 all right we're recording so you can start as soon as you're ready okay sandy's not with us yet and neither are any of the other presenters i see that oh i see they're all in the wings christine and subney i'll bump them in now i can bring them in but i also want to wait for sandy to start maybe i'll just do the we have one minute am i right 359 good afternoon everyone um sandy has just joined us terrific good afternoon everyone um this is the thursday march 28th meeting of the joint capital planning committee and seeing that we have a quorum my the first thing i'll do is make sure the members of the committee can hear and be heard and then um you know i'll turn to sandy on what what order we want to take whether we want to deal with this five years summary i see the presenters are all here so maybe start with the projects first okay so i'm just going to call out names in the order i see them on my screen and just indicate if you can hear and we'll hear you bob egners jean eugenia capredo here leigh edwards here sarah marshall here um and anna debilene golfer president and uh jennifer schau who is not on the screens emailed to say she would not be attending today and i think bob is today you're taking minutes yes i've gotten it yes okay so we have an assigned minute taker a willing volunteer um so so we'll start with um dav chris and stefanie you should say which which order you want to go with you're listed as a group of planning conservation and sustainability which that all kind of goes together why don't we if if it's okay with you kathy why don't we start with um planning okay that's okay with chris there we go uh hello everybody i'm chris breastrupt planning director um are we talking about um f y 25 or are we talking about other years we're we're focused on f y 25 um and if you want to give us a hint about the future years but just um so far what we've been looking at is a budget there are more requests than the amount of money we have to do but um but yes we're focused on the coming fiscal year okay um so i have three requests and um i think i'll talk about the one that uh is really top of mind to me um which is the civil war tablets so there was a group in town that um worked very hard to um bring the civil war tablets out of storage and get them renovated and they've been on display in the bank center and there's a plan to um have a place for them in the library in the new library um however the library budget doesn't contain anything for um designing a place to display them or to um have some sort of interpretive signage or um you know uh make the walls sturdy enough to hang them if that's the method that we choose to display them so there's a space that's been designated but no no accoutrement if you will to support them so um we applied for um i think it was let's see 50 000 it's this has been back and forth so i think i applied for 50 000 in f y 25 and since then i've had conversations with dave zomek and others to say that it's really more like um 150 000 that we need to do this whole thing i'm not sure what your paperwork says but um anyway we could split it up 50 000 one year hundred thousand dollars another year but in any event what it's for is really just um hiring a designer probably an architect to design a space for these figure out how many and which ones should be displayed and then designing the the display mechanism are they going to be mounted on the wall or supported in some other way um interpretive signage lighting and then you know whatever kind of special mechanisms need to be put there to preserve these these these monuments into the future so that's what that money is about and there may be need for climate control i'm not really sure because i'm not an expert in this type of thing but um i think we had let's see design engineering fees 50 000 and then we had construction 100 000 um so that's that's my presentation on that one do you want me to keep going or would you like to ask me questions about this this request um but do people have questions you know i wasn't actually sure it was on the list for this year or not in terms of the list but um i have a couple questions um one is just i'm surprised it wasn't in the library budget because i thought it was uh in part the basis that they got the big NEH grant um because the cultural center so lee is shaking her head so although that was featured as the cultural side there wasn't ever any money put in to the budget for this that's what i'm hearing correct that's what i understand yep and and then the installation the 100 000 is when the library is physically open is when you would be putting everything else in correct you know so 50 is to design it and then the the 100 is the estimate on what you said uh display it figure out how it's going to be displayed whether there's lighting whether there's walls that's what well the design is the design would be for the architect and a structural engineer to look at the room where this is going to be proposed to be maybe they could do that by looking at the drawings and then plan ahead for what is needed for that space in order to support the display of these monuments and more than that i don't really know and i don't know if it's going to be limited to a hundred thousand dollars um this was an estimate that we are putting forth to you but it could be more than that so i don't know if dave has any um anything to add to this but that's kind of what i know about this okay so it i think you were very careful in your wording so it isn't necessarily including the cost of installing it is that correct i think the hundred thousand would include the cost of installing it we're hoping we can get it designed for 50 000 and then a hundred thousand to build whatever needs to be built structural or whatever um for 100 000 but as i said we don't actually have an estimate from a contractor to do that so that's just a you know an estimate that we think might work okay so i say sarah has her hand up and lee sarah and then lee yeah i i can see that um the design work could be done in fiscal in FY 25 but i'd i'd be surprised if you need the money for constructing the whatever it is in the next fiscal year so perhaps that part could be delayed and lee okay my understanding which is imperfect and i will go back and i will talk with sharon to see if i can get a more perfect understanding or maybe mr zoe mack could enlighten me my understanding well first of all i know for sure that the civil war tablets sort of came in after the building project was well underway um i i believe that the town owns that i i'm quite certain that the library does not own the civil war tablets um okay and i think there may be some joint grant activity going on in relationship to getting some federal support through maybe the park service as a historical artifact um i'm not exactly sure what the status of that is at the moment but um you know i think accommodating the civil war tablets was not part of the um the the process for which the library has assembled all of the various pieces of funding that have gone into the project so far it's a kind of addition and we're all trying to figure out ways to accommodate this wonderful resource that is part of the town's history dave and then sir i see your hand is is that up again no okay dave i'm sure thanks kathy so yeah i think all of the things that folks have have contributed are generally accurate i would say you know there is not a perfect plan yet put together on on how to bring to fruition putting the the civil war tablets in the in the jones i will say you know we we've been having conversations with the the team at the jones Sharon and the team and the architects for a couple of years now and the the library graciously um designed the building with square footage available in a location that we think we collectively um think is an appropriate spot for the civil war tablets as chris indicated um we are trying to see the project and i think there will be as indicated there will be some grants that are being pulled together now some of them may have already gone out the door by supporters of the civil war tablets and they're they're they're the work that's already been done to show them in the bank center so i think there's going to be private funding we're seeking capital funding in all likelihood we would go to cpa and pull this all together the timing is a little bit unclear at this point so i think sarah's point is well taken which is we're really in the design phase right now of what would the room need what would the room need structurally these these tablets weigh anywhere between 500 and 700 750 pounds each there's a number of them how would be how would they be displayed what are the structural improvements that need to be done to that room and those walls to to display them so i think that's kind of where where we are right now and again we're very grateful to the jones for including them in their design we think it's a great a great space and a permanent place the town does own the tablets and we'll have them on display if you will at the jones hopefully in perpetuity so that's what we know thank you okay chris is did chris disappear she said she had three and we overwhelmed her with the first one let me just see what's in the she's in the attendees list but she's attendees uh i don't see her in attendees it was Jennifer i see you see jennifer and ray she was there okay um she's probably having trouble okay so here we go for the sake of time kathy i can jump in on one f y 25 request because i note that um if i'm not mistaken i might be looking at an older version but the demolition of the former clubhouse at hickory ridge appears to be um in two places and maybe you've already dealt with that in your budget but clearly we do not need $300,000 for the demolition of the former clubhouse at hickory so while chris is rejoining us maybe i could speak to that and i think it appears under conservation and and planning hopefully i just saved us $150,000 um but anyway we are looking for funding to demolish and remove and re-grade the site at the former hickory ridge golf course um there is about a 65-year-old clubhouse there perhaps many of you have passed by it on your way on west palmaroy lane that project is moving along quite well i'm supposed to give the council i'm scheduled to give the council an update on it on april 8th we are moving forward with the solar project on site that is getting back under way as we speak after some delays in permitting um at the state level not at the local level for the most part um and then we are also getting um going on um making it fully accessible to those people who live around the course and north of the course as per the uh the plans for for hickory ridge with that said we have this very old kind of derelict building in the middle of our project which we estimate will cost about $150,000 to fully remove re-grade the site for future uses it is becoming it is not only an eyesore but it is now becoming um um clearly you know a concern i will say uh from a dangerous standpoint that it does not become you know a a nuisance and a dangerous spot for young people or others visiting the site so we're getting ready to invite people there to utilize some of the trails and we've boarded up the building as you've probably seen when you've gone by um but um the the building needs to come down i've worked with the building commissioner with the fire chief and they are both in agreement that there is no salvaging the building reusing the building it should come down it also makes way for uh possible reuse of the site we've talked about possible reuses there we're exploring things like affordable housing we're exploring that site for a future um fire station as well and some other potential uses so that in a nutshell is the request um we have estimates based on other buildings that we're bringing down um we are we are demolishing the former vfw building right down the street from town hall and we already have quotes on that so that's where the uh hundred and fifty thousand dollar estimate came from um so i think i'll stop there christine is in the attendees okay you're back in so david this this might not save any money but i know that fire departments sometimes like to i don't know you know use abandoned buildings for training you know i don't know set them on fire and then put them out or chop holes or whatever so is that our is that well considering it's a great question so our fire department has been chopping a lot of holes in that old clubhouse um if you go