 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise Vs and generous donations from viewers like you. Good afternoon. Seen as the governor has allowed us to meet virtually. And I'm going to go ahead and call each of your names. Please let me know that you can hear me and I can and we can hear you. And I also want to check with our various other people who have joined us today as well. Let me go through the council shall any president. Melissa Brewer. Present. I can hear you. Thank you. I see demand. I see you need to unmute. Lynn Griezmer present me and Joe Hanneke. Present. Dorothy Pan. Present. Evan Ross. Present. George Ryan. Present. Kathy Shane. Here. Steve Schreiber. Present. Andy Sandberg. Present. Sarah Schwartz. Present. Paul Bachmann. Present. David Zomac. Present. Sean Mondano. Present. And Sonia Aldrich. Present. And Anathina O'Keefe. Present. Amir. If you have any problems, please let Athena know that there's been a problem with your connection. So first of all, thank you for taking time out of your weekend. We're not going to go through the announcements. They basically list all of the upcoming meetings. And they're on your agenda. So we're going to begin our discussion. And then we're going to go ahead and make a point out that this meeting is being recorded. And it is both video and audio. There is no chat room. And it is a special meeting. So there's no public comment, but the video will be made available on Amherst media as soon as possible. So given that I'm going to call the meeting to order at. We have the meeting. We have a meeting at 9. We have a meeting at 9. Saturday, November 14th. We have approximately 13 and a half months left of our term. And there are several outstanding items on our plate. The climate action plan. Zoning. on the bylaw review that sit with GOL and progress on the major capital projects. As one resident said in an email asking if this meeting would be reported, this is an important meeting. It will be the first time for an extended discussion about the capital projects since the well-planned listening sessions last December seems like three or four years ago and it is very informative and those were very informative for residents. So with that we're going to spend the biggest chunk of our meeting talking about the major projects which have been on the plate even when we came on the council and we're going to start with the library. Okay and so I'm going to there's a couple questions we want to ask about the library and before I ask those questions I want to basically make sure that you're thinking what do you need to know about this project in order to move forward with the decision regarding funding when that happens and how would you like that information conveyed to you and to the public or any other issues. So I've made it one of my responsibilities to pretty much stay quite close to the library project and they they have finished every step of the way and we have asked them to do at this point. That includes actually looking at the sustainability issues and incorporating that into that and looking at where the compromises might be. It includes regular conversations with, can you still hear me? I hope, okay. It includes regular conversations with the mass board of library commissioners and it includes actually pulling together having a vote that would require an MOU where they would actually pledge their reserves if you will that are part of their endowment against the fundraising which they have stated from the beginning would be about six million dollars. However, in the scheme of things which would be reflected in the MOU, that money would not be tapped into until the very, very end giving them the maximum time period to raise money. Given those different things, Paul are there any points you think that we need to make at this point since you're regularly in touch with Sherry as well, Sharon Sherry? The only thing is the timeliness of the grant coming forward next in the middle of next year and that's sort of the driving force. Why is this this project considered now as opposed to a year from now or two years from now? And recently, as you know, because it was an email sent to us and publicly made, they have asked us as a council to make a decision by the end of April as to whether or not we plan to accept the grant from the mass board of library commissioners. We have not made a commitment to even have that meeting, but I just want you to know and you do know that that request is on the table. So as we look at this, we'll also be looking at all the other projects and we'll come at the end toward the end of this part of our meeting. We'll talk about all of the projects as one, but let's just stay focused on the library and answering the questions that I asked earlier. What do you need to know about these projects in order to move forward with a decision regarding funding and how would you like this information conveyed to you in the public? Kathy Shane, you have your hand up. Yes, I'm unmuted, I think. And I actually sent, just so people know, I sent some of these questions in a memo through Lynn to the library when we were doing the renovation presentation and they provided no answers to them, so I would, because they wanted to focus just on the renovation, so it was on the larger projects, so I will, I can write these up again, but I'll start with my, I have a list. I would like to know the total cost of the proposed project with an update. It was priced out at 2019, assuming that 2019 would be the construction, when it would be constructed. And I think the earliest we're talking about now is 2022, which is three years later. So anything that needs to be added to the total cost, because it's going to be built three years later than when they first priced it out. So that's, so I'm still under total cost, I have several sub pieces. The second sub piece is they have indeed done the sustainability and energy update, and they put a number out that's substantial, it's in a, I think it's over a couple hundred thousand dollars, to what it would be to make it a tighter building with more efficient heating sources and insulation to upgrade it. So I'd like to know, add that into the total cost and then come up with a total, total for this. And if they think there is something they can offset from the original proposal, I want it explicitly listed, because my understanding of the terms of the grant is they can't make anything smaller in square footage. They have to do every service they said they were going to do. So they can't say, well, just eliminate X, Y, or Z and build a smaller expansion. They can use different materials, you know, there. And so part of the cost of the library that was built into the total totals, and some of it was on our ledger, our new furniture, new furnishing, new carpets, you know, getting rid of stacks, new stacks. So to the extent they're talking about opening up a new library without new furnishings, I would like to know that, because we would have to then, at some point, buy that. Then I think, in the total cost, we're the cost of locating the library somewhere else while it's being closed for construction. So I'd like to know whether that's confirmed, that's in these dollars, and the cost of taking away the tonnage of debris they'll have when they tear down what I still think of as the new addition. I realize it's 1993, so it's not brand new anymore. And then do we have any part of total cost? That what does that do to the street that the library is on, which is a major thoroughfare for the town? To the extent we open up for COVID, does it block the street at all? So it would be harder to get to the movie theaters, it would be harder to get in and out of, you know, you'd be detoured around the street. And so is that on the town, is that on town, in terms of police and re-routing or not? So that's all under the item called total cost. Okay. Catherine, could I just suggest we pause there and see if other people have questions about cost? Not anything else, just cost. Dorothy, you have your hand up. Something blocked by unblocker. I have a question running the library. I'm sorry? Questions about the cost of running the library. Right now the endowment is used every year to help set the cost of the library. And the town pays another portion. At this moment, we have a, we're down several positions in the library. The new plan includes a larger building, but does not seem to include a budget item for more staff. And so the real question is, what I want to know, I want to know what the donors are. I think there's been a lot of time. I think the fundraising, first, I really, the idea of thinking it will come, and it may come. I did ask some people who don't even know, I said, are there really a lot of donors out there? And they said they thought there were. So I would like the donors to come forward and know that we have that private fundraising base where we don't have to talk the endowment because the endowment is necessary just for the, to keep the library running day to day base. And I want to mention a problem that we talk about social justice and being welcoming to people from the community. There was like a headline in the New York Times today that a police department has said 40% of the fires are going to be people of color. We have a dedicated staff in the library, so it's only if the staff expands and we have a more integral staff. I mean, Alex can't talk about being comfortable in the college library, being an older person with only young people. You feel comfortable when you go someplace like you there. And one way to make people feel comfortable is have staff that is more representative. You can't do that by cutting a staff. You have to be expanding this staff. So I'm worried about the day to day running of the library and protecting the endowment and I guess I really think that I don't see why we can't get those fundraisers if there are people who want to give, make that $6 million portion of the library share. Let's get that. People give, give. Let's get that as to be a promise as opposed to kind of a guess in the future. So that's what I would. Okay. Again, we're sticking to cost. Thank you Dorothy. Those very topically right on the same issue. Pat, you have your hand up. Yes. We had I believe it was Coon Riddle who did the disability study and I'm interested in whether those costs have been integrated into the MSB grant or is that again new so we're expanding the total, total as Kathy's calling it. And I'm very concerned that those, those renovations be made. I am also like Dorothy concerned about the lack of fundraising that's been happening, ongoing fundraising to maintain the library and the pledging of the trust funds. I don't, I really don't see that as a viable or what or an efficient strategy and in fact, I think it endangers the library. Okay. Thank you. Shalini. I was thinking of the cost of maintenance and I think that's an important area of focus that our town should have and for all projects, what yeah, what's the cost of maintenance and then I was thinking of, do we have a way of assessing the life cycle of infrastructure and then seeing whether we're putting away enough money for eventual replacement. And then this is so we're not talking about revenues yet. Yeah, that's my next up. So just cost, okay. And cost of employees that's I think has already been raised and then hiring diversity. Alyssa. I think that what I'm saying is not going to be substantially different when it comes to the cost but I want to make sure I'm covering that. So again, energy efficiency costs, whether through the grant or because we decide we have to do something additional. I know we've gotten complaints that a certain aspect of the grant wasn't applied for and that's water under the bridge now. But what we are doing associated with that both with a grant built library and just renovated library to be very clear on where the separation is for the cost for the energy efficiency with that and the maintenance costs ongoing but also the a clear comparison which we did have make some headway toward in our last town council conversations about this as to what's the cost of fixing things that need to be fixed. And of course, need is a little bit of a fuzzy word on some of these things but that need to be fixed that have been let go quite bluntly for a very long time assuming that a grant was going to be happening. Some really basic maintenance has not been done because we were assuming that we were eventually going to be able to fix this. So this is a renewed focus I think of this town council that staff does need to plan for maintenance in a way that this town has not during the time I've been part of town government since 1999 has not done consistently for any aspect of the budget. So we need to be clear on what would it actually take like the presentation we had at town council to do it versus the cost if we do it under the grant because one of the things that I keep having conversations with the community about is if people say well this isn't the right time for the library because covid because cost because of everything else and I say but look we have all this unattended to maintenance we're going to have to do that anyway so the building doesn't fall in so people need to understand what the line is between those things and that just I think needs continued clarity associated with that and then I'll save my comments about funding for the other topic okay Darcy yeah I have a couple of comments one is that with the new administration coming in the Biden Harris administration that's really going to have a focus on climate action we really are going to be needing to not do any development that is not that includes fossil fuel infrastructure so regardless of whether it's covered by this net zero bylaw you know we can't be we we need to be pricing what it would cost to make any addition or renovations net zero and you know different options of UIs different different ones for the for the building anyway so that's one thing and the other is I guess I feel like I need to push back a little bit on just looking at this in a siloed way because I feel like our discussion has to be you know a capital cost of one thing versus another and you know I one of the things that I think we need to you know that I missed and I have been wanting to see is the the capital planning tool that was promised quite a while ago to to help us look at these things to help us look at the different options within each capital project and comparing them to each other and comparing them to all of our other capital costs because I feel like we we have to do that we have to have an overarching look at the whole picture not just library separately and getting