[Roberta Cameron]: Great, thanks. Alright, so I'm calling to order the meeting of Medford Community Preservation Committee on Tuesday, August 22nd at 630 PM. And I will quickly read the preamble. This public hearing of the Community Preservation Committee is being conducted by a remote means. No in-person attendance of members of the public is permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access to proceedings. As provided for in chapter two of the X of 2023, a reminder that anyone who would like to listen to, or view this meeting while in progress may do so by accessing the link, which you must have already accessed. If you are hearing this announcement. Um, which, um, it was included in the meeting agenda posted on the city of Medford website. Um, and we will post a recording of the meeting as soon as possible afterward. So, uh, the first order of business is to welcome not two, but three new members. Is everyone here right now? I can't see everyone in the view that I'm in. So let me pull up the gallery view and I see Ari. Ari, do you want to introduce yourself?
[Ari Fishman]: Sure. Hi everyone. I'm Ari Goffman-Fishman. They them pronouns please. And I'm representing the Community Development Board. Glad to be here. Thank you. Craig. Glad to have you.
[Craig Drennan]: Hey my name is Craig Drennan. I am here taking over Heidi Davis's spot as the Conservation Commission representative. Happy to be here as well.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. And Kayleen.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Hi, good evening, everybody. Kayleen Foley. I am on the Medford Housing Authority board, and I am taking LOSAs. Happy to be here.
[Roberta Cameron]: Great. Thank you, all of you, for stepping up to serve on the committee, and I look forward to working with you. And I will be in touch with each of you soon so that we could have some orientation of what the CPC has been doing and what our hopes and goals are for working over the next year or next term. So I will be in touch with you. And so back to the agenda, we have several off-cycle applications. And let's go ahead and take them in the order that they appear on the agenda. So, we have actually just a slight correction. The Condon Shell electrical upgrade is, it's technically an off-cycle application, but it's actually a small grant application. So, it doesn't have to follow, as a small grant, it doesn't have to follow the application cycle. And that's also true of the Thomas Brooks Park Memorial Design Project. Also doesn't need to follow the application timeline. So with that, I would invite, is there someone here to speak for the Condon Shell electrical upgrade? Yeah, we have Kevin Bailey. Hi, Kevin.
[Kevin Bailey]: Hi. How are you?
[Roberta Cameron]: Hi, Kevin. Thank you. Tell us a few words about this project, what you aim to do.
[Kevin Bailey]: Yes. First, just thank you for having me tonight. So we are looking for a small grant over at the con and shell. As you probably are aware, the con shell, we've done a lot of work to it. over the past few years, the city did rehab on the outside of the Shelly area itself. And the Method Art community was able to do a mural out there. So over the past few years, where we used to have one or two big events in September, and then a couple of small events down there, we're seeing more and more bands actually wanting to play down there have more concerts we've done more movie nights as you're aware of the The farmer's market is also there. So it's getting a lot more usage. And one of the things that a lot of stakeholders, people who are using the shell very often in our residence, have asked for just even some minor upgrades to the shell. And one of the biggest thing is the electrical issues. So what we're trying to do is a very small grant to just make some minor upgrades that we know are going to make a really big impact on the people that use the shell. So the total amount that we have a quote from, from Nardone, who does a lot of electrical work at our recreation facilities. The amount was $3,276. And what that would give us, the first thing is to add another outlet to the stage. And again, seems very minor, but we have a lot of bands down there that are using electrical equipment. And what we're currently doing is we have to open up the inside of the shell to allow them to get access to additional outlets. Sometimes it's a very minor request if our staff is there, but if it's on a Saturday or Sunday, our staff is already teaching a program or operating the pond in the pool, we sometimes have to bring in an additional staff member and add that cost to that band. All of our rentals, with the exception of a $20 fee to help pay for our porta potty are pretty much free, and the concerts and the activities that are down there also has to be free so to ask a band who is putting on a free concert to then turn around and ask that their pain. you know, sometimes $50 to $150 to have staff members on schedule to unlock and lock up the condom shell. That will really take that away of just adding that one extra outlet that would be on a separate breaker. The second one is to install a small light on the back of the door. If you're familiar with the shell, A lot of times at night when you're locking up everything or where the port-a-potties is, there's also a set of steps. And not having that illuminated, we just really feel that having just a small light up there, making sure nobody ever trips going up and down those stairs, but also just being so dark at night when you're locking up by yourself, we think that light will be a really added benefit for safety. And the very last one with Nardone has actually built a, not too familiar with it, but it's an RV outlet that has basically like a panel with multiple outlets on it. And they use that for the Kiwanis right now and house it. when they're not using it. And I think they only use it once or twice a year for their events. Now, no one's willing to actually bring that whole panel to the con and shell for the farmer's market. But what we would need is to install this 50 A RV outlet. So basically, it would be something that would plug in and then we would run a cord over to where the vendors are at the farmer's market. And then you would have multiple outlets that the vendors can use to plug in. Because again, the farmer's market, that was one of their big concerns is they want to attract more vendors, people that are coming in with refrigeration and have that need of electricity. So I think this is the easiest and most cost effective way to be able to get those additional outlets out there for them.
[Unidentified]: Other than that, I welcome any questions about the project. Thank you, Kevin.
[Theresa Dupont]: I actually have a quick question. Is that temporary panel that they would set up, is that going to include like a rental fee, or are they just being good neighbors?
[Kevin Bailey]: I think it's just going to be good neighbors, as long as the commodities are okay with it, yes. Yeah, because really all it will be due is, instead of Nadone housing it at their warehouse, it's just going to be housed at the Connins Shell. Yeah. All right. Excellent. Thank you.
[Matt Leming]: You're welcome. I don't have any particular questions, but just to say that I went to a improv comedy event at the Condon shell and it started to get dark at about 8 p.m. that evening and they were talking about this specific issue that you are bringing up and clearly trying to address right now with this
[Unidentified]: Submitting the application. You're muted Roberta.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Sorry. So, thank you very much Kevin. For me, this is a really, um. Great small grant application we can make a big difference with a little bit of money so I'd like to ask if there's a motion from committee members to. Make a recommendation that we fund this request this funding request as in the amount that's requested.
[Matt Leming]: So moved. Second.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right, so moved by Reg, seconded by Matthew, and I will call the roll in the order that I see you on my screen. Ari? Yes, enthusiastically. Doug?
[Matt Leming]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Joan? Yes. Matthew?
[Matt Leming]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Craig?
[Matt Leming]: Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Kayleen? Yes. And red. Am I missing anyone.
[Joan Cyr]: You.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes. Thank you. All right. And I should ask also if committee members would like to discuss placing any conditions on this on this grant recommendation. what conditions would we, because we've already required that they include a sign. Has signage been posted on the content shelf or that permanently acknowledges CPA funding?
[Kevin Bailey]: Not that I'm aware of, but I'm sure I can run by City Hall and pick up one of the signs.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, we can remedy that Kevin.
[Kevin Bailey]: Yeah, thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: That would be great. So that was already a condition of the first grant that was given. So for those of you who are new to the CPC, the project that Kevin mentioned earlier to rehab the Condon shell overall was a CPA project from our very first funding round. We, we funded that rehabilitation. And then it was a subsequent grant from the arts commission, not the CPC that funded the new mural on that site. So, um, are there other conditions that we would want to see. I think so. All right, then, um. Teresa had drafted a recommendation letter, which expresses exactly what we've already. voted on, and if we are not adding any conditions to the recommendation, then I don't think we need to vote on the recommendation letter itself, which is our usual second step, because we usually have conditions. So I will move on to the next item on the agenda, which is Medford Housing Authority, I'm sorry, I was just saying thank you and goodbye to Kevin. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you. I'm sorry for being in such a hurry to move on. No worries.
[Kevin Bailey]: Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you very much for joining us this evening.
[Kevin Bailey]: Yeah. Thank you, commissioners.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes. So next, do we have anyone here from the Medford Housing Authority to speak about the Wackling Court funding request?
[Theresa Dupont]: believe we have an army. I see Margaret is on.
[SPEAKER_11]: Gabe is on.
[Ciccariello]: I'm just going to switch my camera.
[SPEAKER_11]: So all we get is an empty seat and Jeff Driscoll, the executive director, is on as well.
[Roberta Cameron]: Great. I'm just going to take a moment for the benefit of our new members today to give just a very brief overview view of our engagement with this project up until now, although I'm sure that the Medford Housing Authority will fill in with more detail. Last year, Medford Housing Authority requested CPC $250,000 to help with the pre-development design phase of the redevelopment of Walkland Court, which is a senior housing development in the hillside area of Medford that is outdated and in need of improvement. So we'll hear more about that, I'm sure from the housing authority. So we granted $250,000 initially, and then subsequently they requested 800,000, well, they requested 1.6 million. of the CPC for the, to finish the pre-development and begin the construction phase of this development. And we said that we only afford to give them the first half of that request in the previous funding round. And so we invited them to come back this funding round and request again the final disbursement of the amount that they've requested. So with that, I will turn over the mic to whoever's going to speak for the Housing Authority. Is that you, Gabe?
[Ciccariello]: Yes. Good evening, everybody. Thank you for meeting with us this evening. I have joining us, I have Jeffrey Driscoll is on with us. He's our executive director. and Margaret Donnelly-Moran, who's with the Cambridge Housing Authority. We're using the Cambridge Housing Authority as a development consultant and an owner's project manager during construction. I have a brief presentation that I'm going to try to share. This is the host disabled participant screen share.
[Theresa Dupont]: I'll take care of that. Hold on one second.
[Ciccariello]: Thank you.
[Unidentified]: You should be able to now. Let's see. Okay, great. All right, can everyone see my screen? Yep.
