[Roberta Cameron]: Good evening, everyone. It is 6.34 p.m. on Tuesday, February 11th, 2025, and I'm calling to order the meeting of Medford's Community Preservation Committee. We are meeting hybrid. Some of us are here in room 201 of City Hall, and some of us are joining in remotely. And anything else I need to cover in the preamble? We used to have to read a whole thing, but we don't anymore.
[Theresa Dupont]: We don't. And on that note, we are currently awaiting, just to talk about meetings going forward, we're currently awaiting, it's called the Municipal Empowerment Act. Governor Healey just submitted it last couple Fridays ago, in that we're expected that this will become permanent hybrid, being able to have remote participation. So once that act is passed, then it will be permanently sealed that we can continue to meet hybridly. Great.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. So the first thing that we are going to do is to talk about a small grant application for the cross street Cemetery Headstone Restoration, and we have a guest here with us today. You can come and join us at the table so we can see you better in the owl. And Ryan, introduce yourself and tell us about this project.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: So I'm Ryan Hayward from the Medford Historical Commission. I serve as the vice chair. I've been on the board for 17 years now. Holy moly. And most recent project I've worked with the cemetery trustees on is the headstone assessment for Cross Street Cemetery. It was Medford's second cemetery after Salem Street Burying Ground. It originally existed right outside of City Hall on the site of 93, moved it in 1956, and that was the last time they restored headstones. We went through last year with a consultant to prepare a conservation report that details a work on the 100 or so stones, and between now and When we come after large-scale funding to sort of take on most of the restoration work, we want to do like a small pilot project. It's a proposed $10,000 project. Continued collaboration with the Cemetery Trustees, Freedoms Way National Heritage Area gave us $2,500 towards this project. the historical commission committed to funding another $2,500 for this project so we're asking CPC to fund both the match for freedoms way grant which is a two-to-one match and then the be at the remaining project. I've already talked with the consultants they're interested in bidding on the project work so and they're pretty confident that they can get it done by in accordance with Freedom's Way grant, which has to be done by September 1. So this is a very quick 15 stone max in our project that specifically focuses on the veterans located in the stone, in the cemetery. There's 15 of them. There's one stone that would bring it up to 16 that is missing. But other than that, most of the stones are there. They're in various degrees. Some just need simple cleaning. Other ones need full restoration. The consultants were pretty that event that we can do all of that for that $10,000 budget.
[Theresa Dupont]: And Ryan, the deadline for the Freedom's Way is February 19th? Yeah, I've already submitted it and actually we already have it in hand.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: So I have that in hand. The Historical Commission voted to allocate a match of $2,500 last night, so back to back now I'm here for hopefully what is going to be three for three.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Are there questions from committee members?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: So how much is actually being requested? $5,000 from CPC or a $10,000 project.
[Roberta Cameron]: That follows the rules of our smart grant application.
[Theresa Dupont]: We ask for a one-to-one match, at least one-to-one for any small grant. We have some newer members on the board, so I just want to make sure everybody understands.
[Roberta Cameron]: Great. I have a couple of questions. So these 15 stones that you'll be able to treat with this grant, what proportion of the whole Cross Street Cemetery section is that?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: So there are 300 extant stones out of the 425 that were at the original cemetery site. Of that, 100 or so need large degrees of preservation, be it resetting or major conservation work, it's probably another 25. So this is a tiny fraction of that. But the total conservation estimate for all of that work, all the 100 stones, came in at around $70,000. So really, we're chipping away at like one-seventh of the whole project cost. I think that's a little low. I told the consultants I would probably add a 25 percent contingency on top of that immediately. It doesn't include the outside perimeter wall that I'm working to get estimates on, but that just needed minor cleaning. This is a small project that gets her feet wet with the actual conservation work. It's been a while since I've seen it done. I did see it done down at Salem Street. It is very labor intensive, but these stones, there's only one that's missing the top that may need reconstruction entirely if it's not there, but the rest of them are all extended in some way.
[Roberta Cameron]: Doug, did you magically appear because you had a thought that you wanted to speak or?
[Doug Carr]: No, I was just...
[Roberta Cameron]: just intuiting how Zoom works. I'm also curious whether some of the work that just requires cleaning, is that something that volunteers can be trained to do, or is that really better to be done by professionals?
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: So what I would like to do with this project is to get the consultants on site. It does have to be done in a specific, gentle manner. But what I would like to do is to have the consultants on site to show us with this stone and to ask them what the materials are so that we can, in advance of doing large-scale work, clean all of the stones ourselves. I think that's a good project for volunteers, you know, especially if we have some, say, mobile active senior citizens who want to come down, anybody that's interested in local history. I myself would be interested in cleaning a few. And then it gets it done in advance of the big project, which probably will happen in 2026. There's some large scale funding to just complete the whole thing. And there's a possibility that we might try to tie some of that funding request in with the sort of the other project that's happening over at the original site, but that's sort of up in the air. So it'd be nice if we could get funding to do that, but it's not guaranteed.
[Roberta Cameron]: Great. Um, I guess 1 other question that I haven't. So I really appreciate kind of getting the big picture of, like, what your plans are around the site. The other question that I have is not related to this site, but any update on the archaeology of the original cross street cemetery site. Is that a question that we don't talk about?
[Theresa Dupont]: We're still in the discovery phase of what the next steps are. Okay.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah. I think that's the easiest way to put it. Got it.
[Theresa Dupont]: Just curious.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: I didn't want to, I wasn't sure if we'll be asking CPC if there's any way to tap into project funding because it's not really a sort of a mitigation for a potential project, but it's also, I guess, historic preservation in a way, but you know, and I don't know what's planned for the site, but like, you know.
[Roberta Cameron]: I think that it would be a worthwhile question to raise with like, just to ask around, you know, have other communities used CPA funds for that purpose? And are there best practices around doing that? So I think it would be like, if you had a specific question to share, I'd be willing to, reach out to the coalition, to reach out to other communities and ask whether this is something that they do with CPA. Because, you know, I mean, it would be new to us, but I can see how it has historic preservation value, but it also maybe doesn't qualify. I'm not sure.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Yeah, I think it's worthwhile to ask that question, because it is sort of a potential mitigation, but it's not covered under what you would traditionally think is linkage fees for the development project that's going to go on there. So I'd be interested to see it, because it's not qualified for linkage, whether it would qualify for preservation funding.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, you can explore that. Doug?
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, just a quick comment. Ryan, I know that we're kind of at the beginning of the process. We don't know how big a problem we have there next to City Hall, across from the parking lot. But I would be loathe to spend a ton of money, of Medford's own money, for a problem that we did not create 60 years ago. I feel like the state and the federal government really are on the hook for anything that has to happen there because they that they absolutely screwed it up if that's what actually happened. And the degree of the screw-up is still TBD right now, I think. But I would be hard-pressed for Medford residents to bail out the state who did something and got away with something awful decades ago.
[Roberta Cameron]: That's a really good point. And then the next question that I would have is, how would Medford likely pursue a solution to that?
[Theresa Dupont]: We're currently just, I can speak to that lightly, that we are, again, still, sorry, I turned Teams off. We are still, again, exploring what the next steps are. We have an idea of what the next steps are, but we're waiting for very specific guidance on what to do with that site. Meanwhile, we are approaching our state representation to see if they can earmark money we're going to our state representatives and saying essentially what you just said there. How can you help us fix a problem that was not the majority our faults? So that's about a point though that you make that. So hopefully that answers it for now. As more information is available to be shared, we absolutely will.
[Roberta Cameron]: Appreciate all of that background. Great. So we have a small grant request for $5,000. Does anyone want to make a motion to recommend $5,000 for this project?
[Unidentified]: I'll make a motion. You're muted, Doug.
