The Medford High School Building Committee met to select a Construction Manager at Risk, adopt HVAC and solar energy recommendations, and finalize space efficiency adjustments across school facilities. The committee voted to enter contract negotiations with Suffolk, approved an air-to-water heat pump and solar PPA system, and finalized space reductions that lowered the estimated total project cost to approximately $699 million.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Everyone here and online line hear me.
[Michael Pardek]: We can hear you great.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Thank you. Okay. Welcome. Everybody. It's that's for 6, 6. 5. yeah, and we're going to get started. Please be advised that there will be a full meeting of the Medford County High School Building Committee in person at the Medford Public Library at 489 Winthrop Street and via remote participation. The meeting can be viewed live on the Medford Public Schools YouTube channel and on Medford Community Media or through the local cable channel on Comcast 9, 8 or 22 and Verizon 43, 45 or 47. This meeting is being recorded.
Participants can log in using the Zoom ID, which is 983-8986-8934. The public is encouraged to reach out in the following ways. To the project team for an official response by the project team, MHSprojects, at 914-812-MA.us. And comments and perspectives that you would like to share with members of the building committee. Those emails are auto forwarded to all members of the SBC. We've received several emails in the last couple of days. And that email is sbhsbc.medbird.k12.ma.us. I'm going to start by calling the roll. Jenny Graham here. Mayor Alondo Kern.
[Will Pipicelli]: She's joining me.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi. Here. Marta Cabral. Here. Ken Lord.
[Ada Gunning]: Here.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Libby Brown. Here. Maria Dorsey. Here. Brian Hillier. Here. Tracy Keene is absent and sends his wishes that our project will not have occupancy permit issues as his in the final stages is undergoing tonight. Malone. Here. Well, we're out here with my name here and I'm not in the prior year. I think and then here. And Clinton yeah, that's Alan.
[Unidentified]: Here.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Doctor hodgkin here. You know, the Maxwell. He's the Miller here. We'll get the belly here. However, so those Santos.
[Will Pipicelli]: Here here.
[Member Jenny Graham]: And doctor talent. 13 present to absent, I will call the meeting to order. The first thing we have on the agenda is the approval of the meeting minutes for September 22nd meeting. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Questions? Okay. I'm going to call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Doctor Lucy. Yes, I cover all. Yes, Ken Lord. Yes, gentle answer. Yes, Libby Brown. Yes. Maria Dory. Yes. Brian Hillier. Yes. Tracy King. Home alone.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Homer. Oh, yes. Liz Lane. Yeah. Aaron O'Connor. Yes.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: In any affirmative, zero negative to absent. The minutes are approved. Okay. Next on the agenda, we have a contract amendment for SMMA. I'm going to turn it over to the team to give us a brief update of what the amendment is for so that we can field any questions that the committee has. So we have amendment number three for SMMA contract for approval this evening. It's in the amount of $6,600. This is in order to get a consultant on to inform the the Radon mitigation system design for the future project. That's the project of the size would have us probably a significant mitigation system.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_23]: The Radon is a gas design founded in the ground, especially at likely sites like ours.
[Member Jenny Graham]: So we think it's important to investigate further. I will say that there was a test on the current building and that there are those levels came back with a safe range of radon gas. So, but when we are building a new project, there's an opportunity to, you know, to kick up our radon gas, I guess, or move radon. Yes, thank you.
[Bair]: So, that is important for this project, short money to design a system of this size.
[Luke Preisner]: Luke? So much earlier in the process, when we were looking at the renovation option, I recall it was an estimate, right? It wasn't based on testing. It was just a precautionary estimate. It was introduced later. So we saw that the rental was going to be $437 million or something like that. And then we added a precautionary rate on medications and that escalated that price to well over $500. I want to ask, as a result of this consultant's work, is there a risk that they will determine a system that is not currently included in our vicinity is necessary, in which case is there an upward pressure on the bottom line price?
[Ada Gunning]: I can take that what we've been to pass our estimate was very conservative, not only under any addition portions of the project, what would a new radon mitigation be planned, but we had also included that in the existing, meaning there would be, you know, potentially digging up slab and some measures. As of this point in time, we feel like it's entirely covered in the project.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Bringing this consultant on can, one, help us with detailing, recommendations, take a closer look at how best to address the existing portion of the building, and also offer a lot of expertise on cost.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: So, again, we think this will help us quite a bit as we go through the project.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Any other questions by the committee? I have one question. Will this help us determine the right mitigation from a safety perspective for the future of the building? Is there a motion to approve?
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: So moved.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Second. I don't think it would be overall yeah, they're not going to burn. They're going to say yes, I think around yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah 0 in the negative, 2 absent, 1 abstention, the motion is approved.
On to some extensive news, which is about the solution of our construction manager. As you all know, there was a committee established by this body to issue a request for application and then a request for proposals of those qualified firms. And that team has been meeting in a series of public meetings over the course of the last eight months to review application documents and ultimately proposals on our construction matter at risk. This construction manager will be with us for the duration of the project. And we concluded our interviews in the last few days, a meeting on Monday to look at and digest the pricing proposal and the ranking of those firms. The first ranked firm was Suffolk, followed by Constantly, followed by Bond and W.T. Rich, which was a joint venture, and finally by Skanska. So we had four bidders express interest at the statement of qualifications found and then again all four submit a bid and their technical proposals were reviewed, their interviews were evaluated and then ultimately and finally the pricing proposals were opened and this ranking is sort of the culmination of all of those things.
I'll offer a couple of overarching comments about the selection. It was unanimous. It was unanimous at every stage by the committee, which includes Matt Guillaume, Matt Rice, myself, Ken Lord, Dr. DeLucie, Julie Brown, and Brian Hilliard. A couple of things that stood out about Suffolk and how they became the offering firm. First, they had a very, very strong technical proposal. and really demonstrated a lot of care and depth in the work that they put together with that proposal, including how they talked about the project, understanding of Medford, and keeping up in real time with the work that is happening on this committee that is revolving around things like the deed restriction and everything. In interviewing, one of the things that stood out for me was that they demonstrated a really deep Understanding and expertise of the market pressures that we will face as a project. They actually had some rewards to hear when you were talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of construction and they talked about the scale of this project, how they're already. thing about preparing to bring the right workforce to this project because it is large and demonstrated to all of us a complete willingness to be a partner that evolves their solution and all the things associated with this project in twists and turns. The final piece was their pricing proposal and their pricing proposal was competitive for the value of the service, which is a requirement for a ranking a selection in the CMF risk process. Any questions?
[Rebecca Davidson]: What other high schools in the area have they worked on?
[Member Jenny Graham]: They're just about finished with high school in Lowell. Is it Lowell High School? Lowell High School. They also will be working on the Brockton project. What's that?
[Matt Rice]: It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School.
[Member Jenny Graham]: It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School. It did for Miracle High School.
[Luke Preisner]: Luke? So, you know, given the large amounts involved, what were the selection criteria? What parameters did you measure each of these events? And just kind of give us a little view. And then was there anything noteworthy in that ranking? Were any firms disqualified from a score in a particular criteria?
[Member Jenny Graham]: So we have to stop short of talking about specific rankings because we still have to enter negotiations. So what we will be seeking tonight is a vote from this committee to enter negotiations with Suffolk. If not successful, we will move to the next rank term. So we have to, there's a bunch of like sort of rules about what is able to share at this point in time. All of the things that I talked about were criteria. All the criteria were listed in the SOQ and the proposal. But we were looking for firms with a demonstrated ability to do the work that we do. It's a large complex high school. We were looking for people with adequate experience with the complexity of the site, who have experience not just in high schools, but with vocational programming. We were also looking for people who could bring really competitive advice to the table, and they satisfied all of the criteria. All of the firms did a wonderful job. It was actually a really hard decision for the committee. Like I think Paul said, we're really exceptional people on every single aspect, and just talk to us, and you could tell across the board how desirable this project is. Obviously, it's quite large. But many of them also noted that they are watching our meetings. They're watching how people are treating this project and the diligence with which we are going through the process and expressed excitement in being part of this team.
[Luke Preisner]: That's fine. You said there's rules prohibiting you from discussing, right? That's enough for, I think, any of us. What I want to know is Do you look at their proposals and try to measure their performance on cost, schedule, on a percentage of in-house specialization versus outsourcing? If you can give us some insight into all of the technical aspects of how you made your decision. I'm sure you probably arrived at the right decision, but we just don't have What parameters, or at least I do, what parameters did you use to measure these different firms?
[Member Jenny Graham]: We looked at all of those things. All of the information about the SOQ is public record. So if you want to go and look at it, it's listed right in the SOQ. I let the other members of the team talk too.
[Kenneth Lord]: Can you let us pop in the stories, news, and the... Do you have them handy, Kenneth? So when we reviewed the non-pricing proposal, we reviewed them on a plan of management staffing plan. The reconstruction services plan, the construction services plan, the overall project plan, the schedule and phasing, building information modeling, project logistics plan, safety history, and minority and employees. And then during their interviews, they were to highlight the Medford site logistics challenges and how you'd overcome those challenges, present a phasing plan, which they all did, a butter coordination and community outreach, examples of LEED buildings completed, examples of budget management, how you approach a VMV process, and other critical project elements, and then you see the biggest challenges. And then we all ask additional questions as they do their presentation.
[Luke Preisner]: Okay, that's great. That's kind of what I'm looking for. Matt, can I ask, you know, after we made this election and engaged in contract activities, there's going to be some in the future. where estimates that we're currently working with, so 80 months and the phasing slides, those are estimates, so probably pretty close to what it's gonna be, but it's gonna get refined, and it's gonna be refined through the input of the soundtrack. At what point in the future do you anticipate that we will have those updated estimates for construction timelines, anything that changes as a result of them with sharpening pencils and fine-tuning what will be a complicated construction activity.
[Ada Gunning]: Yeah, I imagine they're going to jump in right away. I mean, whoever the successful negotiated contract is with. They're going to get familiar with everything more so than already have been with respect to the documentation they've had on hand. And they're going to be aging with us. You know, it's the four-legged stool, the four-legged table, the owner, the CM, the OPM, and the designer. We do have, of course, they will be also doing cost estimate mid-December.
[Member Jenny Graham]: That set of documents, it's going to our cost estimator, estimators will have the two estimates to compare.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: Those will come back for the end of January. And as far as, I don't know what glimpses we were able to get to the interview process and proposal process on schedule, if they had provided anything different than our items.
[Matt Rice]: There were some made, but I think really what we need is to give them the opportunity to discuss it more collaboratively with the district, with ourselves, and let the board involved at the table to understand where the opportunities are. And the updated cost estimates that are going to be generated are directly connected to phasing and dual assets, right? But the timing drives cost in a lot of different ways. So we'll have to agree on both the cost that comes out. But in advance of that, it's going to be a more educated, logistic-synthesizing approach as well.
[Kenneth Lord]: And all the firms spoke at length about doing a deep dive right away into our current systems because they don't have to tie into those systems and keep the unconstructed areas maintained and the importance of that. And they all had teams of people who, as soon as we signed the contract, would follow me at my doorstep, pouring and scanning ceilings and doing all kinds of those. There's really less of the amount of detail that they all spoke about for us.
[Luke Preisner]: OK, great. So it sounds like a with a couple of updates to cost per square foot, to line, phasing, sort of appearing as news to this committee sometime in January. So I guess that's correct.
[Kenneth Lord]: Yes, that's correct. And that becomes our schematic is our actual estimate. We take the MSBA with equal final budget. That number goes February 10th.
[Member Jenny Graham]: We have questions from the committee? Okay, so we are seeking a motion on termination of the top ranker, and I will await a motion.
[Luke Preisner]: So moved.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Seconded by Luke, seconded by Leigh. I'll call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn, Dr. Galuzzi, yes. Marta Cabral, yes. Ken Warren, yes. Jen Balanda, yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,
[Andre Leroux]: in motion again or both for a second or is that just a pre-expectation?
[Member Jenny Graham]: I would, I would think so. I would want to be able to tell you what happens before we just sort of start going down the list. We don't anticipate that but if it happens we'll make sure we talk about it before we move on. Okay, item number five. Um, so we're going to take, um, a few minutes and hopefully this is like the biggest run of this yet. I'm just exploring the SMMA team. Um, there, for those of you who are interested in sort of the lead up on what we, a brief presentation around our, um, systems. There have been a solid number of meetings of our advisory team, which is comprised of members of this committee, members of city staff. as well as other members of the community with particular expertise in mechanical systems, stability, solar panels, and everything they're on. And they were asked to prepare recommendations on today. One is, what will our sectors be? The second is, what will our solar program look like for solar panels? And then the third is whether we will go after some option of Uh, the project being built with that timber, um, that last 1 has been deferred to the next meeting because the advisory needs a little bit more time, but I'm going to turn it over to just through the recommendations for the HVAC system, which is a full air to water heat pump system. That is the change from base of the project and then solar, which is a modified option that was previously discussed. So not take it away.
[Matt Rice]: or that may turn it immediately over to Martine, but I will also read it for us. It's important that we stay brief in terms of the presentation and the information. I will just add that in September, we had intended to bring it before this committee today, but we had a very detailed and involved discussion on the photovoltaics. which did get us to a recommendation. I think Ken described it as a dissertation on portable data, but it was just absolutely excellent. And we really appreciate everyone's time that's been committed to the advisory team so far, because it has been working through the process. And this is how we're working with all the advisory team recommendations from the teams back to this group. And I will ask Matt for a quick explanation that if any members of the advisory team that attended those meetings and want to just reinforce some of the salient points that were made in sort of how we arrived at this. That would be invaluable for everyone to hear, so it's not the consultants conveying this information. But, Martina, if you want to give a quick overview.
[Martine Dion]: Sure. My camera is not collaborating. Sometimes it's fussy with the zoom and I guess it just chose to be right now. So I apologize. I think, yes, so the advisory work group elected to go to the air to water heat pump. for a couple of reasons. One is, you know, there's a considerable saving, a first-cost savings, but we did look at cost of ownership. There's also, you know, a savings in terms of, you know, the three options here all save against the fossil fuel baseline, so as a basis. And then the ground source seed pump came out as the most expensive due to obviously, you know, the bores are usually sort of the culprit for that. But in this case, the two geothermal options have a bit more, quite a considerable bit more of cost around the The limitations of where the boards are going to be located and the fact that we would need temporary heating and cooling systems. So all of this adds up and the savings from the ground source heat pump are not enough to outweigh the original cost. The air to water heat pump brings a good amount, the required amount of efficiency, and they do have a life cycle cost of ownership that is less than the baseline, the fossil fuel baseline, and it's got a considerable initial cost savings over the grounds for seed pumps. So that's sort of altogether, I hope I'm representing what was discussed, that's altogether what led to the air to water heat pump option.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Matt, do you want to go to the next slide just to give people an understanding of what we're talking about? And then for those in the room, I think the folks on Zoom are having a hard time hearing you if you're not speaking loudly. And I think some of the folks in the back all are, so everyone can just try to use their indoor or outdoor voice. If you have one, that would be great. Yeah, so I just wanted to make sure that we'll see this have changed and shifted since our initial look at these options.
[Martine Dion]: Yes, so Matt, chime in as you want, but basically this shows the initial cost of the system and how it differs from the basis of design, which is the ground source seed pump. So it's pretty considerable at about 31 million. This is the cost of the system and labor. It doesn't have the contingencies and all of that. And Matt, you'll speak to that later. So there's a zero-year payback there. It defers a tiny bit from what the original cost was in the PSR, and that's due to the square footage of the project that has been reduced. And then do we want to talk about the solar, Matt, leeway into the solar?
