[Petrella]: Hello everyone, and welcome to Method Happenings, a show for and about the city of Medford. I am your host, John Petrella. The purpose of our program is to give Method citizens facts and information to help you make informed choices. And today we have a very special guest by the name of Rick Orlando, Rick will be speaking to us on things you need to know about building a new high school. So I want to welcome you, Rick, to the show.
[Richard Orlando]: Hello, John.
[Petrella]: Thank you for coming on. I just want to start out by letting everyone know Rick does have a lot of experience when it comes to building schools. Back in the late 90s, he was on a great team that gave us all the newest schools that we have in this city. So I'm going to let Rick explain everything to you. And, you know, I guess my first question, Rick, to you is, you know, how did the elementary and middle schools get done back in the late 90s?
[Richard Orlando]: Well, back then, the Bedford schools at that time, there were 13 elementary schools and I believe three middle schools. They were decades old. I think one was actually 100 years old. They were very inconsistent, both in the size, the amenities, and features they had in the schools. And they were very much in various stages of disrepair. The city had spent considerable amounts of money dealing with the structural components of the school, but at the end of the day, there was very little improvement to the actual educational quality and value in the schools. There were a lot of key issues that were extremely difficult to deal with because of, again, the various sizes of the schools, and some had certain rooms, others didn't. The educational staff did amazing work in these old buildings, but the facilities were really the problem that hampered them in trying to do any of that. Equality of dealing and delivering education was what I think the city realized they could not deal with and deliver with these old buildings.
[Petrella]: So I'm going to follow up and just ask you this, you know, what was the team, what was it like, the team makeup? I mean, who actually, I know you played a big part, but what were the roles?
[Richard Orlando]: Well, at that time, the administration, once they realized they didn't want to keep throwing money, more money after bad with the old buildings, the mayor and the superintendent created a citywide team to evaluate the current state. become educated on what might be some of the solutions, both at the local and state level. And the committee had members from each of the schools. We had elected officials. We had school administrators. We had a variety of, I think, 13 plus people. I had the benefit and opportunity of working with those people who were, some of them I have as very good friends to this day. They were made up, we had architects, school teachers, We had a grant manager from one of the major universities, Tricia McDonough was my co-chair. And there was just an awful lot of expertise within the makeup of that team. And again, I thank the superintendent and the mayor at that time for having the vision to put that together. And that outreach went on for about a year.
[Petrella]: And that would have been Mayor McGlynn?
[Richard Orlando]: Yes, Mayor McGlynn. And Superintendent Roy Belson? Yes.
[Petrella]: All right, listen, we know it was successful. It was very successful, actually, everything that you guys did. But, you know, what was the approach that you took to get to where you got to?
[Richard Orlando]: Well, I think it was important, as I just described, some of the expertise the people had, and that benefited the committee, no doubt. But what was more important was the attitude and commitment of those people on the committee. They avoided individual agendas. They focused on what was best for the city and for the students and children in our school system. They worked hard. They met, I was thinking back, I think we met almost every week. Sometimes multiple meetings, sometimes things on Saturday where we needed to do some special research. They took assignments. They stepped up. I never remember having a plea with any of them. If we had a task to do, just threw it out and the hands went up and we got things done. They understood the process. They understood that, in fact, they were not the wherewithal of what this project would be about. They had to work with the Mass School Building Authority at the state level to understand what our options were. They worked with the city and school administration, and we had various service firms, architects, construction management people that they had to work with. So they were just one of a much larger team. There's some other things which I could touch upon. A big part of it was outreach, and both not only Knowing what you would know and what the skills you didn't know and how you could learn from others, we spent time going around to many, many other communities that had gone through this in the past. And those people were very willing to tell you, do this, don't do that. And it took a lot of time, but people gladly got together on a Saturday and spent the whole day to go out to two or three communities within a single day. In addition to learning what the educators and people in those various communities did, we also had, at that time, Jack Buckley, who was the program manager for the city, not to be confused with the current police chief, but Jack Buckley, who's a long-term life member of the community. He was the city's program manager, and Jack went out and did some research with other communities and people who ran programs of this type in other cities. I had a strong business and friendship with another gentleman out in the Hanson area, and he spent time with Jack, and Jack took, again, took the time to learn about how to go about this. Communities don't do this every year. It's new ground, and the more you can learn from other people that have gone down the path, the better off you are.