[Theresa Dupont]: I feel like you're saying great things, Doug, but you are muted.
[Reggie Graham]: But he's muted, right?
[Doug Carr]: I will make the motion to spend $5,000 for this small grant. We can't make a motion.
[Roberta Cameron]: I heard Ada. So do you want to second the motion?
[Doug Carr]: Sure.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. So I will call the roll. And I find it easier if I do this. Maisha.
[Unidentified]: Reg. Yes. Ada. Yes. And myself, yes.
[hsUGO5ihrRw_SPEAKER_31]: Thank you. All right, you're welcome. Just so it's clear and maybe for the benefit of some of the other newer members in the future, the process from here on out is you guys will create a referral that then goes up the chain to city council for approval and then they have to approve it and then it comes back and we sign all the paperwork. So looking we're about a month out.
[Theresa Dupont]: To have funding in hand, I think a month is four to five weeks. I'll try to make it more on the four or five before it's signed. It'll go before city council on the 25th. You do not need to be there, but we can circle back on that. I think it'll be good to be there. It'll be good to be there, but, you know, they've annotated in the past that small grants like this, like, as long as we can present it. If you're unavailable, but if you're available, we'll hang out. Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. All right, thank you. Anything else? No, that's fine. I got one. I like it. I'll be back for Thomas Brooks Park. Thank you.
[Theresa Dupont]: All right, so next on our agenda is to review the FY26 application process and materials. So in the meeting packet, I had linked to our application material is available to be printed, but it's largely online. So in the meeting packet, I had linked to all of our application materials that we used last year, including our small grant application, our full application, the eligibility determination form, as well as the budget form. So hopefully everybody got a chance to maybe peek at those, but I'm absolutely happy to pull them up here.
[Roberta Cameron]: Why don't you pull them up one at a time and then we can flip through them.
[Theresa Dupont]: I'm going to share my screen here. Forgive me, folks who are at home. It's always a challenge to figure out how to make it so everybody in the room can see Zoom and the screen. So I appreciate your patience here. So hopefully everybody's seeing the application. So this is what we used, again, for our application around last year. So these dates are now moot, but they've been applied for last year. So is this the full application? This is the full application. Would you prefer to start chronologically, like maybe with the EDF? Yeah, why don't we start with the EDF, actually? Sorry. It's all good. I should have asked her why she started sharing. One day, we'll get really good at technology, folks. It's just not today. You're better than most. Not everybody should be seeing the eligibility determination form.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'll make this a little smaller here. All right, so my first question is, since you are the person who has to hold the hands of everybody who applies, Teresa, do you have observations about things that are working or not working in these forms?
[Theresa Dupont]: I think the only challenge I run into as city staff when it comes to the eligibility determination form, which I'll give a quick rundown because, again, we have newer members, this is the first step in our application process. It's a way for us to have a quick synopsis of what the project is without forcing those poor folks to have to go through a whole application only at the end to find out that you can't apply. So this is just a very light lift on what your project is about. You know, just overall project name, address, how much money you're looking for, who you are. You know, and this is where I'm tying this back into, is this project on a city property? Are you a city department? Or are you a residence, a nonprofit organization? So with that background here, The only issue I really ever run into is every now and then somebody will apply, and it's a well-meaning resident who may or may not understand the process here. Doug has his hand raised. Sure, Doug.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I'm not seeing the form. I'm seeing the list of attachments from the packet. Is it a different screen?
[Theresa Dupont]: guys sharing it this way. Is that better, Doug? That is it. Okay. Sorry about that. Okay. So I'll quickly scroll here. So every now and then we'll get an eligibility determinant. It's only happened a couple of times where somebody who wants to see an improvement at a park, so they'll submit it this way, and it's not ready, it's not cooked, it's just an idea. So I would look at that as also an opportunity to be like, oh, somebody wants something. So we collect that information. So the only issue I really run into is just whenever people use this to share feedback rather than, no, I actually have a well thought out project.
[Roberta Cameron]: So I actually in Somerville created a form for that purpose, which I just called a screening form. So it asked some of the same questions at the beginning. What kind of project is it? like what describe what you're thinking and then tell us tell me your name um and your email so i can get in touch with you and that's the whole purpose of the form is for me to get back in touch so i i didn't i don't know if that would be useful for you but that was how i handled that i mean if the edf accomplishes the same thing then okay i like that the one that says um
[Reggie Graham]: Let me scroll down just a little bit. Wait a minute. CPA program area. Yes. Can we put that at the top? Sure. And the reason why I say that, right, is because if it doesn't qualify under those three categories... That's a good idea. They don't have to go any further.
[Theresa Dupont]: That's a good point. Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: You know? Yeah. I mean, that just says everything. In a nutshell, you know, it's a good point. If you don't qualify by, you know, by these three categories, then you're not eligible for CPA fund.
[Ada Gunning]: Although they're kind of like the word recreation. Like we need new basketballs at the high school. And I feel like that's vague enough that it wouldn't necessarily like, it doesn't tell you everything, but it does like immediately. It focuses your idea. Like it has to be on one of these four things.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. Just to harken, I'll come right back to this. Um, I am about to launch our survey. for residents to get feedback on CPA. And one thing I did do in the specific program area questions is I put examples of past, like, hey, we did, you know, Glastead Park basketball courts. That's an example of open space and recreation. So I put some visuals with it too. So that might be a benefit in here too, is just to make it less text, more visual.
[Reggie Graham]: So theoretically, Recreation should be under open space in parentheses. Because we don't really fund recreation. Not per se, not the way, not by the definition that most people.
[Theresa Dupont]: Of Medford, yes.
[Reggie Graham]: You understand what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. So if you put open space and then parentheses, recreation and whatever other category falls under open space.
[Roberta Cameron]: Just outdoor recreation.
[Ada Gunning]: Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: You know what I mean?
[Ada Gunning]: Yes, I think that's the right edit that needs to happen. Okay.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. The only reason why they have been kept separately is because if we go back to the Department of Revenue matrix of allowed uses, there's a slight difference between open space and the recreation category. But that's for us to know. And that's not necessarily something that we have to force them to be like public. Yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: It's like recreation as a category. you might think that that would include like artificial turf, so recreation facility amenity. According to DOR, we cannot use CPA funds for artificial turf. So that's why it's a little bit separated just because they have rules.
[Roberta Cameron]: I've had it be explained to me at some point, and I don't know if I would agree with this, but it was explained that you have to treat an urban farm different from a community garden. even though they're essentially the same thing, but farm falls in one place in that matrix and community garden falls in a different place in the matrix and different things are allowed. So yeah, it gets like, we can't put all of those considerations in our form. That's why it has to come to us and then we'll tell you whether we think it's eligible or not. Sorry, I just wanted to see.
[Theresa Dupont]: But I think for the sake of this, we can combine them and that would make it easier. And then adding in some sort of examples would also be helpful to maybe deter the, and again, I don't wanna deter the residents who are confused. I still would love that information, but yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: So you being the gatekeeper, okay, what would be your suggestion? I mean, I think to me, I want to have as much paired down as I possibly could.
[Theresa Dupont]: And that's why I actually really love Roberta's suggestion of what they do in Somerville is that screening tool. It seems it's a little bit more pared down than this because that's just, you know, I think implementing that would be beneficial here because then it weeds it out and then we get to this point.
[Roberta Cameron]: So you have... I've actually made my EDF longer so that I'm asking more questions on the EDF, but the screening form is short and sweet.
[Theresa Dupont]: I like that.
[Unidentified]: Project status. And yes.
[Theresa Dupont]: So, yeah, this is just whatever, but project summary. We don't really have any guidance there. That might be an opportunity to have some suggested information here. Usually on the EDFs, this section is never really too long, but project summary and product status could be maybe beefed up a little bit.
