[Roberta Cameron]: I'm going to call to order the meeting of Medford's Community Preservation Committee. It is Tuesday and the Affordable Housing Trust. It is Tuesday, September 9, 6.30 p.m. in Medford City Hall, room 201, and we are meeting hybrid with some members of both the Community Preservation Committee and the Affordable Housing Trust. meeting on joining with us online. And I would like to actually hand over the chair responsibilities for the Community Preservation Committee to Vice Chair Joan, since I actually serve on both committees. So I want to make sure that we have a member of only the Community Preservation Committee leading the meeting.
[Theresa Dupont]: John, are you available to do that?
[Reggie Graham]: Yeah, she's on mute.
[Theresa Dupont]: She might be still setting up her computer.
[Roberta Cameron]: Is there a volunteer from the committee to take over as chair while I attend as a member of both committees?
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I can do that. It's fine. Thank you, Chairperson Carr. Are we holding the agenda?
[Theresa Dupont]: Pretty much. I can kind of do quick introductions. That would be helpful. Yes, of course. So as staff support, I'm speaking here. We're joining our two committees together just for a brief meeting, just to do a formal introduction for everybody. We've all been talking in our separate circles, and now it's time to start joining our efforts together. So the purpose of this meeting is to do a formal introduction, as well as to have a brief discussion about how we will be balancing out our housing construction or development requests that come to the CPC. As we now have our lovely affordable housing trust online and hitting the ground running and doing fun stuff, we want to iron out what that looks like so that we're not competing with ourselves or divide. We want that process to go smoothly. So with that being said, why don't we go around, Robin, here, and we'll start with Roberta.
[Roberta Cameron]: Roberta Cameron, I chair the Community Preservation Committee, normally, under most circumstances, and I also serve as a member of the Affordable Housing Trust.
[Doug Carr]: You have two hats today.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes.
[Doug Carr]: Okay. Doug Carr, I'm the Historic Commission representative on the CPC.
[Reggie Graham]: Reg Graham, I'm the Past Commission representative for the CPC.
[Theresa Dupont]: And then Kayleen, would you be willing to jump in there? And then Jeremy, I'll call on you next.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Yep, sure. Hi, everybody. Kayleen Foley. I am the chairperson of the Medford Housing Authority. And so I am the liaison to the CPC.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you, Kayleen.
[Theresa Dupont]: Jeremy, would you be able to introduce yourself, even if it's just verbally?
[Jeremy Martin]: Sure, everyone. I'm Jeremy Martin. I am the Conservation Commission representative on the committee. And I just got off the bus and am walking into City Hall now. So I'll see you all in just a moment.
[Theresa Dupont]: Fantastic. Thanks, Jeremy. Joan, are you with us quite yet? All right, so Joan Cyr was a founding member of this committee, helped with the running of the campaign to get CPA adopted here in Medford. Joan also serves as our vice chair and is generally an awesome human being. All right, Lisa, get back in the room here. Oh, what's her? Oh, Kayla, yes, sorry, go ahead, Kayla.
[Unidentified]: Hi, I'm Kayla lesson. I serve on the affordable housing trust fund. Um, if you want a little bit more background, I've worked for a mixed income developer for the past 15 years. So familiar with a lot of the Massachusetts housing programs. So thank you.
[UHZzywcUcK0_SPEAKER_03]: I'm Lisa Davidson. I sit on the affordable housing trust fund for Redford. And I also serve as the chair. little bit of background about myself. I have worked with the in-house population for 12 years, and now I am now working for the city somewhere in their house.
[Unidentified]: That's brand new.
[Teda DeRosa]: I'm Sarah DeRosa, and I am the new appointee for the Medford Housing Trust and Affordable Housing Trust. And hopefully I'll be approved today, right? And my background is I'm a real estate agent, as well as I worked for a development company in Boston. We've done a lot of lease-ups for affordable housing, or what we call income-restricted housing.
[Katherine Buckingham]: I'm Kevin Buckingham. I'm the housing planner for the city of Medford, and I also staff the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Board. Awesome.
[Theresa Dupont]: Well, thank you all for the introductions. We're missing a couple of folks on the CPC side. Anna Gunning will be joining us shortly, I think about an hour or so. I'm just running a little late. And we also have Maisha Majumder, who's another wonderful member of our board here. They just had some commitments today. And there's Junior. And then on the trust, we're missing Carrie Weaver.
[Katherine Buckingham]: Yeah, so Carrie said she was coming. I know Kenny, Malcolm Taylor can not come in the mayor. Can not come in the mayor also serves on the board. So, I'm fine with that. Is that? That's sufficient.
[Roberta Cameron]: Are you including myself and Taylor? Because it's not potatoes. That's true. Surely. Like in and out. Awesome.
[Theresa Dupont]: So thank you all so much. Again, the intention of this brief meeting, separate meeting, is to have a discussion about funding housing development or construction projects. Currently, right now, the CPC has been receiving those. They have been very few and far between. We haven't really received one in a couple of cycles. Um, but largely it's been walking court redevelopment. We've, we've been a good heavy investor in that project as well as fells way West, which is project that should be, um, we stopped by the end of this year, which is very exciting stuff. Um, but that being said, I don't think anybody on the board would lay claim on the committee. Uh, the CPC would lay claim to being a housing expert that knows everything there is to know. Right. We're all well-intentioned folks that have our own expertise. Maybe Roberta here. So we're so excited that the trust is coming on board with such strong expertise and skill sets. Kayla, I mean, the stuff that you know must be insane. So we've got all these great people put in the right places together. So going forward, perhaps it might be best. There have been some internal discussions with chair people only. about how do we balance this going forward? And the consensus of the few folks that I've talked to internally is it might be best if we shift those development requests over to the trust and kind of take it out of the CPC's hands just so it goes in front of the experts who know all the right questions to ask and know where there could be potential pitfalls and what have you.
[Doug Carr]: And so what does that mean in terms of our mission is to spend a certain percentage of our funds on affordable housing every cycle, minimum of 10, but we've always tried to do a third, a third, a third, roughly. Does that change under this calculus?
[Theresa Dupont]: No, because we're held to a standard of committing our funds for housing development. That does include if we just shift our money to the trust for them to distribute. It's still CPA money doing housing efforts out there. So it still counts towards our goals. Roberta, did you have anything else to add to that? as a member?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes. Yeah, no, I think that that explains it pretty well. The difference would be that instead of the applicants like the Medford Housing Authority coming to the CPC to apply for funding during our funding cycle, the idea is that the CPC, the housing trust would request money at the CPC and the CPC would give the money to the housing trust And then that applicant, but, for example, man for housing authority would ask the housing trust or the funds to spend the money instead of the CPC. Would we be allowing so.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: So with the Medford House, for example, the Medford Housing Authority, would they now, for all future funding requests, only go to the housing trust? Or would there still be an avenue for them to apply traditionally to CPC? And the reason I'm asking this is because, as you guys know, but the housing trust members don't. I work in Lexington at that housing authority. I'm involved with CPC and housing trust there. And they're going through this very similar debate And as a housing authority director, I felt it was necessary to keep that avenue there for the housing authority to go traditional, just in case. Of course, the Housing Trust right now is super supportive of housing authority goals and the mission. And it's a really collaborative effort. Who knows down the road? And I'm just saying, you know what I mean, hypothetically? Is it smart? to keep the door open for that sort of thing? Or do, and I totally understand the benefit and just like, here's our pot of money. Go there. Now you guys go there and you can go there any time of the year. Like you're not bound by these crazy application deadlines and all that. So I just, those are things that I've been thinking about lately.
[Theresa Dupont]: Those are some good thoughts, I think. Lisa, I want to invite you to have any, feel free to jump in here, but personally, I think I see the benefit of having another avenue for our applicants here, but I also see the benefit of streamlining the process so they have an expectation. So all the same people are looking at the same type of projects with the same pot of money.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Right, and it helps with budgeting, too. You know what I mean? The housing authority can say, hey, housing trust, we're anticipating x amount this year. Yeah.
[Jeremy Martin]: Are there other affordable housing type projects that we might receive applications for that wouldn't necessarily go to the trust?
[Theresa Dupont]: An excellent question. Right now, most of, aside from those, those choice few development projects, we also, the CPC also funds service programs that help folks with startup costs, moving costs, as well as help with that rental arrears. So we do have these service programs that, I think can continue to live in CPA because, you know, I have a good relationship with them and it's a light lift. So I think that we could retain the service aspect of it, but the true development construction elements might be better over in the trust.
[Roberta Cameron]: I jumped, I would, I would add that a reason. A value that the Affordable Housing Trust brings to determining how to spend construction, funds on construction projects, is the expertise that the trust members have, which is, surpasses the expertise that the CPC members have. So, you know, I hear that the possibility that there could be a strain in relationship in the future, but I think at the present time, it makes a lot of sense to lean on the trust expertise to be able to establish a program and set terms that are really an efficient and favorable use of the city's money for affordable housing and construction. So to also like, I'm sorry, Lisa.
