[Roberta Cameron]: 19 fiscal appropriations and an extension through March 31, 2023 of certain authorizations related to public meetings. This new law extends the remote meeting provisions of the governor's March 12, 2020 executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. In accordance with the 2020 executive order this meeting of the city of Medford Community Preservation Committee is being conducted totally by a remote participation using zoom including members committee members and the public, the use of zoom complies with the laws requirement to provide live adequate alternative means of public access to the deliberations of the public body instead of holding meetings in a public place that is open and physically accessible to the public. Persons who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress may do so by using the link that was included in the meeting agenda posted on the City of Medford website. If despite our best efforts we are not able to provide for real-time access We will post a record of this meeting on the city's website in the near future at the link provided in the meeting agenda. Thank you. And so I'm calling the meeting to order 6.30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 13, 2022, Medford's Community Preservation Committee. So first on our agenda is approval of meeting minutes. We have minutes from four different meetings to approve. We'll take them one at a time. Is there a motion to approve the minutes from May 10, 2022?
[Joan Cyr]: Which date did you say?
[Roberta Cameron]: May 10, 2022.
[Joan Cyr]: Yes, I'll make a motion to approve those meeting minutes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Anyone second? I'll second that. And all in favor? I'm sorry, I'll call the roll. I'm just a little bit behind the ball myself. Starting at the top, Joan.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Matthew.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Heidi. Yes. Steve.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Christy. Yes. And myself, yes. So the minutes from May 10 are approved. I'm going to take a break actually from meeting minutes to actually welcome Matthew because I just realized that this is the first CPC meeting that Matthew has been able to attend since he was appointed a couple months ago.
[Danielle Evans]: So a special meeting.
[Roberta Cameron]: That's right. You did. Oh, okay.
[Danielle Evans]: And I believe so.
[Roberta Cameron]: That's right. You, you zoomed in from England or somewhere. So. All right, then. We'll move on to the next. Meeting. June 14. Is there a motion to approve the minutes from June 14?
[Joan Cyr]: I can make a motion to approve the June 14th minutes.
[Roberta Cameron]: And. I'll call the roll again, Joan.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Heidi. Yes. Christy. Yes. Steve. Yes. And myself. Yes. Minutes from June 14 are approved to June 22, June 21.
[Joan Cyr]: I was not at that meeting, so I cannot approve them.
[Roberta Cameron]: You actually can, but I won't make you. Okay. You are allowed to vote, even if you weren't there.
[Joan Cyr]: I just can't make the motion. I think I was neither at the 21st or the 26th of July.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay. So would someone like to make a motion for the 21st?
[Heidi Davis]: I wasn't there either.
[Joan Cyr]: Christie's like, was I there?
[Jenny Graham]: That's honestly what I'm like.
[Danielle Evans]: Okay. At the top of the minutes and say who was there. Which one are we on? 21st.
[Matt Leming]: Is that the special meeting?
[Danielle Evans]: I didn't make the special meeting.
[Joan Cyr]: Yes, it was because it was in the second one in June.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah. Christie. You weren't at the 21st.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I didn't think so. Okay.
[Danielle Evans]: Okay.
[Matt Leming]: If it was a special meeting, I was at, I can make the motion.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. I will second it. I was definitely there. I remember him being there.
[Roberta Cameron]: So we're good. Then. I will call the roll Joan.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Matthew.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Heidi.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Christie.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: And Steve. All right, I'll admit Chuck. And we'll move on to the last of the minutes, July 26.
[Unidentified]: Is there a motion to approve?
[Heidi Davis]: I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from July 26.
[Roberta Cameron]: Can someone second that? I'll second. Christy. All right. And then I'll call the roll. Joan? Yes. Matthew.
[Matt Leming]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Heidi. Yes. Christy. Yes. And Steve.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: And myself, yes. All right. Thank you, everyone. Minutes approved. So now we will move on to reviewing the, the 2022 eligibility determination forms. Actually, first I just want to acknowledge, we have a guest Chuck Wilworth and we have Late on our agenda, public comment, but I would invite you to speak up if you wanted to introduce yourself and ask a question or make a comment now at this point in the agenda, rather than waiting until later.
[MCM00001514_SPEAKER_02]: No, I was just following along. I submitted the Hickey Park thing, so I was, I didn't mean to have myself unmuted. I'm sorry.
[Roberta Cameron]: Great. All right. Thank you. I appreciate your attending this evening. So we will review the list of eligibility determination forms that were received. I'll actually share the screen. I have all of the forms listed in a summary document. So I'll throw that up there right now. So you should be able to see a Excel spreadsheet now.
[Unidentified]: Thanks. Looks familiar.
