[Jenny Graham]: I'm going to read the meeting notice. Are we good to go, Will? Yep. Okay. If I could find the meeting notice.
[Unidentified]: Oh, here it is.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay. Please be advised that there will be a full building committee of the Medford Comprehensive High School Building Committee in person at the Medford High School Library at 480 Magnificent Street and via remote participation. The meeting can be viewed live on Medford Public School's YouTube channel and through Medford Community Media on your local cable channel, which is plus 98 or 22 and Verizon 43, 45 and 47. The meeting will be recorded. Participants can call or log in using the following information. The meeting ID is 916321-0823. I will call the roll so we can get going. Jenny Graham here, Mayor Lundo Kern.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Present.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi. Present. Marta Cabral. Present. Joan Bowen. Present. Ken Lord. Here. Libby Brown. Here. Marissa Desmond. Brian Hilliard.
[John Falco]: Here.
[Jenny Graham]: Emily Lazzaro. Here. Paul Malone.
[John Falco]: Here.
[Jenny Graham]: And Paul Morell. Aaron Lopate. Here. Luke Prisner. Here. Bob Dickinson.
[Unidentified]: Here.
[Jenny Graham]: Fiona Maxwell. Chad Fallon.
[John Falco]: Here.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Kim Talbot. Here. Will Pippincelli. Here. Lori Hodgson. Here. John McLaughlin is absent. Paul Rousseau. Bill Santos. And Lisa Miller. Here. Ms. May, here for any votes. Oh, yeah. I'm so sorry. Yes, you're here. I marked you here. Okay, so 13 present, two absent, although I believe they might be along, and we'll mark them present when they arrive. So we can call the meeting to order. The first item on our agenda is approval of the minutes from the June 1st meeting. Is there a motion to approve?
[John Falco]: So moved.
[Jenny Graham]: By Ken. Is there a second? Second. By Libby. Any questions about the minutes?
[John Falco]: I'll point out, Heather, it was misspelled. but that's great.
[Jenny Graham]: We'll approve the minutes with that correction. Any other questions? A name to be corrected as well. Is that something I offer now? Yeah, you can. Shout it out. There is a Dania. I have to look at the situation of Sherman. It's incorrectly spelled. So it's Dania Sherman, and she's at 54 Gilbreath. Okay, thank you. Will, do you have those too? I didn't do it.
[Luke Preisner]: Uh, thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay. Good question. We'll call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor London.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi. Yes. Marta Cabral. Yes. Joan Bowen. Yes. Ken Lord. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Yes. Emily Lazzaro. Yes. Nicole Malone.
[Aaron Olapade]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. I'm seeing. And Erin Olapade.
[Aaron Olapade]: Yes, sorry.
[Jenny Graham]: And Luke Kreisner. Yes. 13 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, one abstention. The minutes are approved. The next item on the agenda is approval of our April and May invoices. I'm gonna turn it over to Lexie to go through Summary. Thank you. For approval this evening, we have six invoices that span the months of April and May. First, in April, we have a filled invoice in the amount of $25,000. That is the base services feasibility study. We have two SMMA invoices. The first is for basic services in the amount of $90,000. That is the second is for site and environment-related items in the amount of $8,998. April invoices total $120,998. For May invoices, there is left-field invoice in the amount of $25,000, an SMMA invoice in the amount of $135,000, and an SMMA invoice for site and environmental in the amount of $10,615. The total up for approval this evening for April and May 2026 invoices is in the amount of $294,613. Any questions about the invoices? Ken? I'm going to assume May's invoice is higher than May's invoice. This is based on the free schedule that's outlined. based on the P schedule, so it's.
[Kimberly Talbot]: Ken, I can answer that, Helen Fantini, SMMA. During the course of the year, SMMA has two six-week billing periods. So we spread the P equally over the course of the term, but because we have longer billing periods, two months of the year, May and December, that one is a bit higher. Otherwise, you'll see it kind of return to its usual amount next month.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. There a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Motion to approve by Emily. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Maria. We'll call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Marilyn O'Karn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. DeLucie. Yes. Marta Cabral. Yes. Joan Bowen. Yes. Ken Lord. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Marissa Desmond. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Frank Hilliard. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Yes. 14 in the affirmative zero in the negative. Uh, the voices are grouped. Circling back to our evaluation matrix that we looked at in detail at our last meeting of the options. And we just wanted to bring that up again, cover it briefly and determine whether there's any questions from the committee about the rankings or the proposed changes before we like officially. move into decision mode. So if we could take a look at the evaluation criteria, that would be great. So as a reminder, there's a ranking. It's the same set of criteria that we worked on and this body approved back in January, I think, or February. And it has been revised to the skinny down six options that you see here. and evaluations updated with the big change being the life cycle cost analysis piece being able to be flushed out. So are there any questions, comments, changes about the evaluation basis? If I remember correctly, option A, we never really discussed, we sort of put it off because originally we were thinking 29 is going to be so many to go through and that we had to carry that one forward. So I think we didn't actually go over that one. I just wanted to kind of acknowledge that. Yeah. And the evaluation matrix does go through that and does provide a score for A as well as for S. Right. No, I know it does. For one, I've mostly read and just kind of acknowledged that was not I mean, I know that I would have some questions about it, things like a zero for collaboration. I think that collaboration happens within our building plan. It might not be what your building could have, but it's listed as a zero. So I think that we never had those conversations about the terms only. Great. Do you want to make changes or just want to make it a zero? I just wanted to have that as a... Understood.
[Luke Preisner]: I'll just make the comment that I made last time this was up. I would have preferred that the criteria were distributed to all members and provided input, and then that input was either average or otherwise transformed into a crowdsourced score. I just want to remind everyone that it was scored by the project team. And so my preference would have been an alternate path. And then the other dimension is the way the criteria are organized, there's no voting. So you can have something like total project cost on a score of five, and something like maximize the tree canopy, also on the score of five. They're equally weighted in this validation criteria, which is typically not how organizations make choices. I'll leave it at that. It's a comment. It's the same thing I said last time.
[Jenny Graham]: OK. Other comments, questions? OK. Then we will move on to the main event. So the project team has compiled some of the feedback that we have received from our community. in various forums that have happened, I'll say, recently since we are down to the six options that we're talking about here tonight. And I'm going to turn it over to the project team to give us a walkthrough of what that data is telling us.
[Matt Rice]: Thanks, Jenny. So across the top, we've been collecting feedback that we're going to be showing in terms of the metrics that we have, some summary slides, very similar to what we looked at when we made the reduction from 29 options down to the current six that are under consideration of the versions of the six that previously existed. The different meetings and activities where we collected feedback, we had a community meeting back on May 11th. We had an abutters meeting back on May 13th. We had a community meeting just recently on June 3rd. And then we also opened up some online community voting opportunities after that June 3rd meeting that we kept open until the end of the past weekend. And that's sort of the sum total of the feedback that we've been collecting. So this first slide is really a tabulation of the dot voting. If you attended any of the meetings in person, You'll recall that we handed out stickers, either colored dots or smiley faces, and we essentially handed out 4 stickers. I think every attendee, anyone that wanted to put their preference for an option on the boards that we had. There's some versions of the boards that are up here in front of us. These were from the June 3rd meeting. Just so you can understand that. We've tabulated and counted the dots from each one of those feedback sessions individually, just so you can sort of see in the different venues what preferences were indicated numerically. And then we'll have on the next slide a sum total sort of accumulation of all that feedback so that you can see where the totals go. The one nuance that I'll point out is that we did hand out four stickers to everybody that was in person. And when people sent in their online votes, they really could only tell us in theory what their digital or what their preferred option is. So they only had one vote. So to be able to sort of weight those evenly with folks that were in person, if people just told us that they preferred one option digitally, we multiply that by four just to give an equal weighting in terms of the preference in the numbers that you see. Sometimes people got creative and they told us they would like two different options or they would like this option or that option if this option had that. So we tried to do our best to appropriately assign the four different votes in those instances. It wasn't the majority, but there were a few outliers. So we do feel that this is an accurate representation of all the different feedback that we got both digitally as well as from the community meetings and the environment meetings. So the takeaway from this is that if you're working from sort of the largest image has been the most votes there was a tabulation of C22A 98 votes. The second was C34A 84 votes. D1 22. D1.2 with 16. C22A high school only at 9 votes and no votes for the code upgrade option. So that was sort of the numerical feedback that we got. We also solicited qualitative feedback, asking for people to tell us their priorities and sort of the rationale behind why they were voting. So this is a sum total of, or a sampling of the qualitative feedback we got regarding why people chose different options. Um, it's, it's tough to get everything on here. This was a sampling we can put up on the website. The raw data people are interested in seeing every single comment that was there. Um, I know this is difficult to read here. I can just, if it's helpful, I can go across the top and maybe just read the top ones. Um, so just in no particular order, um, 8.1, um, which had zero votes. Um, that top comment just says the two I least favor the first, uh, very little or no new construction. And the last all new construction, um, if we go to see 2 to a, um, the C2 to a building layout appears to provide the most potential for access to daylight and all occupied spaces. Preservation of existing athletic facilities is desired. And again, these are going to be comments that are both pro and con as you go for the option, just helping everyone understand why people voted the way that they did. B1.2, he seems a little bit more expensive than beneficial while I'm fine with modulars. It seems like a lot of the community is very against them. B1.1, common was the B1.1 NP, so no pool option. Choosing this because I like the parking in the middle, making fields and building equally accessible, a new pool and gym ensure that we don't have to have renovation needs of those existing facilities for many years to come. It's also attractive from a cost perspective. C3-4a, aesthetically pleasing and seems to facilitate student flow, the best of the designs. And then C2-2a, which had the highest vote total at 98, C2-2a and C3-4a because it has zero modular classrooms. It would keep the current pool to the pool party people and would keep the larger gym. So again, these are just direct quotes that we got in. And then the last piece of feedback is really around the priorities that we ask people to enumerate and hear what we did as a process, rather than just sort of taking quotes and dropping in. We did utilize AI to distill the comments out and try to sort of pull out common themes that we saw. But I think as a question came up at the last instance, this was not us just sort of spitting out whatever AI gave us. We reviewed that information that came out and thought it was a good representation of the feedback that we got. Obviously there's a lot of comments that we took in. So this was just helpful to try and sort of focus what we're sharing as the feedback. We're again, happy to post up and we'll post up sort of the full data set so people can see that. But just running across the top are the priorities in those bubbles. So the future proofing and comprehensive programming is a priority, community programming and Bedford-Henley Network in particular, as well as the pool and gym preservation. And again, we've included some quotes that were sort of used to distill some of this information out. And then drivers are listed down below those. And then just the second slide of priorities. These are, again, the highest sort of repeating elements that came through and the feedback cost responsibility and reimbursement as a priority natural light well being as well as no modular classrooms. So, I think. Our takeaway from this is that it is actually a very, I think, indicative process in terms of what we've heard. A lot of these things we've been hearing consistently all the way along to the process. So this is just reinforcing that the priorities I think have been consistent as we've been going through the process and we've been listening both to the building committee as well as the various community feedback mechanisms that we've had in place. I think that's the last one. So I'm happy to stop here and just answer some questions about any of that.
