if we can somehow put those side by side that would be the preference and i think the socialization would be better for the participants insofar as the closeness to the parking lot one of the ways we could address that is there's a perimeter around the Jezebo of shrubbery. And more than likely, if we are to put it on the parking lot side, we would take that shrubbery out, and that would open up a significant amount of area. And then people would be able to walk from the Jezebo directly to the courts. So there is sufficient space, I believe. It's a matter of what's going to fit best. If we put it on the side, we end up cutting down some trees. If we put it on the back, then I think that there'll be sufficient amount of room, but we would lose the shrubbery, which isn't really of great importance, and that would open up the Gazebo directly.
[Allie Fiske]: The main concern with a side-by-side is there's one particular tree on that property, which is valuable shade, and we really don't want to do away with that, which is why this was the plan that was being presented, but the designer that will be brought in to look at this will help us confirm the best option.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: Yeah, and as I said, my preference is to have, whether it be on the side or in the back, the two are together. But the initial design was brought forth with this.
[SPEAKER_18]: So that's still being considered?
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: Yes, yes. Okay, thank you.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: You're welcome. The shrubbery is kind of creating a wall around the gazebo, and with the design of the clipper ship connector and this, it seems like we're trying to open up and make this more lively and activated. So it seems like the shrubbery should just come down and which would open things up visually because that gazebo feels like it's a fort right now.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: It does. It does to some extent. One of the things too that hasn't been mentioned yet is that this will allow the community to integrate themselves with the residents who live at this public housing site and will allow the residents to participate with members of the community to be a nice mix. And what we're anticipating is that hopefully this will be a drawer for folks who will come to play bocce and say, well, you know what? This is a pretty good place to live. I might want to live here. Whereas they wouldn't have had that opportunity before and the bocce court would afford us that opportunity.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: That was going to be one of my questions because I think exactly that there would somebody know that they can play here signage wise. I guess that's important.
[Allie Fiske]: I think there will be signage that's talked about how we so meant for recreation getting involved means that there's going to be a lot of marketing about this as a public facility that the public can use. So the recreation guide our website the city has a lot of ways to get the word out. So it would be there will be a sign but the sign is only going to go so far. It's really going to have to be about There are 200 units in that building and the disabled and elderly folks. I have not gotten one negative comment from the residents who are thrilled to have possibly the opportunity to use this.
[SPEAKER_18]: And the bocce balls themselves will be made available?
[Allie Fiske]: Yes, so people are going to be able to take them from either the senior center or the recreation department. We have to work out the logistics of how that's going to work, but they will be available to people during obvious operating hours. If there's other ways that we can find some creative way to have a lockbox or another way that they could be accessible, we are looking into it.
[SPEAKER_13]: Is there parking allotted for this facility?
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: there is sufficient parking in the back. We are actually reviewing our parking needs there, and I believe there will be sufficient parking toward the back. One side is resident parking, the other side will be open parking also. It's one of the things that we're actually contemplating some additional parking there for this. The one thing I can't commit to, but I am going to propose to my board is additional monies. for any needs that may come up, whether it be parking, whether it be lighting. One of the things that has been raised is security. We want to make sure that there's sufficient lighting there, not only on the immediate site, but also to and from the site.
[Bm5-jrZInBw_SPEAKER_07]: So I just want to echo everything. I had every one of these questions and comments. So thank you, everybody. I just, I didn't even know it was back here. It's very buried in back. You can't see it from the Clippership Drive or Riverside. So the signage is important to get people back there. I just pulled it up on Google Maps. And now I know where it is.
[Roberta Cameron]: What is the gazebo actually used for today? To what extent is it being utilized by people?
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: It's used for planned events. It is used by the residents at times. Is the utilization what I would consider to be significant? Not at all. Could it be used more? Yes. Would it be accessible for folks who are going to be playing bocce? Certainly. It's a huge Jezebo. Very, very big.
[SPEAKER_13]: It's a nice quiet spot.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: It is, it is.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Yes, a question, Tom?
[Tom Lincoln]: I'm just curious how you reached the conclusion that you need two courts. I've been around Medford long enough to remember that they built a court when they built the fire station in South Medford. And if I recall correctly, I may be wrong here, it was actually made the wrong length. But I don't think it exists there anymore. I mean, was some sort of survey done in terms of potential demand here? The idea with bocce and how we want to use it we do want it to be a
[Allie Fiske]: possible to have coordinated community tournaments there as well. One bocce court is going to limit your ability to do those larger community events. So that was a big piece behind it. I don't know whether you have anything else to add.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: Yeah, I will say that in a number of communities where I've seen bocce courts, I've not seen a single court. I've usually seen two or four courts. For whatever, I'm not a bocce player, so for whatever reason For whatever reason, I've seen mostly two. That was a discussion that we had from the very beginning.
[Tom Lincoln]: I'm sorry, one other question. I'm just curious. How is the sign up going to work? When you go to a tennis court, you have to sign up somehow.
[Allie Fiske]: It would have to I think that we're gonna have to work out those logistics I spoke with Medford Recreation They did say that they would manage the reservations of the bocce court like with a lot of the other parks you do need to reserve them in advance and there is an online system to do that and So we'll work out the logistics with them, and we'll make it as smooth as possible, understanding that not everyone has access to the internet as well. So we will work out those logistics.
[Tom Lincoln]: Do you have a preference for people that live within 100 feet? I'm just joking. I'm just curious, because this is being, it's on our public housing site, it's next to the senior housing. We also need to see what the demand is also and how we manage it will depend a little bit on who's using it.
[Bill O'Keefe]: Yes, so there's actually three bocce leagues. There's one in Medford, there's one in Malden, and they have one in Everett, too, as well. Where there's over 200 players, you need the two courts because what you have is you have couples bocces. So you don't want to bog them down in terms of having three-hour events. So that's why they have the dual courts in order to basically standardize the competition as well as to increase the volume of play. What you're probably going to end up doing to the rec department is setting up a league where it runs for eight, six, even 12 weeks. And then you have certain divisions and then there's rankings, so on and so forth. That's similar to what it does. So, I mean, what you're doing in terms of a scope is ideal. I mean, you definitely need the two courts. If you're looking to parlay in terms of having some more information about it, They just built them down the Method Boat Club, they designed them. I mean, they had someone come in and basically scope it all out, so there's a template for them to basically utilize. Joe Casey, who's with the Method Police, he'd be a great person to contact with regards to it, so.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you.