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, let's talk about the solar as the second item here.
[Martine Dion]: Right. So for the solar, the advisory team or group elected to go for the optimized net zero energy, which would have a roof solar PV and a parking canopy solar PV under a PPA purchase power agreement. That has some additional costs. Those costs are mostly They're mostly relative to the groundwork. The PPA provides for the canopy and all the system, the system equipment, maintenance, etc. However, the conduits to the canopy, right? And part of the infrastructure and part of the electrical infrastructure needs to account for the system and that's what this estimated cost is at. The overall cost of ownership of that approach as a payback of 15 years. So you have this upfront cost and then the PPA brings you a fixed electrical rate that is lower than your current rate, so you have operational savings, and it takes about 15 years to pay it back. Now, one thing we want to say here is that the PPA utility fixed rate is estimated.
It will definitely differ once a bit. We did our best. We had a discussion with them. It will likely change a bit. when the PPA contract will be negotiated. This option does not officially include the battery storage. This is something that could be discussed. During the PPA, there are PPAs that don't install battery storage for all kinds of reasons, financial and others. And so that's where we are. That $4 million, obviously, we're going to be looking to hone down on for the schematic design estimate and hone down on estimating it in further detail to make sure we get a more accurate estimate.
[Matt Rice]: So the important thing to find out about these numbers is when Martin runs a life cycle cost analysis, we're looking at the actual cost of the systems themselves, just sort of exactly what it would take to purchase or install the system. You'll see another version of these numbers later on that actually has two multipliers put on it. One of them is leading up to estimated construction costs, which builds in things like time contingency, It builds in the contractor's overhead and profit to sort of actually put those systems in as part of the production manager that goes on top of it. And just given where we were at the preferred schematic report, the 40-unit multiplier that is competent for all of the cost alternates that we were looking for, all the work that is included in the project. So that gets us up to an estimated construction cost, both in terms of the credit for the air-to-water heat pump, as well as the cost for that sort of front end of the photovoltaic system. On top of that, we also have soft costing applied at a 22% rate. So that's why the numbers that you're going to see later are a good deal higher than what these numbers are. But this is what came out of the life cycle cost analysis. Relatively, it's all going to be the same, right, in terms of what they are in comparison to each other. But I wanted to point that out in terms of the dollar value. The credit grows sprayer pump versus the geothermal system that was originally estimated as part of the project. And because we did not think on sort of basic solar panels on the roof.
There is some additional costs for the size of the electric room as well as putting some underground that go out to the canopies that are provided by the PA for the photovoltaic. The actual cost to install that 100% net zero energy photovoltaic system is much higher than $4 million. The rest of those costs are part of the power disagreement. The company that puts them in takes on that cost in terms of capital expenditure. And then there's a low operating rate the city receives. It's how a number of buildings and schools within the city already have had solar power roofs. It's something that the city has experience with. In the process of that.
I just had one slide that had some summary of the recommendations, considerations that were taken on. This is a good spot for anyone that wants to jump in from an advisory team or Libby, go ahead.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah, there's a few. Libby, did you want to say something as a member of the advisory team or was it a question? I could do both. Great.
[Ada Gunning]: I'll start by just saying, I just want to keep up on the meetings. I don't claim to be an engineer, but they're really great people on that committee. So I'm really grateful for them way more than I do. I think we got the right recommendations considering things like. You know, phasing geothermal and phasing issues. So I'm, I'm really feel really good about the decision we made to recommend these.
[Member Jenny Graham]: I have a few about the PB2 and I know that. And that's what I'm going to agree on in the room.
[Ada Gunning]: But there was a question of SRECs that are going to be considered, like Sonny brought up, if we're going to be considered net zero energy, we have the SRECs are being bought or like owned by the PPA or the utility. Do we know anything about how that works? Because I heard that we still need to study.
[Matt Rice]: I'll let Martine chime in.
[Martine Dion]: It's a very tricky question. Yeah. It depends who you ask. If you ask the OER, they may say no, and if you ask other entities, they will say yes. The SRECs are sort of assumed to be owned by the PPA, but there can be also a, there can be, and Alicia has her hand up, so she can add on what I'm gonna say. They can also be negotiated to be owned by a city, but my understanding is for Manford that it's less expensive to have the PPA on the threats and then buy, on the market by SRECs. And that would make the project Net Zero Energy. Alicia, do you want to add on and correct me?
[Matt Rice]: Sure, Martine. Can one of you just describe what SREC is, that acronym for folks?
[Martine Dion]: Oh, I'm sorry, Solar Renewable Energy Certificates. So they represent the green, sort of the renewable energy, the green energy that's produced by the system and that goes into the market to be sold for carbon offsets. Those are what the SRECs are.
[Director Alicia Hunt]: Good evening. Yeah, good evening committee. Thank you. I am. So, for those who are not aware, I'm the city's director of planning development and sustainability and I manage the. City's solar arrays that we currently, we both own some and we have power purchase agreements. And one of the things with the issue with the idea that electricity and the green attributes of the electricity, which are the SRECs, are bought and sold separately, and they can be separated from each other. Massachusetts State has a program right now called SMART, and it's a multi-year program. We can count on still having it in the future. as we move forward with this, the timing of this project, makes the renewable energy attributes, the SRECs, so valuable from the system that it actually makes sense to let those be part of the power purchase agreement. Basically, even if we were to own this, my recommendation would be to use the smart system, make the RECs go into the smart system, and then separately buy on the market—and I'll use the technical term for people who understand this—Massachusetts Class I renewable energy credits, which are like the, quote, most expensive, to make up for that so that the building is technically net zero as well. This is actually what we did with the library, because the value we were getting from participating in the smart system, even though we own those solar panels, it was much more lucrative for the city to get the smart payments from the state. And then we bought 10 years of renewable energy credits for the library to make the library net zero for the first 10 years. And sorry, I didn't prep, but the SMART program only lasts a certain number of years. And at the end of the SMART program, then those renewable energy credits, the green attributes, they revert back to you. So you don't have to buy them for the life of the project, just for the life of when the system's in the SMART program. For the library, we chose to do it for 10 years, because that was part of the MSBA. And the MSBA, the life, sorry, I'm confusing the terms, MLBC. the library built state building program. They required the building to be net zero for 10 years in order to qualify for some of their increased discounts.
So I think, I'm hoping that that answered the question in terms that both the technical people in the room who understand the details of this understand and for the general public.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Thank you, Alicia. Yeah, I just thought I think I kind of address the reason for the PPA goes to doing the outright ownership is awesome.
[Matt Rice]: First, primarily, yes, thank you. And producing the maintenance cost for the district over time. I think they're interested in not taking that on. Yes.
[Luke Preisner]: So this choice largely extinguish the risk of article 97.
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, the way that I've been referring to the air-to-water pump is I think it is a win-win-win situation. It has the lowest first cost, it has the lowest 50-year life cycle cost, and does this avoid the Article 97 process on the deep restricted land by having to put the geothermal wells underneath it. So I think all the way around, it seems to be liquid. Makes a lot of sense, yeah.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Any other questions, Brian?
[Unidentified]: I have a question for you, Martine. You mentioned the battery storage. You can have a ballpark on what that would cost, how that impacts things, and actually change the life cycle or the return on investment at the team year number.
[Martine Dion]: So the battery storage going to the PPA, that's going to be part of the contractual discussions with the PPA. They would be the one to decide if there should be a battery or not. That said, I think that the project should make sure that it's battery, to have the battery readiness. In the case they don't support it right away, there's a high chance that in the future the economics are going to make it better. I think currently what they told us is that the market for them makes it challenging to have battery storage. So that's all going to unveil, I think, itself as the discussions with the PPA would go. Your question cut off a little bit. So I'm not sure that I'm answering exactly what you asked for completely. Can you let me know? Did I answer your question?
[Unidentified]: Thanks, Martina. You have it. My other quick component to that was whether or not having a resource system changes the dynamics of the payback of 15 years?
[Martine Dion]: Yes, it does. It does because it's another, you know, owning it is about 4.5 to 5 million dollars. So if you own it, it would definitely change. If the PPA includes it in their PPA, it may change their fixed rate. And that's something that would have to be discussed with them. If they put it in, it's because it's going to be beneficial for them and it should benefit the rate. I don't think they're going to do something that's going to not be beneficial for the fixed rate to be good for the city of Medford. That's my understanding. If they decide it's not in, it's because it's putting an impediment on sort of the good financials of the contract.
Did that answer your question?
[Phil Santos]: Yes, thank you.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Any other questions? Is there a motion to approve the HVAC and solar recommendations by the committee?
[Andre Leroux]: Motion to approve.
[Member Jenny Graham]: By Aaron. And seconded by Brian. Jenny Graham, yes. Marilyn O'Kerns.
[Nick Giurleo]: Dr. Glusi. Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: And yes, gentle answer. Yes, let me grab it. Maria Dorsey. Yes, Brian Hillier. Yes, crazy team. Home alone. Yes, home morale. Yes, living. Yes, Erin, a little bit. Yes, yes, 13 minutes negative. To be absent, those recommendations are approved. OK, moving on. So the next section of the agenda for those of you who may or may not have joined us in the past is part of this project agency review that has been going on really since PSR was submitted in June. And it's really starting to say things like, how does the layout in the building inform whether there are sufficiencies that we can face? And we have been making our way through all of the various, like, components of the space summary and by section tonight is the final piece of that discussion. So, what you will see in these upcoming slides. is a presentation of the work that the district educators and the project team have been doing together to look at efficiency as it relates to two things. One, upholding the ed plan and two, where things are located in the buildings start to matter when you're talking about whether there is an opportunity for any efficiency. So those things happening sort of tandem have been the subject of like, probably close to 100 meetings at this point, and we have been reviewing step by section. So in this second of the meeting, we are going to review the combination of that work on the topic. So we're going to take them one at a time, and we will take questions and comments from the building committee. If there are members of the public who would like to speak on those recommendations, we will have time and space for you to do so. There is another portion of this agenda, which we'll consider untailing some proposed cuts that have not been yet made and come later in the agenda. So this piece is dedicated to the folks who have been doing this very hard work to get through all of the spaces in terms of like how these things are located in the building. And you'll see a little sneak peek of some of the proposed that are happening in various components of the building as well. So with that ahead, let's start with Kids Corner. I'll unmute you first. And I will turn it over to Pete.
[Matt Rice]: All right. We apologize in advance. There are a lot of slides here. We've tried to include some graphics where it makes sense just so that we can ground people and where The proposed program is going to be located, but for some of these, as we move forward, we don't have those diagrams just because these pieces are going to be located all over the building. So this one, I think, is going to be grounded. The plan image on the left-hand side is on the southern side of the building. It is located on the first floor, and what we're depicting there are the various classrooms that constitute the proposed Kids' Corner space. Um, and I will just provide this clarification once, but it's going to hold true for all the diagrams that we see these very much in early iteration of where we are. We're really at the conclusion of the report is.
All of these plans have been modified based on the feedback that we've gotten. We are not sure where the updated plan is. We need to have these conversations. We're finalizing all the reductions so that we know all the parts and pieces that are going to be put into the building. Then we can come back and we can make sure that we're providing final locations and bringing everybody's feedback into them. So this just gives you a frame of reference in terms of where we are, the general print of the pieces that we're talking about. The most accurate piece of information that we'll be reviewing are the tables that actually have the list that are proposed as well as any efficiencies that were identified through the programming decisions that we've had. I know that some folks this is going to be familiar to because we have looked at this process multiple times, but I also know that we have folks who invested in us for this particular iteration. So.
To go through the list of spaces, what I just want to start off by noting that the kid corner spaces are not reimbursable space by the MSBA. They are in the other category, which just means that it's not contained within the typical school. And so if it's not within that particular grouping of spaces and non reimbursable, so that's just for an understanding of we're talking about. We did talk through with the kids board leadership, understood that the number of classrooms that we were holding previously was not exactly aligned with how the program does implement. And so really what happens is that there is a younger and older infant room. There is a younger and older. father room, there's a preschool room, and there's a pre-kindergarten room. So there was a need for six classrooms. We previously had identified five classrooms total. So what we did was we reduced that larger 1,200 square foot classroom down to two. Those were appropriate size for the preschool and for the pre-K classes. And then we added in what amounted to One additional other classroom basically converted 1200 classrooms into a 900 square. The 2 infant classrooms that were planned were also reduced in size from 900 to 900 because that matched the overall collection in typical classroom sizes is still more than adequate for the planned enrollment for the kids quarter class. So you see that there is overall, we get all the way down to the bottom of the modifications. Even though we're looking for efficiencies, we also need to make sure that we're adequately addressing the need of the program. And that was part of the conversations that we had. So overall, it was a 350 net square foot increase.
The other reduction that was made though was in terms of the number of offices that were planned. So we'd originally planned for two offices associated with the program, and we were able to identify that only one office would be needed, and so that factored into the overall map. So there was some addition, there was some reduction as well, which resulted in a total increase of 350 square feet for the overall program.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Were there any questions from the convention?
[Luke Preisner]: Luke? So I'll just observe that currently we have a Kids Corner program at the high school. I don't think it serves infants. It usually serves- No, it's not for infants. And so I wanted to ask, one, whether square footage represents expansion over the current program. And I wanted to better understand the staffing needs. If we need an office, I kind of understand that. I don't quite understand the staff room and maybe the conference room. I mean, maybe boss can hold court, but probably, you know, in the main room where all the other, I don't know, right? I just don't understand why there's a conference room, you know, so one can shut down that.
[Member Jenny Graham]: I'm happy to shed light on that. First of all, just to remind anybody that's like here or joining in, this is a municipal daycare. So it serves our employees, both on the school side and the city side. It also serves community members. So if you were to go to this space, it is very, very small and it This will allow us to serve more families. There's a little bit of a wait list to be able to meet the demand of some unity members. Right now, you have like one, let's just say for intensive purposes, you have one classroom that's being shared by like young toddler, older toddler. It's quite tight. There's not a lot of space necessary for equipment and movement and materials that students need to you know, interact and engage with so that they can, like, grow and develop into lovely little humans. So that's first of all. Um, there is each span, um, a younger and an older. So there is an infant, a toddler, and there's a pre, preschool and a pre-K. So they're servicing nine months.
[Rebecca Davidson]: They can start at 200 months.
[Member Jenny Graham]: 200 months to five years. That's the span for kids. Right now, they have a office for the director. There is a staff room. People have to be able to eat their lunch and take a break. That is what the staff, you know, phone calls, private telephone calls. So that's what the staff is used for. And then the conference room, the staff here conduct, like any educator does, teacher conferences. There are staff meetings every month, and there are evaluation meetings that the director is having with the staff. So the use of a conference room is important for at least all three of those reasons.
[Luke Preisner]: And there aren't any opportunities to share it for drones with co-located programs. So me break there. Kurt might be downstairs or maybe right upstairs. We've looked at opportunities to share because we have a very large structure. And, you know, I think this school is large as it is because when it opened, it had to serve 300 kids. And when those enrollments fell, like they're around 1,100 now, it freed up a lot of space. And I don't have a timeline. I don't know these additional programs.