[UHZzywcUcK0_SPEAKER_03]: I was just going to say, I can appreciate having two streams of funding and an applicant being able to go to the CPC as well as the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, but in the cases where, and not that it would happen, but in the cases where, what happens when the Affordable Housing Trust is looking at an application and their debt service ratios aren't as up to stock, this doesn't meet the, what's it, 3.5, 1.0, and we decide that maybe we're not gonna fund the whole thing, or we decide not to fund it at the time, and then they come over to the CPC, and then that actually adds to the tension. That gap would probably be more disruptive to the applicant in not knowing, because the Affordable Housing Trust Fund has a set standard of going in, we're looking at the funding, we're looking at the, We're looking at the development, the tenant selection, the schedule of time. I assume you all do the same thing. We've got the people with a background in the housing development field that may add the extra benefit of just having one place to go. And should the case happen, and I've seen it happen in other communities where The CPC funds the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. The Affordable Housing Trust Fund commits all of their funding to a project, and that project comes back for more than what has happened in the past in other communities. The trust fund would go to the CPC, and the trust fund would say, can we fund us a little bit more? And then the trust fund would then fund that development. Again, it keeps it streamlined. It has the same sort of terms, long terms, or grant terms, whatever it would be, and just make it easier on the borrower to get all of their finances and interest for closing policy incentives.
[Theresa Dupont]: That's a good segue to what I was going to mention too, is that you have flexibility on the trust side to do a grant or a forgivable loan or a non-forgivable loan, whatever that may be called, a traditional loan. So you have some more flexibility that might work best for that particular project versus the CPC where we only get grants. We do have we'd have to do some ordinance reworking for us to be able to have that flexibility that you would have on the trust, but that's just another benefit of the trust looking at these projects, because you have the ability to adapt to what their needs are versus trust.
[Doug Carr]: So, as we said, first of all, this must be a fairly common thing, the commonwealth for other cities. We're not reinventing the wheel here, I don't believe. No. So, we're following a set template that or maybe slightly adapting at the Medford or less than?
[Theresa Dupont]: Slightly adapting. There's no standardization of CPA, really, whenever it comes to affordable housing. And I will say that, you know, we meet once a month with other CPA communities. And it seems like a lot of trust all came on board right around the same time. So this is something that a lot of communities are kind of figuring out. We look to establish communities like Somerville has had a trust for 20, 30 years or so. So a lot of these communities are trying to figure it out, look to our established trust for guidance. And, you know, nothing, what we're presenting here is out of the norm. It's not weird or anything. I can't think of a better word because I'm tired. But, you know, it's within the realm of normalcy. That's good. Thank you. And this isn't like, hey, this is exactly what's happening going forward. Just wanted to introduce the concept. I would certainly welcome all members to bring thoughts and obviously members of the trust as well. We want to make sure everybody's comfortable with this going forward, but we felt like it might be the best course of action.
[Doug Carr]: And what's the anticipated schedule for putting this into place that was funding cycle already underway?
[Theresa Dupont]: I think we should look to strongly implement this for next fiscal year. I think right now, the requests that we have at the CPC as part of our annual funding round are just our service programs that we continuously fund every year that are meant for moving and housing families. And again, the trust is asking for a tranche of funding as well.
[Roberta Cameron]: And if I may, through the chair, Last week, the housing trust just awarded its 1st funding award to the affordable housing construction project, which was bells way West. So bells way West came in needing some additional funds. The trust fund had the $250,000 that the CPC had given them previously. And so the CPC awarded funds to Bell's Midwest out of that pool of money to be able to finish their project.
[UHZzywcUcK0_SPEAKER_03]: The trust awarded money, not the CPC. You can go around that.
[Theresa Dupont]: Thank you. I'm going to make you actual hats at Christmas.
[Doug Carr]: Why don't you just turn around.
[Theresa Dupont]: There you go, a double-sided hat.
[Doug Carr]: What else do we need to discuss on this subject?
[Theresa Dupont]: Nothing else. Like I said, it was an introduction of members as well as a concept. But I would welcome comments from each and every member. Haylene, maybe I can call you and pick your brain since you're going through exactly this. I think you'd be a good
[Jeremy Martin]: Good test subject to ask about, but... Is there some kind of formal agreement that you think we need to enter into, or is this an understanding that we can go forward with? I'm just curious what the method is of this.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, I don't think we've really voted too much on procedure and policies of how we do things on the CPC. We can certainly have it be an agenda item on the CPC's agenda as an official talking point for just us. and we can discuss it as a group.
[Jeremy Martin]: I'm still learning about the process, very eager to get into my first funding cycle is tonight. But I know in some of the earlier discussions leading up to this discussion, What I've wondered about it, or just observed, is how we set our amounts, our percentages that we're going to appropriate to each group, distribute to each category. And it'll just be interesting to me to see how that plays out in the future, knowing that, I think we're saying that a large tranche of funds will automatically go to the trust. And just an observation, it's a little less like, let's set this percentage and then see what kind of requests we get. We know that off the bat. Yeah, see how we, it puts a little more pressure maybe on that early budgeting. Yeah. because we know we have this commitment. Right.
[Doug Carr]: That's actually a really good point, because there have been years when we've had almost no dollars in the affordable bucket, so to speak, which has allowed other things to be funded that may not have been if we had a consistent power amount. So it's going to make it even more competitive. Right. Yeah. For the non-housing, which is OK.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. And it is a best practice in other communities where they just set a percentage every year, and that percentage just goes right off the top to the trust. then they focus on historic preservation and open space projects and leave the housing to the experts. All right, any other thoughts before we officially, I think we need a motion to adjourn this meeting to start the next meeting, but any other thoughts, questions? Yes, Joan.
[Joan Cyr]: Sorry I'm late, I misread the agenda. I was here at 6.30 and nobody was there and I was like, oh, it's 6.45. So in a nutshell, Is the idea that we are just going to send a set dollar amount every year to the trust fund, to the housing trust, excuse me, without any sort of debate or whatever, and that if anybody, if we get an application for a housing application, are we going to send them to the trust first, or are we going to accept them?
[Theresa Dupont]: I think that's the general idea here is that, you know, if somebody approaches us and says, hey, I want money for development, we would kindly introduce them to our friends on the trust. I think we should have a future discussion with just the CPC about establishing it. If we should establish that percentage and just do that as an annual best practice, as well as what that percentage would be. So I don't think we should debate that at this point, but that should be a CPC discussion at a later, maybe January. Does that address it for you, Joan? Okay. All right.
[Doug Carr]: Can we end this portion of the program?
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, I could take a motion to adjourn from any, or you can, or you can, because technically you're co-chairs right now.
[Jeremy Martin]: I'll make a motion to adjourn.
[Roberta Cameron]: I think we have to roll call because we're a hybrid. Sorry.
[Doug Carr]: OK.
[Roberta Cameron]: Start in a room, Doug?
[Jeremy Martin]: Yes.
[9fui-IqEKvo_SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[Jeremy Martin]: Yes.
[9fui-IqEKvo_SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[Theresa Dupont]: Not officially yet. Kayla? Yes. Kayleigh. Yes. Joan. Yes. Okay. I don't know what that number is. I think it's nine. Thank you all so much. The CPC folks hang out here for a moment. I'm just going to stop this recording, then start up a new one, but this meeting is adjourned. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you for the invite.
[UHZzywcUcK0_SPEAKER_03]: Recording stopped.
[Jeremy Martin]: You guys gave a great presentation a few weeks ago. It was like a introduction to the goals. Is that posted somewhere? Yes. Recording in progress.
[UHZzywcUcK0_SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[Roberta Cameron]: So I am going to call to order our second meeting of the evening, having said goodbye to our friends on the Affordable Health Center Trust. Thank you all again for joining us. I'm going to call to order the regular meeting of Medford Community Preservation Committee at 6.45 p.m. in room 201 of City Hall. And we are meeting hybrid with some of our members joining us online. Yes. And I will call the role of the folks in the room right now. Joe. Me? Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Speaking gibberish. Hayley. Yes. Hi. And myself.
[9fui-IqEKvo_SPEAKER_08]: Fantastic. Thank you. Yeah. Expect them to come shortly.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. So let us begin. On the first thing on the agenda is approval of meeting minutes from July 8th, 2025. Yes.
[Theresa Dupont]: Wish they were in the Dropbox. I do have a physical copy here, too, if they want to peruse.
[Roberta Cameron]: Do we have any comments on the meeting minutes from July 8th?
[Joan Cyr]: Are they in the meeting packet dated 9-9-25?
[Theresa Dupont]: They did go in earlier this morning. There they are.
[Joan Cyr]: I refreshed. Okay. Can I make a motion to receive the minutes? Second.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Seconded by Jeremy. Do you want me to abstain? I wasn't here.
[Jeremy Martin]: Yes. Wait. I wasn't here either.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'll need another second. Okay. All right. So I will call the roll. Jeremy?
[Jeremy Martin]: Should I abstain? Yes. Reg?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Joan? Yes. Hayley? Abstain. And myself? Yes.
[Theresa Dupont]: Three, four.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right, and next on the agenda is a small grant application from the Unitarian Universalist Church, Eastern Window Restoration.
