 And this meeting is now being recorded and will be uploaded to the town of Amherst YouTube channel by the information technology department. Fabulous thank you Angie. So I want to call the meeting of the Jones Library building committee to order we are meeting virtually pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. And I'm going to ask each of you to register your presence vocally so we know that you are hearing us and that you can be heard Sharon Sherry. Here. Sean. Here. Alex Lefebvre. Here. Paul Backelman. Here. Christine. Here. George. George Hicks. Here. Good. And we are joined by two distinguished colleagues from. Collier's Ken Gayet and Greg DeCarlo and I'm Austin, Sarah, and I am here. Okay. So the first item of business is the approval of the minutes of the March 15th meeting. Is there a motion to approve the minutes. So moved. Thank you, Paul. Is there a second. Second. Thank you. Okay, any corrections to the minutes. Austin, Mr. Chairman, there was one that I saw on page one. What is the problem. And that is the line that reads, DeCarlo spoke about his experience with public buildings and his extensive experience on library projects. And I wish I had that extensive experience on library projects, but if not, I just didn't want the record to show that. So. I will correct the minutes by deleting extensive extensive experience in library projects. Is that what you were saying? Yes, that would work. Okay. Thank you for that. Okay, anything else on the minutes. Okay, we'll vote on the minutes signify that you approve the minutes as amended. Yes, or no, if you don't share and share. Yes. Thank you, Sean. Yes. Alex Lefebvre. Yes. Paul Bachman. Yes. Christine. Yes. George. Yes. And Austin vote yes. And with great appreciation to Angie. Okay, next item three, the financial update. Sean, how are we doing. Well, I'll show you how we're doing. That's fabulous. All right, so just because this is the one visual I have right now for you guys. This is our, the MVLC grant payments. So again, Sharon gets these every month from our treasure collector who as a requirement is grant we have to have a separate account set up for the MVLC money. So we continue to bring in a little bit of interest each month that we'll add and let me get the next MVLC payment. You know, it'll all, it'll all grow exponentially faster. And then the other financial update I have is that I'm meeting with the financial advisor and our bond council on Thursday. And hope to make a final determination on how we're going to finance the library project. So hopefully between now and the next meeting will we can update you on sort of the, the approach and that again that's just whether we're going to borrow this year or wait to until next year. But that's the goal of that meeting on Thursday is to finalize that. Just for the record, and for those of us that don't know who could you name our financial advisor and could you name the bond council. Yeah, so our financial advisor is David Isenthal he's been with the town. I think over 30 years he's been with us for a very long time. He works for Unibank, and he advises us on all matters relating debt and borrowing. And our bond council is Rick Manley, let me know if I might be mispronouncing the last name. He has also been the bond council for quite some time. I think he works for Locke and Lord, technically, and they are the ones that will tell us everything we need to have in place in order to do a successful borrowing. Wonderful. Great. Okay, thank you Sean any questions about the financial update. Great. Okay, thank you Sean. Item four in our agenda is a report from Colliers. So Ken or Craig, Craig, Ken, Craig, Ken. I could take that so we are still kind of at this point right now as a little bit of a holding pattern waiting for the time where we can bring a design team on board. So if this gets off, that we can really start to ramp up our efforts on getting a schedule put together, getting that locked in start really working towards those milestones, and getting some designer readings scheduled right away to get them back up to the current set of concept drawings out again for a revised estimate to see where we're at overall on the numbers at this point. Where are we with FAA? Will that produce silence good? So I think the goal is to at least review the proposal today. As long as there's no issues with it being public Ken on from your end, but I think we were going to review that proposal and possibly vote on it, or vote to authorize the town manager to move forward with it. So, do you have it to share Ken or which I've got it if you'd like. He's got mine Sean that has my markups that's fine. Yeah, I can find it as well. Okay, the one dated February 24th correct. Correct. So, Sean, could you just. So, what, what I'm hoping we'll be able to do is to vote to approve this, and to therefore authorize the committee authorizes you and the town manager to enter into contract with FAA. How does it go? Yeah, so I mean, technically the building committee is overseeing this project and the, and the resources really this project. So, I think there's different variations of what we can do, but I think the, what I would recommend at this point would be to authorize the town manager to move forward with this proposal and sign a contract extension or contract amendment. So, this, this is, you'll, as we go through this this proposal essentially builds upon the existing contract we have with FAA to say right here's the next phase of the project, here's what we're going to do. And here's what it'll cost. So let's look at this proposal. Ken, do you want to walk us through the proposal or Sean do you want to walk us through the proposal, Ken. Yeah, I can walk through you can just start scrolling Sean so obviously we've gone back and forth several times with FAA on this to get them to give us a number that was appropriate and actually fit with the budget. It took some doing. They had, you know, as you can imagine, they were really kind of put quite a, quite a fee against this project and, and we've been able to talk them down pretty significantly so right here is their, their consultant team, which again includes the same people that they were using earlier. As far as, you know, structural engineering and landscape design and acoustics, etc. Cost estimator was fantasy they were the ones that have been doing the cost estimating right along. So no big surprises here. We're going through kind of specifically what their scope of work is going to be as we work our way through the proposal. Some of the phase durations and scopes of work so these are the