into all of the minutiae when we could solve some of these problems just by looking at the overarching picture first um and Darcy we will at the after we go through all four of them get back to that bigger question so thank you for raising it um and especially the issue of the tool and that's one of the reasons why Sean is with us today and others because they're here to hear they're here to listen about what we need um Steve Shriver Alyssa you used to have your hand up is is it additional comment it's for the next part sorry it just didn't come down then Steve yes I'm going to add another cost and this is not a brick and mortar cost but this is more of a community cost so this has to do with the cost of doing nothing so the covid is a great time to ponder those who have lost access to the library for you know since march and I keep wondering if we had a modern library that whether or not it would have been able to open earlier you know and a place that we could feel safer and where you know there's better ventilation bigger rooms but I think that there's an enormous cost of doing nothing which is that the access to the library is not available to those who need it the most and then furthermore the cost of doing nothing there's a huge economic well I would assume I don't know what the answer is but there's a economic development cost that it's often been noted that the jones is a debt when it's open and is in even in its inferior state is a driver people come to downtown immersed to go to the library and then spend more time in downtown so I would like to know what the I'd like to have some more information on the economic development cost and benefit of having a viable public library right smack in the heart of downtown all right so I'm going to move on that doesn't mean we can't come back and add issues across Kathy you're going to start off with the next topic I am and I just want to segue from Steve's because as Alyssa said I don't think we have to face a choice of nothing or this because we have a renovation possibility so I agree with you wanting to cost that out Steve but could we in fact renovate and have a look could the library be open now is another question I do have so I think this is a good question to ask so my second is the cost to the town and so if I know the total costs I know the grant costs and I can subtract the two and a leader of the library was actually shocked when I first said 22 million but I did a pretty simple take the total when it was a 35 six minus the grant and the related to that I would want to know the total remainder that's not being paid by the grant and the financing of it as I understand when I looked at the grant terms what we would be facing if we accepted the grant is the town would have to be pledging the full cost and so we'd be on the hook for the 22 million and actually the grant gets paid out in stages so you know there's some initial we get paid back once it gets started then we get paid again so we would get that money but if if they don't raise the six million in in terms of cash on hand I don't think the endowment can put up six million so reduce the cost of the bond we go out with from 22 down to 16 million to go out for the rest of the money I mean I know we're going to have to debt finances but I want to understand this better so in the cost of the town they've talked about fundraising and it wasn't until as liaison to CPAC that I realized one of the fundraisings they see is the community preservation act which is taxpayer money so to the extent that's in that six million I want them to be really explicit for the public to understand that that is also a taxpayer source and most recently when they came for the revised request for a million they indicated that they might want to come back next year for another five hundred thousand so I just think we need to know whether there are in fact some deep pocket donors that are just waiting for us to say yes to this and what if it doesn't happen can the endowment cough up six million so that we don't go out and and raise a bond for 22 million and I've got a little um spreadsheet that I've been playing with that's from the state it's like Sean's tool but I do project by project to go 16 million to us versus 22 million to us and it's a lot of money on an annual basis so I just want to do that remainder cost to the town and I understand the renovation is also up in the 15 16 million so I'm not looking at versus zero I do understand that but I just think the net is really important and just to echo what Dorothy already raised about the endowment um there was one vote against pledging the endowment as the person who manages the endowment because we can't the library is already doing an overdraw on their endowment for operating costs if they should could take if they took the six million of endowment because they couldn't raise it they had to make good on the pledge um we're in danger of not having the library be open or one of the branches not being open because they couldn't keep pulling five percent out I mean five percent is already more than the return on the endowment so they're eating into their base um and so it's it's it's putting something at risk that we as a town are totally relying on to keep the doors of jones open so Steve when you talk about openable you know it's brand new building without the ability to open the doors or now open only for limited hours um would be a travesty um so I do not think we should pay play with what I think is risky so I would call under this label of total cost to the town can you really take money out of the endowment and how are you going to do the operating costs and then Sonia and I know some of these numbers can come from town staff on my end I think we would have to go out with debt of 22 million and we might get paid back on some of it really quickly or if if CPA put up a million maybe it's 21 million so it's our share plus we make good because the granting authority wants to know we've got all the money it doesn't want to hope that a couple years from now we'll have the rest of it so I would like to know that and then the last part of this they've they've talked about historic tax credits as being part of this 6 million um I do under Andy helped me understand it and then I went back and read some on myself so I more or less understand what these credits where they could come from so I want to know whether anyone is explored whether they're real because it's another million and a half and whether a renovation could also get the same credit and it's a question I asked in the memo so it's not a we could get it if we do this but we couldn't get it if we do that and I have the same thing with CPA if the CPA historic money can be used for a new building project it can be used for a renovation project as far as I can see because some of that where else they're getting the money from could also be money that's applied to a renovation project so I just want that much more in much more detail that we can see because if I put it in just to give you a sense we're talking about over a 20 year period if we had a 20 million it's over a million dollars a year we'd be paying out of capital um and my last point Lynn on this is I know you want to go through all of them but schools is right behind this and I think we will be forced to go for an override on schools if we want really so I just want to have that discussion when we get through schools we get that when we get the same five year window it's not 10 or 20 years from now um that's it I do want to ask this is really for the purposes of the public to make sure that the recording includes a full picture you are our liaison to CPA uh to ZPAC tell us what they have applied for this year they've okay so what they've applied for this year is a million dollars and it's earmarked for special collections and unlike when they applied last year special collections I mean it was part of the energy changes but special collections will be in the old part of the building so it's a combination the million dollars of insulation and high vac systems and dehumidifier so it's it's bricks and mortar surrounding the special collections and they didn't itemize it but they in their proposal they said this is really more like a million and a half or a million point nine and we're doing other things so we might be back next year um and the million ask is contingent on the council authorizing this grant it goes away completely if we don't authorize this grant but presumably they could come back if we decided to renovate because as everyone knows the special collection was being rained on water was and so it's been temporarily moved to another location and one of one of the actual questions Lynn this past week from a public was shouldn't we be doing something now was Steve's point of what shouldn't we be safeguarding it now and move it somewhere so other places if they didn't have a safe place lent their special collections to another body for safekeeping so it could stay open and people could keep visiting it um you know just move it and I I think we have moved it within the library but it was should we spend some emergency money since the library is not going to be constructed till 2022 to preserve you know to preserve this if it's in an unsafe place but what they propose is completely linked to the grant project so the we the ask for a million will go away um and the committee has not yet made a decision they have a lot of big asks this year many of them are debt financed so that discussion will be coming soon it's closed now for new new proposals but there are a lot of big ones including some from other parts of town thank you for that update I think it was useful for people to understand all the different discussions that are going on about the library uh before I go on I would I want to add on this uh side of cost to the town um the that and second the fact that um Sharon Cherry has recently provided Sean Mangano with information that will allow Sean to develop a cash flow projection with direct bearing on when we receive mass board of library commissioners money when we have to borrow etc so it's that's part of my just strengthening that request if you will you know what the real cash flow is and therefore the real cost George you have your hand up two things first just picking up on what was just discussed with the the CPAC the request is CPAC for a million being tied to the grant and to the fact that the council are too waiting to see if the council is willing to act I think it also be connected to the fundraising piece that's been discussed um if you see the endowment to make up uh the six million um there's going to be a fundraising piece and it's going to be I think fairly successful no one can say exactly um how well it's going to do but it's not zero versus six million the endowment is not going to if it has to go if they have to use the endowment it's not going to be anywhere near the six million figure and hopefully that won't be used at all um so that's something that I'm having a little trouble with here it's sort of like it's either nothing or it's six million um and secondly as a potential donor myself and I'm sure there are others here present that that will be potential donors um I'm not going to make a donation to something until I see that the town is committed to it so um that's that's basically the bottom line um if we're willing to move forward um then I think donors will step forward but expecting donors to make substantial commitments if where the town is willing to make a commitment and this council is willing to make a commitment I think that makes no sense so that sentiment by the way has been invoiced by some of the library trustees um Darcy you have your hand up yeah I just um on the on the revenue side um I'm just uh wondering if if uh the a large piece of the revenue is going to come from a dead exclusion override I would be interested in hearing from Sean um you know how what how would that increase residents tax bill and then how if we passed if we shortly thereafter were asked to to do an override vote for the schools how much would that further increase the residents tax bills um that's basically if if there is a decision I'll to go out for an override on the library you want to know what that would cost the residents right okay thank you and relative to a future override regarding the school yep okay uh shallony yeah I would like to see if they're additional I believe they're going to be additional services provided and that's going to bring in additional revenue streams uh and also I think when I mean there's revenue that's coming in but there's also value that we're providing to residents and I don't think any of us sitting here can assess what that is without knowing who is using the library what are the challenges they encounter currently you know so identifying the different stakeholders and I think the library has already done that but it would I would want to see like what the stakeholders that are right now using and what are the existing challenges in using that um using the library and how the new space is going to meet those challenges and if there's a way to meet them I think they've already done that but I think I would like to just see that because value is an important piece as much as revenue okay Andy you have your hand up yeah um several people have used the term renovation during this question as we were raising questions I think that there's potential for some confusion about what is meant by renovation because when Coon Riddle was doing this study it was for a very specific set of purposes uh but it was not to change the library to expand the library to provide different to to it was to maintain building essentially and address handicapped accessibility so I think that we just need again a reminder of what it is that is in that plan that in the alternative so that we know whether that alternative really does provide the kinds of things that the community needs from its library so to clarify as Andy what you're saying is that the Coon Riddle study is a renovation of the existing facility only the mblc grant is for a combination of the renovation of renovation and an addition that's right and so then you get to the question is in the renovation is there any ability is there any expansion of space for services is there ability to provide more services than are available in the current building okay um I see Darcy and Andy's hand up but I think those are from before okay so let me just Darcy do you still have something else you'd like to add to this okay so let me just go back and ask and make sure that you know are there any other issues at this point you would like to make sure that are