[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Alright, so welcome everyone. Apologies for the technical difficulties. I'm calling the meeting to order for the Community Preservation Committee on Tuesday, November 15th at 6.30PM, actually it is 6.38PM at this time. And I'm going to begin just with a quick approval of meeting minutes before we start to give another couple minutes for folks to arrive who might be looking to watch the presentations or participate in the presentations. So for the committee members, are there any comments or questions about the meeting minutes for the October 20th meeting?
[Joan Cyr]: No.
[Roberta Cameron]: Do I have a motion to approve the minutes?
[Joan Cyr]: Motion to approve the October 2022 meeting minutes. I'll second.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. I'll call the roll. Danielle DeRusso? Yeah. Thank you. Heidi?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Matthew?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Joan? Yes. Steve? Yes.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Losa? I don't think I was at that meeting, so I would abstain for that. Okay. Christy?
[Jenny Graham]: I'll vote yes, I wasn't there, but I think you can still vote yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay. And Doug? Yes. I think I called everyone. Did I miss anyone? All right. Yourself? Myself, yes. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: That is only Tuesday.
[Roberta Cameron]: If you ask my family, I forget myself constantly. So if you I think that's eight affirmative and one abstaining. So we will go to the Oak Grove presentations. Let me just give a brief overview of the applicant presentations first. So we have a lot of applications. We're breaking up the application presentations into two meetings. That gives a little bit more time for presentations, like a brief. Two to three minutes, explain to us what the project entails and then we will have some time for q amp a with the committee members for each of the projects. So I appreciate all of you coming tonight to give your presentations and I'll invite. Tim and Steve Brogan to speak to us first about Oak Grove Cemetery caretakers' quarters.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you very much, Roberta. So I think as your board knows here, the two buildings that are at the front of the cemetery are the caretakers' quarters and the maintenance building. And there's currently a project underway for the historic preservation of the maintenance facility. And the project we have put forth to you today is for the caretakers building. So a similar study where we'd like to find out what the appropriate methods are and create an appropriate project for that building that has deemed to have historical significance. The building itself has been seeing deferred maintenance as well as just regular repairs to keep it up and running by the DPW for probably going on a couple of decades. And Mr. Brogan can talk in more detail on that if there are additional questions. And it does need a significant amount of work. to it's a it's a place of business but also a place of work where employees spend most of the day. So, you know, I think it's an important project and I think it's a worthy project. And I'll just run through some of the scope that is needed in the building. And then I also have some pictures if we want to look at pictures I didn't include some pictures in the application but we have plenty of pictures to share. So let me just go too many things open on my screen here. So the. Some of the scope that we would want the study to include would be window replacements. The windows are not operational, pretty inefficient. A lot of them are not operational, and they're not likely house style or historically appropriate. Exterior door replacements, the two existing exterior doors are likely the original doors and no longer operate as intended. The building is floored almost entirely with wood with in, you know, that type of flooring needs needs refurbishment every now and then, and we'd want that to be looked at kitchen bathroom updates, they haven't ever been updated I don't believe. There are basement leaks, so we'd like the basement evaluated and potentially basement waterproofing included. I believe Steve might even be in the basement there in his image. Moisture and mold damage repairs, evaluate and repairing damage due to moisture and mold. HVAC systems upgrade, evaluate, upgrade heating, ventilation, air cooling systems. Plumbing system upgrades, electrical system upgrades, those two systems, the water supply is a different issue. It could be addressed as a larger project, I think, for both buildings, and I'll get to that in a second. And then electrical system upgrades, you know, there's been repairs over the years, but it really needs a, you know, It needs new wiring that goes with the already 200 amp service that it has. So it has an upgraded panel, but the wiring in the home is a mixture of modern wiring and knob and tube and everything in between. Site upgrades, the doorway to the office as well as the parking lot don't meet current accessibility requirements. or standards, so that's something we would want looked at. Siding and gutter upgrades. The new vinyl siding was installed in 2015 due to moisture issues, and there are still ongoing moisture issues, and it could be due to they weren't placed correctly, nor do I believe they would be historically appropriate the way they're placed. So we're, we want to have that in the study as well. And then office upgrades. There's an outdated counter flooring shelving cabin cabinetry. It's that's has seen its best days in the past and is in need of refurbishment. So, that's it in a nutshell, you know, and again this would be a study, so that would be the intent here to have it studied historic historic appropriate preservation scoped out to then move on to the next step with construction estimates in the light. And I wanted to come back to the opportunity of these two projects are sitting on the same site. So I know there's a desire to try to get one going before the other, but they do share space and they also have overlapping services and they're worked out of the same time. And the caretakers building is a wood framed building, which You know, my understanding would be easier to initiate a project wood frame building than some of the challenges we're having with the historic stone building. So they could be on similar timelines, but the wood frame building may go may go actually faster because you're going to have more tradesmen to to deal with that building. And I know I included some pictures in the application, but I'm more than happy to open up some pictures if if the committee feels like there's time or So I'll leave it up to you guys, because that's already been a few minutes. I know you wanted to keep it to a few minutes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Thank you very much. Do we have questions from committee members?
[Joan Cyr]: I was actually going to ask for some pictures, because I'm looking at the application, and some of them are good pictures, and some of them are not. So I'm just trying to figure out what I'm looking at.
[Matt Leming]: I think there are scans from already printed out things.
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah, the Stone Building.
[Tim McGivern]: Let's see if I can share my screen.
[Doug Carr]: We are talking about a feasibility study, right? This is a study. The building obviously has 80 years of issues that need to be documented and resolved as part of the study. I think that's pretty clear from your description.
[Tim McGivern]: That's correct. This picture that I'm showing here is an example of some of the ceiling panels in the office area. You can see some of the exposed piping there. Maybe I'll do this for the next one, just put them all in one document. This is one of the office spaces here, give you an idea of the building.
[Danielle Evans]: Is Steve Brogan, aren't you in the building right now? So we can see it.
[Matt Leming]: You're muted.
[2kAt0v9zwyw_SPEAKER_00]: Steven, you're muted. Yes, that picture you just saw is my office where I am.
[Danielle Evans]: Why don't you give us a tour?
[2kAt0v9zwyw_SPEAKER_00]: If you want, let me see how I can do this.
[Tim McGivern]: An example of some of the outdated electrical here, and you could see some of the the wall in the background. I apologize it looks like the way that this is set up. I kind of got to do 1 at the time. I didn't I didn't think of that ahead of time. So apologies.
[Roberta Cameron]: So, have you done any assessment or could an assessment be incorporated in the study of. The ways the uses the ways that you're utilizing space and the particular activities that are going on in the caretaker's quarters right now.
[Tim McGivern]: Yes, I think that would need to be part of the study. And I think the biggest point for that would be the way that we service customers. So right now to get into the office, for example, you have to go upstairs up a ramp and then through a doorway that is quite narrow. So that may not be the best approach for having an office for accessibility access. And as you know, it's a cemetery. the population that is going there is of all ages and of all abilities for funerals and doing their business at the cemetery. So one of the things I've talked about with Mr. Brogan is that the building that people come to do business, the solemn business, should reflect that very thing, that solemn business. The similar way funeral homes are elegant and designed for historically appropriate events. uh, you know, weights, you know, services and the like. Uh, and when you go to do business at a cemetery, uh, you know, it's my belief and I believe it's Steve's as well that that solemn business should be reflected, uh, in that, in that place. And the caretaker's quarters is, is the main place for that to happen. Uh, so, um, I would agree, yeah, to look at the square footage and how spaces allocated with both buildings should actually be done. So they can be looked at almost together if there's square footage happening in one building that should be happening to another. Bathrooms is another concern, having public restrooms that are accessible and meet the needs of the public.