[Ciccariello]: Great, okay. All right, so yeah, so Roberta gave you a brief kind of rundown of kind of where we've been at with the Community Preservation Commission to date. So, Walkland Court is an existing state-aided public housing development. It's an elderly disabled development with 144, currently it's 144 units. The units are within two-story walk-up brick garden flat style buildings, which are not ideal for the elderly disabled population that they serve. Half of the units need to be assessed by stairs. So we are looking to do a complete redevelopment of the property, put a mid-rise building with elevator access for senior and disabled. residents and applicants and also since we're able to kind of condense this site with the mid-rise senior disabled building, it opens up the site and we're trying to also place 40 deeply affordable family units. So I'm going to start the presentation here. I'm sorry. So Here we go. So it's currently 144 units. The picture on the top right is an existing conditions picture kind of looking. This would be kind of northwest towards, there's the railroad tracks, where is the commuter rail in Boston Ave. So what we're looking to do is take 144 units and create 238 deeply affordable, high quality units. The phase one, which would be the senior disabled mid-rise building, would be 198 units of deeply affordable senior disabled housing. And then the second phase would be 40 deeply affordable family units. And so the current status, like, where are we now? We met with you guys back in, I believe it was March, and we've I'm gonna go through kind of a schedule with you and let you know where we've been at, but we've accomplished a lot since we met with you in late winter. So we've completed the schematic design process and are actually currently completing the design development process, which will have us on track to close, to financially close on phase one in June of next year. We've received a $15 million grant from It used to be DHCD, it's now the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. And we're also, we're currently submitting for another grant application for what's called a federalization grant, which we could qualify for up to $10.8 million. So we're, and we'll show you through the schedule, we're submitting a lot, we're hitting the ground running. any opportunity we have to get funding for this project where we're working on it. In the last year, we've had seven resident meetings to discuss the proposed redevelopment and five full community meetings. So this is with the, you know, with the abutters and surrounding community. We just about two weeks ago, we submitted our zoning application and we're going the route what's called a PDD or planned development district zoning. So that application has been submitted. We're gonna be going before the Community Development Board, I believe it's September 5th or September 6th will be our first meeting with them. These are just a couple renderings. We're really happy with how these came out. The first one on the left is showing what the dedicated senior space in the rear of the senior mid-rise building would look like. The existing Walkland Court has a nice community garden with planting beds. We're showing how we're gonna incorporate those, have a nice open lawn area, lots of trees. The second photo is, or the second rendering is showing what the development would look like coming onto Walkland Court from Auburn Street. So coming from Auburn street you're going to have your townhouse family units on the left hand side and kind of straight down the road towards the kind of northwest part of the site is going to be your senior mid-rise building and we also have to the right a family mid-rise building that can accommodate some of our families on our waitlist that have handicap needs. We're looking to put a considerable amount of fully handicap accessible family units in that four-story mid-rise building with elevator access. So this is just kind of what we've been up to, what we're doing, and what the plan is for the next year. So we submitted our PDD zoning application in August. We're hoping to get that wrapped up in October, November. In the next month, we're submitting that second federalization application to DHCD for up to $10.8 million, and we're also submitting a home application to the North Shore Consortium. In the next month, we're putting out an RFP for the low-income housing tax credit equity investor lender. In the next few months, we're going to be onboarding a construction project manager. In October, submitting our state housing production funding application. In October, also submitting our mixed finance proposal to HUD. We are starting the next couple of weeks to just discuss relocation with our residents, with our existing residents at Waukland Core. They've known that this is coming. They're going to be inundated with lots of notices, meetings. It's going to be a very open, thorough process with the residents when it comes to the residents that are going to be affected during phase one that will need to be temporarily relocated to accommodate the senior mid-rise building. So in around January, we hope to receive our PDD special permit approval. As I stated, in June of 2024, we plan on financially closing and construction starting, and then construction being complete by the end of 2025. We hope that it is just under a two-year construction period, about 18 months for construction. And you have all seen this. This is just what our budget looks like, the total development budget. It's $117 million. We list the sources of what that funding is and how we're using that funding. So, I can just go through it real quick. So, the total Medford CPA ask is $1.95 We're going to have about $53 million in low-income housing tax credits, a permanent mortgage, and then the DHCD or the EOHLC, the public housing innovations grant, which we've already received. and we're submitting for the $10.8 million in the next month. We're also submitting for a facilities consolidation fund. And then the other local sources we're going for is the home through the North Shore Consortium. We've already submitted a MassWorks infrastructure funding application, and we're also gonna be hoping to seek some permit relief from the city. And we're also taking out a program loan. So for the phase one, so this is just kind of a sky view from kind of Auburn Street looking down on what the site would look like after phase two is complete. So our local funding ask is 4.75, and that's a combination of the CPA funding, MassWorks, home funding. So we received in 2021 a $350,000 grant from CPA, and that was kind of a planning grant. That was before we had an architect on board that really assisted the housing authority with showing the state that there was local support for this project. And that really helped get us the $15 million that EOHLC gave us in 2022. We submitted an application, another application in 2022 for another $800,000. And now we're coming to you with our final request of another $800,000, which gets us to the $1.95 million. The other local funding needed by state is the MassWorks infrastructure funding in the home application. These funding sources are very important because we need to just have a commitment by the end of October to secure. We're going to be submitting the state housing production plan applications and we need to show by the time we submit that application by the end of October that we have committed the local funding in place by the time we submit the application in October. That's the presentation.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you very much. So are there questions from committee members about this.
[Matt Leming]: My my question is just concerning the the relocation. My understanding is that residents will be receiving Section 8 project-based vouchers. How much assistance will the residents have when they need to in relocating and then relocating back once the construction is complete?
[Ciccariello]: Yeah, that's a great question. So all residents are going to get, we provide generally it's three choices. The first choice is to stay within the development. So we've been holding vacancies at Walkland Court. So we have a fair amount of vacancies already. So one of the choices will be to stay in a building at walk link court. That's not going to be impacted by the phase one construction. So that's one of the choices. If they're towards the rear of the site near the gazebo and the railroad tracks, they can move to a building closer to the rotary. Second option is to move to another Medford housing authority development to one of our other elderly disabled developments. The third option is to take a Section 8 mobile voucher, which a resident can take that voucher and use it anywhere in the United States. It doesn't need to be used in Medford or the state of Massachusetts. They can go anywhere in the country with that voucher. All residents are going to be assigned what's called a relocation coordinator. So each resident gets assigned their own relocation coordinator. and they talk about their preferences, what's important to them during the temporary relocation, then what's important to them in the new building, what's their preference when they come back to the new mid-rise building. All residents, every expense is covered. Their moving expenses are covered. If they need storage units, like storage, stuff to be put in storage, we cover that. They need packing assistance, we cover that. We will assist with their utilities. So if a resident is having trouble or just ask for assistance, hey, I need to switch my, you know, get the cable, put in my new address, or get my mailing address changed. we assist with all that. So we really hold, we stress to our residents, nothing is going to come as a surprise to them. We have multiple, multiple meetings about this. It can be overwhelming the amount of paperwork we provide them, but before we distribute or send paperwork to them, we have a meeting to kind of go through you know, what to expect, what is on that, the paperwork that they'll be receiving. So it is really, we hold their hands through it, because we know this is a tough thing for a lot of people to have to temporarily, you know, relocate. But we, you know, make our best efforts to make it as painless and provide them with a, like I said, packing, moving, unpacking, whatever assistance they need. We are, the relocation team does an amazing job.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Gabe, would you mind actually unstopping the screen share so we can all see the committee members again? And I see Doug has his hand raised.
[Ciccariello]: There you go.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, it's actually more a general question maybe for you, Roberta and Teresa. We received a spreadsheet in the packet that had the list of all the grant applications that were on cycle, but I didn't see a summary. totaling the off cycle to see what the grant total is. It looks like we're going to be short some dollars here compared to the available funds, I think. I don't know by how much. Is that something that we can talk about? Not now, but maybe later in the meeting?
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes. Yes, we can.
[Doug Carr]: I just want to make sure we don't make decisions on spending that we don't understand the context on, you know, in terms of If there's 2.2 million available in this 1.6 requested on cycle, it looks like the off cycle might be significantly higher than the Delta between those two numbers. So it's about choices, really.
[Theresa Dupont]: And we do have, we can talk about that after, but we also do have money in reserves.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Are there additional questions for the Housing Authority?
[Matt Leming]: I guess just a very small point of clarification. So with the Section 8 mobile vouchers, do those have the same three-month expiry if they're not used?
[Ciccariello]: that I can answer that be able to help me with that I can answer that Jeffrey just go here.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: Let me get on. I've been sitting here listening to gave you a great job. Matthew, thanks for the question. It's a 120 days they would be provided to initially want to section 8 vouchers awarded in this instance, we've extended those when necessary we actually even employ a consultant who will help the resident locate a an appropriate unit. and so we've had one of the things that that some of the board members the committee members may be aware of is that our salt install development at 121 riverside avenue where there's 200 units we are undergoing there over a hundred million dollar renovation of that building and we've relocated a good number of the residents from that site. And so we plan to use the same approach at Walkling as we have done at Saltonstall. So I think we're in a better position today to answer some of your questions than we were a year ago because we've been going through it for that period of time. But as Gabe indicated, we really do hold the hands of the residents so that we try to take care of every one of their needs.
[8msxsKW1z_4_SPEAKER_26]: And I'll just jump in and say that the Section 8 mobile vouchers, why it's an option for relocation, is not necessarily one that's widely selected. But we'd like to provide a number of different options because each person's needs are different. And as Jeff and Gabe indicated, each resident works with the relocation coordinator. And then if they are really interested in that mobile voucher, can work with an outside vendor to help look at different options in the real estate market.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: And they're also given the option of being able to keep that voucher and not come back. It's one of the options that we've provided to them also.
[Ciccariello]: And one of the one of the points I'd like to make to is that the mobile voucher is just a temporary relocation. It's just a, yeah, it's just a option for temporary location. What the project in the end, it's currently a state public housing site. severely underfunded and we're switching from state public housing to a project a section 8 project based voucher so all the residents at the when construction's done are going to get a voucher that's tied to the building it's not they can't take the voucher and go anywhere just the mobile voucher is just a resource for temp relocation. when we do the conversion, the building will be, it'll be project-based vouchers that are tied to the property.
[Matt Leming]: Thank you. Just to reiterate, I'm in complete support of this. These are just questions that I was kind of hearing and I'd like, I was just looking for the details for my own notes. So thank you. Thank you very much. That is
[Unidentified]: That is excellent. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Are there any discussion of members?
[SPEAKER_21]: Is there a motion to recommend the funding as requested for the project?
[Joan Cyr]: I'll make that motion. I'll second that.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: I'm sorry. I made the motion.
[Joan Cyr]: I made the motion and I seconded it.
[Doug Carr]: How much are we talking about again?
[Joan Cyr]: I'm sorry.
[Doug Carr]: 800. So just to clarify, we're going to again, I, I'm in 100% support of this project, but we're spending a third of our, fees, a third of our funds before we've elected any else, any other projects that's come in the door is, I just don't think that's wise. If it's 10,000 or 5,000, that's an easy call, but you want to do 800,000 on the second one of the night, that doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.
[Roberta Cameron]: I had asked if I would be interested if possible to consider the possibility of funding to support the construction of a project, but I believe that in this case for this project where this is for still pre-construction or for construction.
[Ciccariello]: Can you remind me, this funding that we're asking for tonight would go. This use, this final one would solely be for construction purposes. That would be split between 2024 and 2025. Yeah. So.
[Matt Leming]: I'll say that the Community Preservation Committee goes for open spaces, stored preservation, and affordable housing. When we do get affordable housing projects, they do tend to be a bigger proportion like they tend to be like few and far between but you know very pricey when they do come about so I'm personally very comfortable spending that amount of money. on this development, which clearly they've done their homework on, and clearly the commitment of the CPC to this development, given what they said, will mean that they get a lot more money than just the $800,000 that we're giving them. So I definitely understand Doug's concern with putting this amount of money given our budgets, but I think that it's money very well spent.
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah, I would agree. I think we're five years into it, and we haven't had a really significant housing application like this that is clearly well thought out. It's not just CPC money. I mean, we're just a fraction of the money that this is going to cost. And it totally supports the whole idea of, you know, providing CPA funds to support affordable housing. It does, it is a lot, Doug, you're right. But in the big scheme of things, I think it is money well spent.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: And I just wanted to reiterate the importance of the local funding aspect in projects like this. They really need to see the commitment from local funding, even if it's, you know, even if our contribution is 2 million of that 117, a lot of it lays, you know, waiting for it, you know, and they have their chips lined up for the rest of the funding too. And then as for the, I had this is my first meeting. I just saw the agenda, you know, 15, 45 minutes ago. So I, I don't know how it works for Medford CPC, but I would, I would assume that, I mean, Teresa, can you tell us like, are we going to run out of money as we go through these five, six projects on the agenda tonight? Or is there sufficient funds? Like, I don't know what the other asks are, you know, I don't see them on the agenda. So.
[Theresa Dupont]: We, we won't run out of funds. We have this year's budget. We have reserves.
