[Jenny Graham]: Okay. Hi, everyone. Happy summer. I will read the meeting notice before we call the roll. Please be advised that there will be a full building committee meeting of the Medford Conference of High School Building Committee via remote participation only. The meeting can be viewed live on Medford Public Schools' YouTube channel, through Medford Community Media on your local cable channel, which is Comcast 9, 8, or 22, and Verizon 43, 45, or 47. The meeting will be recorded. Participants can log in by using the following information. The Zoom meeting ID is 984-9379-8829. I'm going to start by calling the roll. Jenny Graham here. Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Present. Dr. Galussi. Present. Dr. Cushing is absent. Marta Cabral. Present. Libby Brown. Present. Marissa Desmond. Present. Maria Dorsey. Brian Hilliard.
[Unidentified]: Present.
[Jenny Graham]: Tracy Keene. Emily Lazzaro. Nicole Morell. Present.
[Luke Preisner]: Aaron is here, he's messaged me that because he doesn't have proper Wi-Fi.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay. And he's driving. Luke Preissner?
[Luke Preisner]: Present.
[Jenny Graham]: Joan Bowen?
[Libby Brown]: Present.
[Jenny Graham]: Lisa Miller?
[Libby Brown]: Present.
[Jenny Graham]: Bob Dickinson? Fiona Maxwell? Will Pippicelli?
[Libby Brown]: Present.
[Jenny Graham]: Chad Fallon.
[Libby Brown]: Present.
[Jenny Graham]: Lori Hodgson. John McLaughlin.
[Libby Brown]: Here.
[Jenny Graham]: Paul Rousseau.
[Libby Brown]: Present.
[Jenny Graham]: And Phillip Santos. Okay. 11 in 11 present for absent, uh, the meeting. can come to order. OK. The first item that we have on our list is approval of the minutes from our June 11th meeting. Is there a motion to approve?
[Suzanne Galusi]: I motion to approve the minutes from the June 11th meeting.
[Jenny Graham]: There's a motion approved by Dr. Galussi. Is there a second? Seconded. Seconded by Libby Brown. Thanks. Okay, I'll call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Yes. Dr. Galussi.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Cushing is absent. Marta Cabral. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Marissa Desmond. Yes. Maria Dorsey is absent. Brian Hilliard.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Tracy Keene is absent. Emily Lazzaro is absent. Nicole Morell. Yes. Aaron Olapade.
[Matt Gulino]: Aaron said yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Great. Luke Preissner?
[Matt Gulino]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: And Joan Bowen? Yes. So 11 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative, 4 absent. The minutes are approved. The next thing we have for the committee is an approval of project invoices. So I'm going to turn this over to Matt from the left field team to just give us a quick explainer of what we can expect during this process. And then we will call the roll.
[Matt Gulino]: All right. Uh, Jen, actually, did you want to, uh, go through the invoices?
[s093VSbtp08_SPEAKER_01]: I can do that. Sure.
[Matt Gulino]: I keep getting a screen share request popping up on my screen from Chelsea Adams.
[Linda Liporto]: No, no, don't do it.
[Suzanne Galusi]: No, no, I know.
[Matt Gulino]: I just, it won't go away.
[Suzanne Galusi]: We cannot see it.
[s093VSbtp08_SPEAKER_01]: All right, so I'll take folks through. Have a fun ride. All right, so you will start to see every month we will have invoices to approve. Right now we're starting small because we have just the left field team on right now. So we have just the left field invoice number one and number two. This is for services during June and it looks like I do need to update this description of services to say July as well. Each invoice is in the amount of $25,000 and those are a combined of $50,000. This is in line with the schedule of fee that we submitted with the contract. Again, this list will start to grow as our team gets bigger, and we'll take you through these every month before we ask for approval. Next month, we will also have this combined with a budget update that will kind of explain where we are in the expenditure of the Money against the budget. Sorry. Sorry if anyone can hear my dog sparking.
[Jenny Graham]: You're fine. Perfect. Does anybody have any questions for the left field team about the invoices before I call the motion?
[Luke Preisner]: Yeah, just one question. Yeah, just wanted to ask someone to confirm that the budget is 525 and not 500. I think I saw 500 on an earlier page.
[Jenny Graham]: It is 525. 525, okay, thank you. Are there other questions from the committee?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: No, I can move approval just pending the change on the second invoice to read probably July 1 to July 31st.
[Jenny Graham]: Motion to approve as amended by Mayor Lungo-Koehn, is there a second?
[SPEAKER_06]: Second.
[Jenny Graham]: Second by Brian Hilliard. I'm going to call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mary Lungo-Koehn? Yes. Dr. Galussi? Yes. Peter Cushing is absent. Marta Cabral? Yes. Libby Brown?
[Libby Brown]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Marissa Desmond?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Maria Dorsey is absent. Brian Hilliard?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Tracy Keene is absent. Emily Lazzaro is absent. Nicole Morell?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Erin Olapade?
[Libby Brown]: He said yes to approve as amended.
[Jenny Graham]: Luke Preissner?
