[Roberta Cameron]: So I am going to call to order the meeting of Medford's Community Preservation Committee on Tuesday, September 10, 2024, 6.30 p.m. We are meeting this evening at Medford's Department of Public Works at 21 James Street and hybrid via Zoom. And we will ensure that the meeting is recorded as quickly as possible and posted after this meeting is over. And so first on the agenda, we have an off-cycle application from Shiloh Baptist Church.
[Theresa Dupont]: So... I do have... Oops. I just realized I didn't actually hit admit all. Sorry, folks. There we go. So Jerry is coming.
[Roberta Cameron]: So for those who just entered the room, I just called a meeting, the Community Preservation Committee meeting. And our first item on the agenda is the off-cycle application review for Shiloh Baptist Church. And I believe we have some people here to introduce this project. So I will turn it over to you all. I don't know how you want to how you want to proceed. Are you going to talk about the project yourselves or at the architect?
[Theresa Dupont]: It looks like you might still be trying to turn your audio down.
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm happy to introduce myself. Hi, everyone. I'm Yulia Borovsky. Where's the camera? Who am I waving at? Right there. That little device sitting on the table. That's like a Star Wars material. All right. Hi, everyone. My name is Yulia Borovsky. I am the director and owner of the Bonsai Learning Academy. And I have been working with Cliff and the team for the last year to see if the church could be a suitable fit for the daycare expansion that has been my goal for the last two years. desperately trying to find a suitable commercial type space to grow the daycare in Medford. I've had my space for almost nine years now, and I'm very much rooted in the community. We have a wonderful reputation, but we just need more physical space to provide that much needed childcare for the grow in City of Medford because I, you know, even in the last nine years myself, I've seen so many changes in the demographics and the new families coming in and moving into the area. So I'm super excited about this partnership and about all of the opportunities that have been coming our way.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'd love to come back and learn more from you about the daycare. First, I do want to give an opportunity for the other members of the team, the Shiloh team, to introduce yourselves while you're here.
[SPEAKER_14]: Cliff Singleton, chair slash president of the Shiloh Baptist Church.
[Singleton]: Yes. William McIntyre, our trustee on that board, Shiloh Baptist Church.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. And we have Jerry. We're going to have some introductions first and then we'll have you give a presentation about the project. You're muted right now, Jerry.
[SPEAKER_01]: There you are. Jerry Sullivan at SSV Architects.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have Louise with me too.
[Theresa Dupont]: Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: I want to hear all about the proposed improvements and the request for funding. But first, a little bit more about the daycare that you're trying to open. How many seats will there be in the daycare?
[SPEAKER_10]: So the way the Department of Early Education and Care determines the occupancy is based on the open square footage, and it's typically 35 square feet per child. So based on my rough estimation, it could be anywhere from 30 to 50 children in the space. Okay. It always depends how the layout will look, because they calculate open space only. So it does not involve any of the bookshelves or tables that I will put in into the space.
[Roberta Cameron]: OK. And do you have any sense of what the waiting list is like for early child care in Medford?
[SPEAKER_10]: They're huge. I have over 50 people on my waiting list. Yes. And I think the families constantly reach out and I have to turn them away. I have some of the families I'm working with right now, they waited for over a year, some waited for two years. A lot of the families go the nanny route, but that's just not feasible for families because they have to bring in someone into their home and some homes are just not set up that way. And it's a lot more financially as well where they have to pay a private nanny.
[Roberta Cameron]: Great.
[SPEAKER_10]: Thank you. Love to get the context. Yes.
[Reggie Graham]: Can I ask a question?
[SPEAKER_10]: Yes.
[Reggie Graham]: Where are you located physically now?
[SPEAKER_10]: We're right on Boston Avenue, 28 Boston Ave, which is right next to St. Raphael Church and School as well, in West Medford Square. And so I'm currently licensed as a family child care. So it's the first floor apartment that I have dedicated to a current space.
[Reggie Graham]: So it's maximum six?
[SPEAKER_10]: Ten.
[Roberta Cameron]: Great, thank you. Now, any other questions about the child care committee members online?
[Reggie Graham]: Well, I wasn't finished. I just wanted to know how many people do you intend move into that commercial space at St. Louis? How many do you anticipate having?
[SPEAKER_10]: So anywhere, well, depending on what the licensing capacity is going to be, but I expect within the year, we will be able to enroll up to full capacity, which would be anywhere from 30 to 50 students. Okay. And those are the ages, infancy, which is three months old, typically up to five or six. So it's a huge gap of children in terms of the age that I'm looking to present in terms of the population that we will address.
[Roberta Cameron]: So with that context, I would love to invite Jerry from SSB to talk about the project. Maybe give us an update on, because not all of the committee members have been here since this project began. So maybe give us a little bit of background on where you started with this project, what you've completed so far, and then what this funding phase is looking to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure. Would you like me to share images, or has everybody seen those?
[Theresa Dupont]: Please share images that would be very helpful. I'll give you co host ability. So you can share. You should be able to share now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, 1 2nd, make sure I get the most. Up to date 1 here. Okay, so you faster than me and pulling this up or should I keep pulling it here? I mean, I do have the- No, no, I'm not asking Louis. Oh, sorry. I'm usually better at finding this stuff than I am. I had a whole bunch of stuff pulled up, but not the drawing. Give me a second here. I will file open. All right, you do. Okay. Why don't you go ahead and share then?
[Theresa Dupont]: One second, Louis.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you could pull up the original images of the church.
[Theresa Dupont]: We should be able to share now. OK.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I can see your screen. Then I'll give you a quick overview and you can get into the details, at least on this. The church itself is actually made up of two parts. The original church, which is over there on the left portion, I don't have the exact date, but that was the original build and then there was a large addition put on to the end. I don't know if you can pull up a photo of this, just for those who haven't seen it, just in the background if you could. What we started out doing was looking at a restoration of the windows, which made a lot of sense at the time. However, it was determined that a more pressing need was the accessibility of the building. So we looked at a few options in which to get an elevator inside the building, but realized rather quickly that it was going to be rather expensive and it was going to eat up a lot of critical space that's needed by both the church and now the daycare center. What we proposed in lieu of that was a very small addition near the very back of the church, which we think fits in well without being a complete copy of the church, in which we had put an elevator. You enter at mid-level between the church and the lower level daycare, and there will be a small Lula elevator that will go up, about six feet to the church, and then also about six feet down to the lower level. It's followed by stairs that also bring you to these two levels. And that's about it. That's pretty much it. It gives a new entrance, a new feel to the space, but it does not, do you have any elevations there, at least on this, that we can share? Out of this file now, not on that 1. okay. All right. So that is what we are proposing there and then on the lower level, which is what you're looking here. We are looking to deal with as many different levels and level them off as much as possible to provide. a daycare center which is usable, functional, and safe for the children, adding an accessible toilet room, and then also just a small toilet room for children who will be there. It's not an extravagant project in any way. The main thing will be the accessibility to the building, which is off the parking lot. And then providing new finishes inside. We're also talking about some electrical upgrades and some heating and air conditioning upgrades as well.
[Singleton]: Thank you. Do we have an elevation, Jerry?
[SPEAKER_01]: We do. Can you pull it up, Louisa? Do you want me to take over?
[Singleton]: The access. Access to see visualize that space going into the building because it doesn't disrupt the building itself. It says, like, a small bump out. for the building so that people coming to the daycare or coming to the church or we have any community meetings, stuff like that, that require people to be able to use an elevator or the stairs so that they can go right to the basement or go up to the upstairs meeting room that's next to the sanctuary, which are connected. And some of you who have visited the church see that there's expansion at upstairs when you have a full choir and full activities, such as a funeral or wedding or something like that. You expand that space out there so that you can do much with it. So this is a real community thing. That section that he has built out there goes in the back section where the old ramp is. And we utilize the old back door. And that's captured right up to the building. And we use what would put a puncture a small hole in the foundation so that the lower and the staircase you can walk right without any hesitation right into the basement area, which has a kitchen and all the service area and the daycare people. Frequencing that they kill have ease in doing that, which is, I think, particularly important that for the short money that is proposed, it will really make a real enhancement to the facility. It's a community facility. So you have three or four things going on at one time just for that little bump up. You have the potential tenant, which was sort of helps support the church's service to the community. You have people who want to rent space in the building. They have a way to use that space up or downstairs. You have the regular parishioners. They'll be able to elevate myself if they ever came. They'll be able to maneuver that up and downstairs without much ado. But you can see how that's laid out. The bump out comes on the back portion of the church where the old ramp used to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, these drawings are slightly older. We've actually made the addition a little bit narrower. It doesn't come out quite as much. We were able to get it in. But you can see the way that you enter at mid-level. You can go downstairs to the daycare using stairs or the Lula elevator. And that'll also bring you up to the church. Um, you know, it's a shingle style building, so we're bringing a small and for functional reasons to slope group there so that we can fit the elevator in there without making too much noise or trying to be quiet with respect to the rest of the building because the, the building. I don't know how much you can see from here. It's a beautiful shingle-style building that really has a lot of character to it. We would love to get into the other phases and redo the windows and the shingles and the whole bit. The exterior is in good condition. but it still needs work. The area we're talking about the addition is right where you can see that van, if you can see that image right there. It's just in that back area over there, close to the parking area, close to the accessible parking as well, and the various vans to increase the accessibility.