[Roberta Cameron]: So, okay, so this evening, but we may. be in the position of having to make tough choices when we consider the remaining applications. So these, all of the applications that we're looking at this evening are jumping in ahead of the game. So our application cycle would ordinarily schedule the application will be received in the fall. We will listen to presentations from all of the applicants and then deliberate usually in December, make decisions in December or January. Sometimes it goes over into February. This has been our approximate timeline the last few years. So we will, the next item on the agenda after these applications that we're talking about this evening will be the eligibility determination forms that we've received. And those are for all of the projects that are participating in the regular funding cycle. And when it comes to, especially because we're being asked to give a lot of funds at the beginning of the cycle, we will have a much smaller pool of funding available for the regular funding cycle. than we've had in the previous years. So that is a trade-off that we're being asked to make. But I also, before I hand you the floor, Joan, I also just wanted to point out for the new members that the two large projects that we're being asked to consider off-cycle this evening, we had received, these are second tranches for very large requests that were made in the last funding cycle. So both of these large projects, they submitted to us last year in the regular application cycle for a very large amount, and we asked them both to split their request over two different funding cycles. We would be able to fund them over two different fiscal years. or that we would have the revenue to be able to cover these large projects. So that's both Walkland Court and the McGlynn School Playground ask. So just want to provide some context for why it's unprecedented that we're considering such large, using such a large amount of our budget before the application cycle has even, um, started for the regular application cycle, but we anticipated these before this application cycle started.
[Doug Carr]: Why are we asking the on-cycle grant applications to take the potential haircut in hard choices versus the off-cycle? Why isn't it one pool of projects and one pool of money so that we can make an informed decision about all potential projects. I am 100% in favor of Walking Court being rebuilt. I will vote for that. But I feel like not having a total request dollars in front of me is making an uninformed decision.
[Joan Cyr]: The same was true, Doug, with the very first application we approved, which was Harris Park, which was off cycle. Um, because they had a grant deadline, you know, that they had to meet. And I, I believe that I read in the notes here that there's also an October deadline for this.
[Doug Carr]: So, right. But I, I, you're absolutely right, Joan. Thank you for that reminder. But, but I remember my, my reaction at that time was this is a terrible precedent for the city for that exact reason. It turned out okay because for the first three or four years, we had more money than requests, but we don't have that anymore. And I just think it's a little unfair to the people down the line, whoever they are, and we know what their requests are, but I don't see why we can't at least look at it holistically versus just voting one at a time by who happens to be first in line on the agenda, that's not a rational way to give away a million dollars in one night.
[Roberta Cameron]: We did establish criteria in the beginning for off-cycle applications that they should be driven by an external timeline, first of all, which this project is driven by the external timeline of a grant application deadline that would bring in much more funding that's needed for this project. And that it should be a high priority object because we don't want to consider allowing someone to jump the line. If it's not a project that is arguably a high priority for the city to, um, to support that project. So, um, I feel that this is a project that meets that high priority criteria, but that's, I think a fair question for the committee members to discuss.
[Craig Drennan]: I have a question, and this might just be me being new, but one of the things that Gabe mentioned was that this round of funding is something that would go towards construction, which wouldn't be slated to start for another year to year and a half. Would there be something, kind of speaking to what Doug was saying, wrong with considering this with perspective to what the other applications are as part of the main funding cycle.
[Joan Cyr]: I thought that there was a an issue with this October submission for a grant and to show the local funding support was important for that application.
[8msxsKW1z_4_SPEAKER_26]: Yeah, that's that's just what I was going to say is that we've always had circled this October 23 deadline for having all of our other funding lined up so that we can go into HLC, the former DHCD, for the housing production funds, because they will not consider you for funding if you don't have your other funding lined up. And so, you know, having evidence of full commitment of the CPA funds for the full 1.95, including this last 800,000, is going to be really critical for that application success. and for us staying on track for a spring 2024 start date.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah, I can definitely see where Doug is coming from when it comes to a lot of the general applications. Those definitely should be considered without certain taking precedence just because they've submitted an application at a certain point. But yeah, with this particular one, the CBC can't be seen to be like waffling around and raising questions with some of those state funding applications. I think we really need to be seen as a very solid supporter of this project if the other funding is going to come through.
[Reggie Graham]: If you must know, I don't think that The support of the project is it is an issue here I think what's at issue here is the timing of the allowance of early admittance versus normal admittance I think we we as a commission have to sit down later on after this cycle has completed and figure out exactly how we want to proceed I know that we proceeded this way in the past. And what's done is done but In the future I think Doug's point is well taken that all things should be considered at once. I realize that there are some timelines here and so that we have to make sure that we've already committed X amount of dollars to this project. And we pretty much committed to this project last year. So it's not something that we can back out of right now. But moving forward, I think that we have to, as a committee, sit down and figure out whether or not this is the way we want to continue.
[Matt Leming]: Well, I think Roberta's point was that sometimes these sort of external deadlines are going to be an ongoing issue year to year. And so there is just criteria for some of these one-off applications that will have to be will likely have to be considered in future cycles. But yes, it should be a something that we're kind of consistently running into just for general applications.
[Reggie Graham]: I think we should I think what we should do is we should just make sure that we make some concessions in this particular case, but moving forward, we should Also incorporate the timelines that are necessary for these types of projects and make sure that we have it included in the total because this is the question that I asked when I first came on to the committee. I was wondering how you could have broken it up so that they were going to get the money this year based on the prior applications. That was the first question I ever asked. And so I was a little confused, but now I understand what we're doing and so on and so forth. I just gotta say, we already have committed, what is it, 1.2 million to this project? Almost? So the last 800,000, it would be silly of us to even think about, not offering that and we do have a timeline for them to have a letter October is that was that what my understanding. So I mean so it just makes no sense not to do it now but moving forward we have to figure out as a committee what we're going to do with these types of situations. And then we have to incorporate the timelines that are given to us.
[Roberta Cameron]: We've made these timelines, yeah. Go ahead.
[Craig Drennan]: It might make sense that like in terms of adding another way of consideration is looking at what the requested amount is a percentage of that year's allocated funds and take that into careful consideration for the early submissions.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Alicia.
[Alicia Hunt]: Hi, thank you. I think most of you know me I'm Alicia hunt and the director of planning, development and sustainability for the city. So I'm familiar with this project, although I'm actually here, more to speak with the team for the next project. And I just wanted to kind of share a couple of points, thoughts. One is, you could look at these as coming in advance of the rest of the projects and the rest of the queue. But these are both projects, and I'm sorry, I don't know about the other Brooks Estates ones on here, that actually applied last year. And so these are actually ones that there wasn't enough funding to also give this amount of money to last year. And so it was suggested that they apply this year. But the reason they were both on last year's application with the large numbers is because of their timelines. And I'm trying to keep this just to the housing authority one right now. But this is exactly true for the McGlynn as well, right? We knew the timelines. We knew that this coming year's grant round of funding doesn't work for those projects. The money is needed before the regular system works. So they applied last year. And so it's not truly that they're coming early. They're actually coming late and getting bumped a little. is one way of looking at these. It's not like these are surprises. They didn't know. Why didn't they know when they asked in the first place? It's none of that. It's this is like we're actually trying to spread these very large projects out over two years in order to provide more support. support for the very large projects. I also just wanted to share that we don't really have any other great funding for housing projects in Medford unless we were going to do something like free cash, right, something that hits the city's also operating budget, and these aren't municipally owned properties. These are public housing. The home funding that's on their budget is money that Medford is part of a consortium. We're providing a letter of support saying that we would like to see home funding go to this project, but Medford doesn't have local control over that because we're a consortium with a handful of other communities. That gets to spread spend and control that that funding source. So there isn't another great source of funding here For a project like this and I just wanted to sort of share that insight and it is actually my office that is helping them With some of these other pieces and we'll be providing a letter of support that in the end the mayor will sign to the office signed for the home funding. Honestly, we may have already done that. I know we've been talking about that letter to help support some of that. But anyhow, I just wanted to share that with you all. Oh, you know, and actually I'm just going to add this one piece. Part of this off cycle thing is because it's when we are running these very big projects, it's a very long lead time between design. And then you have your stuff that you're ready to go out to bid with going out to bid construction. This window is tough. And often there are grant programs that we say, well, that could be a good fit, but their timing is so off. from when we need to do the project for a variety of reasons, that it doesn't always make sense. And the city's been pretty good about taking advantage of some of these large grant programs, but sometimes we have projects that don't. So there is actually this massive benefit to having local money that we control, that we can actually say we should have, you know, other timing for that can respond to the local needs of the community. But I at the same time don't want to say like I would love it if CPA gave out money like three times a year because that would fit our needs better as people running the projects. But I think that would be too overwhelming and too much work for a board like this, which is why having one grant round and then looking at some off cycle actually makes more sense. So now I'll shut up.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you, Alicia. So we have a motion to recommend the funding by Kayleen, seconded by Joan. Any further discussion? Then I will call the roll in the order I see you. Ari. Yes. Doug.
[Doug Carr]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Matthew.
[Doug Carr]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Kaylene. Yes. Joan. Yes. Craig.
[Reggie Graham]: Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Reg.
[Reggie Graham]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: And myself. Yes. So, um, we unanimously passed the recommendation for funding for the amount requested for the housing authority and We, since this is a repeated ask, I don't anticipate that there's any need to add any further conditions to this round of funding either. All right. Thank you to all of the representatives for this project from the housing authority and the Cambridge housing authority for coming to present this to us this evening and We will be in touch. We'll pass this on to City Council next.
[Jeffrey Driscoll]: Roberta, thank you and all the members. All the members, thank you also. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you.
[Ciccariello]: Thank you so much, everybody. Thanks for your support. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: So next, On the agenda is the application, which we've mentioned a few times for the McGlynn school playground, which is again, a second tranche of funding to add to the funding that was recommended by the CPC last winter. So with us this evening, I see Peter and Janine. So I will invite you to. share the latest on this project.
[Peter Cushing]: Thank you very much. Peter Cushing, Assistant Superintendent of Operations, Enrichment, and Innovation. Title gets longer daily sometimes. I really want to first thank this entire committee. I want to thank Shanine Peliquin, my co-chair on this work, who's been amazing, and Alicia Hunt, who's also been amazing, not just on this project, but on so many other things trying to help the schools out. So we are about a year and a half into the formal process of understanding what it's gonna take to rebuild the McGlynn Playground as a universally accessible playground. It is the largest of the school playgrounds in Medford and is at the end of its useful life. We've had numerous inspections done to, sorry, it's not really numerous, two inspections. one on head drop testing and one on a certified playground inspection that was completed mid-winter last year.
[Roberta Cameron]: This group actually drop heads to a rotational pentameter.
[Chenine Peloquin]: Yes.
[Peter Cushing]: Very sophisticated technology. I thought it would be watermelons, but it is actually very sophisticated technology that Um, so, and, um, you know, you've been extremely supportive. Uh, this is the type of playground that, um, will set the bar very high for other playgrounds. We've had a lot of thought. We've had a lot of planning. We've had a really robust, um, community involvement on this. Uh, and so we're here to ask for the remainder of, as has been mentioned previously, what was our full ask last year. But Shanine and Alicia also feel free to support me as I flounder right now, but basically here asking for your support in this endeavor once again.
[Chenine Peloquin]: I did appreciate Alicia's clarification that we did submit an on-cycle application and this body asked us to reapply now. So we're following those directions so we can spread it out and be able to fund as many things as a community as we can. So I appreciate the flexibility, and also the commitment to fund this project. I don't, I mean, but just quick show of hands, who has seen our presentation before? Or has anyone not seen us participate?
[Roberta Cameron]: We have four new members. We have four new members since we previously voted on the last funding trust.
