 some, then there are some questions and comments that we're going to talk about as well as the overall schedule for the next meetings as we sort of head into the winter and then we've got a couple of invoices to look at. So at this point, how are we doing with the screen? We still don't have screen sharing. So yeah. Do you want me to see if I can reach Angela? I'll just go get her. Kathy, while Paul's gone, do you want for the new folks to have them introduce themselves to the group or is there something? Oh, and there's Angela. Trying to make Margaret the co-host as she can screen share, Angela. And Tim is going to be able, need to be able to screen share. So it's allow us. Oh, Margaret is co-host now. Try it now, Margaret. Okay. And also Cassania because she's going to be sharing material. Yeah. Does everybody see that? Yes. Thank you, Angela. All right. Thanks, Angela. Okay. So this is what I just summarized. So I think I'm going to sort of now on screen share and we're going to pivot to the, I'm going to talk a little bit about the agenda, the schedule for the fall. So let me open another, open and share a different document. Okay. Here we go. So you might remember the format of this, if everybody can see this from the last meeting. This is trying to make sure you're not seeing everybody else on the screen. So this is kind of looking forward to the next couple of months through the end of the year to give you a flavor of what's going on. So as I just mentioned, this week, or start on Monday, we're going to be submitting the design development package to the MSBA. And then we have, in terms of the meetings of this group, we have, we had tentatively discussed a meeting on November 3rd, but there are also several subcommittee meetings that we need to schedule. So we can come back to this, but I think one urgent one is we need to schedule a sustainability subcommittee meeting there. We have an update on the energy model and some other materials to look at with that committee. So we need to find a date for that. I believe there, we need to sort of have a meeting on building finishes with school leadership, which we probably won't schedule in this meeting. And then we need to schedule a design subcommittee meeting on exterior finishes to wrap that up. So I don't want to take time for that now because I think the main item is looking at the estimates, but we should come back at the end of the meeting to revisit that. On the MSBA side, you know, the MSBA takes about six weeks to review the drawings were, the documents were submitting Monday. So we should have those comments back towards the end of November. And then in terms of design review, there are meetings with the town engineering departments, which Dinesco will be scheduling. And then starting the first week of November, we're going to be starting the permitting hearings, starting with concom. So that is the overview. Does anybody have any questions about that before I take this down? Margaret, I just, I just want to make sure everyone is clear now that we have received the project funding and project scope and budget. This is just going to be an MSBA staff review. So we don't, we're not waiting for a vote or doesn't go before the board. So that's an important distinction. They'll just want to make sure now that we're providing the appropriate level or standard of care for our documents and making sure we're receiving all the approvals going forward. That's right. Thank you, Donna, for adding that. Okay. So I'm going to stop sharing any other just looking for any other hands. Don't see any other hands. I'm going to stop sharing. So we're going to pivot now to talking about the cost estimates because it really, you know, one of the most critical pieces of what's gone on in the last few months is the, is the further detailed design as well as estimating to kind of reconfirm the project costs. So Tim, Rick, Donna, who wants to take the lead on this for Dinesco? I have some materials to share to explain how we are meeting the budget given new information on cost and the energy code. I don't know if, Margaret, were you going to start with a overall presentation of where we are with the budget? I don't have a slide to give that, but I can start with the cover. I can pull up the memo that I sent. Give me just one second to get that one lined up. So many things open on the screen here. Okay, here we go. Yes, let me working on one tiny little screen this morning. There we go. Okay. Can everybody see that? Not yet. Oh, not yet. I thought I had it. It says you're sharing, but we're not seeing anything. Yep. All right. Let's try this again. It just came up. There we go. Okay. So this is the memo. I think I sent this out on the holiday, but this is really summarizing the work that Dinesco did to bring the drawings to the next level. Then we did these two comparable estimates in a nutshell. So this was the estimate that was reconciled. So it did the two estimates, the estimators met and reconciled. In the meantime, and Tim will talk about this, there were, they got some more feedback on the energy model and needed to add some additional scope to comply with the latest on the energy model. So Tim will talk about that. So that put us a little bit over where we want it to be. So this number here, this 81-337-167, that's the number in the funding agreement. So Dinesco and Timothée, their estimator, put together a list of items that were our opportunities to reduce cost without reducing the overall design quality of the project. And that brought us, if you take all of those, which is part of what we need the committee to weigh in on today, to 81-292-307. So we're a smidge below, I mean, $45,000 below the value on the funding agreement, which in the budget of this size is almost de minimis, but the good news is we are below it, not above it. So I'm going to stop sharing and ask if there are any other, any questions about that. So that memo, you should have received that memo in your email on Monday, if you want to look at it in more detail at this point. So does anybody have any questions? Kathy's got her hand up. Yeah, I figured out how to do it. My main question is, I thought that summary memo was very... Kathy, I think you might want to turn your video off, because you're a little bit patchy, or maybe you're... So she's frozen. So let's go to Jonathan. Yeah, I'll defer to Kathy if she pops back in. So I was mostly going to say, I don't necessarily have a particular question on any one of the line items. They all make sense to me to keep this project in budget. I just wanted to note that I think it's important that we kind of review at the net zero subcommittee level, the kind of whys for the shifting need to hit targets on the energy performance, because I can imagine folks will wonder why we have to do these things. And they all, I'm