[Petrella]: Great answer. Hey, you know, we know a lot of the process has to do with the MSBA. And so people know that's the mass building, mass school building authority. Yes. So it's quite a process. So can you describe or fill us in on some of the processes that take place? I mean, You know, we're going to have to do something with Medford High School. I don't think there's anyone in the city that's saying we don't need something to be done. But, you know, what's the process, the MSBA? How's it work now? What's the situation?
[Richard Orlando]: Well, the process steps are very similar to back when we did it. The cities go through what they call a period in which they can submit the fact that they want to pursue some type of program on a particular school or schools. It goes through the eligibility period. And Medford went through that, I believe. about a year or so ago, but more recently they were invited to what they call the feat to conduct a feasibility study, which really is the meat and content of what the city needs to do and what they submit to the state for evaluation. It includes the educational programming, what the enrollments are. I believe it still does. We had to do a 10-year student projection. There's maintenance, capital planning. You get into the whole design study period for what you want. Then you begin to select who your owner project manager is going to be. Then there's a whole process by which you go through your bids various architectural firms, and then you determine funding and get into the details of the design. A lot of work. It can take quite an amount of time to do that and a lot of research, but I think what is important is that the team needs to understand that that process doesn't happen overnight. You work with all those various people that I mentioned before, getting as much information as you can from the state, and then looking at what your condition is, and that's what you're going to provide as part of this feasibility study. you investigate the current state of this high school. Interestingly enough, when I was looking through the material we did years ago, we actually did a study the following year about the high school in terms of the needs, and they are considerable, and I suspect, although there have been some improvements made, such as the science lab, the gymnasium, the pool, and so on, I suspect there's a lot of other things that still need to be done.
[Petrella]: Oh, yeah, I'm sure of that, yeah, without a doubt. You know, can you describe, I guess the question in my mind, can you describe key elements of what the city, I guess, what the city needs to submit to the MSBA?
[Richard Orlando]: Well, there's probably the single most important thing is the educational plan. And you might say, well, what is that? It's a school. We provide education. We have curriculum, classes, and so on. But what the head administrator of the school system, in this case it was Roy Belson, as the superintendent at that time, with some other people he worked with, it describes what the approach, what the configuration's going to be in the school, and the kinds of programs. So let's say, hypothetically, I know they've been talking about integrating the high school with the vocational school. I don't know if that decision's been made, but if such a plan was going to go about, that would be part of the educational plan. And what this does, this describes and creates the scope for the project. People think, well, it's a building, we need bricks, mortar. No, first you need to describe what you're going to do in that building. That defines the spaces, the features, the amenities, things of that nature. Again, so it's the educational plan becomes the specification. And it's crucial that that is done describing what you want to be embodied in this building we're sitting in right now.
[Petrella]: Does that include, you know, I'm just going to throw this out there. Would that include like some kind of maintenance plan? Would that be part of it also?
[Richard Orlando]: That's another component. The maintenance plan is something the city also has to has to provide to the state because the state wants to know the dollars they're going to invest in your community are protected so that the building doesn't fall into disrepair again. So that the maintenance capital plan that needs to be an essential element. Now, when we did the project years ago, there was a third portion, which was the racial balance plan, which I'll talk about a little bit later, which is not the case for this particular project, the high school, that plan would not, such a plan would not be required. Okay.
[Petrella]: All right, so, so far now, we've submitted I guess we submitted all the key elements to the MSBA. We're on board. They're on board. So now what happens? What's next? You submit everything. What comes next?