[Chenine Peloquin]: those super fast summary. We did a lot. We started with the school. We started with the kids hearing what they wanted. This design is inclusive. It is more sustainable in terms of, um, the environmental sustainability. There's a lot more trees. It is the, it is a really, really hot playground. The flooding has made the port in place, um, fail much earlier than anticipated. And the playground is not in good enough shape to just do new surfacing like the rest of the playgrounds were.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'd like to back up a little bit and provide context once again for all of the committee members. So the school department had originally requested $500,000 to just resurface this playground without any redesign. And the CPC at the time said, actually we would this is a lot of money to not even improve the playground. And for a surface that's going to have to be replaced every 15 to 20 years or so, where are we going to come up with a half a million dollars every 15 years? So the CPC asks the school department to, instead of doing the playground surface that year to apply for design funds so that we could design a better playground. And that is the public process and the gathering of input from the school committee that Janine and Peter have been talking about. So that was the CPC funded that design process. And now this is the implementation, the actual construction of the playground, which resulted from that design process. Go ahead.
[Chenine Peloquin]: So we've had the Mass Architectural Access Board take a look at it. They're really excited about the thoughtful design that has gone into it. There are little things that the students asked for in terms of like a double straight slide. We were able to get the playground manufacturers to do that. We went with a less expensive structure and a smaller structure than I think we had initially imagined because of what we could afford, but also because there's so much play value elsewhere just built into the environment. We're going to have only the second in the state of an inclusive swing, which is really exciting. And I just think it's really what the school community wanted, both little things that the teachers were very concerned. Half of the teachers said, yes, absolutely, swings. The other half of the teachers said, you can't put swings on a playground. And so we made sure that the teachers that the teacher's concerns about turn-taking and kids maybe getting hit by swings were actually implemented in the design so that they don't have to do that supervision and the unwinding kind of management of that, but it's actually into the design. We have multi-user swings and there's a huge orange berm that will be in front of the swings between the main play area so that kids have a visual representation. We met with Perkins School for the Blind who gave us recommendations on how to support the number of children with visual impairments who go to this school. And it really is, it's what the school deserves and wants. And we have already done things like taking out an extra slide and chosen less expensive equipment where we can. We've taken out some of the, like the logs, the nature play elements over on the side because they're not accessible unless we pay for more surfacing. And so we have already taken many of the things that we wanted out. So I don't want, this is not like our big wish list, we got everything we want in Playground. So the slide that you see to the right of the structure, that has been taken out. But the whole Playground offers so much value to various ages and abilities that it's going to be wonderful.
[Peter Cushing]: That what you're seeing right now is an outdoor classroom, which will give an opportunity for students to engage with their teachers outside. The previous slide, sorry, previous two slides, you can see here in the middle, a stage that will allow for outdoor school or other public events.
[Chenine Peloquin]: It's going to be, Kevin's going to be able to use it for showing outdoor movies. So it'll be a community resource in that way. So he'll have the hat shell or the condom shell, as well as the McGlynn to do summer movies.
[Peter Cushing]: We've also got, you see in the middle here, a swing called the Viking swing. Just a lot of thought has really gone into it. On the lower left-hand corner, you can see a wheelchair swing that will lock in position. You know, just this is a presentation that we did last January to the City Council for the final approval of ARPA money, if I remember correctly. But we've done a lot of work on this to make sure that it's really what students have said and is in the best interest of our disability awareness efforts to really make sure We're being inclusive like say one of the things learning about this and doing this project with she mean many others. is that the Americans with Disability Act sets the minimum standard. And when it comes to playground, what that really equals is not a lot of fun if you're a child with a disability. And so we've really tried to address those issues and those concerns to make sure that this playground will be around for years to come as a beacon of accessibility and support inclusion and really welcoming all of our students in.
[Chenine Peloquin]: So that ramp comes off the Hill just so it's for clarification you go back one slide here. Yeah. So this point yeah that will come off the Hill so it's actually a rate the kids can get to the highest point on the playground. But it's not all ramped playground which saves a lot of funding as well because that gets very expensive so we actually had to come off the Hill.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sheneen, by come off the hill, do you mean somebody walks off the hill straight on to that level?
[Chenine Peloquin]: So if you go back, yeah. So it goes up to about four and a half feet right here at the top of this metal slide. And directly, there's a gate there to separate the two age groups. But if you walk across that, you would end up on the ramp to the bigger structure. So there's a walkway that maintains ADA compliance that goes around the whole playground as a circulation path, and it goes up, up toward the right. There's the top of the ramp there. Go back to the top of the ramp. That's where you come off. That's the high point of the hill, and it comes off onto the structure, goes back down as you go across the top of the playground. And then as you head toward the left, toward that covered structure, It goes back up to, I think, three and a half feet or something over there.
[Alicia Hunt]: Janine, do you want me to talk about timing and funding? That would be great. So as some of the members of the CPC may be familiar, on occasion when there have been really big projects that have come in front of CPC, it's actually made sense for my office to get involved with sort of the project management and grant funding and grant management of it. And as we have been talking with Peter and Shanine over the past nine months or so, it's become clear that it would actually be really helpful for us. So we're actually working, managing car park and Gillis projects, both because people in the community brought those to the CPA. And the CPA said, we need to look at this holistically. And we need staff on like someone on staff managing this, not a resident volunteer, which I'm not. I mean, Shanine is the best resident volunteer we have ever had. Dramatically. But so that's actually how Carr and Gillis got to be where they were and that our staff have been managing them, and in particular, Amanda is project managing both of those, which seems overwhelming, but she's also been managing this Community Development Board. And so, thank you all. Thank you to Teresa taking over CPA, as Danielle taking over the Community Development Board, from Amanda, which is freeing up more of her time for some of the major project management that we have. And so we're asking her to get more involved with Peter and Shanine as this moves into construction. And so this is fully designed. It's been out to bid. We have a contractor. And we actually think we're doing some savings on the contractor that is the low bid on this. It's also the contractor that just completed Morrison Park, which we're going to have the ribbon cutting on. As soon as it stops raining, we've postponed this ribbon cutting three times because of rain. Oh, I didn't miss it, hooray. No, we just postponed it again because of rain, but the park is open. But it's, they are also, they've started construction at Gillis Park. They, we've signed the contracts for Carr Park and they are also the low bid, the contractor we're choosing for McGlynn. And the timing of this works really well because this contractor says this allows them to do surge staffing and move staff between the different parks as they need to when they need more or certain skill at one construction project versus another. So that's part of how they were able to be low bid on all of these. However, the McGlynn project is still pretty expensive. It's less than Carr and more than Gillis. And so it's more than what we have allocated. This CPC money would be huge. We actually debated asking a little more than this from CPC because we are still trying to lock down the last $750,000. And I have been in touch, I work with the Mystic River Watershed Association with some private funders. And so we have been talking to some private funders and they're trying to get this last chunk of money or whether we might be able to squeeze a little bit more out of CDBG. for some projects that came in a little under that were funded more than were needed. And we may end up going back to ARPA if we're not able to squeeze this out of the, squeeze isn't the right word, but you know, get it out to the private funders that we are currently talking with about this project. And I did want to add that while this playground is designed Considering that it's a school playground during all school hours, there's a lot of time when it's not a school playground, and it is in one of our largest recreation areas, and it is designed so the public can use it the rest of the time when school is not in session. Many of you are familiar with the Harvester Energy Festival. And I said, ooh, how is this impacting the festival? You're taking away my walkway. And they said, actually, this middle area is going to be a great place to hold the festival. And we actually think like some of the consultants who are working on this have actually been to the Energy Festival and they're like, we'd actually like to help you with table layout as to how it would fit really well and you can redesign your festival into this layout. So I thought that was kind of exciting.
[Chenine Peloquin]: Even the gate between the preschool area and the 9-12 area, the preschool area really needed to be shifted because the preschoolers are literally falling off the current slides because it's not the right size for them. And that there's a gate that can be closed for the little ones, but then it can be open on the weekends if you've got a parent. The parent can stand at the top of the hill and watch kids on both playgrounds. And it's also easy to supervise. And we already have the supervision layout for where the teachers can stand. And the school has developed or is developing a playground logistics committee to figure out both what's going to happen during the construction process as well as set up for how they're going to be teaching about turn taking on the swings and what they're going to be doing for supervision, and they're very much on board.
[Alicia Hunt]: So I just wanted to sort of share that sort of bigger picture and the city's involvement in this, that this is a really big project for a school, but is also actually, Peter, it's our biggest, it has the most students of any school.
[Peter Cushing]: So combining the middle school, yes, it is the right now I believe the second largest elementary school. But, and you, you touched on this, just with the various housing developments in the area there. with children who use this playground all through the summer. I mean, the amount of use that it gets is incredible. And yes, Little League Games, I mean, and you know, it's kind of like, it's also seen as a regional destination playground just because of where it's located, you know, so.
[Alicia Hunt]: yeah the um clipper ship connector they promised me it's going to construction any day now it um it went out to bid and they've had the state's been trying to do contracts on it for two months um but uh it's going to end at riverbend park so that's um part of our regional destination here it's really happening this year okay hayley
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Again, this is going to be a silly question, and I'm sure everybody already knows the answer, but I don't have any information. What is the ask right now? Like, what are you requesting?
[Chenine Peloquin]: Yeah, so our original ask was 900, and so the last year we were given 500 and asked to apply for 400 this summer.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Okay, and then what's the total cost of this whole project? About 2.8 million. I'm sorry, you're both talking. What was it?
[Peter Cushing]: Janine, go ahead.
[Chenine Peloquin]: 2.8, just under 2.8Million.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: And can I ask what the low bid came in at?
[Chenine Peloquin]: 2.7 something.
[Alicia Hunt]: I was going to say below.
[Chenine Peloquin]: That's great. Right. Well, our initial was 2.6 and then it came in over so.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, so there's the construction base bid, there are the alternates, there's some money for design CA, sorry, construction administration. So that's for the consultants to manage the construction process.
[Chenine Peloquin]: Which takes some of the load off of Alicia's office because Peter can't run the school system and manage a construction process and I'm working for free.
[Alicia Hunt]: It's not even that, it's that they're the designers. And when you have a large project, construction project that goes out to bid, you have your design consultant. If it's a building, you might have your architect, you pay them some construction administration. In this case, it's a landscape architect. It's part of they make sure that everything's installed correctly, and that if we get questions like here is an unforeseen condition and we want to charge the city more, they're the consultant that we pay to tell us whether this is a legitimate ask or not.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, 100 percent. We definitely need it on this job. Are you able to accept the alternate?
[Alicia Hunt]: So we're accepting some of the alternates. And I will just add that right now, my ask to the private funders includes about $140,000 of contingency, which is only 5%. And it's very, so the 2.8 includes 5% contingency. But it makes me nervous to have that low of a contingency. But anyhow, Shannan, can you speak to the alternates which you accepted and which you didn't?
[Chenine Peloquin]: Some of the things that we've already taken out are the pollinator hotel, which was like 15,000. I don't have it right in front of me. The slide at the end of the park, I cannot talk to you right now. That's a rogue nine-year-old.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Alternate pollinator.
[Chenine Peloquin]: So the electrical, we are trying to get an alternate bid or maybe see if someone else can install because the electrical, just for like two outlets and an ethernet cable, it was like $35,000. So we're going back to be like, no, that's not happening. That's for the, the electrical is for the pavilion. Some of the things are to have the poured in place surfacing instead of being solid color. If you mix in black with the color of choice, it's like extremely lower cost. So that's one of the things. But we can't go too dark because we've got kids with visual impairments who need the contrast, right? There's like tricky things. We went with a less expensive structure. And we may end up looking at the, like fewer plantings, so things we can add in later. So we want to get the trees in, but maybe there are fewer of the bioretention plantings at first.