[Roberta Cameron]: Question for Doug. Is the bump out consistent with the historic preservation standards?
[Doug Carr]: I think so. I think we'd want to have it come before the commission just to kick the tires on this thing. The design looks very good overall. It's obviously very sympathetic to the building, but I think this building has been found significant in order to get some of these grants. We'd probably just want to I think run it by the commission. This is a pretty expensive project. A Lula is a lot cheaper than a full-blown elevator, so there's money savings there, but obviously with the foundations and the complexity of the digging and all that. Remind me again, maybe Teresa or someone else, what's the request we're getting here because it's not construction obviously, is it?
[Theresa Dupont]: It is. Right now, We're looking for about $400,000 to finish this phase of the project. That is the request tonight. We do not have to fund it in full with new partial, just to make it clear for the newer members.
[Doug Carr]: Is that based on a cost estimate you have in hand from a contractor?
[SPEAKER_01]: It is based on an estimate that was given to us by CBER construction. Um, and, uh, you know, with some with some recommendations for saving some money, which we take it, like, for example, the particular type of Lulu that we're using. And the like, and and we do find after all it is, you know, the addition is actually less expensive. Um, than trying to put the elevator in the existing building due to the, the nature of the wood structure and the, the fire code requirements and the like.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I can see that that would be difficult because we built a Lula in the ship at Brooks Manor. We luckily have the space for it. But it was a place internal. We already had accessibility to the building. You don't here. So I can see why this design is what it is. It's well thought out. I can see that very clearly.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Thank you, Kaylee. Hi, thanks for the presentation as a mom to 4 very young kids. I understand the need for a daycare center. So love the idea of this question for Roberta, maybe your Teresa. So my understanding of off cycle application, there's like an immediate need for funding that like a resource or something is going on. Going to be available if it's not funded now, and so I'm just wondering if that's true here, or if we should maybe wait. I think our applications due in a couple of weeks, and then we're reviewing the next couple of months. So I didn't know if it would be better because it's such a big ask to wait for the regular cycle and then go ahead and just one other question, but you can answer that 1st.
[Roberta Cameron]: Sure, so our custom is that the committee will vote on whether to accept this as an off cycle application or request that they come back to the regular funding cycle. That's the first vote that we would take this evening. And then if we elect to take this as an off cycle application, then we can vote on whether or not to recommend the funding. Um, so the criteria for off cycle applications has customarily been that it meets a high priority need. And it is driven by a timeline that is beyond the control of the applicant. So it's not just that. I forgot to apply and now I want to apply for this thing or it would be nice to do it now rather than later. A project that is already under construction is often considered to be just by definition an urgent need because if it's already under construction, delays in construction are going to increase the cost for the project. You know, more than just because the costs are increasing, but because you may have, you know, you may already have staging and things in place that. So, in this case, I believe construction has not yet started.
[Singleton]: The de-lidding has been started in the building. The drawings, the sketches have been done. What Jerry is doing, he's doing the final construction drawings. So there's been a lot of people who've come through the building and making the assessment. Some of the final details will be on the construction details. So we sort of know where the numbers are. So it'd be a shame to just push it down the window of construction, because the trustee board is really interested that we have a tenant that's able to do the rental. And that would satisfy much of the cost of the church, and it would satisfy the community that needs.
[Roberta Cameron]: So if I understand, waiting, what would be until January? October, November, December, so awaiting another three to four months would delay your construction by three to four months and the opening of the daycare and potentially change the cost of construction, given that you already have estimates to proceed that this is based on. So that's what's at stake here and why they're requesting an off-cycle application. So that's what the committee should take into consideration. But your second question, Kayleen.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Okay, thank you for clarifying that. And then my second question was, so I saw the proposal from Seaver, the estimate, and I was just wondering if you had reached out to other contractors or gotten other proposals just because it is pretty extensive, just to compare, because your request is pretty large and our pot is only so big. So I was just wondering if you had gotten other estimates.
[Singleton]: Well, that will happen once we have a little better construction drawings. We're timetable for that, Jerry, isn't that fine down the road as I understand it?
[SPEAKER_01]: We're aiming to get the construction drawings done pretty much by the end of this month. And then the decision has to be made whether we're going to send it out to bid or just invite the contractor, whether it be Siever or someone else. I mean, that's where we stand right now. Both options still are on the table. The advantage of just sticking with the contractor that we've provided the estimate is the speed of doing it. The drawback is you lose a little bit of the competition of it. So there's the trade-off. But to the best of my knowledge, Bill, that decision wasn't 100% made at this juncture. But I do think it is, there still is the opportunity of just going with the contractor so it can get done before the winter, because we don't want to hit in winter conditions on this.
[Roberta Cameron]: That's yet another timing consideration for the committee to consider.
[Doug Carr]: Right. If I could jump in here, like Jim on SSV, I deal with Contractors all the time, you know, it's not a quick and easy process to rebid a project. You know, it will take time. Even if you save a little bit of dollars, like, you would probably spend. at least, they take at least a month, I think, to price some things. And these days they're all very busy and their schedules are not usually something they have available to people right now. So it's, if you're trying to get this done by the winter, I think a negotiated settlement, a negotiated contract with the existing contractor is definitely the most efficient approach to get it done before the winter. Otherwise, there's no chance you're going to make it in my opinion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's truly the trade-off, absolutely. They're the ones that have been providing the estimate and the comments so far. They'll continue to do that if they're signed up with. If not, we happen to go out to bid again and start the process again. You might get more competition, but at the end of the day, you may end up spending more money. Still have to talk more.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: So just if you don't mind clarifying for me, I must have missed something. So you've already gone out to bid for a project that has already been proposed, and now you're changing the project scope? Or have you done any bidding or procurement yet?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, right. Yeah, no, that's incorrect. What we did was we brought a contractor on board to provide some estimates and recommendations for cost savings and the like. The project has not gone out to bid yet.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Okay. So is this money request for the paying of construction documents to be made or is this for construction? Is the funding all set for basically the A&E part of it, the construction documents?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's correct. Yeah. This is for construction of it based on the estimate that we received.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Okay. I mean, I do a lot of procurement and managing construction projects in my day job. And I mean, in a perfect world, maybe you'd be getting your construction documents and, you know, shovel ready, but I find it a very aggressive schedule to be to thinking that you're going to get this done before January. That's just my opinion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. If we go out to bid, we definitely won't. There's no question about that. That'll be a spring project. The only option for getting it done in the fall would be to engage the contract to get on their schedule, finish up our documents, and proceed. That's the only option I see. I mean, I think you're absolutely right. To go to the traditional design bid build, There's no way that this would be done before January. And, you know, even though the, the earth is getting warmer, it's still hard to do a foundation in January.
[Joan Cyr]: Thank you. Can I jump in here? Yes. I feel like I need some clarification around this because I'm looking at the map that Teresa has created on our website at the city that says that we've already funded two projects for this site, one being the exterior restoration and study, and one being ADA improvements. And then I look at your application and it says total CPA funding request 746,610. which I don't see that math on the summary of project costs. I see something closer. And Teresa just said, you're only asking for 400. So I'm very confused about what this task is for, number one. And number two, I'm looking for the urgency in terms of going off cycle. I think I really am concerned about making sure the CPA process is not, is adhered to and that the reasons that we said we'd accept off-cycle applications was really things that were, you know, outside of your control insofar as, you know, if we didn't do this now, we were going to lose this other money or, you know, something like that. Not that, We want to get it done by January, because unless there's, you know, if we don't get it done by January, it doesn't happen. You know what I'm saying? So there has to be a more compelling reason to take it off cycle. Otherwise. You know, everybody's going to submit an off cycle application and then our process is pretty much blown up. So we're trying to make sure that we adhere to what the. City Council asked us to do, which is they are the approving body for a funding perspective. They asked us to stay on a cycle and to present at a certain time of the year, and we're trying to do that. I'm trying to respect their requests. Number 1, I don't see where the numbers are and how does what we're asking for tonight play into what you've already been awarded, and then what is the real urgency for getting this done?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'll defer you to the daycare situation, because that becomes a critical element in the off-cycle request. And I'll let you add on to that.
[Roberta Cameron]: Well, first I'd like to ask Teresa to fill us in on the background of the history of Shiloh applying being funded with CPA grants. Do you have that?
[Theresa Dupont]: In terms of the dollar amounts? Yeah, the previous grants that they received. Previous grants, we did $150,000. That was to conduct the building assessment as well as the window repair and assessment. So there's $150,000 there. We funded $145,000 for the Lula elevator. I think I can address the question about the budgeting here that 746,000 is the totality of the project. They have already essentially received 300,000 and CPA funds.