sure, have important things we have to do to make this project meet other code requirements other than... Or requirements other than cost. This is about code requirements, and so we'll get into some detail at a future net zero meeting. So Kathy logged off and is logging back on. Are there any other questions that people had on this? Tim, you want to start to prepare for your presentation? Sure. When Kathy comes back, we'll pull her back in. Now I am unable to share. Oh, darn it. Tim, let's see if we can do it. But what I will be going through is a brief explanation of... Angela, are you able to let Tim share? Are you still there? Yep, I'm here. And also, Cassandra, while you're at it. Cassandra should be Elsa. Okay, Tim, give it a try. Okay, I should be able to go back. Are we live? Yes, we are. All right. So what I will be going through is just in a little detail. So as Margaret mentioned, we are at the end of the estimating process with the additional information on the code requirements that we're going to have to meet. It's about $1.2 million over budget, about $600,000 of that delta came from just the estimate. And the numbers that were assigned to the design that we have been presenting all along, about half-half the other $600,000, is associated with the upgrades that we're going to have to do to meet the energy code, specifically triple pane glazing and additional insulation in the envelope. There are two ways that the energy code evaluates the building under the new 10th edition. And we'll get more into this into the subcommittee meeting, so it's perfectly clear, as Jonathan said. But one is it evaluates how much energy the building uses to calculate something called Teddy, thermal energy demand intensity. And that's where we thought we were going to have issues, but it turns out our basis of design and the design we were presenting has been meeting that. So we don't need to make any changes to meet Teddy. There is also a calculation of how the envelope performs, just the U-value calculated in a specific way. And to meet that criteria, we are going to have to add the insulation. And so those changes added $1.2 million to the project. And so now we're just going to go through the items that we are proposing to get us back on budget and the effect that they will have. And we think that most of them or basically all of them will have very little impact on the effect and use of the building for the users. They're broken down into two categories, site and building envelope items. There are no items that we've touched within the building itself in terms of finishes, program, anything like that inside the building to these budget goals. So we feel that that's a relative success. So just going through the list in a little bit of detail for the exterior. First item on this list, we've reduced the size of the port and place, place, surface north of the building by 3,000 square feet. And we'll show that on a plan. It sounds like a lot, but it's actually quite little on that. Needs a good amount of money. We're going to reduce the size of the two half basketball courts, basically each other, and that reduction in pavement saves some money. There was a 12-foot fence to the east of the basketball court to stop basketballs from running out into the grass area just to contain the play area. But that's sort of a perk rather than a requirement. A worst-case scenario kids have to run into the grass to get the ball. So we felt that that could go away. There is an observation platform near one of the rain garden features on the site that was originally a slab with a composite wood deck on top of it. Now it's just going to be a slab. There's a change in paving material at the service area, keeping it durable and concrete where it needs to be and changing it to paving where it can. And then there are some other site areas where near the generator we're going to a less expensive ground covering. And then throughout the project where you don't have a sidewalk next to the paved areas, instead of a granite curb, we're going to go with Cape Codburn, which is a small mound in the bituminous to direct water and the paving. So just to show you what that means on the site plan, the change in paving areas. We went from a grass pave, which is a plastic reinforced system that gets buried in the turf that allows trucks to drive over the turf and not produce ruts, which is actually a very good, but it does come with a price premium. So we're going to replace that with stone dust. And the areas that that affects is near the service area by the barn where you have a pump station generator and some of the equipment for the PV array. There's also a small area north by the softball field where that comes into effect. Some of the other exterior site plan related value engineering items. I forgive it might be a little bit hard to see, but my cursor is tracing a line on the play area as shown. The north edge of the lot of the play area has moved south by 10 feet. And that given the size of the playground, that gives you 3000 square foot reduction in area. So this dash line will represent the new size of the playground once it has been reduced for this BE measure. Similarly, on the round basketball court here, you can see a dash line that I am tracing, which represents a six foot decrease in diameter, which will reduce paving and reduce costs. So that reduction in area plus the reduction in fence at the east of the road is another cost saving item. South of the building here in the service area is a change in pavement going from concrete to bituminous. And then throughout the site where you do not have sidewalks against here you do have sidewalks here you do have sidewalks where you do not have sidewalks. We're going to change the curbing material for substantial reduction in costs. And that covers the site related changes, which yield a significant amount of money, but we feel that they do not, you know, hurt the experience, the design in any way. Yeah, Tim, I just I just also want to point out that that during the design development phase or at the end of SD whatever that there were some site changes, which did increase costs. So, you know, we extended the recreational playfields. We added a drop off area for parents that also added cost. I think we lengthened the or a van drop off maybe. So, yeah, so, so these are somewhat a trade based on the requests to for the other site amenities throughout the phase. So we are keeping those requests and making slight other changes to stay within budget. Any comments, Kathy, are you back? I am back. I seem to have I blipped back in again. Yeah, you're here. So I was just asking if anybody had any questions or comments on these proposed changes. I'll let you do that. And I'm not seeing any hands up. I heard what you said, Donna just now on a thank you for saying some of what we did during design development added some costs. So you're removing some of those costs with ease and my understanding I did a quick note to Margaret, but my understanding is the change in materials doesn't substantially change durability. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay, you know, so I'm just thinking that maintenance costs not just first time costs, but replacement costs. That was my question. Thank you. Paul's hand is up. Yeah, so I think these are pretty creative ways to make the changes, you know, bring us back into budget. I think some of them, you know, the I'm always I love granted, but in an area like this, I think granted is a lesser priority. I think that's that's a wise move to I think we should be looking at throughout the entire program in terms of where do we absolutely need granted. I think we've already done that, but you know, the stone dust with the utility that there's that's not a high traffic area. So I appreciate the way you sort of, you know, carved up a little things. I don't think it's going to make a big difference. I think people won't notice the difference if it, you know, on the basketball court quite honestly, because that's not the primary basketball court anyway. So yeah, I appreciate that the creativity mentioned about the two half court, they're actually further apart than a standard basketball court and the reduction actually makes them a full court. They were longer than a full court. So yeah, that's good. Thank you for that. Good creative answers. So I'll call myself I don't see another hand up, but I had a okay. My question is on one of the things that's adding costs to us. It's the triple glazed windows. And when I read the description and the energy modeling, Thompson Thomas said he said we didn't really need to go there to hit our EUI target. It helps a little bit there, but they were recommending that to hit the Teddy target and as you know, Teddy is beyond me to completely understand I do understand it's different. So as you as you look at this, we had some discussion over the last couple of months do it is every single women window need to be triple glazed or their north side, south side differences that you didn't have to triple glaze them. And then I even hesitate to ask this because daylight in the building has been a high priority. Does the size of the windows do they all need to if we had two big ones and one small one. So it's just it's a question on playing around with the windows, because it added quite a bit of cost. So that's that's my question. And that is a good question. And to give you the start of the answer, you refer to the energy report. So there are two ways that the code measures the performance of the building. One is energy consumption and one is the insulating value of the envelope. So for the energy consumption, which the energy report covers, we do not need to go to the triple place for the insulated value of the envelope, we will. But I say will with caveats. The way the energy code calculates the u value, the amount of heat that the envelope allows to pass through it is one, it takes the value of the wall itself, meaning the windows, the solid walls all individually. But then it derates is the word they use essentially penalizes them for all of the area around the windows where walls meet roofs, all of the areas where buildings typically leak the most heat thermal bridges they're called. And we'll get into all of this detail in the sustainability subcommittee meeting. All of that is to say that, you know, if you refer to reducing the size of windows doing thermal pain or triple pain in some areas, and those are all options that we still have. And we've priced the additional insulation and the triple pain everywhere just essentially to cover worst case scenario and to know that we have the cost covered. In the coming weeks we have meeting schedule authority Tom said he are representatives from the curtain wall and window manufacturers. And we do think that there are ways that we can mitigate control, you know, creatively work around this to reduce that cost somewhat, if we feel that's the best option. We have had things proposed like and our window manufacturer has gone saying that that other projects have used windows with operable lights, meaning where you have double pain in the fixed portion and triple pain in the operable portion because that'll get you to meeting the energy code without going all the way triple pain and then taking that cost of the project. So, I mean, that's a sort of a long answer saying that all of the things that you have mentioned, Kathy are on the table and we will in the coming weeks, you know, try to sort through what the best option is for the project. Thank you. Just so people know, I know you brought it, it's now technically a little bit under where we were in January. But my comfort level goes up if we're even a little bit more under. So all I was looking for is if if something else goes up, it seemed to me that that was a pretty big cost add item. And you have a potential cost add of full insulation under the foundation that is not in the estimates right now. And I guess we can talk about that at the energy subcommittee too. Yeah, we certainly will. And I should add that under slab insulation would in no way affect the envelope backstop calculations. The yeah, it's the vertical wall surfaces only the way the code is written. But we will certainly get into that detail in the sustainability subcommittee. I think Jonathan has, yeah, Jonathan. Yeah, I just wanted to add that I think at this stage it's, I realize it's a $500,000 increases a substantial amount of money. But we also, I think we want to have that robust conversation in the sustainability subcommittee. But I think we want to make sure we give the designers a certain level of the flexibility and tolerance that they're comfortable with, given the changes in the regulatory environment. There's been a lot of change to what the state requires when it comes to the energy code and energy code compliance. And it's not like we've been working with the current codes for five years even. It's really the code changes have been during the course of this project. And it seems prudent to me to have at this stage still a little bit of flexibilities that the designers can work with going back and forth between the architects and the energy modelers to make sure that we hit those targets. Because we have to be net zero for the town, but we also have to hit certain statutory requirements for the state as well. Yeah, I totally agree. And I was glad when Tim said they've got the worst case priced into it right now, you know, in terms of that flexibility. Thank you. Any other hands? I'm not seeing any, but I don't see the full screen right now. No other hands. If there are no other questions, I'll move to