asked this is not your last chance believe me there'll be opportunity for this and then let me also say my initial thinking is that at some point we would start having segments of a town council meeting that in which some of you know there would be various library presentations staged over a period of time and that would allow both the council to have questions and for the public at some point to also have opportunities to be asking questions and so that gets my second question and that is how would you like this information conveyed to you and to the public but I'm seeing hands up that suggests that there are other issues you want to put on the table Kathy uh yeah I wanted um I know endowment was discussed as we went through so I did total costs and then total cost of the town my last uh category was endowment and operating costs and Dorothy already brought this up but I'd like to separate them out Lynn so I want to know exactly how much the library has an endowment and what the projected draw on it is each year and you know they're they're in the middle of looking at next year and we've just done a potential flat budget to them so are they going to have to dip in even more on it you know so I would like to know more we didn't get much in finance on the rate of return that the endowment is getting in the base so something more about the endowment as part a and then the second is operating costs so I would like them to project the operating costs and um I know I know we're not supposed to be thinking of project a versus project b and Andy is rightfully reminded us that Coon Riddle was only asked to do certain things but operating costs of the proposed grant project staffing how they're going to staff it and what impact is on the branch libraries we're being told up and now for Amherst just so you know that it's not clear that they have the money right now to keep that little library as a book drop-off and pickup station um you know that she's short on staffing money for it because one person retired and I'm not sure what what other staff are doing because everyone the buildings aren't open but I'm really worried that we might get even fewer hours in the branch library if it gets more expensive so I want to know operating costs um underneath operating costs and this is only I know I'm getting too picky here but they're proposing to buy a very expensive book sorter um and it came up once during JCPC um it's the kind of thing that the New York public library system would have because they have trolley systems that'll come by and little carts that'll bring the books to different so it saves on people costs but these machines are extremely expensive to repair and there was some evidence from other places that have purchased them that they when they break it's an expensive repair and it's not clear that we have western mass capacity to repair it and it's not clear it was they're estimating it'll save a lot of staff time um so I just want them to go through projected operating costs once the building opens and on the positive side if they do the energy updates and things there's is there potentially um lower heating costs lower electricity costs lower um something else costs so I could see that some of what we're doing to invest in a tighter building might um make it a more efficient building so I think we need to know that um because you would hate to build a gorgeous structure and then have really limited hours of access to it because we just don't have the operating budget to to run it so I want it to be its own category okay thank you Alyssa so I'm a little unclear as to where we are in the dividing line on the library discussion of costs versus revenues versus information we want so I don't want to speak out of turn we're now to the point of saying other information and in that process Kathy has raised specifically sorting out uh endowment and operating but okay then I could continue okay then what I have to say may make sense in that context okay so a couple of specific points one is and I think this really all falls under the concept of messaging so it makes sense that it's information we need because it's information the community needs um I agree with the thought that was brought up earlier that it needs to be really clear what's taxpayer dollars meaning CPA dollars or other capital funds versus private donations not because it's shameful to go for CPA money but because it needs to be very clear where the money is coming from that's all just to make sure it's really clear because there are some old documents that have not made that entirely clear to the average observer then in terms of messaging I think we also need to show that town staff including the library director is figuring out a way to have a maintenance budget and I will I can save us some time now by saying I'm going to say that for every project because we do not have maintenance budgets we don't that's a fact I've never seen one in Amherst maybe they did it in the 50s but we don't consistently do that yes I'm sure Dave's I'm I can point out a specific thing and not be mad at me about everything today but sorry Dave but the reality is we don't tend to build that in and I think we need to show the public that we're going to build that in and what that would look like for this project and all the others and then finally the other thing I want to leave us with a thought about is something's been bothering me all along about the library project is the expectation that the library has to raise so much money from private individuals we're not asking for that for the fire department we're not asking for that for public works we're not asking for that for the elementary school I thought Steve gave a really great explanation around what COVID has taught us about library access and that is one of our basic functions as well is providing access for people who wouldn't otherwise have access to the internet for example and so the idea that the library is responsible for a huge amount of fundraising whereas we don't have the friends of DPW and the friends of the fire station and the friends of the elementary school raising money for those projects so I just want us to take a little bit of a step back and say look okay practically speaking maybe this is the way it has to get funded but I'm not sure some of the frustration I've heard over private fundraising is well placed given that we are asking them for a huge investment that we're not asking any other project I've been looking for that DPW friends group for years thank you Darcy I would totally agree with what Alyssa just said about a maintenance budget that makes a whole lot of sense but I also just wanted to on the issue of how we want to get information out or receive information from the public I feel like we need to almost start from scratch making sure that we get input about our the public's feelings about the library and the four capital projects based on change of circumstances because we even though we may have gotten information a while back about how the public prioritizes the capital projects I think you know obviously things have changed and and there may be a different feeling out there in the public about what we should be spending our money on thank you and we will when we get to the kind of wrap up on this section also to get back to those issues Felony is there any other issues that you want to know about the library this is speaking to you how do we gather public what's being talked about right now and you know we've already tried getting public to participate and we generally get the same people coming in and we are really not listening to the people who are being affected by it and I just want to again emphasize the idea that there is a methodology out there that's being used by many many towns that we identify the stakeholders we go out and in fact I I'll probably it's just as two lines I want to read this is an article from strong towns and they talked about infrastructure and buildings and how to build in order to solve real problems and they were saying that we're trying to understand from the perspective of those who struggle to use the city as it has been built and where the struggles are a great way to observe is to walk with someone literally treading the path with them to understand how they struggle and that's the methodology of human-centered design is where you identify and you walk with the people like if the people in the apartments who use the library and you work with them and you say like hey can we walk with you and find out how they use the library what are the challenges if it's the homeless that are using it if it's seniors who are using it we identify the stakeholders and we can do it it doesn't even cost much to do that but there is a methodology we could be using to actually see what are the challenges and not have us privilege people making decisions on behalf of the people who are not affected I mean who are affected thank you Evan you have your hand up yeah I wasn't sure if I would add this because we've sort of been focused on the information we're looking for from the library to provide to us but given what Alyssa just said about donations which I want to second everything she said about how ridiculous it is that we are so focused on private donations for the library and not other projects um I think one of the pieces of information that I actually need is from my colleagues here on the council and I guess I'm asking you Lynn to make this part of a discussion that we have which is what is our willingness to make the library project happen with or without private donations you talked about an MOU that would then default to their endowment and we've heard concerns about their endowment what is our willingness to debt finance the full cost of this project less the grant um because that's actually what I'm interested in from my view the library is a critical piece of public infrastructure um it's the biggest social justice project that we're looking at and the fact that we are nitpicking their number of private donations and even asking actual names of donors to come forward um for this public piece of infrastructure but not doing that for everything else actually really bothers me and so that is a discussion that I would like to hear um from the council as to what are what's our values here we we've we've often led with values on this council what are our values here and what are we willing to spend money on to back those values up if these private donations don't come through and that's an important piece of information for me it's not going to come from the library it's going to come from the 13 of us here thank you Evan and that is the tough question um so I'm just going to keep on going down the list Alyssa your hand is still up is is it because it just didn't get taken down it's because nobody magically takes my hand uh oh Dina my gosh all right Alyssa so um I think I just want to say that Evan has thrown out what I think is one of the most critical questions before the council but it may I'm not asking that we answer today because many of you would probably say I need to answer all of these other questions before I can state that so just um but it is ultimately the question and that is what is our willingness to fund the library uh Kathy um I just want to jump in on this point about raising money this was proposed to the town this way no one said to the library go find six million it came to town meeting that way and it came to the select board as a way to finance so it's not I can't imagine that we would ever propose to do an elementary school this way but it didn't come out it didn't it we didn't make it up and I think um when we talk about the most important social program I think an elementary school and potentially open um pre-k pre-k is so critical that we cannot look at this in isolation and I know Lynn you said we're going to look at the three later but when we all ran when we were asked what do we think is our top priority was getting a school built and if we think it is in direct competition we have to think about the price tag we may love the project but we have to worry about whether it undermines the school so I do want to get that on the table this is not a question of oh we can do this and then we can do this and then we can do that we don't have the money for it so yes if we think it's that vital we could go out for an override and to the libraries we wouldn't have to raise the money we could get the rest of the money with an override um to protect the schools so down the road we're going to have to have that discussion because we're not talking about long time horizons on these two projects and um so I just think keeping that context is extremely important um so minimizing the costs of big projects so that we can afford more um yes we all value this library we love the library and we can't stand that our little North Amherst library can't even do a book right now because that's where kids go all the time it's been open for years so I just want to remind everyone that when it came to the select board and when it came to town meeting it was always financed this way they never came to ask for a full ask of the money from tax dollars they could have but they didn't be so expensive um and I I just want to also point out that town meeting did approve submission of the proposal through the mass portal library commission uh Darcy you have your hand up yeah I just wanted to respond to Evan's suggestion um I think that um the fact that this is this meeting is billed as a retreat and that we have an agenda which really kind of confines us to looking at what are our questions that we want to have answered before we can make a decision about this that I really I'm assuming that we are going to confine ourselves to that agenda oh yes absolutely I'm not asking first of all we can't take any votes today and second of all I'm hearing that you have a lot of questions you want answered before anybody will be prepared to make a decision okay Darcy is that consistent with what you're saying yeah I just I wouldn't want us to be doing polling or anything today because of the fact that we're asking questions and we need time to get the answers first of all you don't we don't take action at uh retreats and second of all that was never the intent uh Darcy you have your hand up yes so my question originally was going to be so why was that six million dollar built into the library grant and so I've gotten some history answer that's how it was but I guess I would like to know why I mean that is a good question why does the library have this burden on them my problem is that I did not want to endanger the endowment not over large as it is I think that one