 So, we have Kathy on, Kathy are you there? Kathy, can you hear us? Hi, Kathy, can you hear us now? Yes. Okay, all right, thank you. We could hear noise on your line, but we couldn't hear you saying anything, so. Okay, then I'm going to, now that I think we're all in attendance at the meeting and it's 8.35 on February 13th, and I'm going to call the meeting of the Joint Capital Planning Committee to order. Now I'm going to start by letting the record reflect that Kathy Shayna, who's just been appointed to the Joint Capital Planning Committee by the Council, is attending remotely via our computer system and Skype. Today, February 13, 2020, because physical attendance would be unreasonably difficult under 940 CMR 2910-5. Kathy, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Okay, so then let the record reflect that all present we could hear Kathy clearly and that she has been able to hear us and we can proceed with the meeting. And I want to thank everybody for being here on the snow day where our schools are on delayed basis. First thing we're going to do because it was the agenda item and I'm going to ask our former member and Council President Lynn to take over for a moment on electing a chair for the, and she can take it from there for a couple of minutes. Okay, good morning. First of all, I'm going to recommend that since we still may be changing the date of this meeting and that can affect the school committee membership particularly, and I don't know about the library committee membership. I would suggest that today we elect a chair only for one meeting. If we have to extend that, then we will, but we'll elect a chair for one meeting and a vice chair for one meeting. So given that the floor is open for nominations, is there a nomination for the position of chair of JCPC? Andy, Joe? I'll nominate Andy Steinberg as chair for one meeting. In a room chair I guess is what the nomination would be. Are there any other nominations at this time? Andy, do you accept the nomination? Yes, I do. Okay. Then given that nomination, let's quickly vote. All those in favor, raise your hand and say aye. Sorry, we have to do a roll call vote. We have to do roll call votes. Okay, go ahead. Tamsen? Yes. Mandy? Yes. Andy? Yes. Eric? Yes. Alex? Yes. Allison? Yes. Kathy? Yes. Thank you. Okay. The second question is, of course, vice chair. And again, this would be for a one meeting term only. And so may I please have nominations for the position of vice chair? I nominate Mandy, Joe. Okay. Are there any other nominations? All right. Are there any other nominations? Mandy, Joe, do you accept the nomination? Sure. Well, that was a serious enthusiasm. With that, let's move to roll call vote. Tamsen? Yes. Mandy? Yes. Andy? Yes. Eric? Yes. Alex? Yes. Allison? Yes. Kathy? Yes. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I'm now turning it back over to the chair for one meeting. Okay. I'm running an experiment today to see if it helps to use the screen to help illustrate things as we're talking along. I did distribute, and Kathy's the only one who probably doesn't have it in front of her. When we met last June, we did a review of the process that we had for the past year. And I organized the notes and sent them out to everybody in June. And I brought along paper copies because I didn't think about this till last night. And Kathy, I'm sorry, I didn't send you a copy electronically to make it more easy to find. I'm not intending to use too much of it today for discussion, but I did think that because it gets into what we talked about last year of critiquing the process of being helpful. What I want to do quickly, though, is Mandy has to leave at a specific time, and I think it was 9.45 that you said. Is there anybody else who has a hard stop when they have to leave that's before 10.30? I need to leave at 10.15. Okay. So what I'm going to try and do just to move along as quickly as possible and bear that in mind, we do want to get to what's item number four from the agenda before Mandy leaves and have a discussion about when our regular meeting date is. And I think that we're just going to do it based upon the full composition of the committee that's addressing to today's meeting and then go from there. But I'm going to come back to it in a couple of minutes and then we'll get back to it in a couple of minutes. What I wanted to do is at least start with talking about what our goals are for the year, which is the subject that I had sent out a memo to you about. And see if I can find the right place for it as we're talking. But what we start with is the charter. And I think that everybody's had a chance to look at the charter. The charter is very clear about what the role is of the committee. And it's really directs the capital improvement program responsibility to the town manager who is present with us at today's meeting. And then he has responsibilities that he has to take on and I bolded a key words with the advice of a joint capital planning committee. So I'm pleased that Paul is with us because there are the responsibilities that we have to provide advice. But we want to make sure that we're organized to provide him what is most useful as he discharges his responsibilities under the charter. And so it's really a joint type of enterprise. And I don't think that it was substantially different from last year, but I think what we're trying to do in the first full year of operation under the charter where we start the process at the beginning is to make sure that we have it right so that we can do it, do what the charter requires, that we can represent the bodies that appoint us to the committee and that we can do our work efficiently. So is there anything that I said that anybody doesn't feel is correct summary? So, well thank you. So what it says, of course, is that the town manager with our advice shall create a capital improvement program which will include plur summary contents, list of all capital improvements, which is cost estimates method of financing, recommended time schedules and the estimated annual cost of operating and maintaining the facilities and or equipment included. And it starts out in the prior section which is above where the yellow is A, the capital inventory is being a part of it. And as the town manager in consultation with superintendent in the library director shall establish an update list annually in inventory of significant capital assets of the town. It goes