[Libby Brown]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: And Joan Bowen? Yes. 11 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative, 4 absent. The motion passes, and the invoices are approved. So now that we have made that approval, the invoices will be submitted to the school's finance team, which we met with them last week to iron out this process. and then they will be able to pay that out of the earmarked funds for the feasibility study. So thank you all.
[Matt Gulino]: And just to kind of bring that full circle, once we have the warrant number and check numbers for these invoices, we will be able to submit them to the MSBA for their reimbursement portion. So after they're approved, it goes to the MSBA's pro-pay processes is what it's called. They'll review them and then reimburse based on the eligible. uh, whatever is eligible. And at this point in the phase, everything is, is eligible. Um, so just wanted to note that on a, on how the reimbursement works with the MSBA after invoices are approved.
[Jenny Graham]: Great. Thank you, Matt.
[Matt Gulino]: Yep.
[Jenny Graham]: Um, moving on to item number four on the agenda, which is our designer selection process update. So Matt, I will turn it over to you.
[Matt Gulino]: Great. Thank you. And I'll go through the next four or five slides fairly quickly. We have talked about the designer process before. I really want to try to focus our times on the actual evaluations of the designer proposals. since we're expecting them at the end of the month. But just to run through schedule quickly, we did issue the request for services on July 30th. So we have had quite a bit of interest in the project. We have over 20 architectural firms that have pulled the RFS and we hope to see their submissions, which will be on August 27th. Between now and then, we will hold a visit at Medford High School on the 13th with the interested designers. They'll have an opportunity to ask questions about the project and anything that they may need clarification on. Questions will be due on the 20th. We'll issue an addenda to the RFS answering those questions. We'll need to issue that before the 25th, 48 hours before the proposed due date. Once we receive the proposals, the building committee will review, and especially the three designer selection panel members, which you'll see on a later slide. We'll go to the September 23rd designer selection panel meeting at the MSBA. That's the first of the designer selection panel meetings. That's to review the applications of all of the designers. At the end of that meeting, the designer selection panel will rank or invite the top four, typically, firms to a second DSP meeting, which will be on October 6th, and that is for interviews of those shortlisted, your top four picks. After the interviews, the designer selection panel will have a discussion, And then those four firms will be ranked from most desired down to number four. And then we would enter into a fee negotiation with that top firm. We're hoping that after the second DSP meeting, we can move fairly quickly on getting a contract executed, and hopefully by mid-November. We have them on board and we're starting some of the real robust feasibility study items with the design team. Moving on to just, again, a high-level overview of the designer selection process. The designer selection process is a part of the MSBA's standard process. It's a requirement that they that they have through their program in order to hire the designer selection. So they do not focus on the DCAM designer selection board since the MSBA designer selection panel kind of replaces that. Any project greater than 5 million, school building project with the MSBA requires a designer selection panel. Obviously this project is far over $5 million, so we fall into that category. The selection of the designer is a qualifications-based selection. I just want to make sure that that's highlighted. It is all based on the proposals and the qualifications that the architectural firms meet, and then you get into the contract negotiation after those designer selection panels that I mentioned on the previous slide. The qualifications and selection criteria are pretty similar on all MSBA projects. They largely focus on the past experience and performance of the firms, what their current workload may be. They have to submit their entire consulting team with their submissions. So it's not just the architects, it's the electrical engineers, the plumbing engineers. the structural engineers. So it's a pretty big and robust packet that gets submitted with 25 plus sub consultants. So we take a look at all of their consultants as well, make sure that they are also qualified to be a part of the team. We'll look at the financial stability of each of the firms. And along with the qualifications, also the individual people, everybody is required to submit a resume for anybody that is proposed to be on their team. And we also take a close look at the geographic proximity to the project. We don't want somebody that's going to have a hard time during construction getting to the job site to oversee the construction activities. So it's something that we also want to make sure that the design firm is able to support the district as best as possible. So as we get further down into some of the actual evaluation materials, you'll see some of these kind of criteria again. So I'll move on just so that we can get down to some of the bulk of the presentation. Just a reminder, the designer selection panel is composed of 13 members appointed by the executive director at the MSBA. So these are all professionals, either in the educational or architectural or engineering spaces. that get appointed to the board of directors. Along with those 13 people, three members from the district are represented, which are the three people listed here. It's, it's extremely important. And we've, we've kind of talked about this before that, you know, the three members are vocal during that time, obviously, it's a board of 16 people, and you only have three people there. So, you know, making sure that you're really highlighting the things that you like about certain firms and, you know, expressing your interest. is certainly an important thing to do as that decision is being made. DSP meetings, I kind of already talked, touched on this previously, you know, the three members from the district. The MSBA is not fond of you coming into a DSP meeting with your firms already ranked. The designer selection panel is the body that selects the architect and the designer, not just the three members or the building committee. So yes, we want to have an idea of which architects are coming to the top, but the MSBA does not like Us to come in with like here are 1 2 3 4 Because that's what's set at the at the designer selection panel meetings The bottom half of the screen here that the typical example when they ask you to The three members to vote on their top three choices first choice gets three points the second choice gets two points third choice gets one if If we have a close fourth, the MSBA will allow you to interview that fourth designer. So that's something we'll keep in mind once we get the proposals and are heading into the DSP meetings, you know, which four firms seem to be jumping out at us.