[Richard Orlando]: Like anything like that, there's a lot of detail in that plan. A lot of work would have had to have been done by the city and the school administration. And it's likely the building authority will many times come back with questions, you know, could you give us a little clarity on this? We need an additional bit of information. So you could have a back and forth on that for a while. But then assuming it goes forward and they've got everything they need, and let's say they approve it, Medford will be added to the list. I think there are 23 other communities that have been approved with the MSBA for various renovation building projects and things of that nature and we would be next in line after that 23rd on the list. So actually We're 24. We would be 24. Assuming we get in on time, we assume we meet all the requirements, we get approved, yes, we would be 24. And I suspect there are other communities that are also in parallel doing the same things we're doing right now.
[Petrella]: Right. So it's 24, 25. Yes, yes. So we're the 24th school.
[Richard Orlando]: 24th. in line, so to speak. It's just the nature of the work. There are many communities and towns and cities in the commonwealth that are all having the same challenges Medford's having with older buildings and things that need to be done. Okay.
[Petrella]: So, you know, what you did in the past I mean, it was just, it was truly amazing. In my opinion, you know, most people, I mean, everything went smooth. The community was aware of everything. You know, there was some give and take back and forth.
[Richard Orlando]: Yeah. Can I just touch upon, as you say that, maybe, maybe think about something that, um, there were a lot of people involved. A lot of people, not only with commitment, but had a range of different skills and they always had the insight and understanding of what they needed to reach out and get additional information for. And the feasibility study and all the work that had to be submitted was conducted by people within the city, and school administration, and all of the volunteer experts. That was all done, put together, and submitted to the state. The thing I find surprising, there may be reasons for it, but as I understand it now, the city is requesting, I think it's over a million dollars, to do that work. And we didn't have to have that situation in the past. Why, I don't know. But that's one of the differences, as I recall.
[Petrella]: And that was, you know, I mentioned that because that's leading into my next question. And, you know, we're talking the late 90s, you know, 2025. So, you know, I guess, what are the differences from what you guys did in the past to what's going on now. And I know that's a big one because a million dollars is a million dollars.
[Richard Orlando]: Yes.
[Petrella]: And you guys flat out had nothing but volunteers.
[Richard Orlando]: Well, let's just be clear. It wasn't only the volunteers. It was also the school administration that had some, you know, obviously we've mentioned the superintendent. He had a great team around him. Gail Zeman was the financial director, I believe, at the time. And there were different people, the staff. And those people, you know, he drew upon them for what he needed to describe and create that educational plan. I would say that in terms of the process, the steps we talked about, eligibility, feasibility, the education, a lot of those steps are very similar today as they were years ago. The big difference from the past project is the funding. Today's funding formulas are very different. In the past, we had what they call Category 1, 2, and 3. And for our purposes, the key fund category was Category 1. It was the racial balance plan, which is no longer available. And that requirement, if met, which we met, provided the city 90% funding for the entire project. And that project at that time was, I think, about $110 million. So if you do the math, 90% of those costs to the city were provided by the state, not the federal government. I still hear that today. No, it was not the federal government. It was the state. And the remaining 10% was actually made up by selling some of the older buildings. So for all, if you look at the entire project, it was paid pretty much by either the funding from the state or the sale of the old buildings. And it was very successful. Another thing that, just going back to the racial balance plan, what that required was a certain area of expertise that we needed to draw in other skills. And we drew on this gentleman called, known as Michael Elves, he was from Brown University. And he was an expert on this, and not only was he an expert in terms of what the racial balance plan needed, it also added credibility to our submission to the state. And one of the people I know that worked, Grace Lauderney, worked an awful lot with Michael Alves. She was one of the volunteers, as well as working with the superintendent and the other people. And they created the racial balance plan, which was part of the submission, which secured the 90% for us. That was key.
[Petrella]: Okay, so the MSAB fund, you know, I guess... Today versus yesterday? Yeah, I mean, how much... Well... I mean, the state doesn't want to get audited. I mean, for that matter, nobody wants to get audited anymore. But, you know, how much money? I mean, where does the money come from? How much goes into the fund?