[Jenny Graham]: Are there any questions?
[Luke Preisner]: Can we go back to the tabulation slide, the sequence? The numerical one here? The numerical one. So what I thought was heard, I heard, and I'm going to ask that you confirm, is with the dots voting, you would hand it out four dots to each person. And they could have voted for four different options, potentially. But for the digital voting, which is represented in the right hand column. The person voting was restricted really to one vote. You couldn't put multiple options. And so for that reason, you multiply their one vote times four. And so when we see 20, that's actually five votes, but it was multiplied in order to, you were trying to arbitrate, you know, the weighting. People in person have more options. And so for the online voting, you multiply it by four.
[Matt Rice]: So when we see 20, that's really five. That is a correct understanding. I will say though, in terms of the individual voting online, even though we suggested that people give us their preferred option, There were a fair number of individuals that didn't just give us 1 option. They just took the opportunity to say, we like this 1 of this 1 or I like this 1 and with some caveats and rationale to it. I wouldn't say it was the best majority of the online feedback, but there were a certain there was a good sort of quantity where we. people indicated two different preferences, we just gave each of those two votes to sort of tally out, replicating those four stickers. So yes, it was a slightly different messaging in terms of people that were in person putting their dots up versus those that were online. But I don't know for a fact, because I wasn't putting stickers on, whether or not the people that got the four stickers went all in and decided they would put their four stickers on one option. I'm guessing there was a fair amount of that. And then there were some folks that were also splitting their votes or their stickers between them.
[Jenny Graham]: Matt, to that end, if you didn't gross up those numbers, does the ranking, so to speak, change? Was it different than this?
[Matt Rice]: No. So the magnitude changes, obviously, but the representative order, in terms of less to most, And even in between, there's no variation in terms of the ranking. Well, thank you. Well, I have a quick question about the age again. And because many of these were community meetings, and also, honestly, just don't trust my memory. How many of these meetings had other alternatives that have since been cut into the 29, which might have gotten some dots way back when, or the options that we basically threw out them and their dots. because of the deed restriction? So it's actually listed there. So on the left-hand side, those first two, we're working with both the D2.1 option, which is the one on Edgerly Field that was previously under consideration, but removed because of the deed restriction. And then the C22 and the C34 options evolved to the C22A and C34A. They're on the same line so that you can sort of see how they migrated. We did carry forward the C22 votes to the C22A and the C34 votes to the C34A categories when we were accruing all the numbers together. And the D2.1 did drop off, but there was only that one vote for it. So I don't think that was a major impact in terms of the overall. But that is a good nuance to point out, that in the midst of this, there was that evolution of the options in response to deep restriction. Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Any other questions about this speech app? Next up. So with the weighting of the online, like I was looking at alternative B, would we expect that to say 22 then because we're multiplying the two by four and then four. So eight plus 14 would be 22. Is that how that?
[Matt Rice]: Should be 16. It is 16.
[Jenny Graham]: I was just trying to figure out the weighting with the the online, I thought that the two online votes counted as eight votes, but.
[Matt Rice]: Right. I actually had the same question when I looked at this and I said, well, for assigning four to everyone, how do we end up with odd numbers in the right hand category? And I think it's the result of some of those folks that decided to like split their votes out. So, um, what had to have happened is that somebody likes like two votes on to be 1.2, or they said it like that one. And I like this one and we split those votes up and that's how we ended up with the two in the right hand category. I understand. Thank you. Yep.
[Jenny Graham]: Are there questions about the community feedback so far? Okay. Before we move on to decision making, I did want to offer some space for the community to provide us any comment they'd like to provide either on Zoom or here in the room tonight about the options that they prefer and why. So as is always the case here, if you'd like to speak, you may speak once. And you are asked to keep your comments to three minutes or less so that we can hear from lots of folks. And when you speak, we'll ask you to give your name and address for the record. Is there anybody in the public that would like to speak during public comment? Yeah, there's a chair right there and we need you to sit there so that the folks on Zoom can hear you.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I'm currently in my office in your next year. I live over 83 places that road on the spot. And I don't have much to say about the building plan because I don't know much about them. I do remember saying three things earlier, but the thing I want to focus on is the schedule I think the schedule should be changed while the school is being changed. I think that's also important. But the whole school experience is not just the building. The fact that I have to be at school at 7.40 every day, really annoying. I'm losing sleep over that, constant. Everybody is losing sleep over it constantly. And the school should start at 8.30 or 9.00.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. Yes. And if you're online, if you're on Zoom, you can just use the raise hand feature and we will swap back and forth. Hi, my name is Sienna Chu. I live at 48 Brooklyn Street. And I sent an email to the building committee on... I don't know if anybody else saw it. Yeah. I have this feeling that it... What I want to say is that I am very interested in being able to preserve the gym, swimming pool, all of the community spaces. I am an educator myself, and I've worked at three different buildings that have been renovated or been constructed over the last 10 years. And there are things that happen in the building after the renovation. that sometimes people on building committees don't realize. Like one of the things that is happening currently at Somerville High School, there's lots of nooks and crannies in the building as a result of where benches are being placed, where there are window seats, and like underneath staircases. So just to try to limit these spaces where children just kind of go into the building and hide from people. I have children who get ushered out of the bathroom and they're back in the bathroom 15 seconds after somebody else has turned their back on them. And so we really have to think about like curves. And one of the reasons why I did not vote for C34A but voted for C22A is that the lines on the building are more straight and that you can build them and you don't end up with like irregular shaped rooms. And then from a perspective of regular shaped rooms, those can be very, very difficult as a teacher as well. Like as a teacher, one of the biggest things that we need to do is maintain preferential seating for students who need to be close to the board. And when you have odd shaped rooms, you lose preferential seating, and that becomes a real difficult aspect as a teacher. So that's why I voted on C2 today. I will resend the email that apparently went to wherever, and hopefully somebody will receive your email. We're going to ask the left field team to make sure that it is forwarded along to the building committee. Cool. And then on the future agendas, you'll see, just for everyone's awareness, there's actually two email addresses now. One is to the project team if you have a question, and the other is if you want to tell this group something, and it will auto-send. If yours got sort of tripped up in the middle of that transition, our team will make sure we send it out. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_06]: Good evening, everybody. My name is Nick Jorlato.
[Unidentified]: I have a question for all of you. That is, where is the 9-12 only? The SBA requested at least six options. The reason I ask that is because I did spend some time with the MSBA feedback. They did see it pretty explicitly mentioned in the MSBA feedback that a 90-12 only design should be included among design consideration. But I'll read from that, I'm reading from the cover letter, it's actually the feedback.
[Matt Rice]: Quote, based on the information provided and specific to the options the district has proposed to further evaluate the current schematic phase, the MSBA requests that the district establish an alternative option
[Unidentified]: explore slash demonstrate this proposed building project scenario that responds more directly to the necessities required to deliver the educational curriculum for grades nine through 12 student population. The alternative option should focus primarily on a proposed building project that provides a grade nine to 12 facility in a more efficient building that better aligns with the MSBA space and offers more multi-use spaces. The alternative option should be developed to a level of details through the MSBA guidelines. It should be provided as a supplement to the district's original preliminary design program submittal. At least one of these alternative options should be represented in the options to be further evaluated in the preferred schematic phase.
[Matt Rice]: So my read from that and other areas of feedback is that the MSBA isn't asking you just to kind of passively think about a 9-12 only option.
[Unidentified]: It's actually explicitly asking you to include one in your design zone consideration. Now, I understand that the last meeting, there was a verbal representation of this meeting with the MSBA, and the MSBA conveyed they didn't mean it quite as literally, but I'd like to at least see, I think, the interest of transparency, something in writing that just establishes that that's actually what the MSBA intended. They didn't literally want a 9-to-12 on the design, a properly designed signature consideration. So I think that would benefit the public. And I would say, if my read were correct, I think you should delay your vote until that 9-to-12 option. about a public interest in that. Generally, also, I would just add, we do see about 100 votes here, and a relatively low number think about the population of very hungry families, adults in the city. So it would have been nice to see a little bit more feedback as well as get more representative interpretation of public interest designs. Thank you for your time.