the items that we are proposing changes to the building envelope. The first item should be virtually invisible to everybody. Essentially, the our typical practice is to it's a concrete, we had a complete concrete slab at the gym roof, which helped structurally and was made some of the detailing a little simpler. But we've changed to is a concrete slab that is limited to the area under the mechanical equipment, which is a typical configuration that we often use, but it saves some money and to it's basically invisible. So we feel that it's not a hard one to take. The largest one here is the substitute the airs craft, which is a large masonry product that we've been carrying as the light masonry on the exterior of the building for CMU. And to this point, we've been carrying the airs craft the whole time and the price because it's the most flexible, it's the most expensive unitized masonry. And so with that in the budget, there's basically nothing that the committee could have selected that we would have to say it's not in the budget in terms of a masonry product. But given all of the in person meetings that we've had and the express affinity for certain bricks that we've seen so far, it's unlikely that that would have been chosen anyway. So we don't feel that there's any real detriment to the project to go to using the price of a ground face CMU for the lighter masonry material, which we have brought to meetings in the past. And it would more than cover the options that have been pointed to and seem to be liked by the committee at past in person design. What does CMU stand for? Concrete masonry unit. It's a center block in common parlance. But not an argument. And it's important that it's modified here by ground face. So this concrete block that you're familiar with in very utilitarian buildings is not this. This is a material that has a finished surface. It's actually quite handsome. But because it is essentially a concrete masonry unit, it's also very cost effective. So the building subcommittee, the building design subcommittee had looked at a bunch of sample subvenants and spoken in support of use. And I think, Tim, you're using it elsewhere in the building, right? We are using it elsewhere in the building, and it also would cover the cost of any of the brick products that were shown. So a ground face masonry, a ground face CMU is actually on a unit cost higher than brick. So any of the lighter dark bricks that we have chosen shown or shared with the committee in the past are all on the table. The next line is the panels, the accent panels next to the punch windows on the facades, which we have been showing alternately as masonry products and composite for a metal panel accents. If we just make the decision to go with the glazed masonry products, there's a savings there. And we also feel that we can achieve the color that we have been showing all along without using the metal. There's an area above the curtain wall at the cafeteria. And after I go through the list, we're just going to go through the video and more time to show you where all of these items are that we have been showing as a metal panel. And that will be a masonry. We've already made similar changes at the music room and other areas. So we think this is fine. At the stair on the south and east end of the building, there is some curtain wall that we've been carrying, but we feel that we can do a similar aesthetic with a punched windows. It's basically a different aluminum extrusion that is slightly different sight lines. We can look at that as we go around the video. But that saves some money. To lead jam extension, we had it priced so that there was a aluminum extrusion clipped on essentially to the front of the windows so that as you're looking at the wall, the return into the window opening would be just the aluminum frame, rather than a return of the masonry, which makes things look a little crisper and more modern. But it's a high cost for not a lot of architectural benefits. So we feel that could go away. And it's not something that we've discussed in detail or anyone really latched on to. And then the last one is deleting a portion of the roof screen that hides the mechanical equipment on the top of the gym. And we feel that the equipment is far enough back that it's barely visible anyway. And it saves a good amount of money. So I'm going to actually stop sharing for a second and go to the video and just point to where all of these things are. So this is a video you've seen or a version of this multiple times before. The west elevation, the main entrance, there are no real material or design changes that we are considering as part of this VE effort. As we move around the first one, this strip of material has been metal panel in the past. It's going to be a masonry product. And that's part of the savings. One of the more noticeable ones, the accent panels next to the punch windows, rather than a metal panel, we're going to use a glazed masonry product. There's still a wide variety of very bright and maybe brighter than we even want. There's also opportunity for custom colors. So we'll still be able to provide the look that we've been showing and sharing all along, just within a masonry palette rather than using metal first and cost savings. One of the other items on the list is to take the curtain wall at the east stair and the south stair, the stair that goes from the bus entrance. And that will go from a curtain wall product to a window product. They are installed differently. They look slightly different. The aluminum extrusions are a little thicker. The sight lines change a little bit. But the overall effect, the amount of light that we can let in will remain the same. And then as we go around to the gym, we're going to see this roof screen. We're going to get rid of some of that. Now, the eye level of this video is, you see, you're looking at the roof of the bus. You're, you wouldn't even see that much of the screen wall in a normal view going around the site. So we feel that that could be eliminated, bad money saved. And there would be not much impact. And then just, I should point out, the largest line item by far, the $500,000 savings, was to essentially limit our options for the lighter masonry material around the building. But when I say limit, it's basically limiting to the ones that we have seen in the meetings before and nothing more trafficking than that. Jonathan, you have a question. In the locations where you were moving or moving to a window system as opposed to a curtain wall system at the opaque areas, which are also called the spandrel panels, what are you going to do in that area? Are you going to switch to masonry or a metal panel that's not part of the system? Our intent is to switch to masonry and that's the way it was priced as the VE item. So looking here, this would become, this