on to include a fairly lengthy list. Last year, Paul provided us with a list of vehicles and because that had been a question that had come up as the age and just when the composition of our fleet was, there had been a buildings report that had been done just right at the end of Johnny and Santy's service to the town but that has not been substantially revisited. So I guess the first question is what can happen this year in capital inventory and how can we be helpful? So Paul, do you have any thoughts on that? So that is also one of the goals that the council has established for the town manager for the next five months basically. So it's something we will work to accomplish. Doing a full blown inventory of all the sort of the updated conditions of all the buildings will probably take longer but I'd like to do this spring is to get the base done so we have a format that everybody's comfortable with. I am with the vehicles. We did that last year and we'll bring up additional information on all the vehicles that we own this year. And we will be looking to contract for additional help to pull this off. Any questions from the committee about the inventory process and what we can accomplish this year and how we can help? So are you looking to the committee? It doesn't say that in section A really is talking about you getting help from the superintendent, the library directors or anything that we can do? Well I think that it's important for the JCPC to sort of agree with the format that we're presenting the information so it gives a complete set of information that you feel comfortable with because you reflect what the general public would like to see. So we want to make it as efficient as possible but also that the things that you would expect to be in such a capital plan or inventory are located in it. So having that feedback would be important. My question goes along similar to that. It says the council establishes requirements for the inventory age condition maintenance. Are you going to be looking to the JCPC to help the council with that or make a recommendation to the council on sort of maybe, you know, what significant means in terms of dollar amount or things like that? That's a good question. That would make perfect sense for JCPC to weigh on it first because it involves library and schools and then take it to the council and get their blessing as well. That's, the president permits that. So here's a go, trying my best. So we're going to essentially though, if this is a work in progress for this year, be working with the, with what we can, what we have now or what can be developed but we really need to keep the process moving to develop a capital plan with the inventory which is something that's being developed as we're doing our other work. That's just, we're going to have to accommodate and other pieces of the inventory that would be particularly helpful to the committee to give the advice that's needed. I think that the biggest thing that we've got going is buildings because we're really working hard on buildings and so maybe I'm going to turn to the other document that I had sent out. I sent a memo to all of you by email and then copied it over into a different, if I have it, where I have it, it was this email and what I did was I made some suggestions at the end about what might be our goals for the year and this is really where it comes to a crux because what I had suggested was to do as much of the inventory as possible and have a complete inventory before the FY22 process just realizing that there is a practicality that we need to move forward with the FY21 process and that it's going to be a work in progress as we do the FY21 process. But to identify the immediate needs of the five buildings which includes two elementary schools which is how it gets to five that are the buildings that we have identified is needing work. And I know that the library is working on that, as the Gazette reminded us this morning. But the library can tell us about that. We need to get the schools identified as to what is the essential work that is going to have to happen to keep the elementary schools usable while the MSBA process unfolds to the completion of a new building. Assuming that we're successful in all steps in that process and I'm gonna be optimistic and say that we will be, but we still need to identify what work needs to be done. And then as we develop a realistic five-year plan, those pieces about essential work on buildings that would need to happen if we are not going to have a process approved, we have to decide how they get put into a five-year plan, what pieces will happen during that period of time. And then the last piece is to develop a capital budget for FY22, the straightforward and efficient manner that we'd be creative in our process to be as efficient as possible. So those were what I had suggested as goals, but I wanna open it up for discussion as to whether those seem right or how you would propose to amend them because it's really a group process. I was just trying to get us started. Any thoughts? Yes, Eric. So a couple of things. One is, as we talk about, I mean, I think you're right about needing to get deficient around what the needs will be of, you know, the near-term needs will be for the buildings that you gotta maintain in a state of good repair while we're contemplating larger renovations or replacement, so that makes sense. I wouldn't wanna get lost in that, that one of the concerns, I think I've... Hi, Kathy, can you hear us? Yes. Okay, thank you. Go ahead, Eric, thanks. Anyways, one of the things that I think we've heard, so obviously focusing on what the near-term needs will be to keep the buildings in a state of good repair makes sense, I think we've also heard from the public significant concern around ensuring how we understand that other capital, ongoing capital needs, that fall outside of those buildings, also continue to get addressed on a sustainable basis, you know, knowing that we're talking about very significant investment in those projects. In other words, the idea that we're so focused on those major projects that everything else gets lost in the shuffle, particularly if it's an important but smaller thing. So I think in regards to that, this may sound too much like a process goal as opposed to a public good, but I'm interested in understanding how the inventory is going to relate functionally in terms of how we use it to the