of the problems is that we keep getting shoved into spaces and calendars that don't fit for us the idea of a tax override if you do one for the library and it passes you have endangered one for the school to fail if you put them together the library might pull down the school I mean tax overrides are really tricky things so we're talking this way because of the timing of a grant where we have to make these decisions on the library before it's time to go to the public with the school so if there are any way to change that timing that's what I you know I know we've brought this up um part of me rebels against the thought that somebody has made a schedule and we just have to live with it I keep thinking there has to be a way to to handle this better um we need to handle the school I I mean I agree number one but right behind it is the library but I don't want them lumped together because I think that they might go down um and I don't want the library to to go for an override first because it will endanger the school passing people are going to pay a lot of attention to their taxes whether it's actually rational or not it may be a small an increase that really doesn't change one's lifestyle but it's a it's a it's a political position to be you know whether you're for or against taxed increases so that's my question can we change the timing of making the decision on the school and the library and two why was it that they put that six million dollars in there uh for private fundraising which as you say we don't have for any other projects I do think that that is one of the things that obscures and confuses the picture okay Steve Shriver you you have your hand up yeah so uh I just want to circle back to the value of this so there is no doubt that a public library is the most egalitarian building in any community because it's literally open to everybody so public schools are critical but public libraries are open to everyone whether or not you know kids so to and everyone has said that so a question that I would add we we have a once in a generation opportunity for this grant the grant will is our biggest donor so that basically the state library commissioners will be the biggest donor for this project so we will be faced with this decision whether or not we want to go with the the donors will in this case so a question that I have and I think that all the questions about actually operating in this library are really valid questions so the question I would have is that if we are have this opportunity for brick and mortar structure that we can put the financing together for but not the personnel to fully run it is it possible to open it in phases like are there are there parts of the building that could be basically mothballed or not opened until the we're able to fully operate it and then also the question of operational efficiency I think that's been discussed in some of the library documents but one assumes that the book's order and better observation and just better layout leads to an ability to operate a bigger building or a more complicated building with fewer staff but so the really the question there was can we open this in phases so I've pointed this out before but Massachusetts was the home to the first public school in the United States it's also the home to the first public library in the United States so and that's probably one reason that our state is so good at these state incentive grants to to support public schools and public libraries. Mandy Jo I'm sorry Sarah Schwartz you're next. Okay so I wanted to say that I believe and and I would definitely want to hear this from the library trustees but I believe that the library initially pledged that money to make the the proposition of funding the library to be more palatable because it was a large project and I was on finance committee and as a just a regular person originally I really wanted us to go out to find out how much this grant would be because I believe in the library and I am one of the biggest people to tell you that the the library is definitely as far as social justice goes the most important structure we can put up I would also like to say that you also have to understand the economic situation that many of this people many of the people in this town are in right now especially with COVID-19 a lot of people have lost jobs a lot of people you know may have okay I don't even need to explain it a lot of people are just barely hanging on and we have a lot of people who are elderly or older who are living on a fixed income and I I think that we definitely the the library has not so far been able to raise this money and I think that I agree maybe we shouldn't even ask them to and I think that since they haven't been able to raise the money yet we should going into this figure that the town will be paying for this and not even if we get bonus money from donors great if don't then we're all in but I want to also remind you of the social justice piece that if a large part of town cannot pay the override then you're actually putting how many people who are living in Amherst right now out of Amherst because of the the debt exclusion override who will never get to use the library because they're gone and so in in that way I'd like to find that I feel like we need to know how much we're looking at for an override especially since I think that the entire council we were asked originally can we commit to an elementary school that can we commit to a new school and we all said yes so I think those are answers that we have said we wanted that I definitely would like the answer to and then I think we all need to look into our hearts about the reality of it I want to clarify one thing there's been no decision to do any debt exclusion overrides those are also decisions of the council and I just don't want to leave the council or the public with any kind of feeling at this point that there has been a decision to do any debt exclusion overrides for any projects okay Mandy job yeah that was going to be one of the comments I made was it sounds like we have to have a discussion on overrides right now because while I might have been thinking a year ago when we were talking about all four that a library might be one that needs to go for an override along with schools we still don't have a location for DPW as far as I know and so where you know if that timeline is 10 15 years out I'm not sure we need an override for the library anymore so I think we need a better idea as we get to these other projects the timeline for something like a DPW when we don't even have a location and how that affects whether we can do a library or even a school without an override if we're not going to have locations and be building fire and DPW for at least 10 years and I hate to say that about fire and DPW but I think we have to face a reality on those I also wanted to say about the timing we can't we lucked out to get another year I'm just going to say that because we were supposed to have to have voted now you know I think I would like to vote on this by April I think we have the information or can get the information we need and it sounds like from things I've heard that maybe financing is more favorable to us if we can get this vote in in this fiscal year instead of next fiscal year we might be able to get that first payment that Kathy was referring to from the MS the MBLC in a year earlier which would affect the financing but I also think we need to vote this year because that repair number we might want to know now whether we need to start fitting those into a capital project too and how that borrowing works if this council is not going to vote to bond out a renovation and expansion project with the grant and it would be helpful to know that before we are voting on our capital improvement program and five-year program for next fiscal year in this fiscal year I don't think we can affect the timing we're stuck with it partially because of what happened prior to ours being elected with the schools and we just have to deal with that I want to clarify something Mandy Jo said and that is an add to it actually and that is that Sharon Cherry has been inquiring of mass border library commissioners as to the timing of our vote and therefore the ability to start getting payment from the MBLC and that is the information that Sharon has provided to Sean that would help look at the cash flow but then the other thing I just want to add there is in addition to that the cost of borrowing right now is at a very serious low amount so the issue of financing also is related to the issue of interest rates Pat you have your hand up Yeah I've been waffling back and forth about whether I wanted to say anything or not I appreciated Evan bringing up social justice and other people doing that and Sarah talking about the library as the most important social justice structure and that's I agree with that in many ways but what's important to me about what Evan says is we need to talk about our values one of the things that makes the library less important to me and and this is not about my vote or how I'm going to vote which is it is that um if you can't get there by public transportation and you can't drive then you can't really get to the library you can be in South Amherst and even getting to Munson library which isn't open and nobody's talking about is in terrible condition so as a town I'd rather see less money spent on this huge structure world renowned library and have a library that is really stable well maintained and for us to look at issues of transportation and we don't do that we don't do that and even social justice we pull it up when it's convenient I certainly do and I think others of us do as well so I want to know what it would cost to have a real transportation system in town free buses or you know whatever we don't we well that's enough and I apologize if I've taken a soft track or to um stay on one topic unless Pat you still have your hand up but it's now down Steve uh you have your hand up so I've stopped riding the buses during COVID but I'm a very frequent bus rider as is Councilor Ross and there are others here that are there is no better place in Amherst better served for public transportation than that part of downtown and buses are essentially free in Amherst so I don't understand exactly that comment I mean obviously during COVID public transportation has become like many public functions has become become things to avoid but virtually every bus in Amherst stops within a half a block of the Jones Library the only ones that don't are the UMass circulator buses okay Pat you still have your hand up is that okay thank you um in this in the interest of time since we have I knew we would spend a great deal of time on the library and if you know if we don't get through the whole agenda today that's just the way it is um but uh I think it was very important for us to have this opportunity to lay out your questions because as you as I stated earlier uh the library trustees would like us to make a decision earlier or sooner rather than later and there's no way any of us are prepared to make that decision without answers to many of these questions Dorothy you still have your hand up um just two quick points I thought Pat was going to say expanded library mobiles they can go and access different parts of the town easier as I would totally totally support that but I also want to say to counter something Steve said I think librarians and people are more important than building so a grand library with reduced staff because it's got this big state-of-the-art bookstore that's not my kind of library and Dorothy okay I'm going to have us move on at this point we're going to go to the schools and essentially the questions for the schools are not totally different and that is what will your future what will you or future councils need to know about this project in order to move forward with the decision regarding funding and Kathy and Steve have been chosen by the council to represent us on the school building committee Paul is also on that committee I think Sean you may also be on that committee um and um so we have four of you here uh my understanding is that you've only met once uh but perhaps we want to start with some basic understanding of timing or what's going on at this point and Kathy you have your hand up yeah yes and you're right Lynn we met once and we had the second meeting this coming week so we just had an initial discussion we haven't even gotten to the point because some people like me didn't know they were supposed to get sworn in so we couldn't take a vote in chair I got sworn in now um so we we next this week will have a better sense of timelines but one of the things I asked then and I think I heard the answer is when would be the earliest that we would have to um come up with the money for the school you know in terms of we've got a series of whether which sites it's going to be on um hiring someone to do building design for us um you know we we're also in an uncertain world on what the enrollment is the enrollment projections because uh they're due in and this the granting authority um requires them so I think in this world we're in of COVID the district enrollment is down and the schools are trying to understand whether it's down just because they're not open for in classroom teaching you know so did some parents move a kid out to Montessori or common school or we actually know a family that moved to Vermont because they had a house there and their child's in class in Vermont but they plan to come back to Amherst you know so they're trying to get a sense because it's down 100 plus um how much of that is future and some of that's the high school so my my question is is when is the earliest and the rough estimates we had are in our share if we got funded at 50% is around 40 million so we won't have a better number on that anytime soon I don't think um so that's when I earlier with the library and Mandy I think you're right on you know I override not override I've been trying to figure out could we do 40 million and the library without doing an override that was the question I was looking at because if it's in the next five years our cap everyone knows our capital allocation to capital is down and we're trying to figure out whether we can move it back up but we only have so much capital funds available every year if we want to do maintenance of other places and roads so this is why I see the two in competition not necessarily with each other for dollars but in competition for is there are going to be a need for an override so I think the answer I heard shown in my right FY 24 would probably be the earliest yeah it would be the absolute earliest but we'll find out more okay