[Theresa Dupont]: Is Liz going to be joining online, or? I don't know.
[SPEAKER_19]: I thought she was going to be present. OK. The person who says see there, which I'm sorry. I had to hold them up.
[Joan Cyr]: OK. Do you want to take these out of order?
[Roberta Cameron]: We could take administrative updates first. I want to hold off on overviewing the anticipated funding round yet. So administrative updates while we wait for other folks to arrive.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Theresa Dupont]: There are some upcoming tabling events. October seems to be quite heavy with social events on weekends. So I'm just going to share some dates. I'll circulate this by email too, but looking to see if anybody would be willing to help participate. At the end of this month, on the 28th, no it's the 27th, Mystic River Celebration is the 27th, apologies. Saturday the 27th from 12 to 4. That would be great if folks could come hang out at that one. Even if it's just for an hour or so, if you're in the area. So September 27th, 12 to 4. To the condom? It is at the condom shell, yes. Thank you. October 4th, and I am signed up for the Mystic River Celebration. So that is a commitment for the CPC. I have not yet signed up for the next Saturday, which is Oktoberfest. October 4th. October? October 4th. November? October 4th. October 5th. Oh. Yeah, it's the Chambers. They just announced it. It just kind of came out. I'm sorry.
[Roberta Cameron]: I haven't seen it. No, I had 9... I had 1027, not 927. Okay. So that's why I'm... Okay, there we go.
[Theresa Dupont]: We're going in reverse order. So Saturday, this one is 12 to 5, and you have to be there the whole time. So it is a bit of a commitment there. It's a little bit longer, but October 4th, 12 to 5. And where is that one? That one will be here right here in the square. If anybody wants to circle the square, it's nearly an identical program in terms of what's available there. Yep. October 5th. I believe it's going to be, this one's interesting, October 5th, there's Community Day at Tufts, and I believe that's 12 to three. Roberta and myself will be there, because Roberta's wearing a couple hats, I'm wearing a couple hats. So if anybody could come and kind of help out with that, that would be wonderful as well. Additionally, this date may move, But because of community day encroachment, CPC is going to be partnering with the planning department to do a outreach event for the COVID Memorial Grove. That was a CPC funded project for the study. They're coming back this funding round to ask for construction money by October 5th from 1 to 3 at Riverbend Park. But that would just be like a tabling, trying to get folks to weigh in on designs that we've got drafted up and get some feedback from the community about what that might look like.
[SPEAKER_07]: There's more.
[Theresa Dupont]: Like I said, October's shopping. October 18th, this is a Saturday. Harvest Your Energy Festival. From 12 to 3. This is at the McGlynn playground area and Riverbend Park have that great spaces behind the playground. That's 12 to three. We don't have a table set up for that one. They do. You do. So anybody wants to come hang out with Roberta, I will probably be there in my planning department hat to help them execute the event.
[Roberta Cameron]: It's a great place to come and celebrate one of our biggest and most successful CPA projects to date.
[Theresa Dupont]: So yeah. CPA helped fund the vast majority of the McGlynn's full playground redesign. So it's nice that we get to do that event. And we can point to the things that we did. Like the one with the stage. Correct, yes. And that's it. I'll be hanging out with you folks on the 19th day after Harvest Energy Fest. So again, I will circulate. I know I just spat out a lot of dates there. I'll circulate this through email. But it would be awesome, like I said, even if it's for an hour, if you can come and help out. People are great at these tabling events. They just want to chat about Medford. And you all are here because you also love Medford. So it ends up being a really great opportunity to chat with folks and connect. Otherwise, administrative updates, I don't really have too much else. I'm sure I can find other things to talk about, but that's what I have.
[Joan Cyr]: You're doing a fine job there, Theresa. Fine job. You're doing a fine job. Thank you, John. I appreciate that.
[Theresa Dupont]: What's that, Reg?
[SPEAKER_16]: October 5, you have two events, community day and outreach. Yes. How are you going to split yourself?
[Theresa Dupont]: Well, I'm hoping you would help me with that red. We may be moving the cope at Memorial Grove because we really want to try and get as many people. So that's a TV.
[Joan Cyr]: But in my suggestion, Teresa, instead, I would love to get him instead of sending the dates out. just say, here are the dates, if anybody can come. Let's do it like a doodle poll. And you have to pick a time that you can come. Because everybody needs to spend an hour or whatever doing these things. I wrote them all down. The only one I'm not available for at all is the 18th. OK. I might be able to participate in a couple of these, for sure. But let's do it like a doodle poll. Let's fill in each event. That's a great idea.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: I'm sorry, I was just going to ask, like, do we have an obligation to attend all of these events? I mean, obviously, I understand it's best to be out there for the majority, but like, that's a crazy amount. And like, John, I totally get you, like, I want to help, but like, I have four kids and I have sports stacked on a weekend that I cannot commit to that. And like, I mean, I'll do my very best, but like, that was a crazy amount of dates, you know, so like, like to that, you know, you know, you get a good crowd that people are responsive to and like, really, you know, do that. Because like, Teresa, like, I don't want you to feel like you're, you need to spend your weekends doing this either, you know, so I appreciate that.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. We are not obligated to any of these besides Mystic River Celebration, which is the September 27th one, and Harvest Your Energy Fest. Those are the only two that we've officially registered for. So it'd be great if we can be obnoxious and be out there and just oversaturate folks with CPC so that everybody knows what we do, but it's not a requirement. Um, that's a good point healing. Thank you for that. And I'll clarify all this, you know, which ones we're committed to, which ones we're not. Obviously, folks aren't available for the ones we're not committed to. Then we can, we can move on with our lives, but thank you.
[Joan Cyr]: We know you're going to be at October fest. Kaylene don't don't lie. We know.
[Unidentified]: All right.
[Joan Cyr]: As we heard from our comment about that, based on what Kayleen just said, and I agree, I know that we've got feedback from these events in the past. Can we take a look at where we received the most feedback and really maybe try to focus on those ones? Because I would, and I could be wrong, but the Tufts Community Day thing, I wonder if we'd get a lot of CPA feedback at that. as opposed to like Oktoberfest or the Mystic River Celebration, it seems to me, and Harvest Your Energy. That would be, you know, you get a lot back.
[Theresa Dupont]: I mean, I'd love to hear your thoughts too, Roberta, but I would say Community Day does bring in a lot of families. So if I had to rank them, I would probably put the ones that are more focused here in Bedford Square. We get a lot of, you know, interaction there. But Community Day, we do get a lot of we still do get quite a bit of interaction. I would probably rank that third of those three that I mentioned. Roberta, what are your thoughts?
[Roberta Cameron]: About the same. All of these events are highly weather dependent. So on a good weather day, we could be mobbed. On a bad weather day, we could be standing there shivering, waiting for the event to be over. Yes. So both things can happen. Um, and I think whether is really the determining factor more than the location of the event as to how many people you tend to get the same.
[Theresa Dupont]: Families, you have the same community tends to come out to most of these events. So.
[Roberta Cameron]: And they are in 3 different locations because location also is a factor. So, for example, the October fest is same location as the circle the square. So, we might be likely to talk to the same people for October fest. We were at circle the square earlier this year. Yeah. But the other two events are in different locations, and so they might bring different, the other three events might bring different people out.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, you usually, you do end up seeing the same couple of folks. A couple pop into my head right now. But yeah, there is some diversity over it. And in the community day, because it does community day does tend to bring obviously less students and younger folks, but there's families that go through it as well. We have Maisha. Have we heard from our friend Liz? No.
[SPEAKER_19]: I'm called and left a message, so I don't know. If she was joining by Zoom, something could have come up. I have no photos. I have them on my phone. Let me just be brief about...
[Roberta Cameron]: I just want to recognize a question from Maisha.
[Myisha Majumder]: Hi, I'm sorry. I can't get into the city council meeting on Zoom because there's a pass code and I'm trying to get reappointed for this position. So I'm just trying to get onto that Zoom meeting. I don't know if you guys can help me with that.
[Theresa Dupont]: Maisha, I'll text you.
[Myisha Majumder]: OK, thank you. Sorry to interrupt.
[Theresa Dupont]: No worries. No worries. That's problematic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, then. So, I spend all this time. Yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: always daunting to text the city council president while he's in a meeting.
[Myisha Majumder]: I didn't realize that we had passcode protected public meetings now, but I thought I was doing something wrong, but I tried like everywhere and I couldn't figure out where the passcode was.
[Jeremy Martin]: Maisha, I've made the mistake before where there was a CityCount, like a Council of the Whole meeting or a different meeting listed on the same day and I clicked the wrong link.
[Myisha Majumder]: I got an email from someone. Let me, I'll try out another link. Let's see if I'm missing something.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. If you go to the City Calendar Mindshow and try that link.
[Myisha Majumder]: Yeah, that's what I was using. It kept saying that I needed a passcode. Okay. I'll try it again. I'll text you. I'm sorry for interrupting. No worries.