[Roberta Cameron]: OK, so the purpose of discussing the eligibility determination forms is just to go through each one and identify whether we have any issues or concerns with the project eligibility itself. Generally. So in in Medford, we have an administrative process for determining eligibility. That means that Danielle is the expert. She. We'll review all of the eligibility determination forms and then follow up with the applicants to let them know if whether or not their project is eligible or to give some suggestions if they need to tweak anything about their project to fall within the eligibility criteria. But we have a chance to look over these ourselves and to raise any flags or concerns that we have so that we can make sure that when they do submit the applications, that we're comfortable with the eligibility of each project or can give some ideas if we'd like to steer them in some direction or another. So we can go through each of these and then after that we can kind of give an overview of the whole slew of projects that are in the pipeline to get an idea about how we're going to approach it when the full applications are submitted. So the first one on my list, this is perhaps a different order from the projects that are in the agenda. But I'll go through this list for simplicity is the cemetery caretakers quarters and office. Did anyone have any questions or concerns about this project?
[Unidentified]: No.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. I myself don't either.
[Unidentified]: Brooks estate access drive.
[Roberta Cameron]: I don't have any questions about the eligibility, but I am curious about, I'm sure that this will be covered in the full application, but I'm curious to know whether, what is, and I wish Doug were here because he would probably have an answer to this off the bat, but do we anticipate a timeline for construction at this point and funding sources? for implementing this plan once the actual plan is completed.
[Danielle Evans]: Amanda, were you at that meeting with me, that Doug was there and the fire chief and Alicia, were you at that meeting?
[Amanda Centrella]: I was there.
[Danielle Evans]: Do you recall if there was anything that was brought up about implementing design at some point or any funding sources?
[Amanda Centrella]: If you give me a minute, I'll check my notes, but I don't know off the top of my head.
[Roberta Cameron]: We can also come back to that when we get to the project summary.
[Joan Cyr]: Can I just ask a question about the process for tonight? So we only have eligibility determination forms. Yeah. And presumably, Danielle, in her expertise, has determined that each of these is eligible. Where we don't really have full applications, we just kind of looking at them for initial thoughts, because there's no way for us to really dig into these to see, you know, ask questions or...
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes, initial thoughts there are a few that when I was reading the EDF some things came up for me that I feel like because in the last couple of funding rounds. We've had a scramble at the end of the process for some of the projects to be able to fill in missing information and I wonder whether like. We could help to identify what information is going to be required at this point. OK, to try to smooth that process down the line. So yeah, so some of these we might be able to skip over. It's simple, but some of them I know I have some some questions that came up for me, but so the the Brooks Estate Manor East Elevation. Any thoughts or questions about this one? Isaac Hall House. My one question is whether they've done a condition assessment on the historic property or whether one is needed for this it increasingly what little bit I'm learning about historic preservation. it's highly advisable. to have a condition assessment, especially for a significant historic property that we know needs a lot of work to bring it back to its historic condition. So I wonder whether that's been done here, or if not, why do we feel so confident that we know what the steps are needed at this point?
[Danielle Evans]: I did reach out to them. And I don't believe that they have, but I did say that perhaps we would want to fund a conditions assessment instead. Or perhaps the windows, along with a conditions assessment, because the windows have been pretty well studied by the The window restoration person who's done other work in the city, and those are more kind of like clear cut. They know they're bad, they know they need to take them out, bring them off site, reglaze. I know the person who gave the quote came out the other day, so he has an updated quote. So but other things like when I went out there to visit it, I was thinking, if we're going to restore this building properly, we need to do more than just the windows. We need to get rid of that vinyl siding. But of course, that could be opening a can of worms. You could take off the siding, and it could be a much bigger project. So perhaps that could be looked at first along with other things that need to be done.
[Roberta Cameron]: PB, Lisa Smith-Miyazaki, she or her PB, Lupita D Montoya PB, she or her PB, Lisa Smith-Miyazaki, she or her
[Matt Leming]: So would they need to resubmit an eligibility application that just asks for funds for condition assessment?
[Roberta Cameron]: No. As long as they're in communication with Danielle, she can ensure that what they propose to do is eligible if they change the scope of what they propose to do in response to her feedback on the eligibility form.
[Danielle Evans]: And the latest quote from Old Bostonian to do the, so this would be a full restoration of 35 double hung windows and the two exterior doors, which I had suggested to be added to the windows. The total is $60,000. So that would free up a lot of funding this round, since we know it's going to be very competitive.
[Roberta Cameron]: I would also highly recommend to them and any historic preservation projects to seek additional funding sources, because there are other funding sources out there that can apply for these types of projects.