by and walk around they've been training in it for months and they love the building for training um they have done a lot of training with some of their new recruits and done some training sessions down there with other staff um um in this day and age um at least in messachusetts uh dep frowns on burning buildings down just um because of the pollution that it causes also there are residential um you know neighborhoods very close to that building so um as much as i have hinted with our fire chief that that would be a wonderful exercise and a great practice it for the for the for the fire department it is not something that is allowed um and encouraged by dep any longer in messachusetts so i didn't mean burn it down but but that's fine so we are training yeah we are training there you'll see our staff there with fire trucks and axes and all sorts of equipment there is a lot of holes in the in parts of the roof of that building because they've been practicing for months okay thank yes any other questions because i have a couple and sandi i'm seeing you have a i did bring a quick one dave do you want this listed as conservation or planning i think it's it's more broadly a planning planning request thank you so my question dave is um it had it currently or it did before it was no longer in use had bathrooms water and electricity coming into the building and i don't know whether it was on sewer are you going to in you in taking it down are you going to somehow preserve the fact that it has those connections that could potentially be used by something else um because i know it's pretty costly to run all of that back in the circuitry um and so that that's my general question and the timing i think you're in your write-up you said it's a liability because the police also have to patrol it so is that that vandalism or people trying to get in the building um yeah we we have had a lot of vandalism there cafe and um and the police department has spent unfortunately too much time there in the past year or two um but in answer your first question yes absolutely it does have water sewer and electricity um as we demo we will be working with our building department our fire department our dpw to make sure we preserve any at all utilities at the um at the frontage so that those can be stubbed out for future future connections as needed um so all of that will be worked out in the demo um i will say that we are trying to save um a significant amount of money we have been fortunate enough to team up and i was going to talk to the council about this in a couple of weeks but i'll just because it's related to capital part of the building system at hickory includes a very large pump house for the irrigation system and this is a significant building with very large pumps and electrical utility etc and so we are fortunate enough to team up with the state on what's called in america the beautiful grant and so the state is going to through that grant federal and state dollars they're going to pay for the removal of the pump house and associated pipes electrical fixtures etc and the reason for that is because it's very close to the fort river and so we were able to fold that into an environmental or ecological restoration proposal to remove that i tried believe me my hardest to fold the clubhouse into that grant as well but i was unsuccessful they said it was too far from the fort river so so we're trying to save money and um we were able that's a very significant cost to take that uh other building out and then restore the riverbank there so we'll pay for that another way through the grant any other questions and sarah your hand is up but maybe it's just that's okay it just didn't go down it doesn't have an automatic down i don't think um um so chris state jave just as you heard jave just did the clubhouse so you before we lost you you said you had three projects i don't know whether that was one of them but you're you can be back on if you would like and i see chris is here but i don't know whether she hears us um her connection was unstable kathy so um i don't know if it's froze up on her again hope there she is okay i can i can see you now chris you know sometimes with the video on it it drains a lot so if you need to be a black screen and talk to us you can but welcome back uh oh i think she just froze i'm out saying internet um unavailable so well now we can hear you so you can hear me oh okay your conversation about the civil war tablets we did civil war and we did the clubhouse at hickory ridge so i asked for um an implementation strategy that was done in 2016 and 2019 because we've had a lot of changes in our downtown um we've had um the north common parking is now going to be gone we have a few new mixed use buildings and there are new uses in downtown such as the drake and the jones library expansion and we're also um going to have a performance show on the common um and then uh we've been asked to look at alternative locations for a new parking garage we did do a study to show that the existing parking garage can accommodate some more um parking spaces but it's not a very large number so um anyway that's that's my that's my request questions um if i don't i'm not sure i heard it all i'm sorry chris was frozen again at this it's this is the 100 000 for for um the parking study or the correct chris just you can yeah questions for the parking study yep being a parking garage study or is it also it's like you can explain it okay you know it's really evaluating parking in the downtown and trying to decide do we need a garage because back in 2016 and 2019 nelson nygard said we did not need a new garage they felt oh i can fill in a little there nelson nygard sorry we lost we lost you again chris but nelson nygard concluded that we did not need a new parking garage however there continues to be lingering concerns from local businesses the bid chamber people who use our downtown are you know are there enough spaces and i think chris was alluding to the changes that have happened in downtown we are changing configuration here with the north common project we're adding new project we have barry roberts project on south pleasant street with 22 new units of residential housing we have other new residential projects planned for downtown so kind of updating and getting current with the parking the available parking but also the parking demand in downtown i think that's what this funding would help us assess and part of that would be to look at do we needed to grow do we need a garage and if so you know where would the logical spot for that be we we've already done some of that preliminary work but this would pull that all together say bob's hand is up and then i have questions bob after you yeah the the only question i or the only comment i have is that since a lot of this or some of this at least is due to the new development downtown i would think that we would want the developers to pay for some of this study i mean they're not providing parking spaces for their tenants and therefore it seems to me that they should be contributing i know i realize we probably can't do it post talk but moving forward maybe we should write that into any kind of agreements we have with these landlords chris you can do you want to respond and i i have a segue on that as well yeah so my response would be that i think that's a good idea but the mechanism for doing that probably wouldn't be through the permitting process the permitting goes through either the planning board or the zoning board of appeals and they don't really have the ability to negotiate with developers about contributing money to a capital project so that seems like it would be more in the realm of the town manager who would reach out to developers and and work with them on that am i right about that dave yeah i mean it really falls i think in the category of impact fees what are the impacts of those new developments i mean at the same at the same time you know just a good opportunity to remind folks of the of the positive impacts of those those new new buildings and their their their impact on expanding our tax base it's you know hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in expanded tax base when when we're building these new buildings in in our biggest village center so that's always the the tradeoff sir can i make a comment just on income pack fees before i you know so one as you probably remember chris you know like three years ago five years ago six years ago um i sent something into planning there are towns and they've called them different things um but they basically are impact fees and the state at one point said you can't really have them but then they baked off if you could really show that it was a cost imposed on the town but we don't have it in our you're correct we don't have that tool in our toolbox so it's a question of should we have the tool in the toolbox that i'm posing to you and i don't need an answer right now but i know we're we're we've been talking about what um subtle or not so subtle changes in some of our bylaws or regulations might be helpful so that that's just my one comment and then the other is the the earlier study two of them by the same firm they actually didn't update as much as you would have liked in study number two but they looked around town at lots of private lots and suggested that the town create a relationship with the people with the private lots so that you know from five o'clock on they could be used for public parking or some kind of public parking and to my knowledge that might have started but has never been done um you know to and and emers college i think is one of them with their big alumni lot you know on you know whether it's broadcast or not that one can park there i don't know whether we can but there's there's uh lots that aren't you under and and they they counted those spaces they didn't you count the emers college spaces but they counted a lot of those spaces some of which has disappeared as the buildings have been built you know they've been built on what was parking um but i just wonder whether we shouldn't pursue some of that as opposed to study it again um so that's my question of the study yeah sandy as his hand up as does sarah as does chris everyone's got their hand up yeah so two things related to this one i just got a text from genlock fontain who is listening and i think maybe she should i'll bring it in as a panelist because the second thing is she said that uh sean mangano had started to work on that issue before he left so i can imagine that that would be something that the next finance director will look at yeah so that that was the person who i thought was starting to work on it hi gen welcome i'll bring ray in while we're at it too gen do you have anything to add to that i don't think so just that the town does have a working group for parking created and we've been away from that for a little while in sean's absence but i think we're going to work towards getting that group back together to start looking at these things again okay so sarah and chris both have their hands up so do i go first um so my because this is my first year on jcpc this is prompted by this request because it's not designed to build something like for the library the civil war tablets we just talked about it's just studies and i mean as worthy as those are is that the kind of thing that can be funded this way with capital when it's not obviously going to produce any capital improvement um i can respond or chris you can respond because this this has been a practice um when when it gets to be a substantial amount um to plan what to do has been something that's money has been given to the planning department and a little bit you heard some of it with dpw which was um you know he has money for a sidewalk study where he doesn't tell us what sidewalk he's going to study but it's it's there for not putting it in necessarily but working through the design so chris maybe you want to respond and dav on on that it has come in under the label of capital because it's one time funding rather than built into an operating budget of the department that's right we often do have requests um of the cap joint capital planning committee to um to authorize capital funds for studies and i could go back and provide a list of those if you are interested in having that but it is a typical thing that we do i wanted to say in response to a previous question that nat maloy has had informal conversations with some of the landowners in the downtown area i think he's spoken