[Roberta Cameron]: Sorry, back to CPC. Thank you. I will move to the next item on the agenda, the remaining item on the agenda. No, it's not. We have two more things. So right now we're going to take up the small grant application from the Unitarian Universalist Church for Eastern Window Restoration.
[Theresa Dupont]: Joan, would you want to come up here and sit up? The microphone that we have is only so robust. And what I'll do, Joan, too, is I can bring up the application of NCROS and have it there.
[Roberta Cameron]: So, welcome. Introduce yourself and give us a very brief overview of the project you're applying for.
[SPEAKER_19]: My name is Joan Keene. I am a representative from the Union of Church of Medford. and working with Liz Ammons, who we had a very successful application awarded in the spring for a major carpentry and painting restoration, preservation of the church. And Liz Ammons did 95% of the work on that, by the way. And about a month ago, we invited Teresa to come and review the successful And it's almost completed. As we were going around the church, we were sharing with her our aspirations to completely the project, one being a major stained glass window on the Powder House side, Powder House Road side of the church needs new plexiglass, or which was not covered sufficiently in our grant. trees at that time enthusiastically mentioned that there was an off-cycle small grant process that we could apply to. So this is what it is. It is nothing religious about this particular shirt or window. And we find it necessary. I don't know how long that plexiglass has been there, but it does not allow moisture to pass through, it's rotted at the bottom, the wood needed to be replaced. They already went ahead and replaced the wood before, all the supporting wood, before we decided, oh, there's an option. It would be lovely to complete the whole project at one time, because it just looks so beautiful. So we submitted the contract, a very detailed contract, and asking for $84,000. Well, $84,000 is the... $8,400. $8,400, rather. I'm sorry. 8500 yes right not small at all almost what we already have and um i think we asked for nine because you never know what the there's always overcharges so um i know that's the window a very prominent window in our social hall where many meetings and and our mcs hold uh whole regular events. So that is the basic request. And there is some urgency in that the contractors are still on site completing the final list. And it would be lovely if we knew one way or the other so we could have them maybe continue with the project while the temperatures and the season holds.
[9fui-IqEKvo_SPEAKER_08]: Thank you. Are there questions from the members?
[Doug Carr]: Just one. Is this solution, how long has this been up there? Because it's a permanent solution. Because this is wood that's going to rot out every quarter century or something like that. Is there, not for this round, but is there maybe a better long-term plan for something like this? I'm just asking a question. I'm not sure what the answer is.
[SPEAKER_19]: OK. I do not know the history of this. I've only been with the church since 21 and having been in real estate and done historic preservation in other towns on the committee. Plexiglass is the cheaper way to go. From what I understand, it will, the way it's constructed at the bottom, there are ways to, the weep holes are better so that the moisture can escape, but it won't. damaged the window. That has been the main problem now that the base would have been deteriorating because there was the moisture barrier was not sufficient. So that was the plan. I don't, as I said, I don't know what has been done in the last 50 years on that. I'm, I'm pretty sure that Plexiglas lifetime has exceeded 25 years, at least. Yeah. And many of the back windows of the church, it was replaced. And we tested that. It was really nice.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. Yeah. It's very stark, the difference between that. And I think this photo best represents it, how foggy and foggy it is. So you're not seeing that beautiful artwork there.
[Doug Carr]: I think that was kind of my point. The thing with Shilali windows and some of the things you've done with windows over the course of the CPC that they're This would suggest a larger grant in the future that maybe figure out what a long-term solution of that gas clear glass or something tempered or whatever, because plexiglass yellows over time, as you can see over that. And wood just doesn't seem like the right frame long-term either. There has to be, I think, a preservation architect component here for a future long-term vision for this. Could there be less panels? You know, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_19]: I'm not sure, you mean fewer in the support? Yeah. Okay.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_19]: I mean, some of them are closets. If it were glass, though, the weight of that would seemingly require at least this amount of framework.
[Doug Carr]: Potentially. Okay. You know, but there might be alternatives. That's what I'm going to say, is I think long-term, that is not part of this grant. Again, this is an emergency repair, a wood frame for plexi is a, it's more than a band-aid, but not much more. But you need a band-aid right now.
[SPEAKER_19]: Yes, and I'm not, I do not know the ratios, the moisture ratios of what a glass covering would do to the color and everything of that particular, the church has been around since the 1700s, but this particular edifice, I'm trying to remember being there a short time, the history of it, it's either 1874 or 94 when it was constructed. the present edifice was constructed. So that's an original window from a Boston company. And I think that you have all the history and the registration, the national registry of certain places in the Massachusetts one, all of that information from our previous application. And I think just to, I think Teresa already mentioned that she was pleased with the detail our contractor provided.
[Jeremy Martin]: Out of curiosity, what was the grant award in the previous cycle? We received $99,000. Do you anticipate other projects?
[SPEAKER_19]: No, this was such a drop from heaven to have this option to do everything at the same time, so maybe we are good for $30,000, $50,000, I don't know. Until that plexiglass yellows again. It would be just lovely to finish the whole project. Even just an aside, just painting the front doors a color that just made the stained glass windows on the front facing High Street just awesome.
[Theresa Dupont]: Stand in front of it and then pull up Google Street View. I think it pulls it up from 2023 and then look at it now. The way you guys were able to stretch that $99,000 so well, it made such an impact on the building. It's really lovely.
[SPEAKER_19]: Having done it before, I was personally astounded that they and replace it with about 200 cages for starters.
[Roberta Cameron]: Keep that contractor. Well, is there a motion from a member of the committee to recommend a small grant for this project?
[Jeremy Martin]: I'll make a motion to recommend awarding a small grant as requested.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'll second. All right. And I will call the roll. Joan? Yes. Haylene? Yes. Jeremy?
[Jeremy Martin]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Reg?
[Jeremy Martin]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Doug?
[Jeremy Martin]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Adam? Yes. And myself, yes. Awesome. Congratulations.
[Theresa Dupont]: Thank you very, very much. Yes. So appreciated. Of course. I'll reach out to you and Liz tomorrow morning with next steps. Excellent. Thank you very much. Good thing you brought your good luck charm to us over there. Thank you. Well done. Excellent.
[Jeremy Martin]: And I hope Liz is okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, I'm sure she is. She's a very busy lady as you all are. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Joe. Thank you all. Good night.
[Roberta Cameron]: So the final item on our agenda tonight is to give a brief overview of the anticipated projects from the FY26 annual funding round. And I don't know if you want to share this spreadsheet. There is a spreadsheet with the array of projects in our meeting packet for today. and we have an embarrassing of riches request for money. And so I'm trying to think ahead about like how can we most efficiently use our time, use the time of our applicants to be able to make the best decisions on these projects. So I wanted to perhaps make a lightning round through this list today among committee members to identify What do you think you need to know in order to make a decision about this? Are there any questions that you're hoping that the applicants are going to answer in their applications or their presentations so that we can give them that feedback and encourage them to have that information ready for us up front? Another thing that might be helpful for us to think through this and up the ground this evening is just a gut check on each of the projects. Maybe committee members could tell me, how do you think you would prioritize these requests individually? This isn't an official vote because we don't have all the information yet, but I think that going through this prioritization exercise might help us to help our applicants because some in many cases the city is applying for many different projects. So it will help our applicants to prioritize what they think is really worth focusing their applications on.
[Theresa Dupont]: I'm trying so hard to like get this so you can see everybody and screen share and so
[Doug Carr]: I think my initial thought would be that we want people, and we ask this every time, but asking it live in the meeting is one thing, asking it before it's even due next week, I think, is another. And that is, are there sources of funding? Can you phase it? The obvious thing is that everyone, we've asked people to take haircuts before, when we didn't have enough money, So just knowing that those basic questions, if they could mention it in the grant itself, I think that helps. Because that gives us a head start on saying, okay, 80% funding versus 100%. And for the city, they often have multiple sources of funding anyway, in many cases. Again, what percentage are we? you know, do you need that full 700 or 600 or whatever it is? Right. Could 500 do it so that we could find one of the 100 ones here that might not get it or not get enough? Right, yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: And those are questions on our application route is, can this be phased? Other fundings, we asked them to identify other funding sources and one of the questions is also, If CPA doesn't fund this, what's the probability of this project moving forward? And so we do have some qualifying questions that probably would address that, but I can certainly ask them to reinforce that in the presentation.
[Ada Gunning]: Yeah, there's one that really stands out in terms of how much money they're asking for and having trouble the pathways and parking days too. I can talk all about that.
[Theresa Dupont]: I'm sorry, yeah, Brooks Estate. That's the Bedford Brooks Estate Land Trust. My heir folks, I'm sorry for the new folks who didn't recognize, but that is good. So that's the Brooks Estate.
[Ada Gunning]: And then the other one that was standing out to me was the private owner who happens to also be the Brian Hayward.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes, he is. I want to be very clear with that project. there as a private consultant in his day job, not there at all as any sort of entity for the city. Ryan Hayward is a vice chair for the historical commission, but his day job is architect. So I just, since we're on record, I just want to be very clear about that.
[Ada Gunning]: It's the only one that I saw that's a private project.