[Roberta Cameron]: So when it comes to the additional attachments and an issue that I've run into in Somerville that hasn't happened in Medford yet, but I. I wonder whether it could happen so. Like in Medford, we've never had a situation where a private property owner applied for a project on their property. Not yet. Not yet. I know one's coming though. One is coming, okay. So if that private, and actually we did have an EDF submitted once years ago, and they never got to the full application stage. So if that private property owner was a condominium association, then it adds layers of complication which are like I'm kind of dealing with right now because we let them get all the way to the end of the process and now I don't know whether we can put conditions on their project and have those be approved by the condo association. So I'm asking for attachments for letters of consent if you're partnering with another own property owner. If there's a co-applicant. If there's a co-applicant or if there's a condominium association you also need to have. You're specifically calling that one out? Yeah, a condo association should have a letter of consent. Yeah, we haven't dealt with it here, but theoretically it could happen.
[Theresa Dupont]: We kind of addressed it in this
[Roberta Cameron]: statement here the documentation of properties owner support but that could be reworded to include consent not support yeah that's different consent and call out condo association specifically because if they don't see their see their category in there they might not think it applies to them and they just don't pay attention to it scrolling up for a second to project summary which is vague and it sounds like you're not getting great answers so
[Ada Gunning]: goal or project mission statement or something that just asks for like a one-sentence like hit us with your elevator pitch.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, maybe keep project summary but then put like oh we have extra down here like include goals and mission statement or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So I can see also somebody if it just said goals somebody be like to make Medford better you know which is great but not All right, I'll add that.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. Any other comments about the EES?
[Ada Gunning]: Let's go to the... It really does not seem that long. It seems like it would take five minutes to fill out.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. Yeah. The application itself. So I'll go ahead and pull up the full application. Yeah.
[Unidentified]: which is this one. And drag it.
[Theresa Dupont]: You guys are awesome. You're not going to do that for me, are you? All right. Everybody should be seeing the full application. Light blue. Excellent. Thanks, Doug. All right. name, location, funding request, CPA program area, project summary, which is the same question, and the applicant's information.
[Roberta Cameron]: So the only, you've already taken care of the fact that the amount of funding requests should be right up at the top.
[Theresa Dupont]: It's interesting. I did it last year. I remember you said, hey, I want it at the top last year. Whenever you would print them, it garbles it up.
[Roberta Cameron]: So maybe there's a setting in there that it creates a report and it thinks that it belongs further down in the report.
[Unidentified]: Maybe.
[Theresa Dupont]: I also am not a huge fan of Smartsheet, but that's what the city uses. I was going to explore using perhaps JotForm, which is a unit, I think you use it in Somerville. CDBG uses it for their application. So it's just more user-friendly on the front end, back end. But anyway, yes, somehow it will be one of the first things on this report there, because it's, who are you? How much money do you want? Okay, now let's stop.
[Roberta Cameron]: Like when we're reviewing the applications like that's the first thing that we want to know Exactly what you said, who are you and how much money do you want? So describe the project so this is This first question is very similar to the project summary I was just thinking that yeah, that's up here.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah so we could Because at this point, if you're filling out this application, you've already filled out an EDF, the eligibility form, and I've approved it. It's been approved. So maybe just strike it. Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. And they want to cut and paste the project summary into the first question here under project narrative. I won't complain.
[Theresa Dupont]: Why is this project needed? That's a good question, I think.
[Roberta Cameron]: How does the project meet general and category-specific priorities? A question I have is, are we getting useful answers from applicants on this question?
[Theresa Dupont]: I would say the city departments will go and copy-paste information from the CPP, the preservation plan. Our at-large or non-city applicants usually do a fair job at it, but some of them, we've definitely had applicants, this is the first time they've ever written a grant, so there's a little bit of greenness to it. But most of the time, we get pretty pretty fair answers on this. Okay. I don't think it's a huge issue. Scope and budget. I do. I will say, I think, as I was looking at this, it might be helpful to link. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So, link to CPP. So, I'll add that for the next iteration.
[Roberta Cameron]: Great idea. Scope and budget. I just sent you, like, so, I noticed that Somewhere I saw an example of something that you had set up that really had the summary and detail on one page. It was probably the handout I had for city council, maybe? Might have been. And so I just formatted a version that has summary and detail on one page. OK. and send that to you so you could use that. But I think like where we have the steps one and two, we can consolidate that to one so that we make it easier for them, that we get all the detail that we need, but they only have to fill out one form. Okay, so not necessarily. Oh, then the total project cost? Yes. Do people understand what to fill in those two lines?
[Theresa Dupont]: I have gotten a couple of confusing answers on this, and I've had to reach back out and say like, hey, just wanted to clarify. And actually, both times were city department folks. I will say the non-city folks applying tend to get this one pretty well. It's been one person.
[Roberta Cameron]: Because I wonder, If the attachment gives us the correct information, should we just eliminate that error by eliminating the question? Well, I'm going to pull up the budget sheet and hopefully it will.
[Theresa Dupont]: Everybody can see this. I think I shared the application. Yeah, this is the summary version. Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: So this would give you the answer to that question, if they fill this out correctly. Right.
[Theresa Dupont]: Which is how I've been able to see like, you ask for $100,000 and then the total project costs, including all non-CPA funds is $100,000. But then on your budget sheet, you say you've got a $300,000 grant. So that's where I've been able to sleuth out. Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: But... So yeah, if this is confusing to people, we might cut those questions, as long as the information comes to us in the attached form. Right.
[Theresa Dupont]: Right. Yeah.
[Ada Gunning]: I don't think it's easier. I'm all for streamlining. I don't see a need for redundancy. OK.
[Theresa Dupont]: Maybe.
[Ada Gunning]: I mean, at the end of the day, you don't need them to write the same thing two separate places. We just need the one budget they produce to be good. Right.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. And actually, at this point, we're asking for it in three different places. Because at the top, we're asking, how much is your CPA funding? We're asking here, and we're asking for a budget sheet. So maybe we're suggesting just to strike this whole area. But keep like the, hey, you must do this. Yes. But just strike the... Strike those two questions.
[Roberta Cameron]: Let's keep the detailed outline of tasks. That's like one of the most critical questions that they never answer. I was listening, but can you repeat yourself? I said strike the two questions total project cost and CPA funding request, but keeps the detailed outline of tasks. That's like the most critical question that they never answer correctly. Yes.
[Theresa Dupont]: That is a fact. Okay. I also do like this question. It helps us to prepare for if there's future requests.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. I don't know like it's a quite sometimes we just have to ask it verbally because I was like what Ryan just told us that in the big picture they're looking at $100,000 project that helpful. Yeah. And this is just the first phase of that like that's what I want people to tell us in that.
[Theresa Dupont]: And Ryan's particularly, well the whole entire historical commission, but Ryan's really the grant writer. He's always good at trying to find a small change here and there. He's constantly shaking the couch cushions up, so I can appreciate his approach to it.
[Roberta Cameron]: So describe, so then the next question, describe successful and unsuccessful attempts to secure funding. Um, so it was really helpful that verbally Ryan just told us that, um, we're. Going to the state delegation to try to get an earmark to take care of that, but we don't know if we're going to get that yet. Right? So that's the kind of information that I would love for them to give us in that.
[Theresa Dupont]: I will say we haven't looked at the small grant application yet, but. Since just to explain those, he probably would have answered and given that information, but our small grant application is a much more string dense and streamlined version. So, like, I don't believe those questions are on there. Yeah, probably.
