AI-generated transcript of MCHSBC Full Committee Meeting

[Jenny Graham]: will let me know when you're ready.

[xARk0471UWA_SPEAKER_00]: We're good to go, Jenny.

[Jenny Graham]: Thanks, Will. Welcome, everyone. We are live and recording and beginning our June, sorry, not June, August 25th meeting. So please be advised that there'll be a full committee meeting of the Medford Comprehensive High School Building Committee held via remote participation only. The meeting can be viewed live on the Medford Public Schools YouTube channel and through Medford Community Media on your local cable channel, which is Comcast 98 or 22 and Verizon 43, 45 or 47. This meeting will be recorded. Participants can call or log in by using the following Zoom ID. It's 932-853-45770. Um, we'll adhere to the same public comment rules that we normally do, which is that the public is, um. The public is allowed to speak on any topic for 3 minutes per individual and the public may only speak. about matters on the agenda. Speakers may speak only once on each topic, and if there are lots of people who would like to speak, we may limit comments to two minutes per speaker based on the number of individuals. In addition to public comment here at these meetings, the public is encouraged to reach out in the following ways. One is for questions regarding the project where you desire an official response by the project team. That's the MHS project at medford.k12.ma.us. And then if there's comments or perspectives you'd like to share directly with the building committee members, you can do that. The emails will be auto forwarded to all members of the SBC if you use mchsbc at medford.k12.ma.us. I am going to go ahead and call the roll and we will welcome some new team members officially in just a few agenda items. So I'm going to call the roll. Jenny Graham here. Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Present. Dr. Galussi.

[Emily O'Brien]: Here.

[Jenny Graham]: Marta Cabral. Here. Jen Belanger. Here. Ken Lord. Libby Brown. Here. Tracy Keene is absent. Maria Dorsey. Here. Brian Hilliard.

[Adam Hurtubise]: I'm here.

[Jenny Graham]: Liz Malone. Here. Paul Malone.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Here.

[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Here. Aaron Elpade.

[Ruseau]: Here.

[Jenny Graham]: Luke Preissner.

[Ruseau]: Online.

[Emily O'Brien]: Bob Dickinson.

[Suzanne Galusi]: Did I see Bob? I definitely saw him earlier.

[Brian Hilliard]: I'm here.

[Suzanne Galusi]: Hey, Bob.

[Jenny Graham]: Fiona Maxwell. Chad Fallon.

[Unidentified]: Here.

[Jenny Graham]: We'll have a selling here. Dr. Talbot here. Dr. Hodgkin here. He said he'd be along in a few minutes. Phil Santos. Lisa Miller here and Kim Clinton here. Okay, so we have 13 present to absent. We have a quorum.

[Suzanne Galusi]: Jenny, I do know that Ken is here.

[Jenny Graham]: Oh, Ken is here. So 14 present, two absent.

[Suzanne Galusi]: Okay.

[Jenny Graham]: Perfect. Thank you. Now it is. Great. Um, so for those of you, um, who are new and just joining us before introductions, um, we have a couple of agenda items we're going to go through. If you, would like to abstain from those agenda items, you can just say so when we call the roll, no pressure, and we'll get you onboarded soon. And we'll welcome you in just a few items. So the first thing on the agenda is approval of the meeting minutes from our 721 meeting. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. I'll second Ken. I can seconded by doctor glue C. I will call the role Jenny Graham yes mayor Lungo-Koehn yes doctor glue C. yes market brawl yes. Jen Belanger yes. Ken Lord.

[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Libby brown yes Tracy keen absent Maria Dorsey. Yes Brian Hilliard.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Liz Malone. Yes. Paul Malone.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Yes. Erin Olapade.

[Ruseau]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Luke Preissner.

[Luke Preisner]: It's a yes, but I want to point something out. We passed a motion unanimously to post an updated current copy of the ed plan. It's been a month. It's not up there. I wanted to inquire about that.

[Jenny Graham]: Luke, can we take this offline so we can finish the vote?

[Luke Preisner]: It's the topic. It's the minutes. It's my comment. Like, I'll approve the minutes, but I'm making a comment on this agenda item. Yes, what you have the right to do.

[Will Pipicelli]: Jenny, can I jump in?

[Jenny Graham]: Yes.

[Will Pipicelli]: Yeah, it's on the timeline, Luke, on that main page of the website. It's right in that big box. It's got the full PSR report. It's got the full cut out of the space summary. And then I put the cost matrix in there, too. So it's all in there on that front page.

[Luke Preisner]: Okay, so it's not in the document. I'll take a look. I looked in the document library. And I was hoping we could just have a nice clean link so that anybody looking for the current ed plan could find it without having to go into appendices. Yeah, I'll take a look. Thanks. And I guess vote is yes. No change proposed to the minutes. Thanks. You're welcome.

[Jenny Graham]: And Jenny Graham, yes, 14 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative, 1 absent, the minutes are approved. Okay, item number 3, the approval of our July 2026 invoices. I'm going to turn it over to the left field team.

[Adele Sands]: Yes, thank you. We have three invoices up for approval this evening. There's the left field invoice for base services for the month of July in the amount of $25,000. There are SMMA, two invoices for SMMA. The first is for base services for the month of July in the amount of $90,000 and an invoice for site and environmental or environmental insight. in the amount of $19,354.50. Total up for approval this evening is $134,354.50. should I?

[Jenny Graham]: Jen, can you provide a summary? Can you walk us through the bottom table for those folks on the committee who are just joining us? Absolutely.

[Adele Sands]: So the bottom is a budget update against the feasibility study budget. On the left, you'll see the category, four main categories that we are tracking against. Things are usually, items are moved from other up into the three top line items. to track the OPM feasibility study and schematic design line. A and E is architectural engineering feasibility study, schematic design, that's for base services. And then there's the environmental insight line that we are tracking as well. At the bottom, you can see across the top, you can see feasibility study budget, then there's the committed to date line, and finally the spent to date. You can also see at the very bottom, which lines up with the other category, but I just wanted to call it out separately. The remaining uncommitted at the moment that we still have left in this budget is $226,378. Those are items that we can still commit as things come up between now and the end of schematic design. To spend to date we are at $1,591,418 and that does include the invoices above just so you can see how that lines up against the current budget. Are there any questions?

[Jenny Graham]: Are there any questions from the committee? Seeing none. Um, is there a motion to approve the July invoices?

[Aaron Olapade]: Motion to approve.

[Jenny Graham]: My Aaron seconded by second that Brian.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you.

[Jenny Graham]: I will call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Yes. Dr. Galusi. Yes. Marta Cabral. Yes. Jen Belanger.

[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Ken Lord.

[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Libby Brown. Yes. Tracy Keene is absent. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Liz Mullane. Yes. Paul Malone.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Yes. Erin Olapade.

[Ruseau]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: And Luke Preissner.

[Ruseau]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Okay. 14 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, one absent. The invoices are approved. Thank you. Onto our next agenda item, we are pleased to welcome some new members to our team. Hot off the presses last night, the school committee voted to accept this set of updates to the team. So as you all remember at the end of eligibility, we did make some small changes for folks who were cycling off of the building committee for various reasons. It's super common in a long, long range project like this. So I just wanted to send my personal thanks to Emily Lazzaro, Joan Bowen, Marissa Desmond, and John McLaughlin, who have been with us really since the very beginning of all of this, which was two and a half years ago now. So I wanted to thank them all for their service and their hard work as part of this committee and certainly invite them back to join us when we cut this ribbon because they helped make this happen. Um, and effective last night, um, the school committee is, uh, officially appointing and welcoming new members to our team, um, which include, um, three new voting members. So Liz Mullane, um, who is here tonight, she's our city council representative moving forward. Um, Tracy Keene, who is a community member. And you all will remember that Tracy cycled off at the last gate and is able to rejoin us, which is exciting. And Jen Belanger, who is joining us as the MTA representative as a teacher and also as a community member and parent. And then Kim Clinton will be joining us as our incoming assistant superintendent for special education and student services as a non voting member, replacing Joan Bowen. who is retiring in just a couple of weeks. So welcome everybody. The official vote was just last night, so they don't have email. They had other plans that some were able to shift around to be with us tonight, and we will get you all onboarded just as quick as we can, set up with emails and all of those good things. So be on the lookout for all of that, and please don't hesitate to ask any questions along the way tonight in particular. And please feel very comfortable if you need to abstain from a vote or you have questions to just go ahead and raise your hand and ask. So welcome. Luke.

[Luke Preisner]: Oh, hey, Jenny. Thanks. I wanted to ask, so when voting members depart, what's the replacement process? Do we start with the pool of applications that we collected back in 24? Or do we start from a different starting point? Could you just walk us through the process for naming replacements after members depart?

[Jenny Graham]: Sure. To answer your question, yes, we start from the pool of applicants from two and a half years ago, but it has been two and a half years. And there's maybe a handful of exceptions. So for the city council representative, that is a specifically defined voting spot. I worked with the council president and various members of the council to identify Liz as Emily's successor. So, while she did not apply 2 and a half years ago, she is now a sitting member of the council and we pulled from that pool of Councilors rather than the pool of applicants 2 and a half years ago when it was a different council. In terms of. Jones' replacement, Kim is taking her role as the assistant superintendent for special education and student services. So she was an easy swap. So while Kim, again, didn't apply, neither did Joan, because that role was specifically outlined by the committee, by the school committee, as somebody who needs to sit on this committee in some capacity. So in the case of Kim Clinton, she's taking Jones' spot, because she is taking over that role. And Jen Belanger is joining us as the MTA representative. As you all may know, Maria Dorsey has retired from Medford Public Schools after many, many years of service. So we felt like it was important to make sure that the MTA had a voting spot with an active member. There is a residency requirement also for members of this committee. Um, Dr Lucy worked with Mardika brawl and others to identify potential candidates and recommended general manager, which was unanimously accepted by the school committee last night. Um, and in the case of Tracy Keene, um, as you know, he was on the committee and had to cycle off due to some personal circumstances and conflicts, um, in his schedule. And so he had reached out a while back to say that he would be able to rejoin us, um, if the opportunity presented itself. So it seemed like a fitting change. So, um, that resolution was sponsored by me last night to the school committee and then the school committee ratified it. So. Yes, we are still actively pulling from that pool, but there are a handful of instances where that's just not possible given the sort of broader set of requirements.

[Luke Preisner]: Okay, thanks. And then just one last follow-up on the same topic. We have 10 non-voting members. Is part of the process to inquire within our 10 non-voting members whether they would like to be enfranchised? And I just say that because many have been with us since day one and have great continuity and familiarity. Um, you know, understand, uh, various dynamics. Uh, so I just wanted to ask if, um, that was part of the process as well. Thank you.

[Jenny Graham]: Um, that's certainly a possibility. Luke at times that we didn't, um, we didn't do that this time in particular, um, because we were seeking to round out the committee with very particular roles. Um, but that is always a possibility.

