AI-generated transcript of City Council Committee Of The Whole 01-24-23

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. Presence. That's a call. It's present nights. Yeah. I'll just start. What is it?

[Nicole Morell]: present present present six present one absent the meeting is called to order. There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council community of the whole on Tuesday, January 24 2023 at 6pm and the Medford City Council chamber on the second floor of Medford City Hall and via zoom. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss proposed awarding of Community Preservation Act funds to 11 projects. The committee has invited Community Preservation Committee Chair Roberta Cameron and Senior Planner Daniel Evans to attend the meeting. For further aids, information and accommodations, contact the City Clerk at 781-393-2425. Sincerely yours, Nicole Morell, Council President. So as the notice stated, we do have a number of proposals before us that have been approved and recommended by, I'm sorry, that have been recommended by the CPA, CDC. If we want to have them just, we can, I know we have a, I don't know if there's any specific order. I know we have an order on the sheet in front of us, but if we just want to have presentations come up one at a time.

[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Before we have the presentations come up, I just wanted to give a little bit of an overview of the CPC's process. So we received, I'm sorry, Roberta Cameron, and I'm the Community Preservation Chair and address 12 North Street. So we received, I think, 16 applications in total this funding round. The request for funding actually far exceeded the available funds. So we have to make some tough choices this funding round. And what we did was we went through, so we received all of the applications. We had a public meeting where we had question and answer with all of the applicants ourselves, and then the committee members did some follow up work to to gather the information that we felt that we needed to be comfortable making decisions and all of the projects. At our last meeting, we took 11 of the projects and said, these are the highest priority projects that we are ready to make a decision on right now. And we've recommended those first 11 projects to the council. We have five more projects still in front of us. And at our next meeting in February, we're going to be making a decision on the remaining five projects where we're going to have to make some tough choices. probably not be able, definitely not be able to fund all of them. We'll have to hopefully invite some of them to come back in a future funding round when we have more funds available. So just to give that overall context, I'd like to invite the applicants to come and talk with you. And I think the first, question? Okay, thank you. I just wanted to suggest that I can allow you to invite the first applicant up. Okay, Vice President Bears and then Councilor Caraviello.

[Zac Bears]: Thanks, just a quick question, Roberta. Thank you so much. This is before the applications, it's on the general CPA. And if you don't have the figures before you now, that's totally fine, but do you know what match we got from the state this year and if that went up from previous years?

[Roberta Cameron]: Do you know the exact match amount from state to state? Yeah, so we received a match in the fall, and then in early January, we received a second match, and I don't happen to have the numbers on the top of my head, but maybe Danielle will be able to provide that.

[Zac Bears]: Great, even if you just want to send it to me after the fact, I just kind of want to see the state's pitching in its piece. Great, thank you so much.

[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Caraviello.

[Richard Caraviello]: Do you know how much we have left in the fund?

[Roberta Cameron]: So every, every year.

[Richard Caraviello]: So this year, I got too much. What's our projected?

[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, so for this year, the overall picture this year is $2 million. Roughly, I don't have the exact again, I don't have the exact number in my head of what what the funds that we had available.

[Richard Caraviello]: But that's on our tax, that's the projected. And you have a guesstimate what's left in the fund already?

[Roberta Cameron]: Well, we have, so we carry over a very small amount every year, but we've been spending mostly about what we receive every year in CPA funds.

[Richard Caraviello]: Now, in the housing part, is that, do we have money in the housing section of that?

[Roberta Cameron]: We do have a small amount of money in the housing section, and we've received housing requests this year that would use the amount of housing money that's left over. But I'm sorry that I didn't bring that data in front of me.

[Unidentified]: Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah. Thank you, Councilor Caraviello. And Councilor, just for the sake of moving forward, I can read, as we go through, I can read this summary, or I can just go through with like the two sentences that are on the sheet. Great. We'll go for that. I'll just read this whole paper. So on January 10th, 2023, the Community Preservation Committee voted to recommend to City Council the awarding of Community Preservation Act funds for the following 11 projects. The CPC will vote on the remaining four applications at a future meeting. Application materials can be found at preservemedford.org slash CPA projects. So the first one is $150,000 to Shiloh Baptist Church for restoration of the exterior of the historic building. Is anyone here or on Zoom? So if you just want to share your name and address of the record and just an overview of this project for us.