phase durations we gave them as kind of an outline on what what the figure so schematic design will be about two months etc etc. So they outline their scope of work and their scope of work generally is again appropriate for for this project and for the work that they're going to be doing to complete the construction documents and put this out to bid. They do outline some meetings, you know, obviously, they want to make sure that we keep the meetings under control as best we can that's something that we're all going to have to work on together. Because, you know, I think I think the general sense is is that could really get out of control very very quickly if we're, if we're not mindful of it and that that's a that's a big cost for their firm obviously with them coming where they're coming from to get out here for for meetings etc. So, we just need to be mindful of that and so they made sure that they included some of the meetings that they felt were appropriate during each phase. Ultimately, the bottom line is is there are certain things that that were scopes of work that may or may not be necessary for the project that we told them that just pull those scopes of work out for now. And, and have a dollar dollar value assigned to those and if at the time we need to break pull the trigger on those scopes of work. We have some budget savings right now based on where this proposal landed, and we'll be able to pull the trigger on on that right now but we did not want to encumber that money, immediately coming out of the gate. Understanding that it may not be totally necessary for them to be able to do that spoke. Could you go back, could you go back to the meetings that you just showed. These are the meetings that are assumed in the first phase of the work. Is that correct. That's correct. So let's just say it out loud so there are six potential meetings with the building committee. And those meetings might include meetings that might be arranged with the outreach subcommittee. The department meetings just again, what departments would they can at the phase at this phase be meeting with likely. They might meet with the building department, they might meet with the, you know, the zoning planning, things of that nature just to give them an overview. Okay, thank you. Thank you, thank you. I think with the design development, etc. You know, they've got the meetings outlined. And understanding that there's going to be times where we may end up having discussions without their participation, because it's stuff that's off topic from them anyway so they wouldn't have to necessarily attend certain meetings potentially, say for the outreach committee, etc. So we want to make sure that we outline that the construction document phase is about 20 weeks. And so they've outlined that scope of work as well. And again, the the scopes of work that that we had asked them to pull if you continue to outcharge one for that really quick bidding and negotiating at eight weeks that may be a little long. But at this point it's fine to keep it at that point we want to try to shorten that if we can, and then construction administration is going to go back up one thing just so again just so I understand the 75% and 100% submit 75% construction documents, submit 100% and so what what what is that what is the 75% construction document. So we want to do an a cost estimate check at 75% of destruction documents. Again, before this goes out on the street to bid just to allow us enough time to make any last minute changes to some some surprise out there in the market that allowed us to do that and the 100% construction documents are basically the big set of documents ready to go out. And is this is this kind of industry standard you do it at 75%. It is, you know with the mass school building authority they actually do to they do one at 50% construction documents, and then one at 95% construction documents. That's not typically necessary for most projects, but this is the industry kind of the industry standard. Okay. And if we continue down the 83 weeks or 18 months for construction administration, we feel that that's appropriate at this point. We want to make sure that we're, we're, we're being very diligent about keeping the contractor on on point with this project done timely. And so we're we're hopeful that that's going to be, again, all we think that that's appropriate. They're proposed fee. If we continue down so they have their proposed fee broken out by the phases that they discuss above. And I put in red kind of our budget numbers so their total fee was $2.725 million. Their original fee for the scope of work was $2.9 million. And so there's about a $225,000 difference from their first iteration to this one. And again that was that difference was by not only trying to again put the pressure on them to get their numbers more in line with industry standard what we follow our industry standard, and also a couple of those against small ticket items that were that were pulled out and left as as additional services if required. So as you can see the budget number that we are currently holding in the budget is 2.688 million with $143,000 for consultant reimbursables. This proposal that we see here includes consultant reimbursables. So our total budget is 2.831 million for construction documents and design phase services. And that ends up equaling about $106,000 difference from the budget so we're currently for the design phase services for FAA or about $106,000 under budget, if this proposal were to be accepted at this point. And just so everybody knows, one of the things I look at for our designer fees is that it should be around 10% of construction sometimes it's a little higher sometimes it's a little lower. And so, you know, working with Ken, that was one of the things that, you know, we looked and this is, it's, I think it's slightly, when you add in the it's, it's slightly all the adults. Yeah, when you add in the alternates it's slightly above but it's, but it's very close to 10%. I mean, we would, we would love to be able to get FAA under contract and allow them to proceed at this point. You're muted Austin, you're muted Austin. What I said then was very wise. Now I'm going to speak up Ken I just want you to make want to make sure that everybody understands the original budget for this project contemplated 2.831. As the designer fee and the construct and the consultant reimbursement. That was our original budget. That's correct. Right. So the original budget was those two numbers to six, eight, eight plus one, four, three, four, two, eight, three, one, fabulous. And then can it says