[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Hey, welcome everyone. It's Tuesday, October 13th, 2026, 6 30 PM. And we are the community preservation commission. The first meeting hearing the 2026 applications. Welcome Paige, the newest member of the CBC. Yes.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: You're just joining us as the community development board representative.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Yes. Yes. So welcome and I hope you're feeling better. I know you said you weren't feeling well this morning, so hope it's better. Thanks. I'm medicated. Excellent. Excellent. So we're going to look at five applications tonight. I'm going to switch up the order a little bit on the agenda that was posted only just to accommodate people who came in person. and talk a little bit about the meeting and minutes from September 8th and hopefully adjourn not too late. So we're gonna start with the FY27 application from ABCD.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: If I can just really quick as a refresher, we are keeping each project to 20 minutes in total, just to kind of control the length of the meeting. So I can go to bed on a reasonable hour. So I will have a timer that will be displayed on the screen here for all to see that 20 minutes will include presentations from the applicants as well as time for questions and answers on the committee members. So to that end, we will get queued up with Joshua White from ABCD. If you wanna come on up here, this is a camera, it's not just decorative.
[Joshua White]: I feel like I'm on episode of Shark Tank. Here's my million dollar idea, sharks.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Welcome.
[SPEAKER_11]: Thank you.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Apologies, I had this queued up. And then I'll get your slides up on the screen. I always have to remind people that I am basically using a 17-inch monitor and a 72-inch monitor, so I appreciate everybody's patience here while we figure out my screen action there. There we go. It should be good to start presenting from the beginning. Okay, over to you.
[Joshua White]: Well, first of all, I want to thank the committee for allowing me to come in tonight and talk about this exciting new program that ABCD housing would like to offer residents of Medford. The FY 27 program is called the Medford move in Medford move forward program. We have been fortunate enough in years past to offer similar services to the resident of Medford with our Medford Move-In program, but this is a new program with some new components that I'm very excited to share with the committee today.
So to give you a quick little program overview of what Medford Move-In, Medford Move Forward means, in a nutshell, it will be helping low-income individuals and families secure stable housing in Medford through the following three areas. First is providing direct assistance to those families by helping them cover first and last month's rent payments. Only first and last month's rent. We will not be doing security deposits. And because broker fees are now illegal, we will not be offering that as well. The second will be assigning them case management as well as having them participate in our weekly housing workshops. that include various topics such as tenants' rights, financial literacy, budgeting and money management, and also assisting them with the housing search process to find a suitable unit here in the City of Medford. Finally, a new piece to the Medford Move In, Move Forward program will be our long-term case management and wraparound services. In the past, Those families that have been lucky enough to be part of the Medford Move-In program receive financial assistance and receive short-term case management. This time around, they will be provided with long-term case management and wraparound services because our feeling is based off of data from this past year is that finding housing is really easy, although it is difficult these days. It's maintaining and keeping that housing. That is the challenge. So by providing those long-term wraparound services, we can work with them on what additional help that they may need in order to not only stay in their unit, but also lead safe and healthy lives.
Our request is as follows. We are respectfully requesting $117,043 from the City of Medford to support this new program by including $42,000 for key program staff that will be providing not only the financial literacy or the financial assistance, but is also the ongoing case management. And then in addition, the remaining amount would be $75,000 for direct rental assistance. Our goal with the direct rental assistance of $75,000, we can serve at least 20 low-income households in programming and empowering Medford families to achieve long-term housing stability and self-sufficiency. We use 20 As a benchmark, however, in years past, we have exceeded the 20 because there have been various amounts based off of the rent that has been required for the units that they've located. But we feel at the minimum, 20 families will be served with the direct financial assistance. In last year's Medford move-in program, we had the following demographics. Out of everyone that participated and was accepted into the Medford move-in program, most if not all were at or below 100% AMI or the annual median income. The average household size for those families was about 2.8 with 80% of the participating households consisting of two to four people. 50% of those participants came from single female headed households. That was the majority of folks that we were seeing in this housing program. And then finally, the various demographics, 50% identified as African American, 5% as Asian, 25% as white, and 25% as other. Out of all of those, 45% identified as Hispanic.
As I mentioned, the newest piece to the Medford Move-In Program is our long-term wraparound services. We have another program in the Mystic Valley called the Mystic Valley Opportunity Center. We provide a variety of services from food access, clothing, diapers, free tax assistance. We are now able to provide DTA assistance, helping families apply for some type of public assistance, reduced fare, MBTA passes, but that was separate from housing. This past year, we combined the Mystic Valley Housing Department and the Mystic Valley Opportunity Center into one, so that now all families that are either coming in for housing assistance or coming into the Opportunity Center will get both programs worked into one. And we're very excited about this new program, especially with our food access. We know more and more families these days, food insecurity is a huge issue. So we are lucky enough to receive daily donations from fresh produce, perishable items, non-perishable items. I participated in an event about a month or so ago at Encore Casino, where we received various dry goods that we are now handing off, able to help families. So that's been very exciting. And then again, for those families that are looking for some type of assistance with DTA, because as we know, the DTA offices are short-staffed and overwhelmed. We are now able to provide those services. And again, this really ensures that for those families that are either currently living in Medford or looking to move in Medford, we'll have those additional services in place so that they are successful.
One of the biggest challenges that we face with the Medford Move-In program is that our office is located in Malden, and not always are Medford residents able to come to our Malden office to receive services. But we had a great conversation with Teresa and Roberta from the Community Preservation Committee about a week or so ago to talk about creating a satellite office out here in Medford, an ongoing satellite office, so that we are coming directly to those in need and not expecting them to come out to the Malden office. And this will not just be for housing services. This will also again be for free tax assistance with the winter months coming up, we will be able to provide fuel assistance as well as other services that ABCD offers both here in the Mystic Valley as well as the greater Boston area. So we're very excited about that. I met actually with the department heads of various programs today, and we're just talking logistics to figure out what that would look like, how many staff we would need, especially when it comes to both the fuel assistance piece, as well as the tax assistance with tax season, because it gets very busy at our Moulton office. But we really want to ensure that we're meeting with everybody. So location and transportation has been an issue, but I think with this new satellite launch and ongoing conversations we've been having with the City of Medford, we seem to have been able to, I don't want to say solve the problem, but we have a good plan in place to hopefully solve the problem. The second challenge that we face with the Medford Move-In program is getting the word out and ensuring that both Medford residents as well as other residents in the Mystic Valley know about the program. Can you switch to the next slide? Sorry. Sorry, my bad.
that sometimes there's low visibility with programs like this and participation may be very low. So we've worked with our public information team to create a very targeted campaign, not just again for Medford residents, but all for the Mystic Valley and Boston as well, to ensure folks know about this great program, the services we provide, as well as other ABCD services. So our media campaign will consist of social media, handing out flyers to various community organizations here in the city of Medford but we're also talking about running local radio spots within the Mystic Valley so we definitely get the word out. I will say I want to give a plug to the city of Medford that had the housing event a few weeks ago. We had a lot of interest coming out of that event so if you're having anything like that in the near future count us in because we definitely got the word out not just with the Medford move-in program but with our other services as well so that that was a big help to us and we had a lot of folks interested in Medford Move-In so we have a few applications in the pipeline right now. Working. Kudos to you.
