 Good afternoon, everyone. It is Thursday, January 19. And this is the elementary school building committee and seeing I would that we have a quorum of members. I am going to call on people and I see we have one extra person Gregory Rockland so we can figure. Well, have him introduced later but I'm going to call on everyone, since we're conducting it virtually to make sure they can see and be heard. And as people join us. I will, I can do that. Margaret, I think I'm the only, I'm this, the, the, okay. I will figure out how to do that but I'm the only host right now. I don't want to screen share. Sorry. Sorry. No. How do I on screen share. Sorry, stop share. Yeah, just click the, there you go. Great. So going back. I am going to call on everyone as I see them on the screen. Mike Morris. Jonathan. You're free to take your seat. I'm going to call on everyone as I see them on the screen. I'm going to call on everyone. Rupert. I know you can't. Sean. Yeah. Simone. Here. And Jonathan, I see your hand went up. Is there, do we have someone in the audience? No. Okay. So we do. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. My count is right. So we have seven, which is a quorum. Several other people said they could make it. So I will call on them as they come. And Sean, I think you told me if I go next to. Margaret and I, where do I do the allow people to share the screen. Go down where's a share screen. There should be a little arrow there. And click, click allow panelists to share multiple participants can share. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay, so I have done that. Great. All right. So I just, before we get, I pull up the agenda, I just wanted to introduce my compatriot, Gregory Rocklin, who is here today to listen in Gregory is doing the document review in our office. And I thought it would be useful for him to listen in on this. So welcome, Gregory. Thank you. Just going to pull up the agenda. So here's the agenda for today. We're continuing what we discussed. Actually, is that. Yes. Can everybody, can everybody see that? Yeah. Okay. We're continuing the discussion of value engineering options. And then I am going to talk a little bit about the total project budget, which is the sort of overall project budget. And then we're going to take a look again at the schedule for future meetings. So I'm going to, oh, and we have a apology. So we have four invoices to review. So we've got quite a, quite a few piled up. So. And just before everyone got on, I said, there are a few participants. Tammy isn't here yet, but a few said they. You know, might have to leave early. So I don't want to lose a quorum. So we're going to try to get through the parts that we have to vote on. As quickly as we can without skimming over. And the one item that you all will have seen, Jonathan asked me about is everyone who's on the, the building committee is going to get an invitation. If you would like to be part of the presentation to the council, I'm going to be in the meeting tonight at five 30. So that's going to be coming into you. And that's a, you can come or not come. Yes, Paul. Are you posting that as a meeting? I will. I, oh, she today is Thursday. It has to be posted today by five by four 30. Okay. I believe that may have happened because I've gotten official. Invite. Okay. That looks like a posting to me. Okay. Paul. Right. Okay. So I think we are ready to. Move on and late this afternoon. People were sent a revised the E list that is going to be shown on the screen and for anyone in the public, it was posted to the packet. So you can, if you want to follow along on what was in the packet. And I am now turning it over to Tim. Okay. Okay. So, so as Tim's pulling, Tim, are you able to share? There you go. So just, just really quickly. What, what we would like to do today just to make this as efficient of our time as possible is just. Kind of. Walk through the items. We don't want to really go backwards. We want to focus on any. Lingering questions or follow up questions or answers to questions that came up last time on some of the items that we were. Recommending. And then we have additional. Items that, that we are recommending and they are as potentials that we would probably want to spend our time on. So we're hoping this won't be as arduous as it was last time. Tim, one suggestion I might have is to hide the. Blue impact count comes so we can see that last column of accepted because once we, once we get through this, we're hoping that we can take a vote on the things we've said, we're accepting so we can have at least a tentative total of. Yes, this is an approval list and we can leave things off the list. So that. Thank you. Okay. All yours, Tim. I was muted. Sorry there. As Donna said, I was going to focus on the items that have been added or. There has been some sort of development outside of the context of the building committee. I had a conversation with the building commissioner on the ones that are related to code. I also had a conversation with Mike about some program items. So we will focus on those items were highlighted in blue, not to say that if there's any other thoughts on potentials. Where we left off at the end of last meeting, we can certainly visit them. Before, before you get started. Kathy, I think Phoebe joined just wanted to point that out. Okay, Phoebe. Can you hear us and can we hear you? Yes. Hello. Thank you. Great. Thanks, Donna. Alicia. Ben. Ben. I've got a binium too, but Ben is also leaving. Okay. So Alicia is here too. I think, yes. Let's see. Maybe she's. Yeah, I don't see. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Promote to panelist. So Alicia, I should have brought you in. Are you, can you hear us? I'll see her. We hear you. Yes, I can. Thank you, Kathy. Okay. Thank you both for joining. Onward. The first item that was added to the list to discuss would be deletion of above grade. Site improvements at the athletic fields on the northern part of the site that would include the backstop, fences, benches, the safety netting. You know, nice amenities, certainly, but they are not critical to the school use of the site and then they could be added to the site. So that is the first item to consider if the committee has a clear direction on that. We could add it to the accepted column. Kathy, would you like us just, we'll go through all of them. Yep. The next two are related to. Reducing the cost of the site. And then they could be added potentially with the markups that is $164,000. That could potentially be eliminated from the project budget. So that is the first item to consider if the committee has a clear direction on that. Reducing the costs in various areas of curbing, which has been noted as a large line item. In the drive aisles and parking area, there is a reduction. To. A Cape Cod verb, which is a bituminous. Curve. That's $133,000 worth of markup. And then in the playground areas, it's a precast concrete curb in lieu of granite, which has a reduction at 14,000 since there's less of it. And, and maybe what we can do is, is just let, you know, under the description. So