Paul or Sean or Steve other things that you would like to add in or Mandy job yes go ahead I'll know I was just putting my hand up for questions not for presentation part are we all are Sean anything else at this point that you can enlighten us with about what we know or don't know about the schools yeah so I think Kathy summarized things very well we've had one meeting of the committee this is a process that's totally driven by the MSBA it's very deliberate they purposely and they have said this they make it very deliberate so that the towns know what they're getting into and they're everything gets lined up because they want to get to success on projects they've been through this with us once before so they want to make sure that we get success on this you know in Kathy's right the enrollment projections are the next thing they look they don't look just at a dip in one year they look at the birth rates and census information they look at multiple year projections out there this is not a building for one year it's building for the next 30 years so they it really is more of a longitudinal study not just a dip in one year so I think you know the 40 million is sort of where where we think this might be but again you know where we go with this it will depend on the location that's that's selected the options that are chosen and then getting an owner project manager on board Sean is there anything you want to add to that you've been through this before no I think you I think you described it well where the main things are we're working on enrollment trends right now and then the next big step will be selected in OPM which will help lay out the schedule for the rest of the rest of the process but you guys covered it well okay um so now we're up and for questions that you want answered or comments Mandy job yeah so um enrollment trends are one of my biggest concerns right now because of um the dips in COVID and so you know this doesn't really potentially to the funding or anything later on but how is that going to affect the size we're allowed to build and the reimbursement rate and all of that um I think that's something the committee the building committee needs to be really talking about and advocating for because if we end up with a smaller number due to COVID dips then our reimbursement rate goes lower if the building committee approves a larger building because the room enrollments are actually false because of the dip um so you know I just want to make that comment it's a huge concern of mine because we've seen a lot of drop and if frankly if the schools can't get kids in the building for all of this year there's going to be a huge drop next year too because the parents aren't going to trust that they'll be able to get them in the building next year um we we've got need as a parent who was relying on some school committee things back in august um and then an agreement that blew up you know what was projected to us in august in terms of data was not what was agreed upon with the APEA and therefore it's hard to go forward with things like that and frankly our many parents are actively considering private schools because of that but going forward um I want to know what the binding decisions the building committee or school committee make throughout this process you know not you know it sounds like things some of it is enrollment data some of it is location some of it is how much money or how big the building is all of that there's a lot of decisions made before we get to whether the council's going to vote on the bond which is essentially the only vote we really have is whether we'll vote on the bond um and so what are those binding decisions when are those decisions made and I frankly want the council to get a presentation and be able to give feedback on those decisions before well on the options being presented to either the school committee or um the building committee prior to them making those binding decisions similar to us we've been able to give feedback or suggestions to the zba on things like the sro um and and the you know the the local option on that and to other committees in town I want I I think the town council needs to be involved in giving some feedback way earlier than just being presented the final option and are we going to bond it we need to have some some feedback given from the council to both the school committee and the school building authority before some of those binding decisions are made and I just don't know what they are so I think we need a timeline for what those decisions are and when they're made and how we get presentations on those decisions before they're made so that we can give that feedback um and then the other thing I have is we have climate action goals we've we've proposed well not proposed we've adopted and you know if if there's a decision made at that building committee to go with a renovation over a brand new building the net zero bylaw doesn't apply um what is the council going to do with that um and so I think we need to have a discussion about whether we're going to essentially want to build a net zero building or renovate to a net zero building and whether we're going to as a council demand that this big building that's going to be set to last for 50 years so therefore if it's not net zero whether it's renovated or new is going to prohibit us from meeting our climate action goal for 30 years from now um what we're going to do about that and what our position is on that so I think we need a discussion on that and probably sooner rather than later thank you for bringing up both of those they are certainly on my list um alissa thank you so I have three areas here one is and everybody's bought such great things that I don't feel like I have to repeat so I'm just trying to make sure I have something that's actually different one is something I brought up when we chose our representatives is once they start meeting well they have started meeting they've had one meeting I would expect our reps to put forth a written report every time the ESBC meets I'm not talking about your minutes I'm talking about a report to the town council that says attached is the timeline this hasn't this there have been no changes to the timeline what we did at the meeting was we found out that these three things have to happen over the next six months half a page with an attached timeline is great that timeline should eventually look like the timeline we used for the budget it used to be color coded right the library does this at this point somebody else does this at this point and then it all comes together because the regional school committee has to vote the towns have to vote etc so interweaving the school committee decisions which are very separate from the elementary school building committee decisions I think we'll be really valuable moving forward but at least to start just the broad outline of the timeline basically the materials that the elementary school building committee is getting and then gets report add out to the town council because their meetings aren't getting recorded. We don't have time to go to these meetings the press isn't going to cover them. We're not going to wait for the minutes, like I said a half pager, you know, or less for each meeting would be incredibly valuable not only for the council but for us to share with our newsletters for us to tell the public and then maybe the newspaper would cover some of it. The other item, I have two others. One is in regards to our enrollment and how the MSBA will perceive possibly pandemic related enrollment issues. Hopefully, I have some faith. I don't have a lot of faith in a lot of state agencies but I have some faith in the MSBA, given how hard they work to work with individual systems that they will recognize that of course, some of this is a very difficult process to try and figure out what's covered and what isn't, because practically speaking, as I think has been made clear over several school committee level presentations. Since the day my kid who's now 26 started kindergarten enrollment has been dropping every single year since 1999 2000. That's for a lot of reasons, some of which are Western Massachusetts reasons which who knows may change due to COVID as more people move further away from cities. But it's also due to the social justice issue we've mentioned in that anybody who was involved in the master plan knows we lost many many families with school age children they don't live here anymore. So hopefully, the schools can have some way of having that effective conversation with the MSBA to sort out what might be COVID and they give us the benefit of the doubt on that, versus what I think up until now have been accurate projections given the steady decline in enrollment that we've been experiencing. And I don't want to be facetious but I guess I do in that, hey, now we don't have to figure out what to do with the extra kids because there might not be any extra kids at this particular moment. That was most recently put forth. And thirdly, I want to talk a little bit about how we communicate throughout this process which includes that I know sounds like a pain Stephen Kathy report that I mentioned first which is building trust with the community, because not only are people, we have this whole new problem of trust right associated with kids being physically in the building or not in the building and what the school committee did and what the union did and everything else. So that's a whole huge mess right that in a non pandemic reality wouldn't even be a factor here, but it does play into the whole trust issue. And when it comes to trust, one of the problems we have as a community is that we frequently say something can't be done until suddenly it can be done. So we said we couldn't fix the light in North Amherst, and then we could. And we said we absolutely could not fix the walls and the quads in Fort River and Wildwood, and then suddenly a pandemic comes and hey we put up some drywall, and now it's great. I know that those are temporary fixes. I know that those were fixes that were made in order to make kids and faculty and staff safer. But the fact that we were told for decades that it could not be done is something that is not setting well with some of our residents who say, I might be paying for an override, and I'm not convinced. I understand that you understand what the possibilities are. So I'm asking that everyone who serves on the elementary school building committee serves on the town council serves on the school committee and all the staff. Think about how is your messaging being perceived by the public, because it's wonderful that we have some walls and quads now, but it was quote impossible back when we were discussing a previous iteration of this project. So please let's be really clear with people what's possible and what we think is good, and what we think is best so that people can feel like they can make good decisions. Thank you, Dorothy. I think that when we find what's possible. Instead if we start with what we want, and then insist on what we want, then people find, and we find that it is possible to get what we think we want me. Just a brief question. And that is, we have to be imaginative and think about where we are in terms of this epidemic. And think about what we were told we were told it was coming for quite a while and we've been waiting for it with different flu seasons that it didn't come. And we were also told that more of them would be coming partly because of the incursion of people into wildlife areas and a variety of things to do with population growth. So, if we're going to take an imaginative leap and say it's not just a question of surviving this particular epidemic, but it's being ready to survive different ones coming at us in different forms. So, what is the kind of rethinking that of what kind of schools would be best in that situation. I mean, I hope that that's going on. And I would think small is better than big, but more space in the small. I mean, what we've learned is the worst thing you can do is put a lot of people in a small space inside. That is absolutely the road to death. Are we considering something that some people had talked about, but didn't seem to be too realistic. But maybe now they are more realistic renovating three small schools and making them places that are safe for this epidemic and future epidemics in so far as we can do that, which means more space, better airflow, good windows, and keeping as much outside green space as possible so that you can use that in teaching when necessary. And this is a real question that I'm asking Darcy, you have your hand up. Yeah. Am I unmuted. Nope, you're fine. I just want to request that as far as information that we need. Yeah, if we're, if we're getting our, our budget tool or however we're getting this data. If it could have integrated the, you know, whatever is relevant from the Fort River Building Committee that came out of that because they really generated amazing amount of valuable information, especially about zero energy buildings. All the data that came out of the Crocker Farm Building Committee. We need to be able to look at that to compare, because at least some of us really feel like, you know, if we have, if we have a new building that replaces wildwood and cracker and the Fort River, that we need to equalize the system so that Crocker Farm students have equivalent services and facilities. So, secondly, I'm just in response to what Mandy Joe said I'm, I'm assuming that our, you know, climate action plan is going to be recommending zero energy renovations zero energy. Anything that we're putting doing as far as renovations and new construction will will be presumed to need to be zero energy, or at the very least not include any fossil fuel infrastructure. So, in response to what Alyssa said about the Fort River and Wildwood schools being updated, as far as not having the quads having two classrooms where they're previously were for and they were not good ventilation and so on and they're, they're improved new and improved and I'm just, I would really like to get updated data and how that's going and whether how parents and students and staff feel about that new configuration of the schools because, like Alyssa said, you know, we were told for a long time that that couldn't happen and so on and so forth. Now they have a new design. And, and lastly, you know, I, you know what I originally heard about the new building I was sort of, you know, not happy that we were replacing buildings that were only 50 years old, because to me. I think a building should last 100 years. So, I'm all for, you know, if we're coming up with a new building, designing it to last 100 years, because, you