I'm not dissatisfied with the programs, but we have 200 high school students that should, in my view, be the top priority for this project. I don't disagree with that. I guess I'm a little disappointed that we can't find opportunities to share resources for the non 9 to 12, I'll say, members of this community, because we are real large. People have heard that construction costs have gone up. So every square foot is like a thousand bucks. It might actually be more when someone sharpens their pencil we get down to it, we find it's actually significantly more. So I'm worried about that, because it drives a bottom line cost that I think too many people may not be able to stomach.
[Member Jenny Graham]: I would also like to add, so one of the things that has happened, first, there's the piece about honestly, like the core values of the district and the community, I would say, My children went to the corner. They are 23 and 22. It has been around in service of our staff for a very long time. It was something that we'll get to probably further on in this. But there are many teachers that don't have the benefit and employees that don't have the benefit of preschool programming. And there is enough preschool programming And even our preschool programming had a lot of barriers for families. So I found that myself. And so a program like this is very important to help our teachers do what we want them to do in service of our students. That's kind of first and foremost. The other piece about this program and the ECC in general is that our early childhood program for CTE they work with all three of these places. So there is, we have dissolved the make way program that was tied to the CTE program. And this is the program our students are also learning through. So Kids Corner, this way, our CTE students see possible pathways there are in the early childhood education portfolio of job appointments. So you have a daycare setting at Kids' Corner, you have nonprofit for MFN, and you have teacher track education and preschool program. And right now they are working directly with the director of Kids' Corner, which is and could be of use for that, for all of the spaces here that are listed. because our high school students do benefit from these programs.
I'm just going to offer two other quick comments. As put on the school committee who has been charged with negotiating with all of our labor unions, we negotiate with the Kip Warner team and there are some like really unique things in their contracts. First and foremost, because of the nature of the work that they do, They don't get a guaranteed duty-free lunch. They have a paid lunch, and they are nearby because kids are unpredictable. And these are unpredictable. And we call on them when we need that. So they have a very unique situation. They're the only employees in the district, to my knowledge, that have such a unique situation that their lunches are paid for under their collective bargaining agreements. So I think that's sort of the number one. Item two is the cost. to operate Kids Corner is completely operated out of a self-sustaining revolving. So it's not operating budget money from the school district via allocations from the mayor's office to MEC Republic schools. This program is entirely funded by tuition paid by those people sending their kids to school. So I just, I think there can be a lot of infusion about some of these programs and where the money comes from. I just wanted to make sure that was clear.
[Luke Preisner]: I just want to say, I think that this program or that none of them are at risk, all in the airplane. What I'm expressing is just disappointment that can't find more conference rooms, storage rooms, and so on. because I think we're pretty desperate for space issues. That's the only point I'm making.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Are there any other questions or comments? Let me, I guess I have a bigger question.
[Ada Gunning]: So as this has turned into like real architecture, I mean, this is real, but still very conceptual. You know, I know this is tied to our ed plan, but say like what Luke's describing, as you figure out the agencies, you know, core and deep and everything, you see, oh, you know what, the comfort room could serve groups because of where it is and the way, how often they're using it. Like if we see that the education plan, like the needs of the programs are being met, but it does say like eliminate the group because the agency makes it work. I know we've talked about, we can't like remove space later because that changes the ed planner, changes like our program. We don't want to break any rules with the MBA, but like, are those little ones we're showing, like, for meeting the needs of the program, like little changes like that, is that okay?
[Member Jenny Graham]: Does that spread flags?
[Matt Rice]: Like... I think we will have to find those types of things really over the course of, say, the next two months as we prepare the cost estimate and sort of the final iteration of the plans to be submitted, because after that point it becomes more challenging to do that type of thing. would have that opportunity, would need to run any sort of substantive opportunity past the occupants, past leadership.
[Member Jenny Graham]: I want to reiterate that that's what just happened. The view of what is needed to operate this program, that is the conversation that is creating these recommendations.
[Ada Gunning]: I don't need to say it, like you're asking for something that's not, that's not what I need to say.
[Member Jenny Graham]: No, but we can answer the next slide. I can add, I can also answer and add on to what you are saying.
[Ada Gunning]: Isn't it hard to say, like, well, they care, but they, those are the groups, they're across the board, so like it doesn't work.
[Member Jenny Graham]: But I might be asking myself, it's really hypothetical and may never cut the message. I'm just curious, I'm kind of wondering. Any other questions? Is there a motion to approve these recommendations? Some of. By Nicole, is there a second?
[Andre Leroux]: Second.
[Member Jenny Graham]: I will call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Longdon Kern.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Dr. Gouldy. Yes. Marta Cabral. Yes. Ken Lord. Yes. Josie Brown. Jen Landre. Yes. Maria Northey.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Brian Helliard. Yes. Tracy Keene. Paul Malone. Yes. Nicole Morell. Yes. Liz Mullane. Yes. Aaron Olapade. Yes. Luke Pryzant.
[Luke Preisner]: I'm disappointed if I vote no, then that means that voting to revert it to a new size. So all this down.
[Member Jenny Graham]: 13 affirmative, zero negative, one absent, one abstention. Motion is approved. Okay. Next.
[Matt Rice]: All right. So the next program for discussion is the Fert Family Network, or FNBEN. This space is located immediately adjacent to Kids Corner, so if you're able to acclimate and build on the first floor of the building in that southernmost wing, where the shared early childhood resources are going to be located. In the kids corner, the network spaces are not reimbursable by the MFA because they are not in a sort of traditional MSBA guideline high school building.
Spaces that are included here are reception waiting space. There are two offices that are also doubling as testing spaces. There is one shared office that has multiple employees that works to make them more efficient way of seating folks. A conference room dedicated to MFN. The play area, which is really the centralized program space for FM programming that houses different play groups at different ages to allow families to utilize resources. There was previously a pantry space that had allocated for Bedford Family Network that grew distant with leadership, and this leadership was identified as not being required, so we removed that. And some of that storage capacity was consolidated into that last line item. So we removed a 300-square-foot dedicated line item. We added 200 square feet into the general storage room, which will provide a general storage resource. The clothing closet was a fund that was entirely not utilized by Medford. I think it was just a misunderstanding on our end. during the initial conversations, so that was removed. And then there was a toilet room that was dedicated as well, and it was discussed that that toilet room, the toilet facilities within the Preventable Network, that general toilet rooms in the immediate vicinity of MFN could be used as well. So that programmatic area was removed from the overall sum total. all the various adjustments that result in an overall reduction of 500 network feet for the MN program.
[Bair]: Any questions?
[Luke Preisner]: Rick? So I just got the computer away. I can't check myself. But it looks like we're clean. I think when you add up all the space, it's bigger than what we have today. Is that true, or am I just sort of misreading it.
[Matt Rice]: Me too, I have not memorized all, I don't know, most of the numbers in front.
[Member Jenny Graham]: I think the piece to this, which also goes along to your question is, and what you were saying earlier that I think, you know, over time, because of bus space, there was like, you know, a spreading out or moving into other spaces that you had the immediate MFN, but if we go outside the, right now, currently, the immediate MFN space, there are four or five other offices. One that's specifically used for the testing that is mentioned here, that's part of one of grants and one of the requirements. And then there are other offices, play groupers, assistants, that also have space outside of what MFN is today. So this is kind of consolidating all of that. So part of the reason, and of course, we are open to what kind of like ebbs and flows from this in terms of what Libby mentioned, but the use of the conference room for MFN specifically is done on purpose because they have a lot of staff that come in and out, not a lot of caregivers that volunteer at night. And so their use of a conference room is very different than kids' corner use for a conference room. In not always, am I wrong to say, a scheduled manner, we get a lot of drop-in and out of the parent education places that are in the conference room.
[Matt Rice]: Susan, I can clarify as well, Helen helped and actually brought up the numbers. There were about 800 square feet of production actually in terms of overall output of what FN did now and what was proposed here, which is about a 20 to 25% reduction. So there is a fair amount of efficiency that was arrived at here, talking through again to make sure that we're providing sort of essential components of the program as we move forward. I guess if it would make sense to have a little bit of explanation of the actual family network is just so that folks that are listening can understand the value of the resource, because it's as simple as like a daycare. We all know what daycare is, I think, generally. But I think MFN is more unique.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Can I invite, I'm going to invite Victor up.
[Unidentified]: Great.
[Member Jenny Graham]: You do it better than I can. Hi, thank you.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_03]: I was kind of prepared to talk about something else, but okay. First of all, I just wanted to, if I just read a little bit of what I wrote, just want to introduce myself, Rena Shumway, Medford resident, also a parent of two Medford High School graduates, and currently director of Medford Family Network. And I just want to begin by expressing my sincere appreciation and an immense time and effort and hard work this committee is dedicated to this product So to just give a little bit of a background, over 33 years Metro Family Network has served as a welcoming front door, purple door, community hub for thousands of children, caregivers and growing families.
And we've sort of, you know, working, worked alongside with Kids Corner, you know, so as we were kind of in the beginning stages of, you know, this early childhood center, I think as we part of that has been really integral. And I kind of also a little bit about, you know, our connection to Medford High School and, you know, what being in this building has meant to MFN. We work with the Registration Office. We've had families come directly from the Registration Office being logged to MFN for route on the court. with diaper cleaning assistance and parenting resources.
We've had high school nurses come and connect, connecting and doing things directly to us for support. We've had special educated and transitional students at the high school volunteer with us, grade groups, sorting donations, assisting with diaper days, building essential life and job skills. We also collaborate with the vocational programs at the Graphic Arts for kids. You know, by being at the high school, we're able to provide, utilize the gym for family fun nights that we do monthly. We use the theater for some programming, you know, for pre-education classes. And, you know, we're backed by school security and historical support while we're here virtually. So we're a program that serves Metro residents who have been filed from birth to age eight. And we provide programs such as planned learners, education classes. We do a lot of concrete supports like for days like I mentioned, we're receiving anywhere from 70 to 90 family's left room for our door and everybody's given diapers, toiletry items, food, bags, clothing. We have partnerships with organizations like the Crayons and a variety of other places where we're able to kind of merge those partnerships and we're able to get donations from them that we're able to directly send families for. We also have a very a volunteer base of the Friends of Method Family Network. They're a fundraising arm of our organization. We have an advisory board of all these groups of people in the conference room. And they help us kind of be what we are. We attend a lot of community events in the city. We partner with our Welcome to Kindergarten programming. We do a lot of kindergarten ready playgroups. We actually partnered with Boston Children's Museum and were able to do curriculum-based playgroups that get the children ready to enter kindergarten and go to school.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Thank you, Irina. Are there any other questions about APAD and the recommendations before? And there are a lot of to accept the recommendation. But there's a second. Seconded by Liz. I'm going to call the roll. Jenny Grant? Yes. Mayor Longo Kirkman? Yes. Dr. Hersey? Yes. Marta Cabral? Yes. Ben Lord?
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Jen Belanger? Yes. Libby Brown?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Maria Dorsey? Yes. Brian Hilliard? Yes. Tracy Keene? Yes. Paul Malone?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Matt Rice]: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I will point out, though, that we'll also get the welcome center after this. Sometimes those both fall under the umbrella of central office, but a welcome center is more that parent information center, sort of the family forward facing set of services that are provided. Central office is helping incorporate the superintendent's office, all of the administrative personnel as well, facilities, technology. So we'll run through all of that. I don't know if it is it worthwhile for me to run through everything that does not have a modification here, just so everyone's aware of what's in, or shall I focus maybe just on the modifications that occurred and we can go back and ask questions. I'm only asking so that we have sort of mission path forward, um, as we go.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Um, maybe Dr. Lazica would like a quick update of what central office is for the district that are there, and then we can focus on what's changed. Sure. Right now, currently housed at Medford High School, what is as a central office, would be all of the senior and district-wide leadership offices. That includes just in a nutshell, I would say like myself, the assistant superintendents, other members of the executive team, our Ken Lord, our operations officer, Will Vaselli, our communications director. We also have up here, the directors, but like pieces that are under Ken's, which is IT, security and facilities. We also have human resources up here, which is a place that not only our employees visit, they have questions about some of their benefits or a need to change some of their benefits, but also any worker vendor, caregiver that we need to complete a court in order to be in our schools, to volunteer and more work. That also includes office and director. And it also includes our finance office and our payroll. So those also two offices in which employees visit. And in addition to that kind of wing, central office. We also have our district wide directors. So that's all of our content directors. We have our communities, math, science, PE and health, art, nursing, world language, technology.
And I can talk about the welcome set too, but do you want me to wait or just... You can wait until we get to those slides, yeah. Sure.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Matt Rice]: All right, so going through the efficiencies that were found, and just looking from the top down, the coffee room was determined that it would be 100 square feet smaller to serve the function that it needed to. So that was one efficiency that was noted. Superintendents, I think, probably got in there from our standard list of things that show up, sometimes in central office suites, and that was immediately taken away. Um, it will be ample toilet rooms around a building. It is not necessary. If we go to the bottom of the page on this, the next 1 in terms of the director is open office. So this is again, sort of open dialogue where. All academic department directors were co-located. Right now there are individual offices in the building because everyone just moved in and available space was around, but this will provide a more efficient configuration for everyone. We did increase that by 100 square feet.
Because we took one of the directors out of an individual office that was sized at 150 square feet on the next page. So there was overall an up shift from 50 square feet by getting them co-located in that centralized director's open office. The next item is the same total area in terms of 200 square feet. There are two individual offices previously, but what we're going to be doing is having a reception area and a waiting area for outside the director shared open office, because it was seen that it's just not appropriate to have somebody walk into that bullpen open office. So there is an administrative assistant assigned to the directors. And so that 200 square feet will accommodate some amount of collection, collecting as well as station for the administrative assistant.
The director's conference room was reduced in size by 50 square feet just given the size of the meeting that would be taking place in that particular conference room. If I go to the meeting page, maybe one more after this as well. If we go down to the payroll open office, so that is, again, separate for the finance group of their own open office area. Each of them are separate from each other, right? They're combining directors as well as man payroll. That space can be a little size in terms of the amount of space required for four individuals within the 80 square foot per person. That's how we got down to 320 square feet.
Under technology, there was a redundant position, a sort of binding of roles that happened. So it was identified that the technology director office could be moved because that was the director. Oh, sorry. I'm talking about the network administrator. The district technology director is the one that was moving up into the shared director offices, right? So this was the 100 square foot office that became 100 feet within the shared environment. And the network administrator was consolidated with the position that's on the line directly above it, the IT manager, network admin. So that 125 square foot dedicated office removed.
Then lastly, as we were Going through discussions that was identified that there was a need for a district supplies to wardrobe, which is a exist here. Currently, I'm at the building. It's located below the gymnasium. It is one of the spaces that has grown to fill the base that was available. So, it's much longer than it is right now. But currently, in terms of distribution of paper goods, so out to the rest of the district. Those slides are delivered here and distributed out as a standard operating procedure. There needed to be some repository for space that appeared and was not identified when we went through the preferred mag report. So, again, we add up all of the efficiencies as well as the additional need for that storage room. We get to an increase of 335. That's correct.
[Luke Preisner]: I have to ask about the phone booth. The doctor who didn't have a fully square-footed phone booth, right? At work, I'm familiar with these calling pods. They don't count against square footage. They're just kind of in the hallway. Tell me what a school booth is. We have a lot of them, by the way. Right.
[Matt Rice]: Yes. And they are a byproduct of even office culture, right? Anyone that has sat in an open office, if any of you know that you can't have a private conversation and sometimes just for if you're in Zoom meetings all day long, you need a place that you can have acoustic privacy. And so we have those sort of as well in our office. Lots of meetings inside. The reason they're 40 square feet here, and so the ones that are in, like, probably everyone's office, they're about 16 square feet. We actually measured them today because I was just curious. They're about four, five, four foot. They're not wheelchair accessible. They're not handicap accessible. So you need a room, and 40 square feet is not a big space altogether. You do need, from an equity standpoint, to provide that resource located throughout each of the the office suites where we have open offices and we're relying on that efficiency that we get in the open office to have those private conversations.
