total time: 3.86 minutes
total words: 398
total time: 1.07 minutes
total words: 132
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Good morning, everybody. We have a City of Medford Parks and Recreation Linkage Trust meeting today, February 26, 2025 at 9 a.m. via Zoom. I'm going to actually call the roll first. President Bears?
[Zac Bears]: Present.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: CFO Dickinson? Do you say present? I'll turn it over to the planner.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you so much, Mayor. Thank you everybody for making time this morning. So just to give a little overview of what we're asking for, I can actually share my screen. Let's see, share here. There is, so pardon all of the, there's a lot, it's a very busy document here, but There is a shade shelter or shade canopy shelter that we're going to put over one of the basketball courts in phase two and actually where you see this circle here. You can see that there is a drain and a sewer line. that are running close to and actually in this rendering or in this design touching one of the columns, supporting columns of the shade structure. And there's another one over here that is just too close to the sewer line. And the risk is that there could be too much disturbance to the soil and potential rupture of either of those lines, which obviously we want to avoid. The design team and the contractor are working on potential solutions, but in order to think about realistically what would work and what's cost effective, more information about the types of soils that are present in and around this area of the site would be needed. And so to accomplish that, they are strongly recommending that the city take soil borings, so these long, deep sort of samples of the earth across this section, because the types of soils that are present are variable. So some of those soils are better for supporting heavier structures and some might have a lot of organics in it, which is not as good for supporting heavier structures because the organics decompose and compress at different rates. You have a lot of shifting and movement of soil. The added benefit of getting soil borings done beyond just informing us of what's directly in this area is also that there's a potential that If we get some more information about what is kind of further this way as far as soil type, we may be able to redesign some of the footings that are already designed for this structure that are to make them less intensive and less costly. There's no guarantee that that's the case, but it would just come part and parcel with our testing for like this area. So I'll pause there and see if folks have any questions about that.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And for me, thank you for the explanation. President Bears or CFO Dickinson, anything? I mean, it actually meant, can you just tell us, it doesn't have an amount here. Can you see the financials?
[Amanda Centrella]: Absolutely. So we would be, let me stop sharing. The price that we were given by our subconsultant that is a geotechnical firm MGA is $11,000. This would cover all of the drilling needed to be done for collecting the soil borings. Placement and analysis of those borings as well as a dig safe ticket and the ability to locate exactly like in a fine detailed way where utilities are cited in the vicinity of those borings so as to ensure that nothing is touched or potential for rupture again or contact.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And then once the 11,000 is taken from the account, can you just give us, do you have a balance by chance?
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, so, and CFO Dickinson, feel free to jump in, but my understanding is that the total existing balance in the parks and goods right now is 46,000. So minus the 11,000 would be 35,000. Okay, great. Yeah. Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Is there a motion to approve or any other questions?
[Zac Bears]: I move to approve.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: By President Bears, seconded by CFO Dickinson. Thank you. Okay, I'll call the roll. President Bears?
[Zac Bears]: Yes.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: CFO Dickinson? Okay, he said yes. For some reason I'm not hearing it, but hopefully it's on the recording. Yeah, I can't hear you.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I can't hear you either. It's weird.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, there you go. We can hear you now.
[Zac Bears]: That was close. I'm going to yell. Yeah, you might have to yell.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So you're a yes? Yes.
[Zac Bears]: Okay, I'm a yes.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I'm a yes. Thank you. Three in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Agenda item one passes for $11,000. Number two, request for approval of parks and recreation linkage trust funds for additional contingency funding to go towards the car park to renovation to address future time-sensitive adjustments as they arise. Planner, Centrala, please.