know, buildings have always lasted 100 years why should they not last 100 years now. You know, I worked for many years in a school in Holyoke that was older than 100 years old, and we need to be, we need to be thinking long term as far as our financial investment in facilities and 50 years is not a long enough lifespan for a building. Thank you, Kathy. Yeah, I just want to try to build on a couple of the comments on the Crocker farm space study pointed out that Crocker needs some work on ventilation and on space and a few other pieces. So it's an issue of, you know, renovation of Crocker where is it on the list, but the other thing that I thought was the first time we could take a look at it. We've talked about a school that would the new building replacing the other two would be up to 600 students in that and the fifth, the sixth grade potentially moving to the junior high. If we move the sixth grade up, which makes 600 people, what we have to house, Crocker drops to a very small size, because you've moved their sixth grade out so we would have two schools that are even more unequal than we might otherwise have so the issue was do we want to do that or not. And there were some ideas around, you know, doing something with Crocker so I know I'm on the school building committee and we, we asked once, and so far I think have been the answer no you can't. But if we came up with a scheme that here's the new and or renovated building. And here's what we need to do to Crocker. Can we have Crocker be part of the total or does the Crocker part have to be 100% financed by the town but I want to at least have it on the table because you, you're potentially talking about one school with 600 kids and one school with 600 kids, you know, I mean, and just trying to think of with a lot of empty space, I mean Crocker would actually have excess space if we move the kids out and there's room for kids to be moved in and make it somewhat more equal, and it's harder to configure it so that was the one piece and Dorothy asked the question about design. And Steve I can't remember whether this came up in our first meeting but it certainly was asked of the architect during the Crocker meeting. What now with this information, and he said we're all being asked that question. Everyone is being asked that question and we don't have an answer yet, but yes, we have to think completely differently about how a classroom is designed. There are some small breakout areas and they talked about Pelham's grade school as having an example of where you can move from larger to smaller. So I think that will be early on on the, not just Dorsey wanting it to last 100 years, but last, last during a period where we don't know how many of these periods we will have. So the only other thing is on finding out how families are perceiving Wildwood and Fort River. Now that we've done this work that my understanding is they were in those buildings for seven days, and then they are back out. So it's a little premature to ask about the experience with what the schools have done for the buildings but I think it's terrific so if we could keep it on the list, it would be a really good thing. I just want to add I just want to bring Crocker into the perspective of we're just focused on one new school but it has an impact on the other, the one we were all talking about keeping. Mandy chow your hands up. Yeah, I was just going to address the question about Crocker and in Fort River and the split quads and yes Kathy is right kindergarten and first graders and approximately 10% of the rest of the population the high need students have been in the school for exactly seven days and given the agreements between the school committee and the union. There is no path forward to them going back to school for months now into the building so there's there's no way anyone can really analyze how that has how those renovations have worked at all, and I'm not even sure what'll happen when we're out of a pandemic whether they'll change those renovations or not that would be something for the school committee to ask, but they may never get used if they intend to remove them. I just don't know. Thank you. Steve Schreiber you have your hand up. Yeah, so actually I was going to make a comment about the hundred year building which I tend to agree with, but if you have not read this book I think it's probably the most influential book in a generation it's called how buildings learn by steward brand, who may be better for his book the whole earth catalog, but it's a it's a fascinating read and it basically is a description about how you can get to 100 year building so you have to have parts of the building that you expect to only last 10 years another part of the building only expect the last 20 years so you on and on. So it's a basically the buildings are flexible enough to change over time so like the wiring might only be designed to last 20 years. But then the basic bones of the building are that are last much longer than that. So myself, I went to two elementary schools in the same town one was brand new. The other was 60 years old now it's 100 and whatever years old 110 years old, still being used as a public building so it changed from a high school to an elementary school. So it's the town hall but it's the same building so it's the perfect example of the steward brand model of having the bones of the building last very long but then the guts of the building be able to change. I'm not sure if Kathy or others had brought this up but the earliest that will. The elementary school can be occupied in the critical you know if you look at the critical path of all of the things that have to happen is six years that's one thing that we were told that that would be the earliest that there could be an opening of a building. You know under this process. Am I right about that. I think that's one of the numbers of the committee. Yes, we can, we can double check with more as he's the expert on this. So it is a very long deliberate process that that has to go through here. So so one question that I have for is what happens if there's a consolidated assuming that there's a consolidated elementary school on one of the existing sites, where there's already an elementary school whether that before river or what happens to the surplus property so is that something that's used for another time purpose, or is it sold and if it's sold couldn't offset the cost of the elementary school that so that would be a another question that I would love to have a better human. But otherwise I've been taking notes about all of your questions. Right. Kathy you still have your hand up. And also you still have your hand up. I'm going to ask you. My mind's new. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead. Thank you. So since two town counselors have brought up cracker farm in the aspect of what about in terms of both how we would reorganize and redistrict and the excess space that's there. that this is not our first time at the rodeo. And the school committee, the select board, the staff, the previous school building committee, many representative town meeting members understood that this is all one big picture, right? So although the title of the project might be Fort River or Wildwood at any given time, it is about all our elementary school buildings. We will not have substantial excess space in Crocker Farm if we expand early childhood, the way our community has said over and over again, and the way our staff has said over and over again, it would like to do so. We most certainly are capable and have in the past of redistricting. So I don't want us to get bogged down in details that are school committee details. We know they're working on those issues because they did it before, and yes, it's a different group of people, but it's their responsibility to do it again. And so while we should certainly be part of the getting information from the school committee out to our community, because we all struggle, whether we're at the town council or the school committee of doing that, we're not providing insight as to how to manage Crocker Farm. That's the school committee doing that, and it's been done before and it will be done again. So let's not distract ourselves with that. We do need to know, as Steve pointed out, what we would do with an excess building, we already, once again, having been to this rodeo before, have people making assumptions that it will definitely be Wildwood that's decommissioned or it will definitely be Fort River that's decommissioned, and it's way too early to have that conversation, but people need to understand, they need to trust that people are going to be having that conversation as this plays out. So it's an excellent point from the standpoint of messaging. The only thing I would like to add on this particular thing, and this comes straight out of my values, and that is that I hope that the comprehensive plan includes clear pathway to having a robust early education program. I think we would like to move on, given these have been excellent conversations. And the next two conversations are about public works and the fire station. And so I want to just be upfront, you all know this is an area I've spent a great deal of pre-counsel time on. What would you or the future council need to know about either of these projects? I'm just gonna lump them together and then we'll separate them if we have to. Sean, why don't we start with you? Because you have some comments you'd like to make. Yeah, sorry. This is just going back to the school for one second. I checked in with Dr. Morris. I'm sorry. And the earliest, the MSBA building would likely, I think most likely open would be around FY26, maybe FY25 if it went quickly. But FY26 is probably the reasonable estimate. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that update. All right, so let me just give a little background on public works. The public works building is now over a hundred years old. It was originally the trolley barn. If you haven't ever visited it, you should. It has parts of it that I think are the original structure and falling apart. And as somebody pointed out earlier, there are not really friends of DPW out there. It's probably one of the least understood groups of people in town. And yet, if they stopped working today, the complaints would be vast and furious. There has been a schematic, I'm sorry, there has been a initial look at what the possibilities are. That look actually has an extremely robust set of estimates in it. And I think the question that at least has been raised to me, and I certainly raise them, that is could we have a functional DPW facility for a much lower cost than $32 to $33 million? And also, is there a way to advance on the fire station and maybe put DPW around, disperse them throughout town? So as I look at the fire station and this committee, there were two committees I was on for this one. Originally the idea, one of the options was to continue to have central fire station and then either build a substation in South Amherst or to have a central fire station or excuse me, have your headquarters in South Amherst and keep a substation in the center of town. The problem with that plan is that it requires a lot more staffing and a lot more equipment. So when we embarked on the second committee looked at both DPW and the fire station, we were told, and I think it was good advice, don't try to do a three fire station plan, recognize that financially it's just impossible to do three fire stations. So we focused on looking at options for the, if you will, the fire station south of town. Don't say South Amherst fire station, but the fire station south of town. And the bottom line is the DPW site is in fact the best and virtually the only site, because all of the other sites create other problems in terms of access to the main road and thus adding times to the travel. So the questions and the other thing I wanna make sure because in the agenda, I made sure that this was listed as the fire EMS station and headquarters and that is because headquarters for the fire station is downtown. And so once we vacate downtown, we have to have headquarters be somewhere. And so the plan would be that it would be in the south of town. So those are basically it. We all know that there was an attempt to find a wonderful location for DPW and it became quite controversial in Pat's and my district. And thank you Amherst College for coming forth with that offer of land, but it wasn't going to work. And so it was taken off the table. So with those in mind, let's start with DPW and then fire station back and forth is fine. Pat? Yes, I actually wanna combine. One of the things I wanna know is what would the actual cost or projected cost of repairing the current DPW building and what would be the cost of it renovating and repairing the central state firehouse downtown so that at least it's properly insulated, there's clean water and things like that. So what's the minimum that can be done as and that feels very important to me because again, these buildings and the men and women who work there have been waiting and waiting and waiting. And to me, it's a social justice issue. What kind of working conditions people have. And we've ignored maintenance across town as a community, but we've particularly disregarded maintenance of DPW and the fire station. And the other piece for me is it how can the other question is how can we rapidly move DPW around town so that if we're going to use that site that we can start building the fire station there. And the other thing is I remember when we were talking about purchasing Hickory Ridge, the fire chief, if I remember correctly, said that that was the furtherist the station could be and that it had appropriate turnaround space. So I'm trying to wonder, I'm still wondering why we're not looking at that or, you know, so those are things I wanna know. All right, I'm not gonna try to answer any of these. I'm just gonna start recording, Kathy. I would like to know, as I understand the DPW, one of the reasons it's so expensive was when you started out with the cost of it is shocking, especially when I've looked at some other places. The vision, everything in one place, which also required an eight acre lot because there are lots and lots of vehicles. So could it be split into an office building for the people who aren't road crew? So we have engineers, we have various more office-based staff, surveyors and a separate space that, and even with the equipment, some of the equipment is not operated in the winter and others are operated in the winter, but not in the summer. So could we think differently about where we're housing all the vehicles and make one of the buildings? I understand some of