[Roberta Cameron]: And would it make sense to look outside of just the cemetery itself at city services or needs that could be met in this building or is the building already pretty fully occupied with just cemetery activities itself?
[Tim McGivern]: I'd say it's right now it's just cemetery activities in the caretaker's building.
[Roberta Cameron]: I mean, is that because of space needs or is that just because nobody's thought of using that building more fully?
[Tim McGivern]: The space, I think, you know, there's a limited amount of space in the business area where the public comes. So it's probably a five or six foot wide aisle that's maybe 20, 25 feet long, something like that. That's the public space. And then there's the counter with the desk behind it. So it's pretty limited. And then the rest of it is a home. It's Mr. Brogan's home as the caretaker.
[Roberta Cameron]: And is there existing or a need for space for historic records within the cemetery? I mean, yeah, within the caretaker's quarters?
[Tim McGivern]: Steve, can I pass that one to you?
[2kAt0v9zwyw_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we keep every person that's buried in the cemetery, we have a card for each individual. We also have cards that identify every lot and plot and who is buried there. It's also on the computer. It's in a cloud. And then at the end of the year, we used to send them out and have them all microfilmed off site. So, I mean, eventually we'll probably need more room for storing the individual cards and the lot cards and stuff. Remember, we were just talking about room, the size in here, and it's basically a regular house, but the office is half of the basement. That's how big the office is.
[Matt Leming]: Next question, how long. Once you do select a firm, would the assessment take.
[Tim McGivern]: I don't know the answer to that specific question, but because it is a wood framed house and I think there's a more examples of this type of construction that more architects are used to dealing with, then the stone building, the maintenance building. My professional expertise tells me that this would go quicker as far as finding the right folks to look at it and also preparing a recommended scope of services and a cost estimate. And I don't know the historic parts. I don't have my finger on the pulse of that piece of it, but I can't imagine it's more difficult than doing that the stone building which I know we're already we're you know having troubles finding finding the qualified folks on so should be easier and it should be as quicker timeline. I know that's not the answer you're looking for but it's the best thing to do at the moment.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Any other questions for. Mister Kevin and Mister Brogan
[Tim McGivern]: And I know I was just rotating through some pictures there. If folks want me to go back to one, I can, or this is just an example of one of the windows.
[Matt Leming]: No, I think that a lot of the pictures are in the application itself. So thank you. But we were, I think Joan was talking about when you scroll to the bottom of the application, a lot of those pictures are kind of in like a black and white Xerox style, while the ones above that are much nicer.
[Roberta Cameron]: Well, thank you very much. I think that that answers our questions on this project.
[Tim McGivern]: All right. Well, thank you very much.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yep. Thank you.
[2kAt0v9zwyw_SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. Thank you very much.
[Tim McGivern]: And I'll stick around for two more that I have on my list here.
[Roberta Cameron]: Perfect. I thought so. All right. So the next project on our agenda is Tufts Park basketball court surface restoration. And do we have someone here who's speaking for that project.
[Tim McGivern]: Great. All right. Now this one, I didn't include pictures in the application. So I took some pictures today to show you what's going on there. But this one's a simple one. It's a court that has cracks throughout. And it's just time to resurface that court and put a new surface on it so folks can play. It's as simple as that. And if you give me a minute, I'll just show you a couple examples of some of the cracks.
[Unidentified]: The frustrations of zoom. Here we go.
[Tim McGivern]: This is a good example. Basically, all the other pictures kind of look like this but in different parts of the court. So you can kind of see how the service is about at its end of life.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm just curious. I know that in the last couple of years, the city's made a number of these basketball court resurfacing projects, both with CPA funds and with funds from other sources. I wonder whether a similar thing is happening this year, whether you've got a CPA list and a not CPA list, or if you're only looking for CPA funds this year?
[Tim McGivern]: Uh, as of right now, we're only looking for CPA funds for this, this one court for resurfacing. Um, so this is our target for this year. Um, as the year goes by, it may change if other sources of funding, uh, present themselves, but I do not have anything on the capital project list for this year for resurfacing. Besides this one.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yep. And I'm just curious, just because at the moment, it looks like we have a very competitive funding round for projects. So I'm curious to ask if this project were to wait a year to be funded, what is the risk? What happens if it, yeah, if it waits another year?
[Tim McGivern]: Sure. We would probably try to maintain it in operable condition for that year, unless there was some other source presented itself that we could try to obtain, which hasn't at this point, but that is an option. So I think it would look like this for another year. It would probably get a little bit worse. Some of those cracks would get a little bit wider. you know, pieces of asphalt start to come loose and things like that. So sooner rather than later. So I think if it were to be denied or delayed a year, I would be interested with my park foreman to try to see if we can, you know, look at plan B or try to create a plan B. We don't have one at the moment.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Other questions from committee members?
[Joan Cyr]: So I have a question about the dollar amount. There's no quote on here. And I know it says that you would go out to bid by the committee. I'm just curious, where did you come up with this number?
[Tim McGivern]: So that was from previous jobs that were similar. That's approximately the conservative value for this work for a quarter this size. So we would need to obviously get bids for that work. that we feel confident that that's approximately what we've paid for similar jobs in the past.
[Joan Cyr]: And you have records that reflect that?
[Tim McGivern]: Yes.
[Joan Cyr]: OK. It would be great to see those records so that we could get a baseline. We could see a baseline.
[Unidentified]: Sure.
[Matt Leming]: We can do that. I wouldn't blame you if you couldn't answer this question, but I'm just curious. Who, which groups use this quote most are they like school teams or they're like, just kids around the neighborhood or just how often is it used.
[Tim McGivern]: You're right I do not know the answer to that question. I can find out certainly, I think the, the rec program may have information on programs, but it is a publicly accessible court so.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: It's one of the few courts I've seen with street hockey circles on it. If you know the parks in Medford pretty well, there aren't a lot with a full-purpose basketball and street hockey, and this is lined from both. So that makes it this park, and the next available place is all the way over in Hormel. So there are a lot of uses here.
[Roberta Cameron]: That's a good point, and it's actually perhaps a A condition that we would want to place on this is to retain the lining for the multiple uses. Did I see Doug had a hand raised? Yes, I did. Yes.
[Doug Carr]: Tim, one of the things, it's obviously a project that has an important need in Medford. We try to fund every project we can. As Roberta mentioned, sometimes things get delayed by a year, but also sometimes we fund it slightly less than the full amount requested. This is, I think, north of 200,000, correct? So if it was, I don't know, say 100, 150, could you do, is it all or nothing, or is there something you could possibly make up a difference if we're stuck making difficult choices as a committee? What can we, what are the possibilities?
[Tim McGivern]: That's a very good question, Doug. I think there would be, it's always easier to find money when there's either a match or already a contribution to the project. That always makes it easier, whether we're going for, you know, I don't know, you name it, even free cash, even, not that we're gonna do it, but a loan. And whenever you do anything like this, any project, you know, it's always, easier. It's in your favor to have money already dedicated to a project to try to get more. So yes, if it was partially funded, I could work with that and then use that to help leverage more funding from another source.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Matthew.
[Matt Leming]: Well, the question I was going to ask, but I think was sort of dressed to follow up on that was, was this a situation where if you do get partial funding, the quality of the restoration potentially would not be as good as if you got full funding. But then you said if you got partial funding, you would get full funding elsewhere. So I think that sort of answered that question that you would need the full $200,000 either way.