[Roberta Cameron]: I just want to go back and address the 1st grant. So the 1st grant was our combination of. Um, the architectural assessment and. As it was written in the application, the project was named exterior restoration, but it was it was written in the application. I think it said that it was for the highest priority improvements that were identified through the condition assessment. And when the condition assessment was completed, the highest priority improvements were actually identified to be the elevator. rather than the windows which were anticipated before going into the project. So that initial grant of $150,000 was combined the architect services and the beginning of the improvements. And then the second grant for $145,000 was to continue the improvements with the hopes that they were just going to need the Lula and not additional costs. But now a fuller budget, the project is much more fleshed out now than it was when they came for the $145,000.
[Theresa Dupont]: And the last time they came asking for the $145,000 for the Lula, I can't recall, but Shiloh had actually asked for more funding at that point, but we had trimmed it down to the Lula. elements of it if i'm not mistaken i can't remember it was like a 200 and maybe 20 225 sticking into my head at that point so we had actually reduced that previous request to that 145 that's for the future construction of lula or is there already another one that so that was the first estimate of what the lula was going to cost
[Roberta Cameron]: Based on that first estimate, they requested 145 last year, but that was before it was fully designed. Now that it's fully designed, the estimated cost is 700,000 rather than 300,000. That's why they're asking for the difference today.
[Joan Cyr]: Has any of the money been spent yet?
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes, about 60,000, I think. On the architect. On the architect. Yeah. Which is great that they are extending.
[SPEAKER_10]: And diletting.
[Theresa Dupont]: And diletting, yes.
[SPEAKER_10]: And diletting. That was a big project, diletting? Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. And I think that they also received a small ARPA grant.
[Theresa Dupont]: That's the one. Yes. $40,000, yes. That's the one we used for diletting. Okay. And then there was an additional preservation grant, I want to say. It says 43,000. Yes, thank you. Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Is that the ARPA grant? ARPA was the 40,000. Oh, so there's an additional grant. Correct. So they've been also looking for additional funding sources besides CPA. Correct.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I think urgency too. We've been working together since last August. was the hopes that the space will be available and ready for rent for me to come in and start the center last January. And now we keep getting pushed back and pushed back, which is, of course, also a challenge for me in planning what is that space going to be, recruiting, hiring. There's so many different aspects that play into starting a center aside from renting the physical space.
[Joan Cyr]: So the space that you're in now, are you renting that month to month or are you signing a lease? I own the space. But you've grown out of it, is that what you're saying?
[SPEAKER_10]: Exactly, yes. It's just because of the need and the wait lists, I just see the potential there.
[Theresa Dupont]: And just to add some more information, at the city level, we're aware that child care after school care is an exponentially growing need here in the city, just to provide that feedback. If anybody has children in the Medford school system, it's notoriously challenging to get any sort of after school program. So it is an urgent need in the city. And I'm thinking about that.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: But bonsai is just early childhood, right?
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm open. I can be licensed for both. And I'm open to considering the after school care as well. Because of the proximity to Brooks. I mean, I have my own two children at Brooks. I know the walk, it could be so easily accommodated without transportation. which is so many other spaces challenges the transportation to the afterschool care. Well, here, it could be just the walking to site. It's less than half a mile.
[SPEAKER_14]: Also, this Cliff Singleton, we've been approached by other folks too about the other space that we have. They're just waiting on the construction to be completed by the afterschool program. So we got additional potential renters, but they're just waiting on the construction to be completed. But you know, so that's what they're waiting on.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I have no issue with the, you know, the potential use of the space. And, you know, again, I'll reiterate, I totally understand the need for childcare in the city. But I just will echo Jones comments of my pretty big concern, you know, to take this off cycle, and sort of setting a precedent here. So that's all that's my final comment.
[Ari Fishman]: I think I'm in a similar place where I love this project. I'm so excited. We deeply, deeply need this childcare and it looks like it's very nicely designed. That being said, we've put in quite a bit of work over the last few years to create a coherent funding schedule and funding process where we can actually compare relevant needs. I do think that this is one of the top needs of the city along with affordable housing, so I have no doubt that we would approve at least a substantial portion of it. That being said, I'm having a tough time with the combination of off-cycle, the fact that the kind of only pressing emergency is The unfortunately inevitable realities of construction, which is that everything just keeps getting pushing pushed back and takes forever. If there's only been 1 quote, I. I'm not a specialist in procurement, so I can't speak to whether it's typical to only have talked to one contractor. My other experience is making me a little twitchy on that, as well as the very accelerated timeline. I'm talking myself into it being something that we should move to the general funding timeline, I also want to reiterate that I think this is a spectacular use of CPA money. I'm just slightly over one side of the fence. I could be convinced otherwise because of the importance, but I do think we need a coherent process. We've put in so many guardrails to have this coherent process. That's where I end up. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you, I appreciate the committee members commitment to our application process. I do just want to ask the architect what you see as a realistic timeline if you were to receive a commitment of funding in October, or by October, I think it would be by, yeah, if you were to receive a commitment of funding, say, the beginning of October, what would be the timeline to have the project completed? And what would be the impact of your having a funding decision completed by, say, December if the committee like that would be the earliest that the committee would be able to make a decision on the regular timeline. So what difference does that 3 months make to you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, my thoughts on that is the is obviously the mobilization of the contractor again, dealing with the winter conditions part, because the 1 of the 1st elements of this is the excavation and the demolition of some of the lower level elements. And that is whether dependent so that that becomes a factor in the, in the consideration here, if we're talking, pushing back the decision on that, then locking in with the contractor gets pushed back. You know, into into the new year. By the time they're able to mobilize and and so they were talking about. excavation probably not happening till the end of February, early March. Then we're talking four months of construction by the time they're fully done. It's not a huge project, but like all projects, there's an element of each. There's a whole bunch of different trades. Even though they're not doing a lot, they're all brought in. Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Under the best case scenario, if the funding was approved in December, the excavation is taking place in February or March. If the funding actually were approved in October, are you ready to mobilize that quickly? It sounds as though you don't have the construction documents completed. It sounds as though you may still need to gather information before getting up contractor under contract?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think the issue is getting the contractor. We're actually fairly well along with the drawings. I think the bigger issue is getting a contractor on board because they're going to have to estimate it or price it. If they're brought on board immediately, beginning of October, Then they can look at it before the drawings are 100% and they can be ready to be mobilized in early November, perhaps, best case scenario. And then potentially go with the excavation part and get it done before the main part of the winter. Like I said, winter conditions starts to play a real factor in this element. Like I said, not a big project, but getting the contractor mobilized so that excavation can start well before December would be necessary. Otherwise, we're talking about a February start and then four months.
[Ada Gunning]: I just as a layperson to building, I just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. So it's the digging that needs to happen before we're deep into December, but the other aspects of building can carry on through the winter. Am I getting that right? The project just needs to be initiated in November at the latest if we want to get it done.
[Singleton]: Yeah, they want to beat the frost. The frost is an issue when the frost gets in the ground, right?
[Ada Gunning]: So I guess I'm just trying to clarify with architect. Is it just that like first stage that needs to get in there? And how long does that take? I'm like hearing you say early November best case scenario, which like my mind is like, OK, well, then what's the range? Like what is the realistic range of what we're looking at? Is that the best case? What's the worst case? What's the average case like?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's actually happening before the winter, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, and I think negotiating or signing a contract with the contractor becomes critical because there's a lag from the time they're brought on board. To the time when they actually start construction, you can't just expect them to start 2 weeks after you sign a contract with them. That becomes the bigger element here, because they're going to have to get geared up. They're going to have to make their schedule and start coordinating schedule with the other disciplines. To answer your other question more directly, there is a few elements that are weather dependent, such as the roofing. Roofing that goes on in January and February is notorious. It doesn't bond well. But other than that, they can work in the winter, through the winter. I know I didn't clarify completely the exact dates because obviously it is weather dependent. But it does sound like what you're talking about here that you're talking about a late February start. Unless a commitment can be made on October 1st.
[Roberta Cameron]: So I also want to be realistic about the Another partner to this timeline is the city actually being able to execute a contract with you. So what is the lag time that you would estimate between city council approving and actually signing a contract, Cliff signing a contract?
[Theresa Dupont]: Three to four weeks. I feel like the three weeks I can make happen. Yeah, but it wouldn't be any earlier than that. They don't, there's administrative stuff inside, but yeah, the city council meets on the 15th, just to keep that in sight.
[Roberta Cameron]: That's October 15 October. Okay, so I just want to like, lay out the timeline so that we understand winter versus not winter construction period and what the impact might be. So, the, if we were to vote on this tonight, the city council might approve it October 15, which means that. Cliff might be signing a contract for a grant agreement in the middle of November.
[Theresa Dupont]: I'm going to pause you there. I apologize. I thought we were talking about in October. So if we were to vote tonight, it would be heard of the September 24th city council. Okay, so so that puts us more into signing a contract mid October mid October.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay. So grant agreement, potentially mid October. And meanwhile, you're working on the construction agreements so that you'd be ready to mobilize most likely by December. You'd be ready to mobilize versus if we pushed you off. It would be that many months out that you'd be ready to mobilize. And maybe there would be a cost impact because of moving it out that late. So you might, if you were to put in an application in December, it might be for a larger amount of money, perhaps, than the amount that you're asking for now. I just want to be realistic. Or do you think that it will not impact the price that much to wait?