[Jeremy Martin]: It caught my attention too, and I saw that it was marked as eligible, but just help me understand for a private residence converting to a private residence. I was eligible. Do you want to take that? Sure.
[Roberta Cameron]: So preserving the carriage house, the exterior restoration preservation would be an eligible project because the members of the public benefit by being able to see the preserved building from the street, not necessarily having to go in it. But I had a question on that project, which is, would they also be seeking to put an income restriction on that unit. So that really would be a combination of historic reservation and affordable housing. Any affordable housing would be an eligible category for doing the whole interior conversion as well.
[Ada Gunning]: The reason I was noticing that one is because I feel like we established last cycle that private residents are eligible, but then there was the additional question of, do we want to fund them? And so for me, it was less about eligibility and it was more about prior to this, yeah.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah. What's the address of that one again, Judy?
[Theresa Dupont]: It's just in the Hillside District.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, okay.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, we only have like, I think less than 10 remaining carriage houses, original carriage houses in Medford. That number might be a little high, but it's in my neighborhood. Well, carriage house, is it more concrete block garage or is it true carriage house? like historic demolition.
[Roberta Cameron]: So it's something to think about strategically for the committee as well as for the applicant. The historic preservation angle, we could put conditions on the project that would permanently protect the building to ensure that it doesn't get torn down. On the affordable housing side, we can put conditions in place that ensure that it's going to be affordable in perpetuity. And that's actually a very cheap, affordable housing project, if that's all they need to be able to do that. Benefits on both sides. We could encourage them to go to the Affordable Housing Trust for a project like this and not capture the historic preservation aspect of it, or we could split it between the two boards, or we could just fund this as a split project ourselves. Three options.
[Jeremy Martin]: Any of that is predicated on them saying, yes, we intend to move that as an income restricted. Yes.
[Theresa Dupont]: It had been made aware that if this project is funded, it would be subject to a deed restriction for income eligibility.
[Jeremy Martin]: even the X, just the exterior restoration.
[Ada Gunning]: I would be curious. I don't know if this is the conversation we want to have right now, but I'd be curious what precedent that would set. Like, let's say this round, we're like, great, bang for our buck. Let's fund this project. The next round, we get five more projects, all a hundred K. And then they're like, well, why, why'd you fund that one and not mine? I just, I guess I'm curious about. the precedent setting, like what we'd be signing up for if we did a bunch of these. And do we want to sign up for that?
[Jeremy Martin]: Well, in any year, there might be any number of projects that we can't fund because of a limited pool. Do we often try to whittle these request amounts down so that we can give any eligible project funding?
[Roberta Cameron]: We try to approach it, or there's no guarantee that every project will get funding. We, um. We try to fund as many projects as we can. So last year we similarly had to, maybe the last couple of years, it's been competitive. And so we went through a round of prioritizing the projects ourselves so that we could decide, you know, like, what do we absolutely, what are we sure we want to fund this year? And then below that, what would we fund if we have enough money? And then I don't think we ever got to the list of what do we think is not worth funding.
[Jeremy Martin]: And are you hoping that we'll set some of those priorities tonight, or is this more of that's the next?
[Roberta Cameron]: That'll be after we get all the information from them. But if you want to express that tonight, it might be able to help with giving feedback to the applicants about, is it worth submitting the whole application? Or should they really focus on some aspect of the project that will make it a higher priority project for us?
[Doug Carr]: If Reliance projects, yeah. is, in fact, a combination of historic preservation and affordable. I guess we shouldn't identify it that way. Are we not doing it just as historic right now?
[Theresa Dupont]: I did actually have it as housing at one point, but I was tinkering with formulas down here. Oh, it was thrown out. Yeah. But, you know, we have funded projects where we've said, we want 100 grand, and it straddles both uh, you know, categories, well, 50% will come from, you know, open space and the other 50 will come from historic. We've actually done that for EMBL before, so we can stipulate that so that, you know, those buckets of money, you know, are, reflect that.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, and I agree, actually, with Roberta, that I don't, I don't really know the merits of this project, because I haven't seen it yet, but $100,000 to get an affordable unit is about 25% of what it really costs in the real world, when I can tell. If not, So there's value in that. To me, the affordable component is actually bigger than the preservation component. Which might be an argument for some age, too. Essentially, yes. And I think in the president's sense, though, is you bring us both and you'll get funded. If you bring one or the other, you might not.
[Ada Gunning]: I worry about the arbitrariness of rules and precedents that we will establish on private projects. Like, I remember the conversation we had with whatever address that was on High Street.
[Jeremy Martin]: The armory.
[Ada Gunning]: The armory. And we were like, we think you should have a bench and sit. And it all felt a little like I'm making it up if you're going along. And now if we do a private residence, are we going to put, if it's affordable, does that mean we won't ask for an additional public good from that or I guess I would say the affordability is a pretty huge public. Yeah. So like in that sense, we wouldn't expect there to be like another an additional layer.
[Jeremy Martin]: Yeah, I agree with my original reading of this with enlisted as historic preservation triggered the question of if we required this of the armory folks to have some kind of public good that we required here. But I fully agree that adding that kind of affordability makes it vastly more appealing to fund. Maybe re-categorizing it.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. I hate Excel.
[Joan Cyr]: I'm sorry. I can't seem to raise my hand, but I have a comment. Can we ask for all of the city-owned property applications? Can we ask somebody at the city to put these in the order of priority for the city?
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes. Yeah, that's a best practice we've done the past couple of years. I bring it to, you know, Mayor, DPW, Commissioner. I'm like, but who would you ask them? Yeah.
[Ada Gunning]: Because that would change the answer.
[Theresa Dupont]: I usually do ask, you know, Chief of Staff, Mayor, DPW commissioner as well as a planning director, because those tend to be like, you know, the heavy hitters. Now, normally all of them are applicants as well. So it's interesting, but this year. So, um, but now that that's, um, so it's good to know what the city's priorities are to something you make the decision.
[Jeremy Martin]: Something that would be helpful for me, if you would consider it, um, Teresa would be adding a column in here. of previous funding, like previous year or two-year backlog of funding as a way to help prioritize, like, OK, we gave you 100,000 last year and the year before. That's a great idea. Maybe that's not the priority this year.
[Roberta Cameron]: I can definitely add that. It's helpful information, but it also, we've given you a couple hundred thousand in the previous years. we have already invested in your project and they might need another tranche to be able to complete the project that we've started.
[Jeremy Martin]: So it could have been both ways but it would help trigger some of those questions like what is this additional funding meant to accomplish?
[Theresa Dupont]: There's a notes column on the end so I can just add like a previous funding received and then I'll just add some color in the notes section like I know there's a couple of projects on there, you know, the pathways, but continuation of project. Probably could use more words there, but continuation of a previously funded project.
[Ada Gunning]: Just for my brain to like, better organize this, the AHT is asking for half a million.
[Theresa Dupont]: Correct.
[Ada Gunning]: However, there are additional affordable housing requests. How should I be thinking about this?
[Roberta Cameron]: So the, um, The affordable house, the 25% that we dedicated to affordable housing at the beginning of the year was our minimum. So our goal has been a third, a third, a third, as Doug mentioned earlier. And the HT is asking for that 25% minimum, we still have the prerogative to go above that amount. And in fact, it would be a good idea for us to go above that amount, at least sometimes because The reason it was suggested that we set 25% as our minimum is because the state rewards communities that give at least 25% of their CP. In the last few years, we actually fell short of 25%, but they looked back over five years. And so we were able to pick up the big year when we gave so much to the housing authority.
[Ada Gunning]: So we need to now But yeah, I actually wasn't even going in the direction of percentages. I was going more in the direction of like, who's owning affordable housing? Do we want them to make all those decisions and like move everything over to them? Or do we still want to be in the business of deciding on affordable housing projects?
[Roberta Cameron]: That's our $2 million question, right? So the suggestion that Teresa presented when we talked with, oh, and you weren't here for the affordable housing conversation earlier. is that for now, we keep the housing programs, the rental assistance programs in CPC, but we delegate to the Affordable Housing Trust housing construction projects so that we can take advantage of their expertise and their ability to pool money for these bigger projects. But I think it allows us to maintain a little more flexibility with our funds to be able to say, like, we know that the minimum is going to be available to them, but we can respond to some of these unusual housing requests or the housing program requests.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: Theresa, can you go back up to the affordable housing projects, please?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes. Thank you. Yeah, your questions were like, it was like a quiz. It was like a quiz for the earlier meeting.
[Ada Gunning]: Did you guys remember everything you decided? Good work.
[Roberta Cameron]: We didn't decide anything. We're just considering some proposals of what it might be as we get to know the other committee.
[MCM00001830_SPEAKER_05]: So for example, if we did that model that you just explained, so the housing families, the Medford move-in, those would stay in our responsibility. And then obviously, housing trust money. But then if there was a Medford housing walk-in for request or something or whatever, whatever, something more serious or construction related, that would get pushed the trust is what you're saying.
[Unidentified]: Yeah. Yeah. OK.
[Ada Gunning]: I love that they have the expertise to handle that.