[Tim McGivern]: We would prefer that I think there are ways to do it cheaper, that we haven't, you know, I'm not an expert by any means you know I'm really here on behalf of the parks division. unfortunately, our parks division leader is out on leave at the moment. And he can field those questions much easier than I, but I do know that this includes not only the asphalt, but the coating over the asphalt and specialty paint. So once you start, you know, value engineering, something like that, you just get a lower quality product that doesn't last as long. more maintenance is required. We have had success with other projects and we'd like to maintain the methods that we have been using.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah, that's what I was getting at. Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: You're welcome.
[Jenny Graham]: Danielle? Nevermind, that kind of answered my question. I was curious if they were going to do the full project or if it was going to be like a band-aid or a temporary fix, if that makes sense. But that kind of answered my question that he would raise the funds for the difference if needed.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, and this would be a full resurfacing so the surface that you see would be removed and then recompaction and rebuilding a new surface. So it's, yeah, so it's a little misleading to say resurfacing right you're really building a new board effectively.
[Danielle Evans]: And yeah, I just want to add that. It wouldn't be a CPA eligible project if it was just filling in cracks that would be considered maintenance and not eligible for CPA. It has to be an extraordinary repair rehabilitation, which would be the wholesale removal of the existing surface and putting in a new surface.
[Tim McGivern]: Right. And also it's worth mentioning, there's no guarantee I'd be able to get additional funding. It would But obviously, if that's the if that's the direction that the committee goes, then I would maintain that communication with Danielle status report and things like that and try to handle the best we could.
[Roberta Cameron]: Discussion kind of raises several points in my mind. First of all, if we did partially fund it. That could be with the hope that you can raise funds over the next year. And if not. Then come back next year for the remainder of the funding is a possibility so that you still get the whole project, but you might be able to get it sooner than. next year or you might have to wait until next year is one possibility. A second thing that I wanted to bring up is related to Steve's point about it being striped for field hockey and that being a need. I wonder whether there has been any analysis or evaluation of what the community needs are in terms of multipurpose courts. And do we make the assumption that this isn't the highest need or is there even more that we could be doing with this one court with its replacement?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Can you, this is Steve, can you cross-reference any of the straw table work that you did in the spring and fall for car park? Wouldn't that outline, isn't that sort of the same idea? At least when it's related to the courts. So, you know, basketball, pickleball, probably pretty high at the top of the list, even though I still don't know what that is. And street hockey, I'm sure would be up there.
[Tim McGivern]: Street hockey for sure. I think we were talking about that pickleball fits on tennis courts. And that actually is a community need that has bubbled up recently. So we have been trying to accommodate that on tennis courts.
[Roberta Cameron]: One combination that I've seen, this would probably add to the budget for this project, but I've seen in other playgrounds, combination courts with furniture around the side of the courts that doubles as skate park furniture. So benches that have a metal edge so that they can double as benches and as skate park furniture. or curbs or like things like that, that just kind of add a skate park elements. Although I don't know if there, that would be, you know, a point of having too many uses in one multi-purpose court. But I wonder whether that's something that could fit in a place like this.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I love that idea.
[Tim McGivern]: I do know that we do try to think about users and conflicts. So, while that's a very good idea and I think it's very creative. We want to think hard about putting, you know, like skate park elements on the side of a basketball court, just to prevent any conflicts, and I mean like people running into each other basically. um a skater trying to use skate elements with a basketball game going on so that would be a consideration for sure um and besides that if you're talking street hockey then you know if the court's being used for street hockey that's that's clear and the basketball players obviously can't use it um and vice versa which we just want to prevent sort of that overlap that's all i would caution okay
[Roberta Cameron]: And then the last thing that I wanted to raise is I think you're here for 3 projects this evening, Tim and related to the request succeeding demand. If you had to prioritize between the 3 projects that you've put on the agenda this evening, what do you feel could potentially wait or is the most urgent among those 3 projects?
[Tim McGivern]: The caretaker's quarters, in my mind, is the most urgent project, because that is going to have a longer timeline. And to get that going sooner rather than later, I think, is important. Just the state of the building, the fact that it's used every day by the public and employees. So that's something, in my mind, that stands out as the largest need and the priority.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. All right, any other questions from committee members on Tufts Park basketball. Then let's move on to the Salem Street burial ground.
[Tim McGivern]: All right, thank you for getting me up on the top of the list here. So Salem Street burial ground. This one is relatively simple. This is a brick wall that surrounds the old sand burial ground. If you've been in Medford Square, you're probably familiar with it. It's in need of pointing and repair, and that would all be historic preservation. The wall itself was built after the cemetery was finished being a cemetery. And the gate was added in the 30s. And the wall itself has memorial plaques inserted into it on the inside. And many of those are in disrepair. And you could probably see in the pictures that I provide in the application that the top stones and locations are not set or have been moved. And what you can't really see in the pictures is that many of the sort of the footing area, the concrete footing area, some of the cracks even kind of go near there, which leads me to believe is someone, you know, who works in soil and earth and things like this. that, you know, the time is relatively now, you know, because when you let those types of cracks go, then you get settlement issues and things start to fall apart more rapidly because of priest thought. So I look at it and it's one of the reasons why I put it in is because the time is now to try to get that pointing done. I included the sidewalk in this work as well because it is right next to it, but I do believe the sidewalk is not historic. It's just a brick sidewalk. So that's an opportunity to lessen the project and we could do the sidewalk through a different effort. But this project would really include pointing, brick replacement with period appropriate bricks, resetting the top stones, resetting some of the memorial plaques, making it look good and preventing any future damage from water infiltration, painting the metal elements of the fence, which is their iron, so black paint on the iron. to bring it up to where it should be, I think, and get it to last for another 100 years.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Questions from the committee?
[Matt Leming]: Do we have to raise hands?
[Roberta Cameron]: You don't have to, but you did. So go ahead.
[Matt Leming]: OK. Sorry, I was going by. So a question that I had when you're going over this application concerned, Headstones. So it looks so. Going around, say the the graveyard, a lot of the headstones are just. Broken and I think I believe there's one headstone, which is pictured in the application that's actually attached to the wall. That is just completely missing. When you're. when you're repairing those, is there like a record kept of the headstones that need to be replaced that can be referenced when you're, I don't know, ordering new ones, for instance? Or how is that, what's that process look like?
[Tim McGivern]: I imagine, I don't know for sure, but I would imagine there are historical records that we would have to reference to, to see if we could either repair what's there or replicate it in some air. Um, but w you know, I don't know exactly how that will be done, to be honest with you, but, um, I'm not even sure. I mean, I know DPW doesn't have those records. We would need to get those records from elsewhere and try to, you know, work with what is available. It's like Tom might know. I don't know. Sorry, Tom.
[Tom Lincoln]: Go ahead. Tom, do you know? All I would say is I think a huge effort was done with wallet counts in a committee a few years ago. And I've lost track of time here. But I imagine there's pretty good information. It may not be 100% complete. But the cemetery got a lot of attention from the historical record side within the last 10 years.
[Roberta Cameron]: There may be gaps, ultimately, once this project is completed. There may be some things that we just don't know and have to leave some gaps in the historical information and the plaques. or leave some plaques out that are missing.
[Tim McGivern]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: That's what I was going to say.