[Alicia Hunt]: And then there was the asphalt replacement along the school, because now that our DPW has the new sidewalk equipment stuff, they're being trained that they'll be able to do the repaving at the end, rather than including. I think that was over $100,000, that item. Normally, I would say we shouldn't push things to DPW, but in this case, it really was worth the funding, and things are improving there.
[Chenine Peloquin]: And then we're going to have the... Go ahead, Roberta.
[Roberta Cameron]: You're still continuing all the alternates? Sorry, you're cutting out really badly.
[Chenine Peloquin]: I didn't catch that.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm sorry. I didn't want to cut you off. You were still in the process of explaining the cost savings.
[Chenine Peloquin]: Again, let me see if I get that.
[Peter Cushing]: In all honesty, that's pretty much it because then you start really cutting play value and we're trying to really maintain the play value. I'll give you an example. We want to maintain the electrical to the pavilion, because that's just gonna make life a lot easier over the long run for the variety of people who are gonna be using this facility. Similar to, I thought it was kind of almost like ironic how Kevin earlier was talking about adding an outlet to the condom shell, right? I mean, it's like to do all this work and not have the conduit and the stuff run, people will for years will be like, why didn't they put an electrical outlet in? So I'd like to leave a post-it note that says like it would have cost $35,000. However, it just would make life a lot easier when we start having events there or there's a performance for the school where kids can sit outside or whatever it might be.
[Chenine Peloquin]: Preschool graduation was the first thing the preschool teacher said. She's like, I can't wait to have graduation there. So the hard choices that we're facing are eliminating the electrical, accepting all of our deduct alternates, which would be 60,000, which sometimes we did take out a sensory path in the outdoor classroom that would get less use than other features, and that was significant savings already. Retaining the existing fire lane asphalt paving, so just leaving the existing stuff, which would also prevent us from adding the already budgeted pavement markings to add space for winter play out there. Eliminating the drinking fountain, reducing the tree count by 40% and eliminating the shelter. So they're big changes. that we would be facing if we can't secure all of it.
[Roberta Cameron]: So my question is whether we've asked the Medford community to pay for any of this. Like the library was able to raise a lot of funds by selling tiles, selling bricks, selling leaves to post. And I mean, imagine how many families would it take to band together to pay for a pollinator hotel? Right. So that was discussed.
[Chenine Peloquin]: Peter, do you remember what the, so that had to go, that was referred to the school committee's, whatever, subcommittee on naming, et cetera, because they, whatever they decide for this one becomes the precedent for others. So we were discussing, when we asked the school committee to get us an answer on if they would like us to apply to Wegmans for grants, if we wanted to do community-based fundraising, and they were kind of like, we don't want to have to deal with any naming stuff. They don't want the playground to be the Wegmans playground.
[Alicia Hunt]: I also want to add, I don't know if you considered this, but that kind of fundraising takes a massive effort. They actually hired a professional consultant to run that and they had a steering committee. Like that's not a little undertaking to do something like that. That is a major commitment of volunteer time or staff time to run something like that. And I did say I wasn't going to do that.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, absolutely. I don't think that we have capacity in this Zoom meeting right now to undertake that kind of fundraising, but I wonder whether that specific school community would be interested in supporting it among the families who attend that school. or the families to attend Medford schools in general.
[Peter Cushing]: Yeah and it I think that's a great idea really do I also do think the fundraising is a great idea. Understanding like the school committee has put the mechanism in place through policy for us to be able to do that. But it is that the time and man hours I think the school is a great idea. However, many of our schools are more socio economically diverse, and by that don't necessarily have access to all the funds, three, many of our schools we now qualify for. I can't believe I'm blanking on this. One of my new roles is running the food service program with our great new hire, Retta Smith. But we are now community eligible for grants. And what we also have on that is for that free and reduced lunch aspect, even though everyone's free for the state, all of our schools now qualify as part of a community eligibility. Well all but one. So it's really looking at like the overall socioeconomic health of the district. I think it's 42 percent of the district qualifies as free and reduced lunch and the McGlynn represents a sizable part of that population. So
[Chenine Peloquin]: The McGlynn also has the entire newcomers program. So all of the ELL students are now at the McGlynn, as well as the most significantly, the kids who are most significantly impacted by their disabilities are also at the McGlynn. And so those families are also already facing additional costs just by having a child with a disability.
[Peter Cushing]: And so I don't mean this like I say this oftentimes tongue in cheek that, you know, like a bake sale is not going to cover this, unfortunately, unless it's a really big bake sale and we shut down 93 right like. You know, I mean actually I'm I'm I'm worried about finding the remainder of the runway for this. I know that we will but I also know that we're we're out to bed and the beds are in and people want contract signed as they should and you know. this playground is very needy. And while it won't be necessarily CPC's job for the other three playgrounds at the schools, trust me, if they could be standing in line, they'd be in line because they're approaching 20 plus years old. And unfortunately, the lifespan of these playgrounds is 20 to 25 years.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you are there their questions or discussion from committee members.
[Reggie Graham]: Did they take into consider. I just I never heard anything more about the drainage. I mean that was what you know kind of decimated the. Yes, you mean. Yeah, I didn't hear anything about it so I just wanted to know if if that had been remedied.
[Chenine Peloquin]: Sure thing. So DPW did do a temporary French drain solution to get us through until construction. But they were very clear that it was a temporary solution. So it works. And the playground did not flood last year. So they actually got to use it the whole winter, which was great. And it will get them through this winter, hopefully, until construction in the spring. But drainage is completely addressed in the design. So in addition to runoff solutions with the bioretention ponds, as well as drainage that will connect to sewers, et cetera, for additional runoff, it has been addressed efficiently.
[Reggie Graham]: Where will it be going? Will it be going into the river?
[Chenine Peloquin]: No. Well, not to my knowledge, but I don't.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yes.
[Chenine Peloquin]: That's above my pay grade.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'll answer that one. So yes. So normally what you want to do is have water infiltrate, right? Go into the grass and soak into the ground. The problem that we've run into here is that this used to be a salt marsh. This used to be an area of tidal flooding and tidal, like literally tidal area with tidal grasses before the Amelia Earhart Dam was built in 93. So this is full of peat moss and the water doesn't actually absorb here because it is constantly soaking wet. And if you walk through the grass, you will find there are areas of the grass near the wind turbine that are just always wet. And so that's the problem here. So some of it is designed to soak in with the rain gardens and stuff, but there are actually also just pipes that will take the water off the playground and take it to the river. That's where the stormwater in Medford All goes out to the river because it just needs to be taken away from the location. But that was part of the cost and some of the design was having appropriate environmental engineers look at this, do testing, and really understand what are the soils and what solutions can work here so that the playground does not continue to deteriorate like this.
[Chenine Peloquin]: And just for reference, we couldn't put grass on the playground itself because kids destroy grass in closed-in spaces. So we did have to go with a turf lawn, but it's not going to be the rubber infill. It's going to be a natural infill, which will keep it cooler as well as not create the problems that you would assume would happen if you throw a bunch of pieces of rubber into the river.
[Peter Cushing]: And trust me, we would love not to have synthetic, but it's just, it is, we've asked numerous people, it is entirely, and just life experience working in schools, it is entirely unrealistic to do natural, unfortunately.
[Unidentified]: Alicia, do you know? Ari?
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm sorry, let me hear from Ari first.
[Unidentified]: You're good.
[Ari Fishman]: Thank you. Better? Yes.
[Chenine Peloquin]: No, it's the wrong one. Mute the other one.
[Ari Fishman]: Sorry. Thanks for bearing with me with technical difficulties. My question is just as a newcomer, are there any kind of major areas of discussion that the previous round of funding had talked about that we haven't talked about yet today? This seems like a great project. I'm obviously all for it. Just curious if there's anything that they discussed that we haven't yet.
[Chenine Peloquin]: I think one of the questions was, was there going to be an increase in tree cover? And there is significant increase. Peter can show the, can you pull up that image of, there's, you can see the existing trees are the light green, the kind of teal color, and the new trees are the brighter green. Great. So significant shade increase, it was one of the things that came up before. I don't remember anything else specifically.
[Peter Cushing]: And this tree at the center is actually seen as like the tree that kids all identify with and love and that, you know, they said like if that, what was the quote, Janine?
[Chenine Peloquin]: If you touch that tree, we'll cry for the rest of our lives. So we put a platform around it to save the roots and they get to spend time around it.
[Matt Leming]: Why do they like the tree so much?
[Chenine Peloquin]: Because it's the only thing of value on the playground, frankly. It really is. They can climb up. It's like if you go by there, there's like a foot tall rise, like a cement wall around it. But they can sit under the tree and feel the roots. And there's shade. And they bird watch. And they can see the seasonal changes. And it's the coolest spot. It's the place to cool off, I mean. Um, it's just, it's really the only natural spot on the whole playground and we are humans and we love nature. So they love it.
[Ari Fishman]: Can I ask one more question that that just reminded me of, um, is, is this interacting at all with the community garden that I know is kind of on the edge of that, uh, area?
[Chenine Peloquin]: So the only interaction we had, um, discussed with the community garden was whether it would be easier to run water for the drinking fountain from the garden water supply or from the school. And it looks like the school is nothing is easy, but the school is the easiest. But other than that, no. I mean, people would be walking by it, but the walkway will still go between the playground and the community garden, but then it will actually direct kind of across instead of continuing around the playground like it does now.
[Ari Fishman]: Thank you.
[Joan Cyr]: And what about our crazy idea about getting some stumps from the stump dump to stick over there for natural play?
[Chenine Peloquin]: I'm going to recertify for that playground safety. It's all about intention. If you intend it to be play surface, then it has to be compliant, which means it would have to be over a protected surface. And if it's intended to be natural, then people shouldn't be playing on it, which is why the white walls have to go. among other reasons, but.
[Alicia Hunt]: We're working with a consultant to do natural play spaces and natural things like that at Logan Park. And it's it's difficult, but I'm going to tell you that it is simpler when you're not part of the school environment as well. But we're also working really hard to like get rid of those stumps. It's periodically I go over there with my son. And it's it changes every time and there are fewer and fewer they're trying to actually dispose of the stump dump. It's interesting.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thanks. Craig, did you still have a question?
[Craig Drennan]: Yeah, just a quick question going back to the stormwater point. Do you know if they're tying into the existing stormwater system underneath the park or are they putting in new outfalls? Because that would impact the existing DCR trails in that area.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm not 100% addressing, they're not running whole new lines down to the river. They're gonna connect into, if I remember correctly, the stormwater systems that are under the parking lot.
[Chenine Peloquin]: Yeah, that sounds right to me too.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, so they're not digging up all the way to the river or anything to do new stormwater pipes, but under the playground itself will be all new equipment.
[Chenine Peloquin]: And we have a permeable port in place and permeable turf.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay, anybody would like to see the functioning of permeable poured in place. That is what's at Morrison park now.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. I would like to ask if any committee members would like to make a motion to recommend 400,000 dollars for this.
[Chenine Peloquin]: Project or 9, you know.
[Joan Cyr]: I'll make a motion to recommend the $400,000 for the universally accessible playground renovation of the Glen.
[Matt Leming]: Second.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. I'll bring this up after I call the roll. I would like to have some discussion about a possible condition to add. Although we may have already added this condition the previous time but let me just finish the vote on the funding first and then we'll talk about the condition. So Ari. Yes, but I'm curious about voting before we hear the conditions in my mind it seems Yeah, so it's been our custom to recommend the funds and then to approve a letter that States conditions that will be that will be the Maybe this is backwards, but it's the order that we've always done this So Is it the condition that's on the recommendation letter already?