I talked about what we hope to do with the Medford Move-In and Medford Move Forward program but I want to talk about what we had done with the Medford Move-In program and successes that we've seen. The first consists of a single mom in Boston who was living in the Dorchester area with her two small children but unfortunately was going to lose her housing because her landlord increased the rent and she was no longer able to afford. She was very concerned because most of her services, including her job, was in the Boston area, and she was afraid that she was going to have to leave Greater Boston and wouldn't be able to get access to not only her job, but also services that were vital to her child's well-being. She connected with ABC and our housing counseling department and we talked about various programs, including the Medford moving program, which he seemed very excited about considering that she did not have any money available to her to move into a new apartment. Her biggest concern was how am I going to get to Boston? Well, we were lucky enough to find a unit in Medford that was T accessible or public transportation accessible, as well as additional services that would benefit her children if they weren't able to access what they had in Boston. And lo and behold, we found an apartment and they were able to move in with the Medford move in support of first and last month's rent. Not only has she been able to continue working in Boston because of access to public transportation, but her children are thriving in the Medford community. And I understand that her children are part of various community programs through I think it's the YMCA that they were a part of. So that was great to hear because unfortunately what we are seeing, especially in the greater Boston area, is too many families are being pushed out because they can no longer afford the rent and they don't know what programs are out there. So programs like Medford Move-In are helping those families not only continue to get the services they need, but also move out of the city and have a more affordable rent and not feel like that they're living paycheck to paycheck.
Our final success story consists of our Mobile Homeless Outreach Team, or MHOT. Our team had been working with a couple that had been unsheltered for a number of years. They were living outside, and they were fortunate enough to finally get a bed in one of the emergency shelters. Once we had secured the emergency shelter bed, we began to talk with them about long-term services, including permanent housing. One of the things that we have noticed when working with unsheltered individuals or the homeless in general is that they're not thinking long-term. They're really only focused on three things. Where am I going to sleep? What am I going to eat? And am I going to be safe tonight? And when we can eliminate one of those barriers, then we can then fill it with something long-term. And in this case, it was permanent housing. They've qualified for the Medford move-in program. We were able to secure a unit. Once we were able to do so, they were then open to talking with us about more type of long term care services, including finally connecting with the primary care physician. And because of this program, and because of the support services we've placed, we now ensure that they will be successful in their housing, because those wraparound services will be available to them, and there will be no timeline on when they can work with us. They will be an ongoing thing. But it's very important when it comes to programs like M-HOD, is we're not just thinking about the basic service of getting them off the streets, it's also about that long-term care, and the Medford Move-In Program, excuse me, was a big part of that. So how am I doing on time? Seven minutes. Oh God, I talk very quickly. I apologize. But that's the Medford Move-In Move-Forward program in a nutshell. And again, we really appreciate the support the City of Medford has given us, not just with the Medford Move-In program, but also with our Medford CDBG program that keeps families in their apartments by paying off any rental arrears. But we hope you will consider the Medford Move-In Move-Forward program. So not only can we ensure helping new residents here in the City of Medford, but also providing those long-term quality services that families so desperately need.
And with that, I'll open up to questions.
[SPEAKER_11]: Questions from the community.
[Doug Carr]: It's very good. I guess the only question I had is how to determine the number and would you? consider more if this board would offer more?
[Joshua White]: Oh, absolutely. The way I was able to determine the 20 families that we would serve with the amount of requests was on average, we see most households requesting about $5,000 for first and last month's rent. It's also based on their income. So if they are able to pay a portion of it, we will make up the difference.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Any questions from the committee members online? Lisa has her hand raised.
[SPEAKER_11]: Hi.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Thank you. My question is, is I'm hearing what you're saying. I'm grateful that the program is able to assist family, but you also mentioned not too many families in Medford are able to utilize the service. I mean, if the money is coming from the city of Medford, I will be more. focus towards people that actually in needs in the city of Medford. I'm not trying to take away from anyone else outside of Medford, but it's just.
[Joshua White]: So to be clear, and I think your point is an excellent one. Not only are we assisting families with moving into Medford, but we're also assisting families that are currently living in Medford that may want to move to a new unit. So I'm sorry, I should have been clear about that. It's helping both families come to the Medford area, but also families that are currently living in the Medford area.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Good question. You said 20 families. Is it the same 20 families or is it 20 families at any one time? It could be this family, this would be that family next week.
[Joshua White]: 20, like the same 20 families every single time. Is that how it works? No, no, no. So families will only qualify once for the program per year.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Joshua White]: So it would be 20 in individual families. Um, if a family ever did come back to us and this includes all of our housing programs, if they came to back to us for a second time, they would then be required to take our, uh, workshops or fuel your finance workshops because it's not just helping them pay off a rental over here. There's a larger problem that's happening there as well as move in costs. So we're happy to help families right off the bat, but if we see them coming back, then we need to address a larger problem. And what would that be? The way I look at it, it's need versus want. Well, I need electricity, but I want a great internet package. Well, do you need that internet package? So it's things like that.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Any other questions? Three minutes, pretty good. Perfect.
[Joshua White]: Well, again, thank you for your time and good evening.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Thank you very much for being here.
[SPEAKER_11]: Next up, next up, next up.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: As we said, we're going to talk to the City of Medford facilities.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: And we do have David McIntyre, the City's Facilities Director, on the call with us.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Hi David. Hi David. You have two applications tonight. Which one do you want to talk about first? The City Hall facade restoration?
[vRbVV80gLgM_SPEAKER_06]: Sure, we can talk about that first. I'm David. I'm the Facilities Director for the City of Medford. And I have put forth a couple applications, as you mentioned. So the first being, I'm looking to get some money to work on restoring the facade for City Hall. And there's a lot. Oh, sorry, just switched on the screen. There's a lot of points outside of City Hall where the facade has kind of cracked and broken away doing to water getting in where the steel ties are, and then just kind of you know, frost and thawing cycles and rusting, kind of putting pressure on those points.
So a quick walk around yielded about, you know, 20 to 30 spots that look particularly bad. I did a test patch recently to see kind of the process of what it would look like to restore these. Thank you, Teresa, for showing these. Test patch came out well. I think it looks good. There might be some fine tuning on the color. I think it didn't quite match as well as we expected, hoping to get $300,000 for this. It was about $5,000 for the test patch. And just doing the math on that comes out to about $250,000. And then in the bigger picture, this is just the facade to start with, but I want to do a conditions assessment for City Hall. So to get towards any real comprehensive planning, we have to start with the building blocks and understand where we stand today. So looking at all the major systems, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and getting that conditions assessment done by an outside company to be able to say, hey, we, um, this is where you're at with electrical. We think you should update that in the next two years. We think you're going to have these plumbing things you want to focus on in the next 10 years. will really give us a nice baseline for creating an actionable plan for how to take care of City Hall and move forward with things.