proposed five-year plan that's put forward by each department as recommendations to the town manager and reviewed by JCPC, because I think if I had heard correctly and apologized because this was off air, so I might be able to repeat it, is that the departments may be providing a more streamlined analysis of their needs in their capital requests, which I think would make enormous sense analytically as long as there was then a facing document like an inventory that provided background information for example, what the age and state of repair and replacement is for things that might fall out of that five-year window or might not rise to the level of criticality. And so I'm just, I'm curious how we think of or how the town manager thinks of what our goals should be for this process to try to improve not just literally the documents we have, but how we're thinking about using them in ways that become functionally useful both for the town manager and his departments as well as for this process. So the inventory informs the, and the status of the buildings, the facilities informs the capital plan. So as you start to look at trucks or vehicles and you can start to see which ones are aging and it will prompt the questions if a vehicle is especially older, you'll say, well, when is that going to be on the list? I think we will be looking at more of a 10-year plan, but in terms of making a manageable realistic, and I think that's the word I had heard from JCPC previously, a realistic plan, five years is about the length of time we can go out. We will be placing all the other needs out in out years. We're not being very strict about what year, if it gets a year seven or eight or nine, we're not losing all those requests so they can be present. But in terms of a realistic, what can we truly expect to finance? That's our mission for the five-year capital plan. So if I can follow up then that the document we might be looking at, meaning literally on JCPC, the effort is to try to take a look at the first five years and do everything that's reasonably possible to make them as realistically projectable as possible, worry less about years six through 10, knowing that look that's, it would be a fanciful exercise regardless, but capturing still everything and then moving sort of the supporting information that would allow someone to say, I wonder why they're saying that needs to be done or whatever, into the inventory. Cool. I mean I think that historically what we ended up doing was we had an extra column on the right that was everything else and six through 10 kind of fall into that category because everything is movable depending upon how urgent it becomes. I know Kathy and I had had discussions and Kathy's, if I'm misstating it then speak up, but that if we put too much into the next year that has been what has frequently happened that we've created an unrealistic plan for a vision of what happens in the next year and so when we talked about a realistic plan that we wanted to make sure that the bottom line for each year is a reasonable number and that we don't provide sorting, just putting a sorting responsibility into the next year to keep pushing something back that is better to be honest. Go ahead, Kathy. Hi, I'm just to build on what Kathy says, a newcomer to the process last year when I saw the final five or 10 year, I'm used to thinking of plans to get as near to balanced as possible so seeing that the first year is balanced and the second year has a $6 million deficit, I didn't feel like there was even a two year plan so I think the sense is what Paul had said, what could we realistically accomplish over this time and then to show us in some way what the backlog is even after five years things that are still in the queue? I think the other thing that we observed happening in the last two years is that Paul brought us that during the process, the recognition of the size of the problem for roads and sidewalks and it got into the process late so that we were working and hearing from lots of different presenters about their needs and then when the roads got stated, it sort of dominated the process at the end and how we can get that number in earlier and make sure that if there's a need in this, gets back to I think what you were saying, Eric, because this is what the public is looking at, that we get that number in early enough that we don't create extra work for us or frustration by thinking about order of things and what we can do in the next year and then take it all out at the end. Is that something that we think is workable, Paul? Yeah, I think that's one of the intents of the schedule for this year is to make sure that these things don't come up at the end, they come up earlier in the process and that I've had the conversation with the department heads in advance of them coming to the JCPC. So this is the schedule that you put together with Sonya, I believe that we've all had copies of the dates. Of course, we have to come back to in a few minutes, but it's showing a schedule in a much more compact way than we had previously done. So what were you, can you tell us a little bit more about what you were envisioning for the discussion on the second meeting? Well, I was hoping to have the capital plan pulled together so that we could just present the first draft of what we have for all the departments and the funding sources. You review the funding mechanisms, basically. I'd give us some realistic numbers. There should be FY21 up there, not 20. We'll ignore that. The question of roads and other high priority things, we'll let be early in the process, we'll let be in that spreadsheet then, is the number? Yes, there'll be a number in there for roads and sidewalks. So I'm just going through this a little bit so that you can, if you haven't looked at it lately, see what the plan was for how we would proceed. Does this seem consistent with what we're talking about, ignoring the dates in the left-hand column till we have that discussion, but looking at the sequence, does it feel that it is meeting our goals and our suggestions from last year's process? Mandy? So I have a question, and so last year I found it strange to go through everything and then get the manager's recommendation that then we kind of just voted on since we're supposed to advise the manager. So this seems a little more logical, the getting the manager's recommendation and then hearing from people. But one of the things I'm