we. Are agreeing and recommend the field amenities to be taken because that could be part of the CPA funding or. You know, can be supplemented externally. As it relates to the granite curbs. Tim, you want to talk to those two items. There is a real maintenance impact. There's effect on plowing grant Cape Cod, Berm or an asphalt curb is not, there's no other way to say it as durable as a vertical granite curb. And we might have an opinion on that, but it is certainly easier to plow over, but it is also easier to damage with the plow. So it's a significant cost savings, but it has to be weighed in the terms of long term. Maintenance and the offset there. The precast curbs in the play area are again. Functional, but concrete does not last as long as granite, which essentially lasts forever. And then if we're moving through the list to discuss the other two in sight that are listed here, one is reduced that plexi pave to game line only plexi pave is. Not paint, but it's like paint that's applied to the top of the black top and it gives you the entire a full bleed color surface that you may have seen at some other schools. This would be essentially taking a blue basketball court or a blue play area and making it between minister black top and only the lines would have the plexi plexi. Very durable paint for lack of a better description, but it does come with a cost and with a markup that would save $149,000. And then the last line item in the site category is 15% reduction in the bituminous painting, which includes the play areas and the walks around the building. This would require a layout change. Looking at the site plan, maybe the large ring around the forest floor garden could get shortened or altered, but there is a significant savings involved. It would be $123,000 to do a 15% reduction. So maybe we can just pause and see if anyone has any comments under the site items. We're getting a playback from someone. So if you're not talking, most people have their mutes on. So Rupert has his hand up. And then I saw Mike's hand went up also. I would like to encourage taking the parking space reduction off of the list. I think that we're going to end up using all the parking spaces with various activities. Yeah, we actually, we said no as well. So we could, if everyone else agrees, we can put that as a no. Thank you, Tim. And anything, anything to say about the curbing the granite curbs Rupert, it really does become, you know, it will fall to you. I didn't actually check with my plow guys. So I don't have any more feedback at this point of, I'm not experienced with the plowing snow around here. So. Mike. And then Paul. Yeah, so I think first, I just want to think there's a lot of detailed work. So thank everyone for putting it together. Yeah, I think my framing continues to be the educational program for students. And the outside is a really critical, not just the outdoor learning explicitly, but there's an elementary school. We want to, we want to make sure that it continues with the spaces that students will use and we have a broad range of needs. So even in addition to recess, we have students who get movement breaks. And those movement breaks are year round, you know, like, until it's bad weather. Right? And so for me, you know, when we look at the potentials, you know, I sort of feel more strongly about things that are directly related to our educational program. You know, including like, you know, play service and having a soft play surface for young kids who need movement breaks where black top is not necessarily the safest one. When I look at community field amenities and some of the other ones, curb cuts, that's more in Rupert's domain. as long as safety is maintained, they're already outside the educational program that we have for students and what we're able to provide. So for me, that's sort of my own internal matrix, which I'm one of the group, but as I think about it, so for me, if the town wants to figure out funding for backstop spaces, but that's not what we're seeing kids play at recess and we haven't seen that for a while. And even if you didn't know backstop and you're playing kickball, somehow that game works just fine. So, that one is less directly related to educational program. I think the birdhouse again, like I'm comfortable moving forward with that. It is educational program, but I think also, there's other ways to achieve that end. And the ones that are more directly related to the experience and particularly the diversity of our students, those are the ones that have a harder time with feeling like I would support. So sort of that's the way as I'm viewing it, that's sort of, that's where I am on these. Paul? Yeah, along the same lines, I sort of am framing this in my own mind as I look at these things in terms of three things. One is, is this core to the educational mission of the building that we're building? If it is, then we should keep it. If it's not, then we should question it, which is what we're doing. Secondly, is it core to building a net zero energy building? I think that's the second goal that we're achieving. And third is our responsibility to the taxpayers to keep this as a building that the taxpayers are willing to support. So I don't like losing any of these things quite honestly, but I think that we need to reduce this. And these are, I don't see these as meeting any of the goals for education or net zero. One, and so for Granite Kirby and a lot of these things, I'd say, wow, it would be wise to keep it. But I think at this moment in time, we need to be saying no to things on this type of thing. The only thing I would say is a little bit different is that I do wonder about the number of parking spaces we have that there is on street parking across East street. And what I'm thinking about is maybe we use this reduced parking spaces as a bank, if there's something that's like $10,000 we really want, are we willing to trade off 10 parking spaces to get it? And make us sort of be disciplined in that and sort of, so that's something that just sort of popped in my brain as we were talking about it. So in essence, I agree with all of these recommendations. I would vote yes on all of them. So just to be clear, so the two that we were saying potential for the granite curb, that it sounds like both you and Mike would support that. Rupert needs, didn't have an opportunity to talk with. Yeah, I don't know about Mike. I'm saying yes, I would support. Yeah, sure, sure. Jonathan. I agree with what others have said so far. You know, I would like when Rupert gets a chance to kind of to discuss it with the folks who actually do the work, but I personally would vote to eliminate the granite curbs while asphalt curbs are more delicate. One might say they're more apt to get damaged. They're also a lot less expensive to repair and replace. So I also would go along with these. Thank you. So, Phoebe, I'm gonna come last. So if people's hands go up, I'll call you. Phoebe, Phoebe, if you're talking, we're not hearing you. So you need to unmute. Okay, well, we're waiting. I'll just do a quick, everything on this list looks