[Suzanne Galusi]: Could I just also extend on that? I think to your point before, a lot of these were specific positions. And so I did want to just also say, and I feel awful for this. I'm forgetting his first name. But when our other MTA rep that was on the committee from the beginning, Mr. Brown, It was a very similar situation to miss, um, Dorsey. So when he retired, we followed the same process we did to identify, um, Lisa Miller to fill that exact position, which is the same process we did for Jim Belanger to fill Maria Dorsey's position. And all of our MTA reps are high school teachers, as well as Medford residents and caregivers.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you, Dr. Galussi. See that we have a comment from a member of the public. Rob Carney. Please make sure to give us your name and address for the record.

[Robert Carney]: Yeah, sure. Robert Carney, 50 Hicks Ave, Unit 6. I just want to make a comment on the appointment process. or the replacement of, you know, the city council candidate. To me, I'm new coming into these meetings, but I think the optics of this to me aren't great. I think that all the city Councilors should have been made aware that there was a vacancy and be given an equal chance, you know, to express interest before someone was selected. It's not clear to me if that was done. So if you could provide any clarification on that point, that would be great. Thank you.

[Jenny Graham]: The entire council was aware of the opening. Yes. Okay. Onto the next agenda item agenda item number 5 is a report from the sustainability and systems advisory subcommittee. So. This subcommittee has a really big charge, as it were, as it helps us land on all of the mechanical systems that will be present in the new Medford High School. So they did have a meeting earlier this summer, and we just wanted to give this group an update about that team's work. Um, because they upcoming and next, they will be in a position to provide a set of recommendations in early October to us around, um, all of the, um, sustainability and MEP system. So I'm going to turn it over to the project team.

[Matt Rice]: So, Jenny, I know that, um, Martine Dion, our sustainability director who is going to give this update was having some.

[Kenneth Lord]: Oh, I think he just got made your host.

[Martine Dion]: OK, thank you.

[Matt Rice]: Oh, good timing. Thank you, Will. Thank you, Ken.

[Martine Dion]: OK. Yeah, I wasn't able to even go in the chat. Thank you, Matt. Yes, so we're going to provide for an update of the recent meetings. There was a meeting with the school committee on July 20th, at which the LEED V4 certification silver minimum level was voted and approved. And there was a list of approved sustainability goals. We'll see them in a minute. presented the day after, on July 21st, we had the Sustainability Advisory Team. which is the same as the Sustainable NMEP Systems Advisory Team. So we, on the 21st, we presented the school committee vote and approval items. We also presented an update of the PSR lifecycle cost analysis, which had previously been presented to the SBC. And then we provided for a preliminary PSR solar PV update, just a very preliminary assessment. And preliminary embodied carbon updates. So those three items were previously presented to DSBC on June 10, 26. Next. This, I'm not gonna read all of this, but this basically summarizes the vote, voted and approved school committee sustainable design item and LEED certification. So it was approved that the project will pursue a minimum of LEED V4 silver certification. We will strive to achieve net zero energy. Specify red list free and healthy material to obtain the 1% additional reimbursement under the MSBA. Prioritize water efficiency and stewardship with a minimum of 30% potable water reduction goal. And try to eliminate potable water for irrigation use. And then minimize the total cost of ownership. This really ties into our lifecycle cost analysis efforts, which started in PSR and they will be updated in schematic design in each of the following design phases. Next. So as part of the discussion on 7-21, July 21st, we went through the previously presented life cycle cost analysis, and we also discussed the systems that would take part with now with the preferred option, the AGVC system that would be included in the schematic design life cycle cost analysis. So the baseline system for the LCCA that we're going to, we've already sort of, we're going to be starting now and progressing through schematic design. The baseline system will include a fossil fuel heating system, which is pretty much the stretch code baseline. That will include all the costs, maintenance, as part of the life cycle cost analysis, replacement of the equipment, et cetera, of a fossil fuel system. And the three proposed all electric HVAC system, ground source heat pump, a hybrid system, and an air to water heat pump are going to be compared to that baseline system. So we're going to do a lifecycle cost analysis for the main building. We're also going to do a lifecycle cost analysis for the pool water heating system, which in which we're also exploring the, you know, the natural gas option versus the all electric option. Next. And this is just to remind everyone, you know, we've talked about this throughout the different early phases of the project. Just to refresh everyone's memory about the givens of the project. So the project is under the MSBA Green School policy, which requires the minimum LEED version 4 silver. The reimbursement, the base reimbursement requires the V4 silver minimum. It requires that the project fully complies with the Stretch Energy Code, Massachusetts Stretch Energy Code. It provides for a subsidy and mandates the full LEED commissioning credit criteria. for the MEP, the mechanical systems, the building enclosure, which is what the B refers to here, and an ongoing commissioning plan. At the same time, it requires three specific set of credits from the materials and resources and IEQ points. Those are referred to as indoor environmental quality and healthy material points. That's for the base reimbursement. In order to obtain an additional 4% reimbursement, The project needs to comply with the specialized stretch energy code. And for that, the city would get an additional 3%. Medford has adopted the specialized stretch energy code. So the project will be designed to that code. And then the second part of that 4% additional reimbursement is achieving five of the lead MR&IEQ points, which we're planning to do. Just so everybody again, specialized stretch energy code, there's two main components of it. One is you have to fully comply with the standard stretch energy code. And then the second is the electrification pathway. And as part of the schematic design lifecycle cost analysis, we are going to address that electrification pathway. The main building is looking at all electric HVAC. And then the baseline is going to include a fossil fuel heating system and the associated costs of those two other items that are listed there. In the specialized stretch code, if you do not do a fully all electric system, heating system, you need to have the electrification of heating readiness and you need to install the renewable energy to offset that fossil fuel heating greenhouse gas emission. So all of this will be comprised as part of the life cycle cost analysis. And then on your right, you have the school committee voted approved that we talked about here, those main items that we talked about. Next. So what are the next steps? So on September 17, we're going to hold an eco charrette, also referred to as a green charrette. This is going to be virtual via Zoom. You know, happy to talk a bit more about that once we're done with the presentation here. The sustainability MEP advisory team meeting, the next meeting, follows the Charrette on September 23rd. We're going to address and have updates on the net zero energy goal for this project, the red list free materials, and the indoor equality. requirements to optimize that MSBA 1% reimbursement, water efficiency and stewardship, and then minimizing the total cost of ownership. So we're hoping to have a sort of an early draft of the lifecycle cost analysis at that time. The next item in the next step is the non-program alternates. That is, Matt, I don't know if you want to address that. That's the set of alternates that were part of the PSR that were presented. And that's going to be on the next slide. That's going to be discussed on October 6, right?

[Matt Rice]: Yeah, I'll talk about that on the next slide. I think that's all right.

[Martine Dion]: Okay, and then very important, and that's gonna, like I said, that's gonna come up at the September 23rd meeting, but there'll be follow-up meetings to see the progress of the schematic design life cycle cost analysis. So this is the same description as we had in the earlier slides. So the main building, the pool, and then there will be a solar PV. and battery storage extent and approach. That's something that we're going to discuss and that the advisory team is going to make recommendation for to the school committee and the SBC. And then there's also a discussion around mass timber structure that's going to occur with the advisory team. And that's going to be recommended as well to the school committee and the school building committee.

[Matt Rice]: I'll hop to the next slide in a second, but just to distill, because there's a lot of good information there, Martine, but I think Luke at one of the past meetings, yeah, at one of the past meetings, Luke, you were interested in terms of when those recommendations are going to come from the sustainability and MVP advisory team. to the full group and it really is at that September 23rd meeting. We will have some information to that team in advance so that you can all review and we can have a good substantive discussion on the 23rd that can allow the group to proceed to some recommendations following that meeting. And this is all overlapping information. What we just covered and what Martine just described, photovoltaic, non-program cost alternatives, HVAC, and mass timber. These were all the numbers that were generated coming out of the PSR report. And there are some costs here. There are some credits here. And again, I'm not going to go through what all of these are because we have reviewed these before. And I'll also point out the fact that through discussions with our solar design consultant for photovoltaics, as well as working with our mechanical engineers, There may be updates to what is shown here, additional options that will give some rough order of cost magnitude to as well in terms of making the decision. Certainly the life cycle cost analysis when it is updated will have updated numbers associated with that as well, dollar values. but this will be part of what is made as recommendations back to the building committee as well as the school committee as well. So there are cost implications to this and these non-program cost alternates will eventually get voted on by the SBC at the October 6th meeting as you can see it down there at the base. So I think this is the last slide in this section that we had so I don't know Jenny if we want to stop and pause for any questions on the update here.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. Are there any questions about the update that Martine and Matt just walked us through? So just to recap, we'll see the recommendations that align with the like clarified set of goals from the school committee in our October meeting once the MEP team has met on September 23rd. Are there any questions for the group?

[Matt Rice]: Let me just offer then, since there's no questions, just to describe a little bit more what the eco charrette is. So that is a wonderful opportunity for the community to really become involved and get connected to the sustainability topics that they are interested in. We will have good participation there from Medford High School students as well as community members. And that will really, that activity will help to feed into that September 23rd meeting. Those were set up in that order intentionally. And so there'll be a good opportunity to have some dialogue there with the project team and amongst the community at large as well at that time.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you, Matt. And the list of our upcoming meetings and community forums is on the NPS website. And as we return to school and regular weekly emails, people will see lots more about those upcoming events and opportunities. Okay, so on to our next, maybe most meaty section of the agenda. As we began at our July meeting, we are going through a process where we are looking at every single section of the space summary and doing a couple of things, starting to understand the layout of the building, what things will be located where and what will be adjacent and what will not. Um, as well as, like, as that happens, having another round of conversation with the educators in the building about space efficiency. So, are there opportunities to make our spaces more efficient? And so that process started back in July. We went through a number of sections of the space summary in July. We're gonna go through these space summary sections tonight, and then we'll be sort of biting at different pieces of this in all of our meetings through the beginning of October. We did try to sequence and schedule some of these things in an order that made sense in terms of staff availability to be having these important conversations ahead of the start of the school year. So tonight we're gonna talk about Medford Community Media, community partner rentals, community meeting space, health and physical education, the auditorium and drama spaces, and the art and music spaces. So Matt, I'm going to maybe ask you to flip forward one slide so we can take this one at a time. So let's start with Medford Community Media. I think the important thing, and I'm going to ask Matt to give us like a walkthrough of this space and where it is in the whole building. But the space summary outlined a provision for a separately appointed Medford Community Media space. which would be separate and apart from our vocational film and television studio. So what's important to note is that right now those two programs are co-located and they share space. And in the initial round of interviews, there were some questions raised that required just some more thought about whether that was the right, whether consolidated shared space was the right model for both sides of that program. Those conversations have been happening for several months now between Medford Public Schools, between Medford Community Media, the Mayor's Office, myself, and the project team to really talk about what the opportunities are and whether this space is best existing as a separate and independent space from our vocational program or not. And so we are at the sort of culmination of those conversations and have a recommendation for you tonight. But I did want Matt to go through the layout that you see and sort of orient you all to what we're looking at because we're going to spend some time in this little quadrant on level two tonight in a couple of different ways.