with um kurt shumway and he's also spoken with jeff brown and others and um perhaps the jones's um there's been a mixed response to using private land for um public parking um the conversation has gone that well if you open up your parking lot to us we can manage it for you and you will get some you know remuneration for our use of it but um some of the landowners have said well those parking spaces are part of a lease that we have with our tenants and therefore those parking spaces are you know 24 hours a day available for those tenants so those people have been reluctant to participate in that kind of activity which isn't to say that they might not change their mind in the future um i think there was one uh and it might be kurt shumway but i'm not sure who has a place that is residential place and um that he may be interested in allowing people to park there during the day because his tenants park there at night so you know that those conversations should be ongoing i think but we've had a mixed reaction to them so far thank you gathie just if i could on the parking study um i i hear um sarah sarah's question and i think when possible i think all departments try to do as much in-house work as they possibly can whether it's on traffic and feasibility on sidewalks um whatever it might be i think there's only a certain amount of capacity that we can do with with our landscape architects with our engineers etc etc so it has been a practice not only of the planning department but many other departments including you know certainly dpw we we study feasibility of of new buildings of new treatment plants and we often if it's not grand funded we use capital funds for those design studies and in this case um i hear what you're saying sarah this might you know on the face of it you might not think it it would result in any capital but it actually might if for instance we use capital money to study the feasibility of putting another deck on the boltwood parking garage and we put that to rest yes you can put another deck on the parking garage and we determine that through engineering an engineering study so that is here we have that data whether the town decides to do that or look for parking in another direction like private lots or another garage a public private partnership whatever it might be so so yeah i hear you we try to be very careful and not spend this money in ways that won't be directly beneficial and and lead to some capital improvement but i understand some of the concern about how many studies should we fund so thank you so are we ready to move to the next project the next are you yeah okay so the next project is in the same vein planning consultants um in the last few years john mangano had been putting aside of 50 000 for planning consultants for the planning department that we can use as things come along and we have done that um and this year we were going to ask for a hundred thousand dollars um to study different things and among them are housing opportunities affordable housing um pre-planning for affordable housing like often we have a piece of land the town might own a piece of land or the town might see a piece of land that might be suitable for affordable housing and we have to do some work ahead of time to figure out if that piece of land is going to be suitable or not so that's what that's about um the gateway area we studied the gateway area back a number of years ago and we consider that the area between kendrick park and the university along north pleasant street so the gateway area had been thought of as an area that could be developed for housing so do we want to go back and study that again um the rg zoning district is a zoning district that is already fairly dense and we've talked a number of times about creating areas within the rg that could have housing built there um and we've also talked about rezoning parts of the downtown limited business district to allow more housing so all of those things are lumped under studying opportunities for more housing then we have a general zoning uh category where um we would like to be able to hire consultants mainly architects to do some graphics and density studies for um some of the projects that we're working on in fact right now we have a project where we're working on university drive to um perhaps rezone university drive to allow more housing and i think i have some money left over from a previous year that we could hire a local architect to study and produce drawings of what it might look like a long university drive if we were to rezone it but that so that's money that we already have it's not a lot but we would like to have a similar amount of money in the future to study other areas that we're considering rezoning and one of them is east amherst um then we also have uh all of our signage regulations are really outdated and we'd like to be able to hire um a consultant to help us with the sign bylaw um we also have the fpc zoning district which um is really obsolete and we'd like to work on um eliminating that um um we have the prp zoning district we'd like to consider allowing um some housing in the prp zoning district because it's not really being used for the use that it was initially proposed for so all of these things are things that we're you know constantly churning and mulling about and talking about here in the planning department and we do talk about some of them with the planning board but we don't have enough money to kind of get get jumps get a jump start on on these things so we're asking for um consulting money to do that and that would mean hiring either a planning consultant or an architect to help us with some of those things Lee I know a planning board plans and therefore needs money for planning but how is to what extent is there some kind of coordination between money spent on planning and larger desires to act on the consequences of what is planned and if that's an inappropriate question I withdraw I'm new to this committee and I'm desperately desiring not to be contentious if you want to answer that yeah you just jump right in yeah yeah so um I think an example of that is university drive um so last year the planning board started talking about the fact that the town needs more housing and what kind of housing does it need and then they started looking around town and thinking about areas in town that could be developed for more housing so they got the idea that university drive is a an undeveloped area to certain extent it's mainly one-story buildings on the west side and lots of parking but um there's not really much housing there Barry Roberts has built some but they thought well how could we encourage more housing to be built here so they've been talking about that since like last March not necessarily focused on university drive but they started to focus in that area maybe towards the late fall and then Mr. Roberts came along with this idea of building a building at the corner of amity street and university drive and at the same time the university and the town are talking about building a roundabout at the intersection of amity street and university drive so all of these things are swirling around and we're thinking of applying for um mass works grant to allow that roundabout to occur um and all of these things are very intertwined so in in answer to Ms. Edwards question I think that part of our interest in university drive and part of Mr. Roberts interest in university drive was like synergy it came together and so while the planning board is planning for that area he has a specific idea for a specific project which the planning board is encouraging and that by the way just received a variance from the zoning board of appeals that will clear the way to allow that to be proposed and hopefully be approved so I guess what I'm saying is all of these things kind of work together and you know once the planning board says oh we want to focus on university drive then that kind of helps people to think maybe I could propose something there and so it's all part of a big process and somehow you know it all works together and something good comes out of it so I guess that's my answer to your question so I want to follow it up Chris with a I think last year or two years ago there was a thousand dollars for design standards to work with a consultant I think mainly for downtown so I don't know whether we've spent all that money but it seems like this is partly linked to that and and just so everyone knows the university drive the Barry Roberts the variance is letting him build taller than would normally be allowed in that area so the thought was should that whole area be rezoned to allow this kind of height you know so it's right now it's done by it was done by accept am I right Chris it was done by exception for that specific project but it would run down the corridor so I just you know what you gave was a giant list of possibles including the gateway project which I still have the files on that where it was pretty well conceptualized and then it was there was a pushback from the people who lived near there but it was you know what could be there and it was envisioned so so do you have I'm not going to put you on the spot to say if you got a hundred rather than fifty do you have specifics you would work on in the next twelve month period that would use up all the money you know with some these are the top priorities and because it seems like they need different kinds of maybe one architect could be working on all of them but they need different kinds of mindsets including signage bylaws you know I mean some of it is more a planner versus an architect so it's it's my question is about the bucket and whether you have specifics and you don't have to answer right now I mean it would be helpful if we write if we move forward with this to just have an idea because flood flood prone conservancy they're going to be that's an FPC some there's some going to be some groups that want to question that you know one is that at the top of the list PRP may be at the top of the list you know on which things you're looking at that and standing in the way of development is partly what you're looking at you know what's the design of them and what where could there be housing so that that's my complicated question so I think I would like I can you know give you an answer off the top of my head right now but I think I'd prefer to talk to Dave Zomek and Rob Mora and other people in the planning department and focus on you know which things that we think are the higher priorities among these things that I've laid out here the the reason that Sean Mangano had been setting aside the $50,000 for us is because we can't always judge you know when we're planning for capital expenditures in this way a year ahead that we're going to need money for something so he was essentially saying well we're going to earmark this $50,000 for you and you use it for the things that come up during the year and these are all things that have been churning around in the planning department but we haven't had the time or the you know focus and the money to tackle them but how about if I talk to Dave and Rob Mora and other people in the planning department and get back to you about the things that I think would be most useful if you know if we had $50,000 this year next year rather to go ahead so thank you that's great I didn't as I said I want to put you on the spot so if I might Kathy Chris could you just clarify on my list I have $50,000 in FY26 and 28 do I have the right pass on my sheet I think you're looking at a an excel spreadsheet is that right yeah so that's something that Sean put together and he was putting $50,000 in out years for that yeah what I've been talking about tonight or today is what are we asking for for FY25 so you are asking for 50 and 25 and 50 in 26 and 50 and 28 that's what I have on my spreadsheet well I was asking for $100,000 in 25 now we could say that given I get it okay yeah that's what I needed thank you very much that's right yeah okay so how should we handle this I will meet with Dave and Rob Mora and Nate Malloy and talk about this topic and get back to you and should I respond to Kathy we respond send it through either Sandy or Athena Chris and then we can post a response and rather than through me all right I mean if you could send it to Sandy why don't you send it to Sandy and he'll figure out how to put it in the bucket okay good I will do that thank you so is that I think that's all for FY25 for planning yes okay so we have Stephanie and Ray