Are there any questions related to that in particular?
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: David, could you talk a little bit about the treatment of these particular, I mean, the lion's share of the application is restoring the facade here. So could you talk a little bit more about the details of how The treatment would go.
[vRbVV80gLgM_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, of course. So, with the test patch, basically, as you can see, these are all unique shapes. They cut out a square area patch to work in before they seal anything and they will treat the. The bar, the ties that are inside the building to prevent further rusting before they do any kind of patching over it. Thank you. And once they treat that and seal that so that the rusting can't continue, because that's going to keep creating more pressure on the spot, they will then apply the patch and redo, you know, the lines you see in the masonry as well, that coating to match. And again, we did one test patch. There's a variety of colors. So it's just a matter of kind of finding what best matches the pre-existing stone there. The one patch took a couple hours one morning. It went fairly quick. It is something that's weather dependent. So if we did receive this money, it might be something that I would rely on the expertise of the contractor that was chosen to do this. It might be something that makes sense for fall, but it also might be a spring or summer thing. But I would have to rely on them to advise as to whether we think we could approach it all in one season or if we'd have to go bit by bit and take it over a little bit of a longer period of time given the number of patches we would need to do.
[Doug Carr]: Can you show the patch slide? I don't think I've saw that yet.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: I may not have put it on there, but if you give me a bit, I can probably get it up there.
[Doug Carr]: I'll keep, I'll just ask my questions while you look for that. This is Doug Farm with the Assault Commission. We've all been assigned a couple of these, and this is more in my purview than most, so I'll leave the questions, although I certainly welcome the other committee members to ask questions as well. This feels like an expensive band-aid, for lack of a better term. If the water's gotten behind you over the last 90 years, The root cause is not being addressed by this project. Water is still getting behind. We're fixing the facade. We're treating the bar that we can see. But is water still not getting behind there every winter, every season, I guess?
[vRbVV80gLgM_SPEAKER_06]: I can't answer that for you right now, to be honest. I mean, there's the potential. I think there's a lot of potential for more water to get behind, leaving it in this condition. We would have to do some pretty thorough water testing to see if there was other kind of weak points to address. It's a fair point. I just don't have that answer right now. But I can tell you the number of places where it's already fallen off are definitely only gonna create more problems.
[Doug Carr]: Oh, definitely. Look, I see the need for this. Don't get me wrong. And this building is very important to me. It's a prominent building. I'm not sure if it's on the National Register. I think it is. But if it's not, it should be. It's approaching 100 years and 10 years from now, I think. But in terms of the patch, I think Teresa showed me this isn't here on screen. I guess that one of the things that all these, anything that's in the restoration category here has to kind of follow the, you know, the National Register standards for restoration. And I guess, you know, I don't think you're ever going to match, because it's more than the color, it's the texture, right? You know, limestone is limestone. And so it's, You can see there have been some rather poor patches decades past. To the left over there, the gray blob, which is probably just grout and concrete back in the 80s or 90s, probably. And this is better, don't get me wrong, but it's still highly visible and very different. No one's ever going to look at this and say, OK, that's limestone.
I'm just wondering, I don't know, because I don't have any experience restoring a limestone building nine years old. I just don't. I've done brick and some granite. It's easier to match those because they still make red brick of every color in town. They still make granites. They still make slate from 100 years ago today. They still make colors. You can come close. But this is not that close. And if we can improve it, I think it would be better. But the texture, I don't think I'm just not sure this product is ever going to get to something that would be not immediately visible. Anyway, I'll leave it at that. Teresa, do you have any thoughts on that?
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: I mean, I'm sure David will want to chime in here, but I will say that while we were very pleased with the patch here, we do acknowledge, too, that the color could be a little bit better. Would you agree with that, David?
[vRbVV80gLgM_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, absolutely.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, still certainly better than the hydraulic cement that somebody packed into it on the left.
[Doug Carr]: And obviously something a little, if it was closer to the average tone. I don't even know if that's what the menu is for other colors. Is there one that's just a little less green color? That looks a little... And again, we talked before this meeting started about that we need to power wash the entire limestone piece just to clean up what's there now, to know what the original color is, because I'm not sure we do. We've got 90 years of dirt, rain, and grime, and graffiti in a few places that you're trying to fix. So I'm just trying to pull out a little bit and see the bigger, like the whole building, the limestone base that runs around probably what, 400, 500 linear feet of this building, if you add them all up. So I think there's a great project. I'm just, you know, some of the details I have, I'm trying to improve.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: That's a lot of things. I was going to say, one of the things that we as a committee tried to adhere to is the requirements by CPA, which says we're not allowed to do maintenance. We can do rehabilitation and even How do they call it? Restoration. Yeah, restoration. Sorry. Restoration that are considered extraordinary repairs. So what Doug is trying to say is we don't want to just patch holes. We want to look at the whole facade because it's part of rehabilitation and a restoration.
[Doug Carr]: And the second part, I'm sorry, the second part about the building evaluation, 100% agree with that one. I don't think there's any question that is needed for this building. Missy, listen.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Yes, thank you. My question is, is was there ever some type of study done as Doug mentioned? Where's the waters coming coming from? Is it coming back to the window? Was there any study that's done before to see how the waters get into the wall from the roof on the windows or the seals around the window and all that?
[vRbVV80gLgM_SPEAKER_06]: Not not to my knowledge, it's possible. I mean. I haven't been here entirely long, but not since I've been here.
[Doug Carr]: I think given the prevalence of this across the entire building, it's everywhere, obviously. It's not just below a window. It seems to be in the cavity a lot. And it's not like brick where the water goes in behind the wall and comes out. This room doesn't have any reefs. The water somehow is getting there and can't get out. and it's freezing every winter, and eventually it finds its way. So, anyway.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Yes, through the chair, would this committee consider expanding the conditions assessment to include reviewing for water inundation, more of like a study of the facade? I feel like we did that with the Chevalier at one point. We did fund the facade improvements there.
[Ada Gunning]: I'm just looking at this application and then I believe there's the next 1 for drinking fountains at city hall as well. I know we've. Previously had applications as well for different aspects of city hall. And, um. I don't know, I just feel a little confused about what role CPC should play in every aspect of this building. It makes me wonder, I know that you have brought up the idea of doing a study on where the building's at. I'm lacking the technical language you used, but like what the building needs. And I think like that to me seems like a really good use of CPC resources. It needs assessment. I guess I'm curious, like long term, there's so many different things within this building. Is the expectation that the CPC is like the funder of all these things on the basis of historical renovation or is there or sorry, historical restoration or Um, does the city also have a plan to, like, be addressing some of the concerns of the building through just like.
