AI-generated transcript of MHCSBC Full Meeting - May 12, 2025

[Unidentified]: Test. Test, check one. Test, check one, check one. just need to...

[SPEAKER_05]: test check one test

[Jenny Graham]: OK, I'm going to read the meeting notice so we can get started. Please be advised that on May 12th, 2025 at 6 PM there will be a meeting of the Medford Comprehensive High School Building Committee held at Medford High School in the sites like Sher Hall, Room 3B, 319 and via remote participation using the link provided below. The meeting can be viewed live on Medford Public Schools YouTube channel through Medford Community Media on your local cable channel, which is nine, eight or 22 and Verizon 43, 45 or 47. The meeting will be recorded. Participants can log in by using the following information. The Zoom number is 986-9143-8275. I'm gonna call the roll to get started. So Jenny Graham here, Mayor Lundo Kern.

[SPEAKER_10]: Dr. Galusi. Here. Dr. Cushing.

[SPEAKER_02]: Here.

[SPEAKER_10]: Marta Cabral. Here. Libby Brown. Here. Marisa Desmond. Here.

[Jenny Graham]: Maria Dorsey. Here. Brian Hilliard.

[Unidentified]: Present.

[Jenny Graham]: Tracy Keene.

[Unidentified]: Here.

[Jenny Graham]: Emily Lazzaro.

[Vasudevan]: Nicole Morell. Erin Olapade.

[SPEAKER_10]: All right. Lou Prisner.

[Unidentified]: Here.

[SPEAKER_10]: Joan Bowen. Here. Bob Dickinson. Here. Leona Maxwell. Here. Will Pipisoli. Here. Chad Fallon.

[Aaron Olapade]: Here.

[Vasudevan]: Lori Hodgson. Here. John McLaughlin.

[Aaron Olapade]: Here.

[Vasudevan]: Paul Russo is here. Here.

[SPEAKER_10]: Philip Santos.

[Unidentified]: Here.

[SPEAKER_10]: Hi.

[Jenny Graham]: And Lisa Miller. Okay, so we have 12 present, three absent, so we have a quorum. I wanted to start by welcoming Lisa Miller to the committee. Lisa is one of our vocational teachers here at the high school. As you all may remember from the last time we met, Larry Brown resigned from the committee, had sort of done his year, which is what he committed to do. And we asked, the school committee asked that Marta identify another teacher who could adequately represent the vocational side of the house, which is sort of the role that Larry was playing in that interim space. And she identified Lisa. So Lisa, welcome. Thank you. We're excited to have you. Thanks. OK, the next item on the agenda is our consent agenda, which includes approval of meeting minutes from January 23, which was a communications and community engagement subcommittee, and February 24, which was a full committee meeting. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? Sorry, a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. By Tracy Keene, seconded by Lindy Brown. Okay, I'll call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Yes. Dr. Palusi. Yes. Dr. Cushing.

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Marta Cabral. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Marissa Desmond. Yes. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Tracy Keene. Yes. Emily Lazzaro, absent. Nicole Morell, absent. And Aaron Lopate, absent. Luke Preissner. Yes. And Joan Bowen. Yes. So 13 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, three absent, the motion is approved. Okay, on to the good stuff. As you remember, when we met in February, we did a bunch of things, including expanding our OPM selection subcommittee, and That committee subsequently got approval from MSBA to publish our request for services, which you all reviewed in that last meeting and approved. And we published that RFS in March. We held a walkthrough in mid-March with 15 or 20 people in attendance to the walkthrough. And then we received 10 bids. So the OPM Selection Subcommittee went through the process that was outlined in the RFS. So we all independently scored the 10 proposals and created a shortlist. And then we held interviews with the folks on the shortlist, checked references, and made a selection. So we're really excited to introduce you all to left field this evening. They are the apparent successful bidder. The contract is not finalized. So what that means is we have to send a whole bunch of paperwork to MSBA. They have to sort of go through, provide feedback. And then we will have to go to what they call the OPM selection panel in early June, which we are scheduled to do. Not until that happens. Can we sign the actual contract with left field? So they graciously agreed to be here on their own dime at this point. So thank you left field team for that. And then once the MSBA approves, the city can execute the contract. So what does that mean? It means that between now and then, we have already gotten record requests from bidders who wanna know how could I improve You know, how could I improve the competitiveness of my proposal and all those things? All of that has to wait until the contract is signed, which will happen in mid-June. I've had a couple of UL requests, some of those documents as well. And we have to sort of apply the same logic in terms of responding to those requests, is my understanding. But the elected team does have a presentation to share with us tonight. that you'll get a copy of that to take home with you. Hello, hello, hello. So I just want to stop right there before I introduce the left field team. Are there any questions about where we are in the process? No? OK. I still feel like we're in the paperwork phase of the process. Yeah, no, that's OK. So we had to, by last week, submit a full package of information to MSBA. And then from there, the MSBA reviews the package. They'll respond to us with questions. I actually got a document, and there was a sentence that was like two choppy half sentences, and they asked me to consolidate them, so I did that. So there's some back and forth that we'll do as they're vetting the paperwork. And then once they- It's at the Museum of Science. Once everything is in order, it goes to the OPM selection panel. That panel reviews the submission and takes a vote to either agree with our recommendation or to, I guess they could send us back to the drawing board if for some reason they felt like something was out of order.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then we exit. So specific to that, is it one of the regular scheduled monthly meetings or is it a board meeting?

[Jenny Graham]: It's not a board meeting, but it is a scheduled, I believe, public meeting that happens once a month, if I remember correctly.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we're in the queue for this upcoming month?

[Jenny Graham]: June 2nd. Yeah, June 2nd, we are on the list. They take a limited number of communities each month. This is where their process is easy to understand, but kind of rigid at the same time. But we got into the queue because what we did in February was approve the RFS even ahead of the invitation to the next phase. That meant we were right there. I submitted all of the paperwork the next day, and we were able to get into the queue for June. So that sort of speed and turnaround talk, we'll come back to that when we get to the end of the meeting. But until we can get our team on board, it's just all of us in a room with some paperwork. And the real exciting stuff happens when you can get the actual experts in the room to start thinking about what does this look like. So I'm going to stop talking and invite the left field team to join us. So Jim Rogers is the principal. of left field. And then Matt and Linda will be our day to day people on the project. They come with a much bigger team. Some folks had vacations and different things to to deal with, but I'm going to turn it over to them. I just want you all to know it was absolutely unanimous that left field was the right partner for us.

[Unidentified]: There are educational advisors also, really, really good practices, and good people. All the people that I met, the people that helped make it look amazing. Everybody involved was just, you know, absolutely amazing. I just want to thank the committee.

[Jenny Graham]: So that was Dr. Cushing, Dr. Gluzman, Dr. Brown, myself, Paul, Fiona, and John. So we spent a lot of time together in the last class. And if you want to come stand roughly in this space, Peter can point the camera at you.

[SPEAKER_05]: Perfect. OK. Do you have a microphone that we could follow along with? Yes.

[Vasudevan]: We haven't been paid for coffee yet, but I see perfect.

[Unidentified]: Do you want to email it to me?

[SPEAKER_05]: I guess I can do that. So there's electronic coffee that's coming, so you guys can see it online. But I want to start where, uh, uh, we put off of this group to provide some momentum really get this project going. So we're excited to be here. Uh, Jim Rogers in the principal of left field, um, our experience and talk to you about two key aspects of the project. That makes sense.

[Unidentified]: Thank you. Thank you. to our. I'm. Good. So let's see. Test one, test two.

[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.

[Unidentified]: both public K-12 So. That's it. I took experience. So, these are some of my tools. Okay. that's in our programs, and we have a true case in technical, and that's the way that we're working. It's not technical, but it's self-examined. We're working on it, and we're trying to figure out how to solve the technical problems. It's not technical, but it's self-examined, and we're working on it, and we're trying to figure out how to solve the technical problems. It's not technical, but it's self-examined, and we're working on it, and we're trying to figure out how to solve the technical problems. It's not technical, but it's self-examined, and we're working on it, and we're trying to figure out how to solve the technical problems. So this is just a template that might be helpful.