Dave what which order are we going next well I believe Stephanie we might be able to knock off conservation very quickly I think there's a little confusion in my mind about we may not all be looking at the same spreadsheets but I believe once we consolidated the ask for the clubhouse at Cherry Hill Hickory under planning there's only one FY25 request in conservation am I correct on that which is for dam and dyke work at Puffer spawned $150,000 I'm not sure we had that one but do we have it Bob we have it but we also have a sustainability project for County Hall yes and Stephanie can speak to that but I was just going to knock off the Puffer spawn the item real quickly because that's the only FY25 and I think you're mainly focused on 25 there's more work to be done in the out years so very quickly on conservation we are after many years of being a little bit on the sidelines if you will at Puffer spawn we're finally getting some traction Stephanie Aaron Jocker wetlands administrator myself and some others with the help of Bob parent who is our consulting engineer if you will are doing some work on Puffer spawned our focus there is really three areas of course one is the dam one is the dyke and one is dredging you the jcpc has heard about dredging for many years there we are a few years away from dredging so I'm not going to talk much about that what I want to talk about is dam repair and dyke repair so the currently the dyke at Puffer spawned is in poor condition and the dam is in fair condition post structures are rated if you will by the by the office of dam safety in Boston I believe both are high hazard the dam is a high hat what we call a high hazard dam and the dyke as well and so what really concerns me is the condition of the dyke which is in poor condition we have not spent much money at all on the dyke perhaps no money on the dyke through the years and we now need to really focus on that so the the request of $150,000 is to begin to cede that work we are we have been doing dam and dyke assessments right along those are required by the state so we have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done to both the dam and the dyke to bring them up to state standards by the way there is no concern about public safety at this point with either structure you know there's no immediate concern about public safety I should say what the focus is now we are in the process we have a grant that we are putting together it is due a week from tomorrow to the office of the dam and seawall program and we are going for a grant of about three hundred $350,000 to do the engineering and design for improvements and repair to the dam and dyke and we need matching funds for that grant again if we are successful we think we have a very good chance of getting that grant we have been working closely with the office of dam safety in Boston they would very much like us to be successful and so you know we are feeling pretty good about that we are working with an engineering firm fuss and O'Neill a local firm and they are putting together that grant with us so the $150,000 would help with our local match we would need to match that grant if we got it on the order of $65,000 to $85,000 and then there in all likelihood will be other associated costs the grant will do a number of things we will assess and come up with a design for dyke improvements we will assess and come up with any improvements that the dam needs this will include things like bathymetry if you are familiar with bathymetry it means basically getting the depth of the pond in all locations in the pond we will be looking at the depth of the sediment in the pond we will be putting a diver in the pond to assess the emergency flow gate in the dam there is a there is an emergency release valve in Puffer's pond in the event of a major storm event we can lower the level of the pond we have not exercised that that gate in some time because we're not sure of all the the structural integrity of that gate so we're going to put a diver in the pond so that just gives you a flavor if we're successful with the grant and those are some of the things that we will be doing eventually as part of this project we'll also be assessing not only the depth of the sediment in Puffer's pond that will help us determine how much dredging needs to happen there but we'll also assess the sediment to make sure there is nothing dangerous in those sediments so this is all part of a much larger project but the first phase of that is to apply for this grant and we're looking for matching money and also money we think we'll need money beyond the match to to do all of the work that I just mentioned so I think I'll stop there happy to take questions and then hopefully we can go over to Stephanie for sustainability Lee I'm just curious I think I know where the dam is but where is the dike in Puffer's pond excellent question the dike is rather subtle the dike is to the west so as you're facing the dam we now have a nice new bridge there and a sidewalk you you're looking straight at the dam you then have the rock outcroppings that many young people write a passage jump off behind the right rock outcropping is the dike the dike is about 70 feet long it's it's an earthen dike and it is designed to to hold back water in the event of a large um um weather system a large flow and we know that that dike from previous assessments we know that that dike has been undercut and we need to do pretty significant repair on the dike the dam is in much better condition as I mentioned um and we have been doing some some gradual uh repair on the on the dam over time but we do need to look closely at that emergency release apparatus thank you there questions I guess my one Dave is if you and it sounds like you you're optimistic if you get the larger grant is that enough to read to do the repairs or is that just the design you said just that's just the design so I'm um okay this is a larger question about the town's capital capacity um you know if if we decide we've got a major repair and here's the elements of it is there a huge grant available from the state because people know where this dam is if it should break or the dike or that release valve shouldn't work there's a huge number of apartments that'll be underwater well I want to make sure we we frame this correctly and that's why I said there is no immediate danger to the public because I know there may be public listening so the dam is in fair condition which actually most dams in Massachusetts are in fair condition very few very few dams in Massachusetts are in excellent condition so the dam is structurally sound we get it assessed by engineers who specialize in dam safety I believe we're required every two years to do that we do that the dike um does need some work but um I'm trying to to frame this correctly um there is no immediate danger of either structure giving way and and uh being a danger to those people living downstream this is more that the dike has not received attention over time um it is it is it is not the central structure that holds back water the dam holds back water the dike is at a low point in the in the terrain uh to the left of the of the cliffs as I mentioned and so that is more about keeping the water ponded in the pond but again there's no there's no danger of either structure giving way this is partly to uh we have some deferred maintenance we need to do on both of them and it's time to do that Kathy I also wanted to point out that there are there are significant uh grants available for repair and construction related to dam dams that need repair so this would not all be on the town we're gearing up for that so we need to do some of this work to understand what we need to do to design that work and then go after some grants and yes we might come back to the town obviously we would come back as part of the town capital process in the future I also want to separate the work we do on the dams is critical to long term public safety whether we dredge or not is a community decision um uh that is that's a different that's a different discussion we we need to maintain the dams over time I think we should dredge but I think that's a broader conversation that we can have in future years but we're a couple of years away from tackling that one yeah see on a on a your hands up your yeah well Dave I think you just answered it um we've been on a couple or Dave and Bob and I were on a couple calls this week with um residents talking about municipal vulnerability grants and it sounds like from what you're saying that would be part of stage two of this of once we have the a plan if we decide to move forward then you would apply for an mvp grant or is the dams grant that you were talking about kind of part of that program and if none of the above would this qualify for an mvp grant um I'm gonna defer to Stephanie on that there are elements of the future work at buffer spawn that might qualify for an mvp grant I don't know I don't know Stephanie may know whether the actual physical improvements to the dyke and dam would qualify but we have been in touch with the mvp program they're well aware that we are doing this we're looking at puffers pond as a resiliency element of our community as a cooling center if you will for people now and in the future so all of that is being talked about between and among staff but also state agencies but Stephanie I just don't know off the top of my head whether dam improvements dyke improvements can be funded through mvp there are other dam safety related grants that are specific to fixing dams and dykes and sorry stuff before Stephanie goes just it is kind of a moot point in some ways because you're talking about these other grants that you're able to chase I think it's this is a bit more of me trying to wrap my head around where the town is going for these different projects so I appreciate the responses thanks okay we are we have got an mvp grants for and we have some ongoing for uh culvert removal and culvert replacement on streams but Stephanie can speak to mvp and the dam and dyke repair Stephanie why don't we segue right into you because I think that's the next project as well um so as far as mvp I will say that they've been more focused on infrastructure work and our initial conversations with them about puffers pond has not yielded much let's say um confidence that they would support that that project so I think we've had to look elsewhere for um other opportunities outside of mvp thank you so much both David so Stephanie you have a proposed um three hundred and twenty five thousand dollars is that right for sustainability um that's what's on my list yeah um yes um and I think it just shows up as a single amount is that correct uh yes it does all right um so uh yes so um I had actually tried to break this out a bit and I had actually reduced the amount to 250 000 um so I can cover um how I broke that down um so I hate to start with this but 150 000 was for um engineering studies and consultants and um I hear uh I certainly hear um some of you know Lee's concerns about this but I want to reiterate what Chris has said that in many cases we can't get funding for projects for grant funding unless we have the engineering studies done and that's especially true with the the energy efficiency work um a lot of that work requires engineering studies to show that it's needed so um I will say that right now we're focused on the town hall in Munson library I've been working very closely with Jeremiah LaPlante to sort of figure out how we can tackle town hall as long I've I've been with the town for 27 years and as long as I've been working for the town there's been an issue with the fact that there's not sufficient insulation in the roof and um that it really makes a difference and you know also we know that as time goes on these things don't get less expensive they get more expensive so I'm feeling like the time is now we shouldn't be waiting and putting these things off so one of the things that I've done for this year is to get a metagrant study just to look at the attic space so the metagrants for 15 000 we're looking at that now but what it's going to be focused on is how we can weather as I weatherize that portion of town hall it's very complicated because it's it's pitched very steeply as you well know um but it's also there's a very very thin um amount of insulation but otherwise it's basically unheated space and there's a lot of scaffolding and so we just want to figure out um and really it's going to take an engineer to really