[s093VSbtp08_SPEAKER_01]: And just a quick update, Matt, I think the actual the date for that second DSP meeting is October 7th, which is the Tuesday. We'll update this before we post the presentation.
[Matt Gulino]: Yes. An award of contract, again, I kind of touched base on this, but after the two designer selection panels, you will have a top-ranked firm, and you will go into negotiations with that firm. If negotiations are successful, you draft a contract and move on and get right into feasibility. If they're not, you can decide to move on to your second-ranked designer and begin the negotiations with them. If we don't decide to, and just to point out, yeah, if we don't go with the highest ranked firm, we do have to provide a written justification to the MSBA to go to our second. So if that ends up happening, we'll certainly work with you on that. I think it's fairly rare in my experience to not get the top ranked firm, but it obviously can happen. So we wanted to touch on that quick. Before I move into some of the materials of the actual evaluation process, are there any questions on process or schedule? And I'm going to actually not share the PowerPoint for this just because it's impossible to read. So I will... pull up the actual documents so we can look at them a little bit easier. All right. Can you see my screen? So the two examples of the two documents that were on that slide, one of them is this one. It's just a designer and sub-consultant application matrix. So as we get the proposals, we'll put each of the, you know, you have your architectural firm, who's the lead designer, and then all of their sub-consultants. So left field will fill this out. It's something we need to submit to the MSBA. It's an MSBA document. And we'll just put, you know, which firm is being carried by each of the applicants. And then we also track if they are MBE or WBE certified on the sheet as well. So we'll make a mark of which companies fall into those two categories. And then the bottom part.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Sorry, Matt, through the chair, we just can't see anything in the yellow, if that matters. If you want to make it a little larger, sorry.
[Matt Gulino]: Sorry, I got my share screen thing in the way. Is that a little better?
[Suzanne Galusi]: Much. Thank you.
[Matt Gulino]: You're welcome. So yeah, down at the bottom here, this is just kind of a yes or no. Did they submit everything that they were supposed to submit? Technically, if a firm does not submit any of these documents, you know, they haven't signed their application or they didn't provide any of their MCPPO certifications, they technically could be eliminated from the process just from not following the request for services request. This is more of a double check at the bottom, making sure that, again, the proposals are complete and meet all of the evaluation criteria laid out in the RFS. So again, a pretty simple document. This is something left field will complete. The other document that was on that, and this is less important to see, this is just a reference check. spreadsheet so as we get all of the proposals left field will also call all of the references that they include in their proposal they're required to to provide a minimum of three we try to get at least three and we you know we ask each of the each of the references that we call how the firms performed. Did they communicate well? Was their budget control and estimating on target? Their document control, where their document's good? Did they issue documents timely? Design schedule, quite simply, did they meet the design schedule? Did we have to push back any deadlines? And then construction administration, this is when the architect is actually on site. walking around the job site, making sure that the design or the actual building itself is meeting the design that they've put in their documents. So we ask these questions of three references from each of the designers and just to make sure that we're doing our due diligence and there's no surprises from any of the firms that have submitted. Any questions on those two? These are pretty straightforward. They're largely, you know, left field's kind of responsibility to get completed.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: If not... Oh, sorry. When will we have to do our... When will we receive the applicants' information and how long will we have to rank them?
[Matt Gulino]: So we will be receiving our applications on August 27th. We need to get them over to the MSBA shortly after that, but we have the ability to review up until the first designer selection panel meeting on September 26th. So we have about a month to review everything. Again, we'll send them all to the MSBA as well so they can do their review. And during that time, you know, we'll be doing these first two documents, the subconsultant matrix and this reference check as well. The... Hi, Matt.
[Luke Preisner]: Before you continue... Are you still answering that question? I have a follow-on question.
[Jenny Graham]: Luke, I was just trying to call on you. Matt, Luke has a question. Do you think you could pause for a couple of questions? Great. Luke?
[Luke Preisner]: Hey, Matt. Thanks. So appreciate the insight into the process. I think it's good to see all the categories as well as sort of how the measurements performed. Are these documents, when populated, like articles of public record that we have to do something with or that we have to process, or is it all internal to left field and the three candidates on the DSP?
[Matt Gulino]: I don't think there's anything that the committee needs to do per se. Obviously, if there's anything that jumps out at committee members during the review process, certainly let us know. But no, it certainly will become a part of the public record of the designer selection process. Everything is public record. So yes, at the end of the day, they will become public record. but it's not something that we need to like post and share to, um, you know, throughout the city.
[Jenny Graham]: And in fact, um, when we went through this with, um, the OPM selection, the advice we got from our, uh, city solicitor was that all of those things could be made available once the contract was executed. Um, so there, while they are public records, they're not, for consumption during the selection process in that broad way that they would otherwise be. So we immediately got lots of requests for people who did not get selected and the guidance from the city solicitor was that they have to wait until the contract is executed and we'll provide those requested documents to them and that's exactly what we did.