[SPEAKER_05]: The Commonwealth. The next slide, we're looking at the team. And with me tonight, and I'm gonna let them talk about themselves in a moment, is Macklin, Orlando, and Porto, Matt, Linda. But I'll hit some of the people that aren't here and talk a little bit about the team. If you can go a little up, I think it's between the right now. So I'll be here tonight. I was traveling or playing this morning and very late and couldn't make it. But like Jen very much, she's very experienced. She used to work for the MSC, K-12 sector. And next, I'm going to let Linda and Matt talk about themselves. Hello everyone, my name is Matt. I will be your main contact, your main senior PM that you'll be working with. You'll be working closely with us along the chat. We have a team of experts which we can touch base on a little bit. A little bit about myself and then the years. I started out as a general contractor. I've worked for Constable Construction for about six years, so I'm very familiar with how the building goes together. And then in the last seven or eight years, I've been on the outside of the industry, working on school building projects.

[Unidentified]: Oh geez.

[Paul Ruseau]: Can you hear me now?

[Vasudevan]: Yes, Paul, I just heard you.

[Paul Ruseau]: Okay, well, I'm going to leave that all on, but all the fun things that are going to pop up.

[Unidentified]: It's got an excellent mic. Give me a second.

[Jenny Graham]: And then. Do you want to move it over that way so that.

[Paul Ruseau]: Yeah, I don't know this is an exceptional microphones. Can you just say something that hello. Can you hear me.

[Vasudevan]: Yes, and I'm getting more that YouTube can hear now.

[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, great. Now that you can hear me, I'll do a quick recap. My name is Matt Galino. I'll be your day-to-day contact in your main senior PM. Been in construction industry for about 14 years, started out as a general contractor, and I've been in the OPM industry for the last eight years or so, largely working on school building projects. I live in Boston now. I actually lived in Medford for about six years. I know it well, and it definitely has a little special place in my heart. I live near Wellington. And yeah, I'm excited to be here. Really looking forward to working with everyone. Definitely is going to be a challenging project, but that's part of what we like. And we're excited to help you get a designer on board in the coming months and work with you every step of the way as we get going. So I'll let Linda introduce herself and then we'll move on to the next part of our presentation.

[SPEAKER_12]: Great. I will jump up. Hi, everyone. Hopefully you guys can still hear me on the computer. I am Linda Laporto. I am one of the senior project managers assigned to this wonderful, very exciting project. My background is also in the construction industry. I spent the better part of the past 25 years in construction management and then OPM world. I have been working solely on school projects since I started working with Jim and ironically there are 99% of them are high school projects. So I've gotten very familiar with what goes into these projects and I've actually worked on some very, very comprehensive and very tricky projects that for all intents and purposes were thought would not get passed, but through our relationships working with the districts and coming up with great strategies, we were able to go through all these projects. So very excited to be here. I was at the tour of the school and I've seen firsthand how well everyone has been doing with working with what they have. And so I can definitely see that there's a huge need for the students and the faculty. They've done a fantastic job. But I don't ever want to hear that somebody feels like they've been attacked by their building. So I'm hoping we can get started on this project very quickly. It's going to be a very prescriptive process with the MSBA, but we've got some great team members and we have a lot of experience working with the MSBA and we'll be here to help guide you guys through that process and then also figure out the best way on how to get the rest of the city of Medford on board to get this building actually built. So that's what we're here for. We're super excited to do so.

[SPEAKER_06]: And probably for my last piece, I just, I just want to stay there for 1 more minute. So, the way the team is set up, if, you know, this is the top row and the bottom row, and you just met the top row, which is really the core participants. And if you notice this little star flag over over Matt's name, you probably can't read it, but it says day to day. So, Matt's going to be the day to day contact for the project. He's going to be supported by Jen and Linda as the core participants. So that is kind of the core team. On the bottom row, what we have is we bring in the rest of the folks to support them. And we call it the team of experts. And they flex in and flex out as we need them as part of the project. The first one is someone that Jenny mentioned, and that's Adele Sands. She's our educational liaison. She is a former superintendent, a former teacher, a former administrator. She went through her own very complicated construction project, and the hope is she can come here, help with educational planning, help with programming, help kind of translate the process to the teacher's administration. She's been through it. She can kind of let you know what she's been through, what to expect. So we think she's going to be a key member of the team. Lynn Stapleton is our project advisor. She is our key MSBA advisor. She has worked like Jen And like some of our other people have worked with the since their inception. So, when we need lens help on issues, we're going to drag her in. We're bringing her now Jenny and some of the concerns we've had about procurement. Kevin Sullivan is going to be our public outreach guy. So, Kevin just went through a very rigorous vote in. or South Shore Tech High School. It was a technical vocational high school, which is a very difficult vote to achieve because it's not really owned by one community, right? There's four or five or 10 or 15 communities that really share in the vocational school. And because of that, these towns all have their own priorities, whether it's a police station, a fire station, another school. So it's really hard to obtain a positive vote for a vocational school. We did so with a huge effort and we were able to win. Celsior Tech was able to carry the vote rather successfully. And we're gonna use that same vigor and approach here to help with what seems to be a very organized group already in terms of trying to achieve a successful project. Next is Jay Faxon. He's our MVP expert. That's mechanical electrical plumbing. So he will come in at various times to review drawings. He will come in during construction to audit the construction process. He will oversee the commissioning process. And you will find Jay to be a valued member. We also have a move manager in Josh Brewster, a quality and design review person in Terrence T. Connolly, and finally, a clerk of the works that will be out there for construction. So it takes a village. We have a village. We have a very talented village. And we're, again, excited to get going on this project. I'll say it. I'll do it. You want to do it? Yeah, I'll say it. So one of the key questions, especially the MSBA has, and you will all have is, you know, what is our capacity to work on this project? Matt has 100% of his time, for example, as a day to day guy. Dedicated to this project what we've shown here as part of this chart. Is, um, you know, Matt showing 40% of his time because that's what we think it's going to take. Jens at 30% and Linda's at 30%, but the key notion there, or the key identifier, it says 30 plus 40 plus and 30 plus. Which means, although we've identified percentages as around 3040%, whatever the project needs are. These folks dedicated to to seeing it through. So the hours are just a representation of where we're going to be, but we're all in on whatever the project needs are. And with that said.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'll touch on this quickly. Oh, please. So.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's a kind of a crunch period. Maybe you start out with a small team to get an idea of what's ahead. You begin to wrap your hands around it. You bring in additional staff. Your staffing profile grows. It peaks at a point. You would achieve some threshold that's a construction threshold, maybe, I'm not sure, just guessing.

[SPEAKER_06]: Key milestones.

[SPEAKER_03]: Key milestones. And then you begin rolling people off. So that's kind of what I have in mind. In terms of other projects that you have, I know you're involved with the Revere High School, which is a very large project, almost 2,500 kids. And it began not that long ago. I'm not aware of other ongoing projects you have. But my question. I can put that slide back up. That's all. Not necessarily, just talk to it. What I want to ask is for Revere specifically, where are you in terms of that ramp up? And if we pitch a perfect game and things begin in serious measure in the new year, what does your staffing capacity look like in the context of ongoing projects.

[SPEAKER_06]: So first, the top line, which is the core group, they're dedicated to this project and maybe one other. So there really isn't a worry about the core group, because I have to sleep at night, and I can't have those people all over the place. So the core group is the one that's dedicated to this project. So there's no interaction with Revere of the core group, for example. They have their team. We have our team. It's the lower group, to your point, that kind of ebbs and flows depending on the needs of the project. And in Revere, specifically, we are in the permitting process, closing in on the start of construction. And so, for example, Adele, our educational liaison, she has kind of dropped off quite a bit because we've gone through the programming stages and got through a large part of the design. So she's been able, to your point, the milestones have passed. She's been able to drop off. We didn't have a Lynn on that job. We didn't have a Kevin, a Jay. We have a Jay on that job, an MVP expert. He has helped in the design of the project, going through the design milestones where we haven't gotten to construction yet. In fact, he doesn't come to the end of construction. He comes in just before the ceiling goes in to look at all the mechanical equipment and make sure it's all installed correctly. So he won't come in until much later in the Revere project, which will be even later here because we're a couple of years further down the road in Medford. We have three MEP experts in left field. I think some of these folks do overlap, but the way the project, to your point, is staggered, I don't think it's going to be an issue, and I think we have the right staffing to control. But anything other, any concerns about Revere versus here that I can specifically talk about?