come in and take a look at it to figure out first of all what we have to do to weatherize that space and then also how we can weatherize that space especially with the fact that we'll need to access various parts of it that are currently workspace so it's going to be rather challenging and complicated so we really need to have someone do that so um we also want to use some of those funds for the weatherization so I think the study itself probably won't take that long so it's quite feasible that we can um do the weatherization implementation part over the next you know FY 25 so also looking at Monson Library similarly as we try to transition our buildings off fossil fuels we need to have studies again in order to get funding to purchase the equipment it's very expensive and I'm not and really any any heating cooling system is expensive at this point for our municipal facilities so not to say that these are more expensive it's just that we need the studies in order to justify getting additional grant funding because certainly this amount of funding alone is not going to do much and even with the funding that Jeremiah has requested um you know it's it's just getting more and more expensive to address building needs and especially if we're trying to transition off fossil fuels I'm our approach is that what I'm doing is asking for funding for the studies and the weatherization that has to happen for the buildings to make them more efficient so Jeremiah is focus focusing more on the structural needs but I'm focused more on weatherization and building studies so right now our two focused over the next year would be for Town Hall and Monson Library and similar to Chris we sort of don't know exactly what we'll need but we want to be able to have the flexibility to do a study and then act on it as soon as possible so that's the hundred and fifty thousand a fifty thousand would be additional project funding to help bridge the gap for other departments that are seeking some other capital requests for instance the fire department had purchased an ambulance and we supported them with twenty five thousand dollars from sustainability to get them some equipment that would treat that building that equipment more like a hybrid vehicle so it actually you know is able to operate without running the the car while or the vehicle while they're trying to do other work and they can use this equipment to sort of help a battery backup to help keep the vehicle running so that's one example and then I had also asked for let's see twenty thousand dollars for engineering pertaining to solar installation projects so again we don't have these identified specifically yet but if we wanted to do a car port for instance or solar solar port canopy we would need to have the engineering study to support the construction of a solar canopy so this is just again allowing us some opportunity specifically aimed at solar installations for canopies or other municipal buildings so those studies would be needed as well then there's fifteen thousand dollars and ask for the valley bike capital valley bike is coming back online and we have one more station to install and that station will require concrete pad some of that work in the past has come out of transportation there's also an admin fee that gets paid to Northampton every year and forgive me if I'm asking for this in the wrong category whether that's operating or capital I just have felt over time that this really should live with sustainability and that you know the having it under transportation I understand the reason and the rationale but somehow it feels like it should be with sustainability and supported by sustainability funding to keep that that system expanding and growing and to cover the expenses for the admin costs that's paid to Northampton and then the last I'm sorry the last fifteen thousand dollars is for infrastructure for the community gardens the two existing that we have are the Fort River Farm and Amethyst Brook and then also we're exploring maybe establishing additional gardens and potentially if we are going to look to we haven't decided exactly where or concretely that it would be at Hickory Ridge but if we were to begin the process at Hickory Ridge we would like to have some funding to sort of get that established that might be a bit premature for Hickory Ridge but certainly for the other two there's just a lot of needs water you know water resources are very difficult so even if we don't put in any kind of specific infrastructures as in a well even having cisterns or some other water catchment system would be beneficial to the gardeners and in this case I will say that you know what I'm discovering in working with the gardens more closely now is that this really is a food security issue certainly at Fort River Farm you know quite a few of our gardeners live at Colonial Village and they don't have access to a place to garden so that funding would be that fifteen thousand would be used to sort of broadly cover the community gardens and I think that's all of the capital and that's should be 250,000. Stephanie this is Bob I just I'm the minute taker could you just run through those numbers again just to make sure I put the right numbers with the right projects sure 150,000 for engineering studies and consultants and implementation for weatherization of municipal buildings 20,000 for engineering studies pertaining to solar installation of municipal projects 15,000 valley by capital for infrastructure for a new station and admin support to the city of Northampton 50,000 for bridging the gap for more efficient equipment for buildings and vehicles and then 50,000 for community garden infrastructure and supplies okay thank you and that's and that's a total of 250 which you said at the beginning on our sheet it actually the 325 showed up twice Sandy so there's in the spreadsheet there's also some savings of that because it showed up under recreation also but so that that is the total ask for FY 25 correct Lee could you just verify one thing for me the 15,000 for the valley bike is to add additional an additional station but there's how much is the annual administrative fee the administrative fee is roughly around $7,000 and that's the total cost we have to put in for valley bikes that's just the administrative fee that's annually paid to Northampton that we've been paying since we started the operating costs are something entirely different that's the big one you just remind me what that number is that one for this year well this year it was less but for FY 25 it would be about $80,000 excellent thank you and what budget does that come out of that's a good question we're working on that I will I will say I mean that's that's the amount that we'd actually be like in the worst case scenario without any memberships or sponsorships or anything that's how much it would be it's very likely to be less but I will say I would anticipate it not to be less than the $50,000 range and we are the group is really working on trying to get the state to help support that we've grown to eight communities we started with five we grew to eight and we have more we have at least two more that are wanting to join so we really feel like the state needs to identify this as you know it's not recreational it's transportation it's located near dense housing development and it's really seen as a way for people to get around not just to go on a joy ride Lee thank you I repeat I'm very new to this committee and I'm trying to learn how it operates and and I am certainly not in any way at all hostile to planning and spending money on planning but I'm what I'm hoping I will one of the things I'm hoping to learn as I sit on this committee is what is the relationship of planning activities to ultimate carrying out of the things for which the planning activities have been engaged and and how how is that process managed that's what I'm interested in but but I definitely right I definitely believe if you decided you're interested in doing something then you need to figure out what it will cost to do and you need to hire planners so I just wonder if there's always a connect between planning activities and carrying out something as opposed to planning activities sometimes you plan for things and what you learn is your plan is impractical it won't work and then sometimes it's just a dead end because it was clear for whatever reasons that this project was never going to happen so that's what my concerns are I would say that these projects that are being proposed are it's very unlikely we'll do a study and have a response that it's impractical or we can't do it I mean that these things are very straightforward this is about weatherization and transitioning off fossil fuels meaning that we're you know looking to to install heat pumps if you will because we're looking to electrify all of the municipal buildings so that is going to take funding and commitment of the town to have that happen but yeah these studies are required you know you really need the studies in order to do that especially if you're transitioning off you know like an oil system so but so they're very practical at least the studies that I'm proposing are very concrete Dave and Chris both had responses on this so yes I might have misinterpreted the question but were you asking about kind of broader planning community planning how does all of that connect and and lead to projects or was it specifically to sustainability projects no it was the broader question I've raised my hand I took it down absolutely it was not about these specifically but okay there's a lot of requests coming in for planning and I'm just trying to figure that out thank you very very briefly because I know you have other departments very briefly so so coming from certainly we work from the town managers goals that are provided by and and and provided by the town council and those flow through department heads to our staff and they should flow out to boards and committees in conservation and development which includes sustainability facilities planning zoning conservation inspection services we work with all the different departments throughout town we we have a close working relationship with the recreation department with the DPW so when we plan we look at what are those community needs stated by the town council by various boards and committees the planning board would like to see for instance more housing in town how do we achieve that to do that we might study as chris indicated the university dot drive stretch could that be densified we work with DPW when when residents say they would like a they would like a sidewalk on north east pleasant street we work with DPW to say okay what planning processes what permitting processes would a sidewalk need to happen and and get built on on east pleasant street likewise one of the goals of the town council was they would like to see a permanent shelter well the shelter craig's doors has been without a permanent home they've been moving from church to church to church for 10 or 15 years so we set out to find a piece of property we bought a piece of property we the town and through ARPA funds and now we're in a planning process to help put out an RFP request for proposals for for a firm to come in and build a shelter with supportive housing so everything flows from the town council from our boards and committees and then with the goal of trying to make our community a better place for people to work live and and raise their children so there's a lot of interdepartmental communication and planning as well as even with the schools as we look at the new fort river school i'm sure many people in our community are saying well when the wildwood school is um is uh is vacant that will be a planning exercise not necessarily specific to the planning department but the planning department and many other departments will be part of that planning department to reimagine what could happen in that building or on that site so that's my brief oh christ i see you you have a response as well i just wanted to say that our planning projects don't always lead to the town having to build something or spend money to do something often our planning um efforts and projects lead to someone else building something so you know you don't have to worry that all of these planning efforts are going to result in the town having to spend a lot of money you know barry roberts might spend a lot of money or wayfinders might spend a lot of money developers might spend a lot of money if they see an opportunity