[Roberta Cameron]: But I mean, that's an example of how, like, why those questions are in there and what we want them to tell us. If the funding is not available, can this project be phased or reduced in scale? And that's also exactly what we just learned about this project, how they're going to be phasing it. Okay, so describe the applicant. I think that we should set up some logic to eliminate that question if the city is the applicant.
[Theresa Dupont]: Okay. I will say that city departments just usually say, like, city department, they keep it very, it's not a huge lift for them. But I can add some logic.
[Roberta Cameron]: Just identify, so, I mean, I don't know, it depends on how much time you want to spend with logic, because then the next question, identify and describe the roles of known participants. What I do want to know from the city is, Which departments are going to be involved in this project? And what is the contact person who is responsible in each department? So that would be a separate set of questions for the city than for non-city applicants.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, I'm sorry to bounce around for folks at home. I was just saying, I thought that there was a bit about that specifically. I'm thinking on the city authorization form. If you're not a city department, who's your contact? Yeah. Okay, so add something in here. Maybe do you want to call out specifically city departments?
[Roberta Cameron]: If the applicant is a city department, then you have a set of questions for city departments. And if the applicant is not a city department, then you ask, how do you know?
[Theresa Dupont]: what you're doing. So that might lead to editing.
[Roberta Cameron]: Like this question. That third question might, you know, be for organizations and not the city.
[Unidentified]: Yeah. So, yeah, and. And so. The. Feasibility so.
[Roberta Cameron]: Then are both of those two feasibility questions, how well do you think applicants understand their questions? Are they giving us quality answers?
[Theresa Dupont]: I usually get pretty quality answers here, especially on the first one. ADA and MAAB regulations are kind of I hate to say standard, but if you're in the game, those are recognized. It's actually the secondary question where people like... What is that? What is that? Again, maybe that's an opportunity to link. But this one, the secondary, the historic preservation projects, secondary and interior standards question, that can trip people up a little bit.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: I mean, I think it's a well-written question. It's just, it's a subject matter that if people aren't familiar with it, they raise an eyebrow. So I think maybe just linking to it might be.
[Doug Carr]: I think linking to it is the right thing. Go straight to the website and people can figure it out. It's actually not that complicated once you actually know where it is.
[Theresa Dupont]: Right.
[Roberta Cameron]: Great. Yeah, this is an area where your process is going to be very different from some of those process for how to ensure compliance. Yeah. And like when I keep it's just valuable that we even have the question because they might not know that there are standards that they have to meet.
[Theresa Dupont]: Right.
[Roberta Cameron]: You might not know that there are standards we have to meet. They might. give you know just want to you know have somebody carry out the project who doesn't know anything about historic preservation. Chuck in a truck it's a lot of work man.
[Theresa Dupont]: I think it also might be good here to say call out something specific about like if you are seeking historic preservation funding you will also be required to put a preservation restriction. That might be another It's in our contract, we always mention it verbally, but it might be another reinforcement thing here to iterate that and a preservation restriction again for the folks who are new. It's just, it's a legally binding document that we recorded the registry of deeds that carries with the property that prevents it from.
[Roberta Cameron]: here's a suggestion um do so i assume that medford has some kind of um general conditions attached to our contracts so if we make a gen like the general conditions into a pdf and then we also have um like we can have a checklist saying I understand that my project will have to abide by these general conditions and I understand and that's one check and then another check is I understand that my project may be required to a have a historic preservation restriction or a local historic district.
[Theresa Dupont]: I like that. Because I mean, again, it's in our contract, but it might be nice to have somebody like physically need to checkbox it. Yeah.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah. I like that. Teresa, what are you finding based on your and Daniel's experience that what the track record is in the timeframe for people getting preservation restrictions who don't have them at the beginning of the process? Is there any kind of metric there?
[Roberta Cameron]: I can tell you, Doug, years. So first we have a process, like first we have to go through the process of drafting it and going through our legal channels to have a draft instrument. And then we send that draft instrument to the state for their pre-approval. And that can take getting the preapproval can take a few years. And then once you have the preapproval back from the state, then you start having all of the different parties execute it. And how long does it take you to put that on the city council agenda and the historical commission agenda and get all of the city councilors, historic commission chair and mayor to have their notarized signatures on it and the grantee have their notarized signature on it and then you send it back to the state and they stamp it and send it back to you and then you can take it to the registry of deeds.
[Doug Carr]: In which case your project has been complete for three years, right? I think we ought to actually say something like that because it's effectively, it's an intent, not an actual requirement.
[Roberta Cameron]: Ideally, if they completely renege on it, say, say we've given a grant to a property owner to restore their windows, and they have not recorded a preservation restriction yet, and they turn around and put in a request to demolish their building. If we have this in the contract, even though we can at least like take them to court and make them pay us back the CPA funds. Like I'm just trying to think of what could be the worst case scenario that happens in the future.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I'm not suggesting we take it out of the contract. I just want to kind of give people who may not understand what it is a sense of the time scale involved in this. It's a real commitment, but obviously we're pretty loose on enforcing it because It's either two to four years, depending on your dexterity with bureaucracy at state and local levels and ability to move that forward.
[Roberta Cameron]: What we, I'm just speaking from Summerville's experience, because we're a couple steps ahead of Medford in implementing this. We have had, so we have been just giving out the grants on the trust that they're going to file the preservation restrictions at the registry. And we have had some grantees who are non-compliant But they aren't trying to tear their buildings down. So that's not a big problem. But so we have had to just go ahead and give the funds without first getting the condition met. And that makes our law department a little bit nervous because they don't like the fact that we have grantees noncompliant. So they've actually given me an alternative set of conditions to have in Somerville. which is that we put a term limited preservation restriction on those properties. And then that doesn't have to get approved by the state. So we can do that on our own timeline. We can just have a template ready to go and get it executed right away. And then be able to give them the, have that be recorded at the registry before giving them any money. And then they have a covenant that says that the permanent deed restriction has to be filed within 10 years. And if the permanent deed restriction isn't filed after 10 years, you have to give us back the money. Why give them such a long time period to do it? To give plenty of time to cover up for. So the temporary one is already in place. But the 10 years gives them all the possible time to cover up for any delays in the process that are out of their control. So say the state on average takes two years, but maybe they take five.
[Ada Gunning]: But this is, I thought the 10 years was for them even just like applying. Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: So I mean, that was just how Somerville is solving the problem. The reality is that if we waited until they had it recorded before we gave them any funds. then we might as well not have historic preservation grants because the building is already falling down before we can actually.
[Doug Carr]: We're not going to do that. But I like your idea of the term limit thing just because it does move the process faster and it's reasonable. If you think about it though, we're in year 6 or 7 now and after 10 years, the entire board could have turned over. the coordinator could have turned over a few times as it has. The history might be lost unless it's pretty front and center, making sure we don't lose that. It's like a covenant that gets lost in time.
[Roberta Cameron]: We'd have to have a way of keeping track of properties that we hold deed restrictions for. It's recorded in the registry, but what is the trigger to know that something has come up for development that has a deed restriction. So yeah, that's a possibility. And this is something like, this is a question that gets really boring to talk about. It's really deep in the weeds until the day comes that you need to make a decision. And then all of a sudden, it's that thing that makes your three-hour meeting go to five hours, trying to figure out is this Like what kind of conditions do we put on properties, so I've been working over. at my job trying to create some guidelines and have people agree to guidelines. And it just takes several bites at the apple, several different steps in the process to talk about what kind of restrictions, what kind of conditions are we going to put on historic preservation. But then like that comes down to the application of making sure that the applicants know up front what's gonna be asked of them so that they agree to that and then don't turn around and say, oh, thank you for the money, but no, we don't, we're not interested in a preservation restriction.
[Reggie Graham]: Yes. Have we had any instances where this has happened in Medford? So... Yes, no, maybe, don't know.
