AI-generated transcript of Medford School Committee Subcommittee 09-18-24

[Jenny Graham]: start reading the agenda so we can get off to the races here since we're running a little behind. Please be advised that on September 18th at 6 p.m. there will be a Medford Comprehensive High School Building Committee recording in progress via remote participation using the link provided below. The meeting can be viewed on Medford Public Schools' YouTube channel and through Medford Community Media on your local cable channel, Comcast 9, 8, or 22, and Verizon channel 43, 45, or 47. The meeting will be recorded. Participants can log in by using the following information. The meeting ID is 95242992411. I'm going to call the roll so that we can have a hopefully quick meeting here and give you some updates. Let's see. Jenny Graham here. Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Present. Dr. Maurice Edward Benson. Here. Dr. Cushing. Present. Dr. Galusi, she's absent. Marta Cabral, she's absent. Libby Brown. I see Libby.

[Tracy Keene]: She appears to be unmuted too.

[Jenny Graham]: Yes. Marissa Desmond. Maria Dorsey. Ryan Hilliard. Tracy Keene.

[Tracy Keene]: Present here.

[Jenny Graham]: Emily Lazzaro. Here. Nicole Morell. Aaron Olpade.

[Luke Preisner]: Here.

[Jenny Graham]: Luke Kreisner.

[Luke Preisner]: Here. I'm present, and John may be joining us, too. He didn't have the updated meeting info either.

[Jenny Graham]: And Libby's having microphone problems, but she is present. OK, great. Larry Brown.

[MCM00001714_SPEAKER_00]: Here.

[Jenny Graham]: Bob Dickinson. Fiona Maxwell. Joan Bowen. Tom Dalton. Chad Fallon. Here. Hi, Chad. Lori Hodgson?

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Here.

[Jenny Graham]: John McLaughlin? Paul Rousseau? Here. Philip Santos? I don't see him. OK. We have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 present, 4 absent. So we do have a quorum, so we're good to go. Thank you all for hopping on. I do think this will be a very brief meeting, but I did want to give you a number of updates just in terms of where we are in the process and what we have ahead of us. We'll do that in just a minute. We do have a consent agenda to approve the meeting minutes from the 7-17 full committee meeting. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? So moved. And is there a second?

[Aaron Olapade]: Second.

[Jenny Graham]: OK, so motion by Tracy Keene to the minutes with a second by Aranulopade. Roll call. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Yes. Dr. Edouard-Vincent. Yes. Dr. Cushing.

[John McLaughlin]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi, absent. Maria Cabral, absent. Libby Brown. still trying but you can hear me. Yes, we can hear you. You can. Great. Yes. Marissa Desmond, absent. Maria Dorsey, absent. Brian Hilliard, absent. Tracy Keene.

[Tracy Keene]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Emily Lazzaro. Yes. Nicole Morell. Yes. Aaron Olapade.