[Bill O'Keefe]: That would be the value add.
[SPEAKER_20]: This is just kind of a joke.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm sorry, can I have your name for the record?
[SPEAKER_20]: Edward Messina, I'm with the Method League.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_20]: This is kind of a joke because I'm part of the oldest one here.
[Unidentified]: I'm 72 today. I'm 87.
[SPEAKER_20]: Fantastic. When I was a kid in East Boston, we used to have party courts. You're going to have the grape, grape vines so we can make the wine? I don't think that's in the budget. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Any more questions, comments?
[SPEAKER_18]: Well, just actually, I think that's really helpful information about the league. I mean, I think I was going to make a comment about whether Medford Recreation was going to start a league. So we'd certainly encourage them to do that so that there's some to help with the programming and utilization of it. I'm interested to learn that there's already some bocce courts in Medford. So I'm just curious. I'd like to know whether they know that and whether there's any you know, coordination.
[Allie Fiske]: Is the Wellington Yacht Club one, are they new?
[Bill O'Keefe]: I'm not sure if the Wellington Yacht Club has it. I know the Method Boat Club has it.
[Allie Fiske]: Oh, sorry. That's what I meant to say.
[Bill O'Keefe]: Excuse me. It's seasonal. So, you know what I mean? It's just one of those things where, you know what I mean? They have the teams and stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's only. That's membership though, right? Is that member only? Member only, yeah.
[Bill O'Keefe]: So what you have here is you're going to have the seniors and the kids and they'll be able to basically parlay with each other in terms of just that whole mentorship stuff. So it'll be great.
[Allie Fiske]: Medford Recreation, I think, really specializes in seeing what the community that already exists that's doing this, trying to figure out where the gaps are. I think that creating a league would totally be something that they would be interested in. I haven't had the opportunity to speak with them in detail about that. But we'll also have to look to see. I didn't realize there was a Medford League as well. So there's more research to be done on the logistics of that. the operations of the court.
[Bill O'Keefe]: Yeah, Malden has one too. There's a couple hundred people and a lot of them are from Medford too. I'm sure they'll be excited to see this. You know it's all cash prizes too, right?
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: Thank you for coming, Mr. O'Keefe. You've been very helpful tonight on multiple projects, so we appreciate it. You have an encyclopedia knowledge of many of the Medford parks, so we appreciate the information and the insight. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you very much. Thank you. And our next applicant this evening is Friends of Wrights Pond and the City of Medford Parks Department. I just see the Friends of Wrights Pond.
[SPEAKER_19]: Good evening, my name is John Bob 80. I live at 79 Equavia Road and I'm here with the representing the friends of Wrights Pond who are in partnership with the City of Medford Park Department to help beautify the area around the bandstand at Wrights Pond. It's an area that has been neglected by the Friends of Rice Pond. We have done an awful lot of work over the past 30 years of volunteering with the grit work of planting trees. I don't want to get into that, but if you've been up there, you can see the visuals yourself that the area has become a beautiful site. This is the area, I'm not, talking about this area, but the other areas have really enhanced the beauty of the pond area. So we're here for a proposal of approximately $5,000. Actually, we got an estimate of $4,845 to at least get us started in the project that we're interested in. We we intend to plant a flowering dogwood trees a couple couple of flowering crabs for rhododendrons a couple of Japanese use some hydrangeas various types of perennials And ground cover etc. It's an area right Surrounding the bandstand. I'm gonna guess it might be a half an acre, I didn't measure it, but it's an area that really needs help. And it would serve as a, I think, a beautiful welcoming area for those coming from the parking lot, which this site is adjacent to the cut-through part of the parking lot, and I think it would just enhance the area tremendously. In the past, some of you may be new to Medford, I could just go back a little ways, maybe 30, 35 years, Wright's Pond wasn't a welcoming area. Today, if you go there in the summer or in the spring or in the fall, you see many, many seniors who use it as a reading area. You see the bathers, you see the family network. It's a busy, I don't know the numbers they charge, I don't know, I think $25 to park for the year. But it takes in an awful lot of people, maybe 1,000. I don't know. The city would know that. We don't get involved in that. But like I say, we would like a grant. Most of the people who have worked there in the past have either died off or live in assisted living and things of that nature. I'm still around. I'm one of the few. And I still go out and volunteer in the off-season, and I pick up the trash, et cetera, et cetera, because the pond is only open for a couple of months, from, I think, June 25th to about Labor Day. And so, you know, I will call the park department when the barrels have to be emptied and so forth. Just a small task, and it helps me to get my walking in. So anyway, that's what we're looking for. We would appreciate this very much. In the future, we're gonna be coming back looking for irrigation. I've been doing it for 30 years with a hose, and carrying a hose around 100 feet is not easy. I try to educate the workers, you know, the park workers, the young ladies and the young kids. And they do a great job for me. And they cooperate tremendously. But it's a lot to ask. And I think the irrigation next year, I think we got a quote for about $11,000 to do that. And it's our vision and our purpose to make the area beautiful and welcoming. And most of the people that go there truly appreciate it.
[Roberta Cameron]: Any questions?
[SPEAKER_18]: Thank you. The cut-through path that you mentioned, I'm familiar with it. Is that going to be improved at all as part of this?
[SPEAKER_19]: Well, not as part of this project. Maybe in the future. I expect, as long as I'm around, I'll be here looking for money. uh to beautify the area and we understand that this year we were a little bit late and there was only a minimal amount of money available so we just came in with this small project but we want to add to this each year in different parts of the park you know winter kill of plants and things they need to be you know, restore it. And so every year would be a great help if this board would help us to preserve the area.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Hold on one moment. You answered one of the questions that I wanted to ask, but I also wanted to ask whether, you know, this is a very well-loved park in the area. And, you know, it's kind of beyond the scope of the request that you're making for this project, which sounds like it's going to be a really cost-effective way to beautify a section of the park that really needs attention. it would be, it's kind of difficult to imagine that you're the only person or there's only a small group of people who have an interest in improving and beautifying and leading the stewardship of this park. And so I'd really love to see how it's possible to expand that group of people. Well, it won't take much. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_19]: Because the Grace Episcopal Church uh their members and we had hundreds every year we whenever we put out a flyer or the information that we need volunteers we get many many volunteers and we have uh we discontinued doing this uh probably when uh Vin Giovinelli died. I don't know if those of you who know Vinny, he spearheaded this along with Claire Domenico and others. Excuse me. But anyway, I'm sorry. But Vinny spearheaded it and we got all kinds of donations. Every single penny was from donations. And the volunteers, I mean, would get, on a Saturday or mostly Saturday, would get 100. And they would, with their shovels and with their rakes, clean up, planting, et cetera, et cetera. And we haven't done it for a while because there aren't too many of us left. And all we had to do, all we have to do was set out a message that we need help, and they'd come over the mountains.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_07]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_19]: You're welcome.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_07]: Thank you very much.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: Are there any, just one quick question, sorry.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_07]: I see that there's a component to remove invasive species. Yes. Which is great.