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just trying to get a sense of what other projects do you have that are kind of just ahead of us? Is it only Revere, or is it Revere plus one, plus two? Yeah, I just want to know.

[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, we can go through them one by one. A lot of them are in this planning stage. Uh, you know, um, uh, 1 of the ones that I don't think we show tonight as I'm thinking here is Brockton. So, Brockton is the largest 1 of the largest high schools, if not the largest high school east of the Mississippi. It's a concern, right? And that's why we talk about capacity, right? The, we have 10 or 12 high schools managing. How do we manage those all together? And that's how we do it with, like I said, Matt has 100% capacity. I've always gonna have the staff on board to be able to manage Medford. So it's not impacted by Brockton, Revere or what have you. So it's a valid concern. We can talk about it further and I can show you the staffing model and how that works. But I'm confident that we have the team here and the resources to take on that. You're welcome.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, and I will say just by way of some color commentary, that was true of every player that made it to the finalist list. The folks that didn't make it to the finalist list often were much smaller or didn't have as much high school experience, which was what weighted them out. But everyone who came and presented had a pretty comparable story in terms of staffing approaches. timing and all of that good stuff.

[SPEAKER_06]: We mentioned the OPM panel, um, you know, that we have to go through, was it June 2nd? Yep. On June 2nd. And one of the things they look at very closely is our staffing. Um, and so we understand that, uh, and we address, we address those issues, you know, directly. Capacity. Any other questions? Nope.

[SPEAKER_04]: No, like Jim said, with the OPM panel, it might be one of the only reasons where the MSBA would say, no, you can't use left field. They have too much work. That's not gonna be the case. Like Jim said, I am 100% available for this job, so I'm not on any other MSBA jobs. I'm actually not in any non-MSBA jobs either. So that won't be an issue for us when we get to the OPM panel, but it is something that they look at closely. I'm not going to spend a ton of time on the educational program, but we did want to put it up here only because it's the cornerstone of how this building will get built. Everything comes from the educational program. So we're going to spend a lot of time working with the educators. Once we get a designer on board, they will have an educational planner who is going to take the bulk of that responsibility, meeting with educators, understanding what you need, what works now, what doesn't work now, how do we make it better. So it's it's really kind of the again the cornerstone of the project. It's what the MSBA requires you to follow. It tells you how big the building will be based on how many students. So it's a very prescribed process and it's something that we'll spend a lot of time on in the early design phases through feasibility, really until we get to schematic design, through the first few phases of feasibility, which is the preferred, sorry, preliminary design program, and then the preferred schematic report. During those two phases is when we'll really focus on the ed plan, which again, will really kind of dictate the design of the building. Let me go ahead down. Timeline, just to touch quickly on some of the key dates. Like we said, June 2nd is your OPM panel. Once that takes place, you'll officially be able to contract with left field. We are already working on the next phase, the designer selection process. So we have pulled together a request for services for designers, very similar to what you did for the OPM selection. You advertise it, it's got to go into the central register, combines. and it will be advertised for a few weeks, we'll get designer proposals in, and we'll start to review them as quickly as we can. We are trying to expedite this phase of the project a little bit, knowing that we're a little bit delayed with the OPM selection. So we are aiming to get on the July designer selection panel, similar to the OPM panel, once you go through all of the designer selection interviews and view all the proposals. You'll make a selection. We'll make a selection, but there is a designer selection panel that you also need to go to, which we'll get into a little bit more as we get into the design RFS towards the end of the meeting. But that's kind of the next big key date after the OPM panel is trying to get on the July designer selection panel so that we can select a designer and hopefully in August start looking at different options, different sites, and really kind of get a sense of what this project could be.

[Erika Reinfeld]: Well, did you have a question?

[SPEAKER_19]: So we got a copy of a draft schedule right with documents. Yep. And just listening to the stuff that just here is I know he's just like we're going to try to expedite things, but the panels on June 2 but we're planning on submitting in our best MSBA on June 3 is that is this is this reflect that timeline in there as well. I mean, that seems very aggressive. So,

[Jenny Graham]: Can you just hold your question till we get to the RFS review? It is like, there's not a lot of like wiggle room in this process. Like it's a template. You cannot change it. If you change it, they will ask you to change it back. So it's not as complex as it sounds to get it out the door. It's really about like, can we get in the queue with MSBA for the right time. But we can talk about that as soon as left field is done with this part of the presentation.

[SPEAKER_06]: But we have teed it up, so we can do something similar to that, yes.

[SPEAKER_05]: All right, you want to go to the next one? Yep. You want to?

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, I think it's, it's a little redundant based on that.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, Jim Jim kind of touched on on the schools that we had chapter 74 experience and that's obviously going to be a part of this project, something we're very familiar with. Jim talked about Adele. She had Chapter 74 programs when she was the superintendent of schools. So again, a really good source of knowledge that we'll have through Adele since she went through it. And again, it really will help the educators and people that haven't been through the process before kind of understand, like, how do I get what I want into a building? And Adele will be able to kind of translate that language a little bit between education and building. CM at risk, this was something that came up on the questions and we wanted to touch base on the difference between deliverables, CM at risk and design bid build are the two kind of different contracts that you can do. The kind of easiest way to think about the differences between the two, like we have here for CM, you're hiring a construction manager service to manage a project, whereas with design bid build, you're purchasing the building based off of a series of documents. So construction manager at risk, you bring on a builder much earlier in the process, they get involved, they'll do an early estimate in schematic design, they'll work on schedule, they'll get involved in the logistics plan, it just gets the builder much more involved early on in the process. Whereas design bid build, the designer will complete the drawings, the specifications, all of the documents, and then it goes out to bid, and then a low bid wins, and then you move on from there.

[SPEAKER_06]: We'll spend significant time talking about this dual aspect of which contract methodology makes sense in future meetings, so we just want to touch base on here. It's too early, but we will talk about this at length.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it will be definitely a big point of discussion for us as we get a designer on board and start to look at the options. It's definitely a little early to start talking about it. We do have some examples of some preliminary site ideas of this site. that we'll show at the end of the presentation, and we can kind of talk about it. These are all our K to 12 projects that are being delivered under CM at risk. About 90% of what we do is constructive manager at risk. So it's something we're very familiar with, and it's something that we'll weigh as we get further into the process.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_12]: I'll kick it into the next one. So part of what we were asked to talk about during our initial meeting, which was a great, more of a longer conversation, which we love. We don't want to stand here and just talk at you. So I want to go through this very, very briefly, but what we internally talked about as a team are figuring out what are some of the challenges that we're going to be facing with this project and that's also guiding us through how we set up our team and how we can best help the project and move along. And so I know there's a lot of pieces to this project, but where we usually start with one of the biggest pieces to be helpful is understanding all the stakeholders. All the different stakeholders are all gonna have different priorities, and it's up to us to come up with a plan to make sure that everybody has the right information at the right time to really make this the most successful project that we can. If you want to move to the next slide, please. I'm not going to talk in great detail about this, but community outreach is one of the biggest pieces that make our projects successful. Part of that is utilizing a multitude of different types of tools. Obviously, in today's day and age, everything is much more geared towards technology. But we do like the meetings where we're just face-to-face talking to the community, inviting them into the conversations early on, making sure that everybody always has the right information. It's one of the key components to a successful campaign and project and getting a successful project through the whole process. And it's a great way for us to sort of be the outlet of we're fact-based, we're here to support anybody, we're here to answer any questions. And that's what we continue to do throughout the process. There's also a great way to involve the students in this particular process, especially when you have vocational classes and media programs. It's a great way for and it has been very successful on some of our other projects is to have the students get very involved with media outlets, recordings, videos, being at the meetings, helping us. They are absolutely wonderful key components of getting the information out there. So these are just some of the newsletters, media, local media, Facebook, whatever you need us to patrol, we will. The other item, which is the next slide in your presentation here is the project website and we do many different versions of it, whether it's an existing project website that we help. To update and make it more project oriented or if we start from scratch, it all depends on the district and what they're. what their wishes are. But they are a great resource for the, especially for the group in this room, to have just a QR code to send folks to this website. It's always fact-based. It's our, what I refer to as a virtual file cabinet where all the information lands, but it's all fact-based. So when When rumors are flying and people are asking you questions, you can just say, here's the QR code for this, go to this website, we'll have FAQs, we'll have all the information. Where are we in the process? Go to the website. So it's become a really, really helpful tool, especially for the school building committee to answer questions versus trying to remember what you were talking about at the last meeting and forwarding that information.