[MCM00001447_SPEAKER_14]: How are you doing? Clifford Singleton, shallow Baptist Church, 1 Holton Street, Medford. Thank you. We are requesting the funds to restore well-off stained glass. I'm new to this. I apologize. We're trying to restore our glass, our stained glass in our building because of the condition of our building. And we're trying to preserve the heat and the electricity in our building. And I'm not really good at this at all. So, you know, and trying to, you know, I'm not good at this.

[Adam Hurtubise]: It's my first time.

[MCM00001447_SPEAKER_14]: I'm not good at this.

[Nicole Morell]: And we have the summary before us. Councilor Collins?

[Kit Collins]: Yeah, thank you, Clifford, for being here. And we were able to read over the application summary ahead of time, so we appreciate all the detail. And one thing that stuck out to me was that the church is hoping to become a part of the resilience hub network. And a lot of these repairs are sort of in service of being a better center and site for community gathering. You know, if the site is able to sort of get up to speed and get these rehabilitations done, that it could be a better asset to the community in that way, which I thought was a really just very moving part of the building story.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Any other questions from the council? Thank you so much. Thank you. Next up, we have $10,000 for Housing Families Incorporated to provide emergency rental assistance as part of the pro bono legal services program. Is there anyone here or on Zoom? I see, okay. I will unmute you and just name and address for the record, please.

[Jayna Stafford]: Hi, thank you so much. My name is Jaina Stafford. I'm the Director of Homelessness Prevention and Legal Services at Housing Families. Our Malden address is 919 Eastern Ave in Malden.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. And could you tell us just a little bit about the request before us?

[Jayna Stafford]: Yes, we are very fortunate and grateful to be CDBG recipients from the city of Medford, where we provide legal services. And we are hoping to use this money Okay, I just got a little feedback, I think. We are hoping to use this money in the prevention of homelessness and eviction defense. So housing families, our model is to use case management, legal services and financial assistance when available. So we would use these dollars most likely in a household that was already facing or pretty far down the road to facing an eviction alongside of our legal services.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Any questions? Councilor Caraviello.

[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. Is this money going from Metro Families only?

[Jayna Stafford]: Yes. Yes, it is.

[Richard Caraviello]: All right.

[Jayna Stafford]: Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Any other questions from the council? Thank you so much, Jayna. And I'm just gonna send you a message just so I can get information for the clerk.

[Jayna Stafford]: Sure. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: We have $402,000 to the Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability for the construction of new pickleball courts as part of the car park rehabilitation. Who?

[Amanda Centrella]: Good evening. My name's Amanda Centrella. I work in the Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability, and I live at 20 Hancock Street in Medford. I do have a presentation if folks want to see it, but I also want to respect your time. And if you don't need those details, then that's fine too.

[Nicole Morell]: President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: How different, is this just the general presentation on car park rehab or is it specific to the CPA?

[Amanda Centrella]: It's specific to, or it talks a little bit about phase one. And then, you know, it just has some visuals for y'all, but the ask itself is about the pickleball courts. Yeah, I'd like to see the visuals. Yeah, sure, okay. So if I could just share. Yep, the clerk's going to make you the co-host.

[Unidentified]: You should be able to soon.

[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, so this ask is about pickleball courts, and in particular, it's four dedicated pickleball courts, which would be the first of their kind in the city, which is exciting. This portion of the project is one piece of a much larger project, as you all are well aware. Phase one, more generally, speaks to reconstruction of two baseball diamonds an accessible loop path and site furniture along that pathway, some significant drainage and utility work to set up for future phases, and as well as some clearing of debris and invasives in the woodland area that's north of the park. And if you take a look, so this is part of our vision plan document, which emerged out of a really robust community outreach effort, which was actually funded by CPC, that effort took place over the course of 2021, and we received really strong feedback from the community on the need for pickleball in particular. There's a really active community of pickleball players, and as many of y'all may know, it's a sport that lends itself to folks who might be older. It's able to be adapted. And this community of pickleball players is so active that back in November when we were doing a site visit for a totally different reason at Duggar Park, there were maybe 40 plus folks, blustery, cold morning, playing and enjoying themselves and using all of the court space there. And in fact, there were so many folks there that people were waiting in line. There's definitely a need for a space like this, and we've heard a lot from community about it. Phase 1A, as we're calling it, the scope, it takes on the outlined region there. So the loop path, the woodland space, the diamonds, baseball diamonds. And as you can see, the pickleball courts fall squarely within that space. So to re-enter it at a later phase, it's a little bit less efficient, both in cost and time management and site preparation, which is why we're kind of coming before the council this time around. And if y'all are interested, we do have some later phases, which I can describe to you, but again, I wanna be respectful of your time, so just let me know how much information you want. And just as a breakdown of the funding for this phase, so we've received a land and water conservation fund grant, For $1 million, there's dedicated ARPA funding for this phase. And the CPA ask of a little over $400,000 amounts to about 15% of that total ask for phase one. Thank you. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Vice Mayor Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thanks, Amanda. The LWCF grant, is that the federal money that was in the?