[SPEAKER_19]: Yeah, there's poison ivy back there and there's bittersweet and there are other things. Yeah, I just, the young kids go in there. you know, when they come with the family network. And that blows my mind when I see that. So we've got to get rid of it.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_07]: So you'll be coordinating with Alicia Hunt?
[SPEAKER_19]: Yes, I've already spoken with Alicia. Yes.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_07]: And so the plants that you're going to be planting, I hope that they're going to be native species for the most part?
[SPEAKER_19]: You're asking the wrong person on that. I told Mike Nesta, the director of the parks, what we would like, and he has spoken with ground masters, whom the city employs, and I don't know if they're native, but I know they're from the north and maybe Canadian or whatever in this region.
[_ywkXQwBNaw_SPEAKER_07]: Native, as opposed to strictly landscaping plants. But one of the incentives for planting native plants is that it's actually exempt from filing before the Conservation Commission. I see.
[SPEAKER_19]: I didn't know that. Thank you. We can look into that.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: One thing I would ask, if you're going to be coming here every year for a small or medium-sized product, that sounds great because I can see that over time you would obviously redo the whole thing, but I think what would be helpful for us to see is kind of a measured master plan drawing that could be something that we could adapt and show how it's going to all come together over the many years. And, you know, that's something that I would hope that all the improvements that were done a couple decades ago with your group there should be some kind of drawing that we could adapt or find a way to have a little bit more documentation so we can see, you know, the trails and just improvements as they're made because, you know, the hand-drawn, unless you know the park really well, the hand-drawn diagrams are tough to read. So with that, there might be some volunteers, either a civil engineer.
[SPEAKER_13]: I think there was something in the open space plan.
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: Okay. Something that would be... Okay, that's good. I didn't see that, so I think that would be, it would help us understand it better.
[SPEAKER_19]: But I think it's a great start. Right now, we think we have a tremendous foundation up there. And there really isn't too much more that is necessary, except for this patch behind the bandstand. You know, except for, like I said, Winterkill and things of that nature. But unless they want to expand, there's certainly other areas up around the parking lot that could be improved. Right now, they're just trees and it's kind of a rough area. But if in the future, if they wanted to beautify that area, that could be done as well. But it's got great, great potential. And I think those of you who have been up there understand what I'm talking about. It is a tremendous asset to the city of Medford. Thank you for your work over many decades. Thank you.
[Bill O'Keefe]: Yeah, if you want, I can just add, I know we've worked with him, I do the Boy Scouts too as well. Yes, so a lot of the Eagle Scout projects we partner with the friends of Rice Pond in order for them to basically enhance some of the pathways. We actually do overnight camping trips there, that's what we do for onboarding. One of the first things we do when we have kids transition from the Cub Scouts to the Boy Scouts, instead of taking them to Maine to camp, We take them up to Wright's Pond and then we bring someone from the Friends of the Fells to basically teach them in order for them to earn their Bartonist badge and then they basically diagram and they mark off all these paths. So that's the partnership that the Boy Scouts do work with the Friends of the Fells. the Wrights Pond, and they've been a great group for the past 10 years. I was actually one of the first people to have an overnight camping trip up there, and unfortunately I horrified him. I think about 5.30 in the morning, he was coming to basically do his morning chores. But to give you an idea of the historic value that happens here, Wrights Pond was one of the first ponds that basically established the city of Boston to come out and visit. There's still a bus that comes out of Haymarket. that drives up and drops them off at the bottom of the ramp, and these people walk up. It goes through Haymarket, through Chilestown, and drops off right at the bottom of Elm Street. That bus is still serviceable today, and the folks and the senior citizens still utilize it in order to come up from the north end, from Chilestown, and from those inner communities in order for them to access the country living, you know what I mean? So they come up and they fish, they come up and they walk those paths. There's a lot of seniors that are from outside of Medford that have used this as a historic perspective for the past 50 plus years. When you see a lot of the homes up in that north Medford area, a lot of those homes were cottages for the folks in the north end and the child stock. And then they became full season homes as the children grew up and needed a place to live. And they moved up into North Method because that's where they used to have their cottage to go to Wright's Palm. So that bus still exists, just to give you an idea of the historical perspective of Wright's Palm, the value added that it provides to both seniors and our community groups.
[SPEAKER_19]: In addition, historically, Rudd's Pond area was the scene of one of the first silent movie colonies in America. I don't know how many of you know that, but you could look that up in the Medford Historical Society. And it was in the 1920s, and I don't know, because of funding or whatever, I'm not positive, it was discontinued. Along with that, one of the first ice houses in the area was at Wright's Pond, at the mouth of the pond. And they had an ice house there for commercial reasons. They used to sell the ice, I don't know where, but probably to Florida and other places. That's part of the Medford history. And it's intriguing, it really is intriguing, of the history that's up in that area.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Actually, that raises a question that maybe either you or Tom Lincoln could answer, which is, does anyone know when Wright's, it was a man-made pond, when it was made?
[SPEAKER_19]: I'm not sure when it was made, but I know that we have pictures of, it was a brook at one time, it was a farm. And the lifeguards tell me that there's a stone wall under the water that still exists, a wall separating the farm, however, and I don't know the rest of the history about it, but they dammed it up, it's a man-made dam, And they dammed it up, I think, for the ice. I'm not sure.
[Roberta Cameron]: OK, thank you.