[Theresa Dupont]: In terms of actually securing a preservation restriction. Yeah, we have in the past. Recipients that have received historic preservation funding, we have made it a condition that they must have a preservation restriction reported. Some of them have already had that in place through other means. So they're already. Protected under that restriction, like Grace Church and Unitarian Universalist, they already had some sort of a restriction.
[Roberta Cameron]: Brooks Estate has a preservation restriction and the Royal House has a preservation restriction.
[Theresa Dupont]: So some of the past grantees have already, that's already in place, but a couple of them where it's a work in progress currently.
[Reggie Graham]: I'm just wondering, I mean, Historic preservation is, you know, we do usually the third and third and third, you know, for our payouts and so on and so forth. Yeah, thank you. I'm just wondering how many would actually fall into this category who would not have known that there is a requirement, because if you are a historical entity, if you will, You probably already know that the process to get anything done takes quite some time.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes, some are still newer to owning a historic building and still learning all the various minutiae, yeah. But for the most part, they're informed at least.
[Reggie Graham]: I'm just wondering, you know, we're spending a lot of time on this. It's a good topic. But if it doesn't come up that often, and if the applicants who do utilize that particular session They usually know by the time they get to us, right?
[Roberta Cameron]: Well, the ones who already have preservation restrictions are usually the owners or the organizations that have buildings, historic buildings, and they're very familiar. So they're the high capacity people, the ones who already have a preservation restriction. The ones who are very new at this and don't know what they're doing are the ones whose buildings are most unprotected. And so we're trying to protect them by requiring that our money comes with some form of protection.
[Reggie Graham]: I'm trying to think. I'm just saying, are we creating a problem that should be somebody else's problem? I'm just asking because I'm struggling with this.
[Theresa Dupont]: We don't have dedicated staff in this building whose majority of their job is historic planning, preservation efforts in general. So we end up being, in particular, we end up being the de facto advocate for historic preservation. So I hear what you're saying, that are we creating a problem, but we're also essentially at this point unofficially the watchdog for these type of- We're trying to get ahead of a potential problem. Plus we want to protect our investment. We want to protect the residents' investments too. So we want to protect the building, but also our investment at the same time. And this vehicle is the best way to do that.
[Reggie Graham]: I just wonder which question would be the most
[Theresa Dupont]: appropriate that's that's all i'm saying you know um i just think we should do a better job uh making it very clear from the beginning that if you want this money if you want this investment this is a requirement so i think we just flag it in in this section right i think that will suffice And then maybe you'll ask, well, what's a preservation restriction? And it opens up a door for a conversation.
[Roberta Cameron]: So I think that the question that the cursor is on right now is a good question, just as it is. But maybe we need to add an acknowledgment section later on that acknowledges that they know what we're going to ask of them if they take our money.
[Reggie Graham]: Yeah, that sounds a little bit more user-friendly, if you will, because I'm trying to be the applicant, you know, I'm trying to look at this as an applicant and whether it be, you know, any one of the categories that we fund, you know, so if I'm a historic guy or entity, if you will, I would want to, you know, have as much information right there so that I don't come to you looking like making the dance.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes, exactly. All right. And party discussion. Thank you. Yes.
[Reggie Graham]: So you're going to put in an addendum at the bottom to acknowledge, you know, if you do. apply for historical preservation funds. There are logical steps that you have to take, A, B, C, D, or whatever, however many you want to put in there. So that eliminates an awful lot of stuff for you, and it eliminates a lot of stuff for us as a committee, too.
[Theresa Dupont]: And not to blow up that discussion, but as you were talking, I was thinking, well, technically, we also can require conservation restrictions for open space acquisition. And we can also require affordable housing covenants for housing development. So maybe I can wordsmith something that says to the tune of, you may be required to put a property restriction recorded at the deed for any project. I mean, if you come to us and say, hey, Teresa, I really want to update the playground at Logan Park or whatever, we wouldn't force a conservation restriction there. But if you came to me saying, hey, I want to buy this open space land, somebody is selling off five acres, which never happens in Medford, but that would we would require a conservation restriction for it to maintain open space and perpetuity.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: So so we've got a restriction for every every one of our three categories.
[Reggie Graham]: Maybe I'll just make it... So you can make a general statement saying that, you know, for each one of these categories there... You may be subject to a restriction that's recorded on your part.
[Roberta Cameron]: I would just add that I actually put those acknowledgments on the EDF rather than the full application so that if they aren't going to agree to it, they don't go through this effort of doing all this. Yeah, that's probably the place to put it.
[Reggie Graham]: So that the gatekeeper over there can keep the gate.
[Theresa Dupont]: Put it on the EDF, that's a great idea.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. And so then the next question, the feasibility checklist, how well is this working in your experience?
[Theresa Dupont]: I like having this here, but it's not really applicable to city departments. So again, logic can help that. Logic can help that. I can add that in there, so it would be more applicable for your non-city entities. And this is just a way for us to understand the full scope of the project, as well as help them understand the full scope of the project. That you might be coming to us wanting to do this, but are you aware that you're going to need engineering to look at that? And that might mean a plot plan, and that might mean extra budget for you. So this is helpful for the non-city entities, but to Roberta's point, I can add logic here so that this gets skipped for city departments. The environmental assessment one, I like having that one in there, actually even for city departments. Sometimes they're like, oh, I want to do this over and it's like 50 feet from the river. No, you can't, or you need permissions. So overall, it's not helpful for 75% of our applications, but for those 25%, it's very helpful. So logic will help that. Yeah, think about that.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. And I would encourage you to review the list of attachments and think about which ones do you actually want maybe all of them. But in your experience of putting together the applications to share with us what is actually useful and not. I don't think we need to go through them all now, but you can think about that. Okay. And then that's it. Yeah. All right. And then we have the small grant application.
[Theresa Dupont]: So hopefully we can go through that one quickly. All right. So you're the applicant.
[Roberta Cameron]: So I see you're the applicant. That's a yes, no question. I've come up with a very complicated who owns this property questions so that I have lots of logic attached to that. And I like all these different circumstances. So this might be sufficient for us, but all these different circumstances might lead to different.
[Theresa Dupont]: I did have some logic where if you hit no, this question pops up. Got it.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, good.
[Theresa Dupont]: More or less what I have is the Applicant to City Department linked to Yeah, this I can clean up. Okay.
[Roberta Cameron]: Oh, I got it. Yeah, yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: I understand. So, again, for the new folks, anytime a project happens on city property, the mayor needs to approve it as she authorizes this project to go forward seeking funding. So just to explain what city authorization she is.
[Roberta Cameron]: We had a fun first application cycle before we had that sheet where we had projects that came to us that were really out of the blue. Yeah. Mayor should know. Yeah. That's certainly the mayor at the time, but so.
[Theresa Dupont]: So I don't think this is unnecessary. Yeah. Honestly, I'm not going to lie to you. I didn't really touch this from previous ones, but.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, I encourage you to look at it with fresh eyes. Yeah, I think about what what questions do we actually want answers to versus the ones that we can. Oh, and the really, oh, substantive question that I wanted to ask all the committee members. $5000 was what we came up with back in 2017 when we first started the CPA program, do we want to increase the thresholds for a small grant application at this point?
[Doug Carr]: I think we do. 5,000 is probably worth closer to 3,500 at this point with inflation in seven years.
[Theresa Dupont]: I'll agree with Doug there. I get a lot of requests every now and then. It seems to be seasonal. for small grants and the $5,000 maximum CPA award for projects up to $10,000. Again, small grants are matching grants. I get a lot of projects that are like $12,000, $15,000.