[Phil Santos]: So I see there's, I think that one more page. There's a conference room at 250 square feet, but then there are multiple offices at the same What's at the conference room seems to be a little bewildering to be also the size of an office. There's more people in that office, is that right?
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, so there's different sizings based on the length of the different offices. So usually when we see 250 square feet, that's a desk in an office, but also a small conference table, so we don't have to have a separate conference room. how they're used today, and there's just a large frequency of people coming in needing to meet in groups of like four to six, typically in that type of office space, so that's stabilized. Okay.
[Phil Santos]: I guess the conference rooms, there couldn't be, and then kind of keep the offices a little smaller, because some of the offices are smaller, obviously, right? They're like 150, 125.
[Matt Rice]: I can let the district staff speak to it, but generally it was we're basing it more or less on the model of how things are used. And so there's frequency of the meetings that are occurring. It's enough to keep both that conference, dedicated conference room occupied as well as individual office to have the conference table in them.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Okay. The only thing I would like to say, chime in, chime in. We're getting to a collaborator. And there are a lot of committees, there are a lot of team oriented type meetings, both within like central office, but also within administration district, a lot of joint committees with our bargaining partners, which you know, and our staff, but then there's also means that are confidential, that That is how we are using spaces now for flexibility. And I would say that we often run into overlaps in us trying to, you know, find other spaces maybe around this area, like library, because you're just only moving. Right now we have like two common spaces, which are about the eyes.
[Bair]: Do you want to reveal any that you want to? Luke?
[Luke Preisner]: Well, so the offices of mine, I have an office at work, I'm not very important, but it's like 12 by 10. And so, you know, seeing, and talking to personally, but you know, seeing probably like four offices, there's another one next page at 250, that kind of jumps out. I guess I could add why like one, maybe two or five, but I'm a little disappointed to see so many of them. And also a little disappointed to see an 800 square foot conference room. 800 square foot is like the first floor of an average man's house.
Pretty big. And so yeah, I'm just a little disappointed that we couldn't find efficiencies because we're at an enormous structure. school students principally, and then it's all the extra amenities that we're adding in. So, expressing disappointment.
[John Falco]: This is a big conference room, I agree. The superintendent's conference room, which I don't actually know. I know, this is where everybody's announced. I know. It's not big enough. I've been in rooms, meetings, where everybody's around the table, then everybody around the wall as well. And there's not enough for all of us. I think that you have a group of people around the table, then you have folks to sit outside the table, but not separate, like it's all of us are trying to have a negotiation.
Them being second tier seating is certainly not collaborative. And you're all just, they have just as much of a right to pick up folks who arrive to get a spot at the table. And we've certainly had negotiations where there isn't room for us to even be in the room. So, I mean, it can be six hour long negotiations. So I think having a reasonable and appropriate base is important. I know that It is a big space, but we'll also say in some many meetings where we're gonna go to the superintendent's conference room and it's already booked and we're all like looking for another place to have a meeting. That's sort of like a regular thing here that there's just not enough conference rooms.
The JET conference room, we don't always need it to be big, but when we do, it's a real one that we're, for classrooms that we could try to switch into. That's been my experience. Obviously, I don't work in the building on a day-to-day basis, so I can't speak to special development or whatever other kinds of things you might have going on, but school community events, in my experience, is constantly non-level and non-dual school.
[Matt Rice]: So Helen did show us the square footage, which I'm learning. So we'll just go to Helen for all the questions. 542 square feet is the size of the existing one. I do recall that Mercedes was saying it was exactly what Paul was alluding to, is that there were many uses where it was not sized sufficiently. So we talked about what is the sort of the maximum number of people that we need to accommodate in the room and size the concert room accordingly.
[Luke Preisner]: Thank you. I've got a follow-up question.
[Matt Rice]: Sorry.
[Luke Preisner]: The only thing that came from COVID was this proliferation of virtual conferencing systems, right? We have Teams, we have Zoom, we've got Wex, I'm probably missing some. To what extent was modern video conferencing baked into some of this room sizing, or just was it not?
[Member Jenny Graham]: I think Dr. Galussi should answer that question of the stature and expectations here. Are there opportunities for that? But is the work collaborative, hands-on? You know, that was the news alerting thing almost, but many meetings are in-person because there are artifacts and iterations and sticky notes and part paper and like, thoughts and ideas live on whiteboards and coalescing and creating, like that's the work of education. It's not, there are opportunities essentially where every third grade teacher together during their breath time across the district. We're going to want to zoom and we're going to be able to do that. But if we are talking about, um, negotiations, or Ken's safety meetings, or Ken's team meetings, or Kim's teaching and learning meetings, when Marta wants to grab all of her people at school, like, they're in person because we are working together on shared work. It's just, I feel like I'm having a bad time, a tough time with myself, but it's not, work is always unstable.
[Luke Preisner]: And it sounds like it's cultural. You know, I work in an industry that involves collaboration and complicated activities, occasionally negotiations. That's a different culture. We're geographically separated. And so perhaps there's a great incentive to be able to collaborate and be effective. even if it's complicated. So anyway, thanks for answering and providing insight to the culture.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: Any other questions, Lisa? I was just wondering, because 800B is a big space. I don't know how often it fills up. I know that it's clear that 80, but there's also a lot of spaces in the new building that I think are kind of supportive of collaboration. And I'm just wondering, are other spaces I'm thinking about the large room that's near the new auditorium, like the room there. Are there other spaces that could serve that purpose if it's happening all that frequently?
[Member Jenny Graham]: So I guess I don't know if it's like a twice a day thing or a once a week thing or, you know, once a month. And if there are collaborative spaces that could roll off.
[Ada Gunning]: Thank you. So the priority, I think we said that earlier, of the building function of this building is for the high school students and their teachers to really use this building. The MSBA guidelines of that class have to be used 85% of the time. Popping into a used classroom or an unused space is going to be less likely to happen in the new building as it is here. And the Department of Central Office is to be separate, not to be mingled throughout the high school experience. And so I would caution against having an overflow space for central office function actually be designed for students to be 20% of students in this new space. We do use the conference rooms all the time. They are always used. The extra space in some of the larger offices with the smaller conference tables are used constant and we are still strapped to look for space that doesn't, on a regular basis, that doesn't impact the ability of teaching and learning that happens in high school buildings. I think in previous iterations already, we've created some redactions in a number of conference rooms that were originally assigned to central office. And so this is sort of what we think we can look with and still be the weapon of the district and not impact the really important flexible work for teaching and learning that I was in high school for.
[Member Jenny Graham]: You know, you could look on its face at the 800 square feet, but the other side, just like the operations, the things that happen day to day, is the adjacency having two conference rooms In central office, we have 11 bargaining units. Under negotiations, we need both conference rooms. Sometimes there are also issues that involve staffing, legal meetings. Aside from the teaching and learning, there are the other pieces to what happens in central office that having conference spaces more than one and located within the same kind of adjacency is just needed and critical for the overall functioning.
[John Falco]: This also represents less conference rooms than we have now. We have the very large kind of conference room that is in the hall right here and then between the superintendent's office and the finance department is an even larger concern. And those two are not enough. We're getting less. So I won't be involved. I wasn't involved in the conversations to decide who can tell how flat. But, you know, we are doing negotiations. We're in a room with our own team and the team of the union. Where we need 800. And then we caucus. So we all on our team get up, leave, and we go to another conference room. So we can talk about what we want to talk about, they can talk about what they want to talk about, and we're back and forth and back and forth. And sometimes, a lot of times. So that's two conference rooms that are immediately available for any other administrative activity going on at all. Like, we don't want to start an end time off. But they always wanted to go. So we can't be using a space that has land threshold about or some other group is planning. So, a little disappointing we're going to have to.
I think the ship has sailed and that's that. Thank you.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Are there any other questions about the central office changes? Paul?
[Michael Pardek]: I have two things. I actually support Constituency Rooms. This is an organization that has They're going to need the conference room. I would say the hall between the two separate caucus room being adjacent was where there was like the difference between the union saying yes or us being stuck forever. I think that is a very, very real thing. I had to do that work. I can't imagine what it would look like. My brief time working at an organization with Boston Public Schools, where it really pains me that none of this is reversible. But my brief time working at an organization that worked with Boston Public School, where I worked with incredibly talented and hardworking people in the central office, and incredibly talented, hardworking people who were principals, administrators, teachers. The really sad thing was that the central office didn't have anything good to say about that from the principal admin side. that there was an us versus them aspect that was really disappointing. So I don't wish for anything to reduce any of the space, even though it's, I wish that we'd built an admin center on this campus 20 years ago when there was construction costs weren't so expensive, so that we wouldn't have to be dealing with this, but I don't see any alternative. Otherwise, who's gonna run this place? The only thing I would say is the storage of materials here, paying is going to be, again, if we could have done this project 10 or 20 years earlier, paying what's going to be inflation-adjusted prices to store goods and material for every school. Is there any way that the other school buildings could take up any of that store space so that this building where every square foot is, you know, thousands of dollars in this.
[Bair]: Ken?
[Kenneth Lord]: The reason we get major deliveries here and store and deliver at the other schools, we don't have the space at the other schools. So that evolved because of the lack of storage space at the other buildings as they get. So we have to store. We might, you know, there's a volume that we need to deliver to the schools as we go. That's kind of why it's that way.
[Luke Preisner]: Luke? Sorry, Carol. Carol here. I'm going to try to make a motion, but I kind of want to explain and justify what's behind it. So, you know, I think through the ed plan, through all our hundreds of meetings over 20 months, we've got this like pretty perfect vision of what the school should be. And we're creating these deficiencies and proposing and voting on them. And, you know, all of the stuff all of these if perhaps we can introduce like a circuit breaker concept. So I think as we strive for perfection, we don't want it to become the enemy of a good album in June or whenever we vote on this. So that motion, it kind of creates a circuit breaker. So, a safety message. There's a lot we don't know. And we might get good news.
When someone was put on contract, provided updated costing and schedule information, we might get fake news. We're optimists. And so, because at this moment in time we don't have that information, I think that we should apply kind of a parole to ourselves, right? We're going to go through these efficiencies and we're going to arrive at a final number and it's going to cost something that we won't know really until January. But if we have a circuit breaker that trips the annual debt service or debt exclusion, is quadruple what the recent override was, that triggers. If the cost to finance this school is quadruple what the Prop 25 override generated on a manual basis, then can we commit to pausing and referring the ed plan back to school committee so that school committee can decide what to change so that we get under the quadrupling of prop 2.5 override.
I'd like to make a motion.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Is there a... I have a question.
[John Falco]: Yeah.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Is that, well, Virginia, is that like, would we, that would set us back on the process, would we take back some steps and... Yes. I mean, it would be much more expensive. We'd be saving money for the short term and construction costs could go up and up. Okay, so, yes.
[Luke Preisner]: I'd say MSBA, you know, they give you a timing, but most districts take their time through the process. And if you speak with MSBA, they'll encourage you to take whatever time you need so that the community is fully on board with the project. In the case of Lowell, I think there was a lot of community conversation about where to school. Now, a lot of these projects, they, you know, they'll come to schools for years. I think it took 13 or 14 years. And the reason it took so long was because one group of residents wanted to live in the Belvedere, I don't know if you're familiar with the Belvedere neighborhood. And then another group wanted to keep it in downtown. And it took them years to sort it out. And when they did, they came together. And Lowell's got a beautiful high school. It's right in downtown. It's gorgeous. It contains a historical thing and adds to it phenomenal new facilities.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Is there an event?
[Unidentified]: Ask a question. I didn't say that. Deliberate.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Just ask your question. We have got to keep going.
[Andre Leroux]: So, if we were to try to do anything, like, the motion that just put forward when it comes to changing either, I know, obviously, we get pushed back with that. I'm just changing the design that we're in the process of doing. So we start and then halfway through something changes like that because of the suggestion of the motion. How did that even impact the design? More than just theoretical, I mean, we're in the process of building something, and then we were changed to have a process, but we don't necessarily have to. We weren't planning for it, because it wasn't something that came up. I mean, I can't imagine what it would look like.
[Member Jenny Graham]: I think because of the MSBA process, we kicked back to the very beginning of the process. We were like, we have to start this process again. If you're telling the SBA that the Ed plans are starting from square one, I don't know if they would send you back or if you've seen further process. I will say the feasibility study agreement for 913 days, that brings us to August 2027, but that is the timeline we have. We have to have approval by the SBA by that date if we're not going to them with a significant change.
[Bair]: Is there a second?
[Member Jenny Graham]: Hearing none, we're going to move on. Matt, can you go to the recap slide for Centralist? There is a recommendation here on able or rental office. Is there a motion? Approved by Brian. Is there a second? I will call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: No.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Dr. Gallupi? Yes. Marta Cabral? Yes. Ken Lord?
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Jen Belanger? Yes. Libby Brown?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Maria Dorsey?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Brian Hilliard? Yes. Tracy Keene? Paul Malone?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, 13 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, one no, one abstention. No. 13 in the affirmative, sorry. One in the negative, thank you. One absent, so 12 in the affirmative, one in the negative, one absent, one abstention. The motion passes. Welcome back.
[Matt Rice]: So again, maybe it's up to Dr. Belushi to outline things here, but there were not efficiencies that were found in a part of the schematic design phase for the Welcome Center. There were several modifications that were made during the preferred schematic report phase that reduced some office sizes, that consolidated some spaces already. So the efficiencies were already reflected in the Welcome Center space themselves.
[Member Jenny Graham]: So just to briefly, I know I've said this before, but just for people that are maybe just tuning in. So the Welcome Center, maybe aka the registration center, we call it the Welcome Center. It is the hub of many public schools. And we, even in the building, are very intentional about what we locate around our Welcome Center. So the families come here to register their children. They have immediate access to a variety of departments and they can get their questions answered or feel and receive some support. So the adjacencies that are critical to the welcome center, our assistant superintendent for special education and student services, Kim Quinn is located right next to it, our director of nursing, Jen Silva is located directly next to it, our director of English learners, Chelsea McNiff is directed, it's located right there. Our after school program managing director, Katie Ossette is located adjacent, as well as our transportation major, Ina Williams, as well as MFN. So any question or any support that families need when they're coming here to start, that is located around the Welcome Center. Inside, are two very dedicated, very highly skilled registration specialists that interact with families coming in to register and the community.
Also within that space are some district translators. So they work directly with families that may need translation services while they are there at registration. One of our registry specialists also speaks four languages, I believe. I'm happy to answer any questions about the Welcome Center, but it is number one core value for us that all those adjacencies meet as part of our Welcome Center. Are there any questions?
[Ada Gunning]: Liz? Is the Welcome Center early access right now in high school? This is the room on a square footage.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: It's bigger. How does this kind of compare?
[Member Jenny Graham]: Yes, when you walk in the front door in the foyer, right in front of you is the welcome center. And then I could point you, but like all the offices that are kind of like in a rounded left to the right, even right behind this door, he is all English learner. It was all needed right here.
[Ada Gunning]: think it's about the same.