[Luke Preisner]: Okay, great. Makes sense. Thanks.
[Jenny Graham]: Does anyone else have questions before we continue?
[Libby Brown]: I have a quick question. So you're saying we get the proposals over to the MSBA, but I assume this is something that's like a PDF that will be shared with us to look at electronically. It's not necessarily delivered. We're not going to be like a hard copy somewhere we all have to go look at.
[Matt Gulino]: No, we did request, I think, four hard copies to be delivered to City Hall. But yeah, everything for the most part is electronic. So we'll make sure we have all of the proposals after the deadline at 4 p.m. and send out a link with all of the proposals to the full committee.
[Jenny Graham]: Any other questions? Okay.
[Matt Gulino]: All right. Now over to the document that is most critical for the committee to understand, especially the three DSP members. But we always encourage the full building committee to review the applications and try to fill out an evaluation matrix similar to this. This is just an example of something we've used. It kind of keeps you away from numbering and ranking. Again, the MSBA does not like that. but it gives you a sense of what firms maybe were a bit more advantageous than others in each of the categories. It uses a very simple kind of stoplight evaluation ranking, just highly advantageous, advantageous is yellow, and then not advantageous is red, just randomly populated on the far left here. This is just an example of kind of what it may look like as you go through each of the criteria. And then at the bottom, it just has a summary that kind of gives you how many highly advantageous, advantageous and not advantageous categories each firm had. So it kind of gives you the ability to look at it from a fairly high level. And as you look through each of the proposals, things will certainly jump out at you from one from one proposal to another, and that may change your feeling on how you evaluate each of these criteria. Before I get too far into it, are there any questions on how this works? Does anybody want to look at anything specific?
[s093VSbtp08_SPEAKER_01]: If I can just add, just to say that this is a kind of important document to track your own thoughts when you're going through these, because as Matt had mentioned, we've got 20 applicants that have pulled the RFS and will likely have a lot of interest in this project. So when we're going through, a high number of these proposals, you're going to tend to forget who said what. And so when you're reviewing, make some notes, use this form to kind of help compare in your own mind. Just helpful when we have so many that we're expecting.
[Matt Gulino]: Yeah, and I can certainly create a notes section or a note sheet or something to include with this. I'll make sure everybody has this in the native Excel file so they can edit it and do what they need. But I can add a specific note section just to help organize things a little better. Any specific questions? I know there's probably a lot of people that haven't been through this before, and it definitely can be fairly daunting. I don't know if many people had a chance to look at the example proposal that I sent over. A couple of weeks ago is actually this proposal here. It was from KBA on the Brockton High School project who inevitably won that project. But it gives you a sense, you know, this is 85 pages long, so they are pretty long documents. Does anybody have any desire to walk through this quickly just to kind of see how they're laid out? You know, I don't know kind of what the feeling is on, you know, people's comfort level on reviewing these proposals.
[Jenny Graham]: Am I correct that the MSBA is pretty prescriptive about what must be included in the proposal, just like they are with the RFS for OPMs? Is that correct?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. So I think the structure in general, the structure of the proposals will look somewhat similar because they're required to complete the same set of documents, and I think you'll sort of quickly find the pieces of the proposal that speak to you. And it may or may not be what the, like, prescribed attachments are. And they weren't for me, certainly, in the RFS review process for the OPM. So I think it's, you know, good to just take them in for what they are when we receive them. So unless people have specific questions, I don't think we need to go through this. Any questions?
[s093VSbtp08_SPEAKER_01]: I will say there's usually a few pages towards the end of the approach to your project where Matt's clicking right now. There will be a few pages reserved for specifically how they're taking a look at your project. I usually find those very interesting. And not to mention things that you might not be thinking of that you can take forward with us as we move through the design process. Some good information in this particular section.
[Matt Gulino]: Yeah, yeah, and like Jen said that that's definitely typically towards the end up in the, in the front is a lot of those requirements, you know, like MCPPO certifications. you know, the project teams resumes are all in here. So that's probably like half of this, because it's not just the design, not just the architectural firm, it's all of their consultants as well. So there's a lot of, you know, resumes. But I would say the large majority of the information that's going to capture is going to be in, you know, each firm's approach to your project. And obviously, as we get these, feel free to reach out to any of the left field members with questions you have. We're more than happy to talk to you and walk you through it.
[Jenny Graham]: I think we have one question from Luke.
[Luke Preisner]: Thank you. We've got a timeline and August 27th is a consequential date. That's sort of the end of the suspense. We'll have a number of these designer proposals, potentially 20, maybe less, but good number. I just want to clarify, will this committee in its, I guess, entirety be reviewing each proposal and scoring per that spreadsheet? or is it a subset of this committee that's kind of performing the evaluation?
[Matt Gulino]: I've seen it done differently in different cities. I've had full committees review each of the proposals. I've had people create a smaller selection committee. My general feeling on it is the more eyes on it, the better. More different walks of life, looking at it from slightly different optics. you know, is always a good way to kind of get more feedback. But it is certainly up to the committee's, you know, preference. Again, those three DSP members, you know, certainly need to review them and understand them. But we always do try to encourage the full committees to review them, again, just from what I mentioned before. I don't know if Jen or Linda have anything to add.