[SPEAKER_06]: So as we hear about this information or disinformation, you know, in the public, We try to create FAQs around those issues. And as Linda said, trying to make it a lot more fact-based. So when we hear things that are trying to drift, we create an FAQ around that. We give the real information. We direct people to the website. We try to control the flow of information, at least the control of facts as best we can.

[SPEAKER_12]: And the website, I should mention also, is controlled by our team. So it's quick, easy to update. That's why they're not always super flashy. high tech, but they do get the information out there very easily. And then we also have the opportunity to update things. So if something is out there, we can act on it quickly and hopefully spread more facts about the project. We did look at during the initial, when we received the request for services, we understand that there's Currently, three different sites that have been talked about part of this big process, which is why we're pushing so hard to get the designer on board because they're really the key player in getting this started. Throughout the MSBA's process, they have a series of deadlines that we have to maintain to stay within that feasibility study guideline that you have of about 26 months right now. So part of what the design team and with our help, we'll start deciphering all the different options. We are actually required by the MSBA to look at several different options. If you go to the next slide, what we did was sort of look at we sort of did our own version of looking at your site, looking at the challenges, looking at the options, and we just started diving into a little bit your existing site because it's yours, you own it, it kind of makes the most sense to start looking in that direction. The MSBA requires us to look at both a new building, an ad reno, and just strictly a code upgrade to the building, to the existing building. The code upgrade requires you to not move any walls. So it very quickly. I have it on good authority that so far. I don't think anybody is actually chosen that option because if you're in this program, you most likely have inefficience. classroom sizes and hallways and inefficient buildings. But they do require us and the design team to do very, very detailed studies of each one of the options. So what we did was just sort of look at your sites. Is there even room to do a renovation? And the short answer is yes, this is This is our experience of what we've done on previous projects and just having the experience of being builders in our background. There's definitely an option of being able to do a renovation if you go to the next one. There's the addition and even the addition and renovation, there's still enough room and then everything else that anything else that could be added to that, whether it's trying to acquire more land or anything like that are obviously going to be helpful and be very, very great to study in more details to possibly maybe alleviate some of the traffic problems, for instance, if you're having more leeway with a little more space. But those are all part of what's going to be studied. And we've had projects where we started out with 23 different options that have been whittled down to 11, down to three. And then once you get about halfway through the feasibility study, you ultimately have to make a decision as a committee, what you think is the preferred site. And that could be anything at this point. We don't know. And you're going to be hearing that from us a lot. We don't know yet. But that's part of what the next 24 to 26 months are going to take you through.

[SPEAKER_03]: So this may fall into the legal category, but when I got into this property, Google Maps, it strikes me that it's surrounded by a lot of state-managed forest. Is that completely off the table to require some of the adjacent land? I don't know what the rules are for an organization like the DCR that manages acres and acres of forest

[SPEAKER_12]: It is absolutely in the realm of possibility. It has been done before. I haven't done it personally. Lynn Stapleton, our project advisor, has done that process before. It's lengthy, it's complicated, but it's not unobtainable. And these are all parts and pieces that come into play when the design team is on board and we start running options and also, of course, there's the never ending budget and with budget comes time, right? So there are certain things that might just not make sense because they're just going to be too time consuming and you're going to end up losing your MSBA participation because it would take too long, et cetera. The list is long, but the short answer is it has been done before. It's not an impossibility at all, but we as a team will look at all possibilities. But yes, it is too early to tell. If you wouldn't mind going to the last slide, we just kind of wanted to highlight that, yes, you could also build a new building on this site. It's not out of the realm of possibilities either. It's actually quite common for us, especially high schools, unless you're talking about Revere, who just happened to have 18 acres sitting around that nobody wanted. sure, but if you don't have that luxury, a lot of our projects, in particular the high school projects, we do the sort of flip-flop is you build a new building in the fields, you contend with not having great opportunities for the athletics team for a while, but you build a new building and then tear down the old building and build the fields or replace the fields in that location. So there's definitely, and that's also going to be considered an option. And again, that is staying within the confines of your site. But all this is gonna get studied. The size of the building is going to get studied. The size of the building is gonna come down to what your student enrollment is. Each student has a required space. What are the additional programs that you're trying to put in here? You've got your pre-K and your, all the other programs, district programs that are going to be in this building. So it's going to be a fine line of trying to come up with that space and really trying to figure out how big is this building? How many stories do you go up? Do you build the parking garages? I don't know. There's lots of different, the sky is essentially the limit, but it's going to be coming down to the team to work with the school building committee to find an option that is, as I like to refer to, educationally appropriate, but also fiscally possible. So that's going to be a lot of fine lines to walk in between, but that's what we're here for. That's what we're here to help guide you guys through. So I think that was the end of sort of, this is a sadly much shorter version of what the board

[Jenny Graham]: selection committee had to sit through but.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Are there any other questions? Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_12]: Absolutely. This is why the designer selection and getting the designer on board is so important, because they will have some consultants for just about everything. Actually, if you want to, Jenny, we could move into the designer selection process. That's actually one of the items as a segue, if you wanted to.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. If there are no more questions, the other thing that we did want to talk a little bit about tonight was the next step. So assuming all goes well on June 2nd and we execute the contract, the next step is to bring the architects into the mix, right? So that we can really begin the study work. And if you recall, what we did with the RFS for the OPM back in February is we looked at the redlined copy There were some suggestions made by this group. There was a vote to approve as amended, and then that went over to the MSBA. They weighed in, we finalized it, and it went out the door, and here we are. So the idea that the selection team was pushing as we were having conversations with potential partners, was how can we accelerate to the point where we actually get to do the work, right? How do we get to the point where we get to do the feasibility study? And so I joked with actually all of the finalists that it's like my fleeting wish that my Sandra graduates in 2029 sees the inside of something new before he leaves. So, and everyone laughed, but I think they also knew I was serious. And I think for all of us, particularly those people who have kids in this building now. Every day is like one day that we shouldn't have to wait, you know, we don't want to have to wait anymore right so the question in my mind is how do we accelerate this process as best we can, so that we can spend time in the part of the process where time needs to be spent, which is going to be this design, this design phase. So I did ask left field to give us a like most aggressive path scenario to getting the designer on board. So I'm going to let them talk a little bit about the process, because it's quite different than what we just did. There's some similarities, but the selection process is quite different. So do you want to take it away, and then we can talk about questions about the draft at RFS that we sent out.

[SPEAKER_08]: Marissa? I just want to clarify. purely the designer for the feasibility study, correct? Correct.

[Libby Brown]: Yes, so, right, there's an option.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, guaranteed that they will. Okay, exactly. Yeah, so everything that we're doing right now, it's all for the first stage, which is the feasibility study that we currently have running for about 26 months. Part of that is the first part, as Jenny mentioned, is the designer selection process. It's part of MSBA's module of how you form the team that are going to be looking at this building. And so the DSP is the designer selection panel, which is an actual 13-member panel that the MSBA actually has. already assigned. It's a series of folks that have architectural engineering background, school background, all sort of all related to this. They have a very rigid process as you mentioned. The designer RFS is basically it's a 12-page document where you can change the name of the school and the number of enrollment and the square footage that you currently have and that's about it. Um, MSBA is, is, is then in charge of reviewing that provided that you haven't made any changes to the document, uh, which is why we already started working on that in the background. And then they have monthly, they have two meetings every month where the first one is sort of a, a review process, uh, with that designer selection panel. And then you have three panel members from the district. So you have three from here and then 13 from the MSBA. So you then have the whole designer RFS process, which you have asked some questions about earlier. So the key is that we want to try and get that out for advertisement as quickly as possible. The MSBA has a certain review time that they require. I think it's 10 business days just to review that Word document that you can't really change. So there, that's when the clock starts taking right and then we we advertise central register only advertises on Wednesdays. So now your, your timeline is is crunched a little bit further. But the way we've laid the schedule out is to literally the day after we're We've been blessed as the OPM for by the MSBA on that OPM panel, which we've done on every single project. Never had any issues. We're not anticipating any issues.