[Tim McGivern]: If there's a plaque that's too damaged to put back or restore, then I think the preferred method would be to try to leave a place for that and then install it correctly. Because what we're talking about here is really brickwork, pointing, setting the top stones, repairing the cracks, replacing the bricks, painting the fence. Then I would want to keep more control or I would think we'd want to keep more control over replacing the memorial plaques themselves. So leaving the space for them, but not installing them if it's not the appropriate one or the one that's there can't be restored or whatever. So some of them are in good shape, but others, as you can tell, are not.
[2kAt0v9zwyw_SPEAKER_00]: Stephen? Yeah, the plaques on the wall is exactly what Tim said, but the stones themselves. And what go back to what Tom was saying when the historic commission or whoever was doing that project at the time is there was a certain way to refurbish those stones they they put together. back some of the stones the best they could. And the ones they couldn't, they were left alone. I guess there's a process on how you're supposed to treat the stones. If the pieces are small enough, I was told that you dig a hole in front of the stone that's left and you bury it. Everything else just leans up against it if they cannot put the stone back together. There was never any talk about replacing them or anything like that because they are historic.
[Roberta Cameron]: And just for context, a few years before we even adopted CPA in Medford, there had been a project to restore as much of the cemetery as could be restored in terms of the headstones within the cemetery. And so a lot of repair, as much as we were able to repair at the time has been done of the freestanding headstones within the cemetery. But I don't know if there was any attention given to the wall at that time.
[Unidentified]: I don't believe so.
[Roberta Cameron]: And I don't remember how that project was funded because I think that it was some grant funds were found to be able to complete that project at the time.
[2kAt0v9zwyw_SPEAKER_00]: I believe there's a sign on the Riverside part of the cemetery that I think explains where the funds came from and who was involved. I don't know if that sign has been gone, but I believe it's still there.
[Roberta Cameron]: If the sign is still there, it might give us some ideas of where else to look for money to complete this project.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah, just mainly like just walking around Salem Street Cemetery, I think the most noticeable part is, you know, obviously the many cracked headstones. But if there's if it's impossible to actually repair them or find historical records of what they said, then, you know, obviously that's a situation. But it was just the long term plans for that was just something that was on my mind going over this application.
[Roberta Cameron]: Are there other questions from committee members?
[Joan Cyr]: Well, you know, I I always have to bring up my chart. Restorate what's restoration and what's repair. Right. So according to the CPA. A chart that we all go by. They're capital improvements or extraordinary repairs to make assets functional for intended use. That's the definition of rehabilitation or restoration. And I'm looking at these photos, and I mean, the wall's not falling down. It looks like it needs to be repaired, but I can't really tell. what's considered a major restoration versus a repair for this wall? Like what would, and I think about the wall that we did over at the Brooks Estate, you know, that thing looked like it was falling down. So I'm just, I'm drawing that line of we really need to pay attention to not using CPA funds for what is really repair versus rehabilitation or capital improvements, extraordinary repairs to make it useful for its intended use. Riyadh, please.
[Doug Carr]: The only thing I can add here, Joan, is I think that repairing that wall would probably require that the mortar mix be something that is not a modern day. It would be something that is 100 years old, at least what the original mortar should have been, to put it into that restoration category. versus going down to Home Depot and just buying something off the shelf. To me, that would be one thing that would put a shit into one category or the other. But I'd have to think about it a little bit more just to think about, because there was an original drawing in there that I haven't spent a lot of time with about from the 19, I think it's the late 20s, early 30s. I think that's a useful tool. I didn't realize you had that and that's actually very, That needs to be something that you use for this project as a tool.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, I dug that up. And I will say, just to back up your point, Doug, there were repairs done on the wall in the past. If you look at, I think it's conveyed in one of the pictures, there's some lighter colored mortar on the corner of the Salem and whatever that river street, I think it's called, that short street. So on that corner, it was repaired. But just regular mortar. So, yeah, I would say this is more of a preservation and the only other point I'll make just to for a point of discussion is that these types of repairs that we're talking about or this preservation. The prevents further damage and more expenses later on. So the cracks that we're talking about this winter, those cracks will get a little bit wider, and especially down at the base, they'll start to we'll start to see some settlement and things like that. And then the wall will fall down eventually and it'll be that much more expensive to repair preserve at that point so the hope would be is that we can we can preserve the wall before that happens, which I don't think anybody wants to see. doing it correctly now makes more sense in my mind than to try to keep patching it and repairing it and, and, and all that and sort of waiting for some time in the future but anyway that's just my two cents. So,
[Heidi Davis]: I'm just noticing the one photo with the missing plaque and the flag in it. And there is a lot of spalling of the concrete. You can see that at the footing, there's exposed rebar that looks rusted. So that indicates to me that a potential failure of the footing of the wall.
[Tim McGivern]: Correct, yeah. So that's kind of like what we're trying to prevent that from getting worse, and those things don't get better.
[Heidi Davis]: So that seems like an extraordinary repair to me, that that's not necessarily maintenance. That'll require disassembling, I think, the wall to do so, to repair that footing.
[Roberta Cameron]: I would just point out that using CPA funds for a project like this as opposed to funding from any other city source, ensures that the project can be done using Secretary of Interior standards. Whereas if we just, you know, make the repairs without having the Secretary of Interior standards at play, then it might be done in a way that's not complementary to the historic character.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, one thing that comes to mind when I look at this wall is if it were built today, it would probably have a piece of
[Doug Carr]: metal flashing underneath that slope coping piece to protect the wall below it, which is just bricks, you know, about a foot and a half thick. It's probably four thicknesses of brick, maybe more. And that would be allowed under the Secretary's standards as an upgrade to keeping the spirit of the wall, keep the original stone, you know, seal it properly. to replace brick that might not be original with original brick, something that is a match for this, which we've obviously done in multiple places on historic projects. So I think there's a fair amount of historic elements here that will drive this project if we all agree that it's definitely skirting the line, but I think calling this a wall restoration is a reasonable characterization for this.
[Roberta Cameron]: A question for you, Doug, is whether we might be able to. Maybe consider if we fund this project, having a condition on the project that they have the plan for the work be reviewed by the historical commission.
[Unidentified]: I think that's fine to approve.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, have the make sure that the historical commission approves what's going to be done before they do it to make sure that they don't. you know use the wrong color mortar or that if you have a suggestion like that for upgrading the project that that that be have a chance to be heard.
[Unidentified]: Absolutely. Thank you are there any other questions comments from committee members.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: With Doug's suggestion, will that enable the walls to last longer than what it had that originally from when it was built to now? Doug?
[Doug Carr]: I'm not clear on the question. Could you repeat it? Sorry, I did not quite understand the name.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: With the suggestion that you put in that if they added, like, I guess, something in the bottom like a metals, whatever, in the bottom to restore the wall, will that enable the wall to last longer or, you know?
[Doug Carr]: Yes, it would actually. It'd be kind of a belt and suspenders because you can see right here on this photo that water gets in between the stones and falls into the wall, expands and contracts over a hundred years, and this is what happens, right? But if you put a piece of metal flashing that covers the wall and is connected to the stone that's sitting on top, you actually have two layers of protection and you make sure the joints are alternated so that it's not covered. It's a modern waterproofing approach to a historic wall. It's allowed by the national standards that Roberta mentioned earlier. It's a detail that probably adds a little bit of cost to the wall, but it's definitely something that sets you up for success long-term.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Two questions then. First of all, is that top stone that we're looking at. Is that concrete or granite? I only ask, I'm sorry?
[Tim McGivern]: I believe it's a piece of granite.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay. I ask because there was a project that I saw in Malden where they were restoring a wall that's in this condition and pieces of that that top piece of granite were actually disappearing from the wall in real time as they were trying to approve the project people were stealing it so. I kind of considered that this could be an urgent need because that begins to look like a very tempting souvenir.