[SPEAKER_01]: Prices are beginning to stabilize, but they're still continuing to go up. They're just not going up at the same rate that they used to. It's really hard to say on that and how much more it would be to push it back a little bit. Time and costs, inflation are only part of it. The other part is the availability of contractors to start. People do build through the winter. I don't want to scare everybody in that sense. There's always that possibility. It's an unknown and that's where it becomes a little difficult.
[Roberta Cameron]: And one last timing question that I had for you is the funding that you've already received so far, you have a little bit less than half of what this whole project needs is already committed to Shiloh. So is there any way that the funding in hand could help to advance the project? Or do you really need to have the full commitment to be able to advance the project?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that depends on the confidence of Bill and Cliff in signing before it's fully approved.
[Singleton]: And the trustees probably have more conversation about it. But because the jurors would like a little bit of guaranteed insurance that we're going to follow through because we don't want to go out and have to borrow money or anything else to finish the project. But it sounds like that most of us know that there's a strong need for this thing. And if we can see our way through some of the administrative stuff that always is in the way, would be much appreciated by the church and I think the daycare in the community. I think one of the things that happens is that we keep pushing things down the hill. It's an opportunity. I think it's a wonderful project that just allows for a lot of things to happen and stabilizes that community as it continues to change. You know, West Methodist is changing and it's growing with a lot of youth. You know, the old timers are leaving and a lot of new timers are arriving. So this is an excellent time for us to establish a community community effort there. So I would much appreciate your consideration.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'd like to return to committee member discussion about the off-cycle application. So I don't know whether what we've learned from this additional information, excuse me, brings, helps to bring anyone toward clarity.
[SPEAKER_10]: And also just final comment too, I think Jerry it's worth pointing out that even to get that Well, it was not just one contractor involved, but there were six or nine of them that had to be coordinated to come in into the space. And it took about six weeks to get all the estimates back. So it's not one contractor coming in and giving out quotes. It was quite an extensive process that the church went through with SEVA, bringing in each individual contractor. So it means if the time pushed back, then they all need to come back, which in itself took quite a while and lots of communication amounts.
[Reggie Graham]: I realize that this is an important project for the church, for your business, et cetera, et cetera. We do have two elements here that need to be addressed. The first element, obviously, is the off-cycle situation, all right? Well, I don't know if you all pay attention to the political scene in Medford, but quite frankly, I think that there's a question on the ballot this year that is going to talk about an override for problems in two and a half, right? I'm not exactly sure that the climate is really ready for us to offer an off-cycle presentation to the City Council come September or October. just my thoughts, okay? And quite frankly, I myself understand that, you know, you might have had a general contractor come in and he had to have some contractors that had to, you know, coordinate their efforts and so on and so forth. As we're heading into the winter months, Coordinating that effort is going to be even tougher, I believe, for you to do in that short period of time. We're already talking about halfway through September. By the time we get finished with our determinations, we'll be into the middle of October. We won't get the monies until at least December, right?
[Roberta Cameron]: for all of our decisions, or just this one?
[Reggie Graham]: No, just for all.
[Roberta Cameron]: For all of the decisions. December is about the earliest that we could start making decisions on the regular funding cycle.
[Reggie Graham]: Yeah, so I realize that it's an important thing. I understand that. And I understand the passion that you all have done. But your time is terrible at this particular juncture, from my perspective. Just my perspective, and that's really all I have to say about the matter, to be honest with you. Timing is not good.
[Joan Cyr]: So can I also speak that it looks like this quote is already expired. It says that the proposal may be withdrawn within 30 days if not accepted, and it was dated on June 24th. So, I mean, if the contractor was going to pull this, they would have already done it, or they could have already done it. I think that in looking for whether or not this met the test on an off-cycle, while it would be nice to get this done before the winter, I don't see that that argument's been made. It's not like you're going to get kicked out of a leased space, so you must move. We love this project. We know Medford needs this project. But the guardrails are there for a reason. We want to make sure that the process as agreed upon by the committee and the city council and is stated in the ordinance that we adhere to it as closely as we can with exceptions that are outlined. I myself had a third floor put on my house in January. They took the roof off my house. So I know that work can get done over the winter. So I just don't see the urgency here, except for you want to get it done and there's a great need, which we know is true. But anyway, I sort of echo what Ari was saying. I'm not sure I see the argument here for an off-cycle application.
[Ari Fishman]: I did want to jump in and I realize this risks derailing. I don't know that the 2.5 discussions are going to be super relevant to this. This is money that's already been determined and allocated from the community. I would hope that it's Viewed quite separately from any political ballot measures, it's already dedicated, but I do take your point that that is something that you are concerned about. I'm not sure I am, but. Yeah, I I think there's a part of me and it seems like other people are agreeing that. A lot of this timeline seems to be best case scenario. And once you start moving into the. Construction is rarely best case scenario. We start just getting to where the decision would be otherwise. And then we also get the benefits of like actually being fair to all the other applicants and creating a coherent funding system that. allows for allocation based on the needs of the community. think if there were an expiring quote or a rental lease or something like that, I could be swayed pretty easily. I'm just not sure I've heard that case and I so deeply hear your frustration and desire to get this done. I just want to say I really hear that and I deeply empathize. We've had some construction projects in our house, but that's also part of what's making me think that your project also might not go at the warp speed you're hoping it does as much as I wish you all the construction luck in the world.
[Doug Carr]: That's a good point, Ari, and I actually concur with my fellow commissioners. I think Everything always takes longer to do than you think when it deals with products of this complexity. Whether it's the CDs being completed, whether it's the contractor mobilizing, we could get an early winter. I think we're going to be in winter conditions no matter what we do. I guess I'd prefer to get it, you know, tighten up the CDs, get a bid, you know, a contractor to commit to a schedule, not just the price, because the price is meaningless without a schedule, right? Because it could be, you know, it's not going to mobilize in two, four, six or eight weeks. It doesn't, your schedule is kind of shot at that point. So, and it does represent about 20% of the cost, I think of the, of the budget that we have, plus or minus $2 million. Teresa, I think this is what we're looking at for ballpark, right? So this is a, 20 percent of that for taking off the top, it's tough. There's going to be a lot of competition this year based on the list of products that I saw earlier. But I'll tell you right now, I'm 100 percent committed to this project on every level. It's a need. To me, this will be a top priority. It won't be a question of, in my opinion, if you get the money, but just how quickly.
[Roberta Cameron]: Agreed.
[Ada Gunning]: And you had a chance to weigh in. I don't feel like I have anything else to add. I just feel like the ideas have been captured by the group.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, thank you. And have I missed anyone else? I can't see everyone online, so. Okay, Lane, did you have anything to add?
[SPEAKER_04]: Nope, I didn't I didn't know if you needed a motion or.
[Roberta Cameron]: Well, if maybe. I'm just trying to think the best way, because we encounter this exact situation before maybe the best way to document. The committee's decision this evening would be a motion to. Just gathering what I'm hearing from everyone this evening, we might be looking for a motion to decline the off cycle application, but. encourage the applicant to apply in the regular cycle?
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely. Could we just move the application to that cycle or do they have to reapply?
[Theresa Dupont]: We have the application. I'll just put it in the regular cycle.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, I will make the motion for whatever Roberta just said.
[Roberta Cameron]: To decline the off-cycle application.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and move it to the regular.
[Roberta Cameron]: Second. All right, I will call the roll. Starting with the people in the room, Ada? Yes. Reg?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: And online, Ari? Yes. Kayleen? Yes. Joan? Yes. Doug?
[Doug Carr]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: And yes for myself. So thank you everyone. I'm sorry that we couldn't give you an expedited decision this evening, but we do encourage you to continue finalizing your construction plans. And if you have amendments to the amount requested, to your project scope, or to the budget between now and October, yeah, or November. We'll take amendments before we make the final decision.
[Reggie Graham]: They can ask for a different sum, correct?
[Roberta Cameron]: They can ask for a different amount, yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: It's possible to ask for a different amount. So I understand that the architect was talking about the cost might increase. Yes. All right, we'll work with that, put it into the proposal.
[Roberta Cameron]: If you need to obtain new estimates, you know, maybe as Kaylene suggested, get votes from a different contractor. I don't want to put work in your hands that is not appropriate because you're the experts more than I am, but I welcome you to continue gathering the information that you need to submit a successful application um in october all right so the application that is presented will get amended yes for whatever we submit yeah in uh was it november oh it's october october is remind me the application deadline or is that no okay So I'm sorry, the application deadline is already now. And you've already presented. So I don't know that we need to ask you to come back and present again when the other applicants present in October. But we will be beginning our deliberation in November at our November meeting. So I'd say any amendments are needed by November 1. November 1 is a hard deadline for amendments to the application.
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm just out of curiosity, how many applications have you received?