[s093VSbtp08_SPEAKER_01]: I would add that, so this committee will review, will have access to everything. And I think from what I've seen work best, we are, I would say those score sheets with the colors are really more for your personal review and as a group we'll discuss. And Matt or Linda, correct me if you've seen it, but it's really to help inform those three DSP members on the goals and the hopes and dreams of this committee so they can bring that into the DSP meetings. So, I think it's going to be more of a kind of discussion when we go over everything, and less about, you know, scoring things against each other, saying, you know, I voted for this person, you know, I'm saying this is highly advantageous, and somebody else says this is highly advantageous, just so that we can stay away from what the MSBA would consider scoring. Right, right.
[Luke Preisner]: So to our committee, is this a process that we've already determined and kind of identified sort of roles and responsibilities for, or is that a yet to be activity for us, just seeking to kind of remove any ambiguity in, I guess, our responsibilities in this process? Because August 27th will be here before we know it and with potentially 20 proposals to get through and a variety of, I'll say, evaluation criteria to process. It's a workload. So, you know, I guess, do we know how we're going to process this volume or is that a yet to be sort of determined
[Jenny Graham]: So I can answer that. Um, we have a building committee scheduled in the timeframe between August 27th and the designer selection panel. I'm not exactly remembering the date, but there is 1 scheduled in, um. September, and it was scheduled that way so that the entire committee could provide their insight and perspective to the members of the DSP. Unless this team feels differently, that that should not be the case. That was what we were planning on for the next building committee meeting. September 15th. Thank you. So, before we move on, is there anybody who feels like we should not proceed in that fashion?
[Linda Liporto]: I think maybe if I could just add something real quick to the committee in regards to these questions. I think it's, if you look at it, sort of more of a way of determining which ones are out versus which one is your favourite. It's sort of trying to eliminate the ones that you don't think will be a good fit. I think if you start looking at it from that aspect, it might be a little less daunting because there will be some that are just submitting it, even though they're just going to not be qualified for a project of this size. So if we have 20 firms that have requested it, most likely we will not get all 20 submissions. Let's say you get 15 to 17 of those, you could start looking at probably five or six of those might just not be qualified at all. So in terms of the MSBA not wanting you to rank which ones are the favorites, it's a little bit easier to just sort of see which ones should we not consider.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So through the chair, those will be taken out so we don't even have to review them. Left Field is going to do that for us. So if 20 submit fives. No, we have to do that. We have to do that.
[Jenny Graham]: Yes. The MSBA does not want the left field team telling us what we should pick. So they're here to help guide our process, but it is our process.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, I don't know if anybody could weed out the ones that just don't qualify at all.
[s093VSbtp08_SPEAKER_01]: There will be some, like Matt was saying, we will review the things that were, you know, the box needs to be checked so that it kind of frees up not just the DSP members, but the larger committee to really focus in on, I think those approach to your project sheets that Matt was showing. I think there's six, I want to say six pages for each portfolio worth of that. So that kind of really narrows. It doesn't feel as daunting if you're really focused on those sections as this larger committee. I think that will help everyone kind of focus in on what firms are doing well, what they're paying attention to, if they feel like they really have been paying attention to Medford and that they know Medford. As opposed to all the nitty gritty details that we will fill out in those spreadsheets. So those are the things I think that are probably worth the most focus for this larger group, especially.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, and I think we also have a very. well represented committee with lots of different strengths and interests. And so I don't think everyone needs to evaluate every proposal on all the same things. But like, I'll pick on Tracy for just a second. Like, I'm expecting Tracy to tell us what he thinks about all things performing arts, because that is his background and his passion and the things that he's good at. And, you know, one of the reasons his application was so appealing to us. So I think, you know, everyone's going to bring a different set of criteria to the table. And I think when we talk about what impressed us about people or what didn't seem like it was sufficient in our next meeting. I think we'll hear lots of different perspectives from lots of different people that will help us be as prepared as possible to be 3 of 13 people. So we have a big job to do to represent Medford amongst a bunch of people who Um, certainly have done this more than we have, but are not don't live here and, you know, aren't the ones that will receive this building. So I think all the, all that feedback, the better in our next meeting.
[Luke Preisner]: Jenny, can I ask if we're discouraged from assessing the entirety of the proposal and are instead is viewed as specialists kind of.
[Jenny Graham]: Uh, with you can review in any way that you want Luke, I'm just saying that, like, we don't need we don't need everybody, like, going through all the, like, my new shut and the nitty gritty, like, left field is going to handle the qualifying things. And if there are things that you're particularly passionate about, that's what we want to hear from this group. We don't. And if you have the time and inclination to go through every part of the proposal, that's amazing. But just everyone has a different amount of ability to do that. So we can, but I think that I just don't want people to be discouraged from putting their, like, piece, you know, their piece of their interest into the conversation if they don't have time to review everything, which is just kind of. You know, it's going to be September and back to school. So we should prepare for that too.