[Danielle Evans]: They are bringing money, their own funds to the table, quite a bit. Like with the $300,000 request, that was like 70% of the project. So I can see what. So the $60,000 for the windows, how much of, how much would they be asking for CPA to cover that? Like maybe the request is, you know, 40, if we added the conditions assessment or something.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay, you got the message. The Royal Park pillar restoration.
[Unidentified]: My question for this is when was that wall built?
[Roberta Cameron]: I had the same question for the Salem Street Burial Ground, although from the photos, the Salem Street Burial Ground wall looks old, but the Royal House, the Royal Park fence, I'd want to know more about that in their application and make sure that that's actually an eligible historic asset.
[Danielle Evans]: Because it does seem to be of a different vintage than the Royal House fence. They're similar. but you can tell they weren't built at the same time.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: So I'm kind of on the fence about the eligibility of the Royal House Park fence.
[Joan Cyr]: From a historic perspective, because it's also open space, right?
[Roberta Cameron]: From a historic perspective, correct. Yeah, as open space, maybe that is eligible.
[Unidentified]: Right.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, that's true.
[Matt Leming]: Maybe a bit of a naive question, but is there like a cutoff date? Like if the fence were built after 1930, then it's not eligible for the historic funds?
[Roberta Cameron]: What we would need is for the asset, in this case, the fence, to be determined to be historic by the historical commission. and then it would have to meet Secretary of Interior Standards for Historic Preservation, whatever they're going to do to the asset. So if this is eligible as an open space asset, then that wouldn't apply. I just want to make sure that it meets open space eligibility criteria. and look at it through that lens. So yeah, I think it's fair to look at that eligibility for that one again. Salem Street burial ground wall. So that wall looks like it was built earlier, but I'm still curious to know when it was built. And that's like maybe something to make sure that they include in their application is like some background information about how and when the wall was built. Shiloh Baptist Church Restoration. I'm very familiar with this since I wrote the EDF for them.
[Danielle Evans]: And this was at the Historical Commission last night.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes.
[Danielle Evans]: They determined it was historically significant, and they'll be providing a memo.
[Roberta Cameron]: Good. Thank you.
[Danielle Evans]: Which really wasn't a surprise after reading the Form B on MACRS.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. The car pickleball courts. I didn't have any questions about this. Gillis Park Accessibility Project. I likewise had no questions. COVID-19 Memorial Grove. My one question about this is how was this site identified and were other sites considered I didn't happen to notice if they put a map of what site they were targeting for this project.
[Unidentified]: I had the same question.
[Heidi Davis]: I think there was just a photo showing where in Riverside Park they were planning on putting it.
[Roberta Cameron]: So that's the question that I would send to them. And I guess that doesn't really impact eligibility because this is a design for a park, but yeah, I would, that's something I'd love to know earlier in the process rather than later is, does it belong in the place that they're targeting to put this new park? Um, then Hickey Park dugout project. And I, my question for them, this gets set, like what we encountered in the last couple of funding rounds where there was just a need for much more design of recreation improvements before we could approve them. I wanted to know whether there's been a design for this project and whether the design will be included in the application.
[Danielle Evans]: One of the quotes that or the one quote that I got today from Chuck and feel free to chime in if you want to. I believe it was from a vendor that sells them. I don't know if they're prefabricated or they're assembled, but part of the quote was the materials and then the certified installers.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Danielle Evans]: Thanks. But of course, we would need to make sure that when those elements are placed in the field that they're ADA accessible and that there's an accessible route to it. We saw that issue over at Memorial Park, which wasn't a CPA project, it was a DCR project, but the concrete pads, there was quite a grade difference between the ground and the concrete pads. So they weren't any compliant, but I think that may have been remedied now. I'm not sure, but I know that the mayor was on it.
[Unidentified]: Great.
[Roberta Cameron]: And did we confirm that 90,000 is the correct number?
[Danielle Evans]: That was with some contingency. Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: OK.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, it was a little higher than I thought.
[Roberta Cameron]: The lacrosse tennis backboard wall. My main question about this was going to be whether this is going to be permanently installed or if it's something that's movable. My feeling being that a permanent installation is eligible and if it's a movable.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: ones i've seen have been permanent.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: it's just a variation of a. block wall covered in smooth concrete painted green with some lines on it for a tennis and lacrosse these I didn't put the application, but i've seen them in use.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay. Yeah, I just, my own feeling is that like where to draw the line between eligible and not eligible is that CPA is supposed to be for capital improvements. So that's permanent and temporary movable features are not eligible for a standalone project. So that's good. Tufts Park basketball court surface restoration. The price tag looks like surface replacement. The EDF sounded like repair.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: So I was asking all applicants to date to move away from repair because it was easier to justify complete replacement and you get more longevity for your money.