the above fee is negotiable. Yeah, so that that that negotiation has happened so several times so I am, I am certain that it is no longer negotiable even though they forgot to strike that from the proposal. Okay, but I want to just also be clear that the committee is not contemplating any more negotiations with FAA. That is done. Right. If I can pull the town manager still can negotiate with FAA the town manager ultimately has to sign the contract and one question I have for the committee is that it presumes in person meetings and virtual meetings. There's value to both of those things to the design team. I don't know what the design teams preferences are but I would like to know where the, the building committee is if you feel strongly about having in person meetings where there's a cost involved with people traveling to a location as opposed to virtual means and do you have a strong does the committee care a whole lot about that or not. Thank you for that question. Angie, could you take down or showing could you take down the screen ship for a minute. Thank you. So, what do people think you want to put in the budget that Paul is going to negotiate the contract you want to put in any provision for in person meetings. Let me clarify there are provisions for for in person meetings and virtual meetings. Yeah, I guess, in terms of having this conversation, it would just be helpful to the committee to know. We're fine meeting virtually. We want to do that or we really want to maximize the number of in person meetings that it presumes a certain number of in person meetings. And this is the, I guess the question to the committee is, are you okay. If we negotiate some of that away for some other benefit. So the question is, do you want to have what's in the in the proposal now is some in person meetings you want to retain those in person meetings is that the question. Yes. Okay, Christine and then Sharon. So, in the brief overview that I saw the document, they sort of have a breakdown and it looked reasonable I think there's value to having both. And I understand you save a lot of money by having the zoom ones. And the only thing I would ask is, when we do have the online ones that we could definitely get the information is much possible it's going to be shown at the meeting beforehand because then we either have it to look at, or we've already looked at it because that is one of the drawbacks on the on the remote like China see the screen you can't like control it yourself. Thank you Christine Sharon. Yeah, I just want to say, so if you want to negotiate further I would be happy as long as we can see them once per phase in person. I'm happy for the rest to be virtual it's funny, four years ago I would have said no way it's all going to be in person but now I think we're very capable of understanding what's going on, you know, and through the computer screen. So, I guess Paul, the question for you so after, I don't know if it's July or whatever date the, the governor's order goes away, our meetings will no longer be virtual right our meetings will have to take place in person. So, so what they're proposing is not necessarily virtual meetings they're theoretically it'll be virtual attendance for them but we will be in person and seeing them on a screen and interacting with them that way. Yeah, so it's unclear what will happen after July, because, you know, there is a push for legislation to continue to let people to meet remotely it's very popular among local officials. And you're right, it's really about their attendance versus us being present. And, you know, we have been conducting town council meetings in a hybrid mode. You know, we would if we are meeting in person at this moment in time we would have to meet in the town council, the town room, because that's the only one with the technology set up to accommodate that. So, yeah, it's if it's technically feasible clearly, we can't arrange for something that's not technically or legally allowed. Great. Thank you. Alex before I call on you just Sharon and Sean just as a matter of take down your hands if you don't want to be recognized again. Thank you, Alex. Yeah, I guess I just wanted a little clarity are all of these meetings. They all sound like building committee meetings and from an outreach perspective, are we contemplating that some of these community outreach subcommittee meetings or building committee meetings would be community forum. Community forums or is any kind of public engagement charrette whatever it winds up being with the architects, in addition to so I just wanted to understand that a little bit before responding on in person or not in person. I think the intent is to just try to keep it manageable. Right, they just don't want to have to be able to be out here. You know, two, three times a week for the entirety of the design phase, they want it to be, you know, appropriate so if we can have some sort of mix of the virtual and in person. I think that would be would be able to find a happy medium there. They just didn't want to get burnt by having just too too many meetings being out there. I think there is a value to having in person meetings with the design team at certain points of the design, obviously, that makes the most sense and that's what that's kind of what we're trying to do because originally they had more virtual than in person and we pushed to push back on them to get more in person meetings to be, you know, be in that proposal so I don't know Alex did that answer your question. No, not at all. So go ahead. Sorry, I did a poor job of asking the question. To the extent that we are going to involve the public in certain decisions or in certain input and feedback are we contemplating the architects participate and if so, does this schedule of meetings include that or is it in addition to So I think we would need to have the architects participate in some of those sessions. I don't think all of them I think there's a majority of the questions should be able to answer as the opm. And I think it would be appropriate to have those types of public forums in person and not have the design team necessarily be remote to those because they're going to be part of a design overview nature so the design team would want to be there to be able to present that as well in person. And those are those are included in this you know they understand that there's going to be a certain amount of outreach they just want to understand that it's going to be. Again, you know something that's manageable for them. Alex is that Yeah, so then I guess I want to come back to Sharon who wanted to make sure