[Jenny Graham]: Did you have a preferred option? None of you shared with us? Oh, okay. That's all I have to say. Matt, can you address the high school only design decisions that we will be making tonight?
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, so we have been responsive to the MSBA, and I think that they were actually explicitly clear when we were speaking with them as well, that they did echo that sentiment that they were looking for a high school only option. The C22A-HS option is that high school only option that was developed in response to the MSBA. And I think we have taken a pretty deep dive with it. We have generated separate floor plans and separate cost estimates and have evaluated at the level of the rest of the PSR alternatives as was requested by the MSBA. So that has been available for people to vote, for people to review the costs of. So I do feel that we're in complete compliance with what the MSBA asked for as part of their feedback response. There's no other programming in C2.2a? It is a high school only program. It's taken away all the program items, correct. Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: We're going to do public comment. Yeah, please do. Your name and address for the record. Good afternoon. My name is Alicia Hunt, and I am here wearing two hats because I can't not wear two hats. I am the director of planning, development, and sustainability, and I am a parent. I've had two children graduate from Medford High and one who's in, so they will not be directly impacted by this building. I think it's really important that the committee thinks the future and the vision and where things are going to go, that this is a 50-year building, if not more, that this is not a short-term decision. I think we all know that, but I feel like it needs to be said. It's really important that we think about the future and the vision for the city. And some of why I say that is because my personal experience with our school buildings Before I was the director of all those things, I was the director of energy and environment, and I did a lot of the capital work and renovations and commissioning and stuff in our school buildings, what we have traditionally called the ones built in 2001 and 2003, and in the high school. I am really pleased to see that the committee and the public have all moved away from the idea of a code upgrade. Having tried to work with these buildings, I can't imagine that that could be a successful thing. that this building is ready for a new life as we're sitting here with no air conditioning. The building was partially designed to have air conditioning and it failed prior to 2010 and has been abandoned for quite a long time and things have been retrofitted in. But part of why I say thinking about the vision is working with the buildings from 2001, there are little things that I've run into that a little bit of vision could have maybe helped. I think the people who worked on that did really a great job of this. They could, but an example is that there was no thought for recycling, and there was no place for recycling. So when we said, oh, these schools have to recycle. It's the law. It's the right thing to do. We actually had serious difficulties finding spaces for recycling for nursery with schools, and how to manage the recycling in the buildings was an issue in 2001. As I say that, I'm going to mention composting. We're not literally ready this moment, but we're starting composting. It's coming. And in five or 10 years, it's probably going to be the law that people need to be composting. And so just thinking forward a little bit so that we don't run into the same kinds of, we thought too small, we scaled down as tight as possible, and we had no flex. In 30 years, there's going to be something else. We don't know what it is right now. So we need to think along those lines in our big picture. And then I just wanted to bring in one other piece from sort of my parent hat. Some of these options also bring more of our sports here to this campus. And so I have children who have been traveling to Hormel Stadium during the winter or the spring seasons. And it's a hassle, it's a problem, it's a transportation issue, it's a safety issue, getting kids on those buses, getting kids over there. Don't get me wrong, my child, loves being next to Wegmans and shops at Wegmans many times during travel season. But if the sports are here, it then actually builds more community, builds more flexibility around transportation. The students don't have to leave right after school, and the late bus is more of a realistic option when you have another 100 children who are here until 5 o'clock because of football, because of track, because of the other sports that can be here. Thinking about things safe and transportation, I also do hope that we're able to figure out another exit, a way to make the property work a little bit better. And that is something that I've been behind the scenes trying to see if we can put our heads together around to help with, because it can be a headache. Sometimes I actively avoid this property during those key times. And so all of that said, I do think we need to be about the community, the community use, I love that we have really focused on options or that the communities behind options that people pull up in the gym, because I've really heard from the kids how important it is to them that sometimes they can get all together. And I can't comprehend how we have a school that doesn't have an auditorium that big enough for the population. If I understand correctly, we wouldn't want that other than our thing either. So at least having a gym where you can bring everybody together is actually kind of a really nice community building thing. And I just kind of wanted to give that plug, because I really, I didn't vote on any of those, but I do appreciate this idea. With all the structural problems, keeping the gym in the pool, and I hope that my office can help bring ways for the sustainability to help with geothermal, solar, that we can continue to look for grants to help fund the solar in the long run. I know it's premature, but I'll just say this. In every other building project we've done, having solar as an alternate has resulted in us keeping the solar because it turned out that it made sense in the long run, and the pricing on it as an ad alternate was good. So at the very least, please, solar-ready roofs. I think that's actually the law. But consider having it as an ad alternate so that we have a way to bring it in. And if necessary, we will continue to work with the committee in the back on some sustainability and bringing national green money to the table. Great. Thank you. Do you have a preference that you would like to weigh in on today? I like the two C versions the most. Great. Sorry. Thank you. Can you just repeat your address? Oh, I might not set it here. Just 41 Lawson Street. Thank you. Online, we have a Nicholas.
[Nick Uhlig]: Okay, everybody. Yep. 62 Tanger Street. So first I want to thank everyone on the school building committee and the project team. I know that this is a tremendous amount of work going through all these different design options, digesting all this information and helping the public to do the same. So huge thanks for that. I want to express my support for the C options, C2.2a and C3.4a. I believe that those options give us the best balance of what we're looking for. I think that as some of the highlighted comments shown by the project team earlier in this meeting illustrate. Many people feel and I agree that the a option, the code upgrade is very poor bang for the buck. It doesn't meet the education plan. We don't get any support from the. And it's actually not even that cheap. I think that 1 can be easily disregarded. B, I feel largely the same way, only that it's even more expensive. Some of the things that I like the most about the C options, one, it was actually already touched on by the previous commenter, Alicia, the sports access of having the proposed track and field complex at the north end on Edgerly, I think is a huge strength for the C and D options. I also want to caution the committee against the C2.2 AHS option that another person commented on earlier. I think it would be very unwise to look at that and think that it's an easy win in terms of cost because it would involve basically kicking out some community programs that already exist and it would necessitate having to find them new homes. So I can't support that. While it is largely in line with another design that I do like, I think the high school only option is really for changing the community and that is something that would lead to a long-term regret. So I really think that preserving the large gym that we have with the sea options, which is allowed because we're renovating them, preserving the pool, and all those alternative PE spaces is a huge win, as well as getting added points in reimbursement from the MSBA for reusing more of the old building versus doing completely new construction. So yeah, I'm not particularly in favor of one C option over another. I think overall C 2.2a looks nicer. It's a little bit less compressed, and I think there's better natural daylight that we could get into the building. But beyond that, I trust the committee to make the right choice for students, educators, and the community. So thanks very much for letting me comment tonight.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you, Nick. Is there anybody else that would like to speak before I close public comment? Online, you can just put your hand up.
[Matt Rice]: Good evening, my name is Michael Trebonis. I'm from Spring Road. I just want to echo, I think, what I've heard in my conversations with neighbors, friends, the 2C options give this committee the maximum flexibility going forward to be able to make decisions on an option by option basis. When you're looking at a fully build, you're looking at a high school only or a code upgrade option, you're really choosing, you're making a lot of decisions immediately. So as you see options, in my opinion, and again, what I've heard from a lot of folks is, you know, really powerful to the other options. Wanted to share that. I want to thank everyone for their work, because I know so much has gotten us to this point. I'm just so excited to get to the next step where we can decide actual spaces on their merits rather than on big scary numbers.
[Unidentified]: So thank you so much. Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Hi, I'm Becky Kiefer, 24 Washington. I have a really quick comment. I voted for C3.4a. I like both the options, but I felt that the more compact building actually allows students to get around more quickly. That's something that I've heard of the challenge in other buildings. So I just wanted to add that data point to the process that goes on.
[John Falco]: Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Are there anybody else online who would like to speak? Is there anybody else here in person? So I mapped it today. I remember I didn't even need to know where to go to the library. as I graduated from New York. That's me to the best class. But I am... Your name and address for the record. My name is Tina Calogero. I live at 86 Stanley Avenue, Redwood. And I would have loved to participate in these meetings a lot more because I realize that we do meet in high school, and we do meet to make the future. But I have to say, I'm a little concerned when I look at the number of votes I didn't even know if there was a voting mechanism in place. I know some of my neighbors would be more than happy to weigh in on this. And I think the communication on what the designs were and how each of the different criteria, the way that I've heard the gentleman speak about the criteria. I know many of my relatives that live in the area are elderly and their property taxes increase to navigate part of the necessary overall, and I completely understand the truth, because I know that the federal government has really cut back on a lot of the funding because it's a tax. I get it. But we really should consider not only the future of our students, but we need to consider also our neighbors, and especially some of the senior people in our neighborhoods that are really struggling to get by with the increases in the tax revenues that we have. So my question is about the waiting, the waiting criteria. I think that's important because I think there are certain elements that are more essential than others, right? And the other thing is when it says 98 votes, what was the total number of votes in that and how many of that were from the community and how many of that were from the board? The board did not vote. So the total number of votes was, What, 200, 300 people? What's the population of Medford and how many registered voters? Probably about, what, 30,000 registered voters. I just think the communication has been a problem in it. And I think one of the issues that has caught us at is so many things happening in Medford right now and so many things to pay attention to. And it's difficult. It's difficult to keep track of everything going on, making big decisions like this for the future of our children. This has been a long week. I know that much. But I think people would like to be more informed and be active in things, but you just can't juggle all the balls at once, and it's very difficult. So that's all I'm going to say. Do you want to vote? You don't have to, I just want to make sure we're asking that question too. I read some of the comments on the review by the state, and I would go with something that is closer to the high school only approach. I think it's important that we get money from the state to do this, to try to get as much funding as we can, to really try to get the debt exclusion vote. down to a reasonable cost. People, I'm telling you, people are really starting to pay attention right now. Once you put a price tag on something, people pay attention to it. That's it. And I just, I do want to address your comment about cost. It is hard when you start paying dollars to something, right? It sort of locks it in, in this like sort of finite way. Right. These numbers are very preliminary. They're going to change. These will not be the final numbers. And that will continue to happen as we make refinement decisions about space, as we bring our construction manager on board who will actually be estimating like how many walls do we need and how many doors do we need and how many doorknobs and door handles and all of those things. So all of that, all of that work around like what will it cost is really very much preliminary, but this is part of the process. On the funding side, there's a lot of work being done in collaboration across this project team, as well as with the mayor and her office and the city council so that we can unfold a funding solution that is more nuanced than simply sort of you know, sort of pushing it all into a debt exclusion if we can. And there's a lot of moving parts to explore there too. So stay tuned for all of that. There's a lot of work ahead before we're really gonna know, A, what will this cost? B, what will the MSBA provide from a reimbursement perspective? And then C, how will this city choose to fund this? So lots to talk about. Thank you for being here.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thank you. Thank you very much.