[Doug Carr]: When it's in the way, 2000 pounds a piece, maybe more.
[Roberta Cameron]: I don't know how they did it, but it was like this. It was a wall like this and somebody was coming by in the middle of the night and stealing the granite from the wall.
[Unidentified]: Wow. Okay. Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: And the other question that I have is, how much additional budget do you think that would cost? If that's a recommendation that you would make, maybe that's something that needs to be incorporated into the budget.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I can work with Tim offline on that to try to give him some numbers on that. It's not a big cost increase, but I think it's an important one for the maintenance side of things.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, and I believe the budget I presented is conservative based off of the higher end of historic pointing and setting new bricks and things like that. So I think I'm happy to do that, Doug.
[Unidentified]: Yep. Any other questions on this project?
[Roberta Cameron]: Well, thank you, Tim and Steve Brogan for for presenting all of these projects this evening.
[Tim McGivern]: Absolutely. Thanks for the opportunity. And I will say, yeah, I was wondering if you could stick around for the next one.
[Danielle Evans]: Sure. The Hickey Park dugout. Yeah.
[Tim McGivern]: Yes.
[Danielle Evans]: Just to be able to speak to the city side, since Mike Nestor is not available.
[Tim McGivern]: I will do my best.
[Danielle Evans]: Sorry to keep you for one more, but I tried to nest these together.
[Tim McGivern]: I'll do my best. I don't have my finger on the pulse of that one, but I'll do my best.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thanks. So, Chuck, are you here to speak for the Hickey Park dugout?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you.
[Unidentified]: And I think Danielle is bringing up some slides.
[Danielle Evans]: Trying to figure out, okay. Sorry, too many. I came into the office so I'd have more screens to use. It's impossible to do this with just one small screen.
[Unidentified]: Same trouble I was having, it's tricky. So thank you.
[MCM00001514_SPEAKER_02]: My name is Chuck Wilworth and I'm the president of the board of Medford Youth Girls Softball. We can go to the next slide. We've been an organization in Medford since 1994. We organize softball for girls five to 18 now. We've had a lot of growth in the last few years. between 2019 and 2022, which is kind of like pre and post, well, pre and almost post pandemic, depending on how you look at it. We've got, we've had a lot, lot more girls show up. And so we've, we're using a lot more fields and it's been, it's been good and challenging for us. We play in the spring and the summer and the fall, spring being our biggest, biggest season. Next slide. So Hickey Park, we use that typically for what's called our U10 and U12 divisions. That's girls 9 through 12. The Medford Middle School team also used it this year. And at that age there, we're paying umpires. The umpires are wearing masks and gear. The players are in catcher's gear. The games last 80 to 100 minutes, typically. And heat in the last couple of years has become more of an issue. For our younger players who mostly play at Tufts Park, and Tufts Park doesn't have any shade structures, but those are kind of like T-ball or borderline T-ball games, and you have a lot more control over how hard are we going to play. Like I said, there's no girls in catcher's gear. We're out there on the field spraying them with water. We can hit water balloons after or during. So with these kids, they're playing hard, you know, and they're practicing hard. And to get a break from the sun and the potential rain would be a big help.
[Unidentified]: Next slide.
[MCM00001514_SPEAKER_02]: So this is what is there right now. You can see this is taken near the end of the day. This is probably from May or June, though. The third base side, there's no trees around there. On the first base line basically runs east to west along the Fellsway. So that shade is pretty much, that shade that's just getting out to the bench is pretty much what you'd get there. So that's pretty much the stretch of the shade. The next slide just kind of breaks down the cost that we've been requesting. And this is a drawing of the product that we're requesting to be installed there.
[Unidentified]: And that's all. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Are there questions from committee members?
[Joan Cyr]: Is it on both, both benches?
[MCM00001514_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. So this would be for both benches. Yeah.
[Joan Cyr]: Okay. I was just looking at your quote and it says a quantity of one. That's why I was wondering.
[MCM00001514_SPEAKER_02]: No. Yeah.
[Joan Cyr]: Oh, it's just two. Okay. I got it.
[MCM00001514_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Yeah. That would be yeah. For the home team.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[MCM00001514_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah and that these are these are similar to what is that McNally Park and that well some of the other baseball softball fields. There there is asphalt walkway right up to those. I don't think they need to be completely dug out. But to make it a day comply. I know that was a question. So it's.
[Unidentified]: Is there a water fountains at that park. I believe I don't think so. I'm not sure.
[Jenny Graham]: I don't think so. I don't recall them saving water.
[MCM00001514_SPEAKER_02]: I'm kind of wondering if there's one by the basketball court.
[Matt Leming]: But I'm not sure. This application got approved. Would you have enough time to, would there be enough time to build it before the upcoming season?
[MCM00001514_SPEAKER_02]: I believe so. I believe so. We usually start off, It would have to be in conjunction with the parks division, because we usually start in April. And it would be, I guess the question would be, could we get it done in March? I don't think it's a long-term thing, but I imagine a lot of it depends on the grounds at the time. There goes my light. That's, you know,
[Roberta Cameron]: Part of the question is going to be whether the city can turn around a grant agreement in time to be able to get this project under construction quickly after we approve it. So that is a really good thing for us to keep track of is what is the because after we approve all of our projects, then we need to prioritize the grant agreement. Some of them can wait longer, some of them are really urgent and need to be done quickly. So I think it's a good idea for us to flag this one if we approve this project as a grant agreement that needs to be prioritized.
[Matt Leming]: And it's something that the players complain a lot about, the sun. like when they're practicing?
[MCM00001514_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, May, June, and then, I mean, this summer particularly was, I mean, we applied for this before this summer, but this summer was pretty brutal. It was tough weather out there. Yeah.
[Danielle Evans]: And one thing with the dollar amount, we'd have to talk to procurement about what the process is for that and what kind of timeline that would put it on. Chuck had said that with conversations with Mike Nestor, that perhaps that there is, you know, vendors that are on the, I forget what it's called, the pre-approved like vendors list. So, yeah. So do, Tim, are we able to just select or get quotes then at this kind of dollar amount then? Or is this a put out to bid situation? Do you know?
[Tim McGivern]: You put on my procurement hat here. Yeah. What's the total cost.
[Roberta Cameron]: 90,000 something. And that's where the Daniel.
[Joan Cyr]: I have to contingency. Contingency. It's 74, eight, 23. So this would fall in the above $50,000 zone. And so, and I think you'd need the.
[Tim McGivern]: I'm pretty sure I'd need to go out for advertisement unless you use a state bidder. And then I believe you can just go with them. And I believe that we try to get comparative quotes if we can. But again, I think everybody knows I'm not the procurement officer. So that would be, but I believe that's the category this would be in.
[Danielle Evans]: Because it's a structure that's like sold and it's not like someone's coming there and like building this from scratch. They're prefabricated, you know, they get their manufactured off site, they're delivered, and then they're assembled by the company or a partner that's authorized, certified to assemble that particular product.
[Tim McGivern]: So it wouldn't be the Chapter 149 construction process, it would be the buying a product process for more than $50,000. So I believe that process, you put it out for advertisement if you don't have someone on the state bid list to buy the product from.
[Roberta Cameron]: So I mentioned that as part of the timeline.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: So that's another thing that we can flag with this project is that maybe parallel to our discernment of which projects we're going to fund this round, or like once we decide that we're going to recommend the funding, like we can also be researching what the procurement requirements are so that we're ready to get out the gate as quickly as we're able to get this project through city council approval. So yeah, that's, let me just keep a note of when we hope to have this project completed if possible. Any other questions on this project? Thank you very much for joining us this evening, all of you.