we had an in person meeting once per phase and where does that leave you I mean obviously we're not going to I don't. I don't know the process yet to know how often it makes sense. I feel like I'm trying to answer questions I don't understand fully yet in terms of how we engage the architects when we're involving community feedback so I don't know what's appropriate I don't know why we only need one meeting with the architects, and that's it so I have to sort of rely on others to say. If we go to one per phase that works for Sharon questions as well as whatever's needed for public engagement. Paul Bachman. So I think Mike, my question was more. The appetite for the committee like how strongly do you feel about being in person versus not in person so some committees feel very strongly they want to be in person some committees feel the world works on virtual I can live without virtual we've budgeted a certain sort of in person meetings and virtual meetings. And the question was, or do we sort of have that balance right it's sort of a to in person to every four virtual sort of roughly that. I mean, you know if there's value to the architect to say hey, we'll give you a couple more virtual if you take away one of those in person because there's two hours travel each way whatever it is. That's some value to them maybe so this that was a sort of scope as a question. I think we all recognize the need for in person. Once we're able to do that with the public will be very valuable. So Paul, it would be helpful. Just to recap. So, just remind us. Ken, how many in person meetings, how many virtual meetings in the schematic phase. Ken, do you want me to answer that. I was just getting, I was just getting to me. That's fine. So, there's one meeting with the MVLC. There's two in person meetings with the building committee and four virtual meetings with the building committee. That's in the first phase in the schematic phase and then there's also two in person meetings with departments and one virtual meeting with departments. How about with the, how about with just focus on the committee for the moment, just the building committee so there's six total to in person for virtual and how about in the next phase. Yep. Eight and how many three in person five virtual. Yep. And beyond that. And then in construction documents seven. Virtual. So Paul, I'll say for myself that I wonder whether or not we could keep the balance what is proposed in this document. Part of me isn't sure what the answer is going to be about in person. Because while I love I love zoom. I wonder whether we're going to want to say gee that we had a zoom meeting but that didn't work for that didn't work for us. So I wonder whether it's possible to negotiate this, which keeps this number which would be. If I did my homework about seven in person meetings on 14 zoom meetings. That's a third in person more or less other thoughts about in person versus zoom. Alex. Yeah, and I understood the question that was being asked and I actually don't have a problem with virtual meetings the only, from my perspective, time potentially I wanted to make sure we had meetings was it was when we were doing community outreach to the extent that we would involve the architect so that's why I was asking that question but as a building committee. I'm fine virtually. Yeah, yeah and presumably again, Alex some of these in person meetings that are with the building committee we might use for subcommittees in particular the outreach. Okay, Sharon. Yeah, what. So one more question. So, I'm assuming that this doesn't prevent us, or you know how we were talking about there. There are many special interests, having to do with this and there are several different groups of people who would love some one on one time with the there's nothing here preventing us them from reaching into our pockets their pockets I don't know which pocket but paying them more to come out for a special meeting with whatever. Does that make sense. Yeah except the paying the more part. I mean, that's, but one thing we can. Sorry. I think they budget $2,000 per meeting for an in person meeting. No it's definitely not free and nor nor should it be but I want to I want to use examples, and I'm going to use the example of the Civil War tablets I know that there's a group of interested people that are really interested in seeing specifically what this can look like and I'm not sure that that will end up being one of our chosen most important meetings that we are approving right now. Does that make sense. I understand what Paul has asked it's meetings are scarce goods they consume resources. And the question is, do we think that the balance of in person and zoom is right so far. And I think we got to be careful with what we are going to do with these meetings and will rely on Craig and can to give us some guidance about. This is the kind of meetings that typically are had, and you don't want to waste them on this or that. Not that the meetings about the Civil War tablets or anybody else any other group would be a waste, but it's going to consume resources. Paul. Yeah I mean like. This is a good good guidance I think the only question might be would would we want to trade to virtual is there any equivalency of two virtual meetings equals one in person meeting type thing. Can we gain some time that way, but that's a conversation to be had to just, but sounds like what the, what the committee is saying is that they want to balance between in person versus virtual I've heard some people say virtual for committee meetings is fine, meeting with other people constituencies it might be better to have in person because that might be there might end up in the public there might be more value there if we're able to meet in public. So I just want to understand Paul, and, and again Sean and Craig can get this straight. You're entering into an agreement with them. Does that commit us if we were to decide. We don't want to meet with you in person with the fact that we signed a contract which imagine that number of in person meetings Craig. So, in my experience so I haven't spoken directly with fine gold. Alexander about this but my experience architects, as can alluded to, they put those in there, kind of as a limit. And if you go one meeting over or one of the virtual ones we say hey we really want to have in person. Experiences that architects are agreeable to that. They just don't want to have, you know, 500 meetings. So, and then as Sharon pointed out, if we get to a point and we say geez we've kind of exhausted our meeting allotment they've already given us one or two