[Member Jenny Graham]: It might be a little, it might be, when you walk in the setup, there's not an immediate space for the registration specialists to like go up to a table and work with families. They would have to go out in the hall or in the foyer where we set up some tables there. So it's, That part is tricky. You walk in, there's kind of like a counter, and then there are two decks. So there is need for kind of like, yeah, just a smaller like space where they can have sometimes potential conversations. Thank you.
[Matt Rice]: Yeah. We are doing some math here just to add things up a little. Rosemary, our educational planner that is listed, reminded me to note as well that some of the testing offices right now are actually in converted closets. That's the amount of space that people have. So if there is an increase, and it looks like there's a really good proportion of a little around 900, 300 square feet. So we're going from 4,700 square feet overall to 38 acre square feet. We're also right sizing that for that space.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Any other questions? When other school districts or most districts, this space usually exists within the central admin building, not like within our schools. It varies. Okay, I'm just curious. It just seems to me it's a non-space and not being reused.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: We can do that.
[Matt Rice]: I would say all central office spaces. It's not MSBA being like particular. What I've heard is just categorically non-rape.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I know this one just seems like particularly. Yeah.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: Any other questions?
[Unidentified]: I don't know that we need to vote on this in particular. It's just because there's no efficiencies noted here.
[Member Jenny Graham]: OK, moving on. Next up is our remaining chapter 74 space that we previously looked at.
[Matt Rice]: All right, so this is a continuation of the last meeting when we reviewed the majority of them, probably got through 75% of the space previously. So we'll do the remaining programs and these was the. meetings that we had went to the last SVC meeting. I will bring them to you at this point in time. And again, I'll just go through the reductions that are here, but are there any questions on any of the other talks or line after we get through it. So for programming web development, so that is Lisa Schacht in particular, there was a determination of the related classrooms was not needed on top of the space itself. Because the type of activities that are going on within job space are really conserve that for academic instruction as well as the creative programming and design piece that's involved there as well. So that was an efficiency we were able to find in programming and web development.
If I jump then down to film and TV. Again, this is one of the program spaces that increased in terms of size. It previously sat at 2,500 square feet. It was sized appropriately for classes of, or counts of 20 students, grades 10 to 12, to be within that top space at one point in time. It also was the number of students that DESE allows for one instructor. There are two instructors currently within film and TV, because all of those students that are potential in that program would be in the shop space at the same time or have potential. We needed to upsize the shop from accommodating 20 students up to 40 students. Again, we have those instructors, so this is not future planning, this is accurately sizing the space to see where it permits. Part of that, but also to acknowledge the fact that similar programs would build Film and TV instructors felt comfortable by having a dedicated room because that square footage allows for two editing labs that would be distinct. Network footage also account for the recording studio as well as the control booth and associated storage spaces around it. It is a large number, but there's a lot of parts and says individual space that are wrapped and it's really right eyes for the number of students to plan for that particular program moving forward.
I'll finish going through these and then I'm happy to come back on any of them. So, the next efficiency that was found was with arts in particular in space. We had this discussion with some of the CTE programs during the last go-around as well. It's again trying to get an accurate understanding of how many students in grades 10-12 would be in the kitchen space at one point in time. Culinary Arts is one of the AB programs that has students that do a week within the kitchen at Culinary Arts and potentially also outdoor in their hour space. So they're going to have a different type of schedule. And that allows for some efficiency found in terms of the number of students that would be in the kitchen at one point in time. So we're reducing from 5,625 to 4,219 square feet. That 4,219 square feet is still 2,300 square foot from the kitchen that is currently located at Culinary Arts.
That is one of the spaces that is the most vastly oversized of any of the CTE programs in the space right now. And there's a space where students are, they're cooking with flames, they're knives. There's things that we want to make sure that we have adequate space around students. And that's a requirement still within that reduced shortage that we have. And then the last set of efficiencies in this grouping of the chapters, 74 bases is within dental assisting dental assisting is new programs. Now, the 2 that are not there yet that will be forthcoming. But we did have the ability to speak with some of the installers that actually do mental health assisting shops really across the state. There's I think just one company that basically has installed them. They will give us some advice in terms of what the programs of some of the sites are doing right now. And so there, the dedicated x-ray room, their location and square footages that we had previously accounted in addition to the shop space can be accounted for within that 1,875 square foot shops. It doesn't mean that those rooms go away or not, it just means that we're actually going to wrap them to the square footage of the shop.
So overall, with the ad efficiencies, we have an overall net deduction of 900 square feet, under a six-square-feet for this curriculum versus other programs.
[Bair]: Any questions about these space urgencies?
[Phil Santos]: The related classrooms in each of these programs, right, so the difference between the main room and the related classroom, I assume in pregnancy most of their time in the shop room, then sometimes there's classrooms that they have to go through, and so they have to spend time in the related classroom. And so those aren't used all the time. I don't know what the percentage is between, you know, how they do it. But I'm sure it was looked at, right? Just maybe a, just to repeat, just the need for each of these programs to have related classrooms, because they're not all using them all together, right? You can program it in a way where alternately you can have something like SHED, but we've done it in some of the other shops. And then maybe I'm understanding, I just don't understand what the information support services stuff is, but that sounds similar to programming and web development. So the programming and web development got rid of their related classroom because they can use their shop for that. Why couldn't information and support services also do the same thing?
[Matt Rice]: Great question. I'll take a stab at an answer, and I'm actually going to let Director Pelham chime in. Correct if I say anything incorrect. But generally what we found is that the breakdown of when shops felt like they needed a separate related room versus not is when they're sort of a dirtier shop. Students are actually getting changed and they're getting all sorts of things on as part of their actual CTE program when they're in the shop. So the difference between programming and web development, which is more software based, is that ISSN is not a very friendly name of opt-in to what people are doing, but it's more like networking. It's hardware in terms of actually taking apart computers, network devices, and putting them back together. So there is the ability for them to get to a sort of clean space, if you will, in that separate related room. But we did have that specific conversation at every one of the 17 programs that we have here now to understand whether or not we could keep a related room, or we needed to keep a related room, or we could sort of blend it into the shops. And it really came down to sort of the direct, the instructor type, as to what they felt was appropriate.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Any other questions about CTE spaces? I didn't know if Allen wanted to say anything. Chad?
[Chad Fallon]: Yes, can you hear me?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Chad Fallon]: Mr. Rice, you did a great job. It's almost like we went through all these meetings together. I will just say that, yes, what Matt said, there certainly are some programs that have decided they don't need an additional classroom because they feel like the space they have in their shop is adequate. But I just want everyone to remember that Related is a regulation of Chapter 74 that students have to have it. Our students have it in their academic schedule. So while it may seem that they're only used part, you know, in the morning of a school day, those classrooms are actually used throughout the day. Freshmen start their day, their experience in there, and sophomores, same thing in the afternoon. So the related room for those programs really does get used much more than just for some classroom time. So when we went through the efficiencies, we really had hard conversations about what this is going to look like in a new building with a bigger shop size that you might not need the dedicated related class. But I can tell you that I feel really confident after the conversations that we've built this right size now for the programs that really feel like they need that academic setting off the shop space. Hope that helps.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Thank you. Are there any other questions, Lisa? Just about the toilet rooms in Culinary Arts and just sort of all of the listening rooms.
[Bair]: Are those for the community that's coming to them or for the students with the program or both?
[Member Jenny Graham]: And I guess that kind of applies to the toilet rooms that would be for their community-facing.
[Matt Rice]: Right. So when we've called out toilet rooms in any of the programs, itemizations, the line items, right? It's because there is sort of an additional need for, this would be for high school students to be changing and have direct access to toilet facilities without going out into the rest of the building, because they may be dirty, like for culinary, it's more of a health issue, health code issue, versus like if you're in auto tech and you're just covered with grease or something like that.
In terms of toilet roof, or say the public, That would actually be included within the Bistro 49 square footage of thousand square feet. And then there's the other toilet rooms for general use of the entirety of this popular cases. again, for programs that students are not getting dirty, they certainly will have access to nearby toilet rooms and they can go out and use those. I think the last creation we did at these meetings, for instance, engineering expects determination that their students could actually go out and use the Sydney toilet room. So we did take away those dedicated toilets.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Any other questions? Is there a motion? So, Dr. Lustig, Dr. Dennis, I'll call the roll. Jenny Grimm, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn, yes. Dr. Gallupi, yes. Marta Cabral, yes. Ken Lord, yes. Jen Bollinger, yes. Lindy Brown, yes. Maria Dorsey, yes. Brian Hilliard, yes. Tracy Keene, yes. Nicole Morell, yes. Blaine, yes, Harold Cotting, yes, Luke Pryzner. Four affirmative, negative, one absent. The motion is approved. Okay. We are... We're almost there. ...an extension of our central administration, their spaces that we wanted to make sure we covered.
[Matt Rice]: Right, so well, the 1st, 1 is the team health center that we know that we've talked about with this group previously, but we haven't looked at efficiencies. I mean, we did the ability to have a dedicated programming meeting for the team health center after it was determined that included in the building. Um, and what we were able to sit down and look at, um, some prior examples, um, at surrounding where they did have any shelters and make some evaluations about what was previously noted. They found an overall reduction to 55 square feet, which doesn't seem like a proportionally for the overall size of the space, um, is, is consequential. Um, and it's just a run through what those origins were. We had previously identified a need for two toilet rooms in within the suite of team health center. And I provide that we could drop that down to a single.
Consultation office were oversized and so we reduced the size of them. Well, as long as you have them, which resulted in overall net production error of 100 square feet. There was previously a dedicated staff room and what we saw was that there is a need for a small group council room as part of a teen health space. And so we can use sort of that small conference room and double the staff room in this multi-purpose space. The dedicated room was removed. There is a multi-purpose room that was added down below at a slightly smaller size. The storage space was reduced from 100 to 60 square feet. There were some other office spaces and support spaces that were added in to compensate. One health educator office, which was sort of a component of this particular program, as well as a lab, a bed safety zone, and a soil maintenance. Those bottom three, which are required again by the Department of Gross. So we have an overall net production of 255 net square feet. The image on the left-hand side, again, is in that EC footprint, but we're up on the third floor, which is also where the central office is, the welcome center, the denial center at this point we're located. We did have some discussions about the location for the denial center as well. We want to make sure that it has direct exterior access to facilitate new members, teens visiting, families visiting. And so it may have some benefit also though towards the nursing office for the high school as well because there are opportunities for some shared resources and just having proximity of teens being able to go from that nurse's office into the teen call center where different services will be offered.
[Bair]: Questions?
[Member Jenny Graham]: Their motion. Motion to approve by Riyad. Second by Libby. I will call the roll. Jen Ram, yes. Mayor Longaard, yes. Dr. Galuzzi, yes. Marta Cabral, yes. Ken Lord, yes. Jen Belanger, yes. I mean yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And the final piece of central admin, I think is the final piece.
[Matt Rice]: This isn't a high school administration. Previously, I think really, maybe the first time we actually had a session like this, we did the counseling spaces, the guidance office and such. that were associated with the school administration. This is really the remainder of the high school administration offices, including everything from the principal's office, SRO's office, right, just to give you a sense of sort of what's included in this. Again, I'm just gonna run through the revisions that were made. So for the general off waiting room with the toilet, so that description is the MSB guidelines in terms of how they describe the space. Um, we were increasing it from the baseline.
Space that the allocate center and 98 square feet to 198 square feet and that was to accommodate of 1 assistant sort of collected the office area that is going to mix some of the main office. There's another reduction down below. This is another dedicated office previously at 150 square feet. Even though that has increased the overall net production of the 50 square feet as we look at it. We did remove also the teacher's mail and time room, as that function could be accommodated more in the coffee room. This is a similar concept to what we did within an office. I will back up a second and mention that there's a fair amount of this administration space that is reimbursable for the MSBA. It is directly out of the guidelines. I think above and beyond baseline guidelines, they also indicated to us to be reimbursed for the SRO office, as well as the Campus Security Monitor office. So those are the reimbursable pieces and noted the non-reimbursable items here in the comments column as we go through. For instance, they reimburse only for two of the associate principal offices. We have four associate principals, so those second two offices are non-reimbursable.
Jump down all the way to the campus security monitor and the SRO office. We are moving those from 150 to 100 square feet with the campus security monitor because we're intending for that individual to be sort of on an island like they are. door here today they would actually be backed up to the main offices so they're going to be able to take some advantage of the efficiency of space working around them. And with the SRO office it was more of an issue that the SRO didn't have to be out and about in the school as opposed to just sitting in their office all day long that's part of their role and responsibility so it didn't make sense to give them a larger office at the end of it.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Is there a second page Matt?
[Matt Rice]: There is a second page. So let me just go through these and then we can sort it. The CTE section dedicated waiting space, this is removed in the understanding that we are comprehensive high school. Even though there is a dedicated CTE reception waiting space A, it is remote and it's a vestige of sort of the separate building that previously existed. So we're consolidating all of the administration space, both CTE and academic high school in one space. So the executive director office, for instance, which is still a part of the program, will be located in the high school administration. So again, we just took away the dedicated separate reception.
The TE conference room was reduced in size, given the fact that both of the conference rooms will be located in a single suite. It makes sense to have two of the same size. There was a need for a larger one that was in the high school administration office, as per the SBA guidelines. And then a slightly smaller one here that still gives a good capacity. And then lastly, back to the phone booths, there were four that were identified here. And there was a, there's still a need for those private conversations, given that we have open office by school administration, but reducing it from four to two. So all those reductions were a total of 630 net square feet.
[John Falco]: When we toured Arlington High School, I seem to remember that we interfaced several times. One per floor per wing, I think. Now, I mean, I obviously didn't bring any measuring tape, but are we saying 98 feet is all we're going to get or all of the way across the whole building because you know, we're not going to have the cultural change if everybody doesn't get a classroom for themselves. Plankton went through that as well. That was less painful because there were, in fact, frankly, lovely pieces featured in their own little kitchenettes.
Oh, there are four more. Is this just a little number, Sparky, and you might shut up?
[Matt Rice]: No, so to answer that question, there are additional teacher planning spaces that are programmed as part of a core academic space that I reviewed previously. Honestly, I cannot tell you why the MSBA breaks it down like this and they put this workroom down and then have the separate teacher planning spaces. I forget the names, but there's enough footage there to distribute across the entire of the building in terms of individual teacher planning spaces. Thank you.
[Luke Preisner]: Luke? So Matt, I want to ask about two things. So the school resource officer room and then also... So the school resource officer room, if you're making it smaller, do you think there's remaining capacity to add an SRO if in the future you find that you need additional SRO because you have this much more mixed population in the building? could 100 square feet accommodate two SLRs? The manner you described, they need a place to potentially log in, check email, drop off their things, and they're doing patrols, I guess, is kind of how I was understanding your explanation. Is 100 adequate for people who decide that you need another one because this population is far more mixed?
[Matt Rice]: So I can offer some thoughts, and I would probably defer to the school administration. I will say that for a building that is larger in terms of projected enrollment, say, over at Seville High School, we had one SRO officer. For Waltham High School, where they're up at 1830 students, they have two. So I think the threshold in terms of when you might need two is probably a little higher than what we're programmed for at 1385, just given precedence for surrounding communities.
From my personal perspective, I don't think that the mixing of vocational students and academic students would drive the need for an additional SRO officer. I just don't see that as a typical consideration, but I'm not sure if I'm... I'm not asking to predict whether it would happen.
[Luke Preisner]: I'm asking whether capacity exists if learned that we need another one. Marta?