[Richard Orlando]: Let me just say, just touch upon one difference. What I just described was what we had the good fortune to take benefit of, 90% funding, which really took the educate, I'm sorry, the financial challenge off the city, off the taxpayers back then. Today, most funding, the funding for all communities starts at 31%. 31 percent. So you begin at that position, and then there are small incremental percentages you can add depending upon if you as a city, you meet the criteria, you know, whether it's the way you manage the project, the way it's built, the environmental stats, things of that nature. There are a variety, and it might get you an additional eight, nine, 10, 15%. Most communities struggle and strive to get somewhere between 40 and 50%. Again, not 90%. And that's just the reality of what the state has in terms of availability of money. If you want to think about it in real terms, if you look at other surrounding communities, Winchester did a renovation a few years ago. I think it was in the range of about $110 million. And they didn't get 50%. They got somewhere probably in the 40s. I think $65 million tax burden to the city. If you look at a new school like what Arlington did, they probably saw about $150 million as tax obligation to the citizens. So these are very serious numbers, but it's just the nature of the funding that's available, and a city does the best it can to try to maximize the percentages.
[Petrella]: They're very different numbers in dollars than what they were in the past so even if method You know does the best they can I Mean being 24th on the list I mean, but who knows I mean anything can happen so even at the best You look at it. Maybe 50% That's the best
[Richard Orlando]: You're probably not. You're probably in the ballpark, yeah.
[Petrella]: Okay. Yeah. All right. So it's 50% or below. We can go with that number?
[Richard Orlando]: Yeah. That's probably not a stretch. Okay.
[Petrella]: All right. So the application gets this far, gets to that point now, okay? So what does the city need to, you know, consider? What do they need to put in place? I mean, there's got to be a bid. I assume bid in construction is next. So the city has a lot of work to do with that.
[Richard Orlando]: Well, one of the important things we found out by doing that outreach to other communities was that we got a very strong recommendation to bring in a construction management firm. Now, at that time, it wasn't a requirement by the building authority at the state level, but we got good input that that's very useful to do that. And where that plays out is one of the first things, one of the early things you do when you start putting this whole project together is to get the, you select an architect, you work out the details of what you want designed and what the scope of the work is, and they come up with an estimate of how much this work, this project is going to cost. Now, that ultimately becomes the number that the state will look at and say, oh, we're going to give you X percentage funding for that. But what a construction management firm will do is provide another set of eyes on that number before you submit to the state to validate it. It's not suggesting the architectural firm doesn't know what it's doing. But again, a second set of eyes is always very valuable. And we found that very useful when we did the project years ago. You know, there were some differences on what the architect had, the construction management firm, and they worked through, oh, what the differences were, and so on. And it got us to a much clearer understanding of what the number to build, at that time, the four elementary schools and the two middle schools. So, and it's crucial to, again, get out of the gate with the correct number. The second part that the construction management firm provided was actually working with the team, the city team, and the architects during the construction period. You need to manage the project. It's essential that you manage the project, the schedule, the timing, the events, the deliverables, all that on time and with the right cost.
[Petrella]: All right. You know, so my next question would be, Okay, so you got, we're talking about the funding, you know, the bidding construction and everything, so what would be the city's role? And then, you know, I have to ask this, what's the taxpayer's role? What happens between the city, the taxpayer, where do we go?
[Richard Orlando]: You know, in the case of what I believe is going to happen with the high school, assuming they get through some of the steps we've already talked about and they determine what the financial obligation is going to be of the city, there would probably have to be an override to make up that portion of the cost. paid by the taxpayers, there would have to be an override vote, and I think that's actually a requirement. If you don't secure the override, the state, you know, puts on the brakes and says, how are you going to do this? How are you going to fund the project? So the city, let's assume they get the override passed. and it can move forward. What the city has to do is, this is a formality that the building assistance requires that the city approves the entire project budget total. And then what will happen in over a 20-year period, the state reimburses you on an annual basis that portion. So you get the funding, but you don't get it in one lump sum. Every year, the bond payment comes up, the city pays its portion, the state contributes its portion. Okay.
[Petrella]: And then, you know, they'll have to decide how long of a bond, I mean, how many years, I mean, there's a lot of things.