[Jenny Graham]: Would anybody else who would like to speak?
[Matt Rice]: Hi, everyone. Nice to see you again. Justin St. 36, Wellington Road. I wanted to thank you all for your hard work to get this stuff. We built a lot of momentum. I remember when I was a kid, when I was in kindergarten, people were talking about building a new high school, and it never seemed realistic. And it has never seemed as realistic as it is today. I know it's been a very difficult few months for you all, not least because there's so much more to work on, subject matter to work through.
[Aaron Olapade]: But there's been a lot of community discussion about this. I just wanted to let you guys know that your hard work is seen as very much appreciated.
[Matt Rice]: And something that parents, I think, especially residents have been really great about you guys and your work is that you're centering it. you're giving a voice to the folks who can't vote, who will live with the consequences of this building. And with that being said, there are consequences with some of these decisions too, particularly with, in my opinion, A1 and C2.2A-HS, the high school only option, especially the high school only option, I just wanted to say from a city council perspective, something that we've seen time and time again, something that has become a problem in this year's budget is how do we house programs that already exist in Medford, but we don't have the funding to continue, right? I think Medford Family Network comes to mind for a lot of folks. And a lot more programs would be implicated by that option.
[Aaron Olapade]: I fear that choosing that option specifically would be down the road without much of the fiscal solution of the city. It would require As we always do, a lot of fiscal planning for the city would require us to constrain a lot of our fiscal options in terms of investing in our community.
[Matt Rice]: And I think, again, going back to kids, I want to remind folks that for many kids, the programs there, the programs in this building or in the future iteration of this building are a lifeline. It's where they feel safe. It's where they build community. Um, it's where they can find peace and solace and, um, just remind folks to keep that in mind as well. Um, I trust you guys with final decision, but if I were to say my, my preferences are options. Um, and I, with the previous, uh, commentary, I know you had mentioned working with the city council to find options to make this easier on the taxpayer.
[Unidentified]: I'm very much ready and excited. Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Is there anybody else who would like to speak before we close public comment? Hi, my name is Sarah Lucas. I live at 515 Winthrop Street. I'm the daughter of the high school I've been following along, primarily because this is going to impact my life. I am going to advocate for either of the options. I do not think that a blend or a high school only option should be considered here. I don't think it's appropriate to be on housing programs that we currently have here at the high school. I'm a mom of a four-year-old who has spent with raising from the Medford Family Network, to unhouse that program from the high school and not have a plan in place. It's just not okay with me. I'm also somebody who is a permanent resident here, so I don't have the ability to be voting in a tax override. So I just wanted to kind of say my piece here right now that I'm not worried about the tax increase. I think that We need to be investing in our educational spaces. I think something like a community room is really important to me. Through a lot of volunteer work that I do in Medford, I realize there's not a community meeting space other than the library, which is incredibly hard to book. What else can I say? Yeah, I think it's just a high school only option. It's just not something that I'm interested in. When comparing two C options, I think, you know, I looked at the little green space in 2.2a, and I kind of liked that more than the little parking lot that's by that practice field. So that. But I would take two more. I definitely strongly encourage you to consider voting for a C option. And I would like to see, yeah, I'd like to see probably a plan in place to fund things like, what am I trying to say? Like a revenue plan to reduce the tax overall burden, but I honestly, I'm willing to pay $1,500 a month or whatever we're talking about here to an annual. Yeah. I'm building an annual fee to that I'm living in an environment where those citizens are receiving an education that is quality education. So yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Erica on Zoom.
[Erika Reinfeld]: You guys ready?
[Jenny Graham]: Hi.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Hi there. Erica Reinfeld, 64 Forest Street. I'm actually here with two fifth graders. We just got out of soccer practice, and they're going to make a statement.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi, my name is Ella. And I am Tessa. We are two fifth graders and we will be graduating in 2033. My family believes in an integrated preschool. We think the C options are the best. And the C 3.4 is the best of the Cs in our opinion. Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. Is there anybody else who would like to? Oh, Erica, did you have more to say?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I was just saying they did a great job presenting. Thank you, everyone.
[Jenny Graham]: They did. Thank you. Is there anybody else who would like to speak before I close public comment? We all want to know the answer to that. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and close public comment. I'm going to ask the project team to review briefly the six options before us, and then we'll take questions and comments and motions from the committee.
[Unidentified]: I don't know, Michael, do you want to? Yeah, I can go through these. So here's the six just so everybody's on the same page.
[Matt Rice]: And we'll go through the individual slides. I have one slide per option that you guys have seen. We'll start with our least favorite, a group of 0.1, the code of the option.
[Unidentified]: It's pretty self-explanatory. I think the big thing here is the 56 modular classrooms and the impact to the that that was appropriate.
[Matt Rice]: Michael, I might point out just in the bottom right hand corner I've been relaying the overall total project cost to the committee and the community as we've been going through. Also noted in the bottom right hand corner is an estimated meant for share costs. So early on the project we did not have any ability to be able to forecast that cost because we did not yet hear back from the MSB as to what might be eligible or ineligible in terms of their costs. And it's not just as simple as even that equation, there are cost caps that are coming into play. And it's something that we do now have the ability to ballpark. Do wanna caveat this by the number will change. It is not an exact number of where we are, but it should give people a relative understanding of what the impact to the city of Medford will be to the taxpayers. all the things that were said earlier in terms of activity that's being currently undertaken to find ways to mitigate the impact to the taxpayers and sort of how it can be financed are still true. And the reason why, again, we have the same number here for total project cost and met per chair cost with option 8.1 is because this is not being the educational plan. It means that there's no reimbursement coming from the MSBA. So those two numbers are the same, but as we go to the rest of the options, you will see that there are differing numbers that have a ballpark in terms of the estimated bet for turn. B1.2, as you remember, was additional renovation vertically of this school.
[Unidentified]: 90 month time frame for that, for this project. 56 modular classrooms, substituting the same footprint, renovating, federal repeal, and all the other fields. Parking remains pretty much out front. As Matt said, total project costs $821 million. Medford share, that is $576 million. C2.2A, addition and renovation. This one is a six-story building that terraces up the hill. probably the biggest aspects of this one and the next one are renovating the gym, assisting the school.
[Matt Rice]: And the C option, we're really trying to leave as much of the existing school in place during construction.
[Unidentified]: So we're trying to limit the impact to students in this building while the new building gets built. And then in a phased construction, we tear down portions of this building finish off the new construction, and then finish the site work after that. Zero modular classrooms, total project costs of $813 million, with a average share of 591,000. C22A, high school only, was built off of the previous scheme. It just shrinks the footprint to remove spaces that are not high school program. 80 month duration, no modular classrooms, $760 million total project costs with Medford share of 465. C34A, again, very similar to the previous A, saving the pool, saving the gym.
[Matt Rice]: slightly different arrangement of architecture to wrap that existing athletics facility.
[Unidentified]: Zero modular classrooms and a total project cost $870 million with the Medford share at $607 million. And then E1.1 is our completely new construction option. And this was utilizing the existing parking lot that is out front for the building today.
[Matt Rice]: It's really the only site option for us for a new construction that predominantly tries to stay out of the footprint of the building.
[Unidentified]: Here today, zero modular classrooms, brand new smaller gym, brand new standalone pool, and a total project cost per share cost at $590,000. So those are the six and now we can kind of open it up to voting.
[Jenny Graham]: Before we do that, I want to add two comments. As you all know, we've been meeting with the chiefs and we have been talking with them about emergency access. We're not in a position to like to cite anything about emergency access to the sites of second, meaning a second entrance or exit, that those conversations are ongoing. But in the course of our conversation, we also asked them if they had any sort of strong advice or counsel for us about these options. And earlier today, both weighed in. So Chief Buckley from the Medford Police Department via the mayor, indicated that of all of the options he was, and he said this in our meeting, pleased with how the circulation has changed around the building. His opinion is that building the building in the D1.1 spot on the parking lot would be the least desirable option from a public safety perspective. And the comment that was shared was that public safety would ideally need to have a full picture of the site upon entrance in an emergency event. to be able to see everything in front of them versus sort of a huge building like right on top of you. So from a sightline perspective, he did not favor that. And then Chief Evans also weighed in and he said, from a fire access standpoint, his preference is the C2.2 designs. So I wanted to make sure that I checked that with you all. I know people, I know this committee cares a lot about public safety, obviously, and the safety of our students. And the chiefs have been asked for their input and collective guidance, and I wanted to make sure that that is also at the forefront as well. Okay, now I will open up for questions and comments. Member, oh, sorry.