[Luke Preisner]: Sure. And just to further clarify, the homework assignment is not written feedback, but instead just a commitment to read proposals, assess them however we feel is important, and then arrive at the meeting on the 15th and verbally fight or defend any particular thing that we're interested in. So written feedback is not sought, full assessment of proposals is not required. And instead, it's, you know, almost sounds like a best effort on the 15th.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, exactly.
[Luke Preisner]: That's right. Okay. I just want that clarified. Thank you. All right.
[Matt Gulino]: Let me open the presentation back up. So if there's no other questions on the designer selection process side of things or the DSP or proposal review, we have two other updates that we did want to talk about. One was quickly the, hold on, something's going on. Sorry. One of them was the educational plan, and the goal was to kind of get ahead of the educational plan before the architect gets on board. We know that that's something that they're going to be working on first, so we wanted to get a little bit of a head start and start to work on it. over the last couple of months are on the screen here, but I did want to invite Dr. Galussi to kind of fill us in quickly or mention anything that she's seen about the ed plan.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Sure, yep, no problem. Thank you. So the ed plan is a really critical component of this work. And so we've been trying to make sure that we're keeping our administrators updated and in the work. And so that started with, at the end of each year, we have what's called an administrative retreat. It's just meetings to close out the year. Adele and Jen joined that meeting to kind of frame the work. I also spoke about, you know, the importance and how this is the document that's really going to aid us in a lot of decision making as we move through this process. And so they also were there to answer questions and just kind of the administrative unit was able to get introduced to Jen and Adele, who is our educational consultant through left field, former superintendent. So I definitely, the educators will be leaning on her a lot. So we kind of, after that meeting, I sent a memo to really outline the process. Jen set us up really nicely with a lot of the information that we needed, so it was pretty much taking a lot of that information and just framing it in a memo for administration to kind of get them thinking before people went off and enjoyed some time at the pool and the beach, so they could be mindful and kind of have that thinking. A month later, It was followed up by a little bit more specific of a memo regarding now like a timeline and hard dates, really this educational plan to what. member graham spoke about this also is pretty prescribed there are it's broken down by like departments so it's pretty clear when we look at our administrators the pieces that principals are going to kind of be responsible for versus the pieces that some of our curriculum directors and leads would be responsible for so That memo at the end of July was very clear in assigning what the tasks were for administrators to be completing. We're asking for their drafts, for them to first start and frame what their draft would be. Really, it's composed of two questions. It's pretty much like, what are we doing now? to deliver curriculum and how are we teaching? And what would we envision? How do we want this to look in a new building? And so we asked administrators next week to have that draft finished. so that we're set when we welcome teachers back. And the administrators can be working with the teachers on the draft and getting their voice into this document. So to help the teachers provide a little bit of framing, tours were set up that we've been engaged, the last one finished today. You know we've had some tours previously, but the Medford High School staff was invited to tour Dover High School in New Hampshire on the 6th, Waltham High School on the 7th, and today was Attleboro High School. And so there's been a nice cross section of administration that's gone to some of these tours as well as educators. And also some of those educators are on union boards within the teachers union, which I think is also important. And so now they've had the framing with the tours. And when they return, they're going to be able to do some work with principals and department leads really working on the draft to get it ready for the end of September submission. Happy to answer any questions if people have questions about this level of work that we've been doing for the educational plan.
[Jenny Graham]: Are there any questions from the committee? All right.
[Matt Gulino]: All right. Thank you for that update. It's really good that we're, you know, I would say this far ahead of the educational plan. You know, again, typically this doesn't really start until the designers on board. So really appreciate the district for jumping on this and I think it will really help us in the back end of the schedule. And then the last item that we had talked about in June was this site selection kind of option evaluating and looking at the different options that are throughout the city for potential sites. Again, this is not very legible on a slide, so I am going to pull up the actual document.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay.
[Matt Gulino]: Can everybody see that now? Hopefully a little better.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, much better.