[Richard Orlando]: Yeah, I think when... When it was done, I think when we had it in the past, it was 20 years. But a little, an interesting bit of information on the past project. We had anticipated and going for the 20 years, getting our portion, 90% from the state, every year. The state came in, I think it was in 2000, I've got a newspaper article on it. Came in in 2002, I think it was three. and decided rather than do it over 20 years, they were going to pay it off all at once. They came in. I remember being at the Roberts School. The head of the MSBA was there. The head of the Department of Division of Revenue was there. A lot of the other folks from the city were there. The mayor, superintendent, etc. was at the Roberts School. And they basically went through the formality of giving a check for the entire amount rather than extend it over 20 years. That was an abnormality. That was not a typical. But that's what happened.
[Petrella]: It's an awesome abnormality, by the way. I mean, that's very awesome.
[Richard Orlando]: So in other words, the city was paid 100% everything at that point in time. OK.
[Petrella]: Just an interesting aside of how it played out in Bedford.
[Richard Orlando]: Very nice.
[Petrella]: You know, you look at a project this big, I've read it, other cities, other towns, and I don't know how this works. That's why I'm going to ask you. I'm going to maybe put you out on a limb here. So-and-so is going to put up the school. It's $300 million. The next thing you know, they hit something. This happened, that happened. It now costs, I don't know, $350 or $400 million, whatever it is. I mean, they call them cost overruns. How do you try and prevent them, what happens if they If you get cost overruns, is MSBA still going to help out? I mean, that's a whole ball of wax there.
[Richard Orlando]: Well, that's a great question. So, and this is one of the things, when you have a team like we had, you know, the city had, you have a construction management firm. Ted Gentry, he was a strong resource. You had Jack Buckley, which we call the bulldog, and you had Ron Lamar from the HMFH, the architectural firm, who was our liaison. They were relentless in tracking down, watching the construction progress to ensure two things didn't happen. Unnecessary change orders and work stoppages. Either of those two things would cost the city incremental money. And if they were work stoppages due to the city not being timely with their responses to progress, things that were needed, or if the change order wasn't a legitimate from the state's point of view those would be paid by the city and that brings up a very you know if there was such an unexpected thing that happened you know something in the ground ledge whatever it was that wasn't anticipated i think you could have a conversation with the state and they might say okay that's uh was unexpected, and we will negotiate, you know, some kind of compensation for that. But it's crucial to know that things that run over budget, that can't be authorized by the state, 100% of that overrun is borne by the city. So you're not going to, you know, just keep spending money and get more and more from the state. If it's not legitimate, if it can't be approved by the state, The city will bear the cost of that overrun 100%. On top of the money they were already paying.
[Petrella]: So the city's on the hook.
[Richard Orlando]: Again, if it's not a legitimate, unexpected change. Right, yeah. Well, I can see that. And that's why it's valuable to have a strong team. And I want to, as we're talking about this, I'm thinking, some towns, you know, they go the route of having a clerk of the works to pay the bills, to the contract. You may have something like that, but you really need a professional, grounded, knowledgeable, city-paid project manager that represents and controls the program cost, controls the program schedule, and does a whole range of things that the list is lengthy. Okay. I'm sure it is.
[Petrella]: You know, the other thing, you know, I'm going to go back for a minute because I just want to make sure I'm clear. I don't know what we spent, a million dollars for a consultant or whatever it was. So, and I understand, you know, it's expensive and you got to do things today. You know, a lot of things you got to do, hire a consultant or professionals and understood. So what exactly are you putting a million dollars up for at the beginning of the process?
[Richard Orlando]: So yeah, I, you know, I, I honestly, to be fair, I can't detail what the, it may be for, you know, what the feasibility study has many elements, right. It may be, um, you know, obviously we talked about the, the education plan. We talked about the maintenance plan. We talked about capital plan. Um, it probably has, to do with work in those areas, that a consultant would work with, you know, bringing the standard template, work with the city administration, the superintendent, and various other people in the city to derive and pull that information together, and then literally just create it and get the document in on time. I want to make it perfectly clear that I'm sure it's legitimate. I'm not saying we don't need to do that. I'm sure it's for good cause, reasonable.