[SPEAKER_06]: I was just like today. I was in the Bay's version today.

[SPEAKER_12]: Exactly. And so once we get through that, we'll be able to start helping with the designer selection process right away. So the RFS, we've already created the draft and sent it to Jenny to send it over to the MSBA so they can start their review time. We advertise. It has to be out for advertisement for three weeks. We have to have a walkthrough for the design firms. they then submit their proposals and then left field has a series of reviews that we have to do for all the design firms that have submitted designer proposals. Most of those documents you'll see some examples in the little package that we gave here. Most of them are references and they do also ask us to fill out a long list of who the sub consultants are, which is where there'll be one for traffic, there'll be one for educational programming, there'll be one for hazmat material, one for geotech and all the different categories. And so what we will do is we will go through all these proposals and fill out all the required documents that then goes to the MSBA. The reason why The timeline is so tight because once we get all those proposals submitted. We then have to turn this around and send it to the MSBA very, very quickly. So I think we've allotted actually a week to just get all that information over to the MSBA, because they will not put you in the district on the list of those upcoming meetings unless they have all this documentation in hand.

[Jenny Graham]: And I think one of the things that wasn't immediately clear to me about how different this is, is this panel of 13, will pick our designer and we have three seats at that table. The other 10 seats are MSBA seats. So people who don't live in Medford have no connection to us, but obviously have connections in the industry and are representatives of MSBA because they will play a significant financial role in all of this. they will have more votes than Medford does and who the designer ultimately is. So, and I think the other thing that wasn't clear to me necessarily like at the beginning because it is like a complete departure from what we just did, is that those three seats for Medford are the mayor, the superintendent, and one designee from the school committee. So that is how the team gets formed from Medford's perspective. And then they are participants in this broader panel of 13. And the panel makes the decision about who our designer will ultimately be.

[SPEAKER_12]: and it's all numbers-based, right? So there's, at the end of each one of those two panel meetings, there'll be an actual vote where they just rank the proposals. So it's important for our team to review these documents and these proposals as they come in from the design firms to make sure that we give you guidance of who's done this before, who's got the right consultants, who's got the right team, What other projects are they working on or spending time on? Do they have the time and efforts? What is the experience level of their senior team? Or do they have a lot of people or fewer people on their team, et cetera? All those things are up to us to give the guidance to the three members so that the members can go into this with a clear view of who you like and who you'd like to be the finalists.

[Libby Brown]: That's the interview process. How does that RFPs get narrowed down to the shortlist for interviews? Is that the same 13? Yeah.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. So that's the first meeting. So we have two meetings in July that we're aiming for. So at the first one, they will just start ranking for interviews. And then the second meeting at the end of that month is when they actually have the actual interviews. Everything is done virtual. with the MSBA, there's no in-person meetings anymore. But they will rank them. And if you don't have enough folks that actually submit proposals, which I don't see that as being an issue at all. We've already heard people that are showing interest. So I don't see that as being an issue, but definitely, as Jenny mentioned, you're three out of the 13. So there's a lot of opinions, but it's important to get the right design firm selected. Again, this is also at this point, just qualification based. So once they've designated the top ranked firm, you then go into contract negotiations. And if they can't agree on a contract amount that fits the budget for the Medford High School project, you're allowed to go to the next, the second rank, but you have to go in the order of the firms that have been ranked. And yes, we just went through that on a different project where the top ranked firm just wouldn't budge. And the district kind of felt like, this is not the team player that we wanna really work with. But again, it just, the process, the time, right?

[SPEAKER_19]: Philip? Are the meetings, the MSBA meetings, the committee meetings, public at all or only those 13 people in that?

[SPEAKER_12]: They're public.

[SPEAKER_19]: They're public.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yep. They're actually published on the MSBA project website.

[Jenny Graham]: So you're welcome to attend even if Medford is not there. There's no input though.

[SPEAKER_06]: No, yeah.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, absolutely. Yep.

[Keene]: Tracy? So Linda or Jim, thanks. Is this part, what I'm trying to think about, what's wrong with it is that we only have three people from Medford. In your experience other dealing with this, how have you related that to the community? Because it seems like it's going to be, you know, only three people from every get to decide who the designer is going to be seems kind of a huge, one of those FAQs that you've been talking about in terms of communicating with the community.

[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. One of the keys from that perspective where it's three versus the larger MSBA panel is they do ask your opinion first. So you can kind of set the tone as to what you saw, what you thought about, and that kind of sets the tone in the room for what you're thinking. And for the most part, they try to go along with that and they try to support that. There are times they don't. For example, if the architect we all love just won a job, guess what? The MSBA is probably not going to be as supportive because they try to make sure everyone's well balanced in terms of the design community. And we know that. We'll know the architects we're talking about in our deliberations may have just won a job. So we'll help. Inform the public and this committee specifically about what we know about the specific architects we're talking about who are proposed. You know, Libby, you'll know that, you know, also, are we looking for someone that is kind of more meat and potatoes architect that is going to just kind of give a design to budget, or are we looking for someone that's going to push the design edge, right, and give us something really exciting? That sometimes reflects the personality of the committee we're dealing with. Sometimes people want to see, you know, a design push. Sometimes people want to see, you know, a very basic design that fits their budget needs. So we're going to learn a lot about you. We're going to help you talk, we're going to let you know what the personalities of the architects are, have they won a job, all the things that go into what the MSBA might be thinking. But I repeat myself, we at least have the chance to leave that meeting off and talk about what we saw, what we find, what we want, meaning Medford. And that does set the tone of the room.

[SPEAKER_12]: And I think just to also in sort of retrospect, the flip side of that conversation when you're talking to the public right, why didn't you have more of a, why doesn't Medford have more of a voice. I think the key point to highlight is MSBA is an organization, they are your funding partner. They have very strict guidelines that unfortunately if you've applied for this program, you're going to get some significant dollars from them. And unfortunately, one of the drawbacks are that they have a very prescriptive process, right? So people are going to question timeframes, timelines, reimbursement. all those parts and pieces. And that's what we're here to help, to make sure that you get as much as possible of what Medford needs and wants, but still getting the maximum reimbursement from the MSBA. And that sort of goes throughout the whole process. But yes, there are some guidelines that they are very prescriptive with, because they do participate in a lot of money on these projects. So it's kind of a little bit of a give and take, I would say, in that aspect. The key point for us is always to make sure that the three members of the district that goes into this have a clear what they want, what the district wants, and have that information to be able to give that to the panel as you go into these meetings. That's going to be the key. And it's up to us to educate those members and the school building committee on those.

[Paul Ruseau]: when we are going into our second meeting where the actual selection will happen. is it just us or are there gonna be people queued up just before us and they could literally choose the person that was our favorite like 10 minutes before we come on?

[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it's happening.

[Paul Ruseau]: Okay, so y'all gotta be prepared to change your minds in a second.

[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I think one thing to just keep in mind about this process is that like by the time we get to the point where we're selecting who's going to be the designer. Everybody is extremely qualified. Everybody, like all those firms are going to be very qualified. They all have passed like the rigorous requirements to even get to that point so that like you know it's kind of sticks of one half dozen of the other at the end of the day. Obviously we're all going to have our preference of who we wanted to be but like we as a community might not even all agree on that one awesome one is going to be. And then just separately another talking point that I think can help bring people along in the process about us not having or Medford as a community not having as big a say in the whole thing is that we have never done this before. Like we don't have the expertise, the MSBA has the expertise. They're the ones who we're like bringing along as our partner to help us guide us through this process to make sure that we get the best design and the best building, the best project that we can get out of it at the end of the day.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay. Well, you know, it's very interesting examples where the FDA offered to readjust their reimbursement rate based on the cost of the project. In the worst case, They offer a reimbursement rate, say, of 50%. When the project is finalized, the cost of 50% will exceed their MSBA's appetite for reimbursement, so they're going to adjust that. And you can encounter examples of that.