[John Falco]: Thank you, I have two questions, hopefully one easy. The 2C option, we should be able to pick that up. Early on, We have estimates of how far students potentially have to travel. And 2.2, I'm just concerned that you have that calculation, which we did calculate it earlier on. I don't know if they're available. It's too much.
[Matt Rice]: I don't believe that we have those numbers updated for this most current iteration. I would say, though, that the general sentiment that I think I heard expressed during some of the public comment that the C-3-4 option, we're comparing those two. The C-3-4A option is a 2-2A option. I'm taking out the high school piece for a moment. C22A does have some longer distances from one end of the building to the other versus 34A. I think that's an accurate read of sort of the compactness versus the attenuation of the building footprints. The C22A high school only becomes a little bit better just by virtue of the fact that we're truncating off one of those longer routes.
[John Falco]: You only have three minutes between classes, right? And apparently, I don't think we're going to do this. pay for a longer school day right away. So that's a concern of mine, just getting, I mean, even in this building, you know, my daughter always had to run from one particular class to another class. And so that concerns me. And then between the two options, We may end up doing solar over the parking. Is there a better option for between the 2? Because everything else is quite different. Yep. Is there a better option when it comes to solar over parking?
[Matt Rice]: From a solar orientation perspective, they're both actually very good spots for the parking lot because they get full solar exposure throughout the majority of the day. So the building would not be shadowing them, which is probably preferable. The only other reason I could think that one may be preferable over the other is maybe it's the converse sort of rationale that we just had with the smaller footprint will provide less roof area. So it means to be able to get if we're trying to get to a net zero sort of equation in terms of the amount of energy we generate on site from solar panels, we'll have to build more ground canopies over the parking lot to get to that sort of net zero equation. Whereas if we have a longer, a wider building, more roof area, right? Even though it's longer to traverse inside, you get more roof area. So it's less expensive to put those solar panels on the roof than it is on the ground. So we have to sort of balance out those two different considerations. So neither one of my questions helped me at all.
[John Falco]: Well, they're just different.
[Unidentified]: Other questions?
[Luke Preisner]: So with the C2.2 options, one's bigger than the other. So If we peg larger one as an 80 month project, so six years, eight months, why is the smaller one the same duration? Why wouldn't it be shorter?
[Matt Rice]: So in a fair point, I think as we bring a construction manager on, they may be able to tell us that it's less. The reality is though is that the primary schedule driver and the duration driver is the phasing and the breakup of the building. And so both the C22A as well as the high school only version of it, Still are going to have to operate with the northern half getting built 1st on the 1st phase. And then building a 2nd phase that basically replaces the ceiling in either scenario, just due to the fact that the deep restriction pushed us in that direction. And then a 3rd phase, that's sort of the remaining completing piece to the South of the gym and fitness spaces. And so it's those three phases that all sort of accrue on top of each other. Yes, it takes less time to build a less square footage, but we're still building a considerable amount in each phase. And that's why at this point in time, we didn't think that it was realistic to suggest that we could cut out a certain amount of time, whatever that would be. But we would expect when the construction manager might come on board and give us some sort of more nuanced phasing, that there could be some slight reductions in the overall phasing, or 2-2-8,
[Luke Preisner]: And can I also ask about, you know, with the footprint of the building and an eye towards potentially installing a battery backup system, so some way to, I'll say, control the load and reduce our exposure to heat and electricity rates, something I've been reading up on, and if we can reduce, I'll say, usage number, there could be a very large advantage in annual electricity costs. And so, we haven't discussed it much on this topic, but it is a featured topic, if it's not in the agenda, I'll bring it up. And storing battery, I'll say, augmentation to the system. So, Knowing that you have some large quantity of batteries and knowing that there are first responder considerations with that technology, is there an advantage of one layout versus another? Do you have any comments on that, or should we talk about it on its own?
[Matt Rice]: You're saying between different options, whether or not there's an advantage from a battery or from a battery.
[Luke Preisner]: Every straight characteristic and others, kind of like, it looks like the tri-symbol, you've got to put the battery somewhere. And first responders need to be able to access that quickly, if they ever need to, I guess.
[Matt Rice]: So from that perspective, in that sense. So I think the main consideration in terms of whether one option is preferable than another in terms of battery opportunities on site is would be which option has more site area available to it. So smaller building footprint would give you more options. We don't know exactly where that battery array farm is going to be located. It's sizable, it's not ginormous, but it's considerable in terms of thinking about as a site area, it might be as big as our loading dock or something along those lines. So, in theory, you could say, well, our C22A high school only option, because the building footprint is smaller, might be more amenable to it, or the C34A option might be amenable, again, smaller footprint. I will say with C228 High School as well, one thing that we haven't had the chance to, I think, fully vet out and would be vetted out as part of the process going forward is if those non-high school programs are removed from the project, we may still want to preserve the site area where that building footprint is not for future expansion down the road. That could be part of the thought process that we come up with. So while it may seem like open site area between or more site area between present in the C22A high school option versus the C22A option. We might not really be wanting to use that for, um, battery area on site because we might want to build a building there. And like you said, um, accurately, the, the first responders are going to want to have easy access to the battery farm wherever it exists. It does not want to be underneath any type of cover, um, because the fire concerns is primarily a fire hazard. Um, and that's the fire department will weigh in on sort of our locations and help give us some guidance there. And it's sort of a long answer, but I think generally the same premise holds true, that smaller build and footprint will give you better optionality in terms of where that battery storage might be located.
[Unidentified]: Thanks.
[Jenny Graham]: Other questions, comments? I wanted to relay a message from one of my students. I was showing my students today the different designs, and I don't think they even had any comments. One is a soccer player, and he was looking at the, the way that the designs, the C and D ones, kind of split up the playing field, and he really values currently how the two playing fields up in Edgerly are next to each other, so that the JV and varsity can play next to each other, practice, they can scrimmage, there's a bonding, and that, you know, when there's games, they're played side by side, so people can see both games, support both teams, So I told him I would deliver that message here, but that was something that he really valued, and he didn't like the other designs because of that splitting up of the field. I know other people were saying that they really liked the idea of the track, but I wanted to make sure that that loss of side-by-side field does have some consequences for the athletes. Okay. And the way I understand this is we've got the 2.2a batch in chess. And I don't plan on voting for that, or saying I'd like it, not because I don't think it has potential in the future, but because I don't see any reason to limit ourselves today. But I assume, whatever we go with, our next steps are to look at, is there an option where central offices can go somewhere else, or MFN, or whatever it is. We can still study all of those versions, or those options with whatever version we go with. I don't see any reason to pick that now. Unless someone else wants to tell me why I'm wrong or another reason. But it seems like going with 2.2A and 3.4A, either one, we could have a high school in the future if we found out, oh, we have wonderful spaces and other programs to go. It'll cost less money to put them there. I think that would be amazing. But like, that's something we'll figure out. Yeah. And that's some of the work that was discussed at our last meeting. The city is doing a feasibility analysis of the one property that is a contender for maybe housing a program or two or some collaboration of items. And that work is just getting going. And so at some point over the course of this summer, will be more information about that and to your point, then we will be able to compare the real cost of making a decision like that versus just simply saying these folks have no home and aren't building anymore. So yes, we can continue to make space refinements through the end of September, early October, I believe. And that is absolutely the plan. So I would, until having all the information, I would absolutely not back it up. HAB-Judy Noggin I lost my same questions. Brian. I was going to pick back on what Ruby was saying, you know, I'd love to make a motion to deliberate on the screen.
[Luke Preisner]: And while we're at it, we could code upgrade in one or two hours. and we'll go that far if we make some bold steps just to get there.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, so the motion is to eliminate the code upgrade and C2.2 high school only. Second. Second. Second by Dr. Felici.
[Luke Preisner]: Luke? Sure, so I was going to advocate for the high school option. I don't think we're going to do that. It is a direct response to the investigative feedback. Now we have our price tag. They'd be wonderful, actually, if we saw these slides before they made any selections. But nevertheless, it is still a very large building, 549,000 square feet, so a lot of space for banks. The MSBA encouraged us to look at our spaces, and they use the word efficient in a lot of places. In some cases, they had different meanings. So in some cases, they were referring to efficiency in terms of reimbursement alignment, right? If you pick a lot of spaces that they don't recognize, your reimbursement efficiency is awful. This one has very good reimbursement efficiency. In other places, when they refer to efficiency, they're looking at multiple spaces. So, you know, if you have, Um, an area that can serve as a conference room can also serve as a meeting room. Um, it potentially has, uh, access points that allow it to be used on weekends. Um, you know, that's an example of an efficient, uh, interior space. Um, and so I think, uh, with the high school only option, um, given that it's very large and we actually need significant, well, 20,000 square feet bigger than this tracker, which was originally designed for 3,600 students. I think, I believe that there would be enough interior space to work with. I do want to observe that the Hagner Center's, the building that were by Gillis, that's like 7,400 square feet. And Kurtz-Tufts is about 10,500 square feet, roughly. Those are, the Kurtz-Tufts would certainly come on line and those children are brought into this facility. So that's 10,000 to work with. And then the Hegner, I know that's in various schools of repair and people who talk about that is really, but that's 7,000 square feet. So if we add up and arrive at 73,000 square feet and then compare with our space summary that provides the specific square footage associated with mention that effect, which, you know, I love the effect. from the younger, you know, sort of benefit from that. We don't have any square feet, that is, right? We don't have any square feet, all of these spaces are those, that's what the individual space summary details, and that's what the MSBA demanded. So I think we can take those, aggregate them, compare them to the 17,000 and see where we stand. So eliminating this option today, I feel like we send the wrong message to the MSBA, In the end, we can go to whatever school we want, but they have to participate. That's a reality. It's not through laundering or anything like that. That is just a true statement. And so I think we should respect the MSPHC. The only thing they underlined in those seven pages was the request, I'll say firm request is the underlining, to include a high school focus option. They actually never used the term high school. There was some chatter on Facebook, and hopefully, my head straightened out. But eliminating it today, it's a little rash. I know we've been deferring a lot of decisions, but in the interest of not being rash, I think eliminating this today would be rash. So that's my counterpoint.