[Member Jenny Graham]: So currently right now, yes, the SRF feed is extremely visible. And I would say that you really take those breaks in there. And it's out and about when it comes to public time, when students are in class, at lunch, and so forth. They really just need a space to put their stuff away and a desk to check email and occasionally campus. So I'm not an expert, but I think that they need 150 seats.
[Matt Rice]: for two desks in 100 square feet, you could put two down there. It's not gonna be spacious and comfy, but it all sounds like that's maybe not necessary in terms of the environment. It's really a place for them to sit down.
[Luke Preisner]: The second question I had was with the driver's ed room. Is the purpose of that room to conduct the driver's ed curriculum, or is that an office for something?
[Matt Rice]: some conversations about this earlier today. So, again, to turn it over to Martha.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Yes, so currently it is a place where they take phone calls, do registration. There's an office there and there's a person that is overseeing it, a teacher here at Medford High School.
[Luke Preisner]: Are they delivering a recruitment or are they just processing applications?
[Member Jenny Graham]: I might ask Mr. Fallon if he's still on. because it's out of his way.
[Chad Fallon]: Sorry, can you repeat that last part?
[Luke Preisner]: Is the purpose of the driver's education room inclusive of delivering driver's ed curriculum?
[Chad Fallon]: I honestly can't speak to drivers that I did mention to the team. It's located within my office suite now, but they have their own coordinator. And all I know from what I've heard from the coordinator is that the Registry of Motor Vehicles requires that they have a space that's dedicated to them with a locking door and a phone.
[Member Jenny Graham]: with other similar office spaces?
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, so it is an office space as opposed to a space where students are visiting, I believe, and they're not taking any sort of tests in there.
[Luke Preisner]: There's a driver's ed curriculum that every new driver in Massachusetts has to go through. And I'm trying to learn what the purpose of this is. So far, I haven't really heard I think a full characterization of what goes on in there. I just heard the room that can be locked and it's got a desk. But I know there's a need for driver's ed every year. Half the students are probably getting student permits or maybe not half, maybe a quarter will be seeking permits any given year.
150 square feet. I mean, given how generous we are with the other rooms, it doesn't seem like a lot if the purpose is to deliver a curriculum.
[Chad Fallon]: So member Graham, if I can. The classrooms that are used for the parent classes and the student classroom hours are just high school classrooms that are used after hours. The office is specifically for the driver's ed staff. to have a locking file cabinet and a desk with a phone. No students are meeting in there with the coordinator. It's just for their space.
[Luke Preisner]: Oh, okay, so it's office space for the people that are conducting the program.
[Chad Fallon]: Yes, no student goes in this space. It's just for the adults.
[Bair]: There's currently two staff members.
[Chad Fallon]: Yep, we have a coordinator and then a classroom instructor.
[Luke Preisner]: And they share 150 feet?
[Chad Fallon]: Yes, they're never in there at the same time. Thank you.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Are there other questions about these spaces? Is there a motion? Moved by Dr. Galuzzi. Second. Seconded by Brian. I'll call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Wendell Kern.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Dr. DeLucie, yes. Marta Cabral, yes. Ken Lord, yes. Jen Belanger, yes. Libby Brown, yes. Maria Darcy, yes. Shane Hilliard, yes. Katie Keene, yes. Paul Malone, yes. Nicole Morell, yes. Lynn Blunt, yes. Erin Olapade, yes. 14 in the affirmative, zero in the negative, one absent, the motion approved. Okay. So Matt's going to take us a quick recap of where we are.
[Matt Rice]: So this is the conclusion of our space efficiency exercise. And so the sum total of all the recommended efficiencies from this evening with gross square footage and again the gross square footage is One and a half times the net square footage we have, so something for hallways and walls, stairs, sort of that percentage of space. So that's how we get from the sum total of the net square footage to the gross. We were previously at 570,186 gross square feet. As of this evening, as we conclude the process, we are now down to 570,186 gross square feet.
And again, estimating total cost reduction as well associated with that gross footage. We're now down to a current snapshot of our budget estimate at $746,153,410. Correct. We have another slide coming up that wraps in Ken's world. This is exclusively just the square footage reductions that we have and sort of a snapshot of where we are on square footage, as well as the estimated total project cost. Down below is, again, that listing of spaces that currently and features that are currently included in that total project cost.
What we have after that, as well as a slightly different way of just going back and looking at all the different meetings that have occurred since the PSR session, that last submission to the state, preferred schematic report submission. At each one of the meetings, 25, I had 922 in this evening, indicating that that drop was in terms of square footage. So we started out at XO8, 792 gross square feet, and we're now down to 567, 877.
It's almost 40,000 a little bit over that that we pulled out again without affecting the education plan. And the MSBA has confirmed for us even again most recently that we need to be respecting the educational plan. They will be reviewing that as we said with the schematic design package. But the fact we have these adjustments in the very granular way that we've been talking about it with every single educator we've been going through and we've been remaining through to the case plan. I believe that that be supported and welcomed by the MSBA as sort of an effort, an efficiency effort that we have gone through. In terms of the dollar values of what represents close to $5 million in terms of estimated savings, just based on the reduction in terms of, again, gross square footage, program size within the building.
very consequential to the overall budget as well.
[Bair]: Matt, give them one more second.
[Matt Rice]: Yeah, so this is a good slide as well. So this is like Ken spoiled. Basically, it makes our number that we had gotten to both in both square footage that doesn't change, but the total project cost. And it also accounts for the credit associated with each system recommendation that was accepted, as well as the additional cost to support the power purchase agreement upfront. And so when those two things are accounted for, it will cost. And remember, I talked about the 42% multiplier and the 22% multiplier.
We put all together, we're now just shy of 700M. It feels much better than saying it's $199M of the project. But that is incredibly considerate. I mean, we've taken $100M out of the project. very thoughtful discussions, well-developed considerations from the MEP systems as well as the overall space. So that is the result of a tremendous amount of work already here in this room, as well as the entirety of the user team educators that have spoken over the course of the past three months, four months, going through this process, as well as the advisor teams as well. So a lot of appreciation to all of you to get us to where we are at point.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Okay, we're going to move on to the next section. which is to take a look at some parking alternates for parking and athletic fields. So if you remember, we've been hearing potential alternates for parking and athletic fields, and we have some decisions to make on that tonight. And we will end this meeting, I promise, by talking about any other proposals, comments, space efficiencies, et cetera.
[Matt Rice]: So, we do have a little to share in terms of update the site plan here, but I want to take us back to the stories that we're looking at during both the preliminary design program phase as well as the bird schematic phase. We're looking at various options that we're placing a field over the parking either in a multi story parking situation. or just a single go parking really at grade with a structured field up above. You can see here that each of these options came with a very significant price tag associated with it. And it also came with the necessary compromising of opportunity for total extra panels to be placed over that parking because we can't put PV panels over parking if we haven't pulled over parking and just those things don't work.
Because of this, we are recommending that we abandon all of the field over parking options because we have already decided to go down that road of aiming for 100% net zero energy. Of course, we need to have those solar canopies or the parking spaces. So it's truly an organization of sustainability of the project versus general or field resources. These would have been field inventory to the site, and that's the main advantage that they offer, but cost in terms of other options. That is the recommendation. We eliminate all of these field or parking options.
[Bair]: Are there any questions?
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: To the Chair, Member Graham. Yes, I'll move that motion to eliminate all these options as one who's very concerned about not only the debt exclusion passing on June 8th, but also just how this will affect a number of our residents who may not be able to afford something so high. I'll say that I'm very happy that we've been able to reduce somewhat from the original price tag. I just fear that it's may not be enough. So although I didn't second Luke's motion, I do think that as we're designing and as we're knocking on doors and trying to get support for this project, if we feel that we need to reduce it more down the line, I think that needs to be still on the table somehow, some way. Thank you.
[Member Jenny Graham]: On the motion to remove the from consideration there is there a second second? Any other questions? Hey, I'll call the role. Jenny Graham. Yes, I want to occur.
[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Dr. Galusi, Spartacus, and Lord. Yes, gentle Andrew. Yes, let me. Yes, yes, Brian Hilliard. Yes, Tracy King. Paul Malone. Yes. Nicole Morell. Yes. Liz Mullane. Yes. Erin Lopate. Yes. Sue Preissner.
[Nick Giurleo]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Four confirmatives, zero negatives, one absence. Those items are remote. Okay. As we round the bend here, as we have been discussing, back in April, we tabled hundreds of sufficiency proposals for a later date. And today is that later date. So what is attached to the agenda are those items for which they have not been otherwise accepted or integrated into the project. In some cases, things that were partially accepted. Here's how we're going to operate through this next section. We're going to go category by category, much like we have as we have talked about these spaces.
The first thing that I'll ask the committee is if there are motions to untable the items, and I will ask you to use the number on the charts to do so. If there is a second for untabling, then we will deliberate. We'll welcome public comment about those items on the table, and then we will vote. We'll move through category by category. And then at the end, we will ask if there are any additions from the public, from folks who have been here with us all morning, thank you very much for your patience, before we officially close the book on space issues. Are you okay with that?
[Luke Preisner]: Can I ask a question? Luke. I just want to confirm that because I made the motions and the way the tabling was accomplished, that prohibited from untabling anything.
[Member Jenny Graham]: No, no, you're able to untable things.
[Luke Preisner]: Anybody can do it. The April 27th voting was, I think it explicitly prohibited me from untabling anything. We should take a look at it.
[Member Jenny Graham]: That was during that meeting. Those were rules that were adopted for the course of that meeting, you are welcome to untable things if there is a second and a majority vote.
[Ada Gunning]: Okay? I just want to make sure I understand. So we can even choose to untable things and vote, et cetera. If they remain untabled or we don't make a motion about them?
[Member Jenny Graham]: They will permanently stay on the table. This is the last meeting where we are making these changes. So they stay on the table, get untabled over there. Correct. Okay. And Paul, two things. So we don't have a motion to just stand and take affirmative. Yeah, we can dispose of them at the end of this motion. And just for discussion, I was looking at this, you know, as we're going through this and before, and a lot of these were addressed through other votes, not specifically through these motions, but through all of these speeches that they did. The vast majority of these have been done. not these specifically, but a lot of the budget and that have been voted on prior to the fact. The 29 that I think goes for sure. And those are listed there, but I think majority. Okay, so we'll give this a spin.
The first category is administration and guidance. And so what Matt is going to do to anchor us is make sure that There's an understanding of what those spaces are, so if people have questions, there's an ink there, so Matt's going to find the slides and pull them up for administrative guidance. Are there any motions to unable any case changes for administrative guidance? Hearing and seeing none, I'm going to move on to the next item. Art and music. Matt, if you can pull up the art and music section. Will?
[Unidentified]: Just on the housing one, the staff class for 950.
[Will Pipicelli]: For administration and guidance?
[Unidentified]: Yes. with the other classroom reduction, it should get reduced down to the 900 as well.
[Member Jenny Graham]: There are a motion to reduce the Steps classroom by five square feet. By Aaron. Seconded by Liz. Sorry, that would be a motion to unable. Unable. Aaron, Liz, I'll call the roll. Jenny Graham, yes. Mayor Lundquist. Dr. Galusi? Yes. Mark O'Rourke?
[Martine Dion]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Ken Lord? Yes. Ben Belanger?
[Martine Dion]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Libby Brum? Yes. Maria Dorsey? Yes. Brian Hilliard? Yes. Tracy King? Paul Malone?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Paul Burruss? Yes. Liz Mullane? Yes. Daniel LaPate? Yes. Ruth Presner?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: 13, affirmative. Zero on the negative, two absent. The staff classroom is disabled. for a motion to reduce that item by 50 square feet.
[Andre Leroux]: Motion to reduce.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Seconded by Liz. Come with me, guys. We're going to get there.
[Luke Preisner]: Motion to reduce it further to 825, which would be the minimum. Although, I don't think it's a reimbursable space. For those on the map, take 825.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Is that an amendment you'd like to accept?
[Andre Leroux]: Can you just clarify as to why you'd want to do that?
[Luke Preisner]: Sure. So MSBA, this is not, I don't think it's an MSBA reimbursable. MSBA has two endpoints, low and high. The maximum reimbursement is for 950 and all our classrooms were sized, so we dropped it to 900. The minimum is 825. So I'm just offering an amendment to further reduce space because we're paying probably over $1,000 for it.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Is that an amendment that you want to accept?
[Andre Leroux]: Well, I just calculated what the steps program actually, like what services it provides. If reducing it under the $900, what we've been doing with all the other general classrooms, what that would look like, please.
[Ada Gunning]: So the steps program and the steps classroom that have been out for an extended period, that are returning to school after a hospitalization or another long absence need support.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: Can I ask a clarification question? Sure. How many students can 825 Fairfield accommodate comfortably?
[Matt Rice]: The typical classroom size at the lower end would be 23 students if they were sitting in a general academic setting. I think this program, even though it's not technically special education, or is it? No, it's not. But you are working with smaller groups of students, and they're maybe typically around 15 range as their target size. We'll say we're trying to keep this at a typical classroom module to match the rest of the school so that it fits into the program and the structural module of the building itself. Whereas trying to reduce this one versus all the classrooms to that lower 8 to 5 would sort of complicate how it integrates in with the rest of the building.
[Ada Gunning]: The number of students in that space at a time is variable and can change every week, month on month.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: I'll have teachers in the current model that I work in and provide support to students. There can be at times more than one adult in that space. Boarding students, also students with a whole spectrum of needs that are returning to school that I would argue require more space than a typical classroom while they're at the table.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Martha, did you have your hand up? Yeah, I think you encompassed it well. I also wanted to add that for your students that are in there for the full entirety of the day and you're all in that space, being able to set up the space at different times would be helpful for students to be able to access the content areas throughout the day.
[Phil Santos]: Phil? I got a design question again. When we have, when we're giving these numbers, right, at the end of the day, are you required to meet those exactly? Like, are you going to, so, or is it a minimum, like, you know, because the way you talk sounded like if we go to 825, it's going to make it harder to design something to accommodate, but if you give it, we say when you give nine, a big deal at the end of the day, you know, where it fits structurally to your thing, because I assume you're not going to be hitting all these numbers. Right.
[Matt Rice]: I wish there was a very yes, no answer to that question. So the way that the MSBA works is that at either end of the range, 825 of the 950, we're at 825 and we produce something that is like 834 square feet, called on it, and we get asked to go back and design it and get 825. If we are at 950 and we go to 951, we get the same feedback. At 900, we're typically, as it is, we are allowed fluctuations above and below with a certain percentage. And that is fine and acceptable.
[Phil Santos]: I thought I was going to say, if we give you the minimum of 25, but it just fits to give that, like the comment, well, we're not going to just, like, you know, add structural beams and make this thing, you know, awkwardly. We're going to give it a rough. Okay.
[Luke Preisner]: And to Kim, the need to space, is 915 the more appropriate size for you, your need?
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: I think a more standard size bathroom comparable with the other size bathrooms are going to be in the program.
[Unidentified]: I'll withdraw my amendment.
[Member Jenny Graham]: So, STEM program, 900 square feet. I will call the roll. Jenny Graham. Yes. Mayor Landau-Kern. Dr. Guzzi. Yes. Marta Cabral. Yes. Ken Lord.
[Nick Giurleo]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Jim Belanger. Yes. Libby Brown. Yes. Maria Dorsey.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Brian Hilliard. Tracy Keene. Paul Malone.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Nicole Morell.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Liz Payne. Yes. Aaron Gray.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Lou Kreisner. Yes. 13 affirmative, 0 in the negative, 2 absent. That's a 100. Okay. As we are going through these topics, if there are folks who are hearing motions that they would like to speak on, if you could either raise your hand, you're on zoom or come sit in the public participation chair that would help me know that there is somebody who wants to speak on the thing that people are talking about. Okay, art and music. Are there any motions on the table? Any items?