the buildings have to be heated because of particular equipment and that they also need a shop because we repair our own buildings. But think much more about segmenting the pieces of DPW, saying, okay, there's the shop and the heated stuff and showers where people need to take showers. So just break it down to smaller pieces. And then with what Pat just asked, if we think that way about it, and I know you answered this once in a public meeting land, but could the DPW current site house the foundation and the offices for DPW staff? So breaking it down to a smaller building kind of for the office. I know it can't have all the equipment. Is there enough space there? Then we're looking for a different kind of land for the equipment. So it's trying to think differently about it. And then I guess last, segueing back to the schools, as Steve pointed out, we will have surplus property. We just don't know which property and could, depending on that decision, either of them be a decent place for an office building and or an office building plus for DPW. So just looking at what we have and Pat just raised Hickory Ridge. So I would have, is Hickory Ridge viable for a new fire station? So I'm just trying to think of not having to buy another piece of land, which is a big expense. And the gift of the one proved untenable, but trying to break it down. So then the last one, this is more on comparables. I asked this and tried to go on both the study commissions on the two to see if we'd had any comparables. And I understand our DPW is different because we've got water and sewer and roads, et cetera. But I found at least one town where the same consultant that did our study, and I'm thinking it was Longmeadow, I sent it through to Andy, but they did comparables for another town as they were thinking of what to build. And it was how many vehicles did they have? Can we get some comparables of other towns that have built a fire station that had the EMT crew and the fire engines in it? Because Hadley's looked so cheap to everybody, but all it's got is fire engines. So we've got a more apple to apple kind of. They had this many things housed in this building recently. So we get some sense of our numbers are way off, our numbers are in the right ballpark, but we can at least get that feeling. And I think the answer is we didn't get that in the studies. So that would be part of the next round of looking at this as an ask. I think that's my list. Great, Evan. Yeah, so I guess my first thing is it would be nice at some point to get an update on where we're at with locating a site for DPW. It's been about a year since we decided not to move forward with the Amherst College site. About that time, I remember asking the town manager what other options were on the table. And there were a couple, none of them were ideal, but there were definitely options. And so I'd be curious to know where we're at because we've been talking about this for a long time. And I know we get really excited about that Amherst College site. It didn't work out for reasons that I'm not sure were ever explained to me, but we've taken that off the table. And so I'd like to know just where we're at. And I know we've been busy. I know we've been dealing with a couple other things. But knowing where we're at, and I think the value of that is not just for me to know, but also to remind folks that this is something we're still moving forward on. Cause I think a lot of folks got really excited when we identified that Amherst College site and then things sort of fizzled off. And I think there's probably a lot of people in the public who went, well, hold on. We had this Amherst College site. We had these listening sessions. And we haven't heard anything since. Are we still committed to this? My second thing is I wanna back up what Kathy said about comparables. And I think this also goes a little bit towards, Alyssa's been a cheerleader for messaging tonight, which I appreciate. And I think that that's important. Steve and I, we had a district meeting probably about a year ago about the capital projects. And we heard the Hadley example. We said, well, how come Hadley built one for 3.5? And so I said, well, you know, it was a substation, it's Hadley, it was smaller, there's fewer things. But I couldn't justify why ours is 10 times the cost, right? I mean, you could say there's just 3.5. Well, we're gonna have EMS, we're gonna have more offices, and maybe you can justify 10 million, right? But 10 times that cost is huge. And I literally could not explain to people why ours would be 10 times the cost of what they just watched go up in Hadley. And so then I started trying to find comparables on my own with my zero experience and expertise in fire stations. And I couldn't find them. I found new fire stations in small towns and big cities being built for 10 million, 15 million. And ours just seemed out of scale. And I need to be able to, whether we go out on a debt exclusion override, whether we borrow for this, I need to be able to explain to people why ours is so much. And I just can't do that right now. And so that's something that I'm gonna need. And I think Kathy's point about comparables is really important in that conversation. Great, thank you. Andy. Well, just to try and stick to questions and not trying to answer questions that we've talked about already. One thing that was brought up a little bit in some of the discussion about dividing functions, for example, DPW across multiple locations, if you're gonna do that, what is the operating impact in the addition to operating costs? Because there are facilities that you can be more efficient producing to produce once. But if you have to have multiple locations in which you have something like showers and whatnot, then you drive up the cost. And if you have multiple people and you can drive extra distances at the conclusion of their work day, what does that do to operating costs? So that kind of question, I think would need to be looked at. The other gets back to discussion that came up earlier about can we sell one of the elementary school properties and generate revenue for that? I think that that needs to be looked at within the context of what we have here. In particular, if the ultimate is to that we can't renovate the downtown station, which I think is gonna be the answer, then that property is the one that becomes surplus. And it potentially would have the greatest value. And we also know that there are people who have been putting forward with good arguments that it should be considered for just renovation for an art center and essentially given away because that will bring value to bringing people into downtown. But those are all important calculus that has to be determined in order to make wise decisions. Because ultimately we may need the value of that property if it's great enough in order to help defray the burden on taxpayers. Okay, thank you. Mandy Jiao. Yeah, many of my questions have already been mentioned including the, do we need a single site for DPW? And I guess one of my questions is, is it possible that we'll never find a single site for DPW? So do we absolutely need to be looking at multiple sites and multiple buildings because there just isn't a single site available? And then the other question that was mentioned was short-term locations for DPW so that we can start building a fine. But I guess one of my bigger questions is we've been talking about these buildings for years and upwards of at least a decade on some of these or more and we all know how bad of a condition they are right now. So I guess one of the questions I wanna know is how many years do we have before these buildings become so structurally unsound that we need to move people out and mothball the buildings without having new buildings even if we don't have new buildings built? Like what's our timeframe for even being able to use the buildings we currently have? I know we're probably on the down on that and there's a limited time there, what's that timeframe and what do we do when that happens? Thank you. Darcy. I just wanted to remind people that one of the big reasons why we are even talking about moving the fire station is because at South Amherst, people who live in deep South Amherst are really far away from the current fire station and that's in the town center. A lot of what the services that we do get are ambulance calls. And so one of the things that has been looked at is could we have an ambulance substation somewhere around the intersection of Pomeroy and 116 just so that that would reduce the time that is needed for ambulance calls to deep South Amherst. So anyway, that is still on people's minds in South Amherst, that's what people, and obviously they would also like to have fire calls be able to be faster too, but the majority of what we need is service for ambulance calls. And the other thing that's sort of related to that is just getting data on how many ambulance calls are responded to directly from ambulances coming back over the bridge. And who then, they don't go down to the main fire department, they come directly down Bay Road to South Amherst. So I'd be interested to know what the data is on that, whether, how much difference it makes whether or not we have something closer if a vast majority of the calls go come directly from ambulances that are already en route. Okay. Steve. So the problem becomes less vaccine if you imagine the renovated or added onto fire station right in the heart of Amherst right where it is now, because then the DPW project can stay where it is now. And I have certainly heard the arguments that moving the fire station just less than a mile down the road is better for South Amherst. But I just, it's hard for me to do the math and see how much better that actually is because it's literally, I mean, that's how far the DPW site is half mile, something like that. But I would love to learn more about the prospect of renovating that particularly capturing the parking lot that's just to the south of the existing fire station and possibly locating whoever parks there which who I believe are firefighters and then the cheese car, et cetera, finding another, you know, I don't know, I'm not going to get into the operation of the fire station but I think that's a project that really should be looked at, you know, I'm not sure how carefully it has been looked at and I would like to know more about that. The other thing is we're in a world of bigger, bigger fire trucks, bigger, bigger ambulances, you know, and I completely understand that. But in Europe and in the, you know, et cetera, that's basically the fire trucks and the ambulances are smaller to fit the context that they're working with much nearer streets. And so I just want to know more about whether or not a solution to the problem might be smaller or more narrow or different kinds of apparatus. So another must read is a book called Suburban Nation. So to add that to your reading list, so Suburban Nation basically talks about the phenomenon of everything getting bigger, bigger in the United States and that leading to suburban sprawl and the phenomenon, they actually talk about the phenomenon of bigger, bigger fire trucks. So anyway, that's my, so the other thing is the DPW, so it's not a given, that's an historic structure, right? So the existing DPW building is an old trolley barn. So it's not a given that the community will rise in support of tearing that down. So I'm not sure that that question has been fully asked whether or not, you know, what the public opinion of that or the historic commission's opinion that that will be. So that would be another question that I would love to see the answer to. Northy, you have your hand up. Okay, so I find it very hard to think that I am getting more conservative with age, but to be conservative means you want to save some things. And we've been told that there's so little property in town that we can't do this and we can't do that. And so I just as a general things feel, I don't want to give away any piece of town property because town property is property that can be used for public good at the direction of the town, whether it be public housing or we hear the senior center feels it needs a larger space. So if we feel we need money so we have to sell public property, then I say cut your budget. Don't spend so much money because when we talk about where we can put things we were told there really isn't much space because we have conservation. So I really want to make a very strong statement that balancing our budget through the sale of public property in this town is not a good idea in my perspective. For any other comments on this project that I want to ask them capital. And this really is something that several of you have brought up around. Does improving our infrastructure remain a top priority for the town when balanced against the decrease in revenue and the operating side of the budget? That's one question. Second, should the uncertainty of the current fiscal situation affect the timing of these projects? And the third one is how does our climate how do our climate action goals pertain to these projects especially surrounding any potential renovation that wouldn't fall under the net zero energy bylaw? And I would ask that you not repeat yourself because for instance, Darcy has already told us that we can expect ECAC to recommend that renovations actually would also need to be at some level energy efficient at least not fossil fuel pool. There is the big question about the elementary school and if we renovate it, how would that go? But it's really focusing now on this as a cluster as a whole. This is a cluster we inherited. I cannot say that more clearly. This, the priority of these four projects has been out there as we all ran for council a year ago, two and a half years ago. And they will remain out there if we don't do anything. And so are we, where are we on as we think about these four projects as a total, not individually? That's why we did the individual thing. Where are we? Well, it's a stunning question, okay? Darcy. Anything we build now should be energy efficient because we've talked about trying to build or to do things that don't have to be done right away. And there's no point in building anything that is not at the most energy efficient that our technology allows us to do at this time. So I think that should be answered there. I just feel we've said again and again the town has not kept up the buildings. Whether we build or whether we repair we have to put things in good state. I'm the daughter of an engineer and whenever I see something that's sloppier that's been let go, it hurts, it hurts. So I just think we have to get our property in decent shape, whether it's new or