[vRbVV80gLgM_SPEAKER_06]: Other funding streams, the CPC would not be, um. The sole provider of any kind of findings we had, it would depend on what the findings are, you know. If it's some things are going to be blatantly unrelated to the areas that you guys cover and we would search for alternative funding sources for those. But again, getting that baseline to understand what it will take to either restore or keep this building operating in the way it needs to to best serve the public. I do think that. Would be incredibly valuable, but it does not. It's not like a 1 for 1. if we do that study and get answers, say, we end up with a 10 year capital plan out of that that for the next 10 years, I'm going to submit 5 applications saying, okay, let's do this 1 next to this particular group. It just gives me a road map to work off of. And some of them, I might ask for assistance for CPC for, and some of them, I might go to other funding sources.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Well, it wouldn't be the first time a city entity had an assessment of all of the needs and came to us once a year for different things.
[Ada Gunning]: Right. Yeah. Great. I guess I just the building seems really important and I would love for it to be considered as like, an important capital investment for the city, like, in general, and not just these like, bit by bit CPC projects.
[Doug Carr]: I don't know. I don't know. My question to Teresa this after this afternoon, this morning was. What's the master plan for this building. And I'm talking about an addition, like there's. There's been a lot of talk in the last couple of years. Amongst a few Councilors about. Adding on to this building in a sympathetic way. There's just not enough real estate here to, for the, That's an even bigger question. It's like, what's the, you know, what do you, are you going to have an annex or are you going to build behind, you know, take part of the parking lot, build above it? There's a couple of different studies that can be done. And then obviously this McIntyre is that he's like, no one's given him that purview yet, but eventually that's going to have to be something that the city needs to think like, what is the plan for this building? Not just within the four walls, because it's not going to all fit. And we can't answer that now, but that probably has to be a separate $100,000 study just to say what can be done. Because we looked at that for the cemetery and a couple other things over the years. That's a professional planner, somebody who's looking and talking to every department. And it's a whole different. Let's not go down that hole now, but it will come eventually.
[Reggie Graham]: Sure.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Reggie, you had something else.
[Reggie Graham]: Well, I was just wondering, it just seems prudent to find out exactly what is causing the leakages and so on and so forth before we started. Well, they say, put a patch, I fix. No, you don't fix by putting a patch on because they'll be coming back to us and asking us again. And I would much rather find the root of the problem. And I would rather take our resources, find out what the root of the problem is, and then find out exactly what's necessary to fix the problem, which would always include the restoration of the limestone.
[Doug Carr]: I'm not a restoration architect, so I don't have any. You sure? I'm pretty sure. Oh, wait, I saw one in my own house, which was the same age. Actually, I would take a different tack. I would say you could take this project and fix it quickly and not worry about, like, it's an emergency patch for Jones Continent, and not try to mimic one. Just solve that problem so it doesn't get worse. It's a band-aid, but it buys you time to solve the larger problems and take some of that money that maybe is less expensive to prepare and find out where the water's coming. do the building assessment and you could, I think there's a good project there too. And so I'm just trying to like spend less money and don't even pretend it's restoration, but come back and fix the problem holistically. That's an alternative approach, which I think is somewhat more defensible. I think in terms of, you know, like it's actually probably cheaper because you'd be spending more money on study and the fix would be cheaper because you wouldn't, the aesthetics of it would be less important. You know, and again, I don't know the product options here, so I can't tell you, like, are there four different approaches for fixing limestone, restoring limestone? Like, I don't know what those are, but I think we can find out before we vote on all this. Like, we can do that, that little bit deeper dive on some of the alternatives.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Want to recognize Maisha?
[Myisha Majumder]: Maisha. Yeah, hi, thanks for presenting echo everyone else's sentiments here, but I do want to mention, I did a study on this when I was in college, which now was a long time ago, but MIT is the big infinite corridor. That's a limestone building. They did a big restoration. I want to say like. 2011, maybe in that era. I'm sure it was substantially more expensive than what we're trying to get quotes for here, but could be a useful venue to explore. Because I know they did a pretty substantial study on the engineering impact of the limestone restoration. But that's about it for how much I can contribute. A little bit more has been said, but I'm not an expert either.
[Doug Carr]: But I think the difference here is preservation. Like, you know, and I'll talk to Ryan and a few people and see if we can find some resources that can give us some direction here. I think, you know, just to help expand kind of the menu, if you will.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: David, wasn't it PJ Spillane? Was that the name?
[vRbVV80gLgM_SPEAKER_06]: It was, yep. That's who did the patch.
[Doug Carr]: The restoration company.
[vRbVV80gLgM_SPEAKER_06]: They're the ones who did this, the Chevrolet restoration work. Yeah.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Okay. So, not to I just want to recognize that the consultants that has been brought in is is in that realm specifically, not just I can do it. You know. Okay.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Any other questions. No. All right. Thank you for this 1 for this 1 on to the drinking fountain. And I wish I could stop doing that.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: I don't know why I does this.
[vRbVV80gLgM_SPEAKER_06]: You didn't want to do the two minute drill on this one?
[Doug Carr]: I would dare you to do it. I love photographs.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. You think I'd be so good at this by now?
[Doug Carr]: I think two screens is what we're doing.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: It's so hard. And I'm having to hard pivot my head. Yeah. All right.
[Doug Carr]: conference rooms in one screen for years. I'm like, that is really not a good thing.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: All right. And then I'm going to do this. I'm going to hit the timer. All right. And we're now looking at the drinking fountains.
[vRbVV80gLgM_SPEAKER_06]: All right. Great. So this one's a lot more straightforward. The drinking fountains at City Hall are not particularly accessible. I've had plumbing issues with multiple of them. And that have, you know, been minorly repaired, but in the spirit of trying to make the building more accessible, you know, we are in the process of making some accessible bathrooms on the first floor. I was hoping to make accessible drinking fountains as well that included bottle fillers, which is something you see pretty commonly these days as well.
There's three in the building. Just hoping to switch those out. They have to be lowered, obviously. One thing about this one is they're all mounted on different surfaces. So it would take a decent amount of work. Um, you can see the, got the third floor and then the first floor ones here. And then the second floor is a combo of like the block wall and the plaster wall. So we're looking for $51,000 to do these replacements and put in, you know, newer units that are more accessible and available to, you know, the residents that come to City Hall to conduct their business.
[SPEAKER_11]: Okay. All right. Doug? Well, let me defer. Who else? Who else? Just raise.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Yeah, thank you question I have is with that transition that you want to change that. Well, that include that. All the pipe from the original where the water will come through, because we don't want to issue that. You change that, but the pipe that goes connect all the way through the main water. Will be changed as well. Correct.