Hearing none, I'm going to move on. Oh, question.
[Ada Gunning]: When they say yes, we've already accepted it with other space changes. Correct. Correct.
[Matt Rice]: It's a straight, yeah, that exact original rule was reflected in the data. And if it was a yes with modifications, there's additional text description in the title, so how it would modify.
[Member Jenny Graham]: If I could filter out all the yeses for the purposes of this document, you all received the full document in your email last week. Yes. Yes, it is. No, no. If you're looking at the agenda, this is the same. The posted agenda includes only those items that are still on act. Okay. Item number four is auditorium and drama. Are there any motions to untable? Hearing none, we're gonna move on to item number five, which is our chapter 72 programs. Are there any motions to untable chapter 74 items?
Hearing none, we're gonna move on to item six, which is core academic spaces. Obviously, there are several sides of our agenda space. Hearing none, we will move on to dining and food service. Are there motions to untable any item in dining and food service? Hearing and seeing none, I'll move on to item number eight, which is the media center. Any motions to untangle any items associated with the media center? Hearing and seeing none, we'll move along. Item number nine. is on the medical suite, so are there any motions to untable items in the medical suite?
Okay, hearing and seeing none, we're gonna move on to item number 10, which is non-Chapter 74 programmed labs. Are there any motions to table any items associated with chapter 74 labs? Hearing none. Are there any item 11 is other and are there any motions to untable any listed as other? Hearing and seeing none, item number 12 is special education. Are there any motions to untable any special education items?
[Luke Preisner]: Luke? I do want to say something. I'm not going to untable any of these because it's nine o'clock and it's not hard to forecast how the duration would go. I do want to ask people to kind of reflect a little bit. The last bill override passed narrowly, and it generated $7 million, an additional $7 million a year for those. I think everyone in the community, or at least everyone that I know, loves the school system. They support education and, you know, that they can afford it will certainly expand the services that, yes, we love our children, we love our neighbors' kids, I think most of our parents know many kids in these schools as well. So collectively, we voted yes for that overload for $7 million. It was, I think, actually a percent and a half, So everybody knows what the personal costs that will derive with that. You know, what I experienced, this is not different than what Aaron did, but we both know what we experienced.
We reflect on how many multiples of that our community can bear. And, you know, early on kind of was probably prevented. But if the annual, or really the stabilized annual debt service, if it's quadruple 7.5 million, so that's 30 million, if it's triple, then we should probably take a moment, not to go back to square one with the ed plan, but to revise it just like we did in June. Because I think as we refine our vision and really try to reflect this facility, it's possible that in the course of all that knife fighting, largely it's me, we'll cite a good outcome for our kids. And the reason why I want to reflect is because I don't want to lose that outcome.
quadrupling that override means something, and I won't get into the math, but I made some pretty reasonable assumptions about the things that matter, so rates, MSBA rating, and quadruple that override gets you to a total project cost. That's sort of in the neighborhood of what we're talking about. I'm going to get into more specifics, because the CM is going to have a big voice. They're going to tell you what they have to cost. And I'm going to expect that $699 to change. I can't tell you which direction it's going to go. But I hope that we don't lose sight of a good outcome for everyone. So that's all I wanted to say.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: Are there any members of the public that would like to speak?
[Member Jenny Graham]: You need to come sit right next to Dr. Hluby, so that everyone can hear you. Please provide your name and address for the record, and you have two minutes.
[Bair]: I'm in the mind of looking. Your name and address. I'm sorry, my name is Cynthia Bear. I live in Westminster. Thank you. Many people I know won't vote this because it's just 6% if it goes. I mean, these are wishful thinking, I think. There's the conference rooms that could be shared, like with the MFA and the Kids' Corner. Put the conference room in the middle. They can share it. Do scheduling. It can work. Spaces of things. It's just like fantasy. I mean, it's like the optimal but you want but in real world you need to bring it some because we have our Go up an extra grand or whatever that has gonna come in to be. It's just not doable people who are actually funding the project I I just think there are cuts that can be made and you guys are overlooking that because you're like, oh, no, I want to offer my stuff and I think it's great and it's going to be perfect, but the world isn't perfect and money doesn't grow on trees.
So you guys need to be cognizant of that. And I don't think really you guys are. This is my first meeting here. I know I respect what you're doing and all, but it's a lot. It's a lot. And there's a lot of people saying, oh, hell no. I'm not going to vote for that. We know our school, this school is run down, it's a jump for the most part by Darwin here. Things falling from the ceiling, computers not working, that sort of thing. But to go to the full screen and have all the fantasies in one bucket and you go, the community is going to pay for it. It's going to happen. It is going to happen. Got to bring it back a little bit.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Thank you. I just have a question. It's not in buildings, it's outside of buildings. Back in the spring, I bought an Xerox. And so when I'm talking in my neighborhood, we're on Winford Way, and there's like the bells. I don't know if anyone's been listening or not. The bells are behind us, walking paths, dog paths. people running their own time, riding bicycles. So the talk is now that they're going to put the access roads behind our homes. So is it going to be knocked down while people be gone? That is not true. Oh, okay. That continues to not be true. Okay. So like you said, it just was brought up again in the neighborhood. So everyone's going to get in.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: So we just needed to have an answer with that. But, um,
[Member Jenny Graham]: There is an active, ongoing discussion about emergency access to this site, as you all can see, the one minute and one minute is a concern that we are working through. There's no answers to that yet, but to the question that you are specifically asking about coming through with Brooke, that is not on the table. And it never was, because it was not viable. It was not viable at the very beginning, and that has not changed. So it's like whenever they disagree with that, second year voters will be the first to know. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I promise. Okay. I live here. Thank you. Thank you.
[Andre Leroux]: Hi everybody. Nick Luke, C2 Tainter Street. I know it's late. I'm going to slow this down a little bit. I have three kids that are going to attend this school. The other two are going to go here for the entirety of their high school experience. So to be clear, I strongly support the project and the current design, including all of the non-core programming that was discussed throughout numerous meetings over the past few months. Over the meetings for the past several months, I have happily seen the committee and the project team do the incredibly hard work of under this design, line by line, meeting with educators dozens of times, and getting their input on what's facing what they know. All to result in the really, I think, remarkable cost reduction seen here. So I actually think you're shortchanging yourself. So in April, for the first round of cuts made before PSR was submitted, the estimate for C2.2k was $850 million.
So give yourself a little credit, I think. Before that meeting ended, there was a large slate of cuts for now on the agenda. That if enacted, it resulted in, according to the calculations of that meeting, about 219 million. Many of them were judged to be educational, But what we have now, after all the process, is a pool that is below $700 million, that has preserved all non-core programming, meets the ed plan. It ensures that MF and LEAP and Kids Corner have a home and will continue to have a home. It preserves the pool, which was so important to so many public commenters in the process. It preserves all those alternative pieces that we would have lost if we built Jim Newt. It expands athletic facilities with a track and a football field. And it does all of this while still lowering proposed square footage by, I can't remember the exact number, but a lot. And if that isn't compromised, we're celebrating, I don't know what is.
That broad slate of cuts was 200. That's meeting halfway. I don't think you could come up with a more perfect illustration of compromise. Now, we're now within 10% of the existing high school square footage. After MSBA reimbursement, in my opinion, this is not like a check figure. In my opinion, it's highly likely that this design is going to get us to a price that's lower than the code upgrade was, which, as everyone remembers, was the bare bones, doesn't meet the plan, do as little as we possibly can, that would have preserved this building.
My hope is that everyone on both sides of this issue, people who want to see rooms restored or who want to see more rooms cut, can meet in the middle and say, despite it not being correct, despite it not satisfying every wish that I have for what it be, I can support it. I can vote yes on a debt exclusion, because in the end, the kids in the educators community have a much greater need than my, you know, my desire to be right about how the school is designed. I hope everyone is able to see that. So thank you very much for all your hard work, and I'll see you next time.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: In fact, my name is Terri Boyd. I live on S Street. I grew up in Medford. I went to Medford High School. I have two children. I have not lived, I've only lived in Medford, back in Medford for the last 23 years with children. I lived in another town. I took children to Medford for Catholic school, which was a choice my husband really wanted, and I was willing to do that. I do think that the high school need be, obviously, I support the children. I hate to hear when people talk to say it's whether or not I support the children or you don't support the children. I do support children. I don't have unlimited funds. It took me a long time to be able to afford my house here. I don't own my house over here. I can't leave to go somewhere else where this overrun might not be an issue for me because, you know, truth be told, I have very low interest rates because of COVID. That being said, I am, this is my first meeting here. I wish there were more people would give a little bit more instead of I get it. You want the perfect. Everybody can't have perfect. It's not possible. And the cost that this is going to be where it's very unknown.
I'm retired from a full-time job serving the community in a nonprofit. And I am now working a part-time job. As my taxes continue to climb, and I realize that's because my house and my value of my house has gone up for anything. That's just crazy. I'm just saying it has to be affordable and affordable. I supported paying, I paid my taxes when my children didn't use any of the public services for schooling. I never bought that. Now I'm here, my kids are older, I've educated them, I've done what was necessary, and I'm thinking, I'm going to have to leave my home because we want what we actually truly need. I get it. I get everyone wants what they want. It is kind of disappointing. It's clear just from somebody who's never been there before and who is not on social media, but I do talk to people on the community It's clear that there are factions that just don't have any willingness to maybe consider something else. And that's really disappointing. It didn't take me more than 10 minutes to figure out which side people will run, and which people will put up motions, which people will go into second, or even want to hear something different ever. It was kind of disappointing.
I do support the children in this community. I do support the people in this community. I worked a nonprofit in this community 35 years. I didn't make a whole ton of money, but I did my job here. And I am proud of the fact that even though I didn't make a lot of money, I support the people that are around me. I support New High School. I do not support some of the costs that seem to be outrageous and I get I get it, construction is about the price, but you know what? I waited 17 years after I bought my house to be able to have a 1960s kitchen that had structural issues until I could afford it. And I didn't get everything that I wanted.
So, you know what? I get that everybody would like a few more feet here, a few more feet here, a better base, whatever. I get all of that. But it's disappointing not to consider the people that are going to pay for that. And in this community, it seems like if we could only move the elderly, I hope things would be better.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Nobody feels that way. I'm going to remind you that I asked everyone to keep their comments to two minutes. That's fine. But that's all I'm going to say.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: I support the community. I support the new school. I don't support not knowing anything else that it's going to cost.
[Member Jenny Graham]: It's a really fair point, and I will address that at the end of the meeting. Thank you. Name and address for the record.
[Nick Giurleo]: Good evening, everyone. My name is Nick Giurleo, and I'm reporting to Robinson Road. I went to this school. I have said before to all of you that I consider much of my success in life due to the great education I had here. So I feel passionate that about this committee's been doing. I've been trying to attend all meetings and I take vigorous notes as I sit here. I have to say that I share the perspective of a previous speaker as well as a member of the committee in terms of considering costs. Again, we all want the best school possible, but we have to think about affordability. We have to be realistic. Just sitting here tonight at other meetings, it just seems like this committee has not been doing enough to address that in terms of making reasonable reductions to square footage to try to eliminate more than we need for our vision. You know, I'm hearing tape, you know, we're adding square footage, but it's the last thing we should be doing. I'm hearing tonight arguments, actually arguments from people in conference spaces, you know, with grant schemings, is that real, do they need to be vigorously defended? It just seems like there's not enough compromise going on in this committee. It just seems like the people in the advisory not really, we're seeing really, you know, discussions, which people are really thinking about these issues. At the end of the day, the number one thing everybody here has to think about is how do we get the voters to approve this? They're concerned about the tax impact, the just extraordinary cost of this project, regardless of reductions that occurred to date. This is something we have to think about. At the end of the day, everybody here has got to be focused on the prize, which is getting this passed, getting a new bill. I was thinking just really the past few weeks the issues of infrastructure here that power is a sewage issue obviously things need fixed here but at the same time we've got to be realistic it just doesn't seem like we're there. I hope residents get involved as much as possible in this process and continue to advocate their concerns as well as what they're doing right. So thank you for that.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Thank you.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: Hello, my name is Erin Nordatma. I live on Rothery in Medford, by the way. I have two young children, three and five.
[Bair]: My five-year-old just started kindergarten. And I've been so energized by the process of building a new school.
[Member Jenny Graham]: I mean, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a school that's not just for the now, but also for the future. And by the future, I don't mean my kids. I mean, maybe my kids' kids. How long has this school been, how long ago was this school built? 1970, that's 50 years, right? So we're looking at 50 years of school, and the updated building came really late. Now, it's five years longer. So that's what I carry in these conversations. I work in tech, I work for e-commerce, and there's this fallacy that we have of a short-term gain, for long-term loss. And so that's something that I take in this and I actually hear the concerns of affordability because in this economy, what else can you do? But what I've also seen is a committee that has had these really thoughtful discussions and cut $150 million from the first estimate, which to me speaks volumes. So I guess I stand in a place that I want the community to feel heard, who worry about affordability, Also, I would like to make an earlier point that we are now at a point that the cost of building this new fantasy high school is the same as existing the existing one.
[Bair]: We've reached, we've converged on that point.
[Member Jenny Graham]: We're just fixing what's broken is the same cost of building a new fantastic compromise across the sides. And so I just wanted to thank you all for your hard work on getting back $150 million. I'm still sleeping the long dream tonight. And thank you in advance for Mike. It's a couple of years ago here. Thank you.
[Ada Gunning]: Next. Hi, I'm Anna. I live at 40. I have two kids in elementary school up in Glen. And, you know, listening to this meeting and previous meetings, I feel like we're telling the tale of a city that has squeezed public resources and real estate such that we now need this high school to essentially provide the community with all these resources that we have nowhere else to put them. Again, kids corner, administrative offices, et cetera. And this group of people here, you guys have been putting in so much time and effort to working through efficiencies, making it affordable, listen to the community. But really what you're building is more than the high school. You're kind of compensating for It feels like a generation of not providing these resources or not allowing places to have resources throughout the community.
And it's tough because now we're at a point where it's at maximum cost and the affordability concerns are very real. But at the same time, we cannot just take the can down any further. and connected with a lot of young families. And people are really psyched about this project. They're really excited to get out there, go door to door, talk to people about this, vote for this. Sometimes the loudest voices you see online are not representative of the quiet majority of people in town. So there's a lot of excitement out there. And I want to bring to the committee the work that you're putting into this. People are watching, people are really eager to see this project to fruition. Thank you.
[Rebecca Davidson]: I just wanted to say thank you to you all. It's been a long, boring meeting, and I know you've been having a lot. I actually do see A lot of evidence in the slides and the numbers of square feet of the dollar amount is under $700 million. Now that both are working really hard to compromise on this. And I think we see part of that in these meetings. But the type of work that's going on behind the scenes that only a matter of the number of meetings that Dr. Kalugni has been having with directors of different areas. Um, I feel that I'm really grateful for all that. Um, I think you were having a conversation with some of the other, I don't really know anything about educating or direction and like the number that people want is amorphous. I'm not in this throughout like 699 downstairs and whatever we were at. But I know it's for that. So I, see the compromise. I appreciate the compromises. I think this is something that our community support and I look forward to working on that. So thanks.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Thank you.