[Matt Rice]: Yeah, thanks, Jenny. And it is helpful to go through this in a little bit more detail, maybe with this first image, because we're going to, as Jenny said, spend some time in this area. And so this image will reappear with some variety in terms of the areas that are highlighted. I will say we're intentional that we're not trying to depict the overall organization of the building this evening, because really that is less important in terms of the overall organization of the building. It is evolving as we have all these different conversations. And so you may even see some different variations of this plan, of the different floor plans that are affected by these spaces that we're going to be talking about. because they are all in flux. And what you're going to be seeing here this evening is really just to give a sense of where we are overall within the building. And for that, I will mention that we are on level two of the building. If you'll recall, there are six floors in total. Level one is really just access for the early childhood center at the moment. I'm down at level one space for those programs. Up at level two is the main entrance level to the high school. And this area that I'm sort of circling with my cursor right now is the footprint of both the gymnasium up to about this area, and then the pool area up above that. So this is the primary area that we are renovating. This red dash line indicates that. This bump out is actually the gymnastics gym as well as the fitness center up above. So really what we're hearing on level two is going to be below the gymnasium, this general space that we're talking about. And the reason why we're centering a lot of the discussion here is that we are designing and incorporating a dedicated community entrance into the building. that will be easily separatable from the rest of the high school so that the community can interact with different programs within the building in an independent way where the community is not going to necessarily commingle with the high school students and staff as it happens today. So that's one of the big advantages of being able to reconfigure this particular area. The pool is obviously one of those key uses that gets used all during the course of the school day even. So we need to make sure that was accessible down here and that's really probably the driver of the location of the community entrance. It'll also be able to be used as a dedicated entrance for the auditorium for rental purposes and events, after hours, musicals, theatrical performances, etc. Concerts. We have a couple of other programs. Medford Community Media is one of those as well, where there's not going to be an overlap in terms of when the community is coming in to use that space and when students are using it. But we do want to have that ability to have after hours access for Medford community staff to come in and use their space. And we'll talk about a couple of the other spaces that are surrounding it as we move forward. But that's just to give you a sense of an idea of why we're going to be focusing some area on this sort of community entrance piece and why we've grouped these program discussions together this evening.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you, Matt. So, on the right hand side, what you can see is a collective recommendation to this committee that would have us. Eliminate separate space for the studio and control booth specifically, because they will be shared spaces with the film and TV program that would leave. present in the building, an office space, a playback room, an edit room, and storage. And those spaces would remain. So the recommendation is to eliminate the 1,400 square feet that would have provided a separate MCM facility. And again, like, after several months of conversation and reviewing the plans with the team, the mayor, representatives from Medford Community Media, who I believe are here tonight, and MPS, I think that that group feels comfortable that the shared model that we have used all this time can continue to work and will be an important way to You know, help us control cost in this project, because none of the spaces are eligible for reimbursement as separate entities from the. So having said all of that, I'll pause and ask if there are any questions or comments. I don't know if the folks from Medford Community Media would like to say something. I know Kevin Harrington is on the phone, so I just want to give him an opportunity to speak first if he would like to.

[Kevin Harrington]: Uh, yes. Thank you. Member Graham. Um, I'll, um, yeah, I'll kind of chip in, um, you know, essentially just to kind of echo what's already been discussed, you know, The blue sky idea was to have, you know, two separate discrete studios, but reasonably for both budgetary and space concerns. That's not really feasible at the moment. We currently cohabitate with film and TV as it is now. So it wouldn't be like we'd be losing anything. So having the shared studio space, I think would be great. And then the fact that we're still going to have some space for ourselves office wise. and for the playback room and so on so forth those are those are really helpful um we do communicate to the members of the public and members of the studio letting them know kind of the broad strokes of this which is mostly where where a lot of this is at you know there's not a lot of super specific wise and way or four is just yet. You know, as Matt was describing, having the having an entry for both members of the studio as well as staff that is, you know, appropriately kind of cordoned off that can be accessed with, you know, however, it becomes a separate key card, what have you, I think is great for everyone involved. It means that we'd be able to continue to cover various late night events and be able to bring our gear in at night without having to like require staffing a front door security guard or things like that. You know, I know one of the things that, you know, is not necessarily something indicated here by the diagram is that what we're going to try once this gets closer to fruition is we're going to take a look at our MCM's capital budget and pre-existing equipment and kind of make strategic and proactive decisions about what equipment is going to stay, what's going to get swapped out for brand new equipment in the new space. And of course, you know how we're going to manage when it comes down the road, a interim space in between during that phase. And that's something that in case anyone who's on the meeting who's from the public that wants to see what some of that messaging was all about. If you go to MedfordTV.org, and you go to the bottom left if you scroll down you can see a post titled the message regarding the school building project where we give a pretty comprehensive summary of what we know right now and indicating you know things that are still yet to be determined but the Reader's Digest version is that we're going to do everything we can to preserve serving the community. I have a lot of confidence that the eventual shape that we will take in the new building, we will still be able to be a thriving access center. And I look forward to continuing to collaborate with the film and TV shop and its students that That symbiotic relationship, I think, is truly symbiotic. I think it's good for the students to interact with us, and I think it's really great for us and the members to be able to collaborate with them as well.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you, Kevin. Luke Preissner.

[Luke Preisner]: I'll yield to the community, and then I have a question about process, so I'll just save that one for the end. I want to hear all the community input.

[Jenny Graham]: We're going to hear from the committee first. So did you want to yield until the end or did you want to ask your question now?

[Luke Preisner]: Um, but when I when you say yield to the end, the end of the meeting or just the end of this time, there are other there are other committee members who also would like to speak.

[Jenny Graham]: So I'm going to hear from them first.

[Luke Preisner]: All right. No, no, let me just get my question out there. So in terms of process, we voted on a motion back in April to table a whole lot of space reductions. And the idea was, um, we would take the summer to get input from the public. Um, allow the design to evolve. We needed feedback from the MSBA. Now we've got the PDP feedback. We've got the PSR feedback, which I've been looking at closely today. And so the idea was to allow for all that knowledge to be transmitted to this committee over the course of the summer so we can in October, review those category B and category C space proposals, because fact is, we've got this enormous school that we have to shrink because otherwise it'll be unaffordable. So when I see this recommendation, is this like a binding recommendation? Like if we all vote yes, is this binding? And the answer could be yes. The answer is yes.

[Jenny Graham]: If we vote to eliminate the space, it's gone.

[Luke Preisner]: Yeah. So then we will want to mark up those category B and category C proposals accordingly as we go so that the record is accurate when we get to October. So that's the point I wanted to make and the question I had.

[Jenny Graham]: So I just want to clarify. So what we talked about and what we are doing is we are considering all of the tabled items as these space reviews are happening. So all of those things are being considered actively. And the ones that make sense from an educational standpoint are you'll see come forward in a manner like this. If at the end there is something else that you believe that the team should consider, you will be invited to take those things off the table if you were the person who sponsored them originally. But between now and then, the team is trying to keep track carefully of, like, which things are Being eliminated so that there's an easier way to do that. But I think the message is the team, the project team and in association with the educators who work in this building and are leading this educational effort. They are looking at all of those spaces. If there's something else that you believe should come off the table in October, there will be a time and a place for that. But we are not going to take up all 200 of those and try to figure out which ones have already been done and which ones have not. There will be a different process outlined for that at that time.

[Luke Preisner]: Oh, so we don't have a process for that bookkeeping. That'll be something to figure out.

[Jenny Graham]: The project team is managing the ticking and tying of that very long list. They are doing that.

[Luke Preisner]: Yes. So they're updating it as we go. OK, well, I mean, I appreciate the insight into, I'll say, the executive decision to conduct the space reduction that way?

[Jenny Graham]: Well, everything on the table procedurally has to come off the table in order to be considered. That is Robert's Rules of Order. So all of those things are on the table. They have to come off the table to be considered. So that is not an executive decision. That is Robert's Rules of Order. When things are tabled, they have to be put back on the table for consideration and we'll outline what that process is clearly at the time.

[Luke Preisner]: Okay, I'm trying to follow that. It seems redundant, however, I trust SMMA is performing the sort of real-time bookkeeping. So as we look at these and make decisions, they get crossed off and we can officially cross them off, I guess, in an October meeting. But I just want to make sure that we don't lose track of all of the proposals, because again, this is a very large building. Thank you.

[xARk0471UWA_SPEAKER_00]: you. So Miller. Hi. Um so I had a question. I know that the current building has an external entrance directly into the studio for Medford Community Media. This current design that's being shown does not have that direct entrance. It's you know section i guess it does not have the direct entry and i was wondering if that is intentional what the thinking behind that is is that irrelevant at this point and we are only thinking about the space but it is something different than i than we currently have and i just wanted to check on that matt rice can you take that question

[Matt Rice]: Yeah, happy to take it. And I am going to say, since you used the word, it's irrelevant in terms of the discussion this evening. And I'm not meaning to indicate, Lisa, it's an irrelevant question. It's a good question so that everyone can understand. But because these plans are very much in a state of flux, it is something that may remain the same as it is shown here. It may result in the offices for Medford Community Media and or the studio. getting closer to the exterior wall. There's a lot of considerations when it comes to that direct access. Certainly Kevin's staff and his input is critical to that. But there's also larger building staffing and security issues associated with where that community entrance is. So it may be exactly the same as it is today. At the end of the day it may be different. I can't say right now whether one of those has a positive or a negative connotation associated with it, but something that we're currently in the process of developing as we go. So I think everyone just will have to give us a little bit of grace and patience as we sort through all the different conversations for the impacted individuals and programs.

[xARk0471UWA_SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. All right.

[Aaron Olapade]: Thank you so much. It's just a quick question I know, based off the recommendation that the current structure of the educational like the, like the plan of the day scheduling wise doesn't interfere with MCM operation past the school day, I wondered about. going forward, that's going to remain the same based off of, I'm assuming, what's listed here, as well as are there limitations about having the shared space allowing for MCM to use a space more frequently because the media tech program, like the MHS film and television program production group, Sorry, I'm not speaking properly. So because the vocational program is using the space throughout the school day and then MCM uses it in the second portion of the day when school's over, are both programs being inhibited because of the shared space? And so by removing the shared space and having the two separate ones, would that allow for both programs to use them or two entities to use them for longer portions of the day? film and television, use it after school hours, and then MCM to use it during school hours, if that makes sense.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, no, I think it's a fair question. And it's part of the conversation that we have been having with the team that has been working through this. And I think the goal on everyone's part is to actually put a partnership agreement in place, which is really typical when you're sharing spaces like this, so that there are some rules of the road. And I think right now, everything works pretty well because everybody communicates pretty effectively. And we all know that, like, you know, as people change, as time goes on, assumptions get made and people are, you know, things become less clear or have the potential to become a little bit more murky. So, the idea is that as we go forward, the MPS and Medford Community Media will build a formal partnership agreement that outlines some of those sort of overlap times, if you will, and in times of overlap or conflict, how do we broker those times and spaces? So more to come on that, and that actually won't necessarily wait until the new building, because that is a real need now, and it's commonly held. I think the other thing that we'll explore as we talk about that, as Kevin alluded to, Is there funding that we can leverage from the MCM capital funds to support some of the infrastructure costs, et cetera? And then, you know, you have like sort of the extension of those comment of those conversations, which is around like utilities and and the paying for it, like not rental, but like some sort of like, you know, compensation there or not. But just instead of like, the way it's always been done, to really thoughtfully work together to come up with those things. So there are some overlap times, particularly if you think about extracurriculars. And everyone's pretty committed to working through that and making sure it works for everybody, especially as the world of film and television changes pretty dramatically as we go forward. So yeah, it's actually a really good question. And it's one that the internal operations teams are going to continue to work on.