[Tom Lincoln]: Did you, Ivan? It's also tied in somehow to, as I saw Fred Lasky's talk, tied into the broader water system in Boston. At one time, they used some of the ponds up in that area for water supply. I just wanted to comment on the movie thing because that's a great story. The movie business actually disappeared there right about the end of World War I because they discovered that the light And the constancy of light and the quality of light was better in California. But if you go up Elm Street, there's a house there with a big broad porch. And that's where the movie stars of the day would live. And if they would take the raw footage and show it in Medford Square at the movie theater, it used to be there. But it all kind of disappeared probably by about 1920. But that house really sticks out. It's got a big, beautiful porch. And they had pretty good parties there.
[SPEAKER_19]: Also, if I may, the children's playground area, for those of you who are familiar. At one time, a house sat there, owned by Mrs. Morrow. And I knew Mrs. Morrow, she raised collies. And they claim she raised Rintintin.
[Unidentified]: I don't know if that's true or not. But when Mrs. Morrow died,
[SPEAKER_19]: She willed that home to the city and with exclusive rights to the Medford Fire Department to burn it down and use the area for Medford residents. That's Mrs. Morrow is her name. I don't know if you know anything about that.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Actually, that's very helpful. That answers a question that I've been thinking about. All right. Thank you very much. With that, I think that we'll move on to our last applicant of today, which is the Medford Little League. Thank you.
[Bill O'Keefe]: I'll be brief.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, right.
[Bill O'Keefe]: My name is Bill O'Keefe, I'm with Method Little League. I've played in Method Little League since 1977. in the art of baseball. We have a lot of board of directors members here. I can introduce them if need be. But what I think we can do is just put a quick video together in order for you to see some of the highlights of our season. We're an all-volunteer group that basically relies heavily on civic organizations and donations from the business community in order to do what we do. This year alone, we actually... We can do that from opening day, just to give you an idea. So we start every year, basically, putting everybody together as a community.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm sorry, could you actually speak to the mic? Thank you.
[Bill O'Keefe]: So this is our opening day. We normally do a parade, but because of how the weather's been so off and on every year, we now just walk the whole mouth track. So it's a lot safer, and we just basically bring everybody over to a trained field. and have an opening day event. So we have over 400 kids that participate. Our program basically averages about 600 kids. We have a lot of travel teams. We play three seasons. To give you a historical perspective in terms of Little League, we had to merge all the city teams. There was a number of reasons for them, and one of them was financing. This is Gillis Park. Gillis Park is one of the oldest fields. This used to be the old high school field before 93. This was a football field prior to it becoming a baseball field, but they also used it as a baseball field too as well. We'll provide some photos so you can see that. This is where Amelia Earhart gave her maiden voyage speech right when the football tower was here. before she made her... This is one of these areas that has great improvements and opportunities for so many, so many community groups in the city of Medford. Whether it's the garden club, the art club, or the recreation group. There's so many equal opportunities and visions that can be seen with this field. But it has to be done so safely.
[Allie Fiske]: This was done in 2014.
[Bill O'Keefe]: in terms of what you're looking to accomplish. Behind us we have the Heckner Center. It's just one of those locations that's been used as a non-profit for a very long time. Non-profits have consolidated. Those resources are available. It's up to us in the community to bring that back in order to have that return on the investment for our North Medford neighborhood, as well as for our kids, as well as many of our civic organization groups, in order for us to pop in together in order to basically not only enjoy the winter and the fall, but the spring and the summer months here at Gillis Park. But in order to do those things, we have to look at our baseball field. This is a baseball field where the community has spent numerous amounts of money basically preserving and maintaining for capital improvements. We have bars up there that aren't welded in that you potentially have the chance of falling. We've had them fall before. We've tried working to get them welded and put together. Obviously, it's a cost factor. These are some of the capital improvements that can be done in order to basically accommodate it. I mean, we've been upgrading strides in terms of basically putting the batten cages in the back. We've landscaped this and we've upgraded this whole field and spent close to $40,000, $50,000 in the past four years, basically upgrading this so the kids can have the opportunity access. And again, we have communities from outside our city coming in here. We have lots of people that gather. They can patronize our businesses. which basically generates revenue. So there's a return on this investment and that's what we're looking to accomplish here. I mean reinvesting our own money, recycling our own money by having resources and tools not only for the kids but for some other programs that could be available in the city. So when we look at some of the things that we're looking to do, we have our upfield wall here that had a hockey rink put in during the winter and a result of some of those flooding and other things with that hockey rink. So our parents are concerned about the safety of their kids. Some of the other coaches from the other teams have brought that up too as well. So we have a quote in order to have that basically refurbished and painted. We also have a quote in order to basically paint our backs off and have all these fences restored and welded so that they're done safely. So there isn't an opportunity to impact our kids. So again, hopefully with your support we can partner together short term to make these fixes and then long term to basically put a vision together in order to build up this whole area for the many groups that we have here on Neptune. I think it will be a positive experience for everybody.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will set a culture of respect for rules, opponents, officials, teammates, and self roots. I will look for teachable moments. I will keep my players emotionally, emotional tanks built, look for opportunities to give truthful, specific encouragement, expressing appreciation, listening, exhibiting positive body language.
[Bill O'Keefe]: Coach University and the Positive Coaching Alliance. We work with them pretty closely in terms of training the coaches, but just basically working with kids and just making sure they have access and opportunities to positive reinforcements. So that's one of the opportunities that we're trying to provide as a community for the kids in the Medford Little League program. What I'd like to do is just provide this opportunity for Mayor Burke to come up and just have to say a couple of words. We're kind of in turn with the So I'll just give her an opportunity to say hello.
[SPEAKER_15]: Thank you, Bill. Thank you everyone for being here today. It's a great fight out there to see this rainbow of colors in our field. And as Tyler said, always do your best. That's all that matters. Always just do the best you can and be a great teammate because it's so important. You learn these lessons now and they carry through your entire life. So to all the parents that are helping out and the parents that are at home throwing balls and take balls and everything else, thank you so much for being a part of this great community. Have fun. Play ball.