to build something good thanks so one of the things with stephanie's money at least in the past um is she's been able to leverage the money to get other money you know that so it's going specifically into um on the way to getting us she's a one person department for sustainability is what people should know quite quite an amazing one person but so lee your hand is up again yes i just want to repeat i'm not worried i'm just curious and i'm trying to understand how the process works and i have learned a lot so thank you very much thank you dave that i think next is recreation unless i'm i'm going on my list yes and i believe ray is here and i'll let ray take the lead and i'm happy to support him in any way i can thank you um and thank you all for having me over here i think that we have a relatively uh straightforward easy pitch here i've got two projects on the docket i can talk about one which is a purchase uh they're both cherry hill related uh one is a uh is a green smore um and i don't remember if i had an opportunity to shift that that cost to 30 000 30 35 000 um if it was submitted in 30 and 35 or the larger number that i had originally put in um uh originally we were asking for especially a three step uh three different levels where we're looking at we figure we put in the the most expensive one and let you all figure it out there was a there was a request for a new uh uh uh environmentally friendly of a new mower that would that would uh cost i think up to 65 000 there was a second one which was new and a newer model of the one that we have right now we it's going to be difficult for us to buy new and we figured the cost also we put in the request for a for a used mower the the greens mower basically mows the area at the at cherry hill around the tea around the tea boxes and the greens um the it would be replacing a 2008 mower that uh we bought that cherry hill purchased uh a long time ago and it is basically outlived it's it's life it still works knock on wood it'll be working tomorrow um we're opening up and we have a soft open this weekend it's going to be a little bit wet but we have a you know we're we're hopeful that it that it's going to continue to do its job here maybe even through this through this year we won't be disposing of that that would basically move to a backup to an extra piece for us but it has it's absorbed a lot of of attention as we're looking to try and repair it's absorbed a lot of financial hits and and repairing it over the course of the last couple years so part of this is its shelf life and part of it is trying to maintain the amount of money that we're spending to try and keep it operational um and the the used spot at 30 to 35 thousand dollars that that used slot is is I think relatively friendly for for what we're looking for here we were looking it was our intention when we put it in to add the the full cost for sustainability purposes but that may be difficult to find right now and certainly find a point where we where we can use it so that the the first ask is for a greens mower that will be reliable for us particularly reliable for us at the at the golf course for this season when we when we get it well I can stop there and and find out there's any clarification or any questions on that um so you know so this is um it's it's cherry hill the screens mower and um you're now saying it's a 30 35 thousand correct okay and one given we had something nearer to 70 but that's okay yes I'm just confirming that that's what we're talking about I want to make sure that we're that the the ask now is for 30 35 thousand because we're looking in the used market we think we can get something in the used market which doesn't fill our goals we did I put uh John Cuolo on the on the uh task of looking for sustainability looking for looking to try and uh you know we were looking at at new mowers to begin with knowing that we had options for used I think used is going to be the way that we're going to have to go from my understanding is Sarah has a question yeah first of all thank hi Ray thanks for um looking into into used um appreciate that effort um I'm not a golfer so to me a lawn mower is a lawn mower is this this is this um greens mower is it something that can be used on other fields in town athletic fields or there are other or is it really need to be dedicated are you like mowing daily to keep the greens yeah yes there's a lot of access uh during the season there's there's it's used out on the uh chorus a lot um every time if you imagine it every time the grass grows a little bit it's specialized for those areas it's the finer of the mowers we we got a used rough mower last year the year before and that one is a big machine that is also used a bunch but it's but it's less special it's it's less uh delicate it's less of an of an art piece essentially um the the the greens mower is one that is is used much more for the manicuring of the of those special uh particularly particularly important areas of the and I say particularly not being more but in but particularly important areas of the golf course um so it's a precision it's a precision correct machine yes okay it also cuts on a green the grass it's not very high yeah very think of it just like a carpet and you know and this thing maybe maybe a rumba I don't know as a as a long time as a long time high school field hockey coach I can tell you that that at some point the the you know people the schools or whoever as they try and find out what's going on with with turf and stuff there they they would be looking for something very similar because field hockey is the looks for manicured uh similarly manicured greens that you can't just run out there and throw a bunch of big uh you know there's there's restricted access in terms of carts on the spaces that the greens mower covers it's it is specialized it does cut very very finely and that's why we've had to put money into repairs on that okay thank you Bob was your hand up as well no no okay you can go to the next project and this is the this is the unique second project is one that a lot of times I come in here for the capital and I start asking for like like toys for the for the cherry hill asking for important equipment this one is a little bit different it's our bridge project at the foot of the t-box or the first t-box is a small car path for folks who know the course no exact run talking about there's a small car path there which is important for for us to get equipment out to the course that's uh it's uh it crosses a little stream it's important for us to be able to get any equipment out to the course our grounds crew uses that a ton but of course also it is foot traffic from the first t-box to the course it's it's access to the whole course in front of us what happens when it rains and I don't have to tell you all that it's been raining a lot uh and it's been raining a lot over the course the last few years the um what happens is more often now than 10 years ago is that bridge the water basically floods it off of its moorings and it gets lifted off of off of its space and then sometimes not forever not not always it's been probably about in my two plus years it's probably been about four or five times but they're costly we have to we have to if it gets unmoored and then dislodged it floats down the stream um and when that happens uh you know if it's just kind of right there then they can try and grab it and pull it back but what happens is uh we lose opportunity for money in two different ways we lose it because we have to get somebody it's not something that we can that that my grounds crew can go out and go and pick it up and pull it back or whatever and just sort of put it back in and snap it back into place uh we have to get somebody with tools and especially to go and get it and to bring it back so it costs us to get somebody outside get to get outside service to go retrieve it and it also when that bridge is gone we don't have access to the course we have to shut the course down until it's until it's solved thankfully sometimes it's and it's in times if it's if we've had that much rain then the the issue is that it's probably going to be a little while before we open anyway so it's not a direct cost there probably you know we might be closing anyways because the amount of water that the course takes but we can't open the course until until that bridge is put back into place um there is we looked at last year because it started to happen a little bit more um we looked at the possibility of just reversing the course and going out backwards because there's another there's another bridge towards the end of the the course and just basically having people go out and come back but that traffic uh we were we tried to look into that and it just made no sense and it was a danger because you have people walking into into oncoming I think it was I think what is it core the seventh hall it has people walking into oncoming balls being hit and and so there's just all sorts of risk and doing that we had when the bridge is out on one we have to shut the course down um but so so not without trying to find other opportunities there that it does cost us in those two different ways we brought Dave out to take a look at it at one point we did we did want to try and get a little bit of of you know planning expertise and and sort of inform town hall and let them know what we were working with and what we're trying to solve there and essentially we're in a space right now where we're looking to try to uh engineer at least a makeshift trap for that for that bridge to keep it in place um you know I we were warned a couple years ago that that you know this may end up happening over and over again I liken it to sprained ankles where once the once you sort of do a little bit of damage on it then all of a sudden those morgues become a little bit weaker and a little bit weaker to the point where it just it'll keep on going and it'll keep on going when when something like this happens um but we're trying to find a way to counter that and engineer a solution to keep that in place there are there there are certainly restrictions to what we can do cost friendly the the amount of of I know there's mechanical limitations to how we can do it because this is a short it is a sort of a short turn in a short space to try and to try and operate in but the request here is to try to come up with a solution engineered solution for an increasingly costly problem for us and the price tag on it right because one place it said 15 and another it said 40 I think so I think I put 40 in it in there because that was a that was a ballpark estimate that Dave that Dave provided me for putting in to ask it's hard because we don't it's it really is a planning estimation at this stage if I could add just yeah Ray did a great job of describing that just add a little a few technical things one it is a perennial stream this is a perennial stream so it flows it has a very significant watershed and hence with all the rain as Ray said these increasingly frequent storms flashy storms this thing gets unmoored and I will say it takes a front-end loader to go get it people cannot pick this up and and replace this bridge so that's where the cost is you know and and we can't just call on DPW every time it rains and say hey boy our bridge is is 50 yards down the stream come on into the mud and the swamp and get it and then get your front-end loader stuck so Ray has had to often hire somebody to go in there and pick it up and put it back so this is an effort to try to come up at least for a longer term here you know we're not talking about a a large bridge here that has to hold cars or anything it's a golf cart bridge that pedestrians also walk over and Ray staff uses for maintenance equipment so we're going to try to do the best we can with that $40,000 and get some time here and if we get a you know a 10-year solution we also would need some permitting to bring that through the conservation commission so that's kind of the nuts and bolts of the project. Sarah your hand went up and it went down because my question was about permitting. If people want this is right near my house I'll take a picture of the bridge and depending on the season I wear my wading boots when I go across the bridge because it's not just that it goes downstream but it goes underwater so I think that is it for the projects you know on an original spreadsheet we had a war memorial and a mill river playground but they're not they're no longer on for FY on on someone of the really early