[Kevin Harrington]: Thank you. Yeah, and I can also pitch in a little bit on that, member Olapade. To answer your question that you initially stated, I do think having the separate spaces would have provided a system where you could have the overlap and require a lot less effort, but The way it stands right now, we could have some kind of overlap, again, as member Graham was referring to, with some collaboration. Like one of the things that's come up between me and the film and TV teachers before is if we had our ducks in a row, depending upon the school, depending upon their schedule, we could have a member come in earlier than usual, let's say noon, and have their studio production staffed by film and TV kids. And because all members have been quarried anyway, you know, they're all OK to be on site. And you could basically have a member get in earlier than usual. You could still have the students getting some practical experience. Um, and so like things like that, to give a more concrete example are things that we could do this fall. If we are able to kind of juggle the various balls in the air. Um, there's also elements where with this plan and, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm thinking of this plan a little bit more conceptually. I'm not really getting hung up on the actual diagram, but if we still have editing space. we could theoretically tell members, you could we open at noon for editing and three o'clock for production, stuff like that. You know, so there's there's definitely going to be ways that we will try, because I will say the way we've been doing it now is we're pretty dogmatic and strict about it just because it does make it a lot easier. And we've been able to to flex with with good communication. But a lot of members do wish there was some slightly more uh, flexible earlier hours, but that varies from member to member. Uh, everyone's schedule is different, but I don't want to go on too long. I just want to give a couple specific examples that might help kind of flush it out. Yeah. Thank you. That's really helpful insight. Um, I appreciate it.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. Um, I see that we have one hand from a member of the public, Paul Garrity.

[Paul Garrity]: Hi, Paul.

[Jenny Graham]: Name and address for the record.

[Paul Garrity]: Paul Geraghty, 40 Cedar Road in Medford. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the building committee. I'm going to read a short piece here that I've sent to you all by email. My name is Paul Geraghty. I'm speaking tonight as a member of the Medford community engaged with the Medford community media's programming. MCM and the vocational high school currently share production and cable cast infrastructure. In addition, MCM provides public access and government programming. As you finalize the space plan for the new high school, MCM should not be evaluated as an additional facility to lay it on top of a high school build. And assigning a designation risks a miscalculation in both design and budget. And there's three reasons why I wanna share with you that support this. First, infrastructure. MCM Studio isn't a standalone amenity that happens to reside inside the MHS complex. It shares the same space, equipment, and technical staff used by the vocational school CTE program for the media and broadcasting. If you vote to reduce or eliminate the space for MCM, you run the risk of impacting the CTE media and broadcasting curriculum. Second, funding. The City Cable franchise contains contractual revenue streams, a portion of which is allocated to the public access education and government. in providing support and capital expenses. The contract has provided 10 years worth of funding for capital expenses, and it also has provided PEG funding for ongoing public access, education, and government programming operations. Third, access, and this is important. The City Cable franchise is the authority for the existence of the public access, education, and government channels. The franchise agreement requires the city to establish rules and regulations for the use of the public access channel in facilities, which, as I said, currently reside at the high school space. Public access use should not conflict with the educational use of the same facilities. Public access requires access to the facilities outside the normal school day. That sharing requirement can be solved with a separate external entrance and scheduling. These requirements need to be addressed in the final bill. To be clear, I support the MSBA shared space model rather than a standalone facility. However, my concern has a narrow focus. Please treat MCM space equipment and staffing as integral to the vocational media program requirements and not a separate line item to trim independently. A properly sized shared space is the right solution. It's cost effective and can accommodate education, public access, and government programming. Thank you.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you, Paul. Um, okay. So there is a recommendation here, um, for the team to consider, um, to eliminate the space, the 1400 square feet as noted on this slide. Um, doing so tonight means this space will be formally and, you know, forever more removed from our, um, from consideration as we move into schematic design. Um, is there any motion? Oh, I think we have one more member of the public. Hold on one second, folks. Rob Carney.

[Robert Carney]: Hi. Thank you. So the high level comment that I want to make as a citizen here is, first of all, I thought Paul raised some great points. But it's hard for me as a citizen when I'm thinking of the total price tag of this high school, which is already quite high, very high, actually. To weigh in on a particular project or a cut without having an understanding of what the total dollar amount is of all potential cuts on the table. I kind of think of this like, you know, with a home renovation right now, I have a fixer-upper right now, and we need to renovate every single room. making decisions about whether to spend $5,000 on this or $2,000 on this, it's easier to make that decision when you understand what are the total costs are going to be. So I understand that you guys want to go through this like kind of piece by piece. But as a citizen here, I think it would be very helpful to see a total dashboard in some way, even if it means slowing down the process. Of all the cuts that are on the table, especially given the just general anxiety that a lot of citizens are feeling about it, debt exclusion on the table, tax increases, et cetera, I think that would drive more public engagement and help people make more informed decisions, including your committee. Thank you.

[Jenny Graham]: Thanks, Rob. Just so that you know, the point of this section of review is to look at space efficiency, right? So we are looking at how do we just make sure that this building is going to be used maximally. When we get to October and we are making those final decisions, I think that's where, to your point, you'll see total cost. By then, we'll have more information about things like Curtis Tufts and whether that is a viable alternative for some components. So there's many, many things that have to happen before we can really have that conversation from a financial perspective in earnest. So the focus between now and the end of September is going to be on space efficiency. And if that means that we can eliminate some space without altering the ed program and the ed plan, that is what we're here to do right now. So Your comment and your concern is well heard by this committee, and we will get there, but that's not where we are just yet. So I'm just going to thank you for your patience and make sure that we are, in fact, crawling through every single space that we have so that we can really feel good about the fact that we have a maximum efficiency building.

[Robert Carney]: If I may just offer a brief response to that. The only issue here is, right, if we could see the total cost and potential cost cuts, let's say all the costs on the table could get us down to, I don't know, 600 million or something like that. That may change the view maybe among some members of the committee here about, you know, how do we feel about Paul's comments about Medford Community Media, right? If there were a lot of other cuts on the table that could be higher, lower hanging fruit that might not have as much impact to organizations such as Medford Community Media. I think having this high level financial overview first, I think needs to come first before you're talking about cutting square footage in space. So that's just my view on this. So thanks for your response.

[Jenny Graham]: Thanks. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Graham. I'm gonna move approval, but before the roll is called, if we could have somebody from SMMA or left field explain what the cost savings is here. I think Rob raises a good point and that should at least be maybe at the bottom of each slide or mentioned during, I think we have like four or five of these tonight. So just mention what the cost savings is if we do approve this vote.

[Jenny Graham]: Matt Rice, do you want to answer that?

[Matt Rice]: Sure. So we do have cost information at the end of the set of slides as we go through. I do not know that we've broken it out per each one of these square footage groupings that we have here. But we do have a sum total at the end. I'm not sure if it would be helpful to jump down to that now to sort of see what that sum total would be and then circle back up, maybe not do it after every single one. I think that's potentially the only thing I can offer that we have on hand to share right now as a cost piece if that were helpful.

[Jenny Graham]: What is our price per square foot?

[Matt Rice]: It's a little bit over $1,000 a square foot, total project cost.

[Jenny Graham]: So I think just for the purposes of considering each of these incrementally, we're talking about 1,400 square feet. And if you call it $1,000 a square foot, it's $1.4 million.

[Matt Rice]: That is an accurate way.

[Jenny Graham]: It's something slightly more than that, but that's, I think, a good, like, directional measure. Yes, thank you.

[Luke Preisner]: What about the grossing factor? Can we apply the grossing factor?

[Jenny Graham]: That's already included.

[Luke Preisner]: Oh, that's in the NFA? That's with the grossing factor?

[Matt Rice]: So the net floor area is not what we would be multiplying by the thousand square foot. It would be the gross square footage, Luke. So you could take this 1,400 net square feet, multiply it by 1.5, and that would be what we're actually thinking of. So 2.1 million.

[Kevin Harrington]: Um, can I just ask one quick follow up question. I don't want to interrupt the procedures.

[Jenny Graham]: Sure, go ahead.

[Kevin Harrington]: Yeah. Um, so this is the area total that square footage. Correct. Yeah, usable square footage usable footage. Okay, so the I don't, I don't want to be a fly on the limit, but I, we are, we have two full-time staff. We are currently in the process of hiring a third. I don't know how well three people will fit into 120 square feet. And also we are looking down the line to add a fourth. I don't know if, if, if that number is not, if that number is malleable, we can offline that to another further discussion, but I just. was quickly doing some math in my head and just wanted to mention that.

[Jenny Graham]: Sure. So Kevin, we can talk about that offline. And if there's an adjustment that needs to be made, um, we, we can, um, talk about that and, um, how to pay for it because it will be non-reimbursable by the MSBA. So we can figure that out offline. I'll shoot you a note when, and we can find time.

[Kevin Harrington]: Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Jenny Graham]: So I have a motion to approve by Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Is there a second?

[SPEAKER_09]: I second it, yeah.

[Jenny Graham]: All right, Luke. Okay, I'll call the roll. Jenny Graham? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galussi? Yes. Marta Cabral? Yes. Jen Belanger?

[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Ken Lord?

[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Libby Brown? Yeah. Tracy Keene is absent. Maria Dorsey?

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Brian Hilliard.

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Liz Malone. Yes. Paul Malone.

[Ruseau]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Yes. Erin Olapade.

[Ruseau]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Luke Preissner.

[Ruseau]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: 14 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, one absent. The motion is approved. Okay. Let's move on to the next one, which is our community partner rental spaces. So back in July, the school committee met to consider the policy aspects of some of the spaces that are currently provided for and available to some of our longer term renters and specifically over time, Um, as capacity has, like, freed in the high school, right, from its peak of having many more students than it has today, um, the district has offered storage space to some of our longer-term renters. And the question before the school committee was sort of twofold. One, one part of the question was, does the school committee, from a policy perspective, intend to continue to Lease out storage space to renters and then the other question had a little bit more to do with our Japanese language school partners who have been operating out of Medford high for 50 years. They have some dedicated spaces that aren't storage, but are educational library spaces and prep spaces, et cetera. So we asked the school committee to consider both of those aspects, both the storage piece and the educational space and partnership that we have previously provided to the Japanese language school. And the school committee Sort of, there's 2 things that happened at that meeting. 1 was a vote to. Discontinue offering storage space to renters. The 2nd, piece of that conversation sort of warranted a little bit more conversation, which was around educational partnership and whether we. are interested in sort of creating purpose-built space for some entity outside of our district to operate their programs within a public facility. And so that has some legal tentacles. There could be an RFP involved. So there's just more study required and more conversation needed with our longstanding partner to understand sort of what all is possible. before decisions are made on the educational spaces. As the committee did say that they don't intend to continue to lease storage space, that means that that 910 square feet is no longer needed here in our layout. The school committee's policy Is the piece that we asked them to weigh in on in July. And so the recommendation to this committee accordingly is to eliminate those 910 net square feet. And then also just to let you all know that there is ongoing conversation about the other pieces and we'll bring that back as soon as we are able to. Mayor Lungo-Koehn, is your hand in the air for this, or did it just not go down? Okay. Questions from the committee? Luke?