[MCM00001514_SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: And the next project that we have on the list is the Brooks Estate Access Drive.
[Tom Lincoln]: OK, at eight o'clock, I turn into a pumpkin, go back to the rest home. OK, this this is a continuation. Basically, we've called it a city required addition to the planning process for the access drive, which has been underway, process of enormous complexity. This has three components, a redesign of the parking lot, because it's been decided that we do not need a second exit through the cemetery. That's that, thank you. The second piece is a provision of a stub, if that's the best word, for the potential future cemetery expansion into their seven acres down towards Grove Street. That's on page, hang on a second. That's on page three of the document that Danielle has. And the, is that right? Yeah, there we go. You can see right up there on the upper right, Grove Street is to the left. Uh, the third component, um, which has been mandated by the, uh, both the fire department and the water department and engineering is a waterline testing. Uh, you know, it's been decided that we need as part of the infrastructure improvements to provide a. A loop, a so-called loop in the waterline, uh, basically connected to the other waterline that comes from. playstead, and we need some water pressure testing to ensure that that's going to work in the future. So that's pretty much it. This is based on the costs so far in terms of hourly costs, et cetera, with the people that have been working on the access design for us, Binesh. and an estimate, I think, originally from the water department, what it costs to do this complicated, maybe not so complicated, but water testing. I should also mention that we are, if the project budget with contingency is $35,000, but if it goes over that, we are willing to kick up another $5,000. as sort of an emergency match there, but I don't think that's, I hope that doesn't happen. So this is basically part of the long saga of the restoration of the Brooks Estate, the access drive. The goal here is to achieve as much as possible the historic look and feel based on some 19th century photographs while allowing a required modern standards in terms of width, in terms of slope, in terms of drainage, in terms of issues, which have been cleared already in the Conservation Commission on that sort of thing. The access drive, just to remind people, runs approximately 1,900 feet from Grove Street up to the historic core, up to the manor. This is really the last piece in this interlocking puzzle. having to do with the redesign of the access drive. When we have this, we'll be able to produce as part of the original grant from this, which is just still money there, produce the construction grade estimates and then see where we can work on the capital funding for this rather large but absolutely critical piece of the Brooks Estate restoration. That's what I got to say about that.
[Roberta Cameron]: There are questions from committee members.
[Unidentified]: We are all perfectly clear on the concept, I guess. OK.
[Tom Lincoln]: Should I move to the next one? Please. Yeah, this is also just to provide a little history here. Great word history. Last year, we were actually waiting for the grant agreement. We had a scope of work on the ongoing restoration of the east elevation of the manor. Last year, we agreed to, yeah, I'll show you, but I just want to give a little background here. We cut a chunk of that budget in order to help out the CPC. with your overall allocations. And basically we're coming back to finish off that scope. This actually moves, if you're familiar with the building, we have previously worked on the Port Cochere, which is on the middle left. And to the right of that is the center entrance. And then to the right of that is the ADA or North entrance, pictured here. So moving left to right or south to north, the first piece of this, which again was scoped out earlier, is to complete the drainage pathway and related elements of the center entrance. I think maybe you can show me the next page here. I forgot. There's a picture here someplace. Yeah, that's it on the left. This will also improve drainage. In the back of that picture, I'm a terrible photographer, forgive me, but is the 65-year-old temporary cover over the center entrance, which needs to be completely redone. Behind that, and you've heard us talk about this, is a marvelous half-moon 19th century window that's been obscured for decades. We also want to ensure the integrity of the window well, which you see there with its wonderful, great. Moving further is a lot of talk earlier tonight about historic pointing. We have a great deal of experience with that at the manor. Pointing to the right there on the picture, and then Going back to the first picture, the last piece, if you think of this as a three-piece project, is to redo the ADA accessible entrance. We've had ADA accessibility for a long time for the building. I think the previous picture is, yeah, there we go. This was redone on the left side there, probably is the best we can guess when the building was used for veterans housing from 1946 to 1954. So that whole area is in very bad shape. It's also not historically correct and needs to be redone. This is a mixture of some work on the floor inside, also on the outside. the elements around the gutters and the front fascia, probably do something about that, about that rather horrible light. It's useful, but not historically accurate. Lots of useful lights, etc. And because this is the building actually has several ADA entrances, but this goes actually right into the area also where the ADA accessible restroom is right inside there. So this is really the most used here. So we've developed a budget based on earlier costs with a healthy contingency. As everyone knows, and I'm sure you've heard it from any number of applicants, the bidding environment has not been terrific in the last couple of years. This kind of work also, and I think somebody mentioned this earlier, is pretty specialized. We've to date had some really wonderful people doing really high quality work. It's all being done to the Secretary of the Interior's standards. All the work is reviewed first initially from the drawings that we're going to pay for here, probably about $5,000, with the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the famous Mr. Holtz, who knows the building very, very well. So it's all really part and parcel of the same process as we've moved and making tremendous progress on a very large and very historic building. You want to bring up the budget piece if somebody can talk about that?
[Unidentified]: Hang on a second.
[Tom Lincoln]: Yeah, so we think that construction for all these pieces, which involve several trades, the carpentry, the masonry, again, which we have a great deal of experience in both of those areas, we've added in about a 25% or 23% contingency. We will, as I mentioned, we will pay for the drawings and I think Daniel reminded us of that, we will pay for the signage. I think we're going to end up with one very nice sign for all the work that's been done on the manor. The last thing I would say is it's our strong suggestion that this be combined with last year's grant into a single project, which has been done previously in the last few years, and that will make things more efficient, give us some continuity, probably give us some better, we think, better pricing.
[Unidentified]: Questions, comments? You have seven minutes before you turn into a pumpkin.
[Matt Leming]: I've had a second breath here, second life. I can tell you've done these presentations before.
[Roberta Cameron]: He's been doing them for years. I appreciate that, that You that that as you mentioned at the outset of your presentation that this project was the budget for this project is really a carryover from what we didn't fund last year. And so we're just your request in the end is to recombine a project that was split out into 2 phases. Yeah, exactly right. Our limit limitation limitations on funding. So I appreciate your flexible your flexibility to do that and it's been helpful to break this into smaller chunks that we can find over time instead of trying to take it all on at once.
[Tom Lincoln]: Yeah, I thank you appreciate we appreciate that the other the other thing about this is that we're hoping that the and I know if you heard this from other applicants or you may hear you're in the next. 25 grants that you're going to be talking about. uh that the that the uh you know we don't expect prices to drop back to 10 years ago but but but the the competitive environment might be a little better uh moving forward now since ostensibly we're going supposed to be going into a recession but you didn't hear it here. Thanks.
[Unidentified]: Other questions?
[Roberta Cameron]: I think that our lack of questions in part has to do with the fact that we've worked with you so much already. We kind of know a lot about the property and also you're being so experienced at writing grant applications for us. You know how to answer all of our questions.
[Tom Lincoln]: Oh, well, thank you. Okay. All set then. We'll look forward to hearing from you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yep. Thank you very much.
[Tom Lincoln]: Thank you. Pumpkin time.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right, so the next project that we have in our agenda is Housing Families, Homelessness Prevention and Legal Services Program. I believe Jayna is here to speak for this. Thank you, Jayna, for sticking with us this evening. Hi, everybody.