freebies. So if they want, say another series of four meetings, that's something we could easily say find gold, you know, give us an additional services proposal, and they'll say right yeah for another four meetings, you know $8,000 as, as Paul was mentioning that they have in their mind kind of a unit cost. And then we can say all right it's important for us to have these meetings it's worth the X number of dollars. Paul do you have what you were looking for. I do thank you. So, is there any other comment about the proposal and then if there is no other comment about the proposal I take it that we want to do is we want to have a motion to recommend to the town manager that he negotiates with FAA on the basis of this proposal. So are there any other comments on the proposal questions about the proposal. Alex. I guess I thought I saw something that maybe I didn't around sustainability that might have been an add on. Not sure if I saw that they're not. But I know that we are 106,000 under budget right now which, so I guess I just wanted to. I'm okay adding that back on as long as that's a possibility, you know, depending on how. Yeah, awesome is okay if I speak to that. Absolutely. Yeah, so there's a few recommended additional services. I'll just share my screen so you can see it's thank you simply that way. So, to what Alex pointed out the life cycle assessments. It would be a cost of $10,000 more further studies of energy conservation measures would be $15,000 more. And then I think this is where Paul was alluding to this section about architectural permitting and their charge saying it would be $2,000 per meeting. Then we have some civil and landscape permitting services that they can provide between $40 and $50,000 and then photo realistic renderings at 2000 per image so I think we'll rely on the opm to guide us. So, which ones we need to execute with FAA and if these prices are reasonable, or if some of these can be done, or if they recommend these be done elsewhere. Thank you Sean Alex did that answer your question. Yeah, thanks. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions about the proposal. Yeah, I guess so Alex just opened it up and so, you know, the renderings for example our capital campaign committee is definitely going to need the renderings. So is now the time I guess I'm asking the opm, john is now the time to actually put this into the contract, knowing full well we're definitely going to need at renderings or is it still going to cost us to grant no matter whether we put it in the contract now or later so it just doesn't matter. So, with renderings renderings is a broad category of kind of product. Fine gold may have very simple three dimensional drawings that they can provide, which they wouldn't consider rendering and just taking something that they're working on and giving it to us. My, my impression is when they put that down there they mean for that photo realistic renderings that's what they'd be charging for. And so when it comes time we can see all right, what can we get for you know no added costs and they'll show it to us and if it's good enough great and if we want something more than we can decide to pay extra for. Okay. And so what about the life cycle assessment. Alex was just asking about is it worth putting the 10 grand in there so they can budget their time they know they're going to do it. I had seen in some of the information was posted on the project website that they'd already done some of that life cycle assessment. So I suspect what they're talking about is doing a full report. And that's another one I think we see how much information they're willing to include for this base fee. And then if we say we really want more than we can talk about and make that decision that at that point in time. Thank you, Sean. Yeah, and so we, I mean all these, these rates, you know, they can be sort of appended to the contract added to the contracts that we have them going forward. I think it's nice that we're under budget on this element of the project but we have to keep in mind there's that larger piece of this too so when we think about adding things on we should probably wait to see with the get a better sense of where we're going to land with the full project. Thank you, Sean. Any other questions about the FAA proposal and the fee. So hearing none, I wonder if someone would move that we accept this proposal and recommend to the town manager that he entered into negotiations for a contract with FAA. Can I do it, can I do it. I'm excited to make this motion please yes. So moved. Is there a second to Sharon's excitement. George, okay. Can I just offer a friendly amendment. Is it going to, is it going to bring Sharon down. No, no, no, I just want to be clear that so we're not entering into a new contract with them we are extending an existing contract with them. Thank you for that. Recommending to the town manager that he extend the existing contract good. All right, are we ready to vote Sharon sherry. Fabulous Sean. Yes. Thank you Sean Paul. Yes. George. Yes. Christine. Yes. Alex. Yes. And Austin votes. Yes. And I just want to say. I have goosebumps. I just have the sense of I know what Moses felt when he saw the promised land over the horizon so FAA don't blow it. So we're looking forward to what the result will be of the town managers work with FAA and looking forward to getting on with the work that they will do and again incredibly grateful for all the work that they've done to this point. Okay, call yours. Do you have anything else you want to say. No sir, thank you. That was that was that was pretty fabulous. Okay. Subcommittee reports Christine for the design subcommittee. We have not met since this group last met so there's nothing to report in our packet there were some draft minutes but they have not been approved yet. We meet again on Friday, April 8 at 9am. That will be online. Thank you very much. Christine. Okay, Alex for the outreach committee subcommittee. We met again on March 22nd. And we reviewed sort of the past public input that was provided for the design feasibility initial schematic round. We also looked a little bit at the fixed elements, you know, the location, the building program the approximate square footage reviewed what those building program elements are. And we talked about setting a first meeting or not meeting I guess a first community event, possibly for Sunday May 1 between 11 and 12. The discussions around the meeting were to provide an introduction to the committee the process what the community can expect. But then to also set up different tables around the library to reintroduce