fine to me. And just more than one person sent in the community field to manumit me, because it could be added later, what you're saying. So some of these, I just wanna say that anybody who sent me anything, I just sent it on to the design team when people were looking at it. So I noticed that on parking spaces, which you flagged, there's no money put in there right now. So this is not even counting toward the larger number. So Paul, I think what you said is at some point we could come back to that. So I think it's a, I actually think it's a really good list. And I would change the blue potentials to yeses. So we can see what happens to the total because I think Tim's got the spreadsheet set up that way unless I hear objections. So I'm waiting to see if anybody's hands are up. I think if we hear that someone wants to take it off the list and Mike, your hands back up, correct? Yeah, I just wanted to comment on the parking spots. To your question, I'm very comfortable moving forward with the blue, as you noted. The parking spots, the reality is, then when families come to, when we don't have enough parking spots and families come to the school, we won't have spots for them because we can put whatever sign we want, families only. And that's not going to actually work when people are coming for professional development. So I get the concern about parking spots. I think the reality is if we wanna have a community-centered school, we need places for people in the communities park and expecting everyone to park across the street, east street or along that path across the street. It's just not realistic. Maybe if we lived in Miami, but look outside. And so, but to answer your direct question, Kathy, I'm very comfortable with adding the VE to the items in blue that are on the list. Okay, and Phoebe, have you been able to unmute because I see your hand is up, but okay, there she is. Yeah, I don't have the greatest internet today. Sorry about that. So I generally with everybody, I think we're pretty on board. I'm pretty on board with a lot of the potential stuff that we're talking about. The one thing that I have a question about actually does have to do with the community field amenities. And that's for a couple of reasons. One, because I'm wondering if there are things on this list that we're losing that we have as a community now. I'm a little concerned with going to the community saying we're doing this great thing. By the way, we're gonna lose all of these things that we currently have at the existing site. But also because things like, backstops and safety netting, those kinds of things. I wonder if we have adults playing a game and kids on play equipment, is there any safety implications there? So if we can get some clarity on how those things will affect generally if we lose them, I'd feel more comfortable being in support of that. Yeah, Phoebe, just one reaction. Actually, this was sent in by some of the community field users as we could do this later. So it's not that these would never be there. And the notes for some of these things aren't in there now. So I don't think it's that the field would never have them on it, but we could come back and do it later. It doesn't have to be part of the school project with the double contingencies. So I think that was the spirit in which this piece was put on. It wasn't that there will never be a backstop for the softball field. And I'm also wondering on some of what we have now, can we reuse it at all? This is the kind of putting in playground equipment and recreational equipment is something where there are community grants as well as state grants. So that was, I think, why it went on the list. It wasn't that these are not at all necessary. It was that they could be done later and funded in a different way. So anyone else on Elisha's hand is up. Elisha. Thank you, Kathy. I just have a question. I share the similar concerns from what Phoebe just said, but I'm wondering what it means when we indicate that something could be added later and what that process would look like just because we're already anticipating spending this large amount of money on this project and in what way would things be added later to this building? So do we think that grant funding would continue to be sought by people and who those people would be? And if this committee plans to continue after the building is built, I'm not sure what that actually means. So I'll do a quick response. Paul may want to respond also, but the way we did Kendrick Park and a few of the others are Gough Park, it was outside of the school, we were able to get grants and matching grants from the state for some of the putting in equipment and play equipment. So when I say outside, it's not our building committee because we will have built the school and we will have restored the fields. So the fields will be restored. So it's that notion of funding could come from outside of this project and those fields will not be usable until at least a year after the school opens because we have to restore them and do the planting on them. So the school can open and there's still some work to be done on the community field. So did that answer the question? It's just we've, you know, watching how it's Dave Zomek and conservation department, various people come in when we're talking about recreation that's beyond the school. Yeah, I think that's helpful. I think my only other question would be then, do we supply or do we like compile those things in a list? Like we didn't add these features, but our recommendation is that these be added at another time. Because I guess I, again, I think my concern would be that we won't be a group anymore. And so who would be in charge of overseeing that? And do they have this information from us or do we need to make sure it gets to them? I think those would be my other concerns. Thank you. Yes, I think that's totally doable. And this list, as I understand it, stays a list that we see also in the MSBA, things that we had in that we in value engineering are gonna be taking out. So we can collect this list. Any other questions or comments on this? And again, so I think we're moving on to the next bank or the bank. It's both ways, a double bank. Tim, did you, I'm sorry, just going back to the top, to the soil. We did wanna confirm that dollar value, I guess. Maybe that was... So yeah, so there were two... Well, there was, we got verification that the $305,000, $393 marked up that we distributed last time for the town to accept the fill that is scraped from the site to the gravel pit or whatever it is, would eliminate the disposal fee that is, and we just did a little more double checking and we confirmed that that is the number. We have that in the yes category, but if that is now unrealistic for someone there's further development, we'd love to hear about it. Well, Paul. Yeah, so I did talk with DBW. They thought they had some ideas on where we had placed the soil. Some of it depends. We need to know the exact volume of the soil and the sort of content of the soil. So where we're putting it, we need to know what it is, but