[Jayna Stafford]: Thanks for having me. That's a tough act to follow, though. So I'm the Director of Homelessness Prevention and Legal Services at Housing Families. That's just one of the divisions of the larger agency. We are here to request a grant of $10,000 as direct financial assistance to Medford residents, so it would be passed through money for rental assistance. We have been very fortunate to receive. Oh, thank you so much, Danielle. I have it pulled up on my laptop just in case. We've been very fortunate to receive two rounds of funding and we were able to assist 11 Medford families with financial assistance. It it's always important this money to to prevent homelessness further upstream so we can try to prevent evictions and and all the bad things that happen with evictions the raft program really has been changing over the course of the pandemic we went from. Not very much money pre pandemic to huge amounts of money during the pandemic to now starting to trickle down the ERAP program, which was a federal emergency rental assistance program. It's huge. It's been over since April. I'm sorry, my other phone is ringing. It's been over since April. There are new limits and new restrictions on raft. And so things are definitely getting tighter. We're seeing people bringing back that analysis of sustainability that they were used to use prior to the pandemic, bringing that back now. We know all of our moratoriums are gone and we're, I think there was a headline over the weekend talking about how we've been able to hold off evictions, but are more evictions coming. And so we're, always towing that line and always worried about that. So that's, you'll see some information on here. We really, during the pandemic, especially in that first year, we really transformed our program because there were eviction moratoria to homelessness prevention. So we, prior to the pandemic, we used to administer about 20,000, maybe a little bit more if the United Way added some money And then during the pandemic, we distributed almost, you can see on this middle slide, 700,000 to over 300 households. So when we, at that point, hadn't really increased our staff yet. So it's been definitely interesting and a very busy time for us during the course of this crisis, public health crisis. So thank you for having me. I'm happy to answer any questions or to explain any more about our procedure or processes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Questions from the committee, Matthew.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah, so. Beginning to end, a family wants rental assistance. How long does it take once they find out about you for them to get money? What's that process like for them?
[Jayna Stafford]: It really depends on the family. So we try to, and it depends where they are in their eviction crisis. So if they're getting very close to getting a court summons, we will prioritize that over someone that thinks they might not be able to pay next month's rent. So if someone's like, I got my notice to quit, pretty soon my landlord's gonna bring me to court. We would try to intervene there to stop that so that that particular case might be faster. If someone say someone contacted us now and they know they're not going to be able to pay December's rent, it will be a little bit slower. So we try. When the pandemic first started Ralph was working on a 60 day timetable from the beginning of an application. I don't want to speak for raft, but that was our understanding of it, a 60 day timetable from the beginning of the application to the check going out. So we thought, OK, that that's like our outer limit. And then we try to make it faster than that.
[Matt Leming]: And sorry, I see that Doug has a question.
[Unidentified]: Sure.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I guess my question is, given the enormity of the need, 10,000 seems like a drop in the bucket. Why couldn't we not increase it by adding an extra zero and make it 100? Normally, we try to make a balance between historic preservation, open space, and affordable housing, right. So I and I know we don't know what all the other applications are in terms of the total numbers. But it just feels like this one could be substantially higher based on the need.
[Matt Leming]: That was actually my question. My second one, or it was something like that.
[Jayna Stafford]: Sure, there, there really is, you're right, there really is a tremendous need. So we try to be mindful of where we're applying and we don't want to take away. We know there's many applications, but we could use a lot of money. So we try to make modest requests. But yes, there is, it's a tremendous need and things are only getting harder. And people, yeah, go ahead. A question that people haven't really recovered from the pandemic and yet the resources are drying up. And I'm sorry, please go ahead. I don't want to know.
[Roberta Cameron]: That's okay. So I know that you're you're applying the numbers that you gave us in the slide that had, you know, $700,000 spent in the last I don't know how long those you're you're like that's showing funding coming from different sources. So maybe like you're serving one set of needs using federal money, or what I wanted to get at is this $3,000 to $5,000 per household that you're spending to help households, that's with people who are specifically, if I understand correctly from when you presented this in the past, that's to help people specifically who are going to court as opposed to people who are at different stages of their housing crisis?
[Jayna Stafford]: It's someone with a housing crisis. When I spoke specifically about court, that was relating to timelines, like how quickly an application would move. But the people that in this last round of funding, they were all very close to going to court. The landlord's property manager was telling me I'm sending them a notice to quit, like it's very on that path. So that's where we're looking. If we can get it further up the chain, that's even better because then people don't have that stress and worry. But we definitely want to intervene if we can before an eviction case starts.
[Roberta Cameron]: I guess, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Thank you. My question, my first question was going to be the same line where Doug was coming from. And with the needs of people, especially right now, there's a lot of eviction. The court just recently reopened to hear about evictions. How do you come up with just that, you know, the number of $10,000, like, you know, how many families? Because I'm pretty sure there's more than just four or five families right now who are in need of, who will be in need of this thing. So it's, again, it's just coming from knowing that right now the court is lined up with a lot of court, you know, order waiting to evict families.
[Jayna Stafford]: It's definitely happening. You're exactly right. And so when we, I think the 10,000 or 20,000 requests, I think that kind of line of thinking for this particular funding source. When we first applied there were larger amounts that were granted to ABCD and so we were just looking from some smaller amounts to complement our legal services work. We also receive a Medford CDBG contract for legal services. We thought we're here doing this work already and sometimes we could really use some money. So sometimes we could really use some cash to kind of write the situation and a little really does go a long way in these kind of emergency situations especially as aid is drying up and there are fewer places to get it. So I think that's where we came in and I think we asked for 20 and then we asked for 10 and in this round we asked for 10 just kind of keeping it in perspective. I don't know if if ABCD is applying again for this round or not But I think we were sort of looking at being a complement to that.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, if I could interject. Yeah, my understanding is that it's a very targeted rental assistance. It's not an emergency rental assistance program that people are applying to like you would for RAPT. It's people that they're already helping with their pro bono legal assistance that, as Jayna said, we fund with CDBG and then in times when rental assistance would be helpful, then they can draw on those funds for it. But I remember Jaina was, I think it was the first time you came, you talked about how, like initially, like when you do intake and you kind of like triage and see what their needs are, that if the rental assistance, like if that wasn't going to help, like if it wasn't sustainable, then you wouldn't, you know, put money into a situation that wasn't going to result in a sustainable living situation and that you were to move them to a different housing situation. So we wouldn't throw $3,000, $5,000 at a landlord if it wasn't going to be sustainable. So it was, I liked that it was a different kind of approach and just very targeted and different from the big wholesale rental assistance programs. So not to duplicate an existing program.
[Roberta Cameron]: That's kind of what I intended to ask was whether what you're proposing to do now is still that kind of targeted housing assistance, or are you proposing to use this in a more broad fashion with households?
[Jayna Stafford]: No, just as Danielle explained also, and that's right to Roberta.
[Roberta Cameron]: Do you feel that the $10,000 would get you through the year? Because it's such a targeted type of housing assistance, maybe it's not needed on the large scale, but tell us what you think one year's worth of assistance would need to be to help the households.
[Jayna Stafford]: So I think that 10,000 is a comfortable amount as a compliment to our existing services. At different points in the pandemic, we had different money from different sources that we don't have anymore. I'm mindful of the number of applications. If there were additional funds available to us, I think that we could spend them and we could do it in a way that would be preventing homelessness for residents. As everyone has said, I certainly recognize that there is a huge need and we're still kind of figuring our way after the pandemic, things are still shifting and changing. And now we're facing another winter. And so we'll get people that are out of work or get sick or their kids get sick. And when things are so tenuous, it doesn't take much to kind of destabilize a tendency.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Other questions? Well, thank you very much, Jaina. This has been really helpful.