curious about is last year there were a lot of cuts. And we were able to see then what you as manager tried to cut and what you were because we'd already seen all the requests and then what you came in with and said, you know, I'm not gonna prioritize this, I'm not gonna do that. Are you guys going to sort of recommend and go with me on this? When we get the FY21 Capital Plan at the next meeting, that draft, will we also have an opportunity to see what people have requested, department heads have requested and you have not prioritized for next year? So I think this is gonna be more, can that the town is gonna be treated the same as the library and the schools. You don't see all the decisions that the superintendent makes with his principles and department heads nor at the library. And so I don't think we're gonna be like, I moved this from, departments come in and ask for everything upfront. And so we try to place it where we think we can afford to put it. And that's the challenge for us at this point in time is we're meeting with department heads as they come in with a list of all the things and they don't tell us what they just say, these are our needs. The problem is when can we afford to do it? And so that's sort of an iterative process that we have with the department heads and with the finance director. And so coming in early, I think we'll be a first cut at it in terms of where we can go. But I think previously the department heads of the town were treated differently in essence than the schools or the library. So we're trying to coordinate that a little bit more cleaner. So are you, because we're putting all town capital requests in one day where obviously can't have all department heads coming in on one day, presentation would be more organized. Right, but they will be here if there are questions. The key department heads will be here if there are questions and you can want to direct them, talk to them directly, obviously. Is this process seeming to address what we talked about last year as our concerns about the process, Alex? So from a process perspective, it seems cleaner and that's good. From a timing perspective, the reality is the library's not gonna have the numbers that people want until the second or third week of April. So I'm not sure what the meeting of, I'm not sure what having the library director come in on March 5th accomplishes at this point because I'm not sure that there's information for people to be able to have a thoughtful approach about how to budget things out because we don't have a full number. But at the same time, the number we're getting is at the end. So I'm not sure. So I guess I'm just sort of putting out there for people to think on because I really want to make the best use of everybody's time. Kathy has a comment. Kathy. To a different slot, I had a question on the town capital when it comes in all together, one thing that might be helpful is you're coming in with a first cut and then you have the, what was the next highest priority? So you see that we got down to this amount but if there were more money, this is the next place we put it. So some sense of if it can be done in the next 12-year month period we would really want to or it's okay to be pushed off but just a little bit of signaling, I don't know how much that's possible. No, I think that that's certainly possible and it's a good thing to do. It's a good idea. Alex, yeah, I have a follow-up question to it. You just said that go ahead. I actually have a different question and maybe I should know the answer to this but what happened to the public requests and that prop? Is that up there and I just don't see it? I think there was only one public request this year. The public request process, we had asked it to be pressed, put it in an earlier schedule, it was put in an earlier schedule, it was pretty widely acknowledged. The one public request was interesting because it was a little bit of an uncertainty as to whether it was a request to the regional schools or a request to the town. It was to do something with the parking lots at the middle school and high school that would create solar panels above the parking spaces similar to some of the university lots have now. And Eric, you might be able to tell us that there was some discussion at the regional committee about that too as far as whether you were doing anything with it or am I wrong with that? The discussion we had was on potentially authorizing a study for an array, solar array, not actually in the parking lots because that was deemed to be too costly but actually in the land surrounding the middle school. And so there's a request in our regional budget, capital budget for some planning and analysis around to get better information there. And in particular, that was viewed as being as an alternative to doing roof improvements at the middle school that would allow for the mounting of solar on top of the roof. That in other words, it might be a less costly alternative to put it on like the hillsides or some of the areas around the middle school. David? I'd like to expand a bit on what Alex said. I mean, the library capital requests for IT and for funds if the grant is approved are solid. The issue is if the grant is not approved is what the library would need to bring the building up to a functional state with repairs and with accessibility. And we have a contract now. We approved Tuesday with Cune Riddle and they're gonna work with Western Builders which gave us our original estimate three, three and a half years ago. That's the figure that won't be ready until the middle of April. So that this is one piece of the library capital request if the grant is not approved is what won't be ready until April. Which creates a dilemma and I'll try and state it and then see what your thoughts are on it is that the sequence of timing becomes a problem because what you're doing is very with the Cune Riddle is extremely important so that we as a town and both those who are active in the government who've been in elected positions or appointed positions and our citizens understand the point that you're making that there are these significant investments in capital that will be necessary if we don't move forward so that there's a realistic understanding of both sides to do the project with MVLC or not do it but that's not going to be a decision that will have been made by the council because it doesn't have to be prior to the