[Aaron Olapade]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: And Luke Preissner. 11 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, four absent, the minutes are approved. Okay, so flipping back to our agenda, I just wanted to give you all a couple of updates, and then we have really one topic to discuss. So as you know, when we met back even in July, we talked about that all of our documentation had been submitted and that we were awaiting information from the MSBA about the enrollment study. Since that time, we have met with the MSBA about our enrollment projections. If you all recall, That is a critical step in this eligibility phase because what the design enrollment is certified at that we will ultimately agree to with MSBA is how we will go forward to size the building. In terms of any project that comes next, so that we all have to agree on how many students are we trying to accommodate for. We provided a whole bunch of information to them about Medford's housing market, about our historical enrollment, among other things, and we did hold an enrollment meeting with them. They presented us their preliminary numbers, and they had a series of really good questions for us about what may not have like I'll say like come through in answering the questions that they standardly pose. So we had a really good conversation about some of the like additional factors from Medford's perspective. The mayor is part of the Metro Planning Council and they are committed to helping the governor. achieve their goals. We have an aggressive housing production plan, those kinds of things. So we were able to have some good conversation about a whole variety of topics that impact enrollment. At the end of the conversation, they asked us for some more information. So we actually did provide that to them in mid-August. And we are awaiting feedback from them about the next step. So more to come on getting through this last piece of the eligibility phase. as we hear from them. What we have done in the meantime is thanks to the help of Will Pippicelli, who's on the call. He is replacing Tom Dalton on the committee as soon as the school committee votes that change through officially, but he's here tonight. He's joined us. He's our director of communications for the district. So I wanted to welcome him to the team unofficially and we'll welcome him officially once the committee goes through that process. But Will and I have been working on two efforts. One is to take all the documentation that we had to submit to MSBA around this enrollment study. and put it into a digestible format. The other was to do the same with all the maintenance and capital planning information that we had to submit because all of those submissions go into their computer system and they don't spit out all that great or with like enough context that it would sort of resonate for us to post that on our website. I believe that you all received both of those documents before the meeting. That's really just more for you to have. Obviously, we do plan to post those on the website so that everybody can see them, but those two documents are hot off the presses. Will and I were working on finalizing them today. Many, many thanks to Will for his work on that, pulling together all of All of the information was not an easy task there's lots of attachments, the enrollment projection information is particularly sort of tedious to. to get through and understand. So thank you for that, Will. And I want to make sure that you all saw those attachments from Lisa just a little bit ago. So take a look. We will post them on the website. I will plan to share them out on social media. And Will and I will talk about a plan to do that from the school account instead of from my personal account so that there can be record of that. Um, so that one is to provide that update. So we're still very much in wait mode. Um, and, uh, we are, you know, waiting on those next steps from the MSBA and just, um, ready and, and willing when they have questions. So, um, I am planning to touch base with, um, our contact there later this week, and I will, um, let you know if there's anything material that sort of comes next. Also, in terms of the timeline, I'm not 100% clear when we will sort of exit this phase because we're sort of at the end, but we're not done. So I think some of that will drive the board meeting placement wherever we land once we get through this process. The other part of the timeline is I haven't scheduled any meetings because I don't want to take up your valuable time. until we have better clarity on those next steps. We will talk a little bit about sort of getting ready for the next phase in just a minute, but we are going to try to use this time to provide some opportunities for folks to go tour other buildings. We do have a tour of Arlington High School on the books for next week. You're all welcome to join us. It's at three o'clock on the 24th. The Arlington project is probably even more open now than it was when I went to tour the building back in like May or June. because it is a phased renovation. We are also working on plans to talk to Waltham, Somerville, Stoneham and Billerica. So more to come as we get those dates on the calendar and Lisa will push out invitations to you all to join us as you are able. So we're sort of taking this time where we have some quiet time to also take some tours and get inspired. So that's on the immediate agenda and we'll work through getting those on the books and then we can regroup if there's anywhere else that we want to take a look at. Questions about the timeline? Okay, so the other major part of our agenda today is that as we start sort of looking forward to that next phase, assuming that we are invited to the next phase, which is part of this MSBA process, the next phase really would be for us to put out a public procurement and onboard our owner's project manager who will help lead this project forward as it gets increasingly technical. So in order to do that under MSBA's guidelines, what we need to do is form an OPM selection committee that will help sort of get that procurement in place and out the door and shepherd that through the selection process. There are certain people that have to be on the committee. Fiona is one of them. I believe Bob Dickinson is another. I think he has to be on the committee. But I did want to talk about that among this group because there is also a gate that the school committee will need to approve whoever that selection committee is. So even though they're a subcommittee of our committee, according to MSBA, the school committee needs to sign off. So I wanted to open that up for a little bit of discussion about the sort of our best next steps. Do we want to nominate folks tonight so that I can sort of be ready to feed that to the school committee when appropriate? Or do we want to do that at a later meeting? I'm open to both options. But I know the school committee agenda can be sort of big impact at times. So advanced notice would be helpful because then I have a little bit of runway to figure out how to get on the agenda. But that team, I believe, can start meeting to start to do the documentation work to put the procurement documents in place. So I do think if we sort of have that committee at the ready, they can be moving along because the ultimate goal of this next phase is to get the OPM on board and then ultimately the designer or the architect. But the OPM comes first. So we have to do the OPM and then the architect, and then we can get to, you know, ultimately the feasibility study. So I'll stop there. If anyone has any comments, questions, thoughts, I'm happy to take them.

[Chad Fallon]: Jenny, can I just say two things? Sure. So first, I was just called to a meeting yesterday via Zoom for Everett. What I don't think we knew, or maybe you all knew and I didn't, Everett is looking to build a new school and enhance their vocational programming. So remember before when we didn't really look in our range because nobody was a competing factor? Not that this is competing, but they're opening similar programs. So I think we're on the same timeline as them. Did you call that?

[Jenny Graham]: Yes.

[Chad Fallon]: Yeah, OK.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, they were invited to stay at the same meeting we were.

[Chad Fallon]: OK, so the second thing was any time we can tour Somerville or Waltham will be amazing, because that's really the vision of our blended school. So that's all. Waltham, beautiful. When I drive by it, it's incredible.

[Jenny Graham]: Except those bleachers. But yeah, if you all haven't seen the news articles, there's a uh, an issue in their gymnasium of the newly opened school where their bleachers are too big for the gym itself. And so they, the bleachers come out onto the playing floor. Um, so now that I've said that it'll be in your social media feed and you can take a look at the article, but, um, yeah, so we, we are trying to, um, to get to, to Waltham, um, in particular, I know that they just opened, so they will, it'll be a different, aspect of their reactions to that building for sure.