[vRbVV80gLgM_SPEAKER_06]: Um, it depends what where it leads to and what kind of service it is. Obviously, when we open it up, we would do an assessment before opening it up. Even it'd be an assessment of what length of pipe we would need to replace. But, yes, we, we would absolutely consider and look into that before doing anything.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: I'm not in the construction business, but I know now they use this instead of using the old pipe, because that runs into rust and everything. They have some newer, almost like rubber type of material that runs through, so it does not get any corrosion or anything like that, so that's more doable.
[vRbVV80gLgM_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so it would it would definitely be looked into. I just don't know behind the wall specifically how everything's attached, so we'd have to do a little investigation first just to fully understand, you know, the scope of that.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Thank you.
[Doug Carr]: Other questions?
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: I don't see any hands up.
[Doug Carr]: Can you? Teresa, I sent you a image and email of what the proposed rec u-found is, so we can look at that. It's a surface-mounted one. I don't know if you have your email accessible.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Stop for a moment.
[Doug Carr]: Yes. Sure. While we're doing that, can we talk about the copper panel, certainly on this, the first floor, I think that's the one. It looks like you'd have to kind of replace the whole panel. I don't think you can do like a piece of it. So this is to the left of the elevator, it's about six feet wide and about eight feet tall. Maybe it could be. I'm not sure you can cut and paste a modern piece of copper into that wall, because when you open up that wall, you're going to have to take the whole panel off, I think, in order to replace it.
It's all corroded. It's been cleaned horribly, probably with some really inappropriate finishes over the last 90 years. I think that may have to be part of the scope just so it does, it looks reasonable. Otherwise it's going to look like Frankenstein. I think in terms of old copper, new copper, you know, it's, it's just strange, but I, I looked at the, I think the, the product you've chosen with the bottle filler surface mounted it ADA accessible. It's perfectly a good thousand. I think it was, I don't know how much it was. It was a couple thousand dollars a piece. I think $1,600 times three.
That's it. I think that's the one you talked about in the gray color. I'm pulling it up on the screen for others to see. Yeah, just so people have an image of what it is. That would be on the wall, whether it's the drywall on the third floor, copper on the first. What's on the second? Is that hybrid? It's the hybrid. Yeah, it's the split. Split. OK. I think Joe mentioned this when we were talking. It's not restoration, but I think with the copper behind it, it kind of is a little bit. I know the copper is expensive, but I feel like you'd probably want to, and maybe we need to increase the dollar amount to get that extra couple thousand dollars for a new piece of copper. But I feel that would look better.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: It would. And I think going with the idea of making this ADA accessible is where we're going to be a sweet spot for CPA.
[Doug Carr]: Right. Yeah, it's like, and you're dealing with unknown existing conditions in a wall. You're going to find- Lead pipes, maybe. Something horrible on that wall, like any 100-year-old building.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Anything that's leaking out to the limestone.
[Doug Carr]: You know, it's just kind of like that outlet below the creek bottom might have to be moved, you know, because it's a drinking problem.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Not the code names.
[Doug Carr]: Not the code names. Most likely, you know, especially the water bottle filler. Anyway, this is a great project. I just think the number must be a little bit low, and we could probably adjust that.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: I think David would be happy to take more money.
[Doug Carr]: Sounds good to me. I don't see you fighting that. Nope. We'll throw in the copper for a few thousand bucks, as I said.
[vRbVV80gLgM_SPEAKER_06]: Thanks.
[Doug Carr]: And contingency reality. Sure. I don't have any other questions. This is a great project. It needs to happen.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Any questions from the Zoom committee members? I don't know. That was a quick one. Okay. Thank you, David. Thank you, David.
[vRbVV80gLgM_SPEAKER_06]: Thank you very much. Thank you. Have a good night, everyone. Thank you.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: See you tomorrow. Now, the person we've all been waiting for, Theresa. It has happened. Monsieur Bailey. Would you like to?
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, go ahead. Yep. Is that okay? Yes. Okay. So just to introduce, there was a memo in the Dropbox that our good director from the Recreation Department, Kevin Bailey, provided. I'll allow him to kind of give some more detail, but we would not be necessarily voting on it tonight. We would vote on it at our October 27th meeting. But there is a request to consider pivoting some previously awarded funds for a similar, if not identical project from Kevin. Kevin, if you want to come on up and make the request. And again, this is monies that the CPC has already awarded for a similar project.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: And it's an update for us, but it's not, it could be continued because this is not officially on the agenda. So we're just getting some information from Kevin, but we'll have to discuss this formally later.
[Kevin Bailey]: Yeah, no votes tonight. So this is where we're at. A few years ago, I was awarded funding to do some updates to the cottage shell. One thing I've heard for many, many years is updating lighting. If you're familiar, there's already stage lights that were installed years ago that no longer functioned. So CPC did award just over $98,000 to do the stage lighting and to, at the CPC's request, to add three additional pedestrian lights so that there's lighting around the walkway from the con and shell to the parking lot area. Since that time, it has been a while, One of the things that made a very large delay on this is remember that the cotton shell is DCR property and there is a 30 year lease agreement with DCR. With that agreement, we were just near the end when we were awarded that funding. So when we were asking for permission to go forward with the work, being smart, they said, once we sign a new agreement, then we will give you the permits and give the permission to go ahead and do this. But that did take almost a full year of negotiating, making sure that the city is also getting some benefits of operating the shell and the rest of that area. So that is one of the reasons why it's been a while, but obviously for something that was awarded, I want to say 21, 22, somewhere around there, Obviously the price has increased. That's something that I have talked about over the past year, knowing that we're starting to move forward with this, that certainly the price has gone to increase. We now have a final answer to what that increase is going to be. So going from $98,000, we do have a landscape architect that came in to help with our drawings, but they were also to do a breakdown of what they believe the cost estimate is going to be. And they believe it's going to be $145,821.
So roughly $50,000 above what I originally requested. It is certainly more than just the price increase of materials, but one of the things that also happened by bringing in the landscape architect When I originally came to the CPC, that was through a lighting company that suggested that we can continue keeping the light poles and the fixtures, and we would just put new lighting up above and replace some of the electrical work. The landscape architect was able to look at the footings and decided that the footings did need to be replaced, that we didn't need a new lighting pole. So that's one of the reasons why we've seen that increase as well.
So we are finally near the finish line of actually starting the work. We do have that lease agreement signed. We do have an email from DCR saying that they will approve those designs. Once it's awarded with a construction company, we can officially apply for those DCR permits. So we are very close, we're ready to go, but knowing that that cost estimate is gonna be much higher, we obviously need to find that additional funding. We have not awarded a bid to anyone right now, but we need to make sure that we have some funding available so that we can move forward with this.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: So the idea would be the Tufts Field Lighting Project that was funded in fiscal 26 for the amount of 432,000. The idea would be to carve out about 50,000 from that previous award that this body did approve, and then pivot it towards the Condon Shell project, because that's something we can do this spring, right? It's out to bid right now.