spandrel would become part of the overall expression of the stair and this would become window system. So it's here, there are three locations where that was priced, that stair, the stair to the east. And then I should mention, actually, we're going to have to scroll over here. We also, it's fairly visible here, but the clear story into the lobby originally was designed and priced as a curtain wall system. But we're going to switch that to a window system. And honestly, that's probably going to be the least noticeable location. So we feel that those are well considered, given the amount of money they save and the amount of impact they have on design, what we think we should do to get us back on budget. And then, we still have the range of opportunity and tools in our tool belt that Kathy mentioned in terms of changing window sizes, if we have to. Any other questions on the exterior proposed VE items? I don't have a question, Tim, but just could you explain what curtain wall versus a window is, just for some of us who don't instinctively know it, that is? Sure. A window is basically a piece of I'm going to explain this in maybe terms that Jonathan won't like, but it's very simple. A window is basically glass in an aluminum frame that gets installed as a unit. And then a curtain wall, this is oversimplication is a wall that's built in place with aluminum extrusions and then the glass place that's that's not always entirely true, but it's a self supporting wall of glass. And the difference is usually the metal extrusions in the curtain wall can be much slimmer or you get much more glass to frame ratio. And it looks like less pieces. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Does anyone else have questions or comments? Jonathan has a handle. Jonathan. Sorry, I mute myself there. I don't have any questions or comments on the proposed changes. I think they're what need to be done. And I don't think they're going to have a bad impact on the aesthetics or the performance of the building. And I just wanted to ask a question more related to the overall cost where we stand today. And I just hope I didn't miss this or hear the discussion. But ask either Tim or Margaret to kind of comment on, you know, we've got a cost estimate. This is October, you know, where these numbers and I assume I'm sure this is the case, but just to talk a little bit to the fact that these numbers are trying to project forward to the time that we're going to bid this project. These are not necessarily today's dollars. What we're trying to hope to get is the bidding dollars as it were. Yeah, there's still a substantial amount of escalation carried on the project, which I think is what you're referring to Jonathan. So the way this works is the estimates are projected to the midpoint of construction and escalation is carried for that duration. I can, while we're conversation continues, I can look up and see what that number is right now, but it's definitely not today's dollars. And it's been estimated fairly conservatively, I would say, because the market's been so fluctuating so much. And if I could also add, you know, to the kind of the concern that Kathy asked, which was being more comfortable with not spending any more money on the windows than we have to in that type of investigation, that there remains a design contingency for anything that crops up over the next few months until we're done. So if there's a bright side to having DOER release their design guidelines mid September is that we caught it now when we still had a lot of flexibility to deal with things. And the discovery process should be getting less and less as we go on. Oh, Rick, I'm glad you can see a bright side to that. Exactly. Go, go, Rick. Better than 90%. Okay, what's next? Let me go back to the agenda. So I think the next thing on the agenda was to vote to authorize the consultant team to submit the design development report inclusive of this value engineering, which needs to be fully incorporated into estimate comparisons and other items. So one of the OPM deliverables is a couple of spreadsheets that both compare the two estimates we've received as well as compare this estimate to the prior estimate. Now I have not uploaded those to the folder because it seemed sort of getting ahead of myself before the committee had had a chance to comment on those. But that the vote, what I would recommend is that the the committee take a vote to authorize the team to submit design development inclusive of the modifications to the estimate presented in today's meeting. Kathy, you're running the meeting. Yeah, okay. I raised my hand, so I'll just make my comment. I caught one really minuscule typo where Fort River School was at one point called Fort Hill School. So if these are teeny tiny. So if anybody sees anything like that, and then in the Tom Thornton Thomas said they when they talk about the energy modeling and the amount of energy, they talk about 105,750 square feet, which is what we carry throughout it. There's an earlier point where they have another number. And I just think it's important to have those two numbers be the same. So just double check that. So your recommendation, Margaret, to vote this out, I just I wanted to make subject to any minor corrections that are found as you fine tune this. And the other thing is the version we got on Tuesday only had one estimate in it. And I know you have the second estimate and do my question is you both go in the report to MSBA. So the the two reconciled estimates. And I think you added it to a folder for us. But just as it go, does this document become even bigger? They both go in together. The purposes of today's meeting when Kathy, when you brought this to my attention, I added it to the OPM deliverables folder if anybody wants to take a look at it. But I'll also send out as soon as I've completed these two estimate comparisons, I'll send out the comparisons. It's regurgitating the numbers that we're presenting, but it's regurgitating them in a kind of really useful format. Just to close on Jonathan's comments. So Jonathan, we're carrying 4% design contingency, which in this case is it's a little over tiny bit over $3 million. And we've got 2% escalation. And that it varies a little bit depending on when these packages are bid. But that's around 2.1, a little bit over $2.1 million. So Margaret, I think it's actually three, because I thought two was on that first phase and three was on the second. But you know, just double check on the escalation. They had a two escalation on the on the early package is $50,000. And escalation on the second packages to 2.2 million in a bit. So together, that's that 2.1. Okay. So Paul, Paul has his hand up too. Yeah, if you're prepared for this, I'd like to make a motion that we approve the submission of the design submission to the MSPA inclusive of