[Roberta Cameron]: Exactly. That's so it looks from like $200,000 sounds like the budget for replacement. So we just want to make sure that the application reflects that McGlynn playground construction.
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah, that's gonna be, I'll likely have more questions about that, but I read in the eligibility determination form that they think it's gonna be around three or $4 million. So they're asking for a quarter of it. So that was very general. It didn't have a lot of detail. I don't know where they came up with these numbers. I think that we have a lot of questions.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, I highlighted that too. It said in the EDF the starting point for discussion was a million dollars. So what options do they see being on the table to discuss? Are they looking at other funding sources to fill in the budget or are they looking at making decisions between project elements to include or eliminate? And what is your timeline for finalizing that design so that they have like a final budget? Is that gonna be like, do they, is our funding need to be approved before the plan is completed? Or, yeah, so those are my questions.
[Unidentified]: redevelopment of Walkley and Court.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I guess we'll... As much as you guys have educated me in the couple of years I've been with you all, even this one made me scratch my head. I just couldn't get my head around it being a federal project, but then asking us for money to kickstart it, to show a commitment. According to my notes, it was the strangest I could help me, I guess I just need a little help walking through this one.
[Roberta Cameron]: I think we're going to find that affordable housing is going to require funding from many sources across the board, they're getting federal funding but the federal funding isn't going to be enough to meet the need to construct the whole project. essentially going to be, I imagine, although we don't have enough details yet, I'm not sure whether this is going to be developed under Medford's Housing Authority, which will be owned by Medford's Housing Authority, a local entity. or if this is going to be a public-private partnership where we'll have a private partner to construct it who will be amassing funding from multiple different sources, but it takes generally funds from numerous sources and a lot of funding to be able to complete an affordable housing project.
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah, I think this was in the $15 million price range or something.
[Roberta Cameron]: $15 million is I think what they were offered for the next trench of funding from the state, or was it the federal government? I don't recall what it said in the EDF. But it's going to cost more than that, ultimately, they'll have to put together a funding package. So like that one of my questions is going to be, what is their timeline for design and putting together the funding package for this project?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Are they... Can I ask a question on that? Sure. That was kind of the point I was hoping you'd get to.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: If we commit to allocating them the 800, And they're not shoveling the ground next year when we're supposed to use the 800. Would they give that back to the CPC to be allocated to other projects that could be used in that calendar period?
[Roberta Cameron]: What would most likely happen is that that money just stands still, like it sits in our account with their name on it. for as long as it takes until they're ready to use it. Or it has happened before that we've had a project that we committed funds to and then it ended up not going forward and they submitted a letter of cancellation and we took their name off the money, but the money never left our account.
[Unidentified]: Okay, thank you for that.
[Matt Leming]: The question don't we don't we kind of have to fund this one because the minimum of 10% has to go towards affordable housing and the only other affordable housing proposal is only requesting $10,000.
[Roberta Cameron]: That's a great question. Each year we have to either spend or reserve a minimum of 10%. So we have actually at the beginning of the year of the fiscal year we submit a budget to city council which reserves 10% for each program area. which means that for each program area, that amount that's been reserved can only be spent on that kind of project. Or if we don't have an application for that kind of project, we hold it until we have a project to spend it on. So that's what would happen with the affordable housing funds. If we've already reserved the 10%, if we don't spend it this year, it just gets held for affordable for future affordable housing project. And what we have done in the past is when we didn't receive an affordable housing project, we kicked an additional approximately 10% of the funds that year into the affordable housing reserve, so that we could keep our affordable housing spending roughly in proportion to the other program areas even though as you can see affordable housing we get fewer projects in a given year because there are fewer affordable housing projects that are kind of ready to go at any given time but the ask is big when they do come along. So we prepare in advance by reserving funds for affordable housing and then being able to hand over big chunks at one time.
[Matt Leming]: Are there any chunks from previous years that have kind of rolled over that could be put towards this?
[Roberta Cameron]: I don't happen to have that number in my head at this time. In our community preservation plan update last year, there's a table that shows what the available reserves are in each program area.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, I don't think that there's any remaining affordable housing reserve from the last round. Because we had the large Medford Community Housing request for additional funds, and then the Housing Authority requested, had that big ask for the pre-design. So the money is all still sitting in the reserve. Well, it's not in the reserve. They're now associated project accounts. The money hasn't left the city, but it's basically spoken for. So as far as when the money would get spent, so the Walkland Court They had requested 800,000 over three years. And I don't know if that's because they know that we only get around 2 million a year to spend. And so they were spacing out the request.
[Roberta Cameron]: So the total amount they're looking for is 2.4 million, but they're only asking for a third of it this year. and we cannot commit if we gave them the 800,000 this year, we can't this year commit to giving them the other 16,000 in the future. Each year we'd make the decision only for that year if we make, if we consider it in stages.