[Roberta Cameron]: If you stick around, you'll learn a lot because the next item on the agenda is to review the applications we've received.
[SPEAKER_14]: Thank you so much for hearing. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.
[SPEAKER_10]: Thank you. Thank you.
[Singleton]: This time is particularly important for everybody and we appreciate your cutting us out and putting us first on the list and so that we can talk about things. I appreciate it.
[Roberta Cameron]: And also, I think it's good that you came at this time. We would ask you to give a presentation in October, but this gave us more time to hear the whole story and for you to be able to make the whole case. So I think this was good timing to get that presentation from all of you rather than on a crowded night when everyone else all the other applicants are here at the same time. So that's going to happen? There will be a meeting with all the other applicants, but we will not ask you to come back and do it again.
[SPEAKER_10]: I was just told at 3.30 today if you can't join tonight. Sorry if we were ill-prepared. You were not. We can come with slides and pictures if it's easier. We can come back.
[Roberta Cameron]: We look forward to coming to your ribbon-cutting for whatever improvements you're able to make with the funding that the committee already has or will give you in the future. Thank you.
[Joan Cyr]: I hope we get some rides on that Lula elevator. That would be fun. Oh, you will.
[Roberta Cameron]: You'll get the whole one.
[SPEAKER_14]: Okay, thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_10]: Y'all have a good night.
[SPEAKER_14]: Thank you. Thank you all.
[Theresa Dupont]: It's nice to meet you all. Nice meeting you. Thank you. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: Well, thank you to everyone. It would be nice if we could. So to those of you online, you might notice that we're becoming fuzzier and fuzzier. That's because we have mood lighting in this room and it's only half lit as the sun goes down. Is this a dinner?
[Doug Carr]: Jody, it looked like pre-HD TV on my screen.
[Theresa Dupont]: This is next to the door. This is a very nice room, though. So this is Medford, but it's a great meeting room.
[Reggie Graham]: Yeah, it actually is.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right, next up on the agenda. Next up on the agenda is a brief review of the upcoming FY25 applications.
[Theresa Dupont]: I am going to attempt to share my screen. Bear with me.
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah, I got too much going on in my background. I gotta do something. I need an image.
[Ari Fishman]: I couldn't find the raise button.
[Joan Cyr]: I don't have a raise my hand button on my screen, so I don't know. What are you talking about?
[Theresa Dupont]: All right. I am going to try to drag this over here and hopefully it will still work. Doug and Joe, Kathleen, everybody, Ari, can you see the spreadsheet?
[Joan Cyr]: I see a very thin line in the middle of my screen.
[Theresa Dupont]: I don't know.
[Joan Cyr]: You just, you just, there you go.
[Theresa Dupont]: Okay. There you go. Okay, cool. All right. And I'm getting my mouse back on the side. So we've already done kind of an overview. There wasn't anything really terribly new. A couple of things fell off, though. So what I'll do is just kind of run down the list. Somebody buzz me if they want to stop and chat about it a little bit more or have questions here.
[Roberta Cameron]: We're mostly interested in a list right now because we're going to learn a lot more about the projects over the next couple of months. Correct.
[Theresa Dupont]: Let me actually make this a little smaller. Folks at home, you can read that okay still? It doesn't look like it. Thanks, Doug.
[Unidentified]: Jeez.
[Theresa Dupont]: Okay, so we have received an application for City Hall bathrooms for ADA approved.
[Joan Cyr]: What happened? I don't hear all of a sudden. I don't hear him either. Hello, DPW, you're frozen. Uh-oh.
[Doug Carr]: Couldn't handle that lighting level.
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah. Tracy, can you hear us? Oh, boy. I just texted a chat to her saying you're frozen.
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't hear you.
[Joan Cyr]: There they go. Bye-bye. How's it going?
[Doug Carr]: What happened there?
[Joan Cyr]: They dropped off. It was the mood lighting, I think. Turn it off and turn it back on again. That's right. That's right. So we don't have a quorum here. So that's good. We're no longer being recorded. Thanks, Kaylee, for speaking up.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: I'm always good for that.
[Joan Cyr]: All right, they're back. But we can't hear you. You're muted. You're muted. All right. Can you hear us now?
[Ari Fishman]: Yes, we can.
[Theresa Dupont]: Excellent. OK. Let me re-share my screen. Try that again.
[Doug Carr]: It still looks like that. Excel, she had to crash the meeting.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. OK. So I don't know if you heard, but they've opted to make the ADA accessibility upgrades to all the bathrooms and come through and address other things. They are coming to CPA for the ADA improvements as this first phase 1 of the bathrooms at City Hall. They intend to do a phase 2 where it's the rest of the items, HVAC, fixtures, what have you, that aren't related to ADA accessibility. So I'm actually, as I'm talking about this out loud, does that mean all the other upgrades are not going to be funded by CPA since we can only fund accessibility?
[Joan Cyr]: Well, is it a historic building?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, we can find what's needed to make the building so code improvements. We can find the reason why is part of what we can find is because we can find the work that's necessary to make a building functional for its intended use. So is City Hall functional without bathrooms? If it's not up to code, then I think CPA can bring a historic building up to code.
[Theresa Dupont]: So this is something to consider as we're looking at phase one here as well as phase two is, okay, they're telling us that there will be future updates What do those look like?
[Ada Gunning]: Go ahead. Okay, so just again, because I'm new to this, historical preservation, is it the designated historical building or is that something we would be kind of budgeting a little bit?
[Roberta Cameron]: Well, that's a good question. City Hall, if it doesn't, so maybe it already has some kind of a historical designation, we would know that if it's on the state registry. The state registry is basically identifies buildings that have some kind of historical designation. And so if the City Hall is already on the state registry, then it is automatically eligible as a historic building. If it's not, then we do need to ask the Historical Commission to put it on their agenda to determine whether they think City Hall is a historic building.
[Ada Gunning]: So this is kind of my line of thinking a little bit with this one, which is that I'm involved in the override campaign. And there's obviously the talk about the rainy day fund and like, why can't we just use free cash? And then the counter argument is like free cash is for capital investments, not operating funds. It's for need, like one time need to improve city resources. That's what the rainy day fund is for. So I'm looking at like, bathrooms for the city hall and I'm like it's a little bit it feels like a little bit of like a mission creep for like community improvement whereas it feels like to me like That's what you would want the rainy day to be used for. So I'm just going to put that out there because, like, again, I'm new to this, but that's where my head went with this.
[Roberta Cameron]: So this is, I think, like, the other part of our conversation tonight. And we just want to, because there are a lot of things to talk about, so we don't want to go into the weeds. But any conversation like this, Teresa, you can be listening to this, and you can take that feedback. back to the applicant to say, this is what the committee might be thinking about when they are considering our application. So you might want to address that. Be prepared to address it in their presentation. So that's both fair questions.
[Doug Carr]: So let me jump in here real quick on the city hall. It's not on the National Register of Historic Places. I don't think it's on the state register. I think we should bring it before the commission. I think it's an architect, Dyer, who's got a lot of buildings in the city of Medford, who's very well-known. I think that plus the building itself would probably qualify if I had to give you a spot check at this moment. I recommend we just go down that route to check that box. the next meeting. We just met last night, so let's get on the October agenda.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, I'm also so a reason for speaking with Ryan Hayward is another thing to consider about this and any other city owned historic properties is that last in the last couple of years, we've funded a number of CPA grants for city on historic properties, and we don't have any way of protecting those properties to make sure that we protect the historic investments that we make. So we're working to try to get the city to do something to protect them. Put it under a local historic commission would be the easiest way to accomplish that. So that conversation is also happening in the background. They haven't done it yet, and I really am pushing to at least make some progress on that before we recommend more funding for more city-owned historic buildings.
[Theresa Dupont]: And I'll have a resolution about that probably within the next 60 days. So that'll be in time for us to make our funding decision. Moving on. So I think I brought up the hose tower restoration study at Engine 3, which is on Salem Street. They're not pursuing that at this time, perhaps next year. We will be seeing, and we already have received, obviously, an application from the Affordable Housing Trust for their, we don't wanna say seed money, but their startup funding initial tranche. So we have a really nice, compelling application from the Affordable Housing Trust. We have two applications there for identical projects owned by the same, it's the Queen of Mary, I think it's the, that owns St. Joseph's and St. Francis. Identical projects where it would be very similar to what was done at Shiloh in terms of a window restoration study as well as funding. Who is Cindy Watson?
[Roberta Cameron]: Who is she?
[Theresa Dupont]: She is a member of the board. She is I don't know her exact title, but she's an administrative assistant. For both churches? Both churches are owned by the local diocese, and I want to say it's the Queen of Mary Diocese, so they have same ownership. I learned that too. I did not know. That's who Cindy Watson is. She's a firecracker lover. It's almost complete. I received most of the application for the Curtis Tufts High School conditions assessment. We talked about this, I believe, at our last meeting, which we pulled up pictures of the cupola that's there. So we will be seeing that for 150. Received a car park phase two tranche. This is essentially to finish out some of the recreation projects there, mostly the skate park. is kind of what the funding is intended for. We will not be pursuing an invasive plant removal project this year due to bandwidth, but the Office of Planning eagerly supports it for next year. We received an application from the Unitarian Universalist Church for building restoration. They have a lot of stonework that needs some addressing as well as some shingle work. What where, which church, which one? Unitarian Universalist, where we had the CPA party.