[Bill O'Keefe]: So what we're going to do now is we're going to ask the kids to come up with their gloves. We're going to ask, we have City Council, Michael Marks, City Council, John Falco, and we have Mia Mustone, who's also a coach. Congratulations, Mia, for stepping up, joining better coach Michael Marks. She just found that out, I know. So it's been a great opportunity. Here we are, welcome to Love Fields, which is still at Gillis Park. I mean, we have the opportunity, as you can see, the lights that were put in, those were put in by community volunteers in order for us to have a night game. As you can see, they're working real well. It's just a good tribute to Little League when you can play games at night. There's nothing better than playing a game at night, whether it's youth baseball or adult baseball. I mean, some of the things that we brought up before is some of these benches here, As you can see, for safety concerns, I mean, there's different standards that you need in order to basically have sitting apparatus at fields. And obviously, a capital improvement need is obviously required in this opportunity. I mean, as we pan along here, too, we're just basically taking a look at the fence here that we're looking to basically get fixed. As you can see, some of the damage that was done and some of the damage that you continue to see even just wear and tear with the weather and stuff like that. We had the opportunity to put a new school board up last year. We have the sponsorships of Medford Little League as well as Ronnie's Place. So it's a great opportunity for the kids to basically see the schools and even work down there at the concession stand. you basically upgrade and update that stuff so uh it's a good feeling when you have a night game under the lights and you see the schools and stuff like that in the back we were able to add two batting cages which came out real nice uh they've been over there for a couple of years right now and you have basically a bunch of the uh the senior pay-per-view kids coming over and high school kids during the summer partaking and utilizing them. It's a good shade, a good opportunity. As we further go along, we're just looking to basically address some of the issues here in terms of access. I mean, the access point that's over there, it's just not ADA accessible. So our goal in this debate is to find a grant through the Community Preservation Act. in order to basically look to have this as the gateway to the park and do something in order to basically make it accessible for all kids, for all parents, and basically for all seniors that come to watch the game. As you'll find on some nights, they won't come into the park because of the ledge at the mouth of the park. It's just not accessible. So just to give you an idea, I can talk to you about the EDA thing. I mean, we had a player that got injured and broke his leg the first game of the year. He was in a wheelchair. He couldn't attend any of the games. We had to watch him basically from the sidewalk. So with the help that was provided, we're looking at an accessibility study done in order to basically determine how to best approach making the park accessible. I mean, everything that's done here, there was an issue in terms of ownership of the park. which basically goes to whether it's maintenance or restoration. There was some Indian folklore that said that the park was left to Little League, so it's Little League's responsibility. We had to get the city solicitor involved. I'm actually an attorney. We had to get the registry of deeds. prove that Little League does not own the field, that it's the city's responsibility. I believe being a new board yourself, you found that out too as well, where Gillis Park wasn't even listed as one of the parks that was presented to this commission in terms of an open space item. So it's just one of those things that an urban legend took a life of its own with regards to this. So no city's money has ever been put into this park. It's all been done by donating donations and volunteers There's a need to restore this area in order to bring it up. So basically, I mean a standard that's being Consistent with other communities when these kids as well as us as coaches travels other cities and towns There's a certain minimum standard that's that being met. We're not meeting that standard We actually, in 2016, we hosted the sectional championship where Medford ironically ended up being in the finals. They challenged the field because it was not ADA accessible. That 2016 team had to go play in Melrose and they lost. I mean, we had the opportunity and Craig Moody and a few of the other people's kids were on the team this year. We ended up making it to the final four and we played out in Millbury, Mass. This has only happened four times in the history of Medford baseball. And this is Little League, this is what kids dream about. Having the opportunity to have that chance to play on TV. We were one game away from playing on ESPN on Sunday night against New Hampshire. Unfortunately, there's a Little League inning in everybody's life and Medford had that Little League inning. But we're looking to basically bring those opportunities back here to Medford, and in order to do those, we need funding in order to basically enhance and restore some of these areas. As the board knows, I put in four applications to basically restore these parks, and all of them basically fall on the guidelines of safety and accessibility. I mean, only one of them was signed off, which was Gillis Park. I have no idea why the other ones weren't signed off, but there's some significant issues with safety out of these ball fields that need to be addressed. Kids are getting hurt. And it's one of those things where it's like, I can show you the policy that I pull for Little League. I indemnify the city, I indemnify basically Tufts University and the Method Public Schools because we also play down a drain field too as well. It's just one of those things where there is no maintenance budget, you know what I mean? So this is left to us. When we go up to the civic organizations in order to ask them for money, I mean, they'll give certain things, but they're not going to give towards, you know what I mean, fences. They're not going to give towards walls. Like I said, I've met with the vocational school in order to see if we can leverage them. We've had Dave Will and a few other of his contractors come in. and they've actually restored some of the things that needed to get done, you know what I mean, that wouldn't impact a lot of the kids' day-to-day operations. But some of the things that we're looking to do here, I think, is a win-win for everybody. We partnered with Sheryl Williams. They're looking to donate all the paint. Ironically, I had the Little League team recognized at Fenway Park on August 28th. I had them have their photos. Basically, they took the national anthem with the Red Sox on the field. And who was basically throwing off the first pitch at the same time? The CEO from Sherwin-Williams was donating the paint to us. He actually thought we scheduled and coordinated this, you know what I mean? Because he was making the donation on the paint. And he thought we had the Method Little League kids on the field to thank him. It just so happened to be the same night. There was no planning. I wish I could say we were planning it, but it just looked great for him in terms of his spirit. He was throwing off the first pitch. But in terms of the accessibility study, there's a lot of people in the community that are really looking to have this done. Unfortunately, what happened was, Someone went and put that step in, in July, and they basically assumed that was the fix for accessibility. So they kind of, you know what I mean, sent a few people off the wrong way in terms of, you know what I mean, geez, this is what the city's going to do in order to address accessibility. They put a step instead of a slope. So, you know what I mean, the study that we have, it's $2,800. I think it's a value add. Some of the things that we're looking to get done, you know what I mean, pretty much will help enhance the area and just basically provide a good experience for all parties involved. Again, this is just one of the first phases in terms of this park here. I think as soon as that gets addressed, and the accessibility gets addressed. We'll be looking at something that's ideal and just basically big picture. I bring up the Heckner Center because it's one of those locations. I grew up at the Heckner Center. My father was the postman. So I know all about it. I know there's an apartment above it. The gentleman from the cemetery used to live up there. and he'd work at the cemetery, and his responsibility was basically paying all the utilities for that house, and that was his cost for basically living there for free. So that was the offset. I mean, the space in there is absolutely phenomenal. I mean, I know they're talking about the arts department. I mean, I'd love to see something with Bistro with a 479. I'd love to see some sort of culinary arts program, basically be in there for seasonal. That North Medford area is just one of those areas that it just needs a little bit of a kiss. So if you have something like an ice cream parlor or something where these kids can work at, and just so everybody understands in terms of how we do it for Little League, we have these concession stands. We do a buddy program where we have kids that are basically special needs. on the autism spectrum are disabled, we have them work in these concession stands in order for them to learn life skills. We're not looking to make money, we're looking to recycle our own money. And by giving these kids the opportunity to do those things, that's basically the return on investment that we get as a group, you know what I mean? So that's why we basically maintain these concession stands. A lot of people question the value that we bring to them. We're not looking to make money. We're not in the business of making money, we're in the business of making memories. I mean, that's kind of how, you know what I mean? I've always presented Little League as, you know what I mean? There was some things that you guys don't want to know about that happened. There was indictments and people stealing money, and it was a goddamn shame. But the people that knew about it and did nothing, those are the people that I worry about the most. You know what I mean? Because it went on for years. We lost a quarter of a million dollars because people willfully turned their eyes. away from basically these people stealing all this money, and this is what we get left with.