[Joan Cyr]: Or is it a new recommendation?
[Roberta Cameron]: We have a draft recommendation letter, but then we will wordsmith that draft with the conditions in place. I haven't done this for the previous ones because we weren't adding any conditions, and so it wasn't really relevant for us to vote on the language of the letter. So, I'm sorry. Your vote was yes.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Ari Fishman]: It was a yes for the project with a waffle for the procedure.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay. Thank you. Maybe we can talk about the procedure sometime in the future when we are not as pressed for time as we are today. Doug?
[Matt Leming]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Matthew?
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Kaylene?
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Joan? Yes. Craig yeah. And myself, yes. So, we have recommended the funding for this project now my question was whether I don't.
[Theresa Dupont]: I have them. The last funding, the conditions were the playground shall be available for use by the general public during non-school hours. And second condition was to provide a preventative maintenance plan upon completion of the project and to provide the CPC with a maintenance update every five years thereafter. Okay.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, that sounds familiar.
[Chenine Peloquin]: Maybe you and I had just discussed it.
[Roberta Cameron]: What we did not include last time that we need to include this time is that so the artificial turf is actually not eligible for CPA funding.
[Chenine Peloquin]: We know.
[Roberta Cameron]: So you do have other funding sources that will cover the cost of the artificial turf in your budget. But I think that we should have a condition that no CPA funds will be used for artificial turf. just to make that clear for the record and make sure that as this project is being administered going forward by our very capable staff, that they make sure that the artificial turf is being paid for out of a completely separate account and not the CPA funds. Did you have another question, Ari?
[Ari Fishman]: Yes, I did. In terms of conditions, and this may be because I'm new to the committee, but are there any existing requirements or conditions about native plantings or not cutting down mature trees and plantings? And if not, can I suggest that as a topic of discussion or consideration?
[Roberta Cameron]: We have in previous projects discussed or included direct conditions along the lines. And given that we haven't included that condition on this project in the past, I think that would be fair to add that there's a, I think that we were very careful about wordsmithing it in the past to make sure that we were not hamstringing a project and forcing it to comply with something that doesn't really work. So, um, I wish that I had handy what the actual words were that we used in the past, that the project that, um, there would be a preference for planting species native to this area. And as you say, um, mature trees and to preserve mature trees wherever possible.
[Peter Cushing]: Yeah, just one. There are a few trees, I don't know the exact number, that have not fared well. There are three that are dead. Yeah. And there's at least one or two that may be half dead. So just as long as we'd be able to replace those. Trust me, I do not want to cut down any trees at all possible.
[Ari Fishman]: That makes total sense that some trees are sick or dead. It's the sort of language that it's good to have in to make sure that things don't get bulldozed for ease of tractors. And in terms of the native species, it seems particularly apt to this project since the pollinator garden had to get cut.
[Chenine Peloquin]: Oh, not the pollinator. I'm sorry, not the pollinator garden. The pollinator hotel got cut, but the pollinator garden is still happening. And that would be native. I believe that if you'd like, you could probably see the planting plan. I think that this, we had discussed there being native trees, particularly not any, like, we're not going to plant into Norway maples. But,
[Unidentified]: Yeah, someone else can find that faster than I can, but the planting plan, if you'd like to see that, is probably available.
[Alicia Hunt]: And we're working with Copley-Wolf on this as landscape designers, and they have a strong preference for using natives wherever possible and retaining trees. They're the same designers we used for the Morrison Playground.
[Ari Fishman]: That's great. Take care. Thanks, Alicia.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: Do you want to wordsmith this late? Sorry. Go ahead, John.
[Joan Cyr]: Here's the answer to the last condition that we talked about in the chat. So you could throw it in there too.
[Alicia Hunt]: Stop sharing for a moment. Yeah. The Medford Public Schools shall ensure that the playground will continue to be made available to the public during non-school.
[Chenine Peloquin]: I meant just- Okay. For the record as well, there's been a lot of collaboration between the Parks Department, DPW, like the Parks Department specifically, DPW and a larger, and the Fire Department as well, to make sure that this design works for the emergency access, for plowing, for like, and there's really nuanced conversations between like, who's responsible for emptying? There aren't any garbage cans out there right now, but they fill in like half a day when there's a leak. So who's responsible for emptying it during the week? Is the parks department willing to empty garbage cans on the weekend because it's their stuff? You know, so we're having all of those conversations between the different departments.
[Craig Drennan]: Off the top of your head, do you know who's responsible for maintaining things like the permeable paving and the retention or the rain gardens over time? Because I know the permeable paving can be a pain to keep working. after a year or two?
[Chenine Peloquin]: It's not permeable paving, it's permeable poured in place, the rubber surfacing. And then the turf is also permeable, but the asphalt will just be standard asphalt.
[Peter Cushing]: Generally speaking, these will all become the responsibility of the Metropolitan Public Schools to really make sure that they're well maintained.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you all for this discussion. I'm sorry, I've been frozen for part of it. So I don't want to cut you off if you're if there is still conversation, but I do want to move us forward.
[Joan Cyr]: We have three on the decision ladder, so.
[Roberta Cameron]: Um, where are we on the decision letter? Um, do we have is the 2 recommend is the 2 conditions sufficient or did we need to add a 3rd condition?
[Joan Cyr]: We had a 3rd 1 Teresa. Can you tell her what the 3 are?
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, I'm just going to share my screen again here, but we've got. CPA funds will not be utilized to fund the artificial turf component of the project. Medford Public Schools shall make all, this is just me wordsmithing, so don't judge me, shall make all plausible efforts to retain the existing mature plantings and to incorporate native plantings into the landscape plan. And Medford Public Schools shall ensure that the playground will continue to be made available to the public during non-school hours. This last one was included in the last decision, so we're just reinforcing that need.
[Chenine Peloquin]: That's that's great because that helps us because sometimes after school just wants exclusive use of the playground and we can say it's public like it was publicly funded and it has to be accessible to the public. Love it.
[Roberta Cameron]: Great, so is there a motion to approve the recommendation letter with the conditions as stated?
[Joan Cyr]: So moved.
[Roberta Cameron]: Second. Alright, then. If you could stop sharing the screen so that I can see everybody, Teresa, thank you. I will call the roll again. Ari? Yes. Doug?
[Matt Leming]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Matthew?
[Matt Leming]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Kaylene? Yes. Reg?
[Matt Leming]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Joan? Yes. And myself, yes. Did I miss anyone?
[Craig Drennan]: I'll say yes on behalf of me.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm sorry, Craig, yes. Craig, yes, thank you. All right, so I believe we have finished with the recommendation for the schools. Thank you.
[Chenine Peloquin]: Thank you, thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Both of you for all the work that you put into this. Thank you.
[Peter Cushing]: If you see me in Medford Square with a five gallon bucket collecting money, you know what it's about.
[Joan Cyr]: do it around a labor day people will think it's for you know jerry's kids well the fall is like public
[Roberta Cameron]: public event season. So maybe we should have a five-gallon bucket saying, especially at the Harvester Energy Festival, when people can see exactly how much work is needed on this playground. Maybe there will be some generous people who could at least fund a pollinator hotel, if nothing else.
[Joan Cyr]: Alicia's like, I think I like that.
[Alicia Hunt]: There is one framing on this, and that is that some of the money that's going into this is ARPA. And people think of that as an unlimited bucket, but it's not. We're actually getting to the point where we're having to make some hard decisions about ARPA funding. So if the community wanted to help, so what I would really like to do is secure all the funding for this, sign the contract, get the contractor going. And then if we were able to do some fundraising, We could either add in some of the things that we had to cut, or we could actually backfill out some of the ARPA money, which could then be used for other projects and other things around the city we want to do.
[Roberta Cameron]: That would be fantastic. Yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: I could personally spend all of the city's ARPA money, but they're not letting me.
[Peter Cushing]: I think I could spend it four times over.
[Alicia Hunt]: Actually, I think Peter's got bigger expenses than me, although I would go solar. But so would you. Roofs and solar were done.
[Chenine Peloquin]: Well, just as a reminder, our pavilion is ready for solar whenever you want to put it on there.
[Peter Cushing]: We designed it for solar.
[Chenine Peloquin]: Great. But the other thing is that just to be aware that in the next five to 10 years, we are going to need six or five additional school playgrounds because they are all done in that time frame. So that's a lot of community fundraising to get these other playgrounds done as well. So that is a future expense that we should be as a community anticipating and knowing it's not gonna be a surprise.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. Thank you. Well, thank you again, all of you for sharing all of this with us this evening. Thank you.
[Joan Cyr]: We just had a cat sighting at Ryan's.
[Roberta Cameron]: And I would like to invite Ryan Hayward, I think you're here to talk about Thomas Brooks Park and tell us about the application for Thomas Brooks Park. And one thing that I would like to actually just as a preamble, so I see in the agenda there are two applications or two items for Thomas Brooks Park, but I had only seen a small grant application in the packet when I looked at it earlier today.
[Theresa Dupont]: That's because I got really excited and I put them both down. The phase two construction is not going to be considered this evening.
[Roberta Cameron]: I see, okay.
[Theresa Dupont]: Hopefully that is to Ryan's happiness.