[Luke Preisner]: I'm happy to hear that dialogue has been started with the Japanese school and potentially Redemption Hill. And I don't know who else rents it, but I'm aware of them. They see him every weekend. Does part of the conversation include scope for hosting pods or other, I don't know, trailer based external storage? I know we've got a big actually a couple of containers up on the grass field that lacrosse uses. So I guess lacrosse would kind of fall in that bucket too. Plenty of sports organizations actually. Is that part of the discussion? And by when do you think you would have that feedback consolidated for our consideration?

[Jenny Graham]: So in terms of interest in locating pods on the property, that's a policy decision for the school committee to make. And that is something we can revisit with them. That didn't sound like it was super interesting to the school committee, but the school committee has some work to do still on It's rental program in general so we can raise that back to the school committee for further input. In terms of the educational partnership piece, there are a number of meetings and things that still have to happen in order to really have some clarity there. But we are working towards that early October date really for all things. So sometime between now and then we will be in a position to work it back in. So as soon as it's ready, we will bring it back to this group. Are there any other questions? Is there a motion to approve? Motion to approve by Dr. Galusi. Is there a second?

[Aaron Olapade]: Second.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. I'll call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Dr. Glucy. Yes. Marta Cabral.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Yes. For the mayor.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Sorry. Sorry.

[Jenny Graham]: Yes. Jen Blanchard. Yes. Ken Lord.

[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Libby Brown. Yes. Tracy Keene is absent. Maria Dorsey.

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Brian Hilliard.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Liz Malone. Yes. Paul Malone.

[Ruseau]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Yes. Aaron Lopate.

[Ruseau]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Luke Prisner.

[Ruseau]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: 14 the affirmative, zero in the negative, one absent, motion passes. Okay, onto community meeting space. I'm going to turn this over to Matt because this space and some of the evolving conversations around some of our larger, large group instructions has changed as these conversations with educators have been going on. So I am going to turn it over to Matt to walk us through this one.

[Matt Rice]: Sure. So, I do think at a big picture level, the outcome here and what is being recommended is really aligned with what the spirit of this activity was intended to find, which is not removing any sort of core functionality from an plan standpoint, or in this case even from what the community resource standpoint would be, but thinking about how space that we are building is going to be able to be used flexibly at different times during the day based on where it's positioned in the building and how it works with the rest of the school. So we did previously have community multi-purpose space, both in terms of the function space itself, the meeting area, as well as some associated office and conference room space that is now being proposed to be eliminated in its entirety. Those functions, specifically the meeting space, that large space though, would will be incorporated and allowed to function within the two large group instruction spaces that were included already in the space summary as part of the core academic resources in that space category. And so each of those large group instruction spaces is about 2,000 square feet. By co-locating those two spaces next to each other and putting an operable partition down the center of those, those two spaces could be opened up together to create this multipurpose meeting space. And through discussions with the school by positioning this again we're down in that same area of level two around the community entrance by locating it in proximity to the community entrance, it would allow it to function as that community meeting space even during the course of the school day. provided that the school was not already scheduling it for some other purpose. The school will have first refusal in terms of using it and scheduling it, but it does allow for that flexible meeting space. We know that that was a requested resource within the city of Medford as a whole to have additional meeting space. So we're providing that functionality by using the core academic space that was already planned. And so in addition to that, there were some good discussions surrounding the potential applications and uses for a language lab. And that is, again, one of the spaces that can now be thought about overlapping usage with the large group instruction space that was there. We'll have the ability to convert that to a flat floor space and have dedicated carts in there. laptop carts to support language lab usage and instruction. But it allows us to eliminate that dedicated language lab 1,200 square foot space as well. There's really a great quantity of square footage savings here without removing any of the functionality that was originally envisioned. That's the outcome and I think that was really the purpose of trying to find flexible space usage as we go forward.

[Emily O'Brien]: Any questions from the committee?

[Luke Preisner]: Yeah, Matt, just one question. Luke? Where again was this language lab in our space summary?

[Matt Rice]: It was also up in the core academic space category, Luke.

[Luke Preisner]: Is it combined with something else, or was it a standalone line item in one of our space summary spreadsheets? If it was, I'll find it.

[Matt Rice]: It was a standalone line item in the space summary that was, I think, throughout the process and submitted to the MSBA as part of the PSR report. OK, thank you. Motion to approve.

[Emily O'Brien]: Lisa Miller.

[xARk0471UWA_SPEAKER_00]: I just wanted to clarify, on the diagram, the community multipurpose room is Is that now, is that the same thing as it's in the table or is that the like room that could be used for educational purposes? If it's not being used, it could be used for a community space. I just, I'm not quite clear on what that space is. And I tried to follow along, but I apologize for needing clarification.

[Matt Rice]: That's all right, Lisa. Again, it's going to root itself back to the fact that these things are a little bit in flux. You could think about this also as having a dashed line separating two and having two large group instruction spaces adjacent to each other. This would be that multipurpose room. As the table indicates, that dedicated function is being eliminated and those two LGI spaces will come down here, if that makes more sense.

[xARk0471UWA_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think the labeling was a little bit confusing. So those are going to be learning spaces.

[Matt Rice]: Correct, yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Is there a motion to approve?

[Ruseau]: So moved.

[Jenny Graham]: And is there a second?

[Ruseau]: Seconded.

[Jenny Graham]: Did I hear, I'm sorry, I heard somebody before Luke, but I don't know who it was. It was Libby. Hi Libby. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Motion to accept this recommendation by the mayor and seconded by Libby Brown. I'll call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Dr. Galussi.

[Jenny Graham]: Yes. Marietta Cabral. Yes. Jen Belanger. Yes. Ken Lord.

[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Libby Brown.

[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Tracy Keene is absent, Maria Dorsey? Yes. Brian Hilliard?

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Liz Mullane? Yes. Paul Malone?

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell? Yes. Erin Lopate?

[Ruseau]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Luke Preissner? Yes. 14 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, one absent, motion passes. Okay, on to our help and visit spaces. I'm going to turn it back over to Matt.

[Matt Rice]: All right. So the formatting of this is, there's a little bit more dense because there's a lot more spaces that are in here. And I'm looking at this table and I think there may have been a line or two that gets cut off so I can circle back. But there's no other space modifications that are being proposed here that are being cut. So what you see in this table, and we have some plans on the next slides, also the affected spaces are located on multiple levels. So I'm happy to jump back and forth once I get through this if folks have questions about what might be where. But after, again, careful review discussion with the school leadership, the district leadership, athletic director specifically in this case, as well as the PE director, there was the recommendation to remove in its entirety the dedicated room that was for yoga and CPR. Yoga is a program that can happen in other spaces, such as potentially the gymnastics gym, the full gymnasium in additional areas. And so we did not feel from a school leadership standpoint that there's a need for a dedicated space. And CPR instruction can really happen in any classroom. So we're able to utilize the rest of the facility for those two programs without impacting the overall ed plan. The other modification that is being recommended is to have about a thousand square foot overall reduction. of the locker room square footage that is allocated. So this is something that we do see often with larger enrollment high schools, where the square footage that the MSB allows for is, in this case, a little bit overly generous in terms of being able to create a facility that addresses the facility's needs for both PE lockers as well as athletic locker space, including toilet rooms and shower rooms and all those associated spaces. So we did look at a prototypical locker room area with the group, the leadership group that was reviewing this. And there are some adjustments in terms of some additional doors and things that can be added to create sort of the flexible team room and locker room configurations that everyone is interested in. But that can be done within the 6,800 square foot total, which would allow for that just over 1,000 square foot reduction to the locker room. So again, we're meeting the programmatic needs here with a slightly smaller square footage. And let me hop through the plans as well, just so folks can understand where the different PE resources are currently located. And again, with the caveat that these plans do flex, I think probably with the notable exceptions of the gymnasium and the pool, which are not going anywhere from their current locations on level three, they are getting fully renovated. You can see that the fitness center is currently position to go down on level two in some area in that general vicinity. Up on level three, and the reason that the fitness center is moving is because there was the desire to get the locker rooms to be at the same elevation as the gym to be more universally accessible in terms of their position. And also up at this level is where the existing pool is in the gymnastics gym, which would be renovated. And then lastly, up on level four is where the current batting cages are. And we're looking into the potential of creating a flexible use, potentially with some operable stands that can allow it to continue to be used as batting cage area, but also provide seating opportunity for viewing for the pool. And again, accessed by now an elevator, since we'll be up at level four to provide more accessibility. And they may have lied, actually. I think that is the bottom of the table that's there. So I think all that information is visible here. Unless somebody in the background, don't shrink it.

[Emily O'Brien]: Sorry, Matt.

[Matt Rice]: Go team.

[Emily O'Brien]: No, that's great. I think that was it. Yeah.

[Matt Rice]: Appreciate it.

[Jenny Graham]: Sorry about that. Any questions about the recommended efficiencies for the PE health athletics and pool section?

[Luke Preisner]: Luke? You know, I'm going to put my hand down. I was trying to, well, I made a math mistake. No question. I'm all set. Thanks.

[Jenny Graham]: Great. Anybody else? Is there a motion to accept this recommendation? So moved. So moved. By Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Is there a second?

[Ruseau]: Seconded.

[Jenny Graham]: By Luke. I'm going to call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn? Yes. Suzanne Galussi? Yes. Marta Cabral? Yes. Jen Blanger?

[xARk0471UWA_SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Ken Lord?

[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Libby Brown. Tracy Keene. Maria Dorsey. Yes. Brian Hilliard.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Liz Malone. Yes. Paul Malone.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Yes. Erin Lopate.

[Ruseau]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Luke Preissner. Yes. 13 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative, 2 absent. The motion is, the recommendation is approved. Okay, moving on to our next section, which on the space summary is called auditorium and drama. We can advance to that section. Perfect. Matt, do you want to take us through this section and the change here?