[Theresa Dupont]: I don't know if anybody's joined any of the trust meetings. We've had quite a few in the past month, I think three, but just hearing them talk about things and like, I'm not a housing expert, but I am tasked with being responsible for housing for the city of Medford. And some of the things that they were talking about, like, I never would have thought, even thought of thinking about that, you know, so I'm really glad that they, You know, they're very rigorous. We actually, you missed this earlier too, the trust awarded their first loan to a project for $100,000. So seeing them kind of pull apart the application and ask those really intense questions, like, it made sense for the trust to- The first projects that we funded is- Yes.
[Joan Cyr]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes. And where the CPC would have just said, okay, you know, we'll cut them a check in here, go do your project. the trust is awarding it as a loan with the expectation that they're going to repay those funds and it comes back to the trust in the future. So like already they are, they know how to do this in a really efficient way.
[Jeremy Martin]: So, yeah. Teresa, just help remind me of the fiscal year 26 funding, the 2.1 million. Yeah. We've said that we're going to keep 50% of that as a reserve. How did you get to that? The reserve is just a leftover after you apply percentages? Correct.
[Theresa Dupont]: So if we're looking at this column, this is the budget that we established earlier this year for fiscal 26. So that's our 10%, 10% to open space and historic preservation. The 25%, that's at 550. So that number is just leftovers. Yeah. Down here, also, in case anybody was curious, I'll scroll back up and we can look at the projects again shortly here. But this is how the asks, the requests, are divided up into categories. So we've got almost 2 million in requests just for open space and recreation, over a million for historic preservation, and 750 for affordable housing. So this is our budget. This is our, well, this is our total available funds. This is our budget and how we can disseminate it. Admin money is pulled separately. So we've got almost 3.8 and asks to a 2.1 availability. So we're gonna break some hearts this year.
[Jeremy Martin]: Just before I joined you all had set a sort of minimum target for a reserve. Remind me what that, was that an amount?
[Theresa Dupont]: Oh, in terms of dollar amount, sorry, you're making percentages. That was $225,000. Okay. Right. Okay. Another thing to consider here. There's, there's, am I doing math right? $850,000 of that reserve.
[Jeremy Martin]: Yeah, you're right. That could be distributed.
[Theresa Dupont]: Why do I always end up having to do Excel formulas? In front of people. In front of people, on a board, in a group.
[9fui-IqEKvo_SPEAKER_08]: It's like, do you sign up for this or something? Right?
[Theresa Dupont]: OK, that worked out well. So essentially, if we wanted to still keep our 225 in reserves, that's technically what we're
[Jeremy Martin]: looking at right now is such poor country. Yeah, that's interesting. I was looking at it the other way, where there's that $1,099,000. We want to keep $250,000 of that. And so then there's a surplus there that we could apply to. To Roberta's point, we can fund above the 25% minimum for affordable housing if we wanted to.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, there's some really crazy math that could be done to show what is the maximum amount. So imagine that roughly each of the two categories, you could add $500,000 to what's potentially available in PBIC. So it could be $700,000 in each category is what's roughly Available if it were distributed evenly.
[Theresa Dupont]: I know we've been talking about, we wanted to go down the line and I can try to answer questions folks may have.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, why don't I just go quickly through the project? Yes. And we'll give a couple, like. It's only 15 seconds to each one. Just blurt out any immediate reactions that you have to them, and that might be feedback, or we might have no reactions. Veterans Affairs, the restoration of the World War II fountain, located at Oak Grove Cemetery?
[Theresa Dupont]: Correct. If you go on through the main entrance, it's the one that's on the left. It's got a statue of a winged angel.
[Roberta Cameron]: I'd love to know myself why this is, like, what is the urgency to restore that fountain? I know when we did the World War I fountain, it looked like it was in danger of toppling over. It wasn't taken care of in the next couple of years. Is that the situation here? Or are there, because we funded a number of projects at the cemetery that need more money to go forward. So is that the highest priority is my big question. Next one, Cross Street Cemetery Monument Restoration.
[Theresa Dupont]: This is a continuation. They had come for a small grant to do a pilot. It's really lovely work that's being done up there. But now they're coming back to finish the rest of the cemetery.
[Roberta Cameron]: Shiloh Baptist Church Window Restoration, phase two.
[Jeremy Martin]: I'm sorry, did we miss the Mystic River historic crossings? We did. Oh, I'm sorry, yes, we did.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, Mystic River historic crossings.
[Theresa Dupont]: Just to explain what historic crossings means, it's all the bridges that cross over the Mystic River. It's going to be the armory bridge, which is right behind where the armory is, right at the end of the parking lot at the Conan Show. But that hand foot bridge, which is the pedestrian crossing from over the underneath the credit. Went through a street bridge, which is right near the community gardens. Family walks that it's a nightmare. I walk it every Saturday. I hate it. And then the Auburn Street Bridge, which is up by Whole Foods that crosses over Mystic River. These are technically in a it's not a historic district. It's a historic region or something like that?
[Roberta Cameron]: I think they're on the National Historic Register as a district or something. Yeah, I forget exactly. And you didn't say the Main Street Bridge because that's a... Yeah, not that, that's not the project.
[Doug Carr]: We restored that a couple years ago. So it's been done.
[Roberta Cameron]: I've been begging them to look at this project for years because the bridges are rumbling, it looks unsafe, and where the state has made repairs, they are not historically appropriate, and it looks like crap, and people are writing graffiti all over it because it looks like crap.
[Doug Carr]: You don't think they'd be doing that anyway?
[Ada Gunning]: It's because they don't appreciate the end.
[Doug Carr]: Why? These guys don't own the trade. Why? Why is the state not doing that?
[Roberta Cameron]: This is kind of... So, Myra is trying to push the state to do it by... They're only asking for planning money. Right. So Myra is trying to, let's say, let's do the planning so that the state will feel obligated to fix their stuff. But that is a good, like, things that jump out at me. planning for a state-owned asset is risky. On the other hand, MIRA is very shy. We've already said no to them once, and it's taken them many years to get brave enough to come back to us, and nobody else is going to do this project.
[Doug Carr]: They were unfortunate to be in the crossfire of one of the few actually controversial grants we've had. I don't even think it was at the time, because They were trying to plan what they're planning now, what's been planned by DCR for the last couple of years, along the entire Manford, 50 acres of land from the Winchester line to Route 60, that whole, you haven't seen the plans of what they're doing, it's phenomenal. The bike lanes, the walking paths, the historic restoration, some of the resources, it's everything.
[Jeremy Martin]: Along the Mystic Lakes. On that point, I'd be curious to understand more about the scope of this. It describes it as a conditions assessment. Does it go beyond just assessing and put forth proposals and recommendations like a planning project? Or is it not enough for... It's not construction level, but it's conceptual.
[Roberta Cameron]: So identifying what are the problems, what would be the appropriate solution and what is an estimated price that it would cost for that. We did a similar thing for the Oak Grove Cemetery World War I monument. They initially came to us just asking to restore the monument, and we said, wait, do you know how? And so we suggested, why don't you get a condition assessment and do a plan first, and then come back. And they did that, and it was beautiful. It turned out really well.
[SPEAKER_07]: It did.
[Roberta Cameron]: So that's that project. So then the Shiloh Church window restoration phase.
[Theresa Dupont]: So we have funded this project for their ADA improvements. It started as a conditions assessment as well as window restoration project. And now they're coming back to the windows, which is great.
[Jeremy Martin]: I was just curious about the notes you have over here, bonsai, NAACP effort.
[Theresa Dupont]: So this is a church, a large church with a smaller congregation. Like most churches, they need funding. So Bonsai is their child care tenant that will be coming up. So they'll be operating out of the basement there. But there were just some other ideas about fundraising, being creative about fundraising. CPA has Invested quite heavily in this project. So, you know as we're looking at competitive rounds They yeah, I mean just out of context.
[Roberta Cameron]: They probably need a million dollars worth of restoration of windows and they can probably generate a $100 out of their congregation toward the project. So this is a really a community, I think, the community needs to help to keep this building standing and use it as community space. So I think there needs to be a partnership of community fundraising combined with public money. Because some of the windows would not be CPA eligible. They have 40 stained glass windows in the building. And a small handful of them have religious iconography on them. Most of them are just geometric shapes. And they're beautiful. They are in rough condition. And the carpentry around them is in rough condition. So it needs big investment that is bigger than what CPA alone can do.
[Theresa Dupont]: So we're encouraging them to get creative. That's a lot of beer. It's a lot of beer.
[Roberta Cameron]: So we talked already about the Ida Hill loaner garage conversion, open Memorial Grove construction. Teresa mentioned earlier, they're going to be doing a public engagement event. in the upcoming months to continue planning or to show people what they're doing?
[Theresa Dupont]: What is... We have some with the initial award for CPA of the design study, we have a couple of renderings and some treatment options. So it's essentially between two designs at this point. So the point of the meeting is to get people's feedback on these two designs, seeing if there's any special elements or anything and just to continue to introduce the project. I will say not a lot of folks know that this is a potential project. So this is more of the marketing of it, really, the first introduction of it.