[Kevin Bailey]: And the goal is, I'm trying to do the Condon Shell, get that finished, and then work on Tufts.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. And we should anticipate that the Tufts project will need some additional funding. down the road whenever that one's being taken on. But the immediate request today would be for this body to consider pivoting 50,000 from the Tufts towards the common shelf so we can get that one done.
[Doug Carr]: And that's a better approach than just outright doing $50,000. An emergency request. An emergency request.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Well, Kevin and I were talking about this, and due to the fact that it's out to bid right now before we can award a contract, funding does need to be encumbered or secured. this was a path of expeditiousness. We certainly could ask recreation to apply for an urgent need, but that would kind of push back the timeline of all of this and might put the project at jeopardy of being able to be completed in the spring.
[Kevin Bailey]: And that's the other goal is talking with our landscape architect is if we can award the bid by December, January, go over the timeline, I'd like to, get a timeline when that construction can start and end by January. That's usually when we start accepting permits. So it also gives enough time. So if it does have any impact on farmers market, they know about it early on in the season. It is special events. We have the Italian Festival, for example. I'd love to let them know January, February, well before the planning date if they need to make adjustments to their event.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: I was just going to ask, how do we, I mean, how quickly can you put together an emergency request? Why do we think it's going to take so long?
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: It's not so much on our front end. I think you would have to have an account number that money secured by when the bids close October 27th. Yes. So essentially you need to have that money in hand by November 1st. Yes, we could cobble together an application and consider it for October 27th, but then it still needs to go. It's still subject to city council and then all of that red tape. So realistically, if you were to submit one now and have this body consider it at the 27th, that money probably wouldn't feasibly be in your hand until December, which is a little, if you, whenever it comes to contracts.
[Doug Carr]: So you'll do an administrative fix instead, which is fine.
[Ada Gunning]: I also have no issue with this. Like, I think that's totally fine. My question is, is there anything to learn from this so that we avoid this in the future? Like this specific thing happening?
[Kevin Bailey]: Yeah, Teresa and I actually discussed this as well. Typically with the CPA, because it does take about a full year from application to receiving the funding, I usually go with contractors to come out and give a cost estimate. One of the other options and one of the takes that we are moving towards is bringing in a landscape architect or bringing in an engineer ahead of time. The only downfall with that is looking at future projects. I know The CBC even has made comments of how long some of the city project takes. Going that route would be me first requesting funding to hire an engineer, to hire an architect, to give us that detailed cost estimate. So it's going to put all of those projects at least another year behind to get the funding to do the assessment.
[Ada Gunning]: I think I was just specifically asking about the relationship with DCR and just if there's anything in there to be learned from this
[Kevin Bailey]: Dealing with talking with other colleagues and other cities and towns. I think this is. Typical the way it does work sometimes with the contract negotiations. We have the same thing with the hockey rink, but some of the things that we need to be cautious of is making sure we're not quick to say yes to move forward with certain projects. In this particular case, for example, we needed to make sure that in that contract that the liquor license and the permitting stayed local. If we went with DCR's original plan without discussion, we would have had to have the DCR commissioner sign off and give approval for any alcohol being served there. That would have been probably six months to a year to get that permission. So it might work in certain cities and towns that might not be using it as festivals and such. But for us, we knew that would have been a really big impact for a lot of the events that we do. There were just several things in there that we knew was not going to be a benefit. And most of all, we wanted to make sure that we were able to use the facility as a benefit to the city and not just do the maintenance, the taking care of it, have the expenditures and not see that the city gets any benefit from it.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Were you talking more about not applying to CPC? If you know, you'd have the issue with it. Oh, sorry. Sorry.
[Kevin Bailey]: Yeah, I mean, there's so when we look at the lighting project, for example, when we looked at Tufts Park. I would say that in some ways, Memorial softball field would actually be better to update, but it is a TCI property, so that's why we purposely chose to go with Tufts versus Memorial for that reason. So yes, to your answer, yes, some of that stuff we have learned that. might be better to just stick with just the city property and not have that haziness of having it leased through DCAC.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: If I could provide just a little bit more, a thought I had after we talked, maybe whenever it comes to projects where it's beyond, there are multiple agencies involved, knowing that that might push the timeframe out, maybe we do a healthier contingency. Because if we're working on pricing in 2025, knowing the project will probably land in 2027 because of all this gobbledygook, maybe instead of a 20% contingency, we advise 30. And if you don't need that money, it's still ours. We can still claw it back to the CPA offers, but at least it's available to you. So maybe like instances like this. will be less painful in the past, next, in the future.
[Ada Gunning]: I like that. And additionally, like, if the applicant can say, like, historically, DCR projects have had like a one to three year lag time, and then we could just know that going into the project. You know, anyways, it has four handers, but.
[Kevin Bailey]: Realistically, I didn't know at the time. The hockey rink is about four years and under our purview. Con and shell is five, six years. So, yeah. So I didn't know exactly how long some of these We're all learning. Good to know. Paige.
[Page Buldini]: Thank you so much, and I appreciate some literally learning on the fly right now, but this is so exciting, and I think that the condon shell is a third space, so I completely support that. Just a question, and I can definitely look back in the files. Would taking that $50,000 or so from the Tufts Park lighting, would that change the timeline for that plan? Does that affect any of those plans? Just out of curiosity.
[Kevin Bailey]: Right now, we haven't really moved forward with the Tufts project because the current shell has taken so long. We've also had some other priorities. If you didn't see a few weeks ago, I went to city council to get funding for turf replacement at Omaha. So there's other big projects at the recreation center as you all probably also know. So there's a lot coming down to the rec department very quickly. So with that said, I think with the Tufts project with the con and shell still needed to be done. I think next year if we do still with Tufts, bring in an engineer, get a cost estimate. It will still be another year where we can get a better pricing and go to CPC if we decide there's an additional funding for the Tufts project that can be in the next round. I don't realistically see us moving forward with it this particular year.
[Page Buldini]: No problem. Just curiosity as a board member of Medford Youth Girl Softball, we just appreciate everything you do. Thank you.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Okay. Any other questions?
[Unidentified]: No.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Yeah.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Thanks, Kevin. So this will be an agenda item at the October 27th. If you can be there, great. If not, no worries. But thank you for being here. Thank you. All right. We'll pick you right at the top so we can get you in and out.
[Kevin Bailey]: I was just thinking that's the tax commission, but no, that's the public part. Yeah, Tuesdays.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Nobody wants to do commission meetings. Is it another 30 years? I don't want to do it either. It's just so funny how we have to battle for capacity.
[Reggie Graham]: Nobody wants to do anything on Friday except go home.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: It's true. Fair. OK. Thank you for having us. We'll talk.