[Matt Rice]: Sure. Um, and I think the change here is a very, um, straightforward one, um, but also impactful. Um, and I know that we had a lot of discussion initially about the number of seats, um, that were in the auditorium, um, as part of the PSR submission and the cost estimate, um, we were accounting for a thousand seats, um, within the auditorium, um, just from a spatial standpoint, as well as a cost standpoint. The proposal recommendation is to reduce from 1,000 seats to 7,500 seats because it is 10 square feet per seat. That's a direct reduction on the net square footage to usable side of 2,500 square feet. dropping us down to 7,500 square feet total for the auditorium. I can offer a little bit of additional commentary here about the dialogue that was had and how we arrived at that 750 seat number. It was very important for the school administration to have an environment where two classes, two entire classes could be brought together for an assembly and that was the main driver of the number because we're at just about 1,400 students for our design enrollment that was approved by MSBA. If we divide that in half, it's 700 students, and so that extra capacity of, say, 50 seats will allow for some staff to join those assemblies, but that meets the educational goal of what was there. We also, though, did talk about that number, the seating quantity, with members of the community, even some members of the building committee, about sort of the potential of the auditorium to function for outside rentals as well as what it felt like for theatrical, musical, and performances and concerts. And that 750 number also allows for a slightly more intimate environment, which was seen as a positive. And there was a request to realize that 750 seats incorporating a balcony into the auditorium space. So that is generally what's reflected here in terms of the plan. What it allows us to do is make the the long dimension of the auditorium space a little bit more compact, which will allow us to sort of fit that space into the overall building footprint a little bit more effectively. So I think there were a couple of positives that came out of those very detailed discussions on the auditorium. But again, this represents a large amount of savings that can be realized when we multiply that 2,500 net square feet by the 1.5 net to gross multiplier.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Through the chair, may I ask a question? Sure. Matt, if we vote on this tonight to do the reduction, is that the last reduction we can do? Not that I want to reduce any further, but I do have an amendment out there just in case cost wise, we felt we needed to find other places to reduce come end of October where we're trying to get it down to a certain point, certain amount per tax taxpayer, tax households. So does this limit us to reduce further if we have to, although I don't want to, but.

[Matt Rice]: You know, I appreciate the question, Mayor. So I don't think there's anything that would preclude a further reduction after this. I think the committee is really sort of setting the process here. And I don't think there's been any discussion that would prevent that type of thing moving forward. I think the only thing that we need to keep our eye on is the October 6th date, which is the time when we have committed both to the building committee as well as the MSBA that we would be agreeing on what will be in the building and not in the building. So we want to try to arrive at any further reduction by October 6th if that's the direction that we choose to proceed in.

[Luke Preisner]: Thank you. Luke? Matt, I wanted to ask about MSBA guidelines for a few of these categories. With the stage, is 2500 the guideline or does that exceed the guideline by 900 feet?

[Matt Rice]: Good question, Luke. And we do have a clarification as we get a little bit further down. We look at the totals that point out exactly that. OK. Yes, the auditorium at 7,500 seats and 7,500 square feet does maximize the MSBA reimbursement for that program component, the larger piece. The stage for the MSBA guidelines is 1,600 square feet. So the 2,500 net square feet does exceed that by 900. The rationale behind why we're at 2500 square feet is because it matches the size of the existing stage and of the existing auditorium environment, the auditorium itself, the house where the seats are is definitely has many challenges from an educational and sort of performance aspect, but the stage. is seen as a real strength in terms of what it offers in terms of capacity and functionality. And we do see most MSBA projects exceed the stage size because 1,600 square feet is challenging to have a full set of rigging and sort of movement activities in space also for performers, especially when there are multiple events during the course of the year that bring in both high school performers, middle school performers, elementary school. The auditorium really does function as that central district-wide resource.

[Luke Preisner]: Okay. And Matt, one more about MSBA reimbursement guidelines. The scene shop, I am under the impression that is non-reimbursable. Can you confirm?

[Matt Rice]: I'll have to go back Luke and look at this one, what I will point out, and you see the comment on the right hand side that the scene shop has been located under the technology and engineering rooms, which is where there is a little bit more variability in terms of what's reimbursable I do believe that we are under the overall guideline number in that category right now. So that may have been deemed acceptable as reimbursable, but I do need to go back and check the comments that went back to the MSBA as part of the PSR report and our responses to them. Those will have some indication as to what is reimbursable. I know we're going to touch on that a little bit later in the presentation.

[Luke Preisner]: Yeah, no, I'd appreciate that, because I think we currently have a scene shop, and it's 740 square feet. So there's precedent for having a scene shop. But I feel like there's more savings to be had with the stage. Being 900 feet over reimbursable is expensive. Thank you.

[Emily O'Brien]: Paul?

[Michael Pardek]: Yeah, so Luke, I just want to say thanks for the question about the stage. It is a really good question, because it's really large. And right, a portion of that is non-reimbursable, even if the space comes down to the 750 magic number. I can share with you a little bit of the discussions that are going on with the theater consultant, which is, first of all, really, although it's in the high school, there are multiple events that happen where Elementary, middle, and high school orchestras and musicians are all sharing the space for concerts. In the past, they've been all combined at the Chevalier Theater, which has introduced a number of different challenges for using an outside space. And so it offers support for existing educational programs and music and the arts that are already happening. And to reduce that space could potentially make it more difficult than what we currently have. Another component that is related to the scene shop, which is yes, the scene shop is potentially one of those things that while it can directly support the auditorium, it could be worked into reimbursable space for the CIT programs, and it could have some additional usefulness for those programs that we could get that space reimbursed. If we can't, and that's another option on the chopping block for later, Another reason why keeping square footage on the stage itself is a good idea at this point is that one of the key things that we would want for a new auditorium is acoustical treatments that are flexible. since orchestral performance is one of the main uses of that space, via improving the acoustics while still having a very large and useful stage area, I think would be ideal. And it would be a real missed opportunity if we can get a new building and we don't have a way to have a built-in acoustical shell that can be removed when we need the full space for events or drama or musical theater, but can be installed for acoustic performance. And those acoustical shells, they do fold up and they can get pretty small compared to how big they look when you see on stage. There's big clouds in the sky and walls on the side and a backdrop, but they don't get shorter. They pack tighter, but they don't get shorter. And so if the scene shop ends up being somehow shoehorned into something and its ceiling is only 11 feet tall, then we're going to be stuck with, we cut this acoustical shell, or every single event that uses the stage has this enormous white object that's shoved upstage left and really compromises the use of the space. So by keeping the square footage on the stage, that's our only guarantee that we're going to have full height two-story usable space for this necessary stage equipment that will make the space really valuable, not just for the musicians and the students who play there, but also for any potential outside renters that would want to use that or community partners that would want to use it for musical performance. So I hope that helps understand why I think keeping it at 2,500 square feet is particularly important at this point. One thing for the team, just to call out, I know that the floor plans are still in flux, but with the community multipurpose going away completely, just wanted to call out that I don't see in this area right now, aside from the chorus and band rooms, any spaces that have square footage comparable to the size of the stage. So I think in further discussions about that, it would be useful to try and find a way that we're funding multiple purposes for this valuable space, but there's a way that a dance performance or a musical performance that really needs to replicate the usable stage area for taping out, for laying out, for doing full choreography or whatever. would have some other room in the facility so that if the auditorium is occupied with other programming, renters, other events, that there is a place to rehearse. Otherwise, it limits all rehearsal of the real program to the stage itself, which tends to cause some pretty big scheduling problems because that stage becomes very valuable for gathering and assemblies and other things. So I think that there's still definitely enough square footage total in the building to find that space. It just would be a shame if it's like, oh, well, this thing was shaped like this, so it's long and skinny. And this one is long and skinny the other way. And it turns out there is actually no way you could tape out the actual stage performance area anywhere in the building except the stage itself.

[Luke Preisner]: Thank you, Paul. Hey, Matt. Yeah, follow up on the stage. So grossing factor, right? 50%, that's free 50%. The stage is not like a room. It doesn't have four walls. Is there flexibility in applying the grossing factor associated with 1,600 square feet to build out a nearly 2,500 square foot stage? Has that been explored? Is that in the art of the possible? And then with regards to that scene shop. Um, I'm pretty sure it's non-reimbursable based on the space summary that was, was flowed to us. Um, but I'm basing my, my judgment solely on that. So, um, anyway, for what it's worth, but back to the, uh, grossing factor, is there a way to utilize grossing factor? Because 2,500 square feet times 1.5 is really big, but 1600 times 1.5 is actually pretty close to 2,500. Is there some, flexibility, some margin, because we don't have four walls.

[Matt Rice]: All right, so let me take those two questions. I know there was a hand that went up from the superintendent as well, but the question on whether or not we can selectively apply grossing factors on a per program space, it's interesting, Luke. It's something that crosses my mind all the time. At the same time, after having done a lot of these, There is some amount of equalization across the entirety of the plan, the building. When we look at that grossing factor and how it's applied in this particular instance, yes, we don't have sort of full walls around it, but we do have a fairly long hallway. that is located immediately adjacent to the stage and as a result of the stage being an opaque object at that time. So a lot of that square footage is likely to be contributing to that hallway space. Yes, the chorus room will cover half of it for its grossing factor, but we don't ever get to the point of trying to break that down in terms of the grossing factor. for the addition construction. For the renovated space, it's a little bit of a different calculus, right? Because the renovated space is the renovated space and there's space around it. So we treat it slightly different there. But again, we don't ever break out and sort of apply different grossing factors based on the localized area of the plan and the program that we're talking about. And I will just add also that Helen is actually doing some good research in the background. That's why it's helpful that we have a big team. And we actually do believe that the scenes shop is reimbursable under the technology and engineering rooms category from our perspective.

[Jenny Graham]: I was just going to say that, Matt. I just pulled up the documents from MSBA in our response. And that section says the district is proposing a total of 9,280 square feet. which is below the MSBA guidelines by 7,120 square feet. The proposed area in this category is decreased by 4,000 since PDP. And then it lists the four programs. And they had a question about the Innovation Lab, which we responded to elsewhere, where they were not going to share cost share. They clearly said that they don't object to the space. However, it's considered ineligible, and that was not present in this section. Potentially more to come, but they were very clear where they were not willing to cost share elsewhere in the document.

[Suzanne Galusi]: Well, that took care of one of the reasons I raised my hand. But the second thing is I just wanted to, I know that there is an advanced slide that talks a little bit more, less on this table and floor plan. Yes, thank you. I think this might be important too for the people that are tuning in. as well as for me just to say how much I appreciate attending all of these meetings because of how much I learn. I've learned so much from Paul Malone and from the theater expert that I really appreciate the conversations. I feel like it's a it's another language sometimes I can't fully follow along when we're talking about the rigging and things and things like that but Part of the conversation has also been the experience for our performers, as well as the experience for the audience. And anyone that's been in the little theater knows that it's not great for either, but especially the audience. And part of that was also the distance between where the audience sits and is positioned, and then how far back the stage goes, as well as the part that has to be accessible. And so a lot of the conversations had to do with that experience and having the audience feel a little closer to the performance. And I know Paul mentioned it, but I just have to say, because it is also like a point of pride, but Medford has such a thriving arts community. program from elementary all the way up to high school and it's really a community that values very much the fine and performing arts and so our orchestra and our band programs are quite, there's a lot of participation, they're quite successful, and they keep growing each year. So I know Paul mentioned it, but when there are orchestra concerts, there are about 100 students on the stage, and that is something that happens not just once a year, but a couple times throughout the year where concerts are happening. And informational sessions are happening too, where students are coming in to see what it is all about in terms of orchestra and band. And so it's very important for us to be able to still capitalize on that space. Paul mentioned, but Chevalier is really difficult for our families to get to, to park, the accessibility of that. And for us to like relegate performances there where all of our students from elementary to middle school to high school can fit on a stage, that's not necessarily as accessible for our families. And maintaining a stage where the whole community can come together for our orchestra concerts is to me a non-negotiable. And I just wanted to make sure that that part was really double down on.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. Matt, can you flip back to the recommendation page? There is a recommendation before us to reduce the number of seats in the auditorium and accordingly the square feet from 1,000 seats to 750 seats, which changes the square footage by 2,500 square feet of usable space plus the grossing factor. Is there a motion to approve?