one Sandy so they're not here right. We were we were looking I see Sandy's trying to get in Sandy go first. So I was going to ask about that because it's still on my spreadsheet so are those no longer being proposed? Yeah I think that I uncovered and it's probably I'm almost certain that it's my mistake I I think I uncovered when I was trying to reproduce after our department hearing I was looking at the presentation on the board and thinking these are old numbers this is the this it was weird for me trying to catch up to that I think I think that was submitting the the five-year plan on and it got caught in my drafts the all the projects that we were asking for which are these two were submitted in the submissions but I think you were operating on an old spreadsheet. So does that mean that in the next five years these are not an ask at all? I shared the the actual five-year plan I have it up here right now we've got the clubhouse carpeting and a fairway unit for next year. We are talking I know the conversation about Pond Gretchen came up here earlier and that's a larger discussion but that's I have that slated in for 27 and those are the projects that I that I know I have. I think we were talking about a different pond. I know I know I a much bigger bot. So and so the the issue about Pond Gretchen at Cherry Hill has I know has been something that we've sort of put out there and brought back and the need or how far can we push that down the road I'm being encouraged to keep that on the on the I'll look at your submission but in terms of the War Memorial and the playground at Mill River those are not on your five-year ask. I think they should be on the five-year ask Ray and I've been chatting a little bit about those so just real quick on Mill River we have some CPA funds to do a design a conceptual design for new playground equipment and a new playground at Mill River. We have not had to bandwidth to embark on that yet so my hope is to do that later in this calendar year so I think that's should be added in in the out years either under recreation or or I don't know where that sits whether it's with Ray's budget or with Amy in recreation Amy and Alan but then the War Memorial effort is certainly well underway. We are design we are in the midst of a design for the Bath House and the surrounding area around the War Memorial Pool and so that's an ask should be in the out years there and we can get you a number on that Sandy. Thank you very much and Dave I I'm pretty sure I do know the answer to this but those of us who are out at the celebration for the opening of the new the Dirk for the Fort River School at the beginning saw some pretty terrific looking playground equipment but my understanding is we we can't we don't have the ability to reuse that it's in better condition than what's at Mill River and it's certainly in better condition than what's at Wildwood there were two different playgrounds so I don't know whether you've taken a close look at it but the current the current plan is to just cart it away and give it away for parts rather than move it to another location in town um was my understanding I did glance at it the other day Kathy at the at the ground breaking and I too kind of wonder but often when you get into what what does that actually take how do you not damage it when you it's it's might be better to take a part and have the contractor you know there are many playgrounds I'm sure that are looking for parts that can no longer be used I also think you get into the insurance and the liability of something that's x number of years old and who's going to put it in and will they stand by it and I think most contractors won't stand by a as much as we'd like to it be the more sustainable thing to do I think if they're willing to take it off site and use it for parts in other playgrounds but to pick it up they're all in concrete you have to get the concrete out you have to reset it I I know Paul and I have chatted about this briefly but it's it's challenging so I were many were some years away from the middle river uh playground so okay which is that was what we were also told by the school our designers that we couldn't and it was a liability a warranty and could we move it without damaging it all of yeah I wish it was easier and I wish we could do it it would be the sustainable right thing to do but I think if they are willing to either use it in parts other places or scrap it and then recycle it that way so what I'll do is I will definitely I'm gonna put the middle river playground into the the late year cycle here for my own notes and we can talk about that I can talk about that with finance and with you Dave certainly coming up in more memorial of course there's a lot of moving parts there but I can also I can also uh add that to the long term okay you know thank you very much and actually I think that we've run through all of our projects for today so um Ray Chris Dave and Stephanie thank you very much on behalf of all of us and thank you for the work you do every week every day and sometimes on weekends for the town but um you can all leave unless you want to sit for the next part of our meeting thank you so Sandy you sent us or through Athena you sent us a summary table and a debt service table set of tables um so we've got my watch says if we're trying to end it around six we've got about 20 minutes left um and there are no attendees so there will be no public comments I mean I'll check that again but I don't know what you would like to how you would like to approach those but you want to um it well I'll start with I think the total list for FY 25 has changed a lot from what we saw with some very big items have moved off it so if the summary table was still capturing those um will be helped a lot by those changes so I don't I don't know how much you want to talk off of either the debts you know either one and I sent Sandy a few questions I had on this table because it particularly focusing on FY 25 you know on a what's what's on the list so so right now I've just pulled up the summary table with the changes that we heard today shows that we have about 1.2 million deficit FY 25 which was down from about a two million dollar deficit so we're moving in the right direction we still have a 10 million dollar deficit over the five years and I got to think about this because I went back and looked at some old JCPC reports for a number of issues including what percentage of our capital spending was in debt versus what was in cash um and I noticed from a long time ago that we would balance to the first year what we wouldn't always balance for the five years but that was from a while ago and I don't know if it is the town's um practice to try to have it balanced for all five years so Kathy I don't know if you have an opinion about we got closer to I don't think we ever got all the way there so last year if you look at last year in the year before there was uh FY 27 was always going to be a tough one of them a couple of them were tough years but we we weren't we weren't in the 10 million dollar short range you know so one of the comments we made going into a few years ago Sandy was if it's a five-year plan and we've moved things from the current year to the next year which means the next several years are all in deficit we don't really have a plan where the the plan the plan needs still needs a lot of work is the way I would do it you know so it wasn't that we got to zero in each of the years but we got to zero so the projected so on the screen you've got FY 28 um is is five million dollars in the hole you know and just so people know the fire station's not on our 10-year list at all currently um and I was not quite sure how the jones numbers matched up with um the actual debt the projected debt because when I looked down the one column it didn't it doesn't match some of the numbers we saw in November of last year you know pretty recent numbers so I just wanted to make sure for the ones we haven't yet gone out to the bond market for this the um so that was what I flagged um on you know how how good are we on the I'm just looking at FY 25 but the actual debt at 2.9 and the projected debt at 50 000 that projected debt looked low to me if jones is going to be borrowing in in this coming fiscal year um okay so it was just a question because when we saw it bob was on finance then but and Anna was in the council but when we saw it earlier it was coming in and FY 25 were with something in the over a million dollar range so it was a question on that rather than uh um so yeah for those I looked at that um I have projected debt numbers assuming a sale of I think it's 15 million dollars for jones this may so we will sell uh bonds and have to start repaying them in FY 25 I look back at the original sheet that you had from paul that actually had some um banning for another year instead of selling the debt this year selling it a year from now so that added a whole year of interest that what is not in the projections that I've given you so um and then the projections I have given you came from David Isenthal our financial advisor um that sonia then put into a spreadsheet and then I copied so um I think they are more recent than the figures that you had from paul in the fall okay so I hope that answers your question okay um one more thing on the five years the jcpc what we focused on was getting to zero deficit in FY 25 and we noted we noted where we there was still a problem in the out years so we didn't we didn't try to do all five years we just made comments on what what does the rest of the time look like um but we were trying to get with a lot of help from staff where staff pulled something off or so we don't need to do it this year so there are at least a few projects I think um we heard so I'll let you talk but there were a few along the way that I thought there's another 800,000 or so that doesn't have to happen um or might not have to happen um okay so um I'll talk about a couple of things um I've just switched do you now see a chart on your screen yeah so right now this is um what our general fund debt service is projected out to be this is how much we're paying we're paying about two and a half million dollars of debt service interest and principal on existing debt and then this has a couple of new projects coming in including assuming that DPW will start being having to be paid in 28 um usually when you look at future debt well usually what you see is a downward slope like this because you've sold all your debt and then you pay it off and it goes down over time uh because we have increases for projected debt into the future it is going to go up and we're going to have a fairly significant amount of debt in the future um but uh I just show you this because I do think this is something that I always look at a lot when I'm thinking about um capital in fact usually what I do is I make it a little more sophisticated and I have existing debt and you see it going down and then they have the new debt added on top of it I just haven't gotten that far um but I do think as we're thinking about what we want to do into the future um you want to you guys want to think about that and the new finance director wants to think about that um I don't know there's much more to say about that than that but the other thing is having said oh look at all this big debt that's coming into the future I'm then going to say there are some big projects in the future I think particularly in uh 28 like this crocker farm that's listed as cash but really in fact should be borrowing um and so I also need to have some conversations with the school department about um really is the planning for things around crocker farm because this stuff has shown up all of a sudden and I think thinking about how to do it and when to do it needs to have further discussion so I do think there are a number of things I'm going to look at in um FY 25 that I put as borrowing like the police public safety radio equipment I'm looking at any other thing that might be in the three to four hundred thousand or more range which I would be very used to borrowing in my other jobs and so I'm going to look at that I'm going to look at borrowing for things in the out years but I do think that there's also just going to be some things that um we're going to have to go to departments and say they're going to have to make some choices I'm going to say to police all right you've got these three projects which of these can we put out a year I'm going to do the same thing with uh some of these