[Roberta Cameron]: So Ryan, this is something I should perhaps have communicated with you before inviting you to present this evening, but I just In reviewing the small grant application for the Thomas Brooks Park memorial, I would like to caution that a memorial on its own is not eligible as a standalone project for CPA funding. But in the application, there was a description of how this memorial that you're seeking to design will protect and help to cover and preserve the archeological site. So I'm particularly interested in hearing your presentation this evening emphasize the necessity for the preservation of the archeological site through physically protecting it and to hear if this the memorial that you're looking to design is going to fulfill this purpose. So with that introduction, I would like to ask you to share with us the project that you've applied for this evening.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Sure. Good evening, all. Everybody can hear me, I hope. Ryan Hayward from the Medford Historical Commission. I'm the vice chair. Jen is currently out on hiatus right now. She got really busy with work, so she sent me to you guys to communicate what's been going on with Thomas Brooks Park and to hopefully move this application along. So for the benefit of your new members, Jen and I and members of the Historical Commission back in 2019, I'm going to talk a little bit about this project. This is a project that was applied to CPC to create a master plan for Thomas Brooks Park. Um, and, uh, so he and the commission worked with members of the community to kind of lay out what goals are for the park. We had some inkling that this site is really historic more than just for the Brooks family for which it's named. has associations with slavery in Medford that tie it to the larger community in New England. It has important information on the natives who lived here and So we worked with CPC after we got the master plan together, and we were awarded funding to execute phase one. Phase one was a due diligence exercise, archaeological dig, where we tested the area where we believe that the Thomas Brooks House site was located. We were able to find that. We were able to confirm that there was native presence on the site. knowing that it kind of led us to part of this project. And then once we had that information in hand, we executed the second half of phase one, which was to do the restoration work on both the Fieldstone Wall and Palm, what the commission is calling Palm's Wall, but what has been known in Medford as the Old Slave Wall, which is the brick wall running along a portion of Grove Street between Ravine Road. And I think it's, Newton Street. And so we completed that project this summer. The contractors moved right along once they got the materials necessary, and so both of those projects are done, as is the archaeological dig. Out of the dig came recommendations for some additional due diligence. There were a number of artifacts that came out of the ground that alluded to the potential for more need to study that particular site. So in the phase two application, which is not in this application, we've actually asked to be considered for a second round of archaeological work to complete the archaeological information there and to basically locate the four corners of the building that was there, excavate down to the base of the foundation, because we believe that there's a large, I would say, cache of artifacts that are probably, that were out of reach of shovel's length, basically, and to do some testing in and around the site to kind of confirm the presence of outbuildings, which we suspect are there. There's no visible features but we definitely found elements in the vicinity of the building that would suggest that there are things there. So for this particular project I have always considered it a cap on top of the archaeological resource. You would never fully excavate a site to recover all possible artifacts in this particular location, so to protect it from people who would hunt for artifacts, the commission kind of envisions some sort of cap layer that is a protection on this particular location to make sure that people do not to make it a kind of a focal point of the park. To prove a need, I've had to call the Medford PD four times because the neighbors kindly tell me that there are people that followed in the wake of the construction that were there with metal detectors. So there were, there are thieves that do follow in the wake of these type of projects. So I perceive the need to protect this site is really important. you know, our own 400 years of history, but it's also, um, the history of the native peoples, the site and sites very close to this location were inhabited by native peoples. And, um, there was definitely evidence of that uncovered during the archeological dig. And so we just like to make sure that it, it kept protected. Um, so this, what we're asking for funding, the commission has in hand as part of its city budget this year, um, the match of, um, $4,800, and we're asking CPC to fund the other $5,000 for a $9,800 project for Peter's design of that, what I'll continue to call the cap rather than a memorial. As part of that, I don't really see it as a memorial more as a historic interpretation of the site, we envision that there'll be some connections and information on the native peoples, the enslaved peoples, the Brooks family, and of course Medford's owned this site now for 100 years, so Medford also has an important role in the preservation of this particular park. And That's basically it. One of the things that this project will do if it moves forward is to engage the numbers of stakeholders that are involved with this park. So in addition to renaming the wall formally, we kind of wanted to talk to both the representatives of the Native tribes and all the different city commissions and the royal house and any other groups that want to become involved with this project to get their input on both this interpretive protection and then formally recognize the need to change the name of both the old slave wall and maybe memorialize some of the forgotten people that inhabited this site. So that's basically in a nutshell. interested to see what if that helps move the project along. So I certainly can change the terminology. I don't envision it like a memorial so much as interpretation and preservation of open space and capping of the historic resource.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. I really appreciate the need and the opportunity that CPA gives us to be able to add some interpretive commemoration of important sites like this around the city, and especially to be able to highlight the history of the people who have inhabited this site over the centuries. And it definitely, I think, helps. I think in our recommendation letter, we can make sure to refer to this as an archaeological cap, as you stated. And, you know, noting that that is the primary purpose of this project, I strongly encourage your engagement of the stakeholders to be able to use this as an opportunity to establish the narrative of this site. Are there other questions or comments from committee members? I would like to just provide a little bit of context once again for the newer committee members. The original, as I think Ryan explained, the original design of this project was funded by the CPC a couple of years ago. And then phase one construction included the restoration of both the stone wall and the brick wall that you described. And I have received so many comments from members of the community over the last year who've seen that restoration work ongoing and have been raving about how beautiful it is to see this wall being restored. So many compliments to you and to the Historical Commission for spearheading that effort.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I'll just ditto that. I live in that neighborhood. driving by this summer watching that contractor, whoever got this phase. It was like incredible luck watching them work. I've never seen something happen so fast. I have no idea what an archeological cap is. So are you talking about that field right there? Like my kids call it something else, but is that what you're talking about right there?
[Adam Hurtubise]: So when you enter opposite
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Like Jackson?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Let me back up. In that parcel, it's a six acre parcel, dead center opposite Ravine Road was the Thomas Brooks House site. And it existed all the way up until about 1865 when the house was pulled down by Gorham and Shepard Brooks. And they kind of I guess they kind of basically kind of buried the whole house in the foundation and then buried it over and it's long been assumed that there's some sort of archaeological resource underneath there. So last summer we, PAL, the Public Archaeological Laboratory, who's the largest archaeological team in New England, worked with the City of Medford Historical Commission and a series of neighborhood volunteers to actually undertake a bunch of test pits. They were basically a shovel's worth of dirt straight down three feet in a gridded pattern to try to locate this house site and to confirm whether or not there were archaeological artifacts under the ground and what were their concentrations. And we were able to answer some questions. Chief among them is, is there a house site here and where is it? And we were able to figure that out. And out of that came another recommendation to do a larger dig to learn more about the actual house itself. And maybe more about the people from the artifacts that were there. And then what we would do afterwards is once that work is complete, you would maybe strip the upper soil, the very top overgrowth, which is obvious it's later fill that the Brooks family put there to cover the whole site. And then we would build something that is very shallow in the soil to protect whatever is left for information under there. So an archaeological resource is finite. So once you dig it, you can't undig it. You have to record the information and you would never fully strip a site unless you had a project. And the easiest one for people to recognize is unless you have a project like the big dig where you're going to go through Boston and destroy everything in your path to build the actual highway. That's not normally what happens. So what we do is we put things over the archaeological resources to protect them from people coming in, digging, etc. And in this case, we get the added benefit of having some interpretation out of it as part of that project.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: So this $5,000 is putting something over that field?
[Adam Hurtubise]: This is for the design of that and to engage the community stakeholders and then out of that we will have something in hand that I can take to have contractors price out so that we know what it is for ballpark figures so that then we can go back to hopefully CPC but also I've I asked Alicia and at the planning office, what other grants we could apply for to get that work paid for as well. So looking to kind of beef up our fundraising by not just coming back to the CPC, but also looking for other granting opportunities.
[Roberta Cameron]: I would especially encourage you to go to the National Freedoms Way the Freedom's Way National Heritage Corridor. They have grant funding that is specifically targeted to projects like this.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes, I have already talked to Patrice Tedisco and some of their board members having received for another project one of their preservation-based grants. So yes, they would also be a good funding source.
[Doug Carr]: I think it's really got great value. But, you know, we may have to come back for more money. I think an interpreter sign alone, it can be $5,000 depending on the scale of the graphics. and what's being told, the cap. I think we'll have to kind of see where it goes, Ryan, and play it by ear, because you don't actually know until you start designing something where it's going to actually lead, right? Because there's a lot of unknowns here, especially with the stakeholders and the story you want to tell.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, what I envision is, you know, there'll be a design that, you know, starts the conversation and then we'll have a lot of conversation. And then once that conversation reaches a consensus, then there'll be the final design. And, you know, it could take a year before that conversation concludes. So, yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: And I just also for the benefit of the newer members wanted to explain a little bit the context of the small grant program, which is the so the Medford CPC has the discretion to establish its own application process for funding that's not spelled out by the state. And so when we set up our application process, We envisioned having this annual funding cycle for larger projects, but we wanted to set aside a small amount of funding that could be available for small projects every year. The first couple of years, we very intentionally carved off $50,000 from the larger round that people could come to on a first-come, first-served basis to apply for small projects, which have to be up to $5,000 of CPA funds, which can be matched with up to $5,000 of funding from another source, so that the project, the full project, doesn't cost more than $10,000. So that's what meets our definition of a small project. And they are on a rolling basis, the applications. And because we've had so few small project applications in the history of the program, we've stopped setting aside that $50,000 every year of money to be targeted to it. you know, as long as the funds are available, and as long as we're not receiving more than, say, five small grant applications in a year, it is reasonable to consider these applications on a first-come, first-served basis. So that's how we're treating this project and the first project that we saw this evening a little bit differently than we're treating the large projects that come to us. Is there any more questions or comments from committee members or a motion to recommend the $5,000 requested for this project?
[Matt Leming]: Motion to recommend the $5,000 requested.
[Roberta Cameron]: Second. All right, then I will call the roll. Ari? Yes. Doug?
[Joan Cyr]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Kayleen?
[Joan Cyr]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Joan? Yes. Craig?
[Matt Leming]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Matthew?
[Matt Leming]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Reg?
[Matt Leming]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: And myself, yes. Great, thank you all. Thank you. I have to ask are any, um, conditions that committee members would like to add to this project, given that this is the. The third tranche of funding that we're giving for Thomas Brooks parks. So although I have not reviewed what conditions were placed on the first two tranches, I imagine that we covered our usual, um, requirement for a sign. or any other.
[Joan Cyr]: You have to change the language of the draft letter to be a cap versus a commemorative memorial.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes, we should make that change. Yep, already did. Great, thank you.
[Joan Cyr]: The draft condition of approval talks about memorial design, so complying with the standards for rehabilitation and Secretary of Interior standard, but I don't think that would apply to a CHAP.
[Theresa Dupont]: I don't think it would either. But it's a draft. I can take that right out.
[Roberta Cameron]: Oh, sorry. I don't know specifically if there are Secretary of Interior standards for archaeological sites.
[Adam Hurtubise]: There are. There definitely are.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, so let's keep the phrase about compliance with Secretary of Interior standards because it will apply to whatever their standards are that are appropriate for this project.
[Joan Cyr]: Let's take out the War Memorial. The design shall comply with in the condition.
[Roberta Cameron]: Unfortunately, I cannot see the screen that you're sharing because my computer stopped showing me any images from this Zoom call a long time ago. Could you read? Or I can trust that Joan, you've picked up any changes that need to be made.
[Joan Cyr]: I think Teresa just made the last change, so.
[Theresa Dupont]: You want me to reshare?
[Roberta Cameron]: It won't make a difference. My computer is not giving me any graphics anymore.
[Theresa Dupont]: So I changed it to protective commemorative cap. Yeah.
[Matt Leming]: Roberta, do you have a Mac?
[Roberta Cameron]: No, I have a PC and I think it wanted to be restarted a long time ago and it hasn't been, so it's slowly just giving up. But as long as it still lets me see and like hear the call and see who's on the call that I can still function tonight. Um, all right. So is there a motion to approve this revised recommendation letter?
[Joan Cyr]: and motion to approve.
[Roberta Cameron]: Seconded. Seconded. And I will call the roll again. Ari. Yes. Doug.
[Doug Carr]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Kaylene. Yes. Joan. Yes. Craig.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Matthew.
[Matt Leming]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Reg.
[Matt Leming]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: And myself yes. All right, so we have approved this off-cycle or small grant application.
[Unidentified]: Great.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you, Ryan, for making the presentation. And Ryan, please, and Doug, pass our thanks to the whole Historical Commission for their work on this project.
[Adam Hurtubise]: We will. While I'm here, do you need me to talk about the application in the future for phase two of construction work?
[Roberta Cameron]: You know, if we were not already running so long in this meeting, I would love to hear more about that, but I think we'll just have to. Maybe you and I can talk offline for an update and we'll wait until we have our applicant proposals. To. To hear the full. discussion about that.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay, sounds good. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. So next on the agenda is an update on the planning subcommittee annual celebration. Teresa, do you want to give us the two-minute version of what we've talked about?
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, I'd love, I'd love to give you the 90 second version. Um, so, essentially, we met and we're trying to really focus on a date. We really like the idea of piggybacking off of another large community events that could have been happening in the community. So, Octoberfest was really the best one, we were thinking, because there's a lovely, you know, they shut down the square, it's a great time. You know, we were looking at the public library as having our event happen there before the Octoberfest. Unfortunately, the library is out, so we are still trying to find another venue. as to where we would be hosting our celebration. Ultimately, we were thinking of the flow of the event to be, you know, a networking section, maybe for about 30 to 45 minutes, a presentation where basically give a synopsis of what all the good things CPA has done in our community, invite some of our grantees to come and share their story, how you know CPA impacted them to be able to provide such a great service, you know, whatever it is to the community. So we were thinking music and some light snackies, but right now we're just a little stuck on venue and as such, a final date. Doug, I see you've unmuted yourself. Would you like to provide more color?