[SPEAKER_12]: The short answer is yes, and that is going to happen. And stay tuned for the 10-page presentation on MSBA reimbursements, how it works, what's to come. It's a series of, in short terms, they give you a reimbursement rate on day one, which is only applicable to the feasibility study. After that, when it comes to your actual project reimbursement, there's an entirely different scenario. They start with that same percentage, yes, but then there's a series of caps for construction, for site work, for ineligible items such as pools and other items that they deem ineligible. So it's our job and the designer's job to make sure that from the beginning when you start the design of that building figuring out weighing those options, right? What's going to be the most beneficial to Medford and the students and the faculty? And yes, that might mean that MSBA's reimbursement rate is going to go down. There will be items that they're not going to reimburse you on. And that is a very long, very complex process. But in short, by the time you finish the feasibility study, You then sign the project funding agreement with the MSBA, which is what leads the project to move forward into actual design, final design and construction. And at that point, you will have their, what they refer to as their final offer and you will know going into that next step. what their reimbursement is going to be, provided that, of course, you don't make changes during construction and start shifting things, because then, again, that reimbursement is going to start shifting. But more to come on that. Lots of lengthy, very complex calculations, and you will love to see the spreadsheet that we refer to as the 3011.

[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves here, right? This is an introduction, but we're going to have meetings on the designer selection process. We're going to have meetings on eligibility and funding. We're going to have meetings on, you know, CM at risk versus lump sum, the design, the build. So, you know, that's where the community engagement comes in.

[SPEAKER_12]: there'll be lots of meetings. And this is, again, this is just the beginning. This is just the feasibility study. And so I think it's important to know also going back to the designer selection and that whole process is that the contract that you're signing, that you're negotiating with that design firm is only for the feasibility study. At the end of that, once you have schematic design is finished and the project is sort of finalized to a certain extent, then the OPM and the design firm will give you proposals as well as the CM if you have one on board. And that'll be part of the project budget moving forward. But everything that we're doing right now is only through feasibility study.

[SPEAKER_14]: Erica, did I see your hand in the back?

[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I was wondering if you could speak to how unique this process is for schools in particular, because I think to Tracy's point about community questions about why did it happen this way, and people's reference point is likely other construction projects that they've been involved in. And so is this typical across building projects, or is this really a singular experience for the MSBA process. Maybe Marissa can answer that. When my work was rebuilt, this happened. And this is what is going to be inundated. And so I'm curious if you can, in a nutshell,

[SPEAKER_12]: This is MSBA. The specialty part has four letters in it. It's MSBA. MSBA's process is a series of modules with very prescriptive forms that have to be filled out. They have scheduled dates for their meetings. You'll have to go through different steps of meetings, all that are very prescriptive, all public meetings, but they've already published the dates for the entire year of 2025. So we already know that the good part is we already know. So we can start planning ahead. The bad part is that we don't know what's going to happen in 2026 but fortunately for us, the MSBA is very rigorous and very restrictive. We already know, we can sort of guess what the dates are going to be in 2026 because we know that they take a break in February and there are no board meetings. in March. So you have a series of different panels and committees that you deal with throughout the umbrella of the MSVA. And this, I believe, is very unique for any public work.

[SPEAKER_06]: We do a lot of municipal projects with libraries and town hall and fire departments and public safeties. And we work on public colleges with some of the authorities we talked about, but it's very different. You're right. This process is unique to all of us. As Linda keeps using it, it's true. It's like a black box. It's very prescriptive on how we move forward. And we're going to follow along with those rules with you and educate this team as we go.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_06]: You're welcome.

[Jenny Graham]: Any other questions about anything you've heard so far? So you all should have received the marked up copy of the RFS that we ultimately need to prepare to send to MSBA to get that designer selection out on the street. A couple of notes about it. As Linda said, there's very little opportunity to change anything. And if you change something, they will tell you to change it back. But any place that was for us to infuse information about Medford. All of that information is practically identical to what was published in our RFS to hire the OPM, which has already been vetted and approved by the MSBA. So this came together so quickly because Matt is dedicated to our project, but also because he had lots of good material to work with to actually sort of infuse the Medford specifics into this document. So having said all of that, changes are welcome, as long as you're not asking me to change something that MSBA doesn't allow us to change. But I did want to ask this group, as you review this, do you have questions or things you would like to see us tweak in here? And or are you ready to take a vote to approve? So first questions.

[SPEAKER_19]: So the only question I have is that it seems like everything's prescriptive, and I've read the most of it. It's mostly fine. It's really on the timeline of the issuing out the RFS and then the selection, right, in three weeks. So we talked about the importance of hiring the right designer, and there's really not much else to control. But that is something to control, to make the timeline. Is that enough time for designers to Evaluate all the information, the uniqueness of the site, the constraints that we have to pull together a strong proposal so that we can. That they understand what the project is, right? 3 weeks teams. These designers are also going to be doing the full time job designing buildings or whatever they're doing. So they're going to be getting these proposals in. and as an extra, right? So the three weeks just seem to compress things. I know that we're trying to meet a deadline, but I also think that if we make the wrong selection, it hurts the company even more, because you want to find the right designer to get through the schematic, and then hopefully they're good enough where they're going to go through the entire thing. You don't want to change designers after that, right?

[Jenny Graham]: So we allowed the OPMs three weeks. So we provided the same quick timeline. and we had 10 respondents. I believe there were probably some architects in the like ether during our during our tour. I don't know who they were, but they're already here. They're watching our meetings and all of that good stuff. And when I told the MSBA that we had 10 respondents, they were like, wow. So that even seemed like a lot of interest to what they typically see. So I think the three weeks didn't harm us in the OPM selection process. So that's like the data point I can share. But you all might have some other data to share. Yeah.

[SPEAKER_12]: May I? Yeah. Sitting on the other side of that table, the good part is that the RFS is very prescriptive. The good news is that's very prescriptive. So if they've applied, if they work on MSBA projects, which most likely all these designers have, and you will want somebody that has been working on previous MSBA projects, they've got all that data already pulled together, because the RFS asks for points in specific.

[SPEAKER_19]: But I'm working on specific, so I would like to see a proposal that designers look and come up with some, you know, some good ideas on the site and stuff like that. I'm just wondering if that's enough time to allow that to happen, you know. So it's an excellent question.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. And there is. There's also the other part of the RFS is that they're limited to the number of things that they can submit. And they have to submit certain things that are part of that RFS. And it keeps, I know it sounds like a broken record, but That's really the only piece that they're really going to focus on is the network specific, how they stand out to the other firms. Because the rest of it, 98% of that response is so prescriptive. They already have everything out. They already know what they're going to be focusing on. And most of them have already started focusing on that. That's why they attend the OPM walks and meetings. They scour the MSBA news just to learn more about each project, each district. And three weeks is actually, in response to some of the processes that we have to go through, three weeks is actually generous.

[SPEAKER_06]: I think it's great for a question.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_06]: I thought that they might want to respond. I agree with Thomas, but I also agree with Linda that I think a lot of people working on it now, a lot of them know the responses they need to do, so it's how do they, to your point, deal with the specific side issues. And I think three weeks might be enough for them to deal with that. But again, it's a very, very good question.

[Paul Ruseau]: Also, one of the things I was surprised when we were doing the finalists was, and I forget which group, Maybe it was two of the three groups, but they're like, oh, we've been planning for this project for a year now, watching all your meetings. So that was a surprise to me. I guess it shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was a surprise that when we issue the RFS or the RFP or whatever, that's not when people find out about this. If that's when they found out, they probably weren't who we wanted anyways because they were not paying enough attention. If we were putting this on a square piece of land like in Revere, you could probably get away with a lot, but this is not.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the first thing is the shortlist.

[SPEAKER_06]: The second thing is that when that shortlist takes what they know and they have to create an interview, right, and they have a lot of specifics around the site, kind of a presentation, and they spent a lot of money, and they have been spending a lot of time thinking about this. But it's really the time on that second interview piece that is the right time for them to do that correctly.