[Matt Gulino]: All right. So just to explain how this is laid out, going down the left-hand side are just kind of different, you know, site criteria and then a little bit of description and kind of how construction would take place on each of those sites. the MSB enrollment, which is the same throughout. Where the site is, what kind of site is it? Who owns the site? Is it city owned? Is it not city owned? Is it parkland requiring an Article 97 land swap? So that's kind of what the owner category is, cost to obtain. Most of these are either NA or do require an Article 97 land swap or are on the existing site. The only one I think is the Medford Square. I did not have a dollar value, but I do believe that that development has moved forward. Just some additional notes about each site, the description of each one, what the acreage is, potential traffic issues or concerns, how will the bus routes you know, fare on those sites. Same with pedestrian. Community and proximity, you know, how is the site located within town? Site attributes, you know, is there anything specific about the site that, you know, we need to be aware of? Um, and then just a quick overview of kind of construction phasing again, kind of how we foresee a project on each of these sites going, uh, and then pros and cons between the between, uh, or between each of the sites. Um, you know, a lot of the. Options on the existing site have the advantage of being an existing educational facility. It's a known location. And then some of these others, as you'll see, not only have Article 97 land swap, but may not be big enough to support the project, or will only be large enough to support the school and parking, but not play fields. So just wanted to give that real quick before we went over the options across the top. The first three here are all on the existing site. These are kind of just different building options on that site. We know that we're going to review these when the architect is on board, so I just wanted to include these on this as well. So no real surprises per se on these first three. It's at the existing site. Base repair option is just that. It's code upgrades. You're not getting anything new and fancy. It's just a very base level. base level project. The base repair option also, I'll just note, is not considered reimbursable by the MSBA. So that is something that if that option were to be the selected option, would not receive MSBA funding. It's not something that I have ever done. It's very rare that a base repair option is entertained. But I did want to note that the renovation is just a renovation of the existing school as it currently is. Keep general layout the same way, general, you know, kind of classroom and CTE class locations. Really kind of just an upgrade to the current building as it is. The addition renovation option, same site. This would just be phased, you know, potential new building on the existing fields or existing parking lots with a renovation of, you know, portions of the school could be the pool house and the gym. But this is just another option on this site. Then we get into some of the new build options. And I did go through the, I forget if it was a finance committee meeting, but where the committee talked in depth about the different sites that were potential. So I pulled all of those sites into here and also took a look at just some other potential areas. Unsurprisingly, there's not a lot of free open land in Medford of this size to build a 350, 400,000 square foot school. But just for completeness, I did list them all. And please, if anybody has any comments, especially living in Medford, that you have on any particular site or know of another one that may not be on here, please let me know. We do want to make sure that we've looked at all options. This first new build is over at the Andrews Middle School. Again, I think this was from that call, just a discussion of would it be possible to renovate the existing school and add on to it to create a larger high school that would require the middle school to be relocated, which Again, then we're talking about a second school project. A lot of this was discussed in that meeting, and I think people were kind of already leaning away from this idea, but I did want to include it since it was talked about throughout Medford. Does anybody have any questions on the Andrews Middle School site or anything to add?
[Jenny Graham]: Matt, you're correct that the finance committee at the time talked about several sites that did not make it into our final package. And this was 1 of them where it was discussed and rolled out because of the, like, multiple business, the multiple building project need the, you know, the traffic patterns that would be exacerbated in that area, et cetera. So that 1 was not in contention. And your analysis is supporting that that would not be super viable for us to consider going forward. Is that correct?
[Matt Gulino]: Correct. Yeah. I think those items that you mentioned, even from a site size, you know, that entire parcel is 43 plus acres, but that includes both of the schools. So the middle, the Andrews middle school side of it, again, it depends where you would kind of break that parcel up is, you know, a bit smaller on that kind of North side where Andrews is. away from the stadium, and I felt it was, you know, 12 to 15 or so acres. So, yes, we could probably fit the school in parking, but I do think that the athletic fields would need to be located at a different location. Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: The next new option is actually... Matt, before you go on, I think Luke has another question.
[Matt Gulino]: Yep, go ahead, Luke.
[Luke Preisner]: And you've got to excuse me. I'm an engineer, so I zero in on numbers. You said 350,000 to 400,000 square foot. Hypothetical. Totally hypothetical, because there's really nothing on paper. But if that's the case, which, by the way, makes sense, because Attleboro is about that size. It's about 407. And I think there are enrollments about what we're expecting. So Attleboro is a good reference point. Then just calling into question one of the entries here, is it really 330,000 square feet? And frankly, it may not matter, because I think this matrix serves a different purpose. It's a comparative tool. And that sort of square footage isn't actually really a comparison criterion. It's just kind of like a note that's put in. But I did want to just point that out, because I pointed it out in the past. My belief is, in fact, the school's much larger, and all of the historical sort of news articles that I've looked at over in the library indicate it's like a half million square foot, yeah, half million square foot structure. So just pointing it out and confirming, it doesn't really matter whether it's, you know, totally accurate here or not.
[Matt Gulino]: Yeah, certainly any square footages of anticipated new structure are very much hypothetical at this point. We do need to get the architect on board to pull together a space summary and really understand what the full educational component of the building will be and how that will fit into the MSBA's guidelines. So yes, definitely take any square footages on here as kind of a holding point for now, you know, that those will certainly become much more real as we get design going.
[Jenny Graham]: The other thing that's important to know about our square footage currently is that 1395 is high school students only. It is not Kids Corner, it's not the MFN, it's not the administrative offices, and it is not the preschool expansion that was written into our bid here. So all of those, so 1395 in terms of number of students and the associated square footage, that's one portion of the square footage that comprises what currently happens in our building. So I think we still, there's still a lot of work to do for us to sort of grapple with like how, what, how many square feet are we building here? Cause there's a lot of other parts that are not in that 1395 plus the administrative offices, Luke, plus the Medford family network. Um, and those are all things that will have to go somewhere eventually. So, um, okay, Matt, do you want to keep going?