[Andre Leroux]: And I think this brings a lot of credit to the project that all of these things were addressed and for compromises they give us to this point. So I'm really excited to give this new nation to those kids. and goes to this corner here and kind of down here. I'm really excited that they're standing up for community support, not just high school-age kids, but working on this project.
[Unidentified]: So thanks for all the work. Thank you. Thank you so much.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Okay, I'm Stephanie Ernst-Meyer, Food for Whitney Road. I do not have any children, so all children are allowed to care about it equally. Part of this that I wanted to see most is the part that I missed. My thing is indoor air quality, so I'm very interested in HVAC. And I don't really know when is the time to proceed, so I just want to say that
[Bair]: that you have to shout and then you have to say, Boston, at least think about future-proofing.
[Member Jenny Graham]: So that, you know, you're able to upgrade systems 20, 30 years from now to whatever is standard, 23 to 30 years from now. There aren't indoor air quality standards really now, but globally we're working very hard on that. And so, I think there should be, A demand-controlled ventilation should be CO2 monitors everywhere. CO2 monitors should be room by room, whether it's a conference room or a classroom, and that should dictate how much ventilation you have. Probably heating and cooling should be separate for ventilation so that it can work well. There should be heavy use of ERVs.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: There should be measurement in your CM 2.5 and outdoor that should be used continuously to monitor how well your filters are working.
[Member Jenny Graham]: That can save you because you probably don't have to change your filters nearly as often as a timeline. Instead, you're getting this continuous data.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_26]: There should be dashboard that everyone in the community can look at. public school system because they are doing some of that.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Thank you. For the folks on Zoom, we will be to you in just a minute. I was trying to help the people who have been standing in line for a bit be able to download Thank you for all of the hard work. I know all of your voices have been incredibly valuable as part of this process.
[Bair]: I have just a few questions, I guess. Can we have a matter of the cost bringing this to code?
[Director Alicia Hunt]: I guess my point is, like,
[Member Jenny Graham]: I get it. This number can be scary to a lot of people who aren't in this field. And when we think about this number, we're thinking about the 699. And then once we have the cost, we bring a code. It's what are we comparing it to? And what are we going to get for it? And what do we estimate we might be reimbursed? I know we don't have an actual number. We won't have an actual number until next year. But could we estimate $200 million or more or less? I mean, is it something that everybody can compare? And then also thinking of, I've heard a lot of people say, we don't know what the number is yet. Projects I've seen get to the stage and increase directly. I don't have
[Matt Rice]: those particular metrics, and I would even advise against trying to say, well, it's going to go up or it's going to go down, because the only thing that we know right now is that we know which way we're going to go. We know that we're hitting in that zone, right? It's the target that we're aiming for at this point, given all the scope that we have. But there are some different variables that are coming into play with the construct manager. Um, coming in, but also having the ability to get to a higher level detail with our meeting, put more information in regarding materials and systems and design on so many more. There's an investigation that will inform that that it'll all. It'll all inform that writing. I just can't. sort of look into a crystal ball and see if we knew that six projects went up and two projects went down.
[Member Jenny Graham]: But my point is, the more we're able to finalize things now, the easier it is to understand what a network cost would look like. That is a very true statement, yes. And that's more where I'm getting at is we have a number for what it would take to get to more we can finalize now. we will be able to understand what an actual number is and then work from there.
[Bair]: And I think it's this nebulous, it's 99 here, but I think there's a concern from residents. What if it isn't?
[Member Jenny Graham]: And I think that's where everyone needs to understand. All of the things that keep happening are what keep us from getting to that constant. And I think that's where we just have to really hone in on exactly what the scope is and move forward.
[Bair]: And that's kind of where I just want to encourage this group. Thank you. Thank you. Zoe? Zoe, are you able to unmute?
[Member Jenny Graham]: Yes, sorry, I forgot to press on me.
[Zoe Moutsos]: Zoe Muzo's 33 Johnson Ave. I just want to thank you all for your hard work. I just wanted to say I'm here in West Medford and I was at a community and neighborhood event this weekend with folks, none of whom have children. All of them are older than me and my son is in eighth grade and he will not have the benefit of the school that's going to be built. But all of everyone recognized that it needed to happen and it happened to be a group of folks who are swimmers who are people involved in the community who go to the high school quite often for different events that have nothing to do with the high school. And I think that was the hardest part for me when I started following along with this is really understanding. How much this high school campus serves almost as a community center for the reasons that many people have said before that we have had to move things to the high school space because we have made decisions in the past that are the chickens are coming home to roost now. And so while this committee is working really hard to create the best learning environment for our students, our high school students, I really appreciate that you're not forgetting the rest of the community. And that also means our little ones with the kids corner and our MFM and Meep and also the community and that you worked hard to make sure that the pool stayed and the gym continues and that we have good athletic fields. And I just want to say I know the number is big and everyone I've talked to and I know it's going to be hard. I mean my kid's going to be in college and I'll be paying for the school and college. But it's gonna be really hard to do, but I know and I can see from everyone on this committee that you're committed to making this as reasonable as possible to get the best outcome as possible. And I'm just very excited to see how this is progressing. And I think the cuts that you showed today, I mean, I was like, I actually said like, wow, that's really impressive. So I just wanted to say thank you.
[Member Jenny Graham]: I'm here in the room.
[Luke Preisner]: David Bridge, I live in West Medford. I come today as a resident. I'm thinking as a resident of Medford Solar. We're all, I know how much work it is. A lot of people are excited about the municipal. But the difference between what you need and what you want. And $7 million, I'm not clear if it's $750 or $700 million. $699. Yeah.
[Member Jenny Graham]: That's the deal.
[Luke Preisner]: the most expensive high school ever built anywhere in the United States. That is not true. That's not true. It's not fair. How many other schools are there? Brockton takes that brain from... I believe that the piece that the residents here would pack that's not compensated by the state will be more than Brockton. That is true. And so that's an issue. And so I've already come here today. You guys have worked very hard at it. But I hear the discussions, and I don't see the effort to bring this down to a reasonable point. I mean, listen, I need a new car. And I would love to get a Mercedes-Benz.
[Unidentified]: It would be very helpful. People would love it. And down the road, that would be wonderful. But the car is really needed. The cost would be significant.
[Luke Preisner]: When I can get a Ford, and the Ford will also be expensive. But that will get me where I need to go. The students of Medford, the children here, they need to go to high school. They can't go. But a Ford will get them there. No need for the Mercedes. If this city is struggling with Lamborghini, I come from a neighbourhood that's far wealthier than Medford. We never had anything like this. It would be wonderful. And if we had a Ford, that would be great. But the reality is the economics right now are very difficult. And they're going to be more difficult. There will be other needs that the city will have. police, teachers, fire, repairers, all kinds of things. And the burden of this particular school, that burden will be very significant for the residents. Everybody's excited about the high school. What they don't know is that this school, the new number I have to figure it out, but the number you had before, which was about $50 to $100 million, that was $60,000 per household. So this will be $48,000 to $50,000 over the 30 years. That's not a lot of money. That's a new roof.
That's a couple years of college tuition. That's food on the table. It's a significant thing. Yes, we didn't go to high school, but you could have done better. And Mr. Pressner was right. I would encourage you to go back to the table, make some cuts. This doesn't need to be a win situation. The problem now is we get the high school, it's going to hurt the city dramatically. If we don't, it hurts the city dramatically, but it could be a win situation. by scaling it down, get them where they need to go.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Your two minutes is up, so if you could wrap up your comments, that would be great. Is there anybody here waiting to speak? Okay. Hi, my name is Susan Wilson. I live at 97 Winchester. Just really quickly, thank you guys so much for all the work that you've been doing. It's really clear how incredibly detailed you've been about how many 60 square foot bathrooms can we cut here and there. You're really doing granular work based on your extreme expertise in this arena, which many of us don't have. So I really appreciate. you focusing on the tiniest square foot decisions to make this as affordable as possible. I think we're throwing the word affordability around a lot. And the truth is nothing is particularly affordable. And there's not a magic number that people want to pay. Nobody wants to pay anything. But that isn't possible. We live in a community, we live in a society, we have to fund the society that we live in. We're in a place where we've done, you know, generations of deferred maintenance. and the economy is garbage, and that's still a reality. It doesn't change the reality that we need a high school that is functional and legally up to code. There isn't a version of the school that somehow is cheap, that hits a magical number where everyone feels like, That is a number that I want to pay. Nobody who's been concerned about the affordability says I would be thrilled with X amount to my taxes. So it feels like a moving target that is impossible to meet. I mean, cutting hundreds of millions of dollars that you guys have already cut is It's huge. It's a huge compromise. We're not getting a Mercedes. We're not getting a Lamborghini. We're getting a Corolla. It's just that Corollas are really expensive right now. And that's the reality. We can't cut things with no plan for where to put them. That's pretending that we have a future that doesn't exist either. We can't say this high school can only be 9 to 12, then it's cheap, then we can afford it. All that other stuff is just extra. It's not extra. It's a core component of what makes Medford Medford. And to say it could be somewhere else, it doesn't have to be part of this process, is false. There's nowhere else for it to be. I would love to hear other proposals. If there's other ideas, that'd be great. But so far, it's been a lot of negativity and a lot of framing, you know, seniors against our kids, which is just, I think, not a reality of our actual neighbors. I think everyone's really, really feeling a lot of feelings about it. And that's tough.
I don't love the idea of spending tax money either, but we have to, and it's for the greater good. And I want to support our neighbors as well. So I really, really appreciate all that you guys have been doing to get this as right sized as possible. I think it's really an incredible compromise. And I appreciate all the work. And I think now it's our job to get the city to be excited about it, to really tell everybody about how awesome it is and to look into other options to make the impact on our final tax bills as small as possible. But now we're done cutting stuff. We need to be excited about the project that we have and the opportunity that it gives us. Thank you.
[CP5ho6yZUqo_SPEAKER_23]: Thank you. Fritzie? Hi. Thanks so much. Fritzie Pieper at 34 Ross Street. I wanted to speak to including MFN, MEEP, and Kids Corner. Just sharing my own children and kids in our neighborhood have benefited immensely from these programs, I mean nearly on a weekly basis. And keeping these programs is a great opportunity for us to reap the benefits for the whole community. Not only are they named in the ed plan, they'll also help us meet the objectives of it. We'll be able to avoid having to do those projects later. Other people have spoken to this. So, really, I feel strongly that the work that the committee is doing to keeping these non core programs with the high school is really important so that it doesn't result in the residents of this city having to pay even more to rehouse or relocate them in the future. And that kind of brings me to cost right? I have 3 kids. I want to point out that cost implications for households is a huge factor for folks like myself that have young families. This truth isn't limited to just seniors or folks whose kids aren't school-aged anymore. But I also understand the time value of money and it will cost us even more if we don't do this now. And so I'm very excited and so grateful for all the work that's been done already. I so appreciate the discussion and all the questions as detailed as they've been that have been asked in the compromise that I've seen so far. So just thank you so much and I'm looking forward to supporting the debt exclusion.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Thank you. Josh. Hi, can you hear me?
[Josh Terrill]: All right, very good. Thank you. Josh Terrell, 86 New Bern Avenue. Chair Graham, members of the committee, I just want to thank you for the opportunity to speak. I had prepared something different tonight. I expected to spend most of my time defending programs that were still on the table. Instead, I just want to say thank you. Since April, this committee has found roughly 70,000 square feet of efficiencies and about 100 million in cost reductions. That's real work and it deserves recognition. There were cuts I did not agree with, I didn't get everything I wanted, and I don't think anybody did. But Compromise has been at the center of this process. I'm a father of a Mississauga kindergartner with a three-year-old coming up behind him, so this project is very real to me. I'm excited that MEEP, MFN, the Teen Health Center, music, the arts, special education, and vocational education remain part of this vision. We've heard concerns tonight about costs, and I understand them, but in my neck of South Medford, I'm hearing excitement. People understand that this is a major investment. This new high school is not a Mercedes-Benz. If you've been paying attention to the many cuts and compromises, to echo my neighbor Susan, this is closer to a tricked-out Prius.
Waiting doesn't make the underlying need disappear. The high school still has to be replaced. These programs still need homes. Folks haven't yet figured out that voting no in June is going to be far more expensive in the long run than voting yes. I just really hope people recognize this work, and when the time comes, you can count me among the residents ready to knock on doors, get our community engaged, and make sure people understand just how hard you all worked. So thank you all for your time. I appreciate it.
[Member Jenny Graham]: Thank you. I just have a few comments, Michael, before we adjourn tonight. So I just want to say thank you to this committee. This committee has done real work. We have reduced the cost of this project $150 million or something thereabouts. That's real money. That's more money than I ever thought was going to be possible to pull out this project. And nobody is happy. I think it's kind of a sign that the government is listening to the people around them. So to many people's points, there are a lot of things they didn't agree with along the way.
And there are just lots and lots of things that we could continue to sort of pick at and agree with. However, this committee has done everything in its power to address the cost of the project. When we talk about affordability, there are two sides of that coin. Cost is one. We have done our work at this moment. The other side of that coin is how we pay for this. And that is where we have to be patient. We have to let the city's finance team do their work. That is happening in real time. It is actively happening on a weekly basis to be talking about all of the myriad of assumptions that go into how will we finance this? That sort of changes every time something crazy in the world happens, the price of steel changes, the interest rates change. All of the things are part of like a conversation. and the city has real to do to finish that analysis so that we collectively bring to the community the answers to the questions people are seeking is, how much will this cost me?
That answer we just don't know yet. And everybody who says they know the answer to that question, I am highly confident they're all wrong. Everyone is wrong because there are just too many moving parts for anybody to have all of those assumptions everything from what is, how many tiers of bonding are we going to do to finance this project? So what does that mean in year one versus year five? So we're re-assuming based on like the housing stock in Medford and how it's going to grow and change over the next 30 years. So there's a lot of work still to do. This committee has done its work as of now to control the side of the cost that is in the purview committee. The city is doing their work to do the name. They just need a little bit more time. And to that end, I also want to mention that the city is looking at an analysis of the tops to determine whether they're is programming that can go into Curtis Tufts when it is not yet available and when it is, and if it creates a situation where we can find cost savings, we will bring that to this committee. As you may know, that is still to come and they are part of that work.
All of that is in addition to uh, increased, um, a set of, uh, uh, community forums, trusting sessions between the school committee and the city council all as we move toward really the next round of costing, that's going to drive the budget for this product, which will not have. So we'll have a lot of conversation about us affordability, what those, what those things mean to us, where we're heading between now and January. And then with our construction measure on board and the validation of all the issues that are happening, we will arrive at that number at the end of January and not sooner. And it's worth it for all of us to let the city take the time and get that right, because if they get it wrong, it impacts us all. So I just want to say thank you from me to the committee who have done the work that the community was assisting.
And with that, I will mention that our next full committee meeting here is on the 16th of November with a community forum on the 19th. And the scheduled joint listening sessions will be rolled out in the coming days, as well, hopefully, an official press release so that we can separate back from the commission and let everybody know exactly what happened tonight and over the last handful of days. And with that, I will ask if there is motion to adjourn.
[Bair]: I'm sorry.
[Member Jenny Graham]: I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all that and I'm all home around. Yeah. Yes. Th negative. Two absolutely
|
total time: 70.65 minutes total words: 9899 |
total time: 2.02 minutes total words: 397 |
total time: 0.79 minutes total words: 140 |
total time: 4.49 minutes total words: 630 |