[SPEAKER_03]: Other questions, Luke? So I can't. I'm going to save it at least for the last minute. So if any one of us went to a real estate broker and said, our range is from half a million dollars to $2 million. I'm looking for a house. Common Sense tells us that we should be able to see a lot of $2 million houses. Our RFS, both for OPM and designer, in states of range from 200 to 600 million. On the low end of the range, Stoneman built a school for around $200 million, gave it half the student population. For us, there would be a low frills fund. On the high end, at $600 million, he would be signing up for the most expensive high school in the country. And I think that our reimbursement rate would be effective for something that much higher than what I see it being. Walk-in school costs around $400 million. That was our school. That was your school.

[SPEAKER_06]: And in fact, I'll also say that Madison Park is probably going to come up with a $600 or $700 million range. Another project we're doing, Brockton, is going to be probably north of 6. So there are other projects out there in the Commonwealth that are going to be in that range. But I agree with you. I think it's all going to be based on enrollment, because enrollment's going to set the size of the school, and then it's going to be about the Chapter 74 programs we choose. So those will all kind of set the square footage, and from there, we can determine what the, you know, what the cost might be based on this information. Because we have a lot of data with that, and the MSBA has a lot of data with that.

[Jenny Graham]: And Luke, based on your same question from the last RFS, I had a conversation with MSBA about that range, and we talked about the intention being that we don't know what this project exactly is, whether we're staying here, whether we're renovating, whether we're building something completely new, and so the range, was intended to reflect sort of our willingness and openness to hear what the options are. And the MSBA was completely satisfied with that answer and we moved right along. So I don't think that designers and, like you all saw that same number. I hope that's what it said to you, but that certainly was the impression of everybody who came through the tour was like, Yeah, there's a lot of things that could happen here. That's partly why it's so desirable, based on what people are telling us in these in the walkthroughs, like people are salivating over this project because there's like something for literally everybody like, oh, if you like a tight site, we've got that. If you like a site that's surrounded by wetlands, we've got that. Like if you are like a logistics moving expert, this is the place for you. Like there's just something really, and you know, we have one egress. We have all these things that are like really appealing. So I think that that didn't, you know, we didn't get a single question about that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so my question is, do we have the opportunity to adjust the upper bound of our zoning for this upcoming bar test?

[Jenny Graham]: I think the question is, why would we do that?

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, the response would be for the sticker shock test.

[Jenny Graham]: Sticker shock to who?

[SPEAKER_03]: To the people who are going to be seeing tax increases.

[Jenny Graham]: We aren't asking for tax increases right now.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's a matter of opinion. So if you would like to make a motion, we can vote on it. But that's up to you. Okay, so there's a motion on the floor by Luke to adjust the upper bound to $400 million.

[SPEAKER_19]: So if you adjust it to $400 million, and you do this betting or whatever, and an estimate is common, there's different alternatives. But one of the alternatives is over $400 million. Does that take the alternative out if you can't even because it's out of your range?

[SPEAKER_06]: No. I think there are guidelines in the NFS, the weather could go higher or lower than those guidelines. What it's really made for, I believe, what the range does is it So there is a motion on the floor. Is there a second?

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: through the chair.

[Jenny Graham]: Mayor?

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I couldn't hear Luke. I couldn't hear Luke. So what is the motion to not exceed $400 million?

[Jenny Graham]: The motion is to change the language in the RFS so that the upper number in the RFS is $400 million instead of $600 million. It's just about what is being published in the RFS.

[Paul Ruseau]: What was that, Mayor?

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: To left field, just so I can, I mean, I've been paying attention, but when you said Brockton was more along the lines of 600 million, how many students is that comparable to the number we have certified?

[SPEAKER_06]: Quite a bit more, probably could be even double. Yeah.

[SPEAKER_15]: Over here is 500, close to 500 million.

[Unidentified]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_14]: I think it's 1450.

[Jenny Graham]: So that's about the same as our design enrollment.

[SPEAKER_14]: Yep. And that's in 497. Yeah.

[SPEAKER_06]: What's going to happen with the site, right? There's a lot that's going to go into this that we don't know yet.

[Libby Brown]: I think there's a number of limits on us. What's that? I don't think this is the time to put limits on us. It's like, keep it open. And certainly, I'm sure costs will be carefully scrutinized. MSBA will definitely, we have a $600 million project, the MSBA says that doesn't match your enrollment, or it might include things they're not even reimbursing us for, like a new pool or administrative offices. I'm sure we'll be looking at that carefully.

[SPEAKER_12]: as Jim says, it guides you to the capacity and experience of the architectural firm, right? If you put it too low, you run the risk of getting firms that are smaller, that are used to designing elementary schools, that are in the 50 to 150 range, right? So the numbers in the RFS for us, and we take it the same way, is just a guidance of the size of the project. Because like you said, it comes down to the enrollment. It comes down to so many different parts and pieces.

[SPEAKER_06]: I'm going to agree that probably 600 is too high based on where I think we might come in. But would I change anything yet? Probably not. That's probably where I could balance.

[Paul Ruseau]: Can I ask a question? Sure. I've only paid enough attention to know that sometimes the MSBA, because inflation will be generous and make adjustments. But that's assuming the economy is doing okay. So, if inflation, we saw a chart, I don't know whose chart it was.

[SPEAKER_06]: 13, 14, 15%, a year increase.

[Paul Ruseau]: you know, if we do see them at risk, we're gonna call the number and that's gonna be the number. And that's great. But until we've gotten to that point, we have no idea what that inflation, that's not in a year. We're not doing that in a year. So if we look at another 15 or more percent increase between now and then, That's a lot of money. And so I'm concerned that if we set a number too low, things go up 25%, which by the way, is not unimaginable in this weird world we live in right now. We will not, we will instead just be deciding which programs we're cutting. That's what we'll do. That is the only path that will go forward is we will just decide we're gonna skip this vocational program. We're gonna stop having before and after preschool in the building or whatever. Theater, it's tiny or theater.

[SPEAKER_06]: Where are towers gonna take us?

[Paul Ruseau]: Well, yeah, I have no idea.

[SPEAKER_06]: I would love to know.

[Paul Ruseau]: So that's my concern is that I don't, a $600 million project today, like if it was just built right this second, is not an appropriate project for Medford's size or its, you know, financial demographics. But what does it look like in five years? Or four years, three years? Whatever number makes baby happy. It's just unimaginable because I think that it's like, if you had told me we were paying $10 for a carton of eggs two or three years ago, I would have been like, you're a lunatic. And here we are. So I don't want us to like, get all the way through and stumble because we decided something what would have been two or three years ago. And maybe we will get to that point, and it'll be $600 million and the voters will be like, we just can't do it. And that's always an option. But I'd rather they have the option to do that rather than to sell a project

[SPEAKER_06]: This is exactly the process we go through, right? They don't want options and making sure the numbers that marry those options and scope marries marriage budget. So these are all things. These are all the things we're going to contemplate over the next two years together.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, and every I will also say with 100% certainty that any number that we give to anyone for from a budget standpoint. Is always calculated for the future, In terms of your starting feasibility study right now, we have roughly 26 months for that. So that's two years and then you're going to have another year of design. And so most likely your project would not actually bid out for construction until late 27, 28, right? And so every number that any of the design firms or any of us ever project or tell you is always going to have the dreaded word escalation in it, because we have to tell you, we're going to tell you what it's going to potentially cost to build this in 2028. Not today, but on the flip side of that, what makes it very dangerous is when people go on the MSBA website and they look and they say, oh, this project was built for $150 million. Well, that was in 2007 that it was bid out. But because construction takes two, three, four years, Things shift so it's very important, especially in a time like this with historical data as you saw in our chart in our proposal that there's huge drastic changes right now that have been happening in the last two to three years. We are most likely never going to see them come down. What we can see is hopefully some leveling out for various different reasons. There's going to be some gives and takes. Right now, everybody's all about the tariffs. We don't know where the tariffs are going to be in three months. They might go away. But then on the flip side, the market right now is great for bidders. And we've seen lower numbers come in. So there's a lot of different things that are going to play into this. But again, this is not something that's going to be determined Today, or when you ask for proposals from the design firms, they're not in charge of that direction. It is strictly just to give guidelines for what the project size could be. Not that it should be or won't be.

[SPEAKER_10]: Aaron, did you have your hand up?