they had a couple of ideas depending on the actual volume. So I think it's good to keep it in there as a yes, but subject to additional information. Very, very rough numbers. It's 6,000 yards and we have no reason to believe that it's not clean, but those are... Thanks for that. As I said, very good. Thank you. Yeah, that's... Yeah, it's a huge number for not losing anything, right? I will scroll down to the next batch that we are gonna consider. There were not any developments or new information on the exterior of the building. The list is as we discussed last week, but if there are any second thoughts, please, then moving to the interior of the building. The fire-rated glazing at the stair that goes to the lobby, I had a discussion with Rob Mora this morning, actually, and the fire-rated glazing without or replacing the fire-rated glazing that we have specified with a hollow metal system that is backed up by sprinklers, automatic sprinklers, which is a total savings of 330,000. That is a system that he is comfortable with and has approved for other projects in town. So we've haven't changed the word, but I've added the amount to the accepted column and moved to the smaller amount, which was for reducing the amount of glazing and using the same more expensive system. So we've got from accepting the $180,000 reduction to the $330,000 reduction. Because of the whole... Also discussed with Rob Mora was the leading the exterior kindergarten doors. They are required in a room where the occupancy is over 50, just by the nature of their kindergarten, that will likely... Someone needs to mute. I'm sorry, we're getting a... I don't know where it's coming from. Tim, if it's our office, can you just let the folks know that you're in a meeting? No, sorry, if you... Okay, sorry. No, I agree, we just... We have an open office. I think that was us, I'm sorry. The exterior doors at the kindergarten. Rob would like a little more discussion on that and it impacts, honestly, a lot of aspects, not just egress, it discusses, it impacts safety, it impacts thermal performance, it impacts our quality because that word would be used as kids are going in and out. So we've sort of taken that off of the accepted and put it in the potential. And we don't think we really have enough information from all the parties involved that we could accept that at this time. And it's also not nearly as large as some of the other items on the list. One of the items that we got as input this week was to reduce the number of motorized, automatically adjustable backboards to just the two main ones in the gymnasium. And so if there are four that are manually operated with a crank and two electrical, that would be a savings of $12,000 marked up. And then another item on the interior of the building is to delete 140 lower four lockers. The way it was designed, there is 24 lockers per classroom so that you would have full flexibility for a full enrollment of a class in any classroom and that can move around the building. But that leaves you with 864 total lockers for an enrollment of 575. And so what this does is remove 12 lockers at the ILC or the building blocks or aims classrooms in the clusters on each floor for a total reduction to 720 lockers, which is still well above the 575, but it's a savings of $58,000 marked up. And those are the items on the interior of buildings. So then, I'm looking for hands. I'll ask questions to show my ignorance on the kindergarten doors. It makes sense to just not take that now based on what you said. And Ben is far better than I on motorized electric backboards in a basketball and gym. So I'm expecting he'll talk about it. And then the lot, most of my questions on the lockers, if you take them out and we ever get to full capacity, is there still space where you could add a locker? You know, are we restricting ourselves for the future wherever you were planning on putting them? So that's my question about lockers and I'll stop. It's a question on lockers and I'm deferring to somebody else about backboards in the gym. Tim, Donna, Rick, with the lockers. The space where the lockers were taken out there would be space there to add lockers at a later date is going to be an obvious and not seamless introduction of lockers to the space. And the number that we are reducing to still exceeds the anticipated enrollment of the school. So a more realistic, I should say, a more likely scenario is if you get full enrollment at some future date, some of the kids would have to walk possibly across the corridor to get to an excess locker rather than adding them. But the short answer is yes, there's room for more. So people should know I sent in the question about lockers. So Ben and then Mike. Yeah, so I was absolutely gonna talk about the motorized backboards versus the manual winch backboards. Considering the fact that it's not a huge cost savings in the fact that the manual cranks that we have now are a ridiculous headache. Like it's ironic timing. I actually had to extend my day two hours yesterday to repair one. So if we could not do that, that would be super awesome. Yeah, that's the way I've always operated with the deadlines because then if it doesn't count any employees. Tim, just if you want to mute. I was shocked. Yeah, we have two Zoom meetings going on simultaneously in the office. So I apologize. Mike. I just want to say on the locker piece, worked with Tim and that team, their team on that, I think it was yesterday, if I remember correctly, day before, something like that. I feel very comfortable with this reduction. It's hard because you got to get them in the right place. So I think it's, and we have a lot of variability in class size and we will continue to do it. So we'll, you know, for next year, our projections, you know, we're right now in our school classes that range from 24, the one class of 25, all the way down to 15 and 16. And that variability will shift a bit. It'll get better when the school is built because there'll be some operational efficiencies that come from that. But we wanted to make sure there was enough in the classroom, even if we have larger classes, but also some for specialized program for students, maybe lockers, two places for equipment for other matters. So I feel very comfortable with this change and I'm glad it's on the accepted category because I really do support it. I think it does bring down the cost in a reasonable way. So appreciate the team working on through with me and being creative and picking. Thanks, Mike. So I don't see anyone else if unless I'm missing somebody, I'm trying to check in two places. So I think of what we heard, you hadn't taken the motorized electric backboards, you had taken the lockers and we've removed the kindergarten doors for the time being, they're on the potential list. So they're not adding to the total right now. Is that correct? Yeah, just correct. Okay, not hearing anything more. I think we can move to the next. We actually do not have any additional items in mechanical or electrical. So the revised total as discussed and amended today is $5,300,447. That does not, or