the public to the project ask questions get excited. Also making it an event where the community is able to talk to the building committee to library staff to trustees but also talking to each other about the project. So using it as sort of a gauge for who shows up and who doesn't to help us sort of identify what audience, you know, didn't initially show up to this that we might need to reach a little differently. And so, two things one wanted to make sure that that date works for folks. The reason that date was chosen was we wanted to do something on a weekend and we also wanted the library to be able to provide childcare for people through programming through the, the children's youth programming so that people could come drop their kids off at something fun and go hit the tables that they want to hit. So that was what gave us the date, but I think the hope is that we've got the building committee people showing up so I guess I want to make sure that that works. And then also we had talked about getting something back from the opm and Craig this was before you about some clear definitions whether it's coming from the architect opm about the process to buy that date to be able to get into the community, the process, the dates and what they'll be able to weigh in on or not weigh in on and to have, you know, make sure that that's a reasonable date to have those clear conversations. So that was the book. Yes, that was the book of our meeting. And then there was one other question about coming back to this committee around the intent of our charge. I think there was a lot of language about us making recommendations to the design committee and I think there was the last part says, what does it say. That was it. This is the outreach committee shall be to inform the community, seek community engagement and make design recommendations to design subcommittee. So I think there was a little bit of clarity that was desired by the subcommittee on what design recommendations means are we collecting filtering or we just, what, what does that mean what does this group intend to buy that so, and then our next meeting is April 5 at four o'clock. Okay, so let's let's hold the question about the charge, which is right very good question and let's let's talk about the meeting that Alex was talking about Craig. Yes. So, one of the things I saw in those prior meeting minutes was that request for information about what the public will be able to influence. And so I've been thinking about that and I think it would be nice to collect as much information and recommendations as possible not necessarily to limit. So the public commentary to alright you can't affect x and you can't affect why but you can do a and B. It would actually be more most beneficial sort of collect as much information possible with the understanding that not everything people suggest is going to necessarily affect the building, but then give you guys the design subcommittee, and the outreach group, also the opportunity to call through that information say alright. Just for, you know, an example, we've collected 15 comments about a children's room, you know, a children's room is something that seems really important to like focus our attentions on I know you guys already have a program so that's not necessarily the best example. But I think it would be tough. And limiting to say alright you can only we're only accepting comments on these aspects of the project. So I guess to sort of hear an unfilled diversion of what the public thinks. Okay, other thoughts about this proposed meeting on the 1st of May. So just so I'll be clear if the building committee shows up. Do we have to notice it and we have to call this to order. Paul Backelman. Come on Paul. I think I cast an opinion on that. I think it doesn't hurt to ever post a meeting. Honestly, if you think you're going to get a quorum is going to be something that's going to be discussed by building committee members. If people are showing up just in the audience and not participating that can be a few differently. There is an opinion from our town. Yeah, this type of thing, but Craig I look to you also. Certainly, thank you. So in other communities are standard recommendation is yeah post it like a public meeting. If nothing else it helps get the word out for people who are looking, but yeah just sort of covers you in case you happen to have a quorum so that there's no issues. I'm just trying to now imagine this so you post it. We're outside. And then the someone has to call the meeting to order. It just I'm just trying to get the feel of it. And I'm going to need a much bigger gavel if we're outside. So in other communities, it has been so late the agenda we post. Yeah, have a call to order. Okay, great. Not a meeting, but we would have like the intro, you know, who's going to be the emcee we say introduction by so and so presentation by such and such. And then, you know, open discussion or kind of open ended. Great questions about or thoughts about this proposed meeting on the first to make Sharon. I actually had a question, Craig about what you were just saying so I love the idea of not limiting what the public says that's awesome it gives freedom. What I'm afraid of though, is if there are no, if there are no boundaries, and somebody walks up and says hey I want a water slide, but you've asked me for my idea, and, and then later they're told they can have the water slide. I don't want to let people down and so obviously a water slide is a bad example but you know, so are there minimal guidance we can give the public. Craig. Sure. Perhaps what we can do maybe is post some kind of open ended questions. So by that by that date, I can help you guys come up with some sort of thought provoking questions that will shape that conversation or shape the comments we're getting back so we're not getting comments about water slide, you know request for kind of oddball things. So I just want to follow up on, if I may Craig on the question that Sharon raised and we talked about this in the outreach subcommittee Alex will weigh in. There are certain things which are, if you will, more or less set in stone for this project. There's things that we've committed to the MBLC to do. We, isn't it fair to say that we want to be clear with the public about what those commitments are going into this conversation. In other words, it's not going to help us if someone says well I think the building should be half the size it is now. We've committed to certain things in the process of our conversation with the town council and with the voters. It's probably not the case that