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, it's state administered, but federal funds.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, OK, great. two pickleball-related questions, one non-pickleball-related question. And actually, an addendum question. Did that say that the path is going to be eight feet wide?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Zac Bears]: Great. I'll go with non-pickleball first. Something that I've heard from folks is that they'd really like to see public restrooms of some kind available at public parks. I've heard that from a variety of people. That's not included in the current scope of the Card Park Project, right? you may not have the answers, but was that considered at all during the planning process?

[Amanda Centrella]: I wasn't there for some of the initial planning, but I do know that it was part of the conversations. And in fact, there are port-a-potty concrete paths that are part of some of this larger scope of work. So the idea being to leave space for restrooms in the future.

[Zac Bears]: Okay, great. And then on the pickleball, one thing I've heard from some folks is They love pickleball. I mean, you know, you spoke to the demand, the demand is really high. But one thing was actually issues with the nets. So, A, at, I know at like at Duggar Park, they're kind of movable nets. Are these gonna be permanent physical nets?

[Amanda Centrella]: Correct.

[Zac Bears]: Okay, great. And then, and again, these are just more general pickleball related questions. So I don't know if you have answers to them.

[Unidentified]: Okay, I'll try.

[Zac Bears]: Do you know if they're, you know, Are there any other future pickleball plans being talked about by PDS for other parks? And in terms of the nets, could you consider like a rolling net versus a net that you have to physically lift and move?

[Amanda Centrella]: I know that there is going to be some reconstruction done at the Hickey Tennis Courts, I think with maybe some re-striping for pickleball. That project is being headed by DPW, but can definitely communicate that interest in having kind of Yeah, more easily movable and mobile netting.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Great, thank you.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah. Councilor Caraviello.

[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. Pickleball, I think it's one of the fastest growing things. I don't play, I don't know. But we have a timeframe on this?

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, so this would be a part of phase one, which we have fully funded, as you guys are aware. And the construction timeline, we're thinking early June to begin.

[Richard Caraviello]: June of this year?

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes.

[Richard Caraviello]: And what about phase two?

[Amanda Centrella]: Phase two, we are still working on compiling all of the funding because it's actually about $5 million worth of work. Our hope, we just applied yesterday for additional grant funds, and our hope would be to get going for construction July of 2024.

[Richard Caraviello]: So what's going to get done in June? Which phase of the project gets done in that?

[Amanda Centrella]: For this year, we'll be doing, in theory, pickleball courts, the accessible loop path all the way around the property, some important kind of debris removal, invasives removal for the woodland area, the full reconstruction of the two baseball diamonds, and some important drainage and utility work to set up for later phases.

[Nicole Morell]: Any other questions for the council. Thank you.

[George Scarpelli]: I have one question. Thank you. So with the design of this field, I know that one field that's very important that was placed there because of need, and it doesn't look like it's there anymore, is what would have been called a 50-70 baseball diamond. It's not a Little League diamond, and it's not a Babe Ruth diamond. It's the field that goes in between those ages. uh, from high school to little league. It's a, it's, it's the, it's a league now that falls in between that being the only 50 70 field in Medford. I think that'd be a huge problem. Don't you think?

[Amanda Centrella]: So, um, we've been in conversation with Medford youth baseball and what their needs are and what their preferences would be for this site. And a 50 70 field is one of the field sizes that will be accommodated. Um, I'd have to check my notes for the other field size, but it would allow, uh, you know, capture of a large range of of kids ages age wise.

[George Scarpelli]: Okay, so that that would still still be with the new construction that will have one at least 1 50 70 field there.

[Nicole Morell]: Correct.

[George Scarpelli]: Thank you so much.

[Nicole Morell]: You're welcome. Thank you. Ask her really. All right. Any other questions from the council? Yeah. Thank you. The next recommended product, so $96,864, the Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability for the construction of a fitness and picnic area as part of the Gillis Park Rehabilitation. Are you speaking on this? Yes, I am. Oh, sorry. Are you, I'm sorry. Oh, you, sorry, you wanna speak, oh, sorry. Sure, if you wanna speak on Pickleball, sure. I apologize.

[SPEAKER_19]: So this is Peter Sullivan, and I'm Tom Fowler-Finn. We're both long-term residents of Medford, Florida. I can't say that, but nearly. So my wife and I, Sue, are sort of the ambassadors at this point and the spokesperson for the group of people. We have a listserv that we send out each morning about whether we can play. I think we've only missed four days in January.

[SPEAKER_12]: Outside.

[SPEAKER_19]: Outside at Duggar. So that shows you how the enthusiasm is for pickleball. We have over 80 people on Listserv and we have 30 to 40 people even in January showing up outdoors to play. So it's really popular and it's really important to us for two reasons. One is we have an awful lot of friends we make across the community that way. And the other is, it's really the only activity that seniors have in Medford to get our heart rate and athletic play going. And so we're really glad to see this on the agenda and would really encourage you to support it. And it's, it's a great hope. Now we go, my wife and I go every morning at 8 30 and open up a locker. We have a combination from the city. We physically take the nets out of this locker and set them up. And then we stay until the end, we play, and then we put them all back in. She and I don't do every bit of that. Of course, everybody else is helping as well. But that's where we're at. The permanent nets are really critical. People then can go whenever they want. They don't have to wait until somebody from the city comes and sets them up. They don't have to go out and buy nets and so forth. And quite honestly, they're getting kind of heavy these days.

[SPEAKER_12]: Peter? Yeah, I just want to say a couple of quick things. Between 2020, 2021, the growth of pickleball was 14.8%. I started playing pickleball 10 years ago, and I was driving to New Hampshire to find a place to play. We're playing in every town around here, including Medford, and I don't play shuffleboard, and I don't play bingo. when I can play pickleball, and it's a lot of fun, and we've made a lot of relationships and friends along the way, so thanks for the support.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Councilor Caraviello.

[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you. I've driven by Decker Park, and I've seen the crowd there. It's quite impressive, even in the cold weather. Does the Y have pickleball, too?

[SPEAKER_12]: The Y Boys Club in Medford on the Yolk High School.

[Richard Caraviello]: Yeah, they do pickleball there, and they have some friends who go down there, and I think It's a big league in Malden too.

[SPEAKER_19]: Yes. Yeah. The rep department's office area, that gym, they do it Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I think it's like two to three hours indoors, but an awful lot of us want to be outdoors.

[Richard Caraviello]: I mean, it's on, you see it on TV now, it's on the national, they're showing these pickleball tournaments all over the country now. Tom Brady has a franchise in it as well. It's going to be good a piece of it. But yeah, no, it's growing and maybe I'll learn how to play someday. I hope you do. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_12]: Thanks a lot.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you both. Any other members of the public wish to speak on this project? Great. Moving forward. $96,864 to the Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability for the construction of a fitness and picnic area as part of the Gillis Park Rehabilitation.

[Amanda Centrella]: Hello, Amanda Centrella again. If I could share my screen, or if you guys are interested, I have a little couple slides. Please. So sorry, one moment. Okay, so this ask is kind of a discrete portion of a larger project. the Gillis Park Accessibility Renovation. And that actually, the design for this, the concept design, was made possible by CPC funding, for which we're very grateful. So I think maybe what I'll do is I'll describe a little bit about the larger project and how these pieces fit in. This project was driven by two needs that were identified to us. The fact that The field has some drainage issues, so really a strong need to correct those, and it's exacerbating kind of maintenance challenges that the field has. And for anyone who's familiar with the site, it sits kind of in a basin below street grade, and the way that it's currently treated is not accessible from the sidewalk. So this renovation is set to address two of those issues. Just a quick slide of the existing conditions for reference. And so here's the concept plan for the renovation. You can see there's been added a new loop pathway all the way around the site with an entrance from a little bit further up as well to help with that grade challenge. There'd be new dugouts. The batting cages were actually recently redone, so just making sure that there was an accessible means to get to them. New concession stand building over here, and some accessible seating that's actually built into the topography of the site, so using the hill. And the areas that we want your focus on for the CPA-ASK a picnic area with some accessible seating and shading, and an adult outdoor fitness area, which you can see kind of comes off of this part of the loop path. We worked really closely, again, with Medford Youth Baseball as some of the primary users of this site in understanding what some of the constraints and challenges are. And in addition to that, we wanted to expand some of the usage of this field for, you know, to complement both baseball programming and also maybe perhaps outside of that programming. So we felt, you know, the outdoor fitness area was something that could easily be incorporated in practice and things like that for the youth league, but also might be, you know, available to other users of the field, same with the picnic area. And so this larger, the larger project amounts to about 1.3 million here's the sourcing of our funding breakouts, so being the park grant for a piece of it, some dedicated ARPA funding, some CDBG funding to go towards all of the accessibility pieces, and our CPA ask of a little under 97,000. Councilor Caraviello.

[Richard Caraviello]: Time frame of this one too? Schedule?

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, so this is tied to the park grant, which is a, strict timeline, so it must start by July of this year. July of this year?

[Richard Caraviello]: How long?

[Amanda Centrella]: Be finished by next June. Or, I'm sorry, June 2024. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Versus repairs.

[Zac Bears]: Quick question. How close does the new path end up coming to the Hegner Center?

[Amanda Centrella]: Oh, that is a great question. You can't really see it from from up here, but I think you'd still have to take sidewalk around, but it does kind of set up for a future, maybe pathway cutting from a little bit deeper into that area up towards the center.

[Richard Caraviello]: Great, thank you.

[Amanda Centrella]: Councilor Caraviello.

[Richard Caraviello]: On to Councilor Best point. So is that pathway, is that going on that little side street there?

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, the, or I'm sorry.

[Richard Caraviello]: I forgot the name of that street there.

[Amanda Centrella]: The little street, and I can't remember the name of it, is like a, yeah, a little bit.

[Richard Caraviello]: Maybe a Maple Park or something like that, yeah? Yes, yeah. So is there any talk of maybe paving that street so maybe they'll make it a little more uniform? If you're gonna put a sidewalk there, the street's kind of in poor shape.

[Amanda Centrella]: That is a DPW question that I don't know if I have the answer to at the moment, but a good consideration.

[Richard Caraviello]: Yeah, like I say, I see that there, and that's, And I think that the people of Maple Park, they would appreciate that too. And it would probably help alleviate, make for a little better parking than we're seeing now. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: I do have Commissioner McGivern is on the line. I think for another product, do you want to ask that question to him? All right, did you hear that question, Commissioner McGivern? Is that something you can speak to?

[Tim McGivern]: The question about Maple Park paving.

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, the plans to pave it was the question. Are there any plans to pave it?

[Tim McGivern]: I wasn't aware this project was putting a sidewalk there. We're doing that sidewalk, but I don't have the resources in front of me to look at where Maple Park is in the list for condition.

[Amanda Centrella]: Sorry, to correct, I don't think we would be instilling a sidewalk on Maple Park. Sorry.

[Nicole Morell]: I do see Alicia. Alicia had her hand up, but it's no longer up. Okay.

[Zac Bears]: It looks like the path is, I mean, I don't know the scale, but it's pretty far away from Maple Park.

[Richard Caraviello]: Yeah. Is it in the park or is it on that little street?

[Amanda Centrella]: It's just in the park. And yeah, the street is a little bit further.

[Richard Caraviello]: Okay, so it's not on the street.

[Amanda Centrella]: Correct.

[Richard Caraviello]: Okay, I'm sorry. I thought you said it was gonna be on that little Maple Street there. All right. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Any other questions from the council? Any members of the, sorry, Director Hunt just said that the path is not a sidewalk, it's in the park and there's a house between the park and the street. That offers any clarity. Any members of the public wish to speak? Seeing none, thank you. Next, we have $28,000 to the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability for the design of the proposed COVID Memorial Grove. Is that you again, Amanda? Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, so COVID Memorial Grove, just to give you guys a sense, this funding is for design and outreach services to get an understanding of what the community would like to see in a space like this. We've been hearing from community members desire for something contemplative and healing in the wake of what we've all been going through with COVID. And in particular, Trees Medford has been advocating for this kind of a space. So this would be to go towards identifying potential locations where this would be appropriate and suitable, and also towards hearing from community about elements of the design itself. And I just threw a couple of pictures as references of different memorial spaces and groves, just to kind of get the juice flowing, ideas-wise. And the funding for this is a funding ask explicitly for just CPA funds. I think as you guys have heard from some of our other projects, like Gillis and Carr, we've really benefited from being able to fund design and outreach with CPA to inform larger projects.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Any questions from the council?

[Zac Bears]: Just one.

[Nicole Morell]: I was just embarrassed.

[Zac Bears]: Could you go back one slide really quick? Sorry. Or two slides, or three slides. Back to the last text slide.

[Unidentified]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Zac Bears]: Great. Who's going to be working on this? Just your office, or is there a committee, or?

[Amanda Centrella]: So far, our office and Aggie Tudin, the tree warden, and we would be contracted with a design firm, CBA Landscape Architects.

[Zac Bears]: Great. I don't mean to insert myself into the process at all. I proposed an agenda item on this a couple of years ago. I'd love to participate in any way that I can help. So thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Absolutely. Thank you so much. Although it looks like you're probably not going far. OK, next up is $9,000. The Office of Planning Development Sustainability for the installation of tennis lacrosse bounce back at Duggar Park.

[Amanda Centrella]: OK, I promise this is the last one. from me. So for those of you who might not be familiar with a backboard, it's basically a wall against which you can rebound balls to play. So it's really helpful for targeted practice and intensive practice. And it's also extremely helpful for folks who might not have a partner to practice with, so individual play. This piece of equipment is 10 by 16 feet in size, so it comes in panels that are attached to port fencing. And it would be mounted as a permanent fixture onto the port fence posts. We were thinking Duggar Park would make a lot of sense for something like this. You can kind of get a sense, you know, against one of the back fence posts there. And this is what it looks like. The model that we have in mind, we vetted with DPW. So it seems to them structurally sound and using galvanized hardware and fairly easy to install city side. And the reason why we were interested in this model in particular is that it has noise suppression elements and features to it so that decibel-wise, there is no difference between hitting a racket with a ball and hitting the wall. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Any questions from the council?

[Amanda Centrella]: Oh, I'm sorry. One last piece. So as part of this project, the CBC had recommended that we also include funding to install a commemorative plaque around the court space to commemorate Clarence A. Rohn, a historic West Medford figure. who's been integral to the tennis ethos of Medford. And we agreed that that'd be a great idea. So that's where that $2,000 additional comes into play.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Thank you. Questions from the council? Members of the public who would like to speak on this project? Seeing none, thank you so much. Next up, we have $85,000 to the Islamic Cultural Center of Medford for the Isaac Hall Preservation Project. Name and address for the record, please.

[wPYt766Eu-g_SPEAKER_08]: Hi. My name is Humayun Morshid. I'm the board of trustee and ex-president of the Islamic Center of Medford.

[Nicole Morell]: You want to tell us a little bit about the project before us?

[wPYt766Eu-g_SPEAKER_08]: Sure. So this is the building. We all know this is the historical building. And it's the Medford Square, which is one of the famous places. So we try to preserve the, it's a call. And we have 53 windows and three doors, metal doors. This is the phase one. And so we need to replace all those. Not replace, I mean, destroy all the windows. So that's why we're looking at this fund.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. You said 53 windows? Yes. I did not realize there was that many. That's impressive. Yes. Questions from the council? Any members of the public like to speak? Could you say and spell your name for the record?

[wPYt766Eu-g_SPEAKER_08]: Oh, sure. H-U-M-A-Y-U-N. The last name is M-O-R-S-H-E-D. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Seeing no questions or discussion. Thank you so much.

[wPYt766Eu-g_SPEAKER_08]: Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Next up, $35,000 to the Medford Brooks Estate Land Trust for further design work for the proposed Brooks Estate Access Drive. I see Tom Lincoln on Zoom. I assume Tom will be speaking on this.

[Tom Lincoln]: Oh, yeah, sure. Thanks. Tom Lincoln, 27 Gleason Street and the president of Medford the Brooklyn State Land Trust. This grant is designed to, we hope, finish off the very complicated design of the access drive and related infrastructure. The elements in the grant are required by the city of Medford based on a series of discussions with stakeholders, fire, police, DPW, water, et cetera. Basically, we need to redesign the northern portion of the access drive for a turnaround for fire and safety. The other piece of this is a rather complicated piece of engineering involving the water supply, which currently comes from a place that roadside. but will be coming with the redesign of the access drive from Grove Street. But it is required, actually a very good idea, to provide an internal loop for water circulation, for keeping the pipes clean, and also to maintain pressure. There are hydrants up at the manor, which is up in the north end of the access. to be done there. Some redesign of the inter interconnection of that and the main water main pressure testing. And design that sort of thing. We've built in some contingency as everyone knows on the CPC and otherwise projects have tended to come in more estimated. So that's in there, too. And if the project goes over $35,000, we are prepared to kick in some more of our own money. By the way, we have spent an additional $17,000 of private donations on the access drive design to date. So we're seriously invested in this. This is, of course, part of the much larger project, trying to finish the restoration of the Brooks estate.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Tom. Any questions on the council by some bears.

[Zac Bears]: Not a question but just want to thank Tom and also thank the CPC who has supported many Brooks estate projects over the years. I'm on the belt board representing the city council. And, you know, I'm not gonna And that's anything more specific than to say we're entering the 25th year of M-Belt, having taken over as the trustees of this land and Tom's been there the whole time. And I think the estate has come a really long way. So we're going to have some exciting stuff going on for 25th anniversary and also hopefully, you know, more work going on to continue the restoration of the property and making it accessible and open to everyone in the city and surrounding communities. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Any further discussion from the council?

[Unidentified]: Any members of the public who wish to speak? Seeing none, we'll go to the next one. Thank you, Tom.

[Nicole Morell]: Thanks very much. $50,000 to the DPW slash Cemetery Commission for Historic Preservation Study of the Oak Grove Cemetery Caretakers' Quarters. I see Steve Brogan as well as Tim McGivern on the call. I'm not sure who would like to speak to this. gesture at me or just wants to talk. Okay, we'll go to Commissioner McGiver.

[Tim McGivern]: Hi, thank you, Tim McGiver and DBW Commissioner. You can unmute us both. I think I will set this up, but Mr. Brogan lives in the building and he can answer any specific questions you may have about the building or about cemetery operations. So thank you very much for hearing us tonight. So this project would be for a study. This building is a building of historical significance. So, it is been spot repaired over many decades and is in need of a renovation to bring it up to historical muster. The idea of the study would be to scope out a project, there is a variety of needs that are detailed in the application itself that we also presented to the CPC. And the spot repairs have really been to keep the operation of the building going. I, there is also another project for the stone building that's used as a muster room in a maintenance garage and as a bathroom set. We feel like there are some synergies between these two projects. The building we're talking about tonight is a wood frame building. So some of the challenges that we have with the stone building should not appear. We should be able to move this along pretty quickly compared to the other projects. Also, they both serve the cemetery. They're both in close proximity to each other. And there may be some synergies, like I mentioned, having to do with accessibility and how the different operation spaces work, including the public office space. Um, so, you know, the particular building. House is the office for the cemetery too. And that's an important point because that's where a lot of the needed repairs can be seen or the needed renovation can be seen. It is a very solemn place for solemn business. And, you know, I think we both believe as well as the board, I'm speaking for them, but I imagine they do, that that should be a space that feels reflective of the business that they're doing there. And currently, you know, the current state of affairs, I don't think that's necessarily the case. So we believe a project like this is really needed. Let's see, what else can I say? And that's about it. Again, this would be to initiate a study to scope out a renovation project for the Historical Significance Caretaker Building. Steve, if you have anything to add, please feel free, and we're both here for questions.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, you pretty much did it right on the head. Other than, you know, it'll just give us an idea of what the cost would be. So when we go forward, we have a better idea of what we're actually looking at and what we're looking for.

[Nicole Morell]: Great, thank you both. Questions from the council? Seeing none, any members of the public who wish to speak? Seeing none, thank you both. Thank you.

[Unidentified]: Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Going to $50,000 to the, I'm sorry, just read that one. Going to $500,000 to the Medford Public Schools for the construction of the McLinn Universally Accessible Playground.

[Unidentified]: Good evening.

[Nicole Morell]: Good evening.

[Peter Cushing]: Yeah, just name and address the record if you want to give us, you know, a brief overview we had an extensive overview, but just let us know about this particular funding, you don't want to present a Peter I mean, 89 Winthrop Street, Medford don't live there but sometimes feels like it's an awesome place to be. So the brief overview is several years ago, the public schools were looking to resurface our playgrounds. Upon a closer look at the McGlynn playground, which is approximately 25,000 square feet, we realized that while all of these playgrounds are approaching end of life, this one was approaching end of life and had no real fun or no real play value. So what we were able to do was to work with CPA and the mayor's office to really help to push this project along into the project that we presented just a few weeks ago to you. And Shanine has been an invaluable pro bono resource to the school department in our work on this project. So I'll let Shanine fill in any blanks.

[Chenine Peloquin]: I don't know if there are any blanks given our presentation, but do you have questions that have arisen since then? Vice President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you very much. I don't have a question, but if folks want to see the full presentation, there's a recording on the medfordtv.org website from our January 10th, I believe, city council meeting. So there was a, I don't know, 20 minute or so presentation, maybe longer than that. really detailing the whole park and everything that's gone into this project.

[Chenine Peloquin]: And the presentation is linked from the Medford Public Schools Facebook page as well.

[Zac Bears]: Great.

[Nicole Morell]: Any other questions from the Council or members of the public who would like to speak?

[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. I just wanted to add a little bit. I didn't actually see the presentation before, so I don't know if this was covered in that presentation, but I think a very important point about the CPA funding is that the original ask for this project was $900,000. So this is one of those tough choices that we had to make. And we made a compromise for this project in that we are funding 500,000 out of this fiscal year's available funds, and we anticipate an off-cycle application in the summer where we would consider an additional $400,000 ask in order to be able to complete this project. So I just wanted to make sure that you all know that context so that when we come back a few months from now and ask for another $400,000, you're going to say, where is this coming from? Didn't we just fund this project? So I just wanted to make sure that you had the whole picture in front of you just as we do. Thanks. Thank you, Roberta.

[Nicole Morell]: Anyone else wish to speak on this project?

[Peter Cushing]: Madam President, just one final piece. I do want to, and I think I did this at the last meeting, but there's been a lot of activity over the last couple of weeks. I want to publicly thank Um, CPA, I, uh, Danielle and Roberta, uh, Chenine as well. Um, on behalf of not only the med public schools, but myself professionally and personally, this has been an amazing journey to be on. And it's been amazing to see all the Medford departments that have come together around this. Um, Tim McGibbon, just as an example, helping out with the drainage and so many other people coming together. You know, and my saying is, it's great day to be a Mustang. Well, this project has really helped to illustrate and show it's great day to be a Medford Mustang. So thank you to everyone who's been involved. And I wish I could do more to say that. Thanks.

[Nicole Morell]: Great. Thank you. Thank you for that. project we have before us tonight is $90,000 to DPW Parks Division on behalf of Medford Youth Softball for the installation of softball dugout shelters at Hickey Park. I believe Chuck Wilworth, there we go, is going to speak to this. Chuck, just name and address for the record, please.

[MCM00001514_SPEAKER_02]: Yes, Chuck Wilworth, 32 Bell Street. I have a couple slides if that would help where I can just speak to it.

[Nicole Morell]: Yep, Mr. Clerk, can you make him a co-host?

[Unidentified]: Do you have a second? He should be able to share now. Okay. Let me just move this around a little bit. Sure. I'll just do it from here, I think.

[MCM00001514_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so this is the project. I'm Chuck Wilworth. I'm president of the Youth Girls Softball Board. We are requesting funds to put in sort of a rain shelter at the Hickey Park field for softball. We had 200 girls playing softball last spring, and so far we're ahead of pace this year, but fingers crossed. At this field we typically have girls age 12 playing and Medford middle school team did by their last year, the games with umpires girls are wearing catchers gear. The last eight to 90 minutes. And, you know, in the summer, especially on this third base side, this is about as much shade as you'll get on the first base side, but it gets to be pretty hot. And it would be great for the girls to have a little bit of shade and get some breaks during the game. So the cost breakdown is right here. It's about $50,000 for the parts and $25,000 for construction. And just the $15,000 is the $20,000

[Unidentified]: and not have to answer any questions.

[Nicole Morell]: Great, thank you. Any questions from the council? Seeing none, any members of the public who would like to speak on this project? Seeing none, thank you so much, Chuck. Thank you. That is the end of the recommended projects before us. Any further discussion from the council? Do I have a motion from the council?

[Zac Bears]: Do we need to refer them to the regular meeting or does it go on the agenda?

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I think they have to be referred out to the regular meeting to be voted on. On the motion to refer out the paper favorably, yeah, is that good? To refer out the paper favorably, seconded by Councilor Collins. I believe Councilor Scarpelli is still on the call. Call so if you could call the roll when you're ready Yes Yes. Yes, six in the in front of zero negative one absolutely motion passes. Motion to adjourn on the motion of vice president bears to adjourn seconded by Councilor Collins, Mr. Clerk please call the roll.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes. Yes. Yes.

[Nicole Morell]: Yes, six in Inferno zero and the negative one absentee meeting is adjourned. Thank you to the CPC for their work on this and for everyone who spoke tonight. Meeting adjourned.