excuse me, that does include the two deductions for the Cape Cod curbing changes that Rupert may reserve the right to comment on, which is $145,000. So that 5.3 could become 5.1. So what I would like to do is make sure that people can go back and look at the list if they need to or ask any question. And then just so everyone knows, we were at about 4.5 last Friday and we're now at 5.35, which is good. And so what I'd like to do is if people are comfortable with that, knowing what Tim said that there's this 140 that still might come off it that are related to the curves, could we, I would like to propose that we vote to accept this list as a committee unless I hear people say they're not ready to do that yet. So I listed it on the agenda as a potential vote. And anybody can shout out to me if they want to on how they want to do this. I see Mike and Rupert both have their hands up. Okay. Why don't you call in them, Margaret, because I'm not, for some reason, I'm not seeing that. Okay. How about Mike? So I moved to accept the value engineering list from January 19th, totaling $5,350,447 as presented. And is there, Kat, Shane will second, I'll just second it. And then did you said... And then Rupert has hand up. You have your hand up. Well, I just for clarity's sake, I'm wondering if what's written in black as potential is staying as potential, not yes. Is that how I understand it, correct? Yeah. Yes, if you look, Tim can show you, if you go across the row to the column called accepted, if it says potential, it's at zero. So it's not counting in that piece. So that's one, the curbs were at top, they are counting. So anything that is, Tim, you can, I think you've done this. If not every potential is a zero. So Tim, you'll have to do, change some of the potentials to yeses. But that's where you can go across. We didn't take, for example, the lower the first floor elevation by a foot, we didn't take that. That is, that was something we did not accept. So we can change, did that answer your question? Yeah, it looks like Tim is getting the team recommendations updated as we speak. Thank you. Any other questions on this five point? This is good news people. You know, in terms of shrinking, it's good news for the total costs. It's not necessarily good news that we had to do this, as Paul said, coming back to going back through these. But most of the, I saw again, because the presentation that Donna and Tim did for the school committee, but also they're preparing the council and the forum, the exterior changes in design materials, you can't see them, you know? I mean, it's the visuals we've been seeing are still what we've been seeing. So a lot of care has been taken on this list. Yeah, I think we might have shared it with... You did last time also. I'm just saying that now I've seen it more than once. So are people ready to vote? Kathy, the one other thing I just want to mention is that we really appreciate everyone's effort in this and really weighing really the three major components, as Paul stated. We're going to keep this list. And if items, if costs come down, if things shift in the market, hopefully, right? And speaking with Tim and our team that a lot of these items can easily be put back during design development if the market conditions truly correct themselves. And so we'll continue to take them. It won't impact the design yet. It will, you know, down the road, but we have one more cost estimate coming up that will reconfirm everything. So, you know, we can put them in order or whatever. I just want to say that if the market conditions really change, there's an opportunity to put some back in. Well, I want to just add one thing to that. Actually, yeah, let me say this now. So as part of the submission to the MSBA, we actually need to provide them with a list of other potential cost savings that we could take if needed in the future. So this is the kind of the opposite side of what Donna is suggesting. So what we are going to do is take the list of things that were not taken here and list them as potential future cost savings. It's not an agreement to take them. It's just an indication to the MSBA as well as the community that there are other potential savings that could be considered. So I'm half full and your glass half empty. No, I'm kidding. That's our job, right? That's exactly our job. That's what we do. Yeah. So I don't see any other hands up. So I am going to call a vote. And because we have this on video, Margaret will get the mics carefully worded motion wording. So we're voting on this list as presented with the accepted list. So Jonathan. Yes. Kathy is a U.S. Rupert. Yes. Paul. Yes. Ben. Yes. Mike. Yes. Phoebe. So I'm going to move to Simone. Yes. Alicia. Yes. And if you're having trouble with your Mike Phoebe, oh, Sean. Yes. So I'm waiting to see if Phoebe can unmute. What we did the other day is someone double raised their hand as a way of indicating a yes, but with this technical glitch. Phoebe. I don't know what to do. We've got one, two. Well, we've got, yeah. I think you have to record her as not voting. Like as if she had stepped out of the room. Yeah. So I'm recording Phoebe as not voting. Yeah. Okay. I got it. I'm going to turn the notes. Okay. Okay. Tim, you can take down. You can, great. And Phoebe, if you can unmute and go throw your voice in, we'll take your vote. Margaret's got the total. Yeah. Okay. We're ready to move on. Okay. So the next thing we're going to do is talk about the project budget. So we've spent a lot of time on the hard construction costs. So now I want to, and I'm not going to take a long time to do this. It's actually an easier thing to look at, although there's a lot of information behind the scenes. So let me pull up. First of all, let me just say that one of the reasons that we haven't talked about the soft costs is this, which we're not going to spend. This is the only part of the MSBA spreadsheet through which they do this calculation. And I'm not, we're not going to dwell on this today, but once you sort of move one of the levers, you have to adjust certain other levers. So what I have done is I've put together a kind of a roll up of this. And in sharing the roll up, I'm going to sort of explain to you a little bit about what the widgets do. So can everybody see this? I can, so it probably means everybody can. Okay, so this is a roll up of that crazy spreadsheet that I just showed you. And I will also say the MSBA revised the spreadsheet after their decision on December 21st. So it's a different spreadsheet than was being used before, but in a nutshell, just to kind of walk through it. So I think we've, in this committee, we've talked a little bit about the feasibility cost. It's for the purposes of what we're doing, it's outside of the project, because what we're really focused on is what we're gonna, what the city, what the town will bond for. So here is last week's number. Okay, so this is not what we just talked about because I would have to go back to that crazy spreadsheet and plug in the numbers all over again. So last week we had started with the Fogarty estimate and we