the modifications made today, subject to the final approval by the chair of the elementary school building committee. Okay. Does anyone, did everyone hear that motion and are they comfortable with it? Jonathan? I'm comfortable with it and would be willing to second it. So Jonathan seconds it. Are there any questions? I see Alicia's hand is up. I'm just wondering if you can please restate that motion. Sure. I move that we approve the submission of our design submission to the MSBA inclusive of the chain, the modifications that were made, were presented at the meeting today, subject to the final approval of the chair of the elementary school building committee who is Kathy Shane. Thank you. Does everyone have the motion and I guess, is there any discussion of it before I put it to a vote? And I guess my only question on that is if Margaret, if that's in order, if that makes sense, is that what you, is that the type of action you need from the school building committee? No, I think that's totally perfect. Essentially, you're delegating to Kathy to pick up any typos, which is what we're talking about here. Yeah. And make sure everything is squared with what we're looking for in terms of what. I can assure everyone that won't be substantive because there were pages of this that I read words as much as I could. Well, and I mean also, I just want to say, so, you know, part of the OPM's responsibility is to review the document. And I've also reviewed it and provided the comment. So I think it's actually in quite good shape and I appreciate Kathy's diligence and she has picked up a couple of things that we need to correct before we submit. So not seeing any other hands. I will read out themes in the order I'm seeing on our participants list and call for a vote. And this is a yes to approve the motion, no or an abstain, I guess it's a possibility. So the first person on my list is Kathy and I'm a yes, Paul. Yes. I got to keep this. Yikes, how do I keep this up? Doug? Yes. You're gonna have to help me with these. Every time I click. I'm gonna call out the names. Yeah, can you call out the names? Margaret, call out the names because every time I click on the list, it disappears. Okay, Paul. Yes. I finally get one vote. Oh, sorry. Tammy. Yes. Rupert. Yes. Kathy, yes. Yes. Jennifer. Yes. Jonathan. Yes. Angelica. Yes. Allison. Yes. Sorry. And Alicia. Yes. So we have, and we have Simone is absent. Is there anybody else who's absent? I think that's it. Did you call on Rupert? Yes. Oh, sorry. Yes. Okay. So it's unanimous with one member, one current member absent. And we will, Margaret, if you can get these minutes done as quickly as possible, I don't know what MSBA needs, but we can at least get them that this vote was taken. Yes. And interestingly, at this point, they don't require certified minutes as they do. I do have to write a cover letter certifying as the OPM that the committee met and voted. And we will include the memo that I gave to the committee summarizing the work that's been done. So thank you. So I believe the other item we have on the agenda, we have two, we have invoices we need to vote on, and we need to agree on a committee meeting date. We tentatively said November 3rd. Those I think are the remaining items on this agenda other before we turn it open for public comment. Is that correct? Well, the other, so the other item that was on the agenda was to was past comments and questions from public members. And we, we did get some an email from Rudy Perkins, who do you want to sort of review that at this point, Kathy? I'm not sure. I mean, we got an email from Moody about this document. And earlier on, we had the engineered wood piece. So I don't know what you're prepared to do at this point. Well, I think, I think the, I don't know if Rudy's comments have been shared with the whole committee, but on Rudy's comments, I would, I would suggest that the design team prepare a written response for the comments. He did bring up a couple of items that are sort of around coordination. But I think it's, it's, I would delegate the, the writing a written response to design team and then also go over at the, at the sustainability subcommittee meeting. And I think Jonathan had wanted Jonathan, I think you were also in accord that we should have a fuller discussion on a series of these, which won't slow this report. I mean, we still, my understanding of the report we just voted on is we still have a lot of flexibility as we're going to that next level of design on, on the building systems, particularly on energy. Yeah. And actually, you know, one thing we didn't talk about, but as, as we're mentioning here is that the, if you look at the estimate, you'll see two packages. So there's an early package, we've talked about this before, but it's now embedded in the estimate. We have an early package, which is kind of scraping the site and preloading the site. And that package is actually going to be going to bed in February, I believe. And then there's a later package. So I think one of the things we probably should talk about in more detail at the next building committee meeting is what that looks like and what's involved. The other comment issue that's come up is there have, there have been a number of public comments about the relative merits of what's called port-in-place rubber, which is being used underneath the playground equipment because of its resilience. It's, you know, it's the, it's the typical playground material that you see. It's used because it's, it's very good for, if there's a fall from the playground equipment. And there have been comments about considering the use of engineered wood fiber. I have put together a memo comparing the, the two products, and I can pull it up now. We can talk about it briefly or I can send it out to the committee. Kathy, do you have a preference about what we do here? My preference would be to bring it, send it out to the committee and bring it up for discussion next time because we didn't put it explicitly. And in the package we just voted on, we have the more expensive of the products. So that's the way it would handle it rather than get into discussion at this point. But I think you should, everyone should get that memo and it should be posted. Yep. I agree. So could we just then cycle back to confirming the November 3rd date for the next meeting? You know, we're headed into a season where it actually gets harder to schedule meetings. Right now the 11th or three date is not in your calendars. I haven't yet sent out a hold invite. But can people confirm their availability for that date? So it would be 8.30 on Friday the 3rd. And then I'll work. That was the date you also proposed last time. So I'm hoping people had put it in their calendars. I can send out an invite right after this meeting just so people can look now and let me know if we have