[Unidentified]: Yep.
[Roberta Cameron]: So, and then the last one is housing families I don't know if anyone had any questions about the housing families application. So I just want to point out that the two big asks that we had this year are for McGlynn and Walkling Court combined, that's 1.8 million right there. And those are both projects that are very large, not completely defined at this point in time. I think just looking at the entire pipeline of projects that we receive, The total for all program areas is 3.5 million compared to our annual intake or our estimated available funds is 2.1 million, which means that the asks this year would be over the available funds by 1.4 million. So there, Danielle and I have already been thinking about how to handle deciding between the projects and being able to choose, being able to allocate the funds where they're best used. One option is to use our evaluation criteria that we have in our application materials. to decide between the projects what are the highest priority projects. Another option that's available to us would be to to bond the largest projects. So if we were to bond the 1.8 million or take out the 1.8 million for the largest two projects and to bond those projects, then the amount that the total requested would be 1.7 million, leaving 400,000 still left in our available funds for this year. So the way that bonding would work I told Danielle that we were going to hold off on this conversation until later, but I'm just going to give in kind of an overview introduction to it right now and we'll like delve into more specifically, whether we would consider bonding these projects down the road when we have more information from the applicants and from the administration. But the way that bonding would work is that the CPA, that they would be, we would be borrowing against future CPA revenues so that the debt service payments for the bonds would be taken out of our available funds each year going forward for 30 years. Um, before we, um, can decide on any projects for those future years. What my, what I'd like to explore would be not bonding 1.8 million, but actually bonding the entire, uh, walk-in court request at once. So that would be 2.4 million. So the total bond request would be 3.4 million for the two projects combined. if that were the actual total ask. That's one of the questions is both of these EDFs so far are a little bit vague on what the total budget is and what the timeline and the amount requested is going to be. So we need to answer those questions. We need to figure out Like, are these projects is the planning for both of these projects far enough along that we're ready to request a bond at this point in time, or is it premature to ask for that. Based on a recent bond, CPA bond project that I dealt with in Somerville, I'm guesstimating that the annual debt service payments would fall somewhere in the order of $300,000 for a $3.4 million bond. 300,000 per year? Yeah, 300,000 per year.
[Joan Cyr]: How many years?
[Roberta Cameron]: 30 years. Is that what I said, Danielle? Or was it 400,000? It was, I think it was 300,000. Yep. So for
[Danielle Evans]: When we, I forwarded the email, or you were on the email from our finance director, Bob Dickinson.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes.
[Danielle Evans]: Yes. 20 years is 20 years. Okay, so it might be for 20 years because it has to be, you can't bond for longer than the useful life of the.
[Roberta Cameron]: So for the playground 1 million, it would be 20 years, but for the housing, I think we could do 30 years. So it might be more than $300,000 because a 20-year term and he gave a higher interest rate, although I was anticipating a higher interest rate when I guesstimated 300,000.
[Danielle Evans]: I think he said 5%. 5% is pretty. Right now is what you should use.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. In the summer. Somerville's estimated debt service payments were 300,000 for 4 million at 4%. for 30 years. So that's why I think this is roughly by order of magnitude, just so that we understand kind of what numbers we'll be talking about. There is some information on the coalition website to help us familiarize ourselves with bonding with CPA funds before we get deep into the discussion to answer our own questions about it.
[Matt Leming]: I'd like some information to read about it because yeah, it's what you said confused me a little bit. So some personal time to read would be great.
[Joan Cyr]: And I'm guessing if these different projects that we bond are in different pots of money that the payments would come out, you know, by virtue of whatever the percentage was of the amount, then they take it out of the different pots, like part of it out of open space and part of it out of historical. Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: It'd be part out of open space and part out of housing. So, yeah. And so the debt service payment can set, can come out of that minimum 10%. Yeah. So I just wanted to throw that out there so that you kind of have a heads up and we can follow up and send information about where you can learn about bonding with CPA funds. And meanwhile, Um. Danielle and I are working on talking with the school department and the housing authority and the finance department. So that we get a better handle on these projects and that were, um. There. Like we have a, um, a higher level of confidence. So that's all that I wanted to share about the EDFs. Next on the agenda is project updates.
[Unidentified]: Let me find my.
[Danielle Evans]: I have my I want to share screen, but I have it on my. desktop and I realized I can't share it because it's not on my laptop which I'm zooming on. So I did reach out to several of the applicants. I did not get updates from everybody or recent updates such as the Brooks Estate to see if anything has changed there with any of the The manor projects, a few of them have been kind of hanging around, which was the electrical updates and then the public room restoration. And then I wasn't sure what was happening with the third phase of the stone wall, even though I did drive by there the other day and it looked like it might be done. But I haven't seen any invoices or anything like that or requests to close things out. So I wasn't sure. Can you guys hear that yelling?