[Roberta Cameron]: I would ask whether we might be able to maybe instead of, I mean, or in addition to an event at that location, leverage all these other events on the calendar to say, what do you guys think of these two designs? Do you know that we're going to be doing this project? And then what's your feedback? I just want to move on quickly so we don't use up too much time because we will talk about these many more times in the future. Riverside Plaza shade improvements.
[Theresa Dupont]: This was a project that CPA funded last fiscal year. Lo and behold, when they went out to bid, it came back at $300,000 over what their original estimate is.
[Doug Carr]: I've seen this one before.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. So they've done some thoughtful redesign to still incorporate the original intention by, but downscaling it. So this was a shade structure. It was going to go to Riverside Plaza, which is right here in Medford Square. Great place to hang, no shade, they need more money.
[Doug Carr]: They changed the design to make it more affordable? Correct. To value engineering them? Correct.
[Joan Cyr]: Barry Park. That depot thing that was there. What was that?
[Roberta Cameron]: They took away the depot that used to be there. Spent three days, mate. Yeah. So Berry Park Community Garden, and you put in the notes that likely to have neighborhood oppositions. So maybe it's a very small amount of money for a project that will be impactful.
[Ada Gunning]: I have a question about that one. Yeah. Not to slow us down, but like the community gardens and the potential dog parks that no one's brought up, but we know people want dog parks at Barrie Park, Morrison Park, and...Tufts. Anyways, um, these are all things people can come to us for money for, but like, are there going to be other bodies that are going to stand in the way of the actual implementation?
[Roberta Cameron]: It did happen one time in our very first funding round that we made a grant that ended up the project being canceled because of public opposition. And it was because of a community garden at that site. Of course, we're several years out. That was Marsden, right? No, that was Harris. So, you know, I think this is where we need the city's input because we don't want to be the ones who are taking the heat for a decision that the city has made to request money to go forward. This is not the city though, right? This is... This is the community guard.
[Theresa Dupont]: The community guard commission themselves. Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: So they came to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: And they wanted to put it in the middle of the baseball field. Not really in the middle of the baseball field, but it was on the Boxton Street side of the field. At Derrick Park? Yes. And so subsequently we went down there and we took a look at it. And it was, it would have been an impediment to playing baseball there in the future. So we took took a walk around the whole park, and we decided that we would put it on the other side of the tennis court, which would be on the College Ave side. And it would have accommodated the amount of beds that they wanted. It would have been easier access for the water. We knew that there was one individual on College Ave who was vehemently opposed, but we felt that for the greater good of the community, that the community gardens would give us more benefit in that space, because right now it's not being utilized. So, I mean, if you want to transfer the heat, you can send it back to us. But, you know, we did our due diligence on it. we felt that that was the best place to put it.
[Jeremy Martin]: I'm spending too much time on it, but what avenue does that one vehemently opposed neighbor have to stop it? Just doesn't work, does it?
[Roberta Cameron]: Organizing their neighbors to come and bring torches and burn down City Hall.
[9fui-IqEKvo_SPEAKER_08]: But if they burn down City Hall, right, we won't have to fund the bathrooms.
[Theresa Dupont]: Vote? Voting closed at 4.30. It'll be open back up tomorrow at 8.30. Yeah. No, no. 8.30 to 4.30. So? I'm not sure, sir, but it is over with today. I'm so sorry.
[Ada Gunning]: I love that you guys approved this project, and I feel like we're going to encounter this again with community gardens and dog parks. And it would be nice to just have a little protocol. go to the parks commission, come back to us, get a stamp of approval from the mayor's office, like bada bing, bada boom. Like, you know what I mean? Just so we just.
[Roberta Cameron]: You know, I think one thing like we definitely want to do if we don't already do, because maybe we do already do it, but anything like this, it's adding an amenity to make sure that they come, that their application includes a commendation from the parks commission. Yeah. So, we want that to be approved first before they ask you.
[Ada Gunning]: There's currently like a community effort petition to get a dog park at Berry Park, too. Which I found out by canvassing. We haven't seen it yet. Oh, I know. They don't know what they're doing. That's good.
[Reggie Graham]: They're not getting a dog park, but I don't believe because... They are losing a lot of community support. Well, that's fine. But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, you can't take existing space and transfer it to something else just because. You know, you're going to have a doggone good reason.
[Roberta Cameron]: On that note, I want to move on to the next one. We are going to have so many more opportunities to dig deep into each of these projects. The Tufts Park field lighting improvements. This is a big number.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. And that number might even be low. Yeah. But it's for Mooska lighting. It's all app controlled. They've been slowly implementing these as they've been redoing the parks. Tufts is a giant park with four lighting.
[Doug Carr]: There's no way to phase this, right? No.
[Theresa Dupont]: I mean, technically, I guess they could put one half in and then the next half, but that's...
[Reggie Graham]: Silly. But they only want $20,000 for that?
[Theresa Dupont]: No. Oh, I think you're looking at Berry Park.
[Reggie Graham]: The green one.
[Theresa Dupont]: That $700,000 number there. And that pricing is from 2022, I think. So I'm imagining it's probably more than $750,000. With contingency, it's probably $800,000. Right.
[Reggie Graham]: So can I ask a question? Yes. Why is it coming from the Recreation Department? As opposed to?
[Theresa Dupont]: I'm not sure. Kevin put up the Condon show lighting before. Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: I'm not sure. Because he has care custody and control over the Condon.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: But he doesn't have care custody and control over Tufts Farm. So I'm wondering why.
[Theresa Dupont]: The mayor did sign off on it. It's like an author. We have when it's a city owned property. I know, but are you saying that it could be a problem in a different department?
[Reggie Graham]: I'm just wondering, you know, why the recreation department is asking for $700,000 for lighting at a park when the recreation department doesn't have control, care custody control of that park.
[Theresa Dupont]: They do assist with events that are there. So they are the ones that are primarily the user of the lighting or at least managing it. Are you saying their request is illegal?
[Reggie Graham]: I'm not saying it's illegal. A question is who has authority to request money for the park? And if our procedure
[Roberta Cameron]: That Teresa just mentioned is that when they first submit the eligibility form, there's a form that they have to submit if it's on city property that the mayor has to sign it and the mayor assigns it to somebody to manage that project. So maybe it was that the mayor assigned it to the recreation department to manage that project. Although they aren't necessarily the Department of Care, Custody and Control, but to Reg's point, we need to make sure that the appropriate departments are looped in because when we have one department okay a project that another department isn't in the loop about, we end up with conflict, and we want to avoid conflict. So anybody who should be aware of it, we want the full application to show us that they're aware of it. So if there is another department that has care, custody, and control, they should be mentioned in the application, and the application should mention how they are collaborating with each other.
[Reggie Graham]: That answers my question, yes. OK. I'll bring that back to them. Because essentially, I'm looking at it, and I'm saying the recreation department does, they have the pool. OK, but even the pool is still under the past commission. He might manage the pool, but he doesn't make the rules or any improvements to the pool.
[Roberta Cameron]: So this would fall under the category of projects that need to at least come to the Parks Commission, just like the one, you know, the dog park or community gardens or any other, like, lighting, field lighting is an amenity that the Park Commission should review before, as part of our process. I'll talk with Kevin. All right, I'll move to the next one. Carr Park dugout shelters.
[Jeremy Martin]: Bruce, do you have concerns about whatever they're planning right now not meeting the DPW standards? Just reading your note here.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes, so that note came out of the Hickey Park dugout shelters. It was proposed to do a cantilever design, and it is installed, and it looks great. However, the engineering behind having a cantilevered rather than two post support system, the DPW has asked us kindly to no longer fund cantilever designs. So that is why that note is there. So we make sure that DPW is on board with that. They want a review before.
[Roberta Cameron]: This is exactly what we want, is left hand talking to right hand.
[Theresa Dupont]: I did remind DPW that DPW was the one that proposed that design. Moving on.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. The shade team pop-up, I can explain this one because I have the feeling that this project is likely to drop out this round. This is an idea. There's a group in Cambridge that is working with teens to develop and advocate and fundraise and program and manage the community gathering space at a park that's a shade structure that they've designed. And they'd like to expand this to other communities and get other communities to do similar things. It is equally a, um, an investment, like the capital investment and an organizational passive. So CPA is relatively easy to get us to make the capital investment, but the bigger challenge is that organizational piece of getting a group together to take this project on here. And I don't know that that's going to come together, this funding round. So, um, but we can work on it.
[Theresa Dupont]: In the meantime, find that organizational support potentially for the future and bring them back.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. So then I think we talked about the housing program, housing programs, housing families, ABCD assistance programs, and the affordable housing trust funding. We can pass over those. The invasives removal program,
[Theresa Dupont]: I have a meeting with the internal team about this one tomorrow. Apparently, there is a program or a group called Keep Medford Beautiful that will be taking this on. However, I've been having some difficult time getting some details out of them as to what the program will look like. I hope to have answers tomorrow.
[Jeremy Martin]: Yeah, I'd definitely like to know more about it.
[Theresa Dupont]: And I mentioned the Hillside group. to the mayor's office, and I'm just not sure. Sounds like they didn't connect with you.