any conflicts that would be helpful. And just so I just quickly looked then the Friday after that is Veterans Day. I don't know whether that is a holiday or not. And so otherwise we're starting to get pretty near then the next Friday starting to get near Thanksgiving. So exactly. So people, you know, after this meeting, just let me know directly whether the 3rd is a problem or not. And if we need to, we'll search for another date. We need, once we're back 12, right now we need seven people to be able to hold the meeting and we'll be doing these. And then, Margaret, you had, we need to schedule sustainability subcommittee. One of the members of that was Ben. So we're down one member. Sean was informally attending it. So in terms of the subcommittee members, it's Jonathan, Kathy, and Robert right now. So we just would need to have dates offered to that subcommittee that work for all three people. So I think Donna, Rick and Tim have the most number of characters to kind of wrangle to get together for that meeting. So I'm going to ask them to provide dates and then we'll all coordinate those with the three subcommittee members and then we'll notify everybody of the meeting date. Jonathan, does that work for you as a way to do it just to get some dates? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So I think that's all I needed to do on that. And now we have invoices. So I'm going to turn this over to Cassania to bring up the invoices because I'm on my one tiny little screen. Just a second. I'm sure nothing can go wrong. All right. So I'll go over quickly the list of three invoices and then I'll show you the invoices themselves. There are three. Two of them are from the design team. And one of them is from the OPM team. The design teams invoices are from August and September. OPMs from August only, the September one's not out yet. They total $618,000, $618,000, $744,000 to be very precise. The two design invoices bring their design development line that effort to 100% plus some reimbursables. And in total, it puts them at about 31% build of their contract. The answer OPM invoices only $11,000 in comparison with that appropriately. So this is the last page of the August Dinesco design team invoice for requesting $30,359.50. Margaret, should I scroll through Kathy for every page of this? That's what we've been typically doing. So let me start at the top. So this shows the feasibility already built out in the past. Some reimbursables already previously built out. Nothing new on this page. Nothing new on this page. Here is the design development billing that brings it to 80%. This is the August effort. A little bit of reimbursables to RE-17 for analogue backstop compliance. A little more $700 of reimbursables for RE-15 wetland permitting and monitoring. And this is the total of 302.359.50. The backup to that summary. Please stop me if you need further discussion on each page as I scroll through. This is the DD invoice backup and the workforce participation report. That's August design invoice. Any questions? Anything you want me to go back to on this one? Okay. Hearing none, I'll move on to the Dinesco September invoice. Again, starting kind of at the back page for context, 305,059.94. And starting at the top. Nothing on this page. Nothing on this page. Here's the effort on DD bringing that line up to 100% complete. $1,500 here on printing. 3,000 on geotech services, reimbursables, 1,000 on wetland permitting. And then I'll scroll through the backup. Again, stop me if you want to spend more time looking at any part of this. And that's the participation report. And this is the answer invoice time for management staff with detail of what was done each day by each person. 11,355. Any questions? I'll set. If you stop sharing your screen. No, thank you. So seeing no questions, do I hear a motion to approve? I'll move to approve the invoices as presented. Kathy seconds it. And if you can just call. Yeah, pardon me. I'll call out the names for the vote. So Doug, I think that was a yes. Paul. Yes. Tammy. Yes. Rupert. Yes. Kathy. Yes. Jennifer. Yes. Jonathan. Yes. Angelica. Yes. Allison. Yes. And Alicia. Oh, she's muted. Alicia, you're muted. Up until this point, it's been unanimous and maybe Alicia will be able to join us. So one had technical difficulties and one is absent. Alicia, if you're able to unmute and join us. Yeah. So she might have had to step away. Yeah. So I just can record her has not voting. Okay. So she was non-voting, you know, and Simone absent. Are there any other, are there any, before I open it for public comments, are there any other, either questions about the schedule or upcoming meetings or MSBA? Well, we have everyone here. I am not seeing anybody's hands up. And to the extent I can see everybody's faces, I'm not seeing any faces about to ask a question. So I think we are open for public comments. And for those of you who, I was asked earlier to announce who we have, we do have four in the audience. One that just has a hand raised two numbers and then Maria Capecchi and Tony Cunningham. So Paul, will you be able to bring in the first one? It's just a phone number. It's 978. Sure. So when you join, particularly the person with the phone number, would you tell us who you are? Hi, this is Rudy Perkins on the phone, the 978 phone number. I'm sorry, I couldn't get in to Zoom where I am. That's fine, Rudy. You're with us. Two quick comments. Great. First, I want to applaud, again, Daniska is very creative and I'm probably forced March for their value engineering choices that I think they're right, don't diminish the quality of the school notably and yet get us to a fairly challenging budget reduction. So thanks again to that team. On the energy review, energy report, which I mostly focused on recently in my comment. One thing I wasn't a good person to look at, which I think is really important for someone connected with the school scheduling to look at, and that's the appendix B schedules in the time, sort of Tom said he's energy analysis. That gives the presumed, if I understand the schedules correctly, a 24 hour clock with sort of how much energy is being used for different things, what the occupancy levels are, whether the lights are on and off, what equipment is going to be on and off during the academic weekdays, the academic Saturdays and the academic year Sundays and also during the summer schedule. And I would highly recommend folks familiar with the programming of the school anticipated to look through those schedules, maybe with the help of one of the Ninesco teams to interpret them, to make sure those correspond to the anticipated, you know, daily usage of the school at different times of the year, the summer schedule and the weekday schedule, because I think those schedules would, you know, they're going to have a tremendous effect on the energy