[Roberta Cameron]: Can I ask if there are any questions from the committee members?
[Bm5-jrZInBw_SPEAKER_07]: I have a couple. I was looking at the application and I have some questions just in terms of what I see. Sure. So on the page where you've got the three areas, A, B, and C, the different scopes of work.
[Bill O'Keefe]: Yes.
[Bm5-jrZInBw_SPEAKER_07]: There's a section that talks about the accessibility study for the 3,500, but then if I go down, I see a quote from KMA for 2,800. Yes.
[Bill O'Keefe]: So it's $2,800 worth of quote. I had $3,500 in there as a placeholder until I got the quote. So we received the quote, and the quote came in at $2,800.
[Bm5-jrZInBw_SPEAKER_07]: And what is the Institute for Human-Centered Design? That's the second quote that Mike Nestor got from a firm that does similar work. OK.
[SPEAKER_18]: Yeah, they're a good job.
[Bm5-jrZInBw_SPEAKER_07]: They're not in here anyway. That's why I'm asking. That dollar amount is not anywhere. This was all added. OK. When Mike Nestor was trying to scope it out a bit. So just in terms of the three. things that you want to do. So as a committee, the thing that we need to do is make sure that we, as we spend the money, it's to, it keeps to the CPA law. And so the CPA law says that we can't spend CPA money on maintenance. So I'm looking at these three. Obviously the accessibility study is not maintenance. So can you talk a little bit about A and B and tell me?
[Bill O'Keefe]: Yeah, we're restoring basically the original features of the box.
[Bm5-jrZInBw_SPEAKER_07]: So are you completely, like let's just talk about the window. Are you completely replacing that or are you fixing it?
[Bill O'Keefe]: Completely replacement.
[Bm5-jrZInBw_SPEAKER_07]: Okay, and so the part a this looks like you're not really I can't tell if you're replacing if you're just I mean you talked a lot about beautification Yeah, that kind of a thing so that to me sounds like maintenance. Can you talk a little bit about why this is in maintenance?
[Bill O'Keefe]: versus capital Because it's not being maintained Right, so we're looking to restore it to its original condition and then have them maintain it. So again, like I spoke to, this park hasn't been touched in over 30, 40 years because the city said they didn't own it. So it just has been dilapidated to the point where, I mean, no one's taking ownership of it. It's similar to what we have with the Hegnesson. I mean, it's just dilapidating because the city said they didn't own it and they had it up for sale for $739,000 because they didn't own it. And then we had to show them the title and the deed to show that they did own it. And then they had to remove it basically from being sold. It's similar to the patio where nothing's been maintained. So our goal is to restore it back to its original features and then basically have the city maintain it.
[Bm5-jrZInBw_SPEAKER_07]: Have they made a commitment?
[Bill O'Keefe]: The city?
[qIvMl_-GSJQ_SPEAKER_17]: Well, you said, Bill, you said that the city, you got clarity for the first time in decades about the ownership of the property. No, I don't need that. I completely understand. And I played Little League in Medford in my youth, believe me, and this is of my life experience in West Bedford Hillside. So I know this field, we mostly played. He reminds me of that every Thanksgiving. But I think part of the open space plan that Clodagh mentioned earlier, you guys obviously need to get in that game long term. and get a commitment to do what needs to be done here. If you haven't had any maintenance for the city in three decades, that's ridiculous, obviously. And they need to step up and make this a priority because they've left you behind for two generations.
[Bill O'Keefe]: And again, sorry, I didn't want to interrupt you. No, it's okay. Because similar to them presenting Harris Park, presenting Harris Park is a softball field. Do you know how many girls play softball? Less than 200. They've already refurbished three of their fields, okay, and spent a significant amount of money on those fields. And we haven't had one dime spent. on any of the baseball fields, and now they're looking to take some of our baseball fields away. We gave up Victory Park, which was fine, to Sarka, because at Sarka's numbers, they were significantly higher at the time, and that was years ago, which it was basically a high school field. Sorry, go ahead.
[Roberta Cameron]: I wanna make sure that we stick to the questions about this.
[Bill O'Keefe]: But again, it goes to his point in terms of, I'm a volunteer. We're all volunteers here. Us to hold the city accountable for doing things You know what I mean? That's a feat in its own. Like, I have a full-time job and four kids. You know what I mean? So for me to basically hold someone's foot to the fire, I can show you 50, 60 emails that go back 10 years that talk about everything that you wanna know about these parks. Nothing's getting done. You know what I mean? It's a community credibility issue. And I can't blame it all on the DPW, because they don't have the numbers to maintain this, okay? We're in a whole new stage here in Medford. We're at the pioneering stages in terms of what we're going to look like. You know what I mean? So how we present ourselves is similar to basically everybody coming to this park. We had four different cities come to this park and question the significance of it, both from a safety standpoint and just a basic upgrade.
[Roberta Cameron]: So that actually leads to a question that I had, which is that clearly the park appears to be in need of an upgrade and the improvements that are on the scope for this ask from the CPA. My question is whether those improvements are things that are going to be made obsolete if a couple of years from now the park gets a bigger overhaul. I can't answer that question.
[Bill O'Keefe]: It's the same thing with the Brooks Estates.