[Aaron Olapade]: Yeah, so when it comes to like it's tough to navigate because of all the questions about tariffs. And I think that even when you think about the political landscape and how there's such a flux and how things are going up and things are down, a lot of organizations at the federal level and state level are all holding onto their money because of the question marks that they're having. I'm seeing this with the work that I do, where state funding and grant proposals and things like that. But I've been doing some work on this. Madison Technical Voc in the Roxbury neighborhood, there are about 1,200 kids or so by designation. That's the current proposal. So same thing with that. That's a much bigger population. It's like 23 2400 students, but they're looking at a 660 million bill. So I think that like the cost of just randomly going up. I do think that like obviously there are bills that are much cheaper for a higher student population, but they are going higher. So I think to put a amount of students are projected, but that limit feels like a bit of a quick decision this early on, personally.

[SPEAKER_03]: Luke. So Waltham is a great example. I looked at Waltham's RFS's And they actually started lower bound when they initially sought out both VM and designers. And then in the course of their project, things changed. I think they changed the site. They had some zoning issues. And there was more blasting. And so the price escalated. And I think it ultimately topped out at like $380 million. But their RFS range, was much smaller than that. They weren't talking about $1,200 in high school when they worked for designers and architects. I have it somewhere here in my computer, but it was like, what was it? I think it was around a cap. I'd have to look it up.

[SPEAKER_06]: Right. I think that's what the- So it can go the other way. Right. I think that's what some of the folks are saying here. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I hear them.

[Jenny Graham]: So there is a motion on the floor, but there is not a second. Is there a second?

[Aaron Olapade]: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

[Jenny Graham]: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

[Paul Ruseau]: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No. No.

[Jenny Graham]: OK. Dr. Galussi. No. Dr. Cushing.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: No.

[Jenny Graham]: Marta Cabral. No. Libby Brown. No. Marissa Desmond. No. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. No. Tracy Keene.

[Unidentified]: No.

[Jenny Graham]: Emily Lazzaro. No. Nicole Morell. No. Erin Olapade. No. Luke Prisner. Yes. Joan Bowen. No. So that is two in the affirmative, 13 in the negative, motion fails. OK. Are there other questions or comments about the RFS?

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Maria? I would just like to make a comment about that range, too. I think when we go out into the community and try to sell this, that $600 million number is going to hurt. I know when I first heard that we might bust $300 million, I gasped. But I'm getting used to the numbers now after being here, talking about it, finding out what other communities have spent. If there is the opportunity to have a number that won't scare people, because that's part of our job is going out there and selling the project to the community, then I like the idea of being able to give. I think no matter what we do, those numbers are enormous. I just think that it would be a little bit easier than 600 million to the people in Medford.

[Jenny Graham]: So this is just about the RFS to get the designer on board. Our communications team will help us with that, but we should not be saying this project will cost $600 million. That's not the intention of that number at this time. And so we can certainly, you know, people have questions about that. We can certainly publish some FAQs. This is, this is just part of the process, and it's a very, very early part of that process. Are there any other questions, comments, thoughts about the RFS, Bill?

[SPEAKER_19]: Just one correction. Sure. The page 11, it says, July 31st. The other schedule, I think that is the 13th.

[Jenny Graham]: So we'll align that. Okay. And these represent like the fastest possible scenario, which will be contingent on whether MSBA has space for us in those timelines and all of that. So that timeline could change based on their feedback as well. Are there other changes to the RFS? Is there a motion to approve the RFS as amended? So moved. By Dr. Galusi. Is there a second?

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Second.

[Jenny Graham]: By Marissa Desmond. I will call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi. Yes. Dr. Cushing. Yes. Marta Cabral. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Marissa Desmond. Yes. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Tracy Keene.

[Keene]: Yes.

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

[SPEAKER_03]: Abstain.

[Jenny Graham]: And Joan Bowen. Yes. So 14 in the affirmative, one abstention. RFS is approved as amended. Thank you. So we will get that to MSBA and start working with them to try to get on the calendar as quickly as they will let us. Because then the real exciting stuff happens. Just doing a time check. We're a few minutes before the end of the meeting. Are there any other questions for our friends at left field here? And if not, is there a motion to adjourn? Questions?

[Keene]: I have one.

[Jenny Graham]: Sure.

[Keene]: What is our timeline as a committee?

[Jenny Graham]: That is a great question. I don't know the answer to that. Maybe our left field friends can help us with that. Can you give us a sense of what we should expect as a team in terms of meeting going forward?

[SPEAKER_12]: Yes. Typically, the school building committee meetings we generalize at once a month. But going back to your question about capacity and flow, there will be times where Uh, we might be able to go to twice a month or there might be times where we're waiting on something and we'll skip them. um that is sort of generally speaking it's but there will be very specific dates that the msba has in their deadlines such as the designer selection panel so you will have to have those members assigned and to be adhering to that schedule that we have in our presentation and then there'll be other dates where we have to match up approvals, because as a team, we won't ever submit anything to the MSBA unless it's been a formal vote by the school building committee. Because we actually have to give the MSBA the meeting notes and the agendas and all those dates. So there could be dates where or months where if we have a big submission coming up we need the SPC's approval a couple of days prior to that to give the design team enough time to get it into the MSBA. So those could fluctuate a little bit but generally speaking it's once a month and the beginning stages of once the designer is on board is that educational programming and that is very detailed It's encouraged that as many people show up as possible, especially from the SBC group. But that's going to be involving the faculty, the students, the community, parents, teachers, everyone. And those, so those will sort of get interspersed in between that. Once the designers on board, they come up with what they call a work plan. which basically sort of lays out the next 20 to 24 months of what the deliverables are and what the meetings are going to be. So that'll give you a really good idea of timeframes and frequency of all the different meetings, but we're going to be hanging out a lot.

[Keene]: If this selection goes as planned, do we need to vote on the third member? And if so, is that going to be you? Or should we go ahead and preempt it?

[Jenny Graham]: The school committee votes on that, is my understanding. That's correct, the school committee, not the school building committee. Is that correct?

[SPEAKER_06]: I think it's been done by this body, but we'll check on that. I think it's been done by this body, but we can get to that. So my thought is, right after we hopefully get approved at the OPM panel, we can then set up a meeting to get a little bit more into the designer selection process, talk about the voting of the three members, and then moving on. So that could be, we'll get a meeting set up, an agenda set out, all around the DSP process, and possibly vote for three members.

[Jenny Graham]: Okay, great. And if the school committee needs to take action, I can give you- We will follow up on that. We'll be okay in June, so we'll be good there.

[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, the key is we wanna make sure that it gives you enough time to have the DSP members assigned and have them know exactly what their deliverables are to match those MSBA meetings. But yeah, I don't believe that the school committee votes on anything for the MSBA other than enrollment questions.

[Paul Ruseau]: We'll verify that. is the DSP. I know the DSP is the three folks that go and have their votes. Are they the only ones who actually participate in doing this election?

[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.

[Paul Ruseau]: So if you get 30 respondents, only those three people are allowed to sit and do that work.

[SPEAKER_06]: We'll talk about what happened We can talk about what comes in as a group, what people saw, we can talk about that. But the three people that are the ones that talk at the DSP, but we can talk as a group what the general committee liked and disliked about the respondents.

[Paul Ruseau]: Oh, great.

[Jenny Graham]: We get 30 responses, we'll meet back.

[Paul Ruseau]: Well, that's nice. I mean, even the 10 responses, it's like if it's just, I mean, we added people because there's so much. Yeah.

[Jenny Graham]: Are there any other questions from the group?

[Keene]: I assume this is confidential. What's that? I assume this is confidential.

[Jenny Graham]: It is a matter of public record, but if somebody would like a copy of that, you can ask them to send a records request, and we will share it that way until the contract is signed. Okay, I'll call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Yes. Dr. Galussi. Yes. Dr. Cushing. Yes. Marta Cabral. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Marissa Desmond. Yes. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Tracy Keene. Yes. Emily Lazzaro. Yes. Nicole Morell. Yes. Aaron Olathe. Yes. Luke Preissner. Yes. And Joan Bowen. Yes.

Jenny Graham total time: 22.18 minutes total words: 3293	Aaron Olapade total time: 1.38 minutes total words: 214	Paul Ruseau total time: 4.36 minutes total words: 706	Erika Reinfeld total time: 0.7 minutes total words: 104
Breanna Lungo-Koehn total time: 1.26 minutes total words: 208