[SPEAKER_11]: Two more.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: All right. Two more, folks. I'm going to present these ones. So the next two projects, I'll start with whichever one I grab first, open space tree plantings. Unfortunately, DPW Commissioner Tim McGivern has three meetings on this poor, this poor man had three concurrent meetings tonight. So he has many scheduling conflicts. He will come back to, I believe the November 10th meeting to address this body with any particular questions. But for tonight, I'm gonna present the project and answer whatever questions that I can.
Which one first? Let's do, actually, let's do Victory Park. Let's do Victory Park Athletic Courts. And thank you for being amenable, folks. I didn't want to waste your time tonight, and I can still certainly speak to product. All right. So hopefully, folks are now seeing from current slide. Thank you. And I'm not, I can tell you myself, I don't need the timer. All right. So, uh, Victory Park, um, just as a refresher, uh, for those who've been here and for the new folks, um, every year, the department of public works comes to the CPC and asks for funding to, uh, resurface an athletic court. They have gone through, um, I want to say it was about eight or nine years ago and assessed all of the athletic facilities in the city. and determined them on a prioritization for restoration or renovation here, because we're not talking about historic preservation. So many Asians. So for today, we're talking about the renovation of Victory Park, which is the last on the list of that I just talked about for being in poor condition. So the goal of this is to resurface the athletic court For those who don't know, Victory Park is off of Winthrop Street. It's right up against the Temple Shalom, as well as kind of abuts the backside of the high school. So there's a nice little loop path that the students will run through, and then they can come into the park. So it's kind of set back a little wooded. So if you don't know it, you can drive right by it. So the current conditions. Um, so first of all, this is an athletic court that is both a basketball court and a tennis court. It is separated by a fence. Um, so it is all one contiguous. Surface, um, is very much in, in pretty bad condition. Um, there are some substantial cracks, um, that can affect play. I think that the widest part today I measured was about a two inch gap, which, you know, that can catch somebody's toe. Um, so it's time to replace it. So here are some images of what the tennis court looks like. This little small picture in the middle I put there just so you can see the joining of the two courts and what that looks like. And you can actually see that crack starts on this side in the basketball court and carries on over into the tennis court.
So, and here's the basketball court's current conditions. I would say this kind of looks even worse than the tennis courts myself. Love to hear from Reg if he has any specific opinions. Um, but again, the proposed restoration would be to remove the athletic court, replace it with all new hoops, all new nets, all new fencing around the court itself. There is no plan to strike this for pickleball. This would still stay a tennis court. I think at this point, I don't know if you've been hearing at the parks commission, but the demands for pickleball has kind of reduced.
This is a great word for it.
[Reggie Graham]: You know why? Because we gave them- Because all the old people are finding out that injuries are real.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: And we do have a really nice new facility at Carr Park, which as a butter to Carr Park, it's used every single day. I can hear it. It's wonderful. I actually don't mind the sound. I think it's, it reminds me that I live in a community, you know, where people are out there actively playing. Anyway, so back to Victory Park, the request is for the amount of $264,000. That number is informed by recent restoration at Playstead Park, that tennis court. So to get to that number, I know he provided, a budget was provided by Mr. McGivern, Commissioner McGivern, just to kind of inform what the pricing would be here.
[SPEAKER_11]: So I feel good about his number. You got nine bids for Playstead, right? Yes, it's pretty. Yeah.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: So I'm happy to ask and try to answer any questions. I see the otter. That's okay. Yes, I can't see.
[Ada Gunning]: And this is 1 of the projects I was assigned to go through with a fine tooth comb and it looked great. The application no issues, but. I am curious looking at the picture, like, why is the basketball court painted? Colors as opposed to just like pavement.
[Reggie Graham]: It probably won't be.
[Ada Gunning]: Oh, okay. That's just like what it was at the time.
[Reggie Graham]: The reason why it's, I don't even remember when this was done. Was this a patch job? I think they've done a couple of patch jobs, this one, and they did one at basketball.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Yeah.
[Reggie Graham]: So subsequently, you know, when they did the patch job, I think in conjunction with some of the other newer pots that they were in, they decided they would paint them. Why they use green is probably because they don't color paint that they want to paint the tennis courts.
[Ada Gunning]: Got it. Yeah, I was like, that's so strange. OK, that was my only question. The application looks great, as far as I could tell.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: How big is this as compared to the others? So this is just one court. Playstead was the most recent one that we funded, and I have three courts there. So it's considerably larger. This one is kind of set up more like a bowling alley with a back-to-back basketball court and a tennis court there. So it is just one full-size court. And there's a soccer field on the other side? There is a soccer field. You can kind of see a little picture over here. Heavily used over there.
[Reggie Graham]: I think that's actually one of them. We don't use it for soccer as much. Soccer is like an ancillary field. But this field is used for Frisbee. Ultimate Frisbee. It's becoming one of our biggest playmaker.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: I would say our housing planner. She was almost a professional Frisbee player.
[Reggie Graham]: She still plays, so there's... The thing about usage of our open spaces and so on and so forth, there is not an awful lot of, I won't say usage,
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Missions.
[Reggie Graham]: Missions, because they don't use cleats as a rule. They use the plastic cleats if they do. You don't have to cut the grass three or four times a week. You don't have to manicure the fields and so on and so forth. So it's been quite a lucrative arrangement for us.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: With minimum wear and tear on our facilities. Exactly.
[Page Buldini]: Real quick, also, my daughter used to go to Six Acres for summer camp, and they utilize those courts and both basketball and tennis courts. So I think it's a great use for the community.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Thanks for mentioning that. I failed to mention that. Yeah, Six Acres is at Temple Shore, right next door.
[Doug Carr]: One last question. Any of the fence, any of the materials they had to throw it all away and start French.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: They may try to retain what can be, I will definitely come down and sometimes retaining and storing for a few months. No, it can be challenging, but, um, you know, this would go out to bed, but I will say the past three or four resurfacing projects have been done by the same vendor, Vermont recreation, 10.
[SPEAKER_11]: Probably.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Oh, because we have a good partner with them.
[Reggie Graham]: And luckily, they remind you that they've done a relatively good job.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: They've done a really great job. So if they were to win the bid for this, you know, potentially, but logistically, it would be a challenge to store. But perhaps we can sneak it into the woods or something like that. Check it out of the way for a bit. It looks really good. It does. Actually, of all of this, the fencing is the best looking amenity up there right now.
[SPEAKER_11]: Just try to recycle. Yeah.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. I think we've tried to do that in the past a couple of times and it disappears.