someone's going to say well I don't think we should be green I think we shouldn't be doing this thing we should just have fossil fuel. So isn't there some way to be clear with people here's what the kind of givens are without constraining the, the conversation. Because I do worry that you're if you don't remind people of what the givens are. So we're not going to be able to weigh in on things which at the end of the day, you know, we're happy to hear what people have to say, but we're not going to be able to change significantly the footprint we're not going to be able to change significantly the program. So isn't it, isn't it possible and good to be clear with people going into the meeting, just to remind them here are the parameters within which we are within which we are working. And then kind of sort of give them the, you know, those broad brush boundaries. Yeah, yeah, I think I think that would be appropriate and I would recommend that. Alex. Yeah, so one of the things that we talked about would be to have, you know, tables around the library, you know, each one sort of housing a program right teams ESL whatever, you know, would sort of define the programs that we have, but also having a space for people to talk generally about, you know, valuing in the, you know, the, the welcoming, you know, that the library is welcoming, you know, maybe there's a table around universal design maybe there's table around sustainability there's a table around, you know, historic preservation, which maybe is that more sort of open ended piece to give people the opportunity to sort of talk about, or and maybe we just also have like a crazy idea board right which is that which is that unfettered like throat and if it's labeled as like the crazy idea board I think then that in and of itself or whatever you call it gives people the idea that, you know, maybe something will come out of this that will be amazing and we'll put it in the library but this is we're just asking people to, you know, put a wish list together, and, and who knows what will come out that maybe something you know that can be incorporated that we didn't think of previously but makes total sense, you know, yeah I think it's a courtesy to the public to structure the areas where we are seeking feedback. And I think that people are feel their time is valued when you do that to say we are looking at the team room, we really want to have information about what you think would make a great team room we're not looking at these other the water slide, but then at the and have something to catch all things like the crazy idea board. I also Angela has pointed out that may first there is the linguistic diversity day scheduled for the town common from two to five. And that's a big final celebration of linguistic heritage heritage month so when you start to start to pick dates and encourage you to check with our community participation officers to clear, or maybe it's great thing maybe it's a good thing to coincide with right. Yeah, exactly. What are your thoughts about the passable meeting on the first of May. Alex. Yeah, I just want to follow. So you said that was two to five fall. So, Angela, do you have any thoughts. As far as is 11 to 12 is a good to give people sort of a lunch break and then on to the two to five or do we want them to be content like what's a good way to take advantage of people already coming to town for that in terms of timing if you have thoughts on that. It's a Katie Richardson event. So there will be food served on the common. As part of the event. And in terms of timing. Like back to back is probably the best way to go because you don't want to bring the kids to town and then leave and then come back. Okay, so we'll check at the library if we can push ours back maybe to end it to or end at 130. Maybe. And just again to be clear, we, we hope that people will be able to attend but if people on this committee are not able to attend will, we don't need a, we don't need a quorum. We're not going to be doing any business. Okay. If no other thoughts on the meeting. I want to come back to the question that Alex raised. So what are your thoughts that the outreach committee is asking for your thoughts about this charge. Do you want the outreach committee to just transmit all the things that the outreach committee collects to the design committee. And contemplated in this idea of making recommendations that you want the outreach committee to call through those suggestions and do something with them before they hand them over to the design committee. What is, what are people understand about the charge. Sharon. Okay, I'll go first. I was assuming they would just collect and send it to design only because the design in theory is going to have the, you know, the overarching vision, maybe. Okay. Other thoughts. Paul. I think for a more of a hybrid approach where the committee has its own interpretation of what was said, but then everything that was said is, is conveyed. So nothing is lost, but that someone has sort of digested it partially. Thank you, Paul. Other thoughts. Christine, what do you think. Well, your chair of the design committee. So it's kind of what will be most helpful. I'm not sure. Because I heard Paul when he's like, so nothing is lost yet. I wouldn't want us to get weighed down in too many ideas, and maybe they should be grouped somewhat into categories and types, then maybe, I don't know. I don't know if the FA or the OPM can then give us guidance on which ones we can focus on and which ones are just not possible because at some point it has to go through that grinder that you're talking about, you know, what is possible, what is not what costs a lot, what doesn't and, you know, you can get caught up in those details and those weeds very easily. So that's my biggest concern. This idea of a hybrid approach where you the committee will transmit here is here's here's the archive, so to speak, but here's the gloss on the archive from the outreach committee. And the outreach committee is not doing design work right the gloss would be as we know we had nine meetings and these are the things that seem to be top of mind for the people from we've we've heard. Is that what we're talking about. That's the hybrid approach Paul. Okay Alex is that helpful. Yeah, if that's what people settled on yeah that's, that's great. Does anybody have an objection to that approach as an interpretation of the charge. Okay, I think we're at it. Alex. Yeah, and if I could make a request also so I've, we I've started compiling a list and Sharon's been sending me things as well so Austin and Sharon had