[Joan Cyr]: Oh, next to the next to the Woody Hullen house. Okay. Yes.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. At this time, I have an actual, I'm going to sidebar with Roberta about this, but let's get to that. Oak Grove Cemetery master plan. I've got another plan for that one. As well, oh, and I skipped over this one. Barry Park test court resurfacing was deprioritized over, where is it, Playstead. Did I not get Playstead on here? Yeah, Playstead's on there.
[Roberta Cameron]: I appreciate the administration thinking about, not making us make the decision about what's the most important project to fund this year. And that was,
[Joan Cyr]: I'm sorry, did you say Oak Grove cemetery master plan that you have crossed off is back on?
[Theresa Dupont]: Nope, that one, why does it keep doing that? Sorry. The Oak Grove, I'm gonna, it's not gonna be a CPA application, it's still a project that's going forward, but not CPA. ABCD, as well as housing families, additional tranches for the ongoing assistance programs that we offer. Obviously, we have Shiloh Baptist here, Riverside Plaza shade improvements.
[Roberta Cameron]: You want to update if they're asking for 400,000, you want to update that in our total here? Thank you.
[Theresa Dupont]: Riverside Plaza shade improvements. We talked about this one last time and seem to be eager to see this application come through. Nothing's changed there.
[Joan Cyr]: We had this really nice couple of thing that used to be there, where you used to wait for the bus. I remember when it was up there, I said to then city councilor, who was it? Michael Marks. I go, what are you going to do with that thing? It's like a piece of history. He said, do you want it? I'm like, no. Now we're going to go pay for a shade thing. Shoot.
[SPEAKER_14]: Not out of Princeton, is it?
[Theresa Dupont]: I will say that the improvements, the renderings I've seen for this will make it a more functional recreational space. It's not just, let's throw some shades up there. They're talking about repurposing with new seating, creating protection of that tree that butts up right against the Salem Street Barring Ground. It's very thoughtful. Okay. I'm sure it is. Hegner building restoration, this will be for roof as well as doors and windows. Can they get money from Washington for that, an earmark? Yeah, they did get $850,000. And what are they spending that on? They're doing the mechanicals with that as well as some interior build out that's required. CPA can't fund interior work at that capacity like that. It's a historical asset, but it's being repurposed.
[Joan Cyr]: Frowny face from Dunkar, I don't know about that.
[Reggie Graham]: Which building is the Hegner building?
[Theresa Dupont]: It's technically called the Randall Fieldhouse.
[Joan Cyr]: It's the Metro Police Department parking lot is what it is behind Gillis Park.
[Reggie Graham]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So hasn't that been vacant for a number of decades?
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes, because as to John's point, it was used as a police training center. It hasn't been actively used for many years. Oh. Which is why it needs work.
[Reggie Graham]: Is there a plan for it to be used afterwards?
[Ada Gunning]: It's written in the federal grant we got through the appropriation process. There was a press release that the mayor's office put out of what they're planning to do in the Hagner Center, but it includes an after school and a shelter.
[Theresa Dupont]: Recreation. It will be basically our community emergency shelter. Right, and all that stuff. Yeah, exactly. As well as be used for after school and recreation.
[Roberta Cameron]: Well, I think we need both like, there's an unlimited need for answering those. I'm fine.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, I was going to say, I think it's about like, 1.8. So there's no. writing sourcing additional funding for that, but they didn't want to ask us for 1.8. That's just for 300, which was appreciate that.
[Roberta Cameron]: And I'm really comfortable since like the building is going to need totally repurposing on the inside. I appreciate CPA just focusing on the exterior. But to the earlier point, has the Hagner building already been identified as a historic building?
[Ada Gunning]: I have an email chain about this from when I was trying to let me pull that up.
[Theresa Dupont]: I don't. We do have a local letter from the Medford Historical Commission saying that they find it historically significant. But in terms of it, a Form B was done, but it's not on any state or federal. And a Form B is basically just a report.
[Ada Gunning]: It doesn't have any... As of December last year when I was emailing with them, it was not designated.
[Theresa Dupont]: Okay, thanks for checking on that. Doug, did you have something? I saw you unmute yourself, so I thought you might have a comment. Sorry. No. Okay. Moving on. I just updated this. It was 50. I got word at like 412 today that it's going to be closer to 85,000. This is for Condon Shell field lights. It would provide really nice, better lighting for the stage so that we can extend the Condon Shell's use as well as put in walkway lighting from the parking area. So I'm sure the farmers market would really appreciate and love that.
[Roberta Cameron]: I would say if there's one project that's likely to get controversy, by the time it gets through city council, that's one that I could see people talking about. I think it's a lovely idea. Lighting is going to extend the hours of use, and people who live in the vicinity of that listen to very loud music as often as there are concerts at the Condon Shell. I can hear them all the way to my house near Whole Foods. I love live music. I'm not going to complain. I think it's great. I just want to manage expectations and think that that is one that actually might get people coming to speak against it at city council meeting. We might want to think ahead about if this committee supports that project, Um, do we need to think about conditions or any discussion, or do we just want to pretend that that's not going to happen and hope that it won't do we want to ask Kevin Bailey to articulate what the.
[Ada Gunning]: actually use is going to be?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, maybe.
[Ada Gunning]: Extended life because we're going to have approximately x number more concerts in the summer and do like x number of things.
[Reggie Graham]: I can pretty much tell you what he's probably going to try to tell you is that he's going to get the lights that only shine straight down. They don't give off any outlying I forget what they call them. Ouzo lights or something like that. So the lighting of itself is not supposed to bother the surrounding areas, theoretically. They're using them now on a lot of athletic fields.
[Roberta Cameron]: So that's like 1 thing, because we did have protests about a, an early application about lighting for an athletic field. and the neighbors all brought pitchforks about that because they didn't like to see lights. But there's not that many neighbors here, but the people along West Street and South Street actually are impacted by whatever goes on at the Condon Shelf. But as somebody who walks through that area, sometimes in the dark, it is very dark, that whole park. So for pedestrian safety, making a lighted walkway It's actually a great improvement, let alone for the use of the shell.
[Joan Cyr]: Kevin can say what the hours of operation of the shell are.
[Roberta Cameron]: DCR leases. Yeah. Sorry, we're having two conversations, both of which are very easy.
[Ada Gunning]: So DCR, I just remember that came up with Georgiana Chevre's proposal. I was like, is it going to run into anything with that too? Yes.
[Doug Carr]: Jonah, I think to short circuit the potential negative reaction, is really just a condition about acoustics. If you can hear a concert at Con and Shell and you live almost a mile away, that's controllable. You don't need to project that much sound for people who are 100 feet in front of this Con and Shell. There's a solution there that I think is pretty obvious that controlling the sound and light is doable for whatever we end up funding.
[Reggie Graham]: But are we the ones? Yeah, we would be the ones to tell them that they could only have certain decibel levels, right?
[Roberta Cameron]: And we could get a professional opinion on that. We can recommend that they think about it. Yeah, that's like, that's our role. Because we want them to be successful, but we're not going to put, we're not going to put like actual.
[Theresa Dupont]: But the recreation department could pursue that if they wanted to. It's. I'm sure we could probably even find other guidelines from other communities. Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Anyway. And maybe they want to think about those guidelines before they put the application in front of city council. Right. Because maybe they want to demonstrate that they're going to put guardrails around the project that will protect people and be prepared with that.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. Either with a timeline plan or hours after something like that. Anyway. Great conversation there, thanks, folks. Playstead digital scoreboard, electrical upgrade. We're still waiting on some final quotes on that one, but if anything, we think this might be a little high. It might be closer to 40,000. But that is coming through. Oak Grove building restoration phase two. Really want to talk about that with this group. For those who are unfamiliar, Oak Grove has two buildings on it. One is the caretakers and the office, and one is the maintenance building, which is actively used for cemetery usage. The CPA has funded a building assessment for each of them. Last year, we funded construction documents for the tune of $200,000 to get construction documents on both buildings. Now they're coming and asking for construction funding. knowing that I'm not, it's not hyperbole when I say this is an $8 million project between those two buildings, a lot of historic preservation, that's not cheap. So this 228 that we're looking at here, essentially Tim McGivern said, for the first initial phase of construction on the caretaker's building was the 228. For the maintenance building, it's 180. So he's obviously going to ask for us to fund both, but he did recognize that that's a lot of money to be asking given our budget, given the situation, and asked us if we would have a preference of which project to fund through CPA.
[Joan Cyr]: I think somebody's living in the caretaker's quarter. Isn't that what we said before?
[Theresa Dupont]: That is correct. There is an official caretaker that lives in there as well as uses it as an office building.