[Jayna Stafford]: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. And I was really interested to hear about the other projects as well.
[Joan Cyr]: Great.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. So the last project on our agenda this evening is the lacrosse and tennis backboard wall at Duggar Park. Amanda, you're here for that?
[Unidentified]: Yes, sorry.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, I am. Thank you. Let me share my screen really quick.
[Unidentified]: Oops.
[Amanda Centrella]: I will try to keep this fairly quick. So here today to present about the tennis lacrosse backboard. Proposed location for that program, or for that piece of equipment is Stugger Park at the tennis courts. So the backboard, just a little refresher acts as a wall against which players can throw or hit balls and it's particularly helpful for individual players because you don't need a partner to play with. The size of the backboard is 10 feet tall by 16 feet in length, which is the recommended size for accommodating one novice player or two slightly more skillful players. It's mounted as a permanent fixture onto existing court posts, fence posts. And it's kind of mounted away from the fence to reduce any sort of noise. And in this case, it would be positioned on the court so that it would share space with one tennis court and not with multiple courts. So if you had one person using it, it would really only interfere with one court space. Yes. So potential location, this is kind of towards one of the corners of the Duggar courts. And it takes up about two fence post for fence panels, because each panel is about eight feet long. And these are just some reference graphics to give you a sense of what it would look like. The wall is angled a little bit away from the fence to return back the ball to users. And you can see the hardware here, where you get a little bit of that angle, and it's held away from the fence posts. So a quick breakdown of the budget. The ask is $7,000. The product itself is just shy of $5,000. Delivery costs, CPA signage, and then a 20% contingency were also included in the estimate. We conferred with DPW on this project, and so they would be in charge of installing once the equipment was available. They don't foresee it being particularly arduous in terms of maintenance. Again, conferred with them and they didn't feel that they didn't have too many concerns about maintaining the equipment. It has a 20 year warranty, which is nice. And then on top of that, all of the fixtures are kind of galvanized. The coloring of the panels runs through each of the panels, so the need to repaint is not really there. And those are all of my slides. If anyone has any questions, happy to answer.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Sounds like you thought of all our maintenance questions ahead of time, so thank you.
[Joan Cyr]: To $200 CPA sign which one the metal one or the one there.
[Amanda Centrella]: You know what I think we should do is that i'm not sure I I think it's included in as part of the application materials to reserve that amount of funding for a placard.
[Roberta Cameron]: yeah it's just an automatically included in our budget, we can think about whether we want to do that going forward, because it. That might be more than what we need to, and we might, we might have another way of handling science going forward.
[Danielle Evans]: But I actually do have a stack of them.
[Roberta Cameron]: Actually, I think it would, if we have a sign included in the budget, I think it would be really cool to, since we're doing another project at Duggar, we should have done this, the previous project that we did at Duggar, to create a historic sign that describes the story of Duggar Park and commemorates the person who, I forget his name, who who designed and created the first tennis court there on that site. That was a really cool story. And the descendants of that person were invited to cut the ribbon at the ribbon cutting for the park resurfacing. So I think it would be really nice to actually, if we have a budget for a sign, design a real interpretive sign with a historic to commemorate the history of that. tennis court. In fact, if we have $200 included in all of our project budgets for signs, we might look around at other sites, whether they're parks or historic sites, and think about whether we want to commission historic markers for those sites to acknowledge CPA, but also acknowledge why those sites are important to Medford's history. Tom?
[Tom Lincoln]: Yeah, I'm back from the dead here. At any rate, I think you're talking about the Counts family. Am I right?
[Roberta Cameron]: Was it the Counts family who created that?
[Tom Lincoln]: I think Wally and I think they were involved with it. At any rate, I think that's a a great idea. And I think that, you know, I think there are probably other places. I think, you know, having fewer signs with more information, more historical contexts is probably a- Like Chevalier. Yeah, Chevalier, you know, you had 18 different projects, so the Brooks Estate's not a good example of that. Okay, thanks.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yep. Back from the pumpkin patch. Clarence. Clarence, what was his name. Clarence A. Roan? Yes, that's it. Because you can see a sign that says Roan Tennis Court, but it just says Roan Tennis Court, and it doesn't say why it's named after him. And it was named after him because he wanted, he fell in love with the game of tennis and wanted to bring it to his community. And so he personally paid for, I think, a clay tennis court there was the first tennis court.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, I'm reading the article, I just Googled it. First, yeah, Medford has fulfilled the legacy of Clarence A. Rhone in his first clay tennis court laid out by hand sometime in the 1950s in Duggar Park, close to his West Medford home. That's nice. And then his daughter, Joan Lovett came, I guess, at the ribbon cutting?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. It occurred to me after the fact that was a missed opportunity to use CPA funding to commemorate an important historical asset. So I think like this could be a second chance to make up for it.
[Doug Carr]: I think a sign that you're talking about, like maybe the one that was put in Method Square near the rebuilt. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, David Ensign — He-Him, He-Him.
[Roberta Cameron]: Is there a $200 sign that could give us the information?
[Doug Carr]: If you want history and graphics, you gotta pay for it, lady.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm just curious. I don't know anything about signs, so I don't know if there's something that's less expensive than a you know, than a bronze plaque that we can, that, but that still is, you know, quality and would convey the information. I don't know.
[Doug Carr]: Why don't we table this and let's do a little bit of research because there's, you can have a, you can have signs that go from 500 to 5,000 and you pay for, what you pay for is what you get.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. And 500 is maybe not too far outside of the budget.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Sounds much better than 5,000. Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. Any other questions, comments about this project? Well, appreciate that very much. And I don't know if Amanda, you have the wherewithal to maybe do that little bit of digging and find out like what it would take to design a commemorative sign and what the budget for a commemorative sign would be at this site. And we could use that information for other sites as well, where it would be appropriate.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, I can definitely do some digging.
[Unidentified]: That would be report back to you all. Thanks.
[Roberta Cameron]: Anything else from the committee for this round of.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Presentations before before you, you, you and I just want to. comment on the idea of the sign. It really is. And I know people come around Medford, me, myself, when I moved here over 20 years ago, there's certain places that I visited, if there was information as that. on certain sites, it would have helped a lot quicker to know the rich history that Medford carries. I really like that idea. Thanks.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right, everyone, well, thank you so much for your evening this evening. We're going to be doing this again in a couple of weeks. So we will see you again on November 30th.
[Joan Cyr]: Motion to close meeting second.
[Roberta Cameron]: I, I had to take a screen capture to show people a picture of what a community preservation committee looks like in Somerville. And brilliantly, I was able to capture it from this moment when we're about to close the meeting and everybody is smiling. This is the moment that we can do a screen capture. So I'll quickly call the roll and we're done. Matthew? Aye. Aye. Heidi.
[Heidi Davis]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Joan. Yes. Christy, you're right side up, finally. Yes. Doug.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I had a D on my phone.
[Doug Carr]: I was wondering how Christy did two hours on her side. It was impressive.
[Jenny Graham]: That's funny. So in my view, though, it looks like I'm right side up. That's funny.
[Roberta Cameron]: Steve.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: And I think that's all of us and myself. Yes. Thank you. Thank you all. I'll see you in two weeks.
[Joan Cyr]: Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Happy Thanksgiving. Have a great holiday.
[Unidentified]: Happy Thanksgiving.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you, Amanda and Danielle. Bye-bye.
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