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm in City Hall tonight because it's band practice night tonight at my house.
[Danielle Evans]: Timing for me to be off mute. I was like, ready to come down to City Hall tonight, too, because I wasn't sure if my husband would be home in time from work to leave.
[Matt Leming]: I just need to step away and take a work call really quickly. I'll be right back.
[Danielle Evans]: All right, thanks. That's OK while I pull this up. So one update that I got from Medford Community Housing, so that for the Fellsway West, the three units.
[Unidentified]: Oh, yeah.
[Danielle Evans]: That's on hold because their contractor didn't get the bond that's required for their home program funding. So I'm not sure of all the details, but I know that it can't go forward until either they get that. There's currently we don't have a home director at the North Suburban Consortium. So the last director is consulting and so it's they're trying to, you know, figure out if there's a workaround, but the project could be dead. I feel like come up with a lot of obstacles. It's just been a tough project.
[Roberta Cameron]: They've overcome a lot of obstacles to get this far, but I mean, it's been the most improbable project.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Danielle Evans]: So that's, we have, let's see, quite a bit of funds tied up over there.
[Roberta Cameron]: Those funds will come back to our housing pool.
[Danielle Evans]: Right, so $355,000 was the most recent allocation, and then before that was $250,000. Yeah. Not sure what's going to go on with that.
[Unidentified]: You try to share my screen here. Can everybody see that now? Yep.
[Danielle Evans]: So let's see. Some of the big projects, well, we recently got a, Aggie Tootin, the tree warden, was asking about what the balance was in the tree planting and parks grant. So I think she'll probably be moving forward with maybe some more plantings. There's, let's see how much is left in that one. There's 28,480 left in that. grant after transferring 1,000 tree inventory in March for Oak Grove. I'm not sure if that one has been completed yet, that remaining 1,000. The Medford Historical Society or Historical Commission's Thomas Brooks Park project, I believe they signed a contract with the Stonewall restoration contractor that they had to come back for to get some additional funds. So hopefully that will begin shortly. I'm not sure when. But that they should be under contract. Tufts pool, the deck is being done right now. Basically, it was like the day after the pool closed for the season, you know, they ripped it all up and they're getting ready to implement that they had to get some additional funds to finish that. I believe it was ARPA made up the difference because, of course, the, once they bid it out, it was much more than what the CPA funds would cover. Rather than coming back for more, thankfully ARPA is a thing and could pay for that.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah. So I see them working on it. They live, I live near them.
[Danielle Evans]: And Kevin says that unless something happens, the water mushroom will be part of it. Cause that's one of my kid's first answers. Water mushroom better still be part of this. So hopefully, because then that would actually make that little waiting areas interesting. And that would be something that some other waiting areas don't have. Other things that have been hanging out? Let's see. I believe at one of the last meetings we talked about the Duggar benches, how that was being revived. That was a CCSR project. I know that the advisors, they changed advisors. So I need to figure out now the school years started how to finish off this project. The car park design is done, the Gillis Park design is done. So there was 100K allocated to that. But the master plan, that was, let's see, That PO was in the amount of 55,770. I think we might be current on invoices, but there's some remaining funds, and I'm not sure what those will be for if that's to get us to more like bid specs.
[Amanda Centrella]: If you don't mind my jumping in. That's actually helpful to know. We were considering other means of funding for some additional additional design and also some kind of reconfiguring of as we've been applying for grants and such. the configuration of how things are phased and the budgets associated with each phase. So that's funding that could easily go towards services from CBA, the landscape architect that we've been consulting with.
[Danielle Evans]: Good. And you guys saw the master plan because that was an attachment as part of the EDF. And so other things that are happening. So the labyrinth, I believe that's nearly done. I think the stones have been put in place. I know that all the concrete was poured, but then the artist was doing something.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, so concrete supports doors, stones are in place. There is a little bit of troubleshooting happening between the contractor and artist and the city because some of the mortar, because I think of how hot it was for those couple of weeks. I think we think that it dried a little weirdly. So we'll be just be some finishing work there. And they're intending to rake and seed. Or I'm sorry, they're intending to they're working on selection of plantings.
[Danielle Evans]: Heidi, do you have an update on the Riverside Vav stormwater BMP design?