[Roberta Cameron]: Well the question is in this park if you are making improvements to the wall or the fencing are those things going to then a couple years from now be replaced again? Or are we, are you asking for improvements that, you know, say you need to make other, what we anticipate might need to be changed in the park in the next few years. Are those changes? Right. Are the changes that, right, but there's more than these couple of projects that you've asked for this year that need to be done in order to meet the standards, I imagine.
[Bill O'Keefe]: Only one is before you right now because the other ones didn't get approved.
[Roberta Cameron]: Of this park? Of this park. So the question is whether the things that are on the scope right now are going to be overwritten if there are further changes to the park.
[Bill O'Keefe]: Why would there be changes to the park?
[Roberta Cameron]: If, for example, the ADA accessibility study highlights the need for grading or other changes near the entrance of the park in order to make a more accessible entrance, if there are other elements of the park that need improvements.
[Bill O'Keefe]: On that side of the wall, with ADA, that's not gonna impact the playing field or the fences.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay, that's what I just want assurance that the things that you're asking for.
[Bill O'Keefe]: That would be, that would be, because there's ample space here. That's the other thing I can, in terms of like the garden club, like the floor plan that I provided, I mean, it was the first time people saw it. I mean, because it was at the Registry of Deeds. Like when you look at this, this is the line here in terms of the property line. The fence is back in here. Okay, and we've maintained all these shrubberies here. So, if you're looking in terms of big picture, this Heckner Center here, I mean, this whole area, I mean, can get redesigned and redeveloped. How we used to do it, with the people that were disabled, we had them park in the parking lot up here, and have them basically walk down through the gate. And then, mysteriously, one day, a lock showed up on it during the playoff game, and it was just bolted shut, and the parking lot was bolted shut, and they said, oh, the owners of the property did that. You know what I mean? We had to research it to find out that the owners of the property were the city of Medford. You know what I mean? So, like, I'll play the cat and mouse game all day, but at the end of the day, you know what I mean, the room that's available in order to basically make this ADA accessible is going to go into the design and scope of what needs to get done. The problem is just thinking out of the box. Everybody wants to think, well, this is the entrance, so we have to have this as the entrance. No, you don't. You walk down the field and say, you know something? This is a better entrance down here, and then grade it in order to make it ADA accessible. I mean, we had the same issue when we had the Field of Dreams, where they didn't want to basically put in an access ramp. People had to think outside the box in order to do that. And it was successful. And these people that are basically the ones that are looking to get hired, they do this nationally. I mean, I'm a project manager for Bank of America, so I mean, I deal with this all the time. I'm also an ADA attorney. I'm not concerned in terms of what's going to happen when they go in and design it because it's going to be done tastefully and aesthetically pleasing so that it basically balances off both the pock as well as the experience. And that's what we're looking for in terms of a big picture.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Any other questions from committee members?
[SPEAKER_18]: Well, thank you for all your volunteer work of everybody who came tonight. It's obviously a labor of love, and it benefits a lot of kids.
[Bill O'Keefe]: Listen, if you're a volunteer in Medford, you have to enjoy being punished.
[SPEAKER_18]: Well, we're not trying to punch you here, but we do have to try to follow the state rules, too, to make sure that we're spending the money appropriately.
[Bill O'Keefe]: I understand completely.
[SPEAKER_18]: So, I did have one question. When you mentioned about the improvements to the wall, and you said that it got turned into like an ice rink at one point, and that did damage to the wall. So, does that happen every winter?
[Bm5-jrZInBw_SPEAKER_07]: It'll never happen again. The damage of the rink.
[Bill O'Keefe]: It was an illegal rink that the park board never authorized to be there. Am I correct on stating that?
[SPEAKER_18]: That was my question.
[Bill O'Keefe]: Unfortunately, the volunteers went down and did humans work in terms of restoring it and putting it back so that it wasn't a safety issue. Our goal here is to restore it to its natural beauty. The money we've spent on this, just to give you an idea, we basically had to do all the drainage over and we had to basically skim the field. That cost us $25,000 and then we had to take out all the shrubs that were around the park because they were just overgrown and no one was maintaining them. When we did that, we put a batting cage in the back. That batting cage gets utilized constantly. I mean, it's just one of those things where it's like, where's the return on the investment? We just had the concession stand because of how it's graded from the street and the storms in the winter. all the water runs down and it rotted out the concession stand floor. Everybody will agree, any of these things that are down here are classified as fixtures, correct? And fixtures are what? Property of the city. Their response is it's not our responsibility to maintain it. So here's where it lies a problem. We have to have volunteers come down, donate product, Labor get things squared away and it's money out of our pocket in order to maintain an experience for the kids in our community And again, we have volunteers and I'm sure I'm not sure I'm assuming you guys are volunteers too But I mean, it's that that whole like all we're looking to do is restore to its original condition and then basically You mean work to have a maintenance account? And again, the folks that are behind me, they're looking to do the same thing. If we have to put an action plan and a memorandum of understanding together, I think that was something that was talked about in terms of getting a contract with the city. I don't have a problem doing that. you know, I mean, I have no problem, I've been negotiating my whole life. It's free arguments for me. You know what I mean? That's kind of how I see it. I'm not getting paid to do it, but if I have to do it, I'll do it in order to leave that legacy behind, so that there'll still be Little League Baseball here. It all started in 1954. Ideally it would be great to have a, kind of a,
[SPEAKER_18]: master plan or design for the parks and a maintenance.
[Bill O'Keefe]: What was that woman's name that was here earlier? Clodagh. Allie Fisk, you mean? No, no. Clodagh. Oh, Clodagh, yes, sorry. Yes, the woman prior. When you brought that up, that's all that we look for, you know what I mean? We have a lot, we have 26 parks here. If we could have a seat at the table. There's a lot of intelligent people here, you know what I mean? It's like, everybody thinks the politicians are the ones that have the solutions. And unfortunately, they don't. It's the private industry that basically will provide the input and the recognition in order to get things done. It's their tax dollars. They should have a voice in it.
[SPEAKER_18]: Well, it looks like there's going to be that, you know, the new open space plan is going to begin. So it would be great for you guys to be involved with that.
[Bill O'Keefe]: We'd love to. We'd love to.