[Aaron Olapade]: Motion to approve.

[Jenny Graham]: Aye, Aaron. Seconded. By Liz, thank you. I will call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Lingo Kern.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi. Yes. Marta Cabral. Yes. Jen Belanger.

[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Ken Lord.

[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Libby Brown. Yes. Tracy Keene. Maria Dorsey.

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Brian Hilliard.

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Liz Malone.

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Paul Malone.

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Yes. Aaron Lopate.

[Ruseau]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Luke Preissner.

[Luke Preisner]: I'm going to abstain. I'm not comfortable with exceeding the reimbursable guidelines. Thanks.

[Jenny Graham]: 14 in the affirmative, sorry, 13 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, one absent, one abstained. The motion is approved. Okay. On to our, Um, last space review, which is, um, sorry, our arts and music section. So, um, Matt, do you want to walk through this section and just outline the proposal?

[Matt Rice]: Yeah, so the full collection of spaces that are within the art and music space category are listed here in the table. From the plan perspective, we are looking at level two, where you can see band, chorus, most of the performing arts spaces have been located. I have another slide on the next page that shows where the visual art spaces, which are located currently, I believe, up on the fifth floor, if I'm not mistaken. Just to give folks a visual there, and I'll flip there in a moment. But in terms of what's included, we do have three art classrooms at the 1,200 square feet. Those are all at the reimbursable size and sort of quantity. The band and the chorus orchestra room are slightly in excess of the reimbursable square footage. And again, on that sum total slide that we have towards the end, it'll line item outs or what that what that area is, but just to go through the rest of them, the ensemble space, music practice, music storage, and music classroom. I think there the music classroom is again a larger space in terms of non-reversible square footage. The one recommendation for reduction here is to move the digital art and photography lab from 1,440 square feet down to 1,200 square feet. That reduction comes from the elimination of a traditional darkroom within that photo space. Again, talking with district and school leadership, as well as department leadership, it was identified that digital photography moving forward would be the focus of the curriculum and not necessarily the chemicals that are associated with a traditional darkroom. I think that there are some positives there from just the health perspective. The things that are used to develop traditional photography are not the best things from a chemical standpoint. And so from a space utilization, being able to eliminate that square footage is the recommendation.

[Emily O'Brien]: Are there any questions, Aaron?

[Aaron Olapade]: Thank you. Just two quick questions, or two and then maybe an additional third. For the music storage space, is that intended to be shared between the orchestra, chorus, and the band, between those three programs?

[Matt Rice]: So yes, that's correct. And we have not gotten into the detailed programming, but it would include probably some type of sheet music, high density filing storage system, and then instrument storage as well for both orchestra and band.

[Aaron Olapade]: And then to double on that question, when it comes to the 2,000 square footage for both band and chorus orchestra, is the plan to have in square footage space for instruments and things like that in the classroom spaces already?

[Matt Rice]: Yeah, there's sort of an insatiable appetite for instrument storage within sort of the entire performing arts suite. So in addition to that storage room, we do oftentimes put musical instrument storage cabinets within the space themselves. They're actually very smartly designed because they typically can come with acoustic material at the back of them. So they can double up because they have open cage fronts as acoustic treatment within the space, as well as providing that additional storage capacity. And it can work well for anything that can get stored from violas to guitars to sort of range of sizes, right, of different parts and pieces. Awesome.

[Aaron Olapade]: Thank you. And then the final question is regarding the ensemble space. I know it's listed as 950 for the one space. Has there been any conversation or will that be a further conversation about, I know that there are many community groups that use, that are always looking for artistic community music spaces. And I know that obviously this is kind of centered near the community multipurpose space. Has that been a conversation about rentable space for the ensemble group as well as maybe even the band course orchestra space as well?

[Matt Rice]: So I don't believe that we've talked about that particular opportunity in terms of rental space, but there's no reason that we can't describe it or discuss it. And you're absolutely right. It's in the same, the right general vicinity. I think it'll all come down to sort of where we have access control in terms of doors and sort of credential. control through and making sure that there's a good separation of potential uses or accepting the fact that maybe those rentals happen outside of normal school hours as well as another opportunity. It's one of those scenarios where I think again we want to have some additional programming discussion on the performing arts side, and then also with overall building security safety first responders, just to make sure that we have sort of everyone's considerations sort of well evaluated and balanced as we go forward on something like that. But it is a great idea in terms of another potential revenue generating opportunity.

[Aaron Olapade]: Absolutely. Thank you very much.

[Luke Preisner]: Hey, Matt, I wanted to ask, at least for some of these quote-unquote heavy hitters, some of the larger spaces, we have existing space in those categories. We have art classrooms. If the space summary that we had back in April is correct, then at present, we have 1,400 square feet of art classroom. So this would nearly triple what we currently have. A similar kind of multiplication for the band space. Our current size is around 1,200 square feet, so 2,000 is about double. And the other one, the chorus orchestra, that's also a space we have. In the current facility, that's 1,300 square feet. So we are increasing it. I do respect that these are within MSBA guidelines, but I do want to point out that it is an enlargement, in some cases, a significant enlargement over what we currently have. And I'll make the observation that our school is currently oversized for the number of students we have. I think, designed for 3,600 kids. And so we're at about a third of that. Is there a calculation anywhere or at least a presentation within this slide package that compares our current space size for all these categories?

[Matt Rice]: So in the presentation, Luke, no, I'm a little bit of a disadvantage in terms of not having the space somewhere here in front of me while the slides are up. What I can say in terms of the art classrooms, I'm fairly certain that amongst the three existing rooms that are currently in there, that that square footage total is well above the 1,200 square feet. because there are three rooms. I don't think it's too dissimilar from the overall 3,600 square feet. It may be a little bit higher, a little bit lower, and there's some accessory closet storage spaces as well. In terms of the increase for the band and the chorus rooms, and maybe Dr. Galussi or Marta could chime in here, but The current rooms are undersized in terms of allowing for the number of students that can be participating in those spaces. They also have stepped floors which further limits the usability of those spaces. Um, so part of providing, um, a room size that is capable of handling the desired, um, um, performance size, um, for each of those groups, um, orchestra and band in particular, um, are fairly, um, space intensive in terms of the instruments, um, and what is required from a floor area perspective. Okay, uh, and thanks for the question.

[Suzanne Galusi]: Did you want to weigh in? I think the only thing that I would do, thank you, Matt, for that, um, is talk about both band and orchestra are also classes that are in students' schedules. We're not talking just extracurriculars. This is part of the offerings that students can have as part of their schedule for freshmen all the way through seniors. And as Matt said, right now, the rooms are too small based on current student enrollment and participation in both band and orchestra. Um, part of that is the layout. He's right. It's one of those, like, tiered, um, approaches. Having something that's a little different will also lend itself to a little bit more flexibility, um, for using that space in additional ways, maybe, if it's an off period. Um, but I just wanted to make sure that people know this is beyond extracurricular activities.

[Jenny Graham]: Luke, did you have any additional questions?

[Luke Preisner]: No, almost.

[Jenny Graham]: Okay, any other questions about the art music spaces? Is there a motion to accept this recommendation? So moved. Dr. Galussi, is there a second?

[Ruseau]: Second. Aaron?

[Jenny Graham]: Okay, I will call the roll. Jenny Graham? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galussi?

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Mardika Bral?

[Jenny Graham]: Yes. Jen Belanger? Yes. Ken Lord?

[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Libby Brown? Yes. Tracy Keene? Maria Dorsey?

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Brian Hilliard?

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Liz Malone?

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Paul Malone?

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell? Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, we are moving on the next section of our agenda is about. Parking so before we do that, I just wanted to give Matt a 2nd to walk us through the slide. So this is the sum total of the changes that were recommended for approval tonight and and made. So, Matt, if you want to walk us through, that would be great.

[Matt Rice]: Yeah, so again, this is really just a result of what we have gotten through this evening. So what you see across the darker cells and row at the top there is where we were, what was submitted to the MSBA at 608,792 gross square feet. And that total project cost is what was submitted as well at $794,000,000.3 in terms of the overall total project cost of the building, right? The square footage reductions, that sum total of the net square footage that we looked at, or I'm sorry, the sum total of the gross square footage, so 1.5 the net square footage, comes out to 20,276 gross square feet. with an estimated total project cost savings of $22,090,000. The other number that you see here as a savings is something that has arisen based on the additional detail that we've been able to get into on the design of both the building and the site. We were holding within the cost estimates premiums for high-rise construction code compliance. which includes things such as pressurized stairwells, reinforced stairwell enclosures, upgrades to the electrical fire alarm system and sprinkler system to deal with those high-rise code requirements. So as we move the building design forward looking at both sort of the building floor levels that we have as well as in particular the elevation of the grade, that surrounds the building, we're able to confirm that we will not need to meet that high-rise code requirement. So that will come with a cost savings of $3.7 million. So down below in that bold line, you can see where we are now in terms of gross floor area after this evening. Because everything was accepted, we are down to a total area of 588,516 gross square feet and an estimated total project cost of $768.6 million. Again, this is just trying to give us a tracking mechanism as we move forward in the process. The entirety of the project as it stands will be estimated, re-estimated towards the middle of December as part of the schematic design submission. And then lastly, down below, we know it's always good to keep track of exactly what is in the building. And so this is not where we stand after this evening, right, because some of the spaces that we talked about are, were currently sort of pulled out. But what was included in the PSR from a programmatic standpoint, as well as those non-program cost alternates, are all listed here for easy reference for everyone.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you, Matt. Moving on to the next section, we do have a question about the parking program, so I'm going to let Matt walk us through that, and then we have just a general update for everyone at the end.

[Matt Rice]: I am actually hoping that Erin is online and can help us walk through the parking program so I can take a break.