[Heidi Davis]: I did have a meeting with the Medford Housing Authority who wanted to PB, Lisa Smith-Miyazaki, she-her, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, hers, enhance the functions of the riverfront area, basically. And so I told them my concerns and they understood and they were like, okay. It was basically, as you recall, this was a bituminous straight swale. And what we were designing in was something that had more sinuosity, it would slow the velocities down and have plantings in it. And what they came back with was basically a straight swale that was going to be grass and mowed. And that's not what the grant was for.
[Roberta Cameron]: That makes me think, Danielle, I would really love for a follow up to be to have a meeting with Jeff Driscoll and Gabe. And we can ask them about. Walk in court as well as about this project and the bocce court and ask that they please find a way to not make their parking impact the CPA projects.
[Danielle Evans]: Right.
[Roberta Cameron]: So yeah, so let's let's please make a follow up meeting with the housing authority in the near future to talk about those.
[Danielle Evans]: Amanda, do you have a status update on that's going through site plan review, right?
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, um, I don't have too much in terms of so they haven't formally submitted anything. There's been some conversations between city staff and them about elements of their application packet. So last I heard, so I think because of funding constraints or timeline constraints, they were hoping to get through site plan review. And like any other additional if there's, I don't think there will be zoning related relief, but before the end of the year. So anticipating some movement on this probably pretty soon.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Danielle Evans]: All right, so other, so a lot of these are in procurement or working with procurement. The garage study at Oak Grove Cemetery, putting something together to put that out to bid. The Oak Grove Cemetery World War One memorial restoration. Fiona, myself and Josh Crane, who did the. The needs assessment, the study we met to talk about. What the bid package would look like, what kind, because we need some help in making sure that the qualifications that we write into whether it's an RFP or, what's the other one, an IFB, which I'm blanking on, which is lower SPDR, unfortunately, not reviewing qualifications. So if we have to do that, then we need to make sure that the qualifications are very specific to make sure that we wouldn't, you have to accept a bid from someone who isn't qualified to do historic preservation work at the cemetery. It's very particular niche work with the statue and with the cast concrete. So I'm hoping to get an update on that. She was checking with AG's office to figure out how it has to go through procurement. The Memorial Park concession stand, Amanda, can you provide that update? They're going to be pulling a building permit. I don't have a grant agreement for this one yet. I wasn't sure who the signatories are, so I need to try to do that. ASAP.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, so the existing stand trailer is being removed this week. Nelson Brothers will be sorry, I'm just pulling up my notes here and talking. Yep, OK, so. They're going to be applying for a permit to the building department or actually have initiated that process working on final specs for site work. Said about a 14 day lead time on on getting that finished.
[Danielle Evans]: And so some other updates I have also from recreation is put. So the Hormel Street hockey rink, they put that out to bid. Fortunately, didn't get any responses. So now they're going to do it again and hopefully get some responses for that. Kevin said that the aeration system, a rice pond will be what he concentrates on next after the pool is done.
[Unidentified]: believe that's most of what I have right now.
[Roberta Cameron]: I think I saw the Chevalier facade restoration in progress.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, so I need to work with Vic on that. I know that, just to get an update on that, I know part of it was being paid for with other funds, right? So if they want our funds, we need to get something.
[Roberta Cameron]: Which projects do we still have contracts outstanding that we haven't signed contracts for yet?
[Danielle Evans]: The Oak Grove ones, some of the new M-Belt ones. But a lot of them just aren't flushed out. Now we don't have city solicitors. I need to figure out who's signing these.
[Roberta Cameron]: I was going to ask what, like, what are the bottlenecks? Obviously not having a city solicitor is a big bottleneck.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, but we have KP law that can do this. Yeah.
[Unidentified]: So it's just.
[Danielle Evans]: you know, just, you know, staff time and there being a million other things to do and that if something wasn't ready to go, it wasn't, I couldn't prioritize having that written yet. Right. Obviously, I need to get them done now.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Moving up. Previous projects, how about the fire stations? How are the fire stations going along?
[Danielle Evans]: I don't have an update on the window design. Nina, is that on maternity leave? That's right. So she was managing these.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Danielle Evans]: The fire station roof. We paid at least two invoices for that. I'm not sure. I don't think a third invoice come in yet. because there was two going on at the same time. One was paid with CDBG and one was CPA. And so they were coming in together. So I'm not, I don't think we've gotten the final one yet, but I can't, I'm not really sure. I mean, I suppose I could check in with the fire chief if I can get his attention on this, because it was Nina who was the one that was giving me updates. not bother her on her leave.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Danielle Evans]: But I can concentrate on getting updates on those. Oh, the other was McNally Community Garden expansion. The beds are in. And next is the fence has to come up, has to be installed. And so I requested a purchase order be opened for the fence vendor today. So hopefully that will be happening soon.
[Roberta Cameron]: And the Thomas Brooks Park.