[Joan Cyr]: Right. So we have said that that was the priority.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay. I mean, my, my, my question or my thought about the priority would be based on the, what is the level of risk of delaying either of those? Is the garage going to fall down? Is the house going to burn down? Um, which of those scenarios is more likely to happen if they have to wait another year?
[Theresa Dupont]: I'll bring that question back to them. So thank you for that. And in my own observation, like the maintenance shed is in rough condition. So either way the projects are getting done is whether CPA is going to fund them or not. So.
[Roberta Cameron]: I don't want to lose the maintenance shed because we waited a year. But to Joan's point, I also don't want to force someone to live in. Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: Okay, who wants to live in a day of cemetery?
[Joan Cyr]: The leaking roof and everything. Quiet neighbors.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, that's true.
[Joan Cyr]: You don't have to listen to this kind of shell music, right?
[Ari Fishman]: Except the coyotes, they get loud.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes, they get coyotes and miscreants. So all right, thank you. I will take that question back to the commissioner and the applicant. Oh, I need to cross that one off. Disregard the community center creation one. Duggar Park fitness area never came to fruition. West Medford was deemed ineligible. This is for the Mississippi playgrounds study for 150,000. I haven't heard back on this application. More to come on that, but as the application deadline has come and passed. Rich.
[Reggie Graham]: Can we go back to number 25 again?
[Theresa Dupont]: The Duggar Park fitness area? Yeah. That was a request. So we engaged, and it's actually, I'll tout Roberta on this one. It was Roberta's idea. It's great. Engaged with the community liaisons that we have that go out and speak, that represent and support are non-English speaking communities here in Medford. And so this recommendation actually came from one of the liaisons. I have brought that to the planning department saying, hey, there's been a request for there to be, essentially it's like the adult fitness areas that you're starting to see pop up. We've CPA funded one at Gillis, there's one up at Flynn Rink. So that was the intention here. It wasn't presented in time enough to actually pursue it as a project, put the application together. has been brought to the planning departments. Who's Jennifer Alvarez? She is one of the liaisons. She's one of the liaisons? She's one of the liaisons that works for the city. Okay.
[Roberta Cameron]: And I'm sorry, you already talked, went through this earlier in the list, but the Curtis Tufts School is on the list, right? Yes. Yeah, great.
[Theresa Dupont]: Just keeping that one.
[Roberta Cameron]: So that last Missituk School playground might be off the list this year. for this year, okay. It's still a good project. Why don't we cross that off too just so that we can see, do you have the total here? I do. Can you hold this column?
[Theresa Dupont]: I'm just, I don't trust myself right now. So right now, 2.8. So we're one million over requested. We're about seven, we have one, 2.09. We can round that up to 2.1 if we want. I have been. So we're about almost 800,000 over budget right now.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay, just so that is also something that we can feedback that we can send back to the applicants. When they're giving the presentations that we're going to have to sharpen our pencils this time pretty hard.
[Theresa Dupont]: I skipped I mentioned this 1 earlier, but we didn't like, I didn't call it out. That a lot of that 2.8 is coming from this $500,000 request. Obviously, Shiloh as well is $400,000. But this one project for the playstead tennis courts represents 25% of our budget. It needs to get done.
[Reggie Graham]: No, I understand that. I understand that. I just have, you know, we quote permits. And I know that the permit for a place that is utilized by an outside vendor who is in collaboration with the city USTA, they use that particular part for their lessons and so on and so forth. So in the back of my mind, I'm saying to myself, you know, $500,000 for that one project is, uh, makes me pause.
[Theresa Dupont]: You can increase your permit fees, right?
[Reggie Graham]: We can do that.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. It is three full courts. Um, in the past when we've funded tennis courts, it's usually been one or two. So this, I think the place that is our largest, if I'm not mistaken, I can be wrong.
[Reggie Graham]: Well, I don't remember how much Tunga cost. but it probably wasn't funded through CPA funding.
[Theresa Dupont]: And if it was, it was done prior to cost escalations and everything like that. It was CPA funded. All of it? Yeah, all of Duggar Park tennis courts.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: It was?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: Do you have an idea what the number was?
[Roberta Cameron]: I don't remember, but maybe Joan does.
[Joan Cyr]: Duggar, you know what I do, I usually go to the Preserve Medford page. Yeah.
[Unidentified]: I would say,
[Reggie Graham]: like 300 sticking you may have like 275 or 300 that did predate me but i was just thinking because they've done the cost with whatever it did what happened i mean has prices gone up that much yeah ridiculous yeah over that did they go out to bid
[Theresa Dupont]: They will once this project is awarded, they've collected three estimates for the sake of the application. And that does have a contingency built into it as well.
[Roberta Cameron]: Starting during the era of COVID, prices were escalating so quickly that not a single construction project was completed without having to come back and ask for more money since COVID. Before COVID, it wasn't quite like that.
[Joan Cyr]: So we paid for Park Bench for 3,000. I see that. Oh, here we go. Park Bench is 3,000. Tennis courts, 293.
[Theresa Dupont]: And lacrosse bounce back wall, 9,000. $300,000. And that's for four courts at dark?
[Singleton]: Five.
[Theresa Dupont]: That's quite the escalation.
[Reggie Graham]: That's more than an escalation, that's how I would run it.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes. I will say that being on the public sector side of things, the whole concept of procurements and prevailing wages, it just blows my mind. I absolutely hope that we can increase our increase our fees for using a facility that we have to put that much money into.
[SPEAKER_10]: That's what we're expecting. It's easy for me to say, yeah?
[Reggie Graham]: Come to one of our meetings. It's quite the show.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right, so that was all of that was that all of that agenda item so administrative fund discussion I yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: So, this just to introduce the concept of it for again for everybody's sake and refreshers and for new folks. 5% of our CPA budget is allocated to administrative costs. This pays for me to operate and manage and support the program, as well as our consultant fees, any invoices, any costs that are incurred in the sake of conducting CPA business. So I've put together just a very, very basic spreadsheet. I'm going to go ahead and bring it over here. and share it from here because that makes my life a lot easier. So everybody should be seeing the most basic of spreadsheets. So right there at the top, that is what we had allocated for our CPA budget for this fiscal year. We're in month three of that fiscal year. So $103,446. Year to date, again, paying me as well as some of our annual costs that we have, like our consultants and you know, office supplies and whatnot. We've spent $20,000 of that. I anticipate, based again on my salary and everything else, that we'll have a further $66,487. So that leaves us with around $16,800 left in our admin budget. This is a budget that I've been managing, but we haven't really had a group discussion about what is the best way to utilize the remaining funds in the admin budget.
[Roberta Cameron]: So yeah, whatever is not spent from this budget at the end of the year rolls into our program funds. So it doesn't go away. It doesn't go away. But it's only available the current year for administration. And after that, it becomes program area budget. So not spending that 16,000 that might be left over at the end of the year means 16,000 more that we can spend on elevators next year. But what I wanted to run by the The committee was just on principle, you know, questions come up all the time. Oh, can we pay for this side of CPA admin? And so I wanted to because CPA admin does not have to go through city council. It doesn't even technically have to go through the committee, like, Teresa doesn't come asking for permission to pay more legal.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: So, but we do want to think about, like. Would historic preservation plan or a, an, um. An open space needs analysis or something like that helps the committee. The idea is that this budget is meant to help the committee do its business. So do we want to have a policy about. A threshold of types of projects that the committee wants to make a decision about spending that money. Or an amount of money that we can spend without the committee having to make a dislike. But, like, at what point should the committee. Decide how to spend administrative funds, or does the committee just delegate to Teresa PDF staff. maybe Joan and myself as the chair and co-chair to make decisions.
[Ada Gunning]: Can I just ask another question? Sure. What is your process for getting raises and stuff? Is that baked into the salary?
[Theresa Dupont]: It's not, because how our budget is structured, it's 5%. My raises are dictated by mayor and city council vote. They're not usually timely. I'm not trying to complain about that. I'm just giving facts about this. We're undergoing a cost of living adjustment right now that is 1%. So it's not significant enough to really mess up these numbers. But they could certainly try to factor that in.
[Reggie Graham]: If you correct me if I'm wrong, what you're saying is we can either leave it as is and allow Theresa to do as she's fit.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, I think up until now, we haven't brought decisions about administrative fund to the whole committee. For example, the consultants $4,200, what consultants have we? That's the coalition. Oh, so actually we should put that in there. That's not consultants, the coalition. Coalition fee, yeah. Coalition fee. An example of consultant that we might pay is the person who prepares the historic preservation restriction or the LHD. So you would like to see that separated out as two different? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in the past we have retained somebody to draft preservation restrictions for short money, but without coming to the committee to ask for your endorsement of that plan. But it's, I'm not sure, you know, like, what is the threshold that the committee wants to make decisions?
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, because again, money, it's a Use it or lose it for administrative needs. It doesn't go away. We still have it. We can use it for future year's funding. So the fact that we have $16,000 here, is this something that we should be planning to use it for something?
[Reggie Graham]: What did we not use last year?
[Theresa Dupont]: We didn't use about $6,000 last year. So that went to the general fund. Correct.