[Jeremy Martin]: The mayor's office?
[Theresa Dupont]: I haven't heard that.
[Jeremy Martin]: Or Alice Hunter. I haven't, no. But thank you for bringing it to them. I can make a lot of cases as why this is different from maintenance if we need to do that. Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: I was about to say is that that case needs to be made as to why it's not maintenance.
[Jeremy Martin]: It's actually preservation in a way. If we allow these invasive plants to displace native plants, we will lose the ecological value and function of our parks and open spaces.
[Theresa Dupont]: I wish CPA could pay for community-wide efforts specifically for invasives because Yes, we have issues in our parks and everything, but gosh, I hate walking around my neighborhood and just seeing a tree of heaven growing out of a retaining wall. I'm like, well, your retaining wall is going to fail in about two years. So I wish that CPA could be used for citywide efforts, but yes. So I will certainly share with you, because Jeremy reached out as a resident CPC member saying, hey, can we do something with CPA?
[Roberta Cameron]: Chapel Grove Cemetery buildings restoration. So this is a continuation of the project that we've been supporting.
[Theresa Dupont]: Well, here's the thing real quick. And we can put a pin in this when I come back. I think we only have a couple more here. Essentially, is this a, we've kind of bantered about in the past, potentially CPC or CPA absorbing the annual cost of getting a bond. So basically getting a loan to be able to do a massive project, which is what is needed for Brooks Estate, for Oak Grove Cemetery buildings. These are not just million dollar, two million dollar projects. I think Oak Grove is now probably somewhere between six and eight million. Brooks Estate, I know you're probably approaching 10 million.
[Doug Carr]: If you're going to Terrace House Access Drive, yeah, it's probably,
[Theresa Dupont]: So there has been conversations in the past about, for the right project, would the CPC be willing to take on an annual debt service? So it's essentially like we pay the annual fee on that bond, and that would be for a set number of years. I can certainly look at and punch up numbers, but a ballpark on this would probably be somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000. or a $6 million bond if we were to absorb those costs. Two to 300 annually. Annually. So that's 10 to 15% of our budget.
[Doug Carr]: And it's spoken for.
[Theresa Dupont]: 10, 15 years. Yeah. But is that the right thing to do? I want to have a more earnest conversation. It's been bubbled up before in the past, but having that concerted conversation with the mayor, DPW, and our finance director and perhaps invite Roberta as well as our chairperson to have a discussion about what that looks like. Does the debt get paid back?
[Roberta Cameron]: How?
[Jeremy Martin]: No.
[Roberta Cameron]: By committing some of our CPA funds every year to that.
[Jeremy Martin]: So we're not just paying the fee to carry the debt, we are paying back the debt? Yes.
[Doug Carr]: I think with the Carriage House, if they were part of it, that has an income stream. That alone had a 20-year payback for the whole loan and interest. That's the estimate we had from a while ago now. I'm sure bond rates have changed, etc., but there was a significant income that would make that self-sustaining. That would not be this different format. But I like the creativity of it because it's, for some projects, it's tough. And the Oak Grove Cemetery expansion is right, literally, surrounding it and built. And that's also, they're talking about that right now with Tim McGibbon and Seattle Chambers to come up with a plan for that expansion. That's seven acres that the Oak Grove Cemetery When it's done, it becomes a cemetery.
[Ada Gunning]: What are they expanding into?
[Doug Carr]: The seven acres of the Brooks Estate that were put aside in 1998 as part of the deal that created the Brooks Estate gave them seven acres of expansion. It's surrounded by the Brooks Estate on three sides. It just hasn't been acted on in 30 years.
[Ada Gunning]: It makes me wonder about having an inhistorical restoration of like the cemetery buildings or whatever, whether we want to have some sort of requirement around there being an income stream, or are we okay just for storing buildings that essentially have no function?
[Theresa Dupont]: Well, I will say, as we look at Oak Grove, I hear what you're saying about buildings that have no function. I just want to clarify, these are actively used by city staff. It's the office and caretaker supporters, as well as the maintenance shed, which is used by DPW staff. but I don't... Are they being optimally used? I think they're being maximally used as much as they can, but that was a fair point.
[Roberta Cameron]: Restoration, for example, the Brooks Estate can expand the use of the building. Right now, it is empty most of the time, but having an access road would make that another public building in our arsenal of public buildings where we could hold public meetings and do other public business. So it would activate the site. Yeah, it would activate a building that is currently useless.
[Ada Gunning]: Is it bad that I went to weddings and just generated income? Yeah, I think that's the intention, right?
[Doug Carr]: That would be one of the challenges. If there's a multi-purpose function facility, that wedding won't be the primarily economic part of the plan. Maybe we can talk about that.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right, we have one, two more on our list. Speaking of NBEL, the pathways and parking phase two, which is a big number.
[Doug Carr]: Yes, and I think I'm already, we already were looking at this when I talked to Carly. Carly obviously is down the hall talking about the, of course, the expansion and partnering with those guys because they're trying to play nice. We're neighbors, NBEL's neighbors. But remember, one of the first grants this, of the funding was the entire design of the access drive, the manor, to Grove Street. And then we focused on the parking lot, the full parking lot. That was like a multi-million dollar building project to me. And this piece is a portion of the parking lot that is just dedicated to the accessible spaces, to the accessible path that's less than half of the parking lot. to try to get these accessible funds and open space recreation. But we're getting a cost estimate of $700,000 plus for that post-contingency, which is why the MSI. But we're already talking about taking out the lighting and doing things to cut that number down. But I don't think we can get it to half. That sounds like what it might mean for you to make it viable. So we're just going to see where the priorities are. We recognize that this committee has funded a lot of them over the years. Not the last few years, but historically, almost every year, it's been six figures plus. We get cost estimates for projects.
[Jeremy Martin]: We get to review that. Do we also typically get copies of the design proposal and contract documents?
[Doug Carr]: Yes, it's bid ready right now. So it's not a concept design. It's actually biddable. We actually tried to bid a piece of it, We're going to use ARPA funds, but the ARPA funds, we thought, would be extended beyond June 30th, and we've been told flat out that they are not. There are many reasons for that, I think.
[Jeremy Martin]: I'd be curious. It's one of the more expensive halves of a parking lot. Oh, yeah. I've seen... Yeah, it's a lot of grading.
[Doug Carr]: It's taking out a lot of trees. It's regrading. It's a lot of infrastructure. I can see the plans.
[Jeremy Martin]: I'd be curious.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay, and Cemetery Trustees want to know about the Memorial Plaza restoration. Is this a continuation of the master plan that we, I mentioned earlier, that we funded? Correct. So it's a large plaza that has so many elements to it that are beautiful all together, and we're in very troubled condition. And so, yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: I don't have any problems in my life. I'm a family picture. Not yet. And so that's everything that we have on the table that adds up to more
[Roberta Cameron]: but almost twice as much as the funding that we have available. So when we meet next month, what are the dates that we're meeting in October again? October 14. Did we set two dates or one date? We set one date for October and then one in November, November 18.
[Theresa Dupont]: Jeremy cannot attend the October 14 unless your life has changed.
[Joan Cyr]: I cannot attend the October 14. OK.
[Jeremy Martin]: I think I can. I'm not sure why I said I couldn't.
[Roberta Cameron]: And both of those meetings are going to be dedicated to applicant presentations. So that we'll see if we have all of these applications still on the table at that point. We'll learn more about the projects. We will actually get the applications to review so we can ask questions of the applicants. And then at our December meeting, we'll actually start to try to prioritize and decide how to solve this puzzle.
[Theresa Dupont]: So during the presentations, there'll be time for Q&A for us to grow them. The new folks, I don't know if Manisha's still here, but the presentations are usually just PowerPoints. Some folks come in person, but it's just your standard presentation. We try to give them like five minutes of them talking and then 10 to 15 minutes or so of questions from us and the public.
[Jeremy Martin]: What was the second date that you mentioned? November. November 18th.
[Theresa Dupont]: And there's some Monday holidays and Veterans Day lands in there, too. So it's just kind of messing up the Monday, Tuesday meetings.
[Roberta Cameron]: So we have about eight to nine presentations per night over two weeks. They're going to be long nights is what we're doing. Yeah. They're going to be long nights. And we will try to be as efficient as we can. We should bring snacks.
[Theresa Dupont]: Bring snacks. I could bring a speaker timer, too. That would be great. I actually have one of those. We should totally do this. I kind of like what the city council is using with those type of digital controls, just to kind of be a visual reminder. So, yeah.
[9fui-IqEKvo_SPEAKER_08]: I think that's all of our business this evening. Thank you, everyone. We're starting to approve the minutes. We did that before you got here. Members to adjourn. Second.
[Roberta Cameron]: Let me call the roll. We'll start in the room. Jeremy? Yes. Reg?
[SPEAKER_19]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Doug?
[SPEAKER_19]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Ada? Yes. Joan? Yes. Hayley? Yes. Myself? Yes. And I think that's everyone. Thank you all. Thank you, everybody. October 14. Bye.