adoption of the FY21 budget in the capital plan that's in the budget. Yes, Lynn. Thank you for recognizing me. I think that the library estimate is important in two ways. One, I do think it needs to go in even if it's amendment to the capital budget depending on timing and then as Andy stated it's very important as the council makes the decision regarding which path to go with the award of the library grant. Alex and I have talked about this timing and we all wish it was earlier but I think the issue at this point is we just may not be able to get it any faster than we are going to get it so I don't know how do you want to handle that all? Miss the last part. Yes. Can I ask the trustees? So the point is we've got two issues. We've got the number for getting that realistic on one of our goals, the immediate needs of the capital facilities type thing and that number is not going to be here till April which is too late really for the five year and for the plan to go to the council under the charter in almost because that's due May 1, right? But that's got many uses. The library capital requests that are set from Orange Fifth now for this presentation are mostly next fiscal years. So the question I have is as Lynn just said and when we know the grant comes in in July which is next fiscal year not this one. So will those requests include or is there anything if next fiscal year July, August whenever the council votes if for some reason if it doesn't vote to accept the grant and bond out is there an expectation that anything in that number that's coming in April or even not coming in April is there an expectation that there's needs that need done next fiscal year at the library whether or not that grant goes through and is that number knowable for this next meeting or whenever that's scheduled? The grant received in July you will be voting when you vote you will have the figure for what the town would have to expend to match the grant and the figure of what it will cost to fix the library if the grant is rejected. So you will have the two figures in front of you. It's just that when Sharon comes in March she can tell you how much probably the town will be kicking in what we'll get from tax credits and fundraising and et cetera. So the anticipated amount the town will have to kick in for the grant if the grant is approved. But you will have in front of you the estimate of if you reject the grant what town funds will have to be expended to fix things in the library not just deferred maintenance but making it accessible and certain other things to make it safe. So you'll have those two figures. It's just that if she comes in March she will not have that if the grant is rejected this is what we will need figure. Yes. Kathy has a comment. Kathy. With or without, they laid out pieces. So the top priority was the roof or the high back system. So it wasn't, we need $10 million or $15 million. It was, we need the following pieces with some order of priority. And this is in the event that the grant wasn't accepted. So will you be able to come in with a total of also pieces if there's a sequence? Yes, yes. Alex and then Lynn. So two things. One, an answer to your question. The plan that we have currently that we know of is to put any maintenance that would be needed because if we didn't get the grant in the same fiscal year starting the same fiscal year that the grant would have started which was your first question. And just to elaborate on Tammy's response to Kathy. So the first, so the what's been coming to JCPC over the years was a list of items for the library. And I think there's 12 items maybe and they're individually listed. And so that list was the list of priorities that George Hicks, our facilities person had come up with as sort of the immediate priority needs. And when we went to Western Builders and got that initial quote, it was to address those initial needs. And at the time, we didn't have the funding to do a much larger, deeper dive into the numbers which required an architect, but we were fortunate enough to have received a bequeath which has allowed the library to move forward, which is actually why we're able to spend a lot more money to get this architectural design. So what we'll have in April will be even more detailed than what we have from Western Builders now which will enable us to create priorities and a timeline around when the different things that we've already articulated need to be done can be done. So it was somewhat broken out in the Western Builders but this will be a more detailed to allow us to plan either five years or seven years with the work that needs to be done in the order that it needs to be done. I wanna clarify in my understanding what needs to come to JCPC is repairs that are needed in the coming year, that's all. The larger discussion about the library, the grant, the matching, et cetera is a conversation that will, I'm actually in communication with the library director, the town manager and the chair of the library trustees and figuring out the timing and the way to do that so that, because it's really a council library trustee discussion and then something that obviously has to be done in public. So I think again, I would prefer that if it's helpful for the library, if we could give them the opportunity to do their piece in April because it's the request for this year's repairs. If nothing else happens, we must do this and at the same time, this other discussion is not a JCPC discussion. Well, there are two problems. One is that it has a realistic five-year plan and a realistic five-year plan is on this grade box that's up there and a realistic five-year plan is hard to develop a realistic five-year plan when you don't know a very big piece of question, answer to a question. Are we going forward with the grant? And so the, well, it probably is not good to substantially affect FY21, certainly it would affect FY22 to 25. So we've got to deal with that problem, yeah. So I have a practical, so one, by the way, I assume that if there are any requests that are affecting the library branches outside of the Jones, those could come forward sooner. And then my question is, and I think this builds off of what the council president was saying. My assumption is that if there's anything that needs to be done to the Jones like in September or November or October, like in other words, really immediate capital repairs. One, you probably know what those