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, so the field stone wall should be under contract. The archaeological dig is complete. And then I think they were having some trouble getting someone for Ponce wall. It's always seems like the hardest thing with a lot of these public projects is the procurement process is so much work that goes into it. And then they put things out to bid and nobody bids on them. I don't know if people are just too busy or sees what it's funded for and doesn't think it's worth their time. But it's yeah, it's definitely it's challenging and very challenging.
[Unidentified]: Yeah. All right. I think that covers most of the projects. Anyone else have questions?
[Joan Cyr]: I feel like we should put these updates on our website.
[Danielle Evans]: As soon as we get a full time CPC coordinator. Or if anybody wants to volunteer to help, but I am completely flat out. Yeah, like I can't like all of like the nice the dudes, I just can't even get to anymore. Amanda's lately staffing the Community Development Board. We're so understaffed.
[Roberta Cameron]: So what's the timeline for posting that job? Everyone we've the city is developing a. A job description job posting for a full time community preservation coordinator Danielle is part time. And so with any luck, ideally we could rearrange the staffing in the planning department so that hopefully Danielle will continue to do all of her planning magic and we'll have someone else to take care of all the nice to do's under CPA.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, so there's some restructuring happening in the department. And then basically, we'll see where those chips fall. And then we'll figure out how we slot in and who gets hired where. And we'll see. But yeah, it's unsustainable right now. Apologies. I feel like phoning it in very often. There's just a lot of projects to juggle at this point. Oh yeah. And without, and the situation in the finance department, I mean, Bob, he has it under control, but he had a lot to catch up on. And now we don't have an assistant finance director who would run the reports for me. So I don't have,
[Roberta Cameron]: If we're understaffed in the planning department, the finance department and the legal department.
[Danielle Evans]: So it's just a lot of bottlenecks. Like I can't get information. And so it takes me longer to find things or I just don't have access at all. So I spend a lot more time on certain aspects that I didn't use to spend a lot of time on. Whereas Alicia Dunlea would just give me like beautiful reports and I would just have everything. and I can concentrate on other stuff.
[Roberta Cameron]: And the other half of Danielle's job is the housing planner, which I calculated in Somerville, we have 33 people doing the job that Danielle's being asked to do in her half time. So yeah, it will be very helpful to be able to increase our staffing. We have a lot of projects. What was that, 72 projects did I count on the spreadsheet that you had? I don't know how many of those are open and ongoing right now. Things take a lot longer to finish than what what you would expect.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, they hang out for a while.
[Roberta Cameron]: So, um, I think that concludes everything that's on our agenda tonight. Any other business any other updates? I feel like so we in the last month we've been circulating a, um, Spreadsheet or no, just a list of events that we're looking for people to help with. And if I'd really been with the ball, I would have taken a look at that to see if we had filled all of the slots of people that we're looking for to help with the upcoming events are. The Tufts Community Day. which is October 2 and Harvest Your Energy Festival, which I think is two weeks later or one week later. I don't have the date so we can circulate that after again. I appreciate that so many of you have been I'm willing and able to put yourself down for time slots for those events. I think it'll be helpful to go out and talk to. Thank you. Um, Amanda, October 15 for the Harvester Energy Festival. So yeah, I appreciate your willingness to step up for those. It'll be really interesting to talk to the public. And I found especially last year, the Harvester Energy Festival, walking around and talking with other people who are other tables, community tables at the event shared a lot of really important information both ways. So it was a great opportunity to learn more about CPA needs and let people know what we're doing with CPA funds and what opportunities are available and how it could relate to them. So that's what we hope for with those events. And is there any other business that we need to provide updates for before we all go?
[Unidentified]: You're doing great, Danielle. That's right, Danielle. I don't want anybody to tell you otherwise.
[Danielle Evans]: And Amanda's also a huge help. That's right. But I try not to call on her too much. I try not to ask her for much because she's busy.
[Roberta Cameron]: You all are. And you're all very much appreciated. We have a lot of talent. We don't have a lot of talent. We have very few people who are very strongly talented.
[Danielle Evans]: The same with our boards. I always brag about Medford's boards and commissions, how strong they are and the members on them and how hard they work.
[Unidentified]: We do.
[Roberta Cameron]: Well, with that, I think we have, we've covered everything we need to tonight. So is there a motion to close the meeting?
[Joan Cyr]: Let me just talk right over you.
[Heidi Davis]: I'll second that.
[Jenny Graham]: All right. I'll call the roll Joan.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Matthew.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Heidi.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Christie. Yes. Do you hear me? Do you hear me or my kids? Yes. All of you. Thank gosh. Steve. Yes. Thank you. All right. Meeting's adjourned. Thanks all. Bye. Have a great night.
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