[Doug Carr]: I grew up in the United States, and this was there, and it was just a field, but it's a great park. It's a great group. It's a pretty little park.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: It is. Right on the street, but secluded. Any other questions? No. All right. Well, the DPW, thanks for your consideration.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: I wanted park tree planting.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: All right. So this is a repeat application. They have, I think, at least once, if not twice, the DPW has come to this body to ask for funding as just kind of like a budget fund so that they can fund park tree, city park tree plantings. And to explain why we can't pay for CPA funds cannot be used for street trees. our funding is only available for open space. So street trees, as much as we would love to put down trees, especially every time I drive Riverside Ave, it makes me real sad. It's just not an eligible expense with CPA. So, but that being said, if it's open space, if it's any of our parks, all day long, we can pay for plantings. Does that include city-owned veteran tomorrows?
I don't believe that. Some of them, if they're located within OpenSpace, do fall under the Article 97 protections, but there are certain ones that are standalones that aren't. For instance, Winthrop and Lawrence. Is that Lawrence Street? Yeah, there's a couple of dueling memorials. Those are not designated Article 97 protections in OpenSpace, so they're not eligible. So DPW is coming back to us asking, they have depleted, it took them a couple of fiscal years, but they depleted the last award that we gave for park tree plantings. I don't know why I'm having such a difficult time.
So the goal of this would be to continuously increase our planting efforts to grow our tree canopy here in the city. I want to take a moment to shout out that the city earlier this year, publishing forest management plan, which it's a light read at 143 pages. But I encourage folks to skim it. There is actually some really interesting climate action items that we can take action on, but it's all tied back to building our tree canopy. If you're not familiar, The key island index. Again, I encourage you to walk down Riverside Ave on a hot August afternoon, and you'll know exactly because the heat comes from above and below. It just radiates.
So it's pretty brutal. So again, I just encourage folks to visit this plan. It helped inform our newer tree planting efforts. So it's only going to be just yet another plan. We've been talking all evening about how we need to study, how we need to have assessments, how we need to have plans so we're not just plugging holes. And this management plan is definitely gonna help us holistically approach how we prepare the city for climate change.
I will say that right now in the application, I don't believe that they have identified specific parks that they wanna target. Past CPA awards for tree plantings, We have requested a list of exactly which parks would receive those funds. So that is something that I would encourage this committee to consider requesting. I think in my conversations with trees, I know Riverbend Park, which is behind the McGlynn and Andrews schools, There is emerald ash borer, which is a beetle that comes through. It destroys all the ash trees. So we have known infestation there. So over the next one to three years, we know that massive old growth trees are going to need to come down there. So succession plantings throughout Riverbend Park.
Tusk Park is always in need of more trees, as well as Playstead and Morrison Park, especially Morrison. I think there's some dead trees that are coming down near the tennis court there, some scraggly looking things. So they're asking for $75,000, which would essentially just kind of fill their coffers to be tackling tree plantings. And that is the end of my presentation. I'm happy to take questions.
[Reggie Graham]: Reg, have a chance. I've recently been exposed to some tree planters at Battery Park. Yes. And the gentleman that came in with the group had extensive information about trees and so on and so forth. A, the first question is, do we have a tree warden yet?
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: We have a tree warden. He started last Monday, so he's still very much acclimating. But I've met with him several times, and I'm already a big fan. But we do have a tree warden. I still get to speak with.
[Reggie Graham]: So there were so many questions that the gentleman answered for us. I think that some of those questions would be relevant to this discussion as well. You know, depth of the tree roots, et cetera, et cetera. How much water was going to be necessary. Just different questions that most lay people wouldn't ask. So I think that we should probably ask DPW if some of these questions that were brought up then would be answered by this $75,000 request.
I think $75,000 might be a little late.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: I agree. Last price that we're getting for a tree, it ranges from $750 per tree. to 840 and that is the cost of the tree planting. It's the cost of the tree planting as well as one year of watering maintenance after the fact. So 75,000 will pay for about 100 trees. But if we're not planting 100 trees in our parks every year, there does come to a point where we're at capacity. If we plant a tree here, are we prohibiting the playground to be expanded in five years or a new amenity being put in. So we have to be very conscientious of where we're planting in our parks, but they still need more trees. Trees come down in parks, sadly, often.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Yep, a little subtle.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Yes, thank you. My, I think, I guess, probably would reserve my my question, but I just want to comment towards planting trees. It is great to plant trees, especially as you mentioned, I walk my dog behind in the path there by the river. It is nice, but there's a lot of say. The trees sometimes, they're not being maintained on the area, like at the bottom. Because when you have things that start growing, like vines that are growing in the trees, a lot of weeds, it kills the trees. So it's just like, you know, if you're planting trees and they're not being maintained, so it's just like carrying water in a basket, you know, and the water's running out. You're never going to carry the water across. So you defeat the purpose of getting all that money out.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: I agree. And to kind of address that, our forestry department is fully staffed now. So we're hopefully, hoping to start tackling more maintenance. We've been really reactive towards, you know, tree needs to come down, lightning struck it as it came down in the storm. But in terms of just regular maintenance, that is something that has been prioritized, to your point. Also, Dosa and everybody, I'll just take a moment to soapbox about invasives, what you're talking about, like those vines that choke out trees, that's called bittersweet, and that can be easily pulled. The city is embarking on really expanding our invasive awareness education and outreach, just because folks don't even know. They're like, oh, it's green, it must be good. It's like, well, no, we have a lot of bad green things in the city. So thank you for pointing that out. I just want to say maintenance is something that DPW wants to be prioritizing, as well as coupling that with just educating people about invasives and what we can all do to help save our trees. So thank you for mentioning that.
Any other questions about trees that I can bring back to DPW? No? Very cool. All right.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Well, thank you for Thank you. Thanks for pinch hitting.
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, like I said, Mr. McGovern will be available at a future one of the meeting number two or three. I think it's number three. So if there were questions you want to ask specifically. Well, we have the DPW commissioner and Hudson.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Yeah, next item on the agenda is the meeting minutes from September 8th, which I don't
[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Our lovely intern, Kyla, has made them. She just wasn't able to get them over to me in time to distribute to you all. I promise I will have the September 9th, as well as this meeting, October 13th. So we'll have two sets of minutes at our next meeting to review. I apologize for that, and I appreciate everybody's patience.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: And I think that there concludes- That there concludes our meeting. I'm so proud of us.
[Doug Carr]: I'm not used to being here before 10 o'clock in these meetings. No, Teresa's going to keep us in check from here on out. I believe in her. It's not even 8 o'clock. Good night, everybody. Is everybody going to make a motion to close the meeting?
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Motion seconded by Losa.
[Page Buldini]: Yes.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Call the roll. I'll call on my first page.
[Page Buldini]: Yes.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Ava? Yes. Maisha? Yes. Losa? Yes. Doug?
[Reggie Graham]: Yes.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: Reg?
[Reggie Graham]: Yes.
[Vice Chair Joan Cyr]: And myself, yes. The meeting is adjourned.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: It is pouring outside for those who are walking to their cars. The sky just opened up.
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