are. Like if they're really urgent enough that you'd say, regardless of what happens to the larger question, there are things that need to happen immediately, you probably already know them. And the other thing on it would be if you didn't, I don't even really understand how you'd be able, I'm not sure you'd be able to spend much money in the next fiscal year if you started from a dead stop on July 1st and then tried to figure out what you needed to do. You know what I mean? Like you wouldn't be able to spend very much money in FY21. If you didn't know already, something needed to be done urgently. So my question is, is it possible to sort of bifurcate the conversation between, I think this is building off of what the council president was saying, the larger question, which you're not gonna know later, versus are there things that, and also has a different venue for the conversation, versus even sort of a skinny down thing that you'd know, okay for the branches we wanna do this, and oh by the way, regardless of what decision happens down the road in the intervening months, we know that these two or three things have to happen. I know that that doesn't solve what Andy was talking about, but I'm not sure you're gonna be able to solve that and get this JCC plan in, but to the council by May 1st. Andy, I think that's exactly what I'm saying is, until the council makes the decision as to what they will do with regard to the grant, you're really not gonna be able to fill in the full five years on the library, and that grant isn't officially awarded till July 1st, and the council won't make a decision prior to July 1st, so there's a little bit of a missing column here called library or line, whatever you wanna call it, called library in the five year capital plan, that I don't know any other way to get at it unless you want to take what the library is now contracted for and use it to fill in the five year, which makes an assumption on a decision that the council has not made, because if you put in the repairs or the upgrade that needs to happen in the five year plan, and the council after July 1 makes the decision that we will spend town money and accept the grant from the library board, the library commission, then that line won't be used in the same way. BNB. So is there a potential solution for the five year capital plan? I'm assuming that if the council accepts the grant, that money will be borrowing, there's no decision at this time, whether that money will be borrowing out of the capital project or a debt override, but we could put that potentially into the capital plan, five year plan, grant accepted, here's the debt payment that reduces how much you have. We could somewhat do the same thing if the council doesn't accept the grant, even before we know a great number, we have a not so great number of, I don't know, somewhere in the 10 million range that's not so great right now, and we know it's not so great, that's why we're getting a better number, but that I'm operating on the assumption would be mostly borrowing too. So is there a way in the five year plan to just put library borrowing repayment and throw whatever number that is in for 10 years and that gets us through at least a little bit to help get that five year plan somewhat realistic? So yes, absolutely we could do that and it wouldn't be part of the council order to appropriate or to authorize this right when the budget season would happen, it would happen when we needed it, like we just did with the school, so we could fine tune it. I just like to raise the issue that I can understand if the grant is received doing an override, but for refurbishing and making it accessible, you would also do an override for that? Yeah, it's very nice. I wanna be clear and this is really for not only this committee but the public, there has been absolutely and completely no decision, absolutely no decision made that we will go out for an override for the library. Wherever that came from and has been repeated in the press, it is not coming from the council. There has not been that decision. We have not had any discussion, even the most small groups that I have. Building off of the, accepting that last one, which is none of my business, building off of the other comments that were made though, my question is if you take that approach where essentially you're putting in reasonable sort of dummy lines for future decisions around the major renovation, then what that might do is it might allow for us, part of what I'm worried about is if the library thinks it had, I'm making this up, obviously I'm totally making this up. If the library thinks it might still, no matter what the case is, have like $35,000 or $50,000 of spending it needs to do in the coming year, that's still 50,000 that crowds out something else we need to do, right? And so for, so I know this is, unfortunately what I'm saying is the enemy of everything Andy is saying around saying we want a rational five-year plan. We want it to be a real five-year plan. I'm also just sort of saying, we also still have to have a workable 2021 plan and to do that in some sort of rational, logical way requires this between now and April, whatever it is, to get some information from the library that allows us to look at realistic spending requests even for this first year that are somehow hived off of from that larger question. And I'm assuming that becomes more realistic, I assume. I guess it's a question. I mean, the one thing that we did last year and I'll turn to the schools is we had a substantial discussion that went along the lines of assuming that we are going to get into the MSBA process, which we didn't know at the time, what essential repairs have to happen to Fort River and Wildwood to keep the buildings functional so that we can actually have children go to those schools during the period before a building would be built under a best case scenario. And I remind everybody of how much time we spent talking about chillers. But what really was the thought about what that very question, I think that another one is Fort River Roof, is in the same category. And that's a little bit different than the discussion that we've had about the library because the library is sort of like, well, we're existing, we're continuing to exist. If we get the grant, we can solve it because it's built into the grant process. And if not, there's a number here, we're trying to find out a number for you, but