[Tracy Keene]: Jenny, in reference to this committee, I want to say what demographics of this committee do you want represented on that in terms of how you see expertise that we could bring to the committee and what is the time commitment?

[Jenny Graham]: Um, so the, you know, part of the work of that committee is going to be to. To sort of follow the template set out by MSBA around the procurements and make sure that we're in good position to be in compliance with all of Medford's procurement. So I think, you know. If you have procurement experience, that's a plus, because that is fundamentally what we're doing. If you have experience working with OPMs, I think that is also a plus. You know, bringing bringing that group together the other thing that group will do is figure out like, what is the process that we're going to go through to actually select the and. I would imagine that this larger group will certainly be invited to the table to to listen to presentations and things like that. But ultimately, the recommendation and the selection of the OPM is going to have to go through the selection committee and then to us. I think time-wise, it's going to happen in bursts, and I can't really even tell you when the bursts will happen. Certainly, there's some upfront work to get those RFPs out. Once they're out, There's sort of a quiet period, right, where we have to answer some questions and then we really can't talk about the bid. And then once everything comes in, we'll have to have an established timeline to work through all of those submissions, do interviews, and ultimately make a selection. So whenever that happens, it's going to be the most time intensive space. Some of that will be a function of how many OPMs So, it's really hard to know, but doing bid reviews can be really, really time consuming. So, I do think there's, you know, a decent amount of work there for the team.

[Luke Preisner]: So, I wanted to ask about the OPM. So, you mentioned the OPM. Normally, there's three agents involved in these construction projects. Aside from the OPM, there's an architect, there's a construction manager. We pick the OPM first, fine. Does the OPM have a role in selecting or influencing the other two, or is it a forced marriage? If you look at press articles and just kind of look at all the other projects in the region, it becomes clear that there's a handful, probably somewhere between a half dozen and a dozen companies that do this. And they typically swap hats depending on which project they're working on. And so, is it a forced marriage or does the OPM have a role in guiding their preferred construction manager partner as well as their preferred architect?

[Jenny Graham]: So there's a couple questions there. One is not all people play all roles. Not all organizations do all the roles. Some do. So some are architects and OPMs. Some are just architects. Some are just OPMs. And any version of that could be what we see in terms of our bid. The OPM is going to help us do the heavy lifting to get the designer and the construction manager on board. So this work of getting the OPM on board is our work to do. Once we do that, we now have somebody like paid staff that's going to help shepherd the rest of that along. They certainly are going to have a wealth of information about who does this work, who they've worked with before, but ultimately this committee is going to make those selections. So no, there is no such thing as a forced marriage. Who we hire to be the architect, who we hire to be the construction manager is up to this committee. But the OPM, you know, ideally is the person who can help guide this committee and do the heavy lifting for us once we have them on board. But it is really important to pick an OPM that sort of reflects what we want to see as we go forward. So, you know, finding the OPM that's a good fit for us is really, really important. Any other questions?

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Chair Graham, could you just tell me the timeframe that we would be putting out an RFP? Or would you need to want to put on RFP?

[Jenny Graham]: I don't know. I mean, I think as soon as we are invited to the next phase, I would like our RFP to be out the door within 30 days, max, because the sooner we do that, the sooner we have somebody on board and the sooner those next phases can happen, which is why I would like to get the procurement documents created in advance of that. But it's really hard to say because it will be driven by when MSBA invites us to the board meeting to advance us to the next round. Those options, they meet every other month. They do not meet in September, so they meet in October, they meet in December, and they meet in February. If I had to guess, I think we're likely to be at the December board meeting. There's maybe an outside chance we'll make it to October. But we were not originally slated to go to a board meeting until I think February.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, and I'm sorry if I missed it, can we set up, can we let you know who on this committee is interested in being on that procurement team and form that procurement team prior to the board meeting?

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I mean, I think we can make, we can have that conversation and decide who those folks are. It has to go to the school committee for approval. And I don't believe there's any reason why we can't begin work, but I will confirm that with MSBA. So I think if there are people who want to be part of this process, those nominations tonight would be helpful.

[Luke Preisner]: Luke? Okay, thank you. Yeah, follow up question to the earlier. So in terms of next step, feasibility is the next phase in this launching process. And do we need to have all of the agents, OPM, architect, construction manager named in order to begin a feasibility study or can we proceed with a feasibility study with just the OPM?