[SPEAKER_02]: The parking guru. I am. I'm here. Hi, how are you? People can hear me well. I assume. Awesome. So I just wanted to touch a little bit about parking. We haven't really talked about this yet with this group. It's really important to develop a program for the project about parking so we can start to iterate the site design. If you recall, back in PSR, we included a program of 459 spaces, but we've studied the program a little bit more and have a couple of recommendations to bring to this group. You all received a memo that details some additional information around our studies, but at a high level, wanted to remind folks that there is a combination of striped parking spaces and unmarked parking spaces that are regularly used. So a combination of those two brings the total today to 451 spaces on the site. We've studied utilization of those spaces and they're well utilized. So that's about 88% utilized when they were observed back I think in December as part of our traffic observations. In March of this year, we also surveyed students, staff, and teachers about several topics around transportation. And you'll see here the quantity of students and responses that we got. A couple of takeaways, again, because this will play into our program that we talk a little bit about, is that 40% of students who responded use buses as our primary mode of transportation. But more importantly, 90% of teachers and staff that responded say they drive to work every day. We worked with Ken really to evaluate the program needs on the project based on big, big programs. So if you flip to the next slide. There's a lot on this slide, but I wanted to first start with the table on the left hand side. So we worked with Ken and you'll see the gray pieces kind of highlight big portions of program in the building. So you'll see high school, central office, kids corner. Medford Family Network, Pool, Teen Health. They're in no particular order. Curtis Tufts and the Medford Early Ed program. Then we have some parking associated with each program. So teachers, staff, visitors, and fleet vehicles. This is MPS vehicles. And then there's one associated with Medford Family Network, a van space. So you'll see that first subtotal, we have 352 teachers, staff, 23 for fleet van vehicles and 74 for visitors. We're recommending some reductions on the teacher staff based on that survey information that 90% drive to work every day. So the 10% reduction results in a proposed spaces for teachers and staff of 317. We're recommending a 50% recommendation, sorry, a 50% reduction in visitor spaces to account for how they're shared throughout a day. So that takes us from 74 spaces down to 37, and we're also recommending 100 spaces for student drivers that come to the site. The grand total you see at the bottom gets us to 477. So I just put the site plan from PSR on the slide just to remind us of where we were as 459. So we're not far off, which is good because the site is only so big. We're trying to plan for as much as we can. But at some point, if the parking trips over some threshold, then we're going to look into needing to stack program. So we're close, I would say. And finally, we're also recommending Ken Lord can authorize removal of associated parking by program if in the event the project eliminates these programs. And that will let the building committee know at the next chance we get at the next scheduled meeting. There's a lot of information here. I just wanted to provide a high level and happy to answer if you have any questions, get back to you or have a discussion about what the parking might be for the project going forward.

[Jenny Graham]: Thanks, Erin. Any questions?

[xARk0471UWA_SPEAKER_00]: Lisa? Hi, I have a question about the hundred student parking spaces, how you got that number. I did read the PDF that was sent out earlier today, or maybe it was yesterday, but the one that we received. I can see that at the top of page three, there's a calculation, but it was based just on senior driving. It seems like the total number is fine. I want to preface a lot of this by just saying I hope that we are going to be advocating for good bicycle parking and that kind of scooter parking, if that seems necessary. But I wanted to make sure that as we're thinking about how we're laying stuff out, is 100 parking spaces for students really enough?

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a really good question. I don't think the school has a super good accounting of how students come to the site now, because we understand they're not permitted. Spaces are not assigned on the site. And so that's going to be something we talk about in a little bit of detail later on is how parking is assigned on site. So it's a good question. I don't have the answer, though. OK.

[Emily O'Brien]: Diane?

[Brian Hilliard]: Hi, Aaron. Just a quick question. At what point do you think we would have to tip into a stacked or tiered parking? And obviously, I hope we don't. I don't want to go anywhere near there, but I was just curious what the threshold is.

[SPEAKER_02]: I imagine we're approaching it. I don't see a scenario where we're parking more than 500 spaces on this site at grade. we can keep it in mind if we want to study that. But I think even maybe 490 spaces, I think it's going to be increasingly difficult to provide clear access around the building for first responders. They've been very clear that's something they wish for the site plan. So I think we're close.

[Brian Hilliard]: I just think it's important that everybody knows that, to your point, we are pushing that envelope. So we need to be careful, because then it's a whole new can of worms.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you, Brian. Ken?

[Kenneth Lord]: I just want to say we tried to do some rough justice with the student numbers by taking the total number of spaces and kind of subtracting what we thought staff was and kind of seeing what was left. for a number and then what was utilized and trying to come to some justification. Because as Aaron said, we really didn't have any kind of way to count actually how many students were using the space because we don't permit. But that's kind of how we kind of sort of came to the number in the best way we possibly could.

[Emily O'Brien]: Thanks, Ken. Paul?

[Paul Ruseau]: Yes, what is the impact if we end up doing photovoltaic over? I assume that reduces the number of spots because that has some physical structure that will use up space.

[SPEAKER_02]: Paul, so we don't see that it will reduce the number. We're going to be coordinating these structures to align with the striping. And ideally, the structure falls on a cross. And so it's not eating up a large area of a parking stall. It's a good question. But I think we're able to design a structure in a way that it doesn't impact quantity of parking.

[Paul Ruseau]: Wonderful. Thank you.

[Jenny Graham]: Any other questions about parking?

[xARk0471UWA_SPEAKER_00]: Lisa. Sorry to ask again, because we are right there close to our limit. I don't see the current skate park parking area on the map. Is that not really considered part of the footprint of our project or is that?

[Jenny Graham]: We do not own that land.

[xARk0471UWA_SPEAKER_00]: OK.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you.

[Luke Preisner]: So I'm just gonna have to ask this for all the soccer parents. When our kids play on the back fields, where do we park?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that most of the parking is gonna be provided at the front of the building. And so we're gonna be mindful of how we plan pathways around the building up to the field. We imagine, we hope there's going to be some parking up there. We'll provide some accessible parking, but it will be a challenge.

[Paul Garrity]: Yeah.

[Jenny Graham]: And maybe you'll be playing on the lower field and the parking will be right there.

[Luke Preisner]: Well, hopefully they'll be playing in college by then.

[Jenny Graham]: Okay. Any other questions about parking? Is there a motion to approve this recommendation?

[Ruseau]: So moved.

[Jenny Graham]: By Ken, seconded by Nicole. Okay. I'll call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.

[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi. Yes. Meredith Cabral. Yes. Jill, uh, Jen Belanger. Yes. Ken Lord.

[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Libby Brown. Tracy Keene. Maria Dorsey?

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Brian Hilliard?

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Liz Malone?

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Paul Malone?

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell? Yes. Erin Olapade?

[Ruseau]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Luke Prisner?

[Ruseau]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: 13, the affirmative, zero on the negative, two absent, motion is approved.

[Will Pipicelli]: Danny, before we go on, can you just clarify what the motion was for the minutes?

[Jenny Graham]: The motion was to accept 477 spaces and the recommendation that Ken can formally approve removal of parking if a total program comes out of the building. Thank you. And Will, if you can work with the left field team to post that parking memo in detail, the detailed parking memo on our SBC website, that would be great.

[Will Pipicelli]: Yep, I'll put it in the documents page.

[Jenny Graham]: Great, thank you. Okay, Matt, do you want to take over for a quick update on our PSR comments and next steps?

[Matt Rice]: I might ask Helen to do this one, because she did it very quickly.

[Kimberly Talbot]: A little bigger break. Yeah, thanks. And we're at the end of the meeting, everyone. So quick summary. It sounds like some of you have been able to dig into these documents. But similar to the PDP, comments from the MSBA. They are received as an A and a B document, the A being sort of the overarching set of comments on the entire project and report, and B is very much focused on the space summary. So with respect to attachment A, I did pull out some of the bigger topics, and they are noted here. I will not read through them, but I will In summary, say these are very typical comments. Of course you do. We do have the deed restriction here and again they are looking for continued updates on what that looks like and how the project team is navigating that. They also were looking for how the SBC determined the project delivery method as CM at risk, the cost drivers, etc. I think, again, we felt pretty confident in responding and being able to explain the project to the MSBA with respect to these overarching comments. And then with respect to the B document, and I think we did get into some of these details in the work that was done over the last few weeks and discussion tonight. And again, this is very much focused on the spaces, the quantity of spaces, the size of spaces. and how they connect to the ed plan. And so I do think it is a continued dialogue and it's a good way for us to understand what the MSBA is tending towards with respect to reimbursement. So the conversation we had around the scene shop, we don't necessarily have a solid determination at this point, but we have a clue, right, in their comments and how they, talked about the non chapter 74 vocational spaces and the fact that we were under in that category. So hopefully that's a good sign that they will reimburse for that space. Nothing is set in stone until the SD submission, that cost estimate, and when the project scope and budget agreement is set. So again, we're getting a very good indicator of where We all stand with respect to reimbursement on various spaces. And as part of the B document, an updated ed plan was submitted. And sounds like that is and maybe more clearly will be posted on the website for you all to look at. But it was included with distribution that went to yesterday. And excitingly enough, on the 19th, we did hear back from the MSBA that The project will be on the Board of Directors agenda for tomorrow morning, wherein they will vote on approving to move the project into schematic design formally. So that's tomorrow morning. Any questions on the comments, especially if you've had a chance to dig into them?

[Adele Sands]: Could I just make one comment about tomorrow's exciting meeting with the MSBA? Later on in the agenda for our particular project, the MSBA board of directors will be discussing an increase to their grant limits and their funding. which will benefit this particular project if they vote that through. And if it's on the agenda, it is likely getting voted through. So just some good news that should be coming our way after tomorrow's meeting.

[Jenny Graham]: Any other questions about the MSBA feedback so far? Luke?

[Luke Preisner]: I did want to ask that At some point, maybe before the next meeting, the PSR feedback is posted to the document library much in the same way as the PDP feedback and district responses were posted in an easy to find standalone link. And if that's not in the plan, I'll make a motion that we do that. But I guess first I'll check, is that part of the plan?

[Jenny Graham]: Yes. Great. We will get them posted after the board meeting tomorrow.

[Luke Preisner]: Thank you.

[Jenny Graham]: Any other questions? I just wanted to say thank you to the team who has worked really, really hard to get us here. This has been a tremendous amount of work. We've been at this for more than two and a half years now. It does feel like an eternity. And it's so exciting to see real spaces starting to look like spaces on a map that you might be able to find someday in real life. So it's super exciting. And, you know, I've had the chance to read the detailed comments from MSBA and the responses that we were asked to provide. And I'll just say that they continue to tell us in every way that they're very supportive of this project. The glowing comments from our facilities assessment review were certainly reflected in the comments around the spaces and the clarifications they were seeking. And it's all really exciting and it has taken a tremendous amount of work. So thank you to the SMMA team and to the left field team and to our district leaders who have a very full-time job outside of building a new school, which is not what they went to school to do. This is a tremendous amount of work and I cannot stress enough how hard everybody is working To bring this to fruition, so my sincere, thank you to everybody who is involved in moving this project forward. Upcoming meetings, we have a meeting on September 10th. We have our sustainability charrette. I can't wait to learn more about what that is because I didn't know that word before I learned about it on September 18th. And then on September 22nd, we will have another building committee meeting. So we'll be reporting out on different project efficiencies, much like we have done today over the course of the next several meetings. Is there a motion to adjourn? By Luke, seconded by?

[Brian Hilliard]: Second.

[Jenny Graham]: Brian? I'll call the roll. Jenny Graham? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn? Yes. Dr. Galussi? Yes. Marta Cabral? Yes. Jen Belanger?

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Ken Lord?

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Libby Brown? Tracy Keene? Maria Dorsey?

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Brian Hilliard?

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Liz Malone.

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Paul Malone.

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell. Yes. Erin Lopate.

[Ruseau]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: Luke Prizer.

[Ruseau]: Yes.

[Jenny Graham]: 13 the affirmative, zero the negative, two absent. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you everyone. I know we're over time. Have a good night.