[Roberta Cameron]: We do need to keep it low enough that it's easy for us to just keep that pocket change available at any time. The first few funding rounds we tried to be very organized and actually set aside 50,000. Yeah. So that we would always be able to fund whatever small grants came through the door. Maybe we go back to doing that each funding round or maybe, I don't know if we want it.
[Reggie Graham]: How much would you love to know about?
[Theresa Dupont]: About is, um, after we've just done this last award, we have about 220, I think it's like 221, 221,000. Oh, okay. so we have it but we don't we don't like your market or you know plus we don't know how much we're going to claw back right are we do we have any eligible clawbacks there might be one floating out there pray for cape and park splash pad so what are you thinking about as a number i haven't been able to get much
[Doug Carr]: I guess I'm thinking 10,000. Yeah, because I don't think we get more than, I mean, how many, Teresa, the most we've ever had is what, three or four in one year?
[Theresa Dupont]: Three or four, yeah. We get a fair amount of requests. It's just people don't follow through with applications.
[Doug Carr]: Right. And again, we're trying to have them bring some money to the table. If it's a 12,000 grant, we give them 10, they can come up with a two. I mean, there's ways around that.
[Theresa Dupont]: I will say that the one-to-one match might be a challenge sometimes. So it should be no more than one-to-one.
[Roberta Cameron]: So it could be a $5,000 total project. The match isn't required. Oh, okay. It's just that they can match it up to 100%. so that a $5,000 request can fund a $10,000 project. Because what we don't want is for them to call it a small grant when they're really doing a $50,000 project. Sure. Right. So... Okay. So you're saying some of these small projects. But what is a small project today?
[Reggie Graham]: Ten. Headstone Restoration? It's at least ten because, you know, Just look at the price of eggs. You know what I mean? We're not going to think about CPA grants for eggs. Not yet.
[Ada Gunning]: You don't want to really get that price of egg. Yeah, but the way they did this through the roof.
[Reggie Graham]: Even the initial, I got to go to get a proposal, cost money. you know and so you know how much is the proposal cost well now they're saying okay well you know the proposal is $2,500 or you know $3,000 depending on you know so your time so that gives me something else that i want to come back and ask about but anyway yeah i don't want to give you any more ideas sorry
[Roberta Cameron]: No, but I think $10,000 would be reasonable.
[Reggie Graham]: So $10,000 request for a total $20,000 project to just double it. Yes.
[Theresa Dupont]: I think that's my I think that's fair, because somebody could still come through with a 15,000 on a project and it's just half of that so up to 20.
[Doug Carr]: I think the question I have is why, why is the match so important because I feel like historically a lot of grants we've gotten. have not brought a lot of money to the table. And it doesn't factor in our decision making. How much money they bring almost never factors in. It's the value of the project that we... And we don't get many requests.
[Theresa Dupont]: So it's not like we really need that 50,000 squirreled away because to your point, we're getting two to three requests a year. So it's...
[Roberta Cameron]: No, I agree that we don't, that the match is not a requirement for the small grant. Are you sure?
[Theresa Dupont]: Okay. That was not my understanding or how we're advertising. Well then, I mean, yeah. So are you saying that right now, what we're saying it's up to $10,000 project will match that $5,000? Are you saying that if the project's $5,000, we'll give somebody $5,000? Yeah, that's,
[Roberta Cameron]: That's the way it is written right now, my understanding, but the committee members all invented that. We can invent something new if we want.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I just don't see the value in it. If somebody is looking for $10,000, they probably don't have 10,000. That's why they're looking for it. I don't think it's meaningful. I'd rather have more products done at smaller scale. Maybe that's the reason we're not getting more than three or four. I mean, Ryan just walked in the door and brought $5,000 to the table to get 5,000, right? We thought it was a match, right? I think that's what the perception out there is.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, yeah. I agree. I think it's a barrier. It's prohibitive for the smaller projects that are out there. The match. The match.
[Reggie Graham]: But we've had differing opinions though, right? You think there is no match? And the public think there is a match?
[Roberta Cameron]: My I don't remember what we had in our instructions. Teresa is the most familiar with our instructions and Teresa has been under the impression that there is a match. So whatever the instructions say, this is our chance to define something new going forward. So do we want to match or not want to match? And I hear I'm hearing that match. We don't really want to require a match. for small grants, that if they come in, so we're saying two things. Number one, we want to increase the maximum to 10,000. And secondly, that they can get a grant without having to bring a match. But then I would add that if they bring a match, it should not be more than one-to-one. So they shouldn't have a $30,000 project that they're getting a small grant for. It can only be a $20,000 project.
[Doug Carr]: I think that's fair. And I think, let's see if it brings us more projects. I mean, more products is a success metric.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. One situation that we did encounter in the past was that one year we had one applicant who wanted to apply for four small grants all at the same time. And so we put a limit on that and said not more than one or two per six month period. So I don't know if we want to. Small grants. Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: So what types do you remember?
[Roberta Cameron]: That one was for restoring veterans monuments around the city. Are you talking about Thummerville or Medford? Medford.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: So because we received all of those at the same time, and at the time, we had set aside a certain amount of money for small grants. And so that would eat up a large share of the small grant money for the whole year, just for one applicant all at the same time.
[Reggie Graham]: So the entity that you're talking about, they put in four separate for the same project. So, in essence, it wasn't four separate projects, it was one project.
[Roberta Cameron]: So, that's trying to get around the small grant limitations by... Trying to get it in earlier before the funding cycle, maybe?
[Ada Gunning]: Well, it is... I mean, I'm also just thinking about how, like, the small grants are 5K. Our typical big grants are, like, hundreds of thousands of dollars. And it's like, there's, like, no middle ground at all. Like, I almost, like, if this person had a $20,000 project, like, I don't know, like, where do they fit in to the CPA framework, you know?
[Reggie Graham]: I mean, you can still request $20,000 or $30,000. You just come in once a year. But you only can get one bite at the apple.
[Ada Gunning]: People don't do that, though.
[Reggie Graham]: But the small grants should only get one bite at the apple as well. Sure.
[Ada Gunning]: I agree. I'm just kind of noticing there isn't really that middle.
[Roberta Cameron]: So, I mean, let's say Ryan comes back in like next month and wants another small grant for Thomas Brooks Park, as he said, even though I don't know if that's his timeline, but would we want to set a limit such that he would have to wait six months to be able to come back for Thomas Brooks Park?
[Ada Gunning]: Technically, this was the trustees. I also feel like we shouldn't punish him for being a really involved Medford resident.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, no, like being the same contact person. So I just want to figure out how to set limits that are equitable, that don't let someone circumvent the process to be able to get funds out of turn when they should be applying through the regular cycle.
[Ada Gunning]: I mean, what if we just had a sentence at the top of the small grant thing that was like, if you are applying for multiple small grants that all are related to each other, please consider applying for a single grant.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. I haven't had a hearty discussion with the applicant yet, but there's a potential project out there right now to expand community gardens. So this is kind of a perfect example. Would they apply for garden here, garden one, two, three, four, or wait till the funding round cycle and then apply for like one big project to include all four locations or something like that. Yeah, I don't want to discuss it right now, but that's an example. That's a great example of this issue.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay, so let's keep the rules as they are, but maybe add some more clear explanation, the rules pertaining to how often you can apply versus how often you can correct. But we'll make it total budget not to exceed $20,000, CPA funding request not to exceed $10,000. So we're still matching? Well, you can match, but you don't have to bring a match. So the next question, CPA request as a percent of the total budget, it can be 100% or it can be 50%. It can be anywhere between 50% and 100%. Okay, it can't be 10%.
[Theresa Dupont]: But I just want to clarify. Yeah, I'm the mouthpiece for this. So I just want to make sure you got this right. Are you saying that if I have a $20,000 project? Yeah, I can ask for 20,000? No, you can ask for 10. Okay. And if I have a project that's 10,000, I can ask for 10. Yes. Okay, got it. Just got it.