[Amanda Centrella]: Absolutely. I think I touched on this in the memo sent to committee members, but in this stage of a project of this scale, which there's a lot of very interesting and complicated things happening for this project. I think it would be good for us to expect and anticipate a number of changes as we start to dig into the soil. and see what's there, where utility lines lie, and we're putting in some very heavy structures, the skate park, the basketball court, shade structure, play equipment, all of that. And so at this early phase in the project, it's very common that you start to see change orders and adjustments that are needing to be made because up until this point, a lot of the design is taking in as much information as we have. But in some senses, it's a little theoretical because we haven't dug into the ground in making this design, although we did take soil samples, things like that, and due diligence. Also, once construction is started, any delays or pauses to the project can be incurring costs. So there's a lot of pressure from the contractor in general to keep things moving, to make decisions really swiftly. And that is for a number of reasons, but for Things like this example that we just had, it takes time to schedule services, the availability of firms to come out and do this work, and for our subconsultant team to analyze the results, things like that all adds up. It's generally really good practice to have a set of contingency funds available for use once the project gets going. And so I'm asking that the committee consider allocating the remainder of the parks linkage funding to this project so that we can address anticipated expenses and needs At this early phase in the project, a couple of them that have already been mentioned, you know, so depending on where this. Soil where the soil testing gets us as far as information, what we see there is likely going to be expense for the change in either the foundations design of the. shade structure or potentially a rerouting of some of those utility lines. We may need some video inspection services of the lines to understand what type of pipes and connections are down there. That's been strongly recommended by the contractor as well. We'll also need some third-party inspectional services a little later down the line when we get into welding of the structure and just testing to make sure that Everything is done to code and passes muster. Those are just a couple of the things that I already see on the horizon. The ability to make these decisions quickly is a really great help. I'll pause there and just see if anybody has any questions.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. And I guess my only question is if a lot of times with projects that this extensive, it would even be more than 35. so. Is your thought and CPA would probably be a little too lengthy to try to dip into that, even if it's an off cycle application. So, if we do in the future have additional costs, we're thinking free cash or the stabilization account.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, potentially, and I would approach you about you all about that. Another thought that I had, which I've started talking to Laurel about is there because of the new. census data for the city, a car park, the census track that car park exists in actually is considered a low to moderate income area and may qualify for CDBG funding. We would need to do a little bit of legwork to demonstrate that, but it might be an option for the next fiscal year, so in July, funding pool.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Okay and so just on that topic then if you could if you see that account even over those six months dwindling down keep this group in the loop so that we can work with the council if it is going to be free cash or stabilization or you know if you're going to work with laurel that's that's fine too i just want to make sure we're moving the project along and not stalling and there's a process we follow to president and i to get The council updated and prior to sometimes sometimes it's just at a 7 o'clock Tuesday night meeting, but it will take probably a week or 2 to coordinate great.
[Amanda Centrella]: That's great to know. And I'll definitely keep you all posted.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Great. And just for the committee, I know that we, everything we're doing this spring and fall, basically for the next year, is covered financially. And the one thing that we would like to do next is the Tufts Park play structure, but we have put a request in to Rep. Barber for some funding for that, and she's receptive if their earmarks become available. So we're working that avenue on our next, even though we have money for the whole list of things we're doing now, that's kind of next on the horizon.
[Zac Bears]: Great. Thank you. And thanks, Amanda. I mean, I'm generally, you know, I want to get this project done. And I know it's been a really a ton of work to put all the different funds together. So want to make sure you have the resources you need to complete it. I also just was wondering, is there any contingency The amount in the current budget, or was it was that just like, not able to be added in because of limited funding.
[Amanda Centrella]: There is not any contingency in the current budget for the project. Um, they were, I don't know how much. So there was a lot of sort of challenge around the federal earmark and getting that situated. And so as a result, we prioritized getting our base bid set and figured we'd sort of re-approach afterwards for contingency, yeah.
[Zac Bears]: Okay, got it. Yeah, that's helpful. And so I'm guessing this, but I mean, 35,000 is way less than 2.3 to 4% of the project budget. So, okay. All right, well, I hope those footings are cheaper.
[Amanda Centrella]: You and me both.
[Zac Bears]: But yeah, great, thanks. I move to approve this request.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Motion for approval by President Bears, seconded by CFO Dickinson.
[Zac Bears]: We can hear you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Working now, yeah. Motion for approval, so I'll just call the roll. President Bears?
[Zac Bears]: Yes.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: CFO Dickinson?
[Zac Bears]: Yes.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And myself, yes. That's three in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Motion passes. Thank you. Number three, approval of meeting minutes from October 31st, 2023. Do you want to just give us a summary? Do you want to read them?
[Amanda Centrella]: I'm happy to give a little summary. Yes, so first, Zach, or President Bears, I just made an adjustment to the drafted minutes to name who the attending committee members are. So that's now in the draft. Hold them up. So the first item was there were a number of dormant or old outdated accounts that we went through and decided to liquidate as they were no longer, you know, projects like active projects. And those account funds went back into the larger Parks Linkage Trust Fund. Then there was an approval for a change order proposal for Gillis Field in the order of about $9,000. And lastly, a voting to approve two sets of prior minutes.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Is there a motion for approval of the minutes from October?
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I'll move to approve the minutes.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Seconded by... I'll second it.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Okay, I'll call the roll. President Bears?
[Zac Bears]: Yes.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: CFO Dickinson?
[Zac Bears]: Yes.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And myself? Yes. That's three in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Minutes are approved.
[Zac Bears]: I move to adjourn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to adjourn by President Bears, seconded by CFO Dickinson.
[Zac Bears]: I'll second.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Roll call. President Bears?
[Zac Bears]: Yes.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: CFO Dickinson?
[Zac Bears]: Yes.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And myself? Yes. Meeting is officially adjourned.
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total time: 3.86 minutes total words: 398 |
total time: 1.07 minutes total words: 132 |
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