[Joan Cyr]: But why is there so much more this year? What did we do last year? Oh, do we have the party?
[Theresa Dupont]: The party and preservation restrictions, probably. Right. I went to a full-time part-time for a portion of the previous year. Yeah.
[Joan Cyr]: Got it. So what about our CPA plan? I know that every year, you know, Teresa and Roberta take on the yeoman's task of sort of doing the updating and a bunch of us have read it, but is it time to have a professional take a look at that again and maybe, you know, review it? Yeah, that way it sort of takes it off your plate. and we have the funds for it, and we've never had a professional do it except for the first time, right? Did we?
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm a professional.
[Joan Cyr]: Well, fine. Let me back that up. You are a professional. That is correct. And maybe it's something you like to do. I'll just put it out there that if it's something you're trying to offload, we can offload it, okay?
[Reggie Graham]: people don't, she might- I know, Reg, believe me.
[Joan Cyr]: Thank God I'm here and not in the room, she'd smack me.
[Roberta Cameron]: No, I don't have any plans to rewrite that again. I just thought that it was a professional job that was done the first time.
[Joan Cyr]: It was, but I also know that you do a lot more than that and you're trying to take something off your plate.
[Roberta Cameron]: No, but I, so I don't know that we need another, like, full plan written. I would want to make sure that that, like, things that so some, some requests that have come up that could potentially be of use to us or to the. Or to others in the city in particularly is an assessment of all the playgrounds for accessibility or to prioritize a study to prioritize which athletic fields to improve in what order. Um, so things like that get to a little bit more deeper level than what kind of like the sidewalk assessment, right?
[Roberta Cameron]: So something on that level might be useful to us if the city wanted to do it. But, um, like, at what point should we come and ask the committee's permission, like for which maybe like anything in the consultant category actually maybe is a, I'm looking for a threshold of what makes sense to, it doesn't make sense to ask you for permission to purchase office supplies.
[Theresa Dupont]: Should it be associated with perhaps with a dollar amount, like anything over $2,000? I'd courtesy bring it to the committee and just be like, hey, this is a thing that we need to do.
[Reggie Graham]: Well, what does the coalition offer?
[Theresa Dupont]: They are essentially our subject matter experts on CPA. They don't provide technically legal assistance, but they interpret the law for us a little bit in terms of interpreting the CPA ordinance, the state law, and how it would apply to certain situations. They do a lot of advocacy, can't say that word lately, at the state level to improve CPA legislation, They do a lot for us.
[Reggie Graham]: So that's your that's that's your is that your highest expense that you besides pay me?
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: For administrative. Absolutely. So I'm just wondering if there's anything that would cost a lot more than that $4,200.
[Roberta Cameron]: Um, you know, within a year, I mean, over the not in one single project that like, um, utilization study for parks and playgrounds could potentially cost more than that. I don't know, like. 5,000, 10,000, 15,000, I don't know what the number is. And they might also find money from other sources to contribute to it so that they would only take part of it from CPA.
[Theresa Dupont]: Using that as an example, just to understand, and I'm sorry, Doug, just one quick thing. If we were to find that we wanted, as a city, wanted to do a playground assessment or something like that, and it's $20,000, they could come to CPA and say, hey, would you be willing to put in 5,000? We'll find sources for the other 15. And that would be something that would help Um, you know, educate us as we're evaluating applications. So.
[Doug Carr]: I don't think it's worth putting guardrails on this, because you could obviously update us monthly about what potential uses might be coming down the pike that we could either react to or not to. I agree, the administrative office supplies, that's at your discretion. There's no need for anyone to vote on any of that. But I do like the idea of Roberta's building some infrastructure information for the city that help us all move the ball forward on whatever the needs are. You have some ideas, Roberta, but I think if we would dig back into it, if there's more flexibility in that 16K to spend on things that couldn't be used otherwise, the things that we think we need as a city, I like the idea of using that. But I also have thought like what if we decided that the mayor didn't give our friend Teresa enough of a raise, we want to throw her a $1,000 bonus at the end of the year for a job well done. Could we pull it from this funding source or is that going to create a civil war at City Hall?
[Theresa Dupont]: I think that would be very kind and I love the idea of it. However, I think City Hall would just implode. Well, we can't have that.
[Doug Carr]: Right.
[Theresa Dupont]: But I appreciate, yeah, I mean, it's not a whole heck of a lot of money, but it is still money that is CPA money. And at the end of the day, we're all here to make sure it gets spent according as we want to see it.
[Reggie Graham]: So. So I'm of the opinion that, you know, you and your predecessors have always maintained this little, for lack of a better term, slush fund, if you will, you know, for expenses and so on and so forth. I'm of the opinion that I don't think it needs to change. I mean, if you wanted to put a dollar amount on the amount that she, Teresa would have to come to us to say, you know, uh, maybe, uh, I don't know, 5,000, if, if, if it exceeded $5,000, she comes to us and says, I'd like to spend $5,000 on such and such. And we, we okay. And that's the end of it. I mean, you know, It's not like the money is going anywhere. The money is either going to stay there or it's going to go back into the, so it's not. I don't know.
[Theresa Dupont]: The good thing is, is this sticks to Roberta's earlier point, we can do a bit more with this without all the administrative red tape. Not that we would be irresponsible with it, but this is money that could fund those little side projects.
[Roberta Cameron]: I love having some guy guardrail because when the mayor approaches us and says, hey, could you pitch in $5,000 for this study? I would love to be able to say, oh, I have to go ask the committee. Yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: I love that. I love that. Yeah. $5,000 works? Yeah. I don't really have too many, like you said, I don't really have too many bills that come in at that level. So I would think that if we're talking about something like that, I would need to be talking with the committee anywho. Yeah, I like the $5,000 if that works for Joan. Can I make a motion?
[Reggie Graham]: Yes. May I? Yes. Okay, I'd like to make a motion that we vote to approve anything, any expenses that come in over $5,000 under the administrative budget to be approved by the committee.
[Roberta Cameron]: Second. All right, then I will call the roll. Want to stop the share so I can see everyone? Sure. Let me make this easier. There we go. All right. So starting with the folks online this time. Doug?
[Doug Carr]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Joan? Yes. Ari? Yes.
[Theresa Dupont]: Guys are moving around now.
[Roberta Cameron]: Kayleen. Kayleen, it's a yes. All right. Reg? Yes. Myself, yes. And I stepped out of the room.
[Reggie Graham]: We're still fighting. This is high time, man. What are you talking about?
[Theresa Dupont]: They came up with it. Are you still on your feet or something? Come to the committee for approval. So if you would love to vote.
[Ada Gunning]: Sorry, guys. It's all good. No, no, no. Yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: All right. So six, seven. I think we're seven. Seven. Thank you. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
[Roberta Cameron]: The last thing on the agenda is minutes from the July 9th meeting.
[Joan Cyr]: I move the receipt of the July 9th minutes from 2024. Second. Second.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. I heard Ari say it.
[Reggie Graham]: I heard Ari.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yep. All right. So, Ada. Reg.
[Reggie Graham]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Doug.
[Reggie Graham]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes. Yes. And myself, yes. All right. Thank you, everyone. Any other business?
[Joan Cyr]: I have an appointment at 9 o'clock to be in front of my TV, so I moved to close the meeting.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I do have a tiny other business. Theresa, you'll send out a calendar of upcoming tabling events because Theresa and or myself, whoever's going to be at those events could really use some help if anybody can keep us company.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes, I'll send out some dates. We have a couple events coming up in back end of September, early October.
[Reggie Graham]: You're going to October 1st?
[Theresa Dupont]: That's October 5th, yes. No, there's like the mission. Yeah, I'm on October fest, but we might need help really tough community day. I'll be there. Um, as well as harvest your energy festival, October 19th. Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: It's so bad. I never make any of those events.
[Theresa Dupont]: That's okay. You're there in spirit.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. So you'll send out a calendar. I will send one to send out a calendar. Thank you for reminding me. With that, I think, any Doug?
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, one other thing that I can't remember. There's something that came up at the historic commission last night that I need to share with this group, but I just cannot remember what it is. So I'll email it to the group. It might have something to do with the Thomas Brooks Park, but I'll let everyone know.
[Theresa Dupont]: It is. On October 22nd, which it happens to be the same day as the CPC meeting, there will be a Thomas Brooks Park update I spoke with Ryan today about that one. So it's the same date as the second half of our applicant presentation, so.
[Doug Carr]: Should we move ours? No.
[Theresa Dupont]: You mean ours by like the Thomas Brooks Park meeting? I would agree with that, yes.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I mean, not this meeting, but the historic commission meeting.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, I did say it to Ryan, but he seemed to want to move forward, but we can take that one.
[Doug Carr]: All right, that's it. Thank you.
[Theresa Dupont]: We need a motion to adjourn.
[Joan Cyr]: Can I make my motion to close the meeting?
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Second. Reg seconded the motion. So Ari? Yes. Doug?
[Doug Carr]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Joan? Yes. Haley? Yes. Ada? Yes. and my son is. Thanks, everybody. Thank you, everyone.