[Roberta Cameron]: And that was Yeah. Thank you.
[Doug Carr]: Match of zero to 100% with a 10k upset.
[Roberta Cameron]: No, CPA as a percent of the total budget, CPA can be 50% of the total budget or it can be 100% of the total budget or anywhere in between. Yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: Gotcha. Okay.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: Thank you for that.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. So how these, okay. So how the CPA funding request was determined, um, as Reg just pointed out, um, a lot of contractors are asking for, a significant amount of money now just to give an estimate. So I'm quite willing, because before people even have any funding, I'm quite willing for them to be creative about how they come up with Because right now the reason why we need a budget from them is so that we can give them the proper, we can promise them the proper amount of money, but they're not going to get that money until they invoice it and demonstrate that they're paying for a project that's being done. So they have to go through whatever procurement applies to them and so forth. So like we need a budget that's supportable But if we don't have estimates, like three estimates is really, I don't even know if I've ever seen a project that submitted three estimates for a budget.
[Theresa Dupont]: I mean, there have been, but they usually just present the lowest or best estimate with the applications.
[Roberta Cameron]: So I think it goes more into that in the full application. So this just says, describe how you got this budget, but the full application wants more detail. And I think we should be flexible about how they derive their budget, as long as it's attached to a real scope.
[Reggie Graham]: That was the problem that we had with the- For a maximum of $10,000, they should have some idea of how they came about getting to $10,000. Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: They should be able to explain it to us. We don't like something better than a dart and a dart board. Okay.
[Theresa Dupont]: And the project details, description. Sorry.
[Unidentified]: Uh-oh, what did you do?
[Theresa Dupont]: Okay, this computer.
[Roberta Cameron]: Those are the same questions. Yeah, those are the same questions that we have in need.
[Theresa Dupont]: And just to explain, we ask these questions because DOR dictates how this money is spent. So these are kind of coming specifically from DOR guidance. I don't like this question. Yeah, it's applying with a government entity as a co-applicant. Describe how they will work together, how finances will be managed, and how the work will be continued after the conclusion of CPA funding.
[Roberta Cameron]: It's a lot to unpack there, I think it's... I mean, who did this apply to was that the high school students and the bench. Oh, at Dunkirk Cardicam. Yeah. So, I mean, it does sometimes happen, but It might be too much to ask, like maybe that's an interview question and not an application question. Maybe just strike it. Yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: And I can also make sure that, you know, there's some, because there is a question above about like, who's the applicant and everything. So, yeah. Is ongoing maintenance and upkeep required? If yes, please explain how this will be accomplished. I want this to stay. OK. Medford is famous for its deferred maintenance, and I don't want that anymore.
[Ada Gunning]: Non-maintenance, but it's a school building.
[Theresa Dupont]: This one's a little wordy. Maybe we can.
[Roberta Cameron]: If you can find a way to make it make sense. Yeah. Especially because for small projects, they usually are not, that might just be struck from the small projects. Yeah. One because.
[Reggie Graham]: So you can put in, you can put in if applicable at the beginning.
[Theresa Dupont]: That could help it. Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: You know, just, and then, you know, and if they put in N A then you'll know it's not.
[Theresa Dupont]: Right. Okay, thank you.
[Roberta Cameron]: And again, that list of things to include, to upload. Yep. Think about it.
[Theresa Dupont]: And that concludes our review application material. Thank you. That was great. I think last year it was a little bit more cursory, so I appreciate everybody's in-depth conversation about it this year. I think last year it was pretty light, but this year we drilled down, so. Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. answer these questions for ourselves when we have some time to think about them. And yeah, it's boring, but it's necessary.
[Reggie Graham]: Yeah, later. It makes the work easier. I mean, it gets us the answers that we need before we sit around the table and we're asking the same doggone questions that we really need. Right.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, exactly. Great, exactly. All right, thank you. So next on the agenda is community event on April 26th discussion.
[Theresa Dupont]: So there has been an idea banded around to hold a community event celebrating CPA on Saturday, April 26th. We've kind of, it's, we're not ready to advertise yet. We wanted to have a discussion with the committee here real quick, but we're eyeing Riverbend Park. which is over by Midland and Andrews Schools. We're behind that one because CPA has invested in a lot of projects in the park. Midland School Playground, the Hormel Hockey Rink, the Labyrinth, the upcoming COVID Memorial Grove has been cited for Riverbend Park. And the gardens have received funds from us too there, I believe. So the idea is just a two-hour event where we might have folks stationed at each project, then be able to spotlight the McGlynn Playground and talk about the process there. So have it be like a walking tour throughout the entire park for folks just to have an engagement. It's that time of the year, April 26, where people are itching to get back out. April 26 also happens to be National Trails National Celebrate Trails Day. Which, I mean, technically Riverbend has a nice little trail there. We're also, I've spoken with our friends over at DCR about sharing an update as it pertains to the Clippership Connector. They are happily able to, they might not be able to physically participate that day because Saturday's and it's trails day, so I'm sure DCR is going to be very busy that day. But one thing that we have looked into, and I've actually already drafted, and I could happily kick it around with folks, a self-guided audio tour. I'm sure we've all encountered those in the past, but have it be, like, geolocated QR codes for folks to scan at the locations where, you know, for the folks who might not want to be as hands-on, one-on-one chatting with folks but still want to be involved, that applies to a lot of my friends.
[Ada Gunning]: We're very friendly, but don't want to talk. It sounds like a really sweet event. Sounds like it kind of serves a different function, though, than like networking. So just curious, because I know we were talking about the idea.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, well, we can also incorporate that. That's just like the in the week and a half, this idea has been kicking around. That's just the absolutely want to flush it out and make it have it be more impactful, meaningful. And then perhaps we can connect with other organizations to just to really try to drive attendance here. So that's why we'll just have a discussion about it, because I would love some other ideas, too. But I don't want to do like the Harvest Your Energy Festival copy paste, you know, like the Medford Family Network there or anything like that. But it might be nice to have them there. I don't want to copy that event, but maybe steal some ideas from it. Cause it's in the same space.
[Roberta Cameron]: I don't know if we want to obligate ourselves to do something really big on that scale either. So like, yeah, I love the idea of something that's essentially a party. If we can come up with like some activities that give enough of an excuse for people to be there.
[Ada Gunning]: I, yeah, I, I kind of feel like why not do two different things? Like this event that you're talking about seems cool. But then separately, like meet up at the Beer Hall with like neighbor, or not neighbor, associate organizations or people, involved people in Medford and just like highlight some future projects and like network and talk about ideas people have.
[Theresa Dupont]: What if we had like a timed walk And then specifically say like meet us at the park will have a group walk at 12 o'clock and we'll hit all the spots and then meet us at great American beer hall at 134 continue networking is that what you're kind of thinking or.
[Ada Gunning]: I probably wouldn't do this event if I wasn't on the committee, the one you're talking about just because of having little kids and just being in the middle of the day and like okay do you know what I mean like so i'm just thinking about like in terms of who we want to bring like are we offering a social piece like are we do you mean like is it going to be in a time that people can. go to it. Do you know what I mean?