you're gonna have to do something. So it was a little bit differently stated and presented. I think that we have to be careful to know what exactly we're talking about. But it does seem as Mandy's indicated that there's got to be a way to kind of cost out for the library side what it is that needs to happen from the town under either amount and make sure that that's into a five year plan. Yes, Alex? So the one comment I would make is I think Mandy's suggestion is a good one. And I think, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Allison and Eric, but the chillers like, the chillers was probably on the list of problems, but until the chillers went out, we didn't know we needed chillers that year, right? And I think the library's in the same situation where we had a problem with the heating system, we had a problem with actually with our AC system, with our chillers, right? And we had to wait for the one 75 year old repair technician who still knows how to work on our units because it's an obsolete unit and we can't get parts. So this go round, we were able to fix it, but I just, so I think, I don't know that we can give the answer that people are looking for because right, it's all good with duct tape until it's not right when you're dealing with obsolete units. So I think at this rate, we've made the list of things that we know are problematic. We just don't know when the last pin falls out and it's a problem. So I, you know. I have no answer to that question, although you're basically correct. But I mean, we started, I mean, the schools started doing, I mean, if you get, I don't know if people remember this, but we had serious failures around pest management and heating and cooling at our elementary schools. And so we got really better organized at that point and creating a more sort of realistic punch list, you know, year to year, because we felt like we really had to. Like we were starting to bore on that question of, when you say you have a safe and comfortable and conducive learning and teaching environment, we felt like we were boring and not having that. And so that, it luckily focused our minds much more carefully on that question. And frankly, we had transitions around our facilities director that made that challenging and we were able to get a handle on that too. Mr. Chair, I wanted to just throw out that I think some members need to leave in 10 minutes. And I just wanted to throw out that for the school committee anyways, the question of the JCPC times is actually a matter of profound urgency that I just wanted to remind you that, I guess I'll say my comment now, even though I realize it's not on the agenda. We may not have any members of the school committee able to attend these meetings on Thursday mornings. Which I was cognizant of when I recognized the importance of having that discussion. Let me see, if Alex, did you have something that you wanted to finish that last conversation on? No, I think it's gonna be an ongoing conversation and I agree with Eric that this is where our priority needs to be is setting the meetings, yeah. So changing topics entirely, just keeping this on, but I'll keep what's on the screen on the screen. Is it easiest to just go around the room and asking people present what are the possible times that you could meet or can we do it when you know you cannot meet what your concrete limitations are and then we'll get those recorded, so. I think that's really hard. When, and you know, weekly, bi-weekly. I was wondering, so council meets Monday nights, school committee meets Tuesday nights, library trustees, do you guys meet in an evening? Yeah, so is, I would almost wonder whether we start with our Wednesday or Thursday nights possible for this committee, for people. Maybe start something like that. Is there a desire to move to evening meetings, I guess, is, yeah, go ahead. So just reiterating Eric's comment about us not being able to even have a representative that's able to attend on Thursday mornings at this time. I'm actually standing in to represent Carrie Spitzer who would like to serve on the committee. She, evenings are much preferable for her because she works full time, four days a week in Springfield, so is not able and does not have a flexible, the flexibility to sort of rearrange her work schedule to accommodate daytime meetings. Her preference is a Wednesday or Thursday evening meetings after five p.m. Meet at five? Can't speak for her. Generally, when on other evenings, 5.30 tends to be more reliable, but for her to be able to travel back from Springfield and that, but I don't have that information. I'll just say meetings are harder for me because I have trouble driving in the dark. When we get daylight savings, it'll be better, but it is problematic for me, but I can do it if I have to. The other members of the school committee also have have work schedules that don't allow them to be here between at the 8.30 to 10.30 time frame, so I don't have feedback from them, but my understanding is evenings are also preferable outside of normal work hours. My recollection in that conversation was that for at least one of the members of the school committee, Wednesday might be preferable to Thursday because the number correctly, I guess I'll say the names, it doesn't really matter. Mr. Peter said that he think, I think he works in Cambridge or something or Lincoln on Thursday, so he's out of the, he often works in the area, but he works out of the area on Thursdays, so Wednesday would probably be preferable for him. And by the way, I apologize to all present. I apologize for the fact that the schools are pushing you to reorganize your calendar just to suit us. I just apologize for that, but we're gonna push anyway, because we're trying to get our members available to attend. Yeah, one. I would just like it, I'm not on the committee, although I'll probably come to a lot of your meetings since this is an issue for me. And I personally have no problem with either evening, but I do wanna ask Paul and our main staff person how that works for them. We'll make ourselves available whenever the committee needs us. If I did wanna mention two things, one is if it's gonna be evening, it's probably unlikely to be in this room. You'll have, we'll find a different room. It might be the bank center, the community room, just because these rooms get booked up already by regular meetings. And the other thing is, one of the things that