had taken out about 4.1 million of savings. So now obviously that number is bigger. So these numbers look a little different, but in general, therefore the town share has become lower because everything what's really driving these numbers at this point is how much we're above the MSBA's cap on construction costs. So the piece we haven't talked about, and let me also just say that this number, if you hear people talk about hard cost, they mean construction costs. Soft costs are the piece we haven't talked about yet and they really come in three buckets for the purpose of this project. So one is the fees, and those are the architect, the OPM and all those consultants that you've seen working on the project, as well as mailing, moving, advertising, there's like a whole construction testing, a whole list of services that are not things. So you could think of this line as being things and this line as being services. So these are estimated at this point, but we've been pretty aggressive about them. I will tell you overall, we had been using in previous conversations, 25% as a markup, these actually represent about 20%. So that number has gotten smaller as we've been starting to dig into detail. However, some things we haven't talked about at all. So there is a number, a soft cost number for furnishings, equipment and technology. So the furnishings, I think are straightforward. Equipment are things like the stuff that we've talked about Rupert needing to change light bulbs or whatever equipment is required for the project and technology. Now the MSBA reimburses up to $1,200 per student for this. However, the costs at this point are coming in considerably higher. So Donna and I are still batting this around, but for the purposes of this budget that we're looking at today, we've plugged in 1850 per student for furnishings and 1650 per student for technology. And that gives us a number of a little over $2 million. And then the last piece is contingencies. So the contingencies are for changes in the direction of the project or things that come up in construction. And typically for a new construction project, we recommend using 5% construction contingency. And this number is absolutely, if you look at it, all it's doing is taking the construction value and calculating 5%. And the owner's soft cost is calculating 1%. The MSBA does not fully reimburse on these numbers, but they reimburse a percentage on them. So if you add all those up, and again, last week's numbers, not today's numbers, we are at a little bit under a million dollars. And then I did a quick calculation, again, based on last week's numbers of what the reimbursement, what the MSBA share of the reimbursement is. And it looks like it's coming in at a little over 41 million for last year, last week's numbers. And the town share is about 58. So this does not take into account, and we're not gonna talk about it today, but we are gonna talk about town council on Monday. Some of the other opportunities we have to reduce the town share, which I would say at this point fall into three big buckets. So one is the rebates, the utility rebates we talked about. One is the CPA funding, which is on the table. And the other one, which is very much TBD at this point, is the federal credits, which may be coming and we can't yet quantify. So I think what you're gonna hear on Monday is town council, starting to getting a presentation, really the same presentation that you've had pieces of over several months and starting to have a discussion about the cost of the town. So I know some people have a short leash today, so I'm not gonna get into this any further. We will, at later meetings, go back to that scary big spreadsheet and I will get into more detail, but this kind of gives you the overview of how it works. So I'll stop talking and ask if there are any questions. I see Sean has his hand up. Sean. Thanks, Kathy and Margaret. I just wanna remind everybody, I think this is something Donna and Margaret you've pointed out is that there might be a building code update between now and when the project moves forward. So I think just keeping that contingency is gonna be really important to cover. If there are any major changes as a result of that, making sure that we keep that contingency available for the possibility there. Yeah, and thank you, Sean. I think I didn't mention it because it's been on my mind all day today and I finally blanked it out, but yeah, we are definitely engaged in a real struggle right now with all the rest of the design and construction community and trying to figure out how this code is gonna work and what the impacts are gonna be. So in the end, it is possible that I will come back to the committee and the town and recommend that we increase the contingencies for the purposes of the funding agreement until we can figure out what the impacts are. But for the moment, this is not embedding any, this is embedding an assumption that we're gonna be able to make what we, has been designed to work with the new building code. We just can't get, they're really struggling to get the new energy modeling to work to prove what we believe to be true. Jonathan. Sorry, I had to find my unmute. It is just touching on contingencies again and a little bit on what Sean just said. We, the current hard cost estimate also includes some level of design contingency as well. That's right. We should also, you know, it's there to cover the things that have yet to be designed but also to cover hopefully impacts of changes in codes over the course of a project like this too. And the other thing I'd just like to thank you for putting the total project cost together because this is a different number that we're looking at today than what appeared in the paper this morning. Yes. Thank you. I was hoping somebody would point that out. Yes, I wasn't gonna let that go. I would say that that Horace left the barn before actually checking with its owner. You know, and it will be, and is Margaret just stressed because we're at 5.3 million rather than 4.1, the number she just showed us is gonna be different by Monday, you know, with the what we just voted. So by, you know, at least a million dollars, you know, in terms of both the top, it'll be more because of the piece. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure that it looked like that what the number in the paper was last week's unedited number times 1.25. That's what you can see as you drill into the detail of this, if both the hard cost and the soft cost numbers sort of come, start to get more specific. This is, you know, the kind of number you're really talking about. So I mean, I feel like I feel really good. And I really wanna thank the Dinesco team for kind of an extraordinary level of effort on the VE because everything I do is driven by what they've done. So I don't wanna take any credit for that. I mean, that's where it's coming from. So at this point, if there aren't any questions on these two pieces, we've have invoices we need to vote on. Oh boy, do we, yeah. And I just, I have a quick question, but we can come back to it as you pull the invoices up. We have a meeting scheduled for next Friday, the 27th. I haven't posted it yet, but we've been saying we would meet. And that was to allow us to have one more meeting to look at costs if we wanted to do something. If we, I've already heard from about three people that they can't make that meeting. So I think we are tentatively not going to have that meeting, but I will let you know, no later than Monday. But it was scheduled for 8.30, a regular Friday time. And then I asked Dinesco if we weren't doing that, would they be able to get us the draft of a report which is going to be this really long report a week earlier to think about it. Cause we were going to then go three weeks until February 10th on our schedule. So again, keep all the dates you have right now, but I will let you know if it's officially canceled that next Friday meeting. And I have to say a huge thank you to everyone here for being able to rearrange your lives to be here on Thursday. Yeah. So Margaret ready. Right, so I mean, just as a reminder, I hope everybody can see that upcoming meetings next week there's a lot of meetings. Another reason I think not to spend time on Friday unless there's some quorum about wanting to come together and share information. So I'm gonna actually now look at the invoices. So because we haven't done this in a bit, there's two invoices from Dinesco and there's two invoices from answer. And I will just kind of do them at a high level. So this is Dinesco's November, end of November invoice and it was for the same sort of parceling out of fee, their fee is 33333, which brings them to 80% of their fee. And then it also included, hang on a second, also included a small amount of invoices for the surveyor who's a little bit about 42% complete for traffic engineering, which is now 100% complete. So the total for this one of all of that is 64 or 652.75 which is 71% of their fee. For the, then they, I also have in hand the December 31st invoice. And that is sort of including similar numbers. So here again, another chunk of the schematic design fee bringing them to 86 or call it 87% plus billing from several of their consultants, including survey, wetlands permitting and the solar design. So the total for this invoice is 46065. So that is their invoices. Then I'm gonna quickly go to ours, which are, as you know, a little bit more straightforward. So here as myself and Bob Stevens, the hour, our November invoice was for 6365. And as always, it sort of includes this sort of tracking of hourly billing. And then the last invoice is for, it's our December invoice. It's for 7208. So it includes mostly my time, a little bit of time from Ksenia Slavsky, who's working on the cash flow for me. And then it has a little bit of billing from Shelley Potork, who I think you know, is our, net zero consultant. So this one's a little longer because it's got Shelley's invoice in the back, but here is the hourly billing. And on the backside, we've got the invoice from Shelley. So I'm gonna take that down and ask if there are any questions, because I know there's a lot of questions that I can't answer. I'm gonna take that down and ask if there are any questions, because I know you could see all the detail of that and must have very detailed questions. So Rupert's nodding. Jonathan. I would just move to accept the invoices. And Kathy seconds. And I think one of the reasons we're not having a lot of discussion is, say we didn't see them before, but beyond that, we know that Sean is sitting there managing all the budgets. So we're within our budgets, which is pretty critical. So I'm moving to, unless I see a hand go up, I'm moving to a vote. Jonathan. Yes. Kathy is a yes. Rupert. Yes, please. Paul. Yes. Mike. Yes. Ben. Yes. Sean. Yes. Simone. Yes. Alicia. Alicia, can you speak up? It looks like you just muted yourself. Alicia. There she is. Oh. Okay, now Phoebe came back. I saw she came back in. So Phoebe. I'm here, but whatever we're doing, I'm abstaining because I don't know what we're doing. Okay, we were voting on the invoices, but when we couldn't hear you, we were voting on this that added to 5.2 million and we listed you as not voting because you weren't able to vote. That's fine. Sorry, guys. That's okay. Alicia. On the invoices. Okay. Alicia, we see the mute button go off. I'm not going to hear this. Alicia. Oh, Alicia. If you could say yes quickly when you're unmuted, that would be great or no. Alicia. Okay, so Phoebe is abstaining and Alicia is not able to vote. However, we let technical glitch. And let me just do one, two. It's a majority vote of the people who are here. So. So we have four missing. Angelica, Alison, Phoebe and Alicia are can't vote. Well, some are physically here, but one's an abstain. Phoebe's an abstain on the invoices, Margaret. We can make sure we record these accurately. And Alicia, when she unmutes, we don't hear her. So. Okay. Sorry. One of the glitches of Zoom as a vote, but one of the virtues is none of no one had to be in town hall today. And since Paul is probably in Boston. I want to see whether there are any other questions or comments or any strong feeling of people who are here that they really want to meet next week, but I can poll you. I see some no's and I will open it to public comments unless I see a hand up to say no. Okay. We are open for public comments. Okay. Bruce. Thank you. And as usual, thank you to the team, including Margaret. It's just terrific to watch what you're doing and to feel no real anxieties, which is unusual for me, but it's very pleasant. A couple of questions. First, I did send in an email comment through Cathy suggesting that the planters and seats, I guess log seats, and there may be some other things, but particularly the planters could be taken out and done by school volunteer or town volunteer labor. I know this can be done because I've done it repeatedly in schools and more recently at the North Amherst Community Farm at a far level, a far higher scale of scope and complexity than the planters far, far home. And I have time and the skills to do that. And I know there are other people in town that because I've got a volunteer labor force of over 100,000 people. That I routinely call on for stuff in town. So this is not an idle offer. It's possible. And the question would be, was this included? And was it in the community fields humanities? But if it isn't included, I really think there is a possibility of doing this. Unless, of course, Mike or others, I think we'll know we need this more or less immediately. But if there is a small amount of time that could be taken to get this going in order, then I think this is a real potential saving. That's a suggestion, I guess. The second is a question has to do with the general cost of getting things done through the kinds of contracts that we're talking about to build a school building. And let's take, for example, the additional parking that we haven't yet or you haven't yet decided to take. But if you were to take, say, the parking along the west side or some of it, where you could put vehicles up on grass, if it was an occasional