modeling. And I just wasn't the right person to try to look at those. But I hope both our peer reviewer and the school department folks will will review those and make sure they correspond to their plans for how the school building will be is likely going to be used throughout the day. So thanks again to the Ninesco and all their hard work and the committees, of course, you know, I know this is challenging, but you got a good team there doing doing the creative value engineering, which is always really difficult to do. So thank you. You're muted, Kathy. There was one other hand up. Yes, it's still okay. Pam, Maria, you're in. Thank you. I am pleased to see the attention to energy and I'm looking forward to these issues being further discussed in the Sustainability Subcommittee. I wanted to talk about site issues. I'm just wondering if the committee has a sense. I'm sure the architects do, but does the committee have a sense of how large the outdoor paved and artificial material surfaces that are being proposed are? I'm glad that there was some attempt to decrease the port in place. I'd like to see it gone entirely or reduced by a lot more, but that area, which is now down to about 15,000 square feet, that's over a quarter the size of a football field, including end zones. That's over three NBA basketball courts and nearly four times the size of the gym. I was glad to see that the circular area that contains the half courts also had some reduction. If that can be reduced more, I think that would be great. And I just want to point out that these are areas in addition to when you look at the athletic paved surfaces, which would be the basketball courts and the other in addition to the port in place, that's another 23,000 square feet. So all of those areas added up, not including the paved areas between them is eight NBA courts, two thirds of a football field, 10 gyms, and that's not counting the beautiful, enormous grass areas that the kids will have to play on the gardens, the outdoor learning. So I would really like to see more decrease in the artificial surfaces, both for cost and for environment, and any money that we can save there is much better spent doing more sustainable things like contributing to these energy efficiency issues, the insulation for the building, and getting away from petroleum based and crumb rubber containing products that have a negative impact on the climate and the environment. So I would really like to see you guys, as you develop this further, consider that. And I would like to see this memo on engineered wood fiber versus port in place well before that if you have it, I'd like to see that because that was my question. Also, not for nothing. Oh, by the way, that could also be discussed at a sustainability subcommittee meeting. And getting back to an issue, which I know I'm ringing this bell all the time, but the softball backstop is not included. That is a cost that is literally less than 0.2% of the site costs. It's about the same cost as I think I just heard designer printing costs are that you just approved. You can't play softball without a backstop. Please just put that thing back in. It doesn't make sense to spend a lot of other money if you're not just put in the backstop. Please just do that. Thank you. And looking forward to the energy subcommittee meeting. Thank you, Maria. I think I'm not seeing any other hands up. Tony just appeared. Tony had her hand up. Okay, then go for it. Thank you. Tony Cunningham own drive. I agree with Rudy on the value engineering choices and Maria's comments on the immense size of the play areas. I was wondering if Allison and Tammy could share how many students they would anticipate using the port-in-place playground area at one time at recess. I found some documentation that there is a rule of thumb of 75 square feet of playground per student using it at one time. And this would allow with the reduced area of almost 15,000 square feet of port-in-place it would allow for about 200 students or two full grades to be out there on the playgrounds at the same time. I'm wondering if that is what is planned. There will also, of course, be the 30,000 square feet in play area pavement, the basketball courts, the athletic fields that students can use at recess. So just thinking about the area of the port-in-place, is that what's recommended for the planned use? I looked up some other playgrounds in Amherst to see how they compare to help me picture the scale. I found a document on Kendrick Park that indicated the port-in-place surface there is about a quarter of the size now proposed. It's 3,600 square feet. And Groff Park is 8,000 square feet, so a little more than half. The Spray Park is another 6,000 square feet. So Groff Park combined is about equivalent to what is now proposed. I went there this week to walk around it just to get a sense of the size. And it does feel more than adequate for an elementary school. So I agree that there could be further savings in the playground areas. And I appreciate the efforts to keep the price to what was agreed. And hopefully the bids, I was also looking up bids and where they're coming in. And some towns like Lawrence had a total project budget about the same as ours, 104 million. And their bids came in 11 million over. They just approved an additional 12 million for an appropriation. Other towns are coming in at the estimate. So I'm hoping we'll be in that category when the time comes. But I appreciate all the work that's going into this. And thank you for the time to speak. Thank you, Tony. And so for our new members, Doug and Jennifer and a few froze. Kathy, I'm not sure what she's going to say. I think she's going to say Roger. Well, thank you for joining us and we look forward to Roger getting sworn in and joining us next time. I have a question. Sure. When I signed up for a school committee, I signed a multi-committee when I was sworn in by the clerk and I thought that would cover me for whatever committee I was with the town. This takes another step. Yeah, it does because it's a town committee, not a school committee. You're representing the school committee on this town committee. Okay. All right. So I should wait for the letter. You'll get it on Tuesday. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you all for your hard work, though. After having been at Fort River for 38 years, looking at the drawing, the rendering, that was actually enjoyable. Thank you. Yes, you're doing well. Yeah. Could I ask if you could forward Roger's email so I can include him on the invite for the November 3rd meeting? Absolutely. We will do that. Paul, would you use my ARPS? Yeah. Yeah. Yes, we'll do that. Thank you. All right. We're at 9.53. Does someone want to make a motion to adjourn? Move to adjourn. I think we just declare an adjournment. So I think we are adjourned at 9.53. Thanks.