[Petrella]: You know, I just know things are so much more expensive today. And, you know, sometimes you do, you have to spend the money to get things done right today. So I just want to make sure that I'm not saying that it's, you know, we shouldn't have spent a million or whatever. I'm sure it was well spent.
[Richard Orlando]: Something that needed to be done. A city needs to look internally what skill sets it has with its people. Right. The things that it's familiar with. Again, this is not the kind of project that every city, a city's do every few years. Right. And they may have just made the determination that it was best from a timing point of view to get into the state, that this was the best route to take.
[Petrella]: And I'm, you know, I'm going to go ahead and say I'm sure they got a good, a good committee or whatever you want to call them working on this that know their stuff. So I would think they do. And that gets me to the next question. And this is the stuff. that I always think about, I always look for, because I have to be honest. I know we do need to do something with the school, and it's going to be a tough decision. A new school, are you gonna, you know, use part of the building that's up there now? I mean, there's a lot of options. Where would you move the school to? What, you know, if there's enough property or land, whatever it is. But I always, You know most of my life. I like to look into things and and You know I always call it community engagement Okay And I guess my next question is what about community engagement I?
[Richard Orlando]: Well, that's, you know, I was going back over, you know, I've got a book to my left that you can't see that it's about, I don't know. It's thick. It's thick. And a lot of it had to do with, and this is one of the things I think the committee, particularly the committee can take pride in, was the community engagement. You'll hear many times the word communication. Communication, is a form of it, but what it really does, you need to reach out to the community. That doesn't mean putting out periodically a blast over an email or a blast over a city website. The only way you get really engagement is to really go out to You know, go out to the schools. At that time, going back, there were multiple schools. We had 13. We had to go out to each of those districts. We had periodic meetings with the city council, with the school committee. There were various communications. The city put out newspapers which they put out every so often to communicate about the project. We had communications in printed form that we sent out to the schools that were distributed to allow the kids to take them home to their parents to let them know what was going on. As the project was going, we had meetings that were televised. Jack Buckley, you may recall seeing some of them during the construction period. I remember. The sessions were taped and were basically to keep the community up to speed with what was going on. What was going on, which would ultimately be the investment in schools and their community. And so communication is, it really, it can't be passive. It has to be active. You need to do it in a manner that the people feel like they know oh, there's going to be change. In the case of the school project in the past, the biggest change was going from 13 neighborhood elementary schools to four. That was a big change for people, because they had grown, even though the buildings were, they knew the buildings were in difficult shape, but that was a big change. You know, I could go to my neighborhood school and walk in my neighborhood, and so, We had to do a lot of things to convey what would make that feel less impactful in a negative way to you. And we spent a lot of time meeting with people, talking with them, and actually incorporating some of the things that they were asking about in the design of the buildings. where the entrances were, where the drop-off points were, where the cafeterias were, where the kids could come directly in and meet with staff. So it was a lot to consider, but it was essential to ease people through that degree of change. Right.
[Petrella]: I can honestly say, I had two young ones going through. They were at the Gleason at the time. And you guys really, It still took some work, but if you had children in school back then, I mean, I can remember going downstairs in the Gleason and, you know, the asbestos that used to be wrapped around the, I can remember going down there, you know, it's falling on my head. So when it first came out that, you know, all these news, I mean, we were losing schools, but the way you guys had communicated, the way you explained it, along with the asbestos falling on, you know, coming down and everything else. I mean, it was a phenomenal, I think it was just a great job community getting everyone involved. And there were people that disagreed. They wanted to, you know, fix those schools and keep those little, yeah.