[Doug Carr]: Well, I was hoping that since we gave the library like almost a half a million dollars, they could give us the keys to the building for the day, but apparently that might be a bridge too far.
[Theresa Dupont]: And it may be available in November. It's just, we were really set on a Saturday date and in October, they've got events all day Saturday in their event space. So if we potentially could move, push this into early November, I think we'd be in a better shot of being able to still capture the library.
[Doug Carr]: What do you think of that? I mean, that's, that's a group discussion because we were talking for, you said earlier, I think October for a while, and it's not too far away, obviously. I don't know. If it's an indoor event, I guess early November is not that bad, right?
[Unidentified]: Right.
[Roberta Cameron]: Another possibility I don't know is whether we can approach the Chevalier Theater. If they would let us have the lobby for a day, for a Saturday morning.
[Joan Cyr]: Or even the council chambers.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, we can definitely get chambers. Chambers is a pretty easy thing. Um, yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Sorry, just reading it something, but yes, we were hoping to, uh, your, your comment about, you'd be sad if we scheduled the same day as the harvest, your energy festival, we were thinking of trying to piggyback, but not overlap on other events. And I think the harvest, your energy festival started a little bit earlier than October fest, so that it would be kind of difficult to not. um, um, do not overlap with it. So, um, I think that we might have, um, we might've ruled that out. I didn't, I thought that they were on different Saturdays though. I didn't realize they were on the same Saturday.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. I thought Oktoberfest was.
[Alicia Hunt]: It's on the calendar as October 14th. They're both on the city's calendars, October 14th, last I looked. I mean, maybe it moved.
[Joan Cyr]: For Oktoberfest? Or for Harvest Day?
[Alicia Hunt]: Both of them, October 14th.
[Joan Cyr]: They have September 30th for Oktoberfest.
[Alicia Hunt]: And maybe they moved and I didn't realize it. It was on the city's calendar for the same day. And I kind of crabbed at the mayor about it. Maybe they moved it. Sounds good.
[Roberta Cameron]: So we'll be having another meeting. Go ahead.
[Theresa Dupont]: I was just going to say, the subcommittee will have another meeting. I'll connect with you, Roberta, about trying to get that on the books for this week and hopefully get some good more updates for the team here.
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah, the last thing I got from the chamber is they've got a flyer in here for Oktoberfest on September 30th.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, I just went back to the city's calendar and it's changed. So that's good.
[Joan Cyr]: So we were trying to piggyback on top of that, like before that, like at 11.
[Alicia Hunt]: That's good because I hope they'll be a CPA table at the energy festival.
[Roberta Cameron]: Is that a plug? I hope so too. That's actually something that we didn't put on our agenda this evening that maybe we want to just like talk about after everything else is events that we can attend this fall. But let's get through the agenda first. So I think that's our update on the meeting. So for those of you who might not have heard of this in the past, this marks our fifth year of funding projects. And so the CPC wanted to have a five-year celebration to thank all of our grantees and to thank everybody who has been involved with the Community Preservation Acts from the campaign in 2015 through committee members to this day. So we're looking to have a celebration and we have a Joan and Doug and I have been meeting to talk about what to do for this event. So there's room for one more person if anyone is interested in joining us in planning without meeting a quorum of committee members. Thank you, Janine, for your uh, for your suggestions. So, um, providing more information, we'd like to think about ways that we can raise awareness about the community preservation act. In addition to, um, thanking all of the people who've been involved in the last five, seven years, depending on when you start counting. Um, any other comments and before I move on to the next agenda item, Right. So I will talk quickly. Perhaps I have this downloaded, but perhaps, Teresa, you can share the screen that has the summary of projects that have requested funds for this year. So thank you. So the for the benefit of the committee members who haven't been through this process before. The CPA application process involves two steps. First is applicants submit an eligibility determination form, which we will use administratively to determine whether the projects are actually eligible for the CPA program and then communicate with the applicants about the eligibility and give them some pointers or heads up about to some suggestions for their applications. So, for example, where the last small grant application that we just heard on the spot, we asked them to reframe the application to ask for it a little bit differently to make it very clearly eligible. We would give that kind of feedback after the eligibility determination phase for the larger projects. And the eligibility determination phase also has an estimated cost, which is really just a number pulled out of the air so that we have an idea what's going to be coming at us in the full application phase. So then the second phase, the full application, later in the fall, we will receive larger application packets that have a lot more information, more detailed questions that we ask of the applicants. And at that time, we ask them to give the actual CPA request. So right now, that column C in this is just the estimated CPA request, not the actual CPA request. So, the actual request will be substantiated by some kind of architect analysis or asking for estimates from contractors to substantiate the actual funding request that they give us. So, as I said, this funding request at this time for the EDF is just a ballpark to help us for planning purposes. So the projects that we've received eligibility determination forms for, this represents all of the projects that are in the pipeline for this funding round. Because if they haven't submitted an eligibility determination form by now, they haven't met the criteria to enter the regular funding round. So most of these projects are City of Medford projects. And not all of them are eligible, first of all. So we have not yet added a column. We've got some notes that we started to make between Teresa, myself, and other staff. But this doesn't yet reflect whether the projects have been determined to be eligible. Offhand, I can think of some information that I would want to know more about the Salem street fire station chimney. Um, because we have funded a project for the fire stations in the past. So I'd like to have an update on, on that before we determine whether to encourage them to continue with this application. Um, the city council chambers drapery offhand. This doesn't look like an eligible project to me, but I, um, will confer with the other staff to, um, to make a final determination about that. Um, the ADA pathways and parking for inbelt. Again, I think we need to have some discussion about what specifically is entailed in this project, because some of it may be eligible, some of it may not be eligible. This is my offhand assessment is that this is a maybe project in terms of eligibility. The Brooks Estate East Elevation ADA, I think, is an eligible project. And for the benefit of the members who are new since the last funding round, there was actually this $90,000 project is a reapplication for a project that was actually not funded last round because we didn't have enough funds to cover all of the projects that had applied. And there were a couple of projects that were determined to be of a lower priority than the others. including this project, and further down the list, the Salem Street Burying Ground Wall Restoration. So those are re-applications, having submitted a request last year that didn't get funded. Then the Oak Grove Access Road Study. This is to develop an accessible road to the World War I monument that CPA has funded the application, the restoration of in the past. And so this would provide an accessible route to that monument. So this is, I think, something that we would be likely to find eligible. The U.S. Chevalier model ship installation, I would encourage them to look for a different funding source because I'm not sure that CPA is the most appropriate funding source for that project. Playstead Park baseball field and the Logan Park natural play area represent additional park improvements and those would most likely be eligible projects. Um, although the playstead park baseball field project is, um, perhaps. Requires some internal vetting and discussion of what more specifically needs to be, um, applied for what, what improvements need to be made so that that project might not be right for consideration this funding round. And finally, um, a couple of. non-city projects include Shiloh Baptist Church, which we funded last year with $150,000 to do an architectural assessment of the need for restoration of the exterior of the building and some seed funding to begin the highest priority work on restoration of the windows of that building. It's understood that the windows are going to be a much bigger project that are going to, or the exterior restoration in general is going to be a much bigger project. So they're asking for an additional tranche. I think that the amount that they're requesting is the, the amount that they think that is needed to do the full restoration. But I think it's understood and anticipated that they will have to most likely phase this out over multiple years as funding is available. And finally, housing families is a repeat request of funding for a program that we have funded previously. So this is for emergency, essentially an emergency rental assistance program to help families to resolve rental arrears so that they can avoid evictions. Any questions or comments about any of these projects? This is just a very broad overview. The eligibility determination forms are in your meeting packet that you can review them. We don't know if all of these are going to actually submit full applications yet. So this is really just a preview of what's coming this fall.
[Joan Cyr]: On the housing families application, are we ever asking to make assurances that there are no repeat customers that we're helping new folks?
[Theresa Dupont]: It was a condition on the last decision that they were to provide us with. a regular cadence of reporting. To my knowledge, I don't believe that that has happened, but henceforth it will.
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah, I was going to say you might want to mention that to them when they come looking for this money. I recall one of our original members, Mike Lewis, was very concerned about this particular application. And that was one of the things that he was concerned about, you know. It should be something that's a bridge, not a bank, you know.
[Roberta Cameron]: So I don't think that we have guidelines for this program that state that families should not repeat.
[Joan Cyr]: So I think this came through during COVID and we kind of looked at it as a special thing. Yeah. So.
[Roberta Cameron]: We can, and this is different from the emergency rental, like we had during the COVID era, there were two different emergency rental assistance grants that we made. One of them was a very large grant for $250,000 that the ABCD organization administered, and that was to anyone at, with need at that time, who met the criteria that we spelled out in the guidelines. And this housing families grant was a smaller grant that was more specifically targeted to pair with their legal assistance, so that if they're helping families to avert evictions and the families have rental arrears, they could draw on this fund to pay down those rental arrears to stabilize the family's housing. So this is a more very specific program versus the larger one that was more general. And that was a one-time program that hasn't repeated, but this rental arrears program has been a repeat in the last several funding rounds.
[Reggie Graham]: Roberta. The Shiloh Baptist request for $800,000, is that for the building that's on Holton Street, or is that for the older building that was on Lincoln Street?
[Roberta Cameron]: They no longer own the Lincoln Street building, so this is the Holton Street building.
[Reggie Graham]: So it says historical, right? Yes. My question to you is this. I mean, that wasn't Shiloh Baptist Church. back in the day, it used to be the Wesleyan Methodist Church that I think moved up to Winthrop Street, if I'm not mistaken.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes. So the funds are to, like the CPA funds are to preserve the, the, the building itself. So it's not as important that the Shiloh Baptist Church congregation occupies this building. This could be a building owned by any nonprofit organization, and the CPA funds can be used to preserve the exterior of the building to keep the building standing.
[Reggie Graham]: Okay, thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: So we'll have a lot more information about all of these projects later in the fall. So I just wanted to give you all a preview of what projects are coming down the line and hopefully a better understanding of how our application process works and what consideration we'll need to make. So to Doug's point at the beginning of the meeting, The large amount of funding that we've just approved for this evening is going to limit the amount of funds that are available to cover all of these projects. We haven't actually calculated exactly how much funding is going to be available this fall to fund the projects that are in front of us now. We may be able to do the same thing that we did the last time, which is to prioritize which are the projects that are most important to fund this year, maybe which projects could be broken into multiple phases to be addressed in multiple program years. So that is all that I have to say about the 2023 application round unless there are any other questions. I did want to just come back to the point that I had wanted to make earlier about the events. So the CPC members have periodically, hopefully increasingly, been attending fall events. throughout the city where we have a table and we share with people information about the CPA program and ask for their input about what are priorities and what are some ideas of things that they'd like to see funded. And so I'll, we'll be looking for some of you to volunteer for those events. And so we'll put together a calendar and send that out via email. please consider it's a lot of fun. Um, and we would love to, um, you know, if one or two of you could attend at any of these events, um, that would be a lot of fun for you. And we all learn a lot from the discussions that we have from the, with the public with that, my voice is done. So I'd like to, invite one of you to make a motion to adjourn the meeting.
[Joan Cyr]: Motion to adjourn the meeting. Second.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. I'm not even going to ask to call the roll tonight.
[Unidentified]: All right.
[Roberta Cameron]: Everybody say yes.
[Unidentified]: Everybody say yes. Yes.
[Doug Carr]: Motion to save Roberta from dying on screen.
[Joan Cyr]: Second. All right. Bye, everybody. Bye, everyone.
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