just renovated and we should do them as energy efficiently as we can which not only will help save the planet but will also save money down the road. Very nicely stated, Dorothy. Kathy. I was just struck by what Steve said about the size of fire trucks and EM and ambulances. So I quickly Googled and there are enormous differences. And one of the issues I always hold about Central Fire Station is the modern US fire region is too long for the building. But if we had a shorter, more compact and the European versions are more energy efficient and they're designed for narrow streets. And they said the reason we went big is because we've got highways. Well, we don't have highways. And then you were saying we have to locate in certain places because our bridges are too low. So I don't think we think outside the box enough and really, and one Michigan went back to an old design because we were ordering custom designed ones and custom drive and they were saying the Europeans 95% roll up a truck in a row for chassis and 50% of ours are custom. So I don't know how much information we get on these basics before we're turning to building. So that's one piece. Then on the four major buildings, Lynn, you're absolutely right. These were inherited and we were hearing about them while running. Since then, the big one that's come on my horizon is the community fields. And one of the things I don't understand about our town is if we think we have a million dollars to spend or two million dollars to spend, why don't we, when someone comes in to give us analysis, say this is our budget? Because they designed a redo of all the fields that's four to $6 million. And then my husband has a running group that has a lot of UMass engineers and some of the people are in sports management and they went out and started pricing outs and they couldn't understand it. So along with the design, why don't we more often use the UMass capacity to give us some quick and dirty that we don't necessarily go first to, I know for a final, we need someone who's actually built some of this stuff but get some option A, Bs and Cs on these because at that price tag, what I heard Doug Slaughter say from the schools is they were gonna go back to square one to figure out what they could do that was cheaper. But it seemed like we paid for this. We know we have to do some things, but I put it as a fifth big project when I'm looking at capital and we heard from parents whose kids can't run on our track because it's dangerous, who kids can't play in our soccer fields because they have holes in them and it has bulges in it, you know, and then beyond that. So I think we need to think about the four biggies but also be thinking of what's the flow going forward. And I know we're just beginning this conversation within this year's and next year's budgets to what else do we really need to do and fitting all these pieces in. So that's my, there's a fifth what I call big and I'm not putting roads on roads like are forever with us, roads and bridges and the other infrastructure that we're not repairing the current. So I, you know, we're talking Monday night about the North Commons, but I will have questions then and I'm gonna send them in advance Dave and Paul so that you'll know what, but it is like we tend to build up a project for all the things it could be rather than start with what do we have to do to fix the problems we're facing and what would that look like? And then, so I think of it as zero-based budgeting, you know, build up to the price of the necessity and then talk about if we wanted to add X, Y and Z it would cost that much more. So that kind of rethinking about the way we price out more costly projects would be really useful to me. You know, you could have it for this but you'll be giving up the following things. And I'm not talking about value design, Steve you talked about how you lose some things on that but I talk about doing at least the minimum. So those were my thought that we sometimes just don't think outside the box because everyone is really busy and who researches other ambulances that we could buy you go back to your same supplier year after year because it's easier, that's where you got them from. So I thought that was kind of shocking when I went on and saw the differences and realized that's why I see an ambulance fitting down an Italian street or a fire engine going down much narrower streets than we've got. Thanks Steve for that insight. So one of the things that I want to build on that Kathy has brought up and it's the issue and I don't, this is not just for other projects which we'll get to if we have time but it's whether or not we should actually just say here is how much you have to build a DPW here is how much you have to build a fire station. And that's all we have, that's it. So in other words, give projects a tap and frankly there are even towns that have done that for schools. We didn't have the opportunity to do that for the library and perhaps we all wish we had. Mandy Jo. I think I support thinking about that. We've got a new form of government where we might be able to do some of that that might not have been possible before because we do have a limited amount of money but I wanted to answer some of the questions that you asked which is for me improving our infrastructure remains a top priority. And so, and that is because you know about every decade something happens to the economy and if every time that happens we say oh we can't do anything until it improves we never fix our buildings. And we've run into that problem it's why we inherited these projects partially. And so no, we need to keep it a top priority in my mind and we also shouldn't delay the timing of these projects because of the fiscal uncertainty. I think that goes to the question asked of maybe we have to give budgets to it and we have to adjust what our expectations of the projects are but we can't keep delaying projects because a recession happens. If we do that we run into buildings that are falling down and might have workers kicked out of them before we have a new building and might not last till we can get a new building. So I think we need to keep it a top priority and we need to keep moving on them too and not delay them. Thank you. Sarah. So I don't wanna make this be repetitive but I just wanted to bring up the fact that I heard during the listening sessions that safety was of the utmost importance to a lot of people. And there were a great many people who came to those listening sessions who actually ranked the fire station and the DPW as their priorities over anything else. And so I'm just bringing that up to maybe encourage I guess all of us to think a little bit more about I think that everything is important. I guess it's what I'm saying but I also feel like even when I was on finance committee which was a bazillion years ago, DPW and fire were something that everybody kept saying it's really urgent. And that was a bazillion years ago. And so if we're talking about moving forward and we're talking about, well, we need to I think, okay, this is what I'm thinking is that maybe when people are we're thinking about projects where we're getting more information I would like to see what people are saying is if you hit a cap, this is how much you have for all four projects, what could people do with it? And then also I would be really interested on some feedback as to what exactly maintenance would be to keep up the things that we're putting money into now. And then five years from now what the maintenance cost would be or maybe like staging it, what could we do from then? So just thinking outside the box what if we did all four gasp and how could we do it? Shalini. One thing that's coming up for me is thinking about how do we integrate our values our priorities into all capital projects? So for example, if climate action if since climate action is an important goal for us but when we are renovating or what do you say when you're building the streets for example not building but repairing the streets why are we not thinking of adding the bike lanes to that if like making it a bikeable walkable city? So is or if social justice is important to us why are we not talking about early education free early education being part of our school building project? So it feels to me that we need to come up with a way of really breaking down each project and making sure that these different lands are being used for the big projects but also the smaller ones like road renovations or whatever. Okay. Darcy. Yeah, I guess to answer the first question about whether we still are committed to the capital projects I guess I've always had a little bit of a problem of putting them out as a package deal and I think that in this climate of COVID-19 and our level budget, level funding that it seems like it wouldn't be horrible to look at it's not, it wouldn't be horrible to look at like what is the least favored project as far as the big flashy projects and do we want to go there when we have so many other really fundamental capital needs aside from the four capital projects and also to just to respond to Sarah's thought about the fact that DPW and FIRE have really been looked at as the safety projects, the projects that go to the safety of our residents that I think is why we've been thinking along the lines of funding those through issuing bonds through our existing capital funds, not so much via override votes and looking more to the school and library as override votes. And so I guess I feel again, as I mentioned before that the timing of this is hard because it feels like the library is probably the lowest priority and I feel like I feel personally like it would be hard to let the library jeopardize funding for the schools and especially after the previous school vote that was so contentious, I wouldn't want to take responsibility for setting up the conditions for shooting down the next school proposal. So I guess I'm looking at it as a whole and that all these proposals are not equal and that we should be considering that. Okay, Andy. So I guess getting to the first question that you asked to start with, we came up with four projects for all very good and very different reasons. And it wasn't a question of whether we thought that all of them could or should be done at the same time or that we had a specific plan for dealing with each or any of the projects, but that we were committed to doing something to address the problems that exist in the two elementary schools in particular. Secondly, that we would be looking at the library and recognizing that there is an aging building in the building that can't provide the services that a modern library really needs. It's that library for the 21st century. It was built as a library for the 20th century and we all know the problems in the other two buildings. So it was a general question, not a specific. I think we also have to recognize that we cannot afford to do these without taking advantage of grant opportunities and that the grant opportunities aren't things that we can control. And so we have to make a decision that once the grant comes along in a cycle that you're gonna grab that opportunity or not. And that's particularly true of the library because the library, they really only do allow people to ask to be in the process about once every 10 years and it depends upon funding availability. You're talking about a long period of time before it'll come back up again if we turn down and may never come back up again. So we really have to look at it. It's either we seize the grant opportunity or we don't. Another thing that I've been thinking about as we're trying to look at all of this is that we really need to be thinking about and I said it before, operating costs. And as we talk about some of the very important things that we value and would love to have in our community, it's not just coming up with the physical structure which you have to be able to operate it. You can't have a daycare program just by building a facility that has daycare space or a pre-K space. You gotta be able to figure out how you're gonna fund it. And you need to look at the total cost of all of these things. Comment was made, for example, about complete streets and building, when we rebuild streets, make sure that they're large enough that we can handle the variety of transportation that's needed. Frankly, that involves buying a lot more land because you may have to widen the right of way to do that but it's certainly something that should be looked at. So these are complicated questions and I would hate to see us get so tied up in the complexity of answering all of those questions that we get frozen into the position of never doing anything because we're examining things to death until next council comes along and then the next council will examine everything to death until the next council comes along and nothing will ever happen. Okay, thank you. Shalini, I don't know if your hand is still up from before. I think the other thing is that it feels like, I mean, the elephant in the room for me is like the library that people, there's a sense that library is a luxury and that's the first one to be slashed or not or just. But I think the question, I think for me it's a little confusing because there's no real data or criteria for figuring out that the actual users, again, in our town, who are the most vulnerable people who can't afford and absolutely need and are relying on these services that an expanded library is gonna provide? And so because we tend to hear from, again, more privileged people who have access to these meetings and they might have other ways of getting those services and for them, the library just the way it is is fine. For me, it's totally fine the way it is. But again, it's not us who are important here but so is there a way to figure out who are the most vulnerable population who are absolutely relying on these kind of services? And if we could have that information, I think that would get us all on board more easily rather than speculating. And it feels like we don't really have the clear criteria upon which we're making these decisions. All right, let me just suggest the following. Oh, Steve, you have your hand up. Go ahead. You know, Shalini just said every, said it really well that the library really serves the largest population of the library are the people that don't necessarily get involved, don't come to our meetings. In part, maybe they don't have access to our meetings because they don't have access to a library and therefore can't, et cetera, et cetera. And I do not agree with the statement that it's a luxury or a low priority or whatever. For me, it's tie for highest priority. So it also was said that there are