other departments because we can't do everything and so I'm going to come back to you with um I hope a more balanced plan with some recommendations um that's basically where I am right now um again it's a little bit in co-it but um you know we're about to make progress having said that I'm going to stop sharing the screen actually if you leave it up I have a couple questions but Bob go on yeah there was a there was a project from the fire department for 1.9 million for communications and yes we're told that that might be possible to borrow to lease the equipment have you seen the numbers for leasing that equipment um well um yes and no I saw the email from Lindsay I would say um I very much doubt that a for-profit company can offer us better interest rates than we could get as a non-profit entity and I over the years have looked at leasing number of times and it always makes more sense to borrow so that's okay that's my take on that it's fair enough I just wanted to just cross that T excellent question Eugene I just wanted to ask a couple of uh super basic questions so I don't remain in potential ignorance um I in my prior job it was totally corporate America um so there's all this wonderful stuff that we could do with depreciation I just I just wanted to kind of understand from a from a a couple of things when we finance something like in this particular case let's say the Jones is that a 10 a 20 or a 30 year note is that the same for everything if we finance a $200,000 um you know a vehicle or something like that so the general laws provide that you have to match the term of borrowing to the useful life of the um thing that for which you're borrowing um so for example with these radios I made a guess that these would last 10 years I would have to verify that but um that was my guess uh for uh other kinds of equipment um you know it might be five years like if you were to borrow from computers which we don't but if you were it the maximum would be five years for building projects uh currently you can you can borrow for as much as 30 years and the legislature is considering a bill to change that to 40 years traditionally Amherst has borrowed for 20 years for its building projects until few years ago when the state allowed you to go up to 30 so it's all all of which is to say it's all set by state law it's specific by the thing for which you're borrowing um and um and then you just plug that into your borrowing estimates so then what you see say for instance I'm borrowing a hundred thousand dollars for 10 years for the projected debt exclusion that number will show for the next 10 years at at x dollar amount based on your excel formula is what you're saying so yeah okay I would just say there's if you if you really want to nerd out about this then the other thing to consider is you can either borrow like a mortgage in which case you pay equal principal and they just play interest on the remaining amount so your debt annual debt service goes down or you can borrow um level funded so that you pay the same amount every year and the balance between interest and principal shifts so you pay more interest up front more more principal at the end um so I forget if I said so that's like a mortgage that's the one that's like yeah right and so um all of these projections so far I think have been based on uh for the smaller things that level principal so declining payments for the some of the um big projects building projects I think some of those are based on uh equal payments over time um because frankly 30 years from now if you're paying equal payments it's not worth nearly as much I mean it's actually a good deal right right right so so anyway just just to say that and then just when you're looking at your projections oh I'm sorry it's my last I because I just want to get my head around as we start looking at the spreadsheets and start getting down to brass tax you know if I have a you know say again the jones library project specifically because I'm a trustee there's 15.8 but we'll be buying we'll be issuing that debt as it's needed it's not necessarily all going to be in one big lump sum but do you sort of say to yourself oh there's this 10-year debt that's coming up so for every $100,000 I borrow is there like a back of napkin kind of thing where you say that's going to be x amount of dollars per year just so we could start to kind of think about like that's you know as we start to juggle um the actual per year cost of any particular request am I making sense at all so for excuse me for interrupting I just I have to go to my zba meeting at six o'clock so I need to leave okay goodbye sorry every capital project has a cash flow so you know most projects it's all done within a year but for a big project you know like the Fort River School that'll be a multi-year project and we will borrow in chunks it happens to be for jones that we're borrowing the 15 million all at once because of various cash flow issues with some of the other money that's coming in and when it comes in and the fact that we have to front some of that money in order to get grants and so forth right and because there's a certain amount of private fundraising that trustees have pledged to that is a big number in the out years we don't have trustees don't have that money today or they're they may have some of it but in any case right we're borrowing all of the town money up front thank you I'm glad you're the one doing this this spreadsheet and trying to collect it you know this the idea of getting all these numbers into a spreadsheet that we're going to be able to make decisions uh is mind-boggling so I truly appreciate the work you're doing thank you so I just wanted to make a few comments Eugene building on your excellent questions you know when when Sandy starts taking like the chiller replacement is 800 000 or the other for FY 25 if we're borrowing that money the number goes down to zero um you know we see the principal and interest on that in the coming year so we'll see a distinctly different uh total depending on whether he thinks that we're borrowing right at the beginning of the year and paying through half so it evens it out um but the one of the other two other big ones we had a lot of questions about the sidewalk plow the 250 000 sidewalk plow Sandy on is this really necessary and Guilford when we pushed him on it that's why I just wanted to look at another when we pushed him on it he said we could maybe make do with the it's just not as good their other equipment so I had a question on the necessity of that sidewalk plow at 250 um and so I wanted to push on that and the 450 000 for planning and surveying for the uh North Amherst intersection up by um I think it's is way too high and maybe premature in that there's not you can't start to do engineering studies unless you know what you're planning on doing and just so people know that that they have a the town is applied for a mass work grant three different times for this intersection with engineering studies so it's not that they had no information that and they have done two different traffic studies so this should be and then he talked about wetlands but there are no wetlands where the rerouted road there are wetlands but they won't be affected so I don't know and I'm I'm worried if DPW gets that amount of money they'll design something where there's not full buy-in on what needs to go in there um and the roundabout down at Pomeroy there was a success in getting a mass works grant with a we're either going to do this or we're going to do that we didn't have to fully engineer it so I'm not sure why so it was a question he said well maybe it could be a lot less but the North Amherst community likes to get involved in these things and there's actually been at least four charrettes four meetings a lot of consensus building and Dave Zomek has been in those meetings and talked off a plan so so I'm I'm just worried about that one um and I was going to ask I would suggest you ask Dave about it too um you know how far along are we to spend allocate that amount of money um so there've been two traffic studies and an engineering study um so I'm just it it's so there were two big fairly big ones that um raised some questions I know Sarah asked a lot about the $250,000 sidewalk plow um and I think Bob did and a couple of people so it was just uh really um so I there so that was the only other large one and I saw you already shifted the 400,000 records keeping system they said we don't have to do it this year you've already moved it into next year so Lee I'll stop I just know I know I was going to say thank you because you've answered some of my questions about planning and going forward so thank you okay so so those were my two and then um next week just so if once Sandy gets us this revised with his recommendations on borrowing which is borrowing what what does this look like for FY 25 we we do have to talk about what we just started to talk about which of the projects do we have questions about um in terms of reasonableness and we do have the two resident proposals that aren't on this list at all to decide and that that discussion will flow into what report we want to write you know so hopefully some of this is settled down enough that we're looking at a balanced or nearly balanced first year and then we'll be talking about what happens to out years on it but everyone should think of what other questions they might have had about the project because it will be just all of us talking about what what we want to say because our report is to the town manager you know we're we're an advisory committee um but we're hopefully being helpful to get nearer to a balanced budget and make comments about the other five years um so if i could just add a couple of things uh your comments about the sidewalk plow in the north amherst uh study were helpful to me i would say if people have any other projects that they want to flag as hey what's up with that or i got a problem with that you could either just speak up now or send me an email my next step was to take all the projects in fi 25 and put them in my own order of priority and and see where the cutoff is in terms of how much money we have um and try to um get some feedback from some of the departments on that so just to let you know that's what i'm doing next so that i next week there's something a little more coherent for us to talk about hey sandy can you send us the updated um spreadsheet that you have so because mine is full of scribbles and numbers of change and all that it would be helpful to see something clean we'll do thank you just you know we understand it'll just be a pdf so we can't play with it that's okay so i think um i just wanted to make one comment about minutes you saw minutes was on the schedule i at the beginning i said what we'd done in the past was whoever was the minute taker got me a draft i reviewed it either with or without the zoom i take actually pretty good notes during these meetings and then i do an edit and i can finalize it that way if people would like to take time in the meeting to review minutes it's fine with me sarah sent in minutes i got them today and i did minor edits on them really minor a couple typos um and i sent them to you all but but it's been time saving for the meeting so all the minutes up until today have been posted they're posted under minutes rather than as drafts in our packets so if anyone would like to revisit it and actually take time to review and vote on minutes this was just me trying to expedite jcpc meetings because we tend to always use all the time allotted for the projects lee i am deeply grateful to you for having created this very efficient and wonderful system just my personal opinion okay so so that will be the way since the awkwardness was when i was the minute taker i can't easily review my own minutes but but as people who have been doing the minutes when you get the zoom it's it's it's useful because you capture something and you can make sure you get it accurate and we do have the zoom and you can just say you know see the exhibits you don't have to repeat everything so we'll continue the practice and i'll post sarah's minutes as finalized rather than as packet so i i think i think that's it for today so is there a motion to to adjourn we need to make this one so moved so move is there a second second all right a quick vote bob hi gathie is a yes eugenie yes lee yes and anna is a yes okay it's unanimous and thank you very much sandy we are adjourned until thank you thank you thank you everybody