[Jenny Graham]: I'm going to make, clarify something. We actually forget a lot of things. What we do today, since they've asked for a high school only option, is what we submit would be the main biggest version and the high school only option. Like, for example, see 2.2a and 2.2a HS, or are we just going to show them? You're right, they specifically asked for this. So I would assume we should vote, or we just show one thing and we don't put anything else towards this document. Matt, do you want to answer that?
[Matt Rice]: The goal of the preferred schematic report phase that we're in right now is that we pick, select one option, and that is the preferred schematic option that we are advancing into schematic design. But we do need to pick one today as we go forward. If I just try to summarize maybe the feedback that we got from the MSBA on the high school-only option, what they were looking for is really what we have done, which is putting it out there for consideration, taking away all of the non-grade 9 to 12 sort of programmatic elements of the building. So that that can be understood in its totality against the other options that we're looking at. I think moving forward there has been a commitment to still look at pulling out those options as long as we can understand the final destination of any program that is unhoused from this building that is here today. And I know that that's still going to be done. And so I think selecting one option with a commitment to say yes we're still going to be proceeding. We're looking to pull those non-high school spaces out potentially. I think would be fine, but it doesn't need to be one option that we're picking at all. We would not want to pick one option and then also have like the high school option there as the high school only option there as sort of a sidecar to it. It wants to be one of them.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I want to make sure that we're doing what we're asked to do, but also not limiting ourselves. So if we don't go with that, but acknowledge the work that's been done to recognize what that would look like. you know, that seems important to show that we've met the feedback and show what you like for working a job. I think it's important. And I'll take it up. Mayor?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Sorry, it was not letting me unmute. Thank you, Madam Chair. A couple things. First, the Hagener Center We applied for a federal grant, which we received between one to one and a half million. That is going to be specifically for municipal vulnerability preparedness site, as well as recreation space. Recreation is in dire need of space. As you know, we have some flooding issues at the center and we need additional space anyway. But we are looking into options for the Curtis Tufts, which is much larger. So I think there is some potential there that is going to take the summer months to get to where we need to be to figure out what we have for viable space and what potential we could put in there. And then I just wanted to point out one other thing at our last meeting. Yes, that was a deliverable of Medford. the Curtis Tufts and figuring out if there's any space in our debt capacity, especially after this 50 million we're bonding for now for the HVAC and five of our schools starts to space out. But there was also another deliverable, which is to reduce space overall from, and that work will be done, I think, through our consultants left field and SMMA through the summer. And I know we'll be making some of those decisions in the fall. Now that doesn't mean the MFN or any specific space, but in general, reducing space, looking at what we can double up and shared space, there are a whole host of options. So I just want to make sure everybody knew there was two deliverables from that internal meeting we had about a week ago or so. And I think we should, based on the public to safety feedback. I think we should consider eliminating D11, which is building completely on the parking lot because public safety obviously has to come first. And I think our public safety professionals are pretty clear in the last meeting and today. Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. Any other questions, comments about the motion, which is to eliminate A1.1 and C2.2 high school?
[Luke Preisner]: Brian? My feeling is that we are eliminating the high school option that does give us the opportunity to be able to send a unit out. I think that's what Rudy was saying, that there's only two. Some of the larger options that we do, we have some of these opportunities. At least we're not paying ourselves any more. We can always work on pulling this program out. We're just trying to snap it back. I think that's the best thing. I think it would be understandable to have a larger piece. There are three bars currently working to bring these bills out. And we have to push these out. I think I offer an amendment to your motion. I would amend removing the request to remove the high school only option and just constrain it to A1 because quite frankly, we're just voting to pick one. I mean, so if we just pick one that's not that one, achieves the same outcome. I think if you make a motion to like formally eliminate it that's a choice to send a message. And I don't think you have to make that message. So I offer an amendment to your motion. I see logic.
[Unidentified]: I'm going to leave comments on my own.
[Jenny Graham]: I just from where I'm coming from. to extend what Brian and Libby just said. To me, it's also the information that we have at our disposal right now. And we did just hear the mayor talk about the use of the Hager Center, which basically means that's not available. And then it's the Curtis House. And if I think of MFA and Kids Corner and some of the pieces that are very community facing and very important, I am not about to get behind a vote that unhouses any of those programs. And so to me, I don't know until we do this feasibility that the Curtis Tufts is large enough, one, to house everything that would be unhoused in that version, because it's more than just MFN and Kids Corner, that's for one. And two, we also don't know what it would cost to do the upgrade for the Curtis Tufts, which is right now marked as a historical building in Medford. And so it's more than just the upgrade. There are ADA compliances with the Curtis Tufts right now because it is a historical building. Dr. Hodgkin can speak more about that, but I believe there's maybe two functioning bathrooms in the entire building. So there's a lot of work that would have to go into the Curtis Tufts in order for it to be even feasible for some of these programs. And right now, that's the information we have. No other facility in Medford is on the table or is being looked at. And I am unaware of any other facilities. So I do believe that that would extremely hinder community facing programs. Whereas again, the flexibility of choosing some of these others, we can always reduce, we can never add back once we take this vote. If I could just throw my two cents in. It is up to Brian and his second if he wants to adopt Luke's motion or amendment. I support Luke's amendment. I think you have a great point about what we're voting to say. We don't have to vote to say anything about that option. We could simply pick something else. I think voting to stay or taking a 1.1 off the table is a great vote without like, you know, subliminal messaging. And we might want to pursue that. So that's my goal. Thank you. Um, I would just be curious. I mean, it seems like we're all kind of based on community feedback, community feedback, But our committee itself, we're circling around the C's. And I feel like a lot of people are kind of like, I could go either way. So I would be curious, and I appreciate the motion, and I'm still sitting there. I think the taking away motions were probably more important when we had so many. I personally would be more curious to people if they feel really strongly about one C or the other. I know I could kind of be swayed in either direction. I like 3.4 based on the flow and the time to the classrooms, but then the members of the community who spoke made a really good point about just kind of like weird shapes of classrooms and how that can impact things. So I would be curious, and I'm also happy if people want to move forward with that motion to vote on it, but I would just be curious if people have strong opinions about either of the Cs that's appeared then. So Brian, the motion is yours. So you can decide to keep it as it is and it or withdraw it at any time. And I'm going to take Paul's comment. just let me know when you're ready to make a decision.
[Matt Rice]: Oh, hi. So I think it's very wise to grapple with the fact that if we say we are rejecting this, that could be a strong signal. I just like to say, I would be comfortable sending that signal for a couple of reasons. One is just looking at this base summary, there's 19,000 square feet for central office. And, um, In part of my both, one of my job experiences involves working with a lot of people in the Boston public school system, which, as you can imagine, does not have their central office in one school because it's a massive administration. And then coincidentally, having a neighbor who is also a principal in that school system, knowing them socially, I've had number of interactions about the relationship between the educators, the principals outside of the schools and the central office. And I will just say, that relationship is not always great. The idea of collaboration and responsiveness and feeling like they're on the same team, I have never heard that spoken about the relationship. I'm sure all of those people involved are all dedicated, hardworking employees, but I've never heard someone say, I'm so glad that the central office has done this in the BPS system. Much bigger system, much bigger challenge. I think that there is an opportunity to keep the staff and the administration of the entire district, as well as the maintenance and every other function that really is essential to keeping this place working, directly connected and physically proximate to the mission of the schools, especially if that mission is really encompassing everybody all the way from youngest and early childhood up to the 12th graders. So I actually would be fine saying We reject this.
[Unidentified]: I think that the staff and the administrators belong in a centralized campus, and there's a tremendous amount of efficiency and alignment that will result.
[Matt Rice]: Any quick follow up? So, I think it's a great point. I just want to make sure Paul, as you're looking at the space, is the 19,000 square feet the actual line that you see the total that's within the body of it? So it's important to note that for any of the spaces that we have to add on a grossing factor. So we have a 1.5 multiplier that we apply to that net usable for footage over 19,000 square feet, which means, so it's roughly a little under 30,000 square feet is actually what we would need for the hallways and the stairs and bathrooms and all the things that are not represented in the usable space. So I think it's a great point. We might just have to be specific about like which programs within central office might shift there because it may be something larger in its totality than what Curtis Tuss would allow in the current configuration. You could build an addition there too. That's a potential thought.
[Jenny Graham]: Brian?
[Luke Preisner]: So I have a lot to say about the C functions. I think we'll get there. I'm happy to re-pick anything. That sounds wise because I'm not too concerned that that C element option will take over too soon.