[Matt Gulino]: The next new build option was on the existing site. This was just different than the other three options on the existing high school site. This would be an entirely new structure. It would be some sort of phase construction. You build one part of the school, move students and faculty in, demo the old part of the school and build new. So that's the only difference from the other options. And again, just kind of to note, just in general, the diagrams that you see in these pictures are not necessarily how the phasing would work. It is just a kind of high-level idea of how each of these projects could potentially work on the existing site. The next new build option, the new existing site modified, we call this the modified one because this is, you know, what we will use to track, you know, potential use of DCR land. So, and there's other Article 97 opportunities around the site. So if that does end up becoming a part of the project, obviously the site itself will change slightly with that acquired land. So we wanted to include that as a potential option on that site as well. Medford Square, before I get into a lot of this, or this option, is this worth talking about, I believe in April or May timeframe, there was a development company selected to develop this space or is this not the same area?
[Jenny Graham]: That is true.
[Matt Gulino]: Okay. So I think this one kind of just comes off the table if it's being developed by another company. So I'll move on to the next one. Columbus Park, again, another Article 97 land swap would be required for this location. Before I get too deep into it, the acreage on this park is about five acres. We know that that is not going to be large enough even for just the school and parking and whatnot. It's going to be extremely difficult to fit a building of the size we need on this site. And again, there certainly would not be any play fields at this location. So I think this one is working its way off the list fairly quickly just from a size standpoint, nevermind any of the other criteria that we have here. Placed at park also came up in that call, slightly bigger about 12 plus acres. So, similar to kind of that middle school option that was around 12 or 15 acres. Again, you may be able to fit the school. in parking, but I think it's going to be extremely difficult to replace the existing high school fields on a 12-acre site. So this would potentially be an option where a new school would be here, but play fields would be located at another spot. And then the last option, Tufts Park. I believe this also came up in the call. Again, similar to the others, it's right around that 10 to 12 acreage range. Real tough site to fit a school of this size with all of the amenities on it. So similar type situation, could potentially fit a school, but definitely not fields at this location. Does anybody want to look at any of these, any of the other criteria, you know, open discussion on any of the options or maybe another option that maybe I don't have on here that you think we should add?
[Jenny Graham]: I'm not seeing any questions. Um, if you all take a look at your agenda, we brought this back around, um, in this meeting, because our June meeting, we talked about potentially removing Medford square and Columbus park as options. Um, to sort of reduce the scope of what the feasibility study will be looking for. And if you remember back to the June meeting, we talked about wanting to do this exercise. Thank you, Matt for doing such a thorough job. Um, to make sure that, um, you know, inevitably when people have questions that there is a place we can point them to. So we can certainly make this available on our website, et cetera. Um, but I did want to circle back around the, the potential motion is written out on the, um. On the, um, agenda, if anybody would like to make that motion now, um, I would be happy to entertain it, but that's up to the committee mayor.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Chair Graham. No, I do want to thank you, Matt, and the left field team for doing that. I think that's important, like Member Graham said, to be able to point that out to people on why we didn't choose X, Y, or Z sites and why we're going to be pursuing the several options with the site we have, which is the largest site of them all. And we want to be able to maximize. the very best for our students and athletes and those in the arts. So I would make move the motion if there are no questions from the committee.
[Jenny Graham]: So motion by the mayor. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Dr. Galusi. Are there any questions before I call the roll? Seeing none, I will call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Marylunga Kern. Yes. Dr. Galuzzi. Yes. Peter Cushing is absent. Marta Cabral. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Marissa Desmond. Yes. Maria Dorsey is absent. Brian Hilliard.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Tracy Keene is absent. Emily Lazzaro is absent. Nicole Morell. Yes.
[Luke Preisner]: Anna, the disembodied voice of Aaron says, yes, thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you for extending his reach from his wife. I Luke Pricer. Yes, and Joe Bowen. Yes. Joan, I promise I'll put you in alphabetical order just as soon as I run out of space on this piece of paper. 11 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative, 4 absent. So the motion passes. So Matt, I will connect with you about whether there's any sort of notification we need to provide via the architectural firms and or to the MSBA tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_06]: Great.
[Jenny Graham]: Great. Um, let's see, I think we may have come to the end of our agenda. Um, our next meeting is September 15th. it sounds like we'll be in touch when we receive all the, um. RFS responses and, um. make sure that you all have a copy of that so you can come with all of your good ideas at our next meeting. And I think that is it for today. And we finished a few minutes early, so that's always nice. And is there a motion to adjourn?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So moved.
[Jenny Graham]: Motion to adjourn by Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Libby Brown. I will call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn? Yes. Dr. Galussi. Yes. Peter Cushing is absent. Marta Cabral. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Marissa Desmond. Yes. Maria Dorsey is absent. Brian Hilliard.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Tracy Keene absent. Emily Lazzaro is absent. Nicole Morell. Yes. Aaron Lopate.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And he says yes.
[Jenny Graham]: And Luke Preissner.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yep.
[Jenny Graham]: And Joan Bowen.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: 11 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative, 4 absent. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you, everyone. Have a good night.
[Matt Gulino]: Thanks, everyone. We'll talk soon.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you.
|
total time: 15.6 minutes total words: 1365 |
total time: 1.33 minutes total words: 148 |
||