[Richard Orlando]: I'll make a clear point, we didn't decide whether it was going to be new buildings, which it ended up being, versus renovation. We basically put all the facts out on the table, where the funds would be, how much money would be available, and although renovation could have been an option, and not all schools were eligible for renovation dollars. because some of them were so bad the state came in and said, no, we can't invest anything in this. But we put all that information out and we went into the community meetings. I remember doing a large presentation to the community at the high school auditorium. It was in December of 97 and put it all out in front of people. We said, which way do you want to go? And then collectively over a period of time following that, the decision, they came back, we did surveys. They wanted to come back with, let's go with a new approach. Was everybody in agreement on that? No. But it seemed to be everybody said, the majority of the people said that was the best decision. And then we had to deal with where and so on. I think we evaluated over 40 sites when we did that and we came up with the sites which had to, interestingly enough, it goes back to the education plan based on the configuration of the schools dictated how you distributed those schools you were going to build, what size lots you needed. So a lot of it tied together.
[Petrella]: Yeah, no, it was interesting because I remember the What is it, I'm sorry, the McGlynn, the Andrews were so close together.
[Richard Orlando]: Yeah, that was the part of the racial balance play. You had two middle schools at the Hormel site, as well as one elementary school, the McGlynn Elementary, and then you had the Roberts, the Misatuck, and the Hobbs are the three additional elementary schools.
[Petrella]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I got to tell you, okay, you know, I'm looking around, I'm trying to find information, you know, you go online, you look up City Hall site and, you know, recently I was able to get some information. But, you know, I can't thank you enough. I mean, this is going to be money-wise, project-wise, construction, this is something, you know, it's big. And, you know, I think we informed people today, which is what we wanted to do. I think everyone in the city agrees that, yeah, we got to do something. Our kids deserve something. And now it's about how do we get there? And I think I want to thank you because really the process, I mean, you got a lot of Good points. I mean, I think people have a better knowledge now of, you know, what this is all about. Hopefully.
[Richard Orlando]: Yeah.
[Petrella]: No, I think they do. I think you did a great job. You know, I'm being told.
[Richard Orlando]: uh you know by the boss that you know it's you know we're getting near the end here so it's yeah it's time to say goodbye i can go on for another hour sure i could yeah yeah i was re-educating myself or re-familiarizing myself with this entire process as i as i prepared for this today but there's one point we didn't touch upon that i hear okay here occasionally and it's the timing yep you know well Oh, my kid's going to be able to go to school next year at the new high school, or the renovated high school. This process takes time. It could be a year or so, just go through the feasibility. Then you've got to do design selection for the architects, and you've got to come up with the design. When all that's done, again, you're behind 23 other communities. You're also subject to how much money the state puts into the MSBA fund, and that is dictated or influenced by what is the state grappling with in terms of costs for their programs, their infrastructure upgrades, their budgets. And when they look at their entire budgets, they'll say how much they're gonna put into these building assistance fund. So how much money goes in there and also where you sit in queue, that will all dictate, even if you do everything efficiently and get it in early, that will dictate when in fact the money is provided and you can begin your project. So it's, you know, I think I remember when we started in 97, got a lot of that work done in 98. My daughter was young. She was in elementary school. I think she saw one year at the middle school. So just a reality check.
[Petrella]: Yeah. The reality is we are at the beginning Right? Of a long project. It's going to be a while. So, you know, I don't know what it is today. You know, we went up to high school. We were freshmen, you know, whatever. So, you're a freshman up there now. Chances are you're not seeing a new school. No way. Yeah, it's not going to happen.
[Richard Orlando]: That would be a miracle.
[Petrella]: OK. All right. So that's what I'm saying. This is like the beginning. And it's going to be a long process. And like I say, it's been very interesting for me. I mean, I think you got some good points out there. It really is a lot. And now I'm really being told. What's this mean, when they tell you that? You're talking too much, Chuck. Or I'm talking too much. All right, well, anyhow, we are at the end of the show. I want to thank guest Rick Alondo for sharing information people needed to know about building a new high school. You will be able to see replays of this show on Metford Community Media. and YouTube, Medford Happenings. And for more information about our future program, you can visit either the Medford Community Network at mcn02155.com or allmedford.com. For Medford Happenings, I am John Petrella, and stay informed. And thank you all. And thank you, Rick. Thank you, John.