[Jenny Graham]: The next phase is forming the team, which includes the OPM and the architect. Then the feasibility study happens. So the two things that must happen are we must have an OPM and we must have an architect. And then we get invited to feasibility. The construction manager comes later. But we, so we have to get the OPM on board, they will help us get the designer on board, and then we will be ready for feasibility. So there's actually several, there's a couple of MSBA gates there in the middle. Because they do have to approve our OPM, they have to approve our designer, there's a lot of approvals that they have to do along the way. I do believe that Fiona has to be on the team, and I believe Bob does. But they are both non-voting members of this committee, so there need to be at least three voting members of the committee on this subcommittee as well. So I certainly will be on the committee, but I would love other folks to join us as well. Having worked for many OPMs, please excuse my voice tonight.

[Emily Lazzaro]: I would be happy to be on the committee.

[Jenny Graham]: Thanks, Libby. Is there anybody else that's dying to be on the committee? And that goes for non-voting members as well. You're very welcome to be on the committee. Um, we just need to make sure we have enough voting members that it can be a legitimate committee to.

[MCM00001714_SPEAKER_00]: I would, but I don't have any real construction experience here in this area. All mine's in the West Coast, so I don't have the contacts. But if you guys get desperate, let me know. I think I can do investigation, look up companies. I have a few references and stuff with the union also, and know a couple architects locally. So I think we could work together and figure out who would be good.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, there's definitely a circuit of folks that play in this space. So we will proactively reach out to all of them. And they're at conferences. They're at school committee conferences and things like that. So we have plenty of opportunities to meet folks.

[MCM00001714_SPEAKER_00]: I hear Peter has some experience.

[Peter Cushing]: Dr. Cushing? Well, I worked with CEO and owner Paul Riggi and other members on the HVAC OPM selection team and have previously worked on OPM selections for other districts.

[Jenny Graham]: Is there anybody else out in the universe here that would like to participate?

[Aaron Olapade]: I'm like Larry, I can offer to support. I have no experience in this particular, but I'm happy to learn if people feel like I would be an addition, I'm happy to be involved, but I do not have any experience directly. So, yeah.

[Emily Lazzaro]: I can also just say that I would be, less than an asset to this sort of committee and also that I don't have time. I'm really sorry, but I'm here and I'm listening.

[Jenny Graham]: OK, so Aaron, maybe you can be our fourth member so that we have some flexibility in terms of having a quorum. And sometimes you just need arms and legs, people to review, make sure things make sense. So I think that would be a great role for you. And you can learn all about the city's procurement process. And then I'm sure that can be useful somewhere else. Okay, so what I have is Jenny, Libby, Peter, Aaron, Fiona, and Bob, if Bob is required and or wants to be on the committee. Is there anybody else?

[John McLaughlin]: Jenny, I'll help out any way I can. I have experience with the science lab project, with the boiler room MSBA projects, and obviously with Fiona. So if I can help you, I'll help you out any way I can.

[Jenny Graham]: OK, I'm going to put your name down. So is there a motion to approve this group, Fiona, Bob, if required, Jenny, Libby, Peter, Aaron, and John? So moved. Motion by Emily. Seconded by?

[Tracy Keene]: Second.

[Jenny Graham]: Tracy? And we'll do a quick roll call because we have to. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Yes. Dr. Edouard-Vincent. Yes. Dr. Cushing.

[Peter Cushing]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi, absent. Marta Cabral, absent. Libby Brown. Yes. Marissa Desmond, absent. Maria Dorsey. Welcome, Maria. Yes, hi. Hi. Brian Hilliard. He is absent. Tracy Keene.

[Tracy Keene]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Emily Lazzaro. Yes. Erin Olapade.

[Peter Cushing]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Luke Preissner.

[Peter Cushing]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: 12 in the affirmative. Jenny, I think you skipped me, but yes. Oh, Nicole, I'm sorry. Nicole Morelli, yes. So 12 in the affirmative, that means three absent. Motion passes. Thanks, everyone. Let me flip back to my agenda. That was the only other thing on our agenda for the evening. unless there are any questions, I did put the next meetings, actually the communications and community engagement meeting is happening immediately following this. And then we'll see hopefully many of you on our tour of Arlington next week. Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved, and thank you, Jenny. A motion to adjourn by Mayor Lungo-Koehn, seconded by? Second. I am only. I'm a moral call guys sorry, Jenny Graham, yes, mayor Lungo-Koehn. Yes, doctor ever been sent yes, doctor pushing. Yes, doctor blues the absent market overall absent Libby Brown, yes. Merced as an absent re Dorsey yes, Brian Hilliard absent Tracy keen as Emily was our yes, Nicole morale. Yes. Aaron Olapade?

[Peter Cushing]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Luke Presner?

[Peter Cushing]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: 12 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, three absent. The meeting is adjourned. Thanks, everyone. Nice and quick. Bye. Thank you.