[Theresa Dupont]: That Saturday is also the Saturday of school vacation. I was just looking at that. But it's the Saturday after. People might be back. They might be looking for things to do. We're not super tied to that date either. Or have a component that is less
[Ada Gunning]: But what you're talking about is kind of like a distributed, like not a gathering, but more like we're walking around, we're featuring different things. Like this is not a social thing is how it's landing with me. But maybe there's a component at the end of that where it's like community picnic. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Beer tent, like, I don't know, like something that was just like more like fun community families, like people. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, I like that idea. Not that it has to be like inside somewhere, but like something that is like a, you're going to go see your friends posting, as opposed to like, I'll be at this side of that parking, you'll be like all the way to the other side.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, like, well, I was thinking like, we could have a community picnic would be great. And we could also include something like, a self-guided tour or a scavenger hunt or something as an activity that gets people to explore all of the things that we've done in that area. But we don't have to like be trying to do both things at the same time. So the self-guided tour, the scavenger hunt lets you come two days later if you're not back from vacation yet and still get to find out like find the information. But if you can be there for the picnic
[Ada Gunning]: um then then we could have more conversations with some sort of draw like we've got the um we've got colleen serving ice cream or we've got the little tent with like the brewery or something that makes it like a little like extra you know what i mean yeah i will say beer tents with proximity to school it's a little challenging we did it last year for artist bus and
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, that's just something to consider. I feel like ice cream could be a good alternative. Yeah, like maybe we could- Something that's just like- We've got a little admin money that we could sponsor, like, I have no idea how much ice cream costs.
[Ada Gunning]: At the MFN concerts, people pay for their own ice cream, but the ice cream, the Colleen's comes, because they always make business, or they would, like, make money there. So that's a good idea. We wouldn't have to necessarily pay for the ice cream, if we, like, thought we could get enough people.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Reggie Graham]: I'm confused. What were we trying to approach? Who is our audience? Thank you. I mean, you said you have two kids, young children, who might not be interested in doing what teenagers want to do, who might not be interested in college kids, who might not be interested in regular citizens, who might not be interested in elderly citizens. So who's our audience and who are we trying to get to?
[Roberta Cameron]: I mean, that seems to be the... Well, let's just say that our goal would be to get to as many of those different groups that you named as possible. What are some things that we could do that would be appealing to different audiences?
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, we're just bringing this on folks. So if you have some thoughts, you can always.
[Reggie Graham]: So I was looking, so we have 10, 10, 10, 10 weeks in a couple of days. That's, that's enough time to plan it. You know, I suppose. But I'm just wondering how we talk to how we're going to tie this into CPC.
[Roberta Cameron]: Because this is going to be a way of showcasing projects that we funded in the past. So shows this is what like celebrating literally what CPA funded before and inviting people to share ideas about what they'd like to see in the future.
[Ada Gunning]: Not to sound like I'm a drunk or something, and this needs to be in a brewery because I do not drink that much, but like
[Theresa Dupont]: to draw.
[Ada Gunning]: We could go to the beer hall, have like some just posters or like poster X project, poster Y project, poster B project, and then be mingling and networking, have some apps out. And it would be like a much more like, like people wouldn't be like all over the place. People would be like together networking and we'd have like visuals. As opposed to, like, if we're doing a scavenger hunt or something, people are kind of, like, off, like, doing, looking at the different things. So, yeah, if the goal is more, like, networking and featuring projects, that could accomplish that.
[Roberta Cameron]: I feel like the time for the networking and featuring projects that you described would be a good activity for our are what do you call that thing annual public hearing, which is next month. Yeah. So that's what we had talked about in the last, I guess that's why I was here. So the annual public hearing is the time when we want to maybe show a little bit of presentation about what we've done before and ask for some feedback input about what do we think the needs are and priorities. So I feel like that's the real targeted like we want to hear your input. Yeah.
[Unidentified]: So this is more of like a celebration like here we are and Then I was still in that mindset of our conversation last time.
[Theresa Dupont]: I will say that I have approached the farmer's market has been holding winter sessions at the beer hall. And I have an inquiry out there to see if I could piggyback off of that, walk around and do some, hey, let's talk about ZPA. That is still on the table, just not at the scale that we were talking
[Reggie Graham]: That's great. So when we had our fifth year party at the Unitarian Universalist, we had a lot of information about projects that we had already funded. And I remember we had a map. And, you know, some of those things were just, you know, eye opening to me because I hadn't been on the committee that long. I would imagine something like that would be probably more interesting to the general public or people who might be interested in using CPA funding in the future. And just, you know, come on in and let me give you ice cream cone.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, I mean, so we have those materials we could
[Reggie Graham]: I mean, there's no sense in us trying to reinvent the wheel.
[Roberta Cameron]: Right.
[Reggie Graham]: You know, we have materials that would be advantageous to us to show.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: You know, and they're interesting, too. I mean, they're not boring, you know. So, I mean, you know, we don't like you said, 10 weeks, you know. Yeah. even though it's not what we cut and paste.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, no, that's a good point. We can reuse what we already have. Maybe, Teresa and I can think some more about preparing for the annual public hearing. And for this celebration event, we'll think of these self-guided things, but also think of like, what can we do to bring people to join together for a picnic so that we can encourage everyone to gather in the same place? And what kind of activities? Maybe we can hire ice cream. And if we can get some of our partners, recreation users who use any of the facilities that we've funded around there to invite them to participate in this this event. I mean, it doesn't just have to be those like any recreation users of places that we funded should be invited to.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, there's there's not like a roller hockey team that plays in the rink. It's open.
[Roberta Cameron]: Can we actually set up a temporary pickleball court in the rink? Well, during our event. I was actually going to have a hockey game going on.
[Theresa Dupont]: Well, my boyfriend plays hockey, so actually I was at that. I was like, can you just get a couple of your friends for like a little pickup game or something as a demonstration?
[Ada Gunning]: But MFN, obviously has their little like stuff they bring around to the farmer's market. That is definitely Marie doing it herself, but I didn't really want to ask her to do that. But they also sometimes pay $500 for that company to make that we're getting. That brings all the gross motor stuff. So if we had money in the budget, that could be like a draw to families and stuff to make it more of like a, we are putting this event on to help entertain your children. I think we have activities.
[Theresa Dupont]: Thank you. It's a good idea.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. And I mean, there's so many more things that we can do. And the constraint is really going to be Teresa's capacity and anyone else who volunteers. I would really love to volunteer reg to corral any of our recreation users of parks that we funded to just at least spread the word among them to let them know about it and invite them to participate in giving us some input about like what they've done at the sites that they like
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, I'll connect with you about that.
[Doug Carr]: What's the time frame on Saturday? What's the hours you're thinking?
[Theresa Dupont]: I'm thinking 12 to 2 or 10 to 12. The reasoning for that, sorry I'm losing my voice, reasoning for that is the park, we anticipate it will be heavily used. We know Boston Glory, the ultimate frisbee team will be at Hormel and the fields probably for youth soccer. So if we did, I think it's 12 to 2 is the sweet spot.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: To dodge most of the traffic.
[Roberta Cameron]: And so like that, those two hours would be the actual gathering time, but the self-guided tour and maybe a scavenger hunt could be on your own time. Yeah. Up to a couple of weeks after. All right. I don't want to belabor it. I know that the hour is getting late, and we're all wearing out. So we have one more thing on our agenda, which is to approve the meeting minutes from January 2025. We're in the packet. I can bring them up if you'd like.
[Theresa Dupont]: I'd like to mention to approve. Second.
[Roberta Cameron]: Do you want me to bring them up? I already have a motion to approve in a second, so I will call the roll. Doug?
[Doug Carr]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Myesha? Yes. Reg? Yes. Ada? Yes. And myself, yes. All right. And that is everything that's on our agenda. Would anyone like to make a motion to adjourn?
[Ada Gunning]: Motion to adjourn.
[Reggie Graham]: Second.
[Ada Gunning]: Am I the motion person tonight? All right. Myesha? Yes.
[Reggie Graham]: sit at the head of the table.
[Roberta Cameron]: Bread.
[Reggie Graham]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. And myself. Yes. Thanks, everybody.