the superintendent and I have talked about for the school building committee is to pre-advertise that those meetings are gonna be very early in the morning, like at 7.30, to accommodate the principal because they feel it's much better for the school building committee. So I don't know if that's an option for folks or not. Mayor Ambide. So I, and if we're talking evenings, I would much prefer Thursday over Wednesday, but I could, given the shortness of the times, if we did Wednesday, I could probably make it work. If it would be easier for me to make it work if we did like 5.30. The earlier, the better. I have an ongoing Wednesday night commitment that starts at 7.30 that I can work my way through most of these nights, but it would be preferable if I didn't have to miss so much of it. And I'm, I've got kid. 7.30 would be doable. I'd probably be able to get my spouse to take my kid to school, school drop off. That is an 8.30 a.m. thing, but I'd probably be able to work through that if that was something the committee also considered. So this is Alex. I can do Wednesday, 5.30 would be fine. Thursday would not be my preference, but I would figure out how to make it work as well if that worked for people. And if people are talking early morning, then that's a possibility. Just depends on what day it is. Consensus to go. Can there be a consensus for Wednesday at 5.30? Seems to be, Kathy, is she asking or? Those are all cameras' names. So do we have agreement or we wanna actually take a vote on changing to Wednesday at 5.30? And understanding that we're gonna have to be looking for a room that won't be this room, which actually we had talked about was one of the issues if you go back to that sheet that I handed out in pay-per-form from last time, that we don't know because we don't know what's scheduled. So that's why we don't know. I just was wondering if we move, these are all set for Thursdays. Can we plan on the day before this schedule at 5.30? You know, like that same sort of week so I can start putting it into my calendar. That's what I was gonna ask is the next question. Okay, of course we have to get back to the others who had been approached by Sonya. We should put together the schedule for their availability. So the best we can do is try. So shall we try for Wednesdays at 5.30? Moving to if possible one day before and just give Sonya as much time as is necessary to confirm that that's possible. Yes. The council committees haven't been set yet but two of the current counselors on this committee also sit on community resources committee. And so I want to potential put up the potential conflict that we might have on Wednesday nights with planning board when we have to hold joint hearings. If we're not meeting every week we can probably alternate those but planning board tends to start at seven. So there's a potential for some conflicts on some of these dates. I will work with the planning board. Once I've got these dates I think planning board meets weekly, not every other week. So we might, if we could either, if they are every other week if we could maybe check their schedule on that possibility or I would, as I'm currently chair of the community resources I'd work on that but that is one potential foreseeable conflict with JCPC 530 to 730. It could be that the hearings that need to be joint started eight or something instead of seven like they normally do but I just thought I'd mention that as noble. At this point we have none scheduled and they aren't gonna be every, they just, when they arise, and of course we're talking about a fairly compact period of time here. Which is why I say hopefully I'd be able to work around that with the planning board chair as chair of CRC. So we're, yes, sir. Resolved or moved. But you're looking for a motion so we could wrap this up. Move that we set the JCPC meeting date and times to Wednesdays starting at 530. I will second that. Okay, so the motion on the floor and it has been seconded. I think we're still back in the position where we need to get some of you to do some investigation and let us know which we can then revisit afterwards but at least it gives us a direction. So is there anything further to stand the motion or should we just vote? We do need to do a roll call about. You want to do a roll call? Tamsen? Mandy? Yes. Andy? Yes. Eric? Yes. Alex? Yes. Allison? Yes. Kathy? Yes. Thank you. So it's unanimous. So thank you. We have the time. I think that we've, this has been very helpful to get a framework for the five year plan. Paul or Sonia, have we provided the guidance that you were looking for from this meeting? Yeah, I think it'll be an iterative process I think just as we start to present things and talk about things we welcome your feedback. So I think that the next meeting when we started looking at the first, start getting a review of where the plan might be going. We start talking about funding mechanisms we may be able to move forward. So I think that we've actually done a fair amount and I'm gonna try and see if I can encapsulate our discussion into some sort of a memo back and then just let people respond individually because it won't be an open meeting and see if we can go forward. And then whoever becomes chair in the next meeting will be able to take what we've taken to done today and move forward with planning process to get us to an end result. But I think that we are in a place where we're doing the best we can. We've come up with a reasonable plan recognizing the challenges that we've got these building projects that we want to see go forward. We like to be optimistic. We wanna believe that they're gonna happen. We also wanna know what the consequences are if they don't happen. And we wanna make sure that the capital plan fits both. I think that's probably the bottom line statement that comes out of today's meeting. And the other thing that is in there is we wanna know what is the most critical needs that have to be met not withstanding the building projects and make sure that that information comes forward from the town, the schools, and the library is available to us. So that's the second piece. So with that, anything else that he said today? If not, I wanna thank everybody for this challenging meeting. And I appreciate everybody's pitching in to make it happen. And I think we did some good work. Thank you. And we're adjourned at 9.50 a.m., excuse me, wasn't that long. And we actually did well. Thank you.