event, or you could watch and see what happened if it became more than that. And then it seems to me that that work could be done subsequently without undue complexities and that in doing it outside the school building contract, probably it would be a less expensive undertaking. So that was the question. Should we generally recognize that items that can be done later without, because stuff inside the building will obviously cost a lot more because now would be the time to do something during construction for that sort of stuff. But some things outside the building and discreetly independent would probably be done without obstruction later. And if so, maybe they would be done in a less expensive construction environment. And so that would be another reason perhaps for doing them later. They would be less expensive. So that's a question related to that and whether we could think about parking that way and the other one you have. So that's it for me. Thank you. I think I probably went over. So I appreciate not being cut off. Thank you, Bruce. And just a quick answer that the benches, the wood planters were not in the community amenities. I had raised them last time, but everyone heard you. So we will. They are, they could be on a, let's put it, they could be on a future list. They're just not on the list right now. But they're not in that group. Okay. Maria. So. I want to talk about the community field amenities. There are some things that I actually suggested that you guys take out, such as dugouts and a whole bunch of chain link fence and safety netting, which I don't even know what exactly that was referring to. And those kinds of things can, and I believe should be eliminated, but the infield and back stops in particular are absolutely necessary to play softball. Maybe you guys are not softball players and you don't know, but you have to have those. And I think that there were a lot of items that could, and I think should come out. This is not asking an awful lot, but if you do this, you're precluding softball. So please put those couple of items back in. I'd be happy to talk to you guys about this to help you understand it. We're already losing a lot of square foot of fields. We're losing a softball field in just by size. We're losing lights. There's a lot of things. And the $700,000 in CPA funds is for field improvements and that really needs to bring the infield and the back stops back in. Also, we had asked a question about putting back in the stub out for plumbing for the comfort station. And maybe we should just call it what it is. It's for a bathroom. And yes, somebody had the idea for composting toilets, but you still have to wash your hands. So there is still a need for plumbing. And could you please just put back in a stub out for water supply and sewer, because you're still going to need that, not to build it, but to have the piping go there so you don't have to dig up the site again. The other thing I wanted to ask about that wasn't addressed here at all is we asked some questions about the gross square footage of the building and the grossing factor. So in PM&C, in a number of places, they were quoting upwards of 108,000 square feet. And looking at the drawings and from what I could calculate, it looked like the gross square foot was indeed much above the 105,750 that has been agreed upon by you guys and the MSBA, so required. And that wasn't addressed at all today. And I'm hoping even though we're, you know, I know that you have a policy of not answering questions, but this is an important one. And I'm really disappointed that nobody on the committee and nobody on the design team addressed that really important question. Because if we are indeed above 1.5 on grossing factor and above 105,750 on gross square feet or indeed above 70,500 on net square feet, that's not consistent with the agreements that we have with the MSBA. So could you please address that and clarify the numbers and provide this information? Thank you. Thank you, Maria. And I'm looking. There was another hand up. And I'm not seeing it right now. One other person had asked to talk. If anyone else wanted to talk, can you put your, there it is. Rudy. Yeah, I was just going to make basically the same comment as, as Maria's last comment. So that's why I took my hand down. Okay. Thank you. I would like to see us talk about FF and E at the net zero committee at some point and get into the equipment and energy saving equipment, but that's another later thing. Thanks. Thank you. And that, that is a meeting that has not been scheduled yet, but we will be scheduling it. I'm trying to get over this hump. I think that is it for. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. And I would imagine that we will. Margaret has been doing minutes with some gathering up of the answers to questions that we've had, had along the way. And I think that's what the way we will deal with. The two that just came in, including the. The community field amenities on whether. The community facilities on the field. Was not, there could have been another addition because they dug out chain link fence. That was the idea of removing some that could be added later. So in any case, we will. Figure out a way of providing answers. So it doesn't feel like the question was asked and not answered. I am. Looking to see whether there are any other hands up. There are not. So I want to again. Thank the team for an extraordinary effort. I can't imagine what it feels like to put together design specs and then take them apart again. All in a. In a 24 hour or 30 hour. Turn around time. You know, my. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know the owners that are building houses wish their designers would do. So I think it's exactly the right thing to do. You know, get back down to a budget. But it still doesn't feel great. I just can't. It just doesn't. It wasn't that youth. You thought this was the. Your hat on the wedding cake. So on, on Monday at five 30. You are all invited to the council meeting. And I think it's a great opportunity for you to join us. As, as representing you. And all your names are on my slides for all those hours you put in. Then there's a community forum. On Wednesday in the morning and a community forum on Thursday. I will be posting those as sponsored by the elementary school, because I have to post them in case. If you show up, we will call a quorum. And that will be where the community is going to hear everything. Okay. So that's what we're going to do. I think we're going to take a little bit more time to get to that. First, and then we're thinking of ways. Once we get over the report to MSBA of starting to roll this out around. Town. To start saying this is a fabulous school. It's really exciting. What we have in front of us. So that will be another conversation at a future date. I think at this point, I, Seeing no objections, I believe Friday's meeting is canceled, unless Denisco tells me they really need it. And so enjoy your weekend. Thank you. And the meeting is adjourned at I think 317 by my watch, Margaret. Yep, you got it. Thanks everyone.