[Roberta Cameron]: So actually, I just want to finally clarify. It's kind of what I asked before, but I just want to clarify. The vision for this park, the things that you've asked for in the scope of this plan, do you see further changes being needed after this, or in what state, like how many stages of improvements do you see this park needing in order to be brought up to the standards that it needs to be?
[Bill O'Keefe]: I can speak candidly to that. After this is done here, you mean, and then the accessibility study's done, and they make their recommendations? That's probably it. We already have the lights down there. You mean my biggest thing is the Heckner Center and the collaboration that that can provide to the community. That's a value added. That's an untapped resource. I know the art center is looking at it, you can have the recreation group, there's space for the garden club down at the Heckner Center in Gillis Park. You can even put a bocce court down there if you want to. There's enough room. So it's all on what you want to do in terms of a vision and what this community wants to do as a vision for that North Method area. Same thing with Carr Park and Tufts Park. The reason why the Community Preservation Commission was put together was to restore the integrity of the items that you guys are basically working on, which is the historical open space and recreation. We don't want to outsource to third parties to have them manage in order for them to reap the benefits of it. Let us recycle our own money and do it on our own. These concession stands and using the vocational services that are available, those are the life skills that make quality of life in Medford a lot better when we start to access them for not only our kids, but for the next generation. And there's a plan and a template that speaks to that so that we don't have to worry about who's going to be basically the gatekeeper after we're gone. We set it as a cookie cutter, and that's basically how it should work going forward. And I hope that's the goal and the mission of what this board is looking to do because there's a lot of money. There's a lot of money and you're not going to have a lot of applicants come in. And I'd hate to see this become just like one of those patronage farms. So political agendas, you know what I mean? My biggest concern with a lot of this money is that, you know what I mean, it's going to be self-serving. And I hope it's not going to happen that way. You know what I mean? I hope there's really going to be resources that are basically going to be available for this community. And I don't say it to basically, you know what I mean, throw a nudge at you. But, you know what I mean, it's hard to have a lot of this money and spend it. You know what I mean? This is your first go around with it. I'm sure it was hard to digest. Like, wow, there's a lot of money. And there's only going to be more money coming. You know, I appreciate what you do. I love what you do. I mean, no good deed goes unpunished.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you very much. Is there any other comment that anyone wanted to make?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll just make a comment. Just from a resident parent coach perspective, I mean, just comparing the other cities or communities that we, I guess, are categorized by district, Somerville, Medford, East Boston Melrose Everett I'd say out of those and our team is Our group of kids year in year out competes and probably wins that that grouping, you know more often than not It's probably the the last in terms of facilities again, just a general observation I know there's a lot that goes into what Billy, you know eloquently outlined our need here, but I It's probably the worst out of those six communities, I would say. I mean, Columbus is a different animal a little bit, but just to offer that perspective. The way the community is trending and going, it shouldn't be.
[SPEAKER_20]: Thank you. A lot of, excuse me. I'm sorry.
[Roberta Cameron]: Hold on for one second. Can I get your name again?
[SPEAKER_20]: Craig Moody.
[Roberta Cameron]: Craig Moody.
[SPEAKER_20]: I'm sorry for saying, but a lot of the other parks and a lot of the other cities.
[Roberta Cameron]: We just want to make the point that this park is used nine months out of the year for the kids.
[SPEAKER_13]: It's all about the kids. It's almost deplorable what condition it's in. And the only reason it's in a reasonable condition is the efforts of all these coaches and other coaches that go there beforehand and clean it and rake it and fix it and prepare it so it looks reasonable. But the bottom line is the infrastructures need to be replaced. These are your children. These are the kids that are there playing games. Safety and teaching them lessons and so forth. These are very important facilities. that should be maintained by the city, and it's ridiculous that we have to do the work for it. It doesn't make any sense. This is very important, these ballparks and these kids. It's a big learning experience for all the kids. It's something that I think everyone should take very seriously. We have a lot of kids go through there, and it builds them for the future with everything they're gonna do, playing this wonderful game of baseball, and we're just asking for a reasonable facility. for them to do that.
[SPEAKER_20]: You want to keep them off the streets. You want to keep them off the streets. Let them keep playing. And baseball, baseball gives character to kids growing up. I've played it, I'm not saying anything about myself, but I've played it for so, so, so many years and it builds character. And you gotta keep them off the streets, because there's too much drugs and all that stuff going around. Let them play, let them enjoy life. Let them grow up healthy and strong. And that's what baseball does.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bill, one more thing. I think, I mean, the kids kind of love Gillis anyway, which is the, I mean, they should. It's a great place. It's a meeting place for a lot of different people to congregate. But it has so much, it has so much more potential. It could be a really cool,
[SPEAKER_04]: Park of the future for the city if people like looking that direction Yeah, it's a community you don't see many like it like one thing I'll say Travel play a lot of summer ball Gillis has character that most other parks don't have it does I think we just need to put the money in it, you know to make it what it should be.
[SPEAKER_20]: Yeah that I remove the Yankee State
[Bill O'Keefe]: And to give you an idea, too, like 1947, my father played for the Medford High Mustangs. They went to the championship game. They played in the Gator Bowl when high school teams were able to play in those collegiate bowls. So they went down to Fort Lee, Mississippi and had a zero-zero tie. But it was at Gillis Park. I mean, Gillis Park has a very historical perspective for a lot of people, not only in Medford, but outside of Medford, too, as well. So when they come here, I was gonna ask Joe Brandi to come, Joe was a teacher at the high school and spent basically most of his adult life maintaining Gillis Park. He doesn't have the opportunity to access it because he's old. We got him a plaque last year, we got it up down the field, we got a Hall of Fame wall that we're recognizing a lot of people that have made significant contributions to the community. It's tough to build on if I can I'm just gonna leave you a book here Yeah, I mean these have all the bleachers and things in it. I mean none of the bleachers of standards or requirements. Just so you have an idea of the quotes, this is what I put in on my other quotes that didn't get signed off on. If there is extra money, that's what ideally we'd look to do. Most of the bleaches, so we caught the people, they were basically dragging them out onto the street, put them in a truck and then scrapping them over at the Everett Aluminum. We don't have a lot of them left, but the ones we do have left, don't need to go.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right, thank you very much. I believe that concludes our agenda for this evening.
[SPEAKER_18]: Is there a motion to adjourn?
[Roberta Cameron]: Motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you.
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