a. I don't know if I have a jose anymore but with Paul and Brianna and so, you know, I took note of all the questions that were asked by the community and responses, and then Sharon just recently had a meeting with the historic society so I think to the extent that, as committee members have questions from the public or the extent that they can all sort of be centralized so that the community outreach subcommittee is able to put together an FAQ or make sure that at meetings that we're addressing common questions that we're seeing that would be great. Thank you for that suggestion, Christine. One more thought I think it's really great that outreach is really trying to be aggressive and get this rolling because sort of doing that first collection and giving the public a couple opportunities to put all those crazy ideas like the water slide or whatever. And sort of like in there now and and start sort of sorting them and addressing them, because, you know, we've been waiting for a long time but then all of a sudden time is going to speed up and all of a sudden will be like it construction documents and when you're going to close and then someone says we want the water slide, it's kind of too late. And that will end up happening more and more frequently as we roll through the process that just the design is, you know, near done and you can't go back and change things so. Anyways, the more we get of that in the neck over, you know, the next few months I think is vital. So thank you outreach. Thank you Christine, Sean. Alex may have said this. Alex may have said this already or I may have missed it but it might make sense to coordinate with the schools outreach as well thinking about the school project and they're, you know, the same group of people and a lot of them are the same group and. Yeah, so just thinking about how they're doing their outreach and if there's ways to tag along to those events. Or they tag along with us, right. There you go. Paul. I mean the outreach committee may have already done this but the school building committee has set up and they have the building project website but they all have also have utilized the engage Amherst page which allows for a dialogue to happen with a person. So this library could do that if they if they outreach committee could say let's look into that if they wanted to, but that's you'd work through the CPOs and Brianna to set that page up. Thank you, Paul. Alex. Actually, Paul, thank you I appreciate that. For the, for the separate so all of that that you just talked about would be set up through Brianna and not like I my understanding is that the opm is for the school project, it's a little bit different structure because of what the MSBA requires and so we're sort of trying to understand what happens with the school project and what's within the budget proposal of the opm and and trying to sort of make sure we understand the difference in terms of what we're asking of whom and when it's appropriate. Because Ken and Craig don't work for free so I want to make sure that. Well Craig does but Ken doesn't. Okay. So what you're contemplating Paul is all being done by town not by the opm on the school project. Yeah I mean I'm in dangerous territory here because I'm volunteering other times. So I would suggest that you talk to CPOs and see what's what's possible in that that engage Amherst site is managed by Brianna. And then put what happens with that and Sean has done this with our budgets, somebody owned is there's a staff person who owns the page and so when people pose questions, then they, they respond to them. And then there's an archive of all the questions so people can look at the sort of a self developed FAQ. In essence. Yeah, in terms of timing I think for the opm someone would just have to compile the questions and then work with the opm to get to answer them. And then provide official answers. Somebody, we can manage the questions coming in that that part's not too hard it would just be working with the opm to get the, you know, the responses that we want to put out there. Thank you Sean. Okay, any other Alex are you, are you good. Okay. So if there are any other questions about outreach. I just want to say, I'm grateful for the work that Alex has already has already done on outreach the thoughtfulness already that the committee is subcommittee is shown and I completely value the and recognize what Christine said which is Alex's energy and commitment to getting out front on this outreach thing will pay dividends in many, many, in many, many ways. So we're grateful to Alex for that work and to and to our other outreach subcommittee members. Okay, next item is correspondence. I think we have none. Next item is topics not anticipated by the chair and 48 hours in advance. Are there anything else that we haven't thought about that has come up. Okay, now is an opportunity for public comment we have six attendees, and we're grateful for their interest and their attendance, if they would signify by raising their hand in the, in the on the zoom, and if they want to make a comment I want to ask a question. I want to say something that I said with when Paul did the community chat. This community is lucky to have so many people that love our library. And there were differences in the vision about what that love should translate into. And we had a good and vigorous conversation over a long period of time. We're incredibly grateful to everyone, including people who didn't share the particular vision that prevailed. What we want now is you want to bring the community together to work to make this the best library it can be. And the tremendous energy and love that was shown by everybody on all sides on both sides of this. I hope to channel so that we are working together to do what everybody wants to do which is have the best Jones library that we can have. Okay, so what I'd now like to do, and I'd like Paul to make the motion is to entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Is there a second. Good. Now let's vote Paul how do you vote. Absolutely yes. Sharon, you're not supposed to be excited about saying goodbye to us. Yeah, Sharon. Alex. Yes. Christine. Yes. Sean. Yes. George. Yes. And I really do want to thank the opm. I want to thank Colliers can and his colleagues can and Craig for the great work you've done with FAA. Thank you for that. Thank you for all of your sage. For all of your sage advice and I vote yes to adjourn stay safe everybody I'll see you was next in two weeks. And Johnny, but just number was number five. We'll talk more about that later. Goodbye. Thank you. Thank you, everybody.