[Jenny Graham]: So the amended motion is to eliminate A1. Is there a second? I will also second that. I'm going to call the roll. Jenny Graham? Yes. Mary Lungo-Koehn?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galuzzi? Yes. Marta Cabral? Yes. Joan Bowen? Yes. Ken Lord? Yes. Libby Brown? Yes. Marissa Desmond? Yes. Maria Dorsey? Yes. Brian Hilliard?
[John Falco]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Paul Malone.
[John Falco]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Paul Morell. Yes. Erin Olapade.
[Unidentified]: Yes. Ruth Kreisner. Abstain, I don't think it's necessary.
[Jenny Graham]: 13 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, one abstention. The motion passes and A1 is eliminated.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to eliminate D11.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay, motion to eliminate D11 by the mayor. Is there a second? Second. by Ken. Luke?
[Luke Preisner]: I'm going to save my comment for after the vote.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay. Are there questions about the motion to eliminate C1.1? Okay, I will call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galuski. Yes. Joan Bowen. Yes. Ken Lord. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Marissa Desmond. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard.
[John Falco]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Emily Lazzaro. Paul Malone.
[John Falco]: No.
[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Yes. Aaron Lopate. Yes. Luke Presner. Yes. 11 in the affirmative, 1 in the negative, 1 abstain, 2 absent. Yes, got it. Motion passes. So D1.1 is eliminated.
[Luke Preisner]: Luke. So I want to make a comment that we're being presented new information that was not available until today. That information has to do with an estimate of net reimbursement. When we look at net reimbursement, it's not calculated, right?
[Jenny Graham]: it was presented in the mayor's presentation.
[Luke Preisner]: It was, but the numbers were a little bit different, and they were not really tagged for specific options. I agree. I could have calculated them, but here it's actually assigned to a concept.
[Jenny Graham]: There was a slide that listed the options and their options.
[Luke Preisner]: Well, I guess I don't recall that. I recall three numbers, like a 400 number, a 100 number, a 600 number, and What was stated to my recollection was that those numbers were provided in consultation with project team and used for, you know, presentation purposes. And certainly sort of calculate like a high and low, but here we have one, two, three, four, five, six concepts that passed the presentation at three numbers. And we have one, two, three, slightly different, or six, group five, five slightly different estimates of net reimbursement, each one tailored for a specific concept. So I would propose that what we have today is a bit different and more personalized than perhaps what we saw in the past. And so for that reason, because it's new information, I would make the motion, I'll make the motion, that we hold another community meeting to solicit input now that we have an understanding of that reimbursement to see how the community feels about the remaining options.
[Jenny Graham]: As a point of information, the slide was shared with all of the options in the mayor's presentation on June 1st, and there was a subsequent community forum and that information was available and shared at that time as well.
[Luke Preisner]: I'm talking about net reimbursement. So we have an example of it sort of on the screen here. 716 is the total project cost, estimated Medford share is 465. Using those two numbers, the net reimbursement, if we assume that the reimbursement rate is up, I would assume that it's our feasibility number, although I know that's subject to change, but if I, keep that constant space of arithmetic to understand what the net reimbursement is. And in this case, it looks like the net reimbursement was about 37, 38%.
[Jenny Graham]: These numbers were all shared in the presentation, but there is a motion on the floor to delay this vote and have another community forum. Schedule-wise, that would mean we are very likely not to make our deadline. And is there a second? Hearing no second, we'll move on. Thoughts, questions? We are down to B1.2, C2.2a, and C3.4a. Lisa? C2.2, it retains the gym and the pool, but there's also an additional bump out on the gym, where the C34 doesn't have that. Could you comment on that a little bit? What's in it? Is that the fitness center? Is that some classrooms?
[Matt Rice]: It's the combination of fitness center and the gymnastics gym is really within that volume. There is space below it as well, which is where the existing kitchen is, and potentially some of the cafeteria space as well. There's no interest in trying to preserve and recreate a kitchen or cafeteria space. It's really in C22A, the gymnastics gym as well as the fitness room that are larger that we're trying to preserve. Um, this question has come up before, because those that bump out, like you said, is not represented in the C3 for a option. I mean, is we are currently holding the square footage at the same size that we would be relocating to another position within the building at those larger spaces, but. Be slightly higher again, not consequential, but slightly higher. higher reimbursement for the more renovated space. In C22A, it just becomes challenging to keep it in the same spot. In C34A, given this goal of trying to wrap the gymnasium with occupied space, it would just interfere with that. That's why there's a slight difference in the amount of renovated space. There would be a slightly higher reimbursement. Again, it is slightly higher, it's just not consequential, I think, when we're making those decisions overall. Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Ready? So Nicole asked, does anyone have any feelings about the 2MC options? And I didn't really. I'm trying to figure out what I do, because for all intents and purposes, they're kind of the same thing to me in a lot of ways. But I think the differences, I think, was brought up earlier tonight, too, was about one has curves, one has a little bit more rectilinear, one prioritizes a little more access to daylight, maybe has slightly longer passing time requirements. The way I see it though, these are a proven concept, right? You guys have taken these with certain, like we have not looked at the floor plans really carefully. We've not talked about synergies and adjacencies. And so I feel like there's so much to be done in iteration with the design moving forward, but like, I'd almost be happy with either one. That said, I guess the difference I think is really about Fairlight and maybe saying we're avoiding perfectly completed initiatives. And so I would say there, for my, superfine 2.2, with the, you know, standing that none of these, none of these is the final design. We're not saying like, that's what we're going to build, let's go. So I see a lot of opportunity now that we guys can focus on one thing and we can really dig into that together and talk about the benefits. And if there's something really great about 3.4, it's not meant to say that we can't do that now, because that wasn't 3.4. So, but I have to sort of answer your question. I would say that's why I think it should persist. Thank you. I would also comment that of those two choices, although they're very, like, I sort of agree, I don't have a strong preference between them, but C2.2a is the less expensive option of the two. And I do care a lot about making sure that we're being responsible from a cost perspective in every which way that we can so that we aren't making short-sighted decisions to cut programming for kids. And so if the simple design of the building is going to sort of throw differential on the table, I'd like to remove that from consideration. For me, I would lead towards 2.2 to remove that extra hill that we'll have to climb to move past that number. But that's just me.
[Luke Preisner]: Brian? Actually, I have a question for the design team. Do you guys have the plans and sort of preliminary plans that you have? So if you were able to pull up 3-4, the plans, what I'd like to point out, and I think it backs over to you, but I have issues with 3-4 and some of the internal spaces that those curves provide. There's a lot of what I would call just sort of dead, dead parts, dead spaces. There's a lot of things that I can't tell. And probably the one on the left is a great example. What are we looking at? Are they just blank walls of the gym, the existing gym spaces on the interior? Courtyards, I'll call them, really have a pretty tall structure inside. I know there's gonna be mechanical stuff on top. And as you work up through the building, even though the little corridors are on the right side, those curved spaces are difficult to program, difficult to work with, teach in, clean, you name it. And if you go up even one more floor, I think that's what I would call it. So those were some of the lower ones that really have those internalized spaces. And I know if we were living in Brooklyn or something, it's fine if you've got your stairs to your neighbor's wall and there's other things right there, you're just happy to have a window with lights and lights. I think we can do better, and that's why I feel the 2.2 gives us a lot more flexibility, a lot more options to at least explore double or quadruple lights raising over the sides. It gives us a little more opportunity to flex and move around. And I would also like to throw out there, I'm so hopeful that the team restrictions will lead to some discussion someday, and then we can get back to swinging some of these appendages around. With this one, I think we're a little more dividend. So I would like to throw my hat in the ring on 2.2 versus the main problems.
[Jenny Graham]: For me, as the social principal and supervising students and overseeing security, for me, the guidelines are really important. And I think 2.2 offers that, along with having a main street where I'd be able to see classrooms, students coming in and out, and it creates more community. I think for me, having a main street Secondly, at the high school, we have movement breaks throughout the day for some students that may need it additionally or during our lunchtime period. And I think having the gym in the center, although the structure is beautiful, I think would cause a lot of interruptions to classroom, as well as just the mass amount of students that are moving at that time in and out of the gym, I think would cause instructional disruption for staff and students. So I would vote for 2.2.
[John Falco]: One question about, I remember Somerville High School, gym is incredibly central and the gym can be very loud, very, very, very, very loud. You know, the courtyard is here, you do not exactly enjoy it if you're actually in a classroom against it. Any classrooms against this gym, right? No matter how somebody's got a full sound system, blaring, 500 kids screaming, your classroom is next door. It's going to be quiet.
[Matt Rice]: It will be if we do our jobs.
[John Falco]: I don't know what modern buildings can do, but it just seems like a tall ask.
[Matt Rice]: So we do have an acoustician that we work with as part of our consultant team on the design of every project. And those types of adjacencies are something that we focus sort of an initial acoustic report on on every project. And they review our documents as we go along through the process. I will say it's much more challenging like to be able to isolate gym noise against a classroom or even like a music room noise against a classroom. You have to build a lot of mass into those walls. You have to build a lot of acoustic isolation into those walls as well. You also have to think vertically if there's spaces below, spaces above that are potentially going to receive the noise. So it's not easy and it's not cheap in terms of making those types of isolations possible, but it is possible. We do do it on various like that. That is one concern I've never heard from the gymnasiums, the spaces surrounding the gymnasium at Somerville, that that is an acoustic challenge for them.
[John Falco]: Yeah, I think it's when the doors are open. I don't expect anybody to solve that problem. But like, doors open, the noise comes out of the classrooms right next door. That seems like an unsolvable problem unless you don't have the adjacency. But I just wanted to know the fact. It's like we're so focused on beating this gigantic gym, which is good, but I have also wanted to make videos in the background of our classroom, so I don't want to have what we have, which is the outdoors space, which is constantly invisible.
[Unidentified]: And see, two days in those classrooms. Oh, that was good.
[Jenny Graham]: I'm going to just ask everyone to project their voice as best you can. Folks are having a really hard time hearing us. So, um, and I know that the hybrid meeting is challenging, but I think if we can just sort of focus our energy on that little, like owl, I think it worked.
[Luke Preisner]: Luke. Um, so I guess I want to voice, uh, to the pair of, uh, two, not two a. options. I think the layout is straightforward. I want to echo some of the obstructions about getting from class to class, about the site life, security, about, you know, the straightforward geometry for first responders. If you have to come in and it's an emergency, how many corners do you really need, do you want to turn before you get to the person you get to? So the layout is more straightforward. I think from a construction perspective, I'm not in business, but Indulgently, I would imagine that the complexity is less when the shapes are simple. I feel like the layout of utilities would be more straightforward. I feel like the access for construction equipment would be more straightforward. To Larry's point earlier from the public, fewer nooks and crannies in our regular spaces. I really prefer the orthogonal appendage that is formed by our pool and gymnasium. I feel like it separates those loud and active spaces from instructional space. I think there's benefits maybe from the acoustic perspective, but certainly from just the student body co-living perspective. It is just, it's a separate area. So I think there, I strongly advocate for retaining those spaces. Certainly they can't be replaced under current guidelines, or if they can, it's in a much smaller form. Plus you lose important community activities like batting cages, gymnastics gym. My kids have used all of these things at one point or another. You also want to make the plug for a pair of soccer fields at bedroom. My kid runs track. She actually doesn't mind the period of time between track practice and going to school, which is a lot of legwork. And so she spends that time in between trying to make some progress towards the homework. And then she's typically up until that 30, finishing her homework. So having that time, she may work. I feel like other children are in the same boat. Um, so I don't want to plug for yes, it is. And, uh, that is it sort of real before that. Um, I want to reinforce some of the good things that I heard. I agree with it.
[Jenny Graham]: I just want to comment that it sounds like there's some agreement at the table. My last thought for 3.4 is just the security aspect of it. And I know that this is a concern, uh, administrators currently. is just the point of access into the high school. With having the gym in the middle, we already have that during the school day and on weekends as well as it's a community center for many community members. And I think having less access points into the school building would be a plus from 2.2 instead of 3.4 for safety measures. Nicole, do we think, I mean, To your point, we're hearing, I think people coalesce on C2.2. Do we think there is any benefit in like, or tacit, or this is all conjecture, choosing an option where we also have that other, not that we're, seems like we're going to advance the high school only option, but choosing an option where we also have like, kind of mocked up the high school only version, like that puts us in good favor, or it's ready to go? Yeah.
[Matt Rice]: I think it would be seen as a positive. It certainly helps explain sort of the difference in between and where you can see yourself going if we're pulling away some of those programs, because it's sort of mapped out the extreme, right, in terms of taking them all away. And if we didn't go to an extreme and took out some because we can rehouse or whatever the decision is, at least that that path is a little bit clearer graphically and logistically in terms of the thinking. So I think that's a fair point.
[Jenny Graham]: So could I make that motion then? Yes, you can. So your motion is to select C2.2a. By Dr. Galusi, seconded by Aaron. Any last comments before we call the roll? Sure.
[Aaron Olapade]: I think the comment that was made, I think, by Libby earlier about C2.2a, you know, we can downsize that. So I know the consideration for 2.2a with the HS consideration is important. I think I appreciate MSK's perspective and Luke's perspective earlier about having that option as available, but just understanding what it would look like if we If we were to remove some of the program that's already on site and maybe not bring some onsite that we're considering, but that's possible to see 2.2 a so I think that we all kind of seemingly agree on that that there's opportunity to reduce it as an event over the next number of months. I think it's February is when we decide so. I find that to be the most correct, but I also think that there's a conversation to be had about why we're doing this. I think when we look at all the designs and we look at space summary, you know, in my opinion, a lot of focus has been on student success and student learning. I think it has been tailored around the educational plan that we put in place. Now, of course, there are some things in the building that aren't specific to ninth through twelfth graders, but education of the community is also really important, I think, in a lot of communities, and I think that Of course, the focus point should be on our ninth through 12th graders, but a lot of members of our community benefit from the other programs that we may not directly benefit from. I don't have children, for example, so I don't have it for me. I don't benefit necessarily from that, but I do see the value in investing in those programs going forward, and I think that we want to create, or I personally want to create a building that allows for all members of the community to feel welcomed in this space, not just our high school students, which are, of course, a priority, but we have to consider, or I think we should consider, the preschools and the toddlers, for example, will come to this building eventually. They want their families and parents to feel equally as well, because over time, that investment will show proof that we're committed to them, and that will ideally want them to remain in the district. And I think that there's value in that, too. So, that's all I have to say. Yeah.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Lou?
[John Falco]: I'm going to stand up first. Oh, sorry. I do want to go.
[Jenny Graham]: Paul?
[Matt Rice]: So I just have one question about C2.2a, which is it preserves the existing very large gym and pool. And while we're talking about, of course, we could still cut things down. I guess my concern is, is it at all possible to make use of the square footage or the volume of that gym for anything other than use as a gym? We find ourselves in a position where we're really looking for every single square foot because, you know, she 1.1, which everybody else rejected, but me, now that I'm angry, it's cheaper, but it's fine. It feels like it would be a little bit more malleable in that it is a blank slate. Whereas if we're bringing on board these existing structures, which again, it's pretty huge.
[Unidentified]: It's great because we get to reuse them. Are we kind of stuck with that square footage for Jim or do we have a little wiggle room of
[Matt Rice]: putting other programming into that space? Yeah, I think it would be completely fair game to look at the square footage of what's being renovated, and if there's some higher and better use to put in there. There's nothing that would preclude us from reappropriating it for some other purpose as we go forward in the process of renovation.
[Luke Preisner]: Cool. Yeah, that's good. So I have a comment, but now I have a question based on the festival's response. So if the concern is that there's not enough room here I want to observe that C2.2a is on the order of 649,000 square feet. And so I just want to ask SNMA, is that large for a high school? Do you feel like constrained in your ability to design spaces with 649,000 square feet? Or do you feel like that would be sort of on the larger end and would give you a lot of flexibility? I will point out like Terminal A, So it feels like a lot of space to me.
[Matt Rice]: How does that feel to you? It's a large building. There's no question about that. It's a large building because of the fact that it has a lot. When we go back to the term flagship building where it's not just the flagship for sort of the educational pieces that are here. There's a lot of other community functions. I think what Aaron was talking about, there's so much value here for all the other programs. It's a big building because there's a lot here and there's probably more here than maybe any other high school building in the state when we look at the different programs that are here that are not high school. So yes, it is big. I think I took Paul's question to mean like, as we go forward and we thinking about, can we reduce size of spaces or have different opportunities in front of us? That might be an opportunity to look and say, yes, we could get rid of some new space. Cause we can, we might even accept that there's a smaller gymnasium that we can live with four stations instead of five stations. Like that can be something we can investigate as we go forward. But, but to answer your question, yes, it is. It's a large building because there's a lot of it. Sure.
[Luke Preisner]: Thanks for that. So the comment that I had was, Earlier, Aaron asked, why are we here? And I don't agree, but I also want to point out the reason we're here to talk about an MSBA project is because we want MSBA participation. And it's really not the only option. We do have a recent example from Burlington. They selected to not pursue an MSBA project. And that is one path, that's an available path. So, do you wanna say one of the many reasons that we're here, because I think we're here for many reasons, but one of them is to ensure that we have MSBA participation, because there are, I'll say controls on process, there are benefits, numerous actually, in addition to the reimbursement for executing the process, for accessing contractors, there's a long list. So just an observation, Another reason why we're all here is to include MSBA participation within our budget.
[Jenny Graham]: Any other comments before I call the roll?
[Unidentified]: Well, I just want to make sure I have a motion right there.
[Jenny Graham]: The motion is to select option C2.2A. For the first amendment.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's a big vote, so I just want to make sure. Well done.
[Jenny Graham]: OK, I'm going to call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Longo, turn. Mayor, are you with us? Is that a yes? Yes. Thank you. Sorry. Yes. Marta Cabral. Yes. Joan Bowen. Yes. Ken Lord. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Marissa Desmond. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard. Emily Lazzaro. Paul Malone.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell? Yes. Aaron Olapodich? Yes. Lou Preiser? No. 12 in the affirmative, one in the negative, two absent. The motion passes. We have selected an option, everyone. And it was nearly unanimous to vote. So that's great news for us. Um, just by way of some housekeeping, we do have a meeting next week where we will be signing off on the report to be submitted. And that meeting will be held and be strong for 89. if you come to this space, you will. encounter the eighth grade moving on dance. It's quite a rowdy party. And yeah, you can park in the back by the Bistro. We believe it will be a short meeting. We will have refreshments to celebrate this huge accomplishment and this like really, really, really big step forward from Medford. So thank you all for being here. I'm so excited that we can say we have a single option so that we can really get down to work to make this option. Is there a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. I'm going to call the roll. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Maria Dorsey, yes. Ryan Hilliard, yes. Emily Lazzaro, no. Paul Malone, yes. Nicole Morales, yes. Erin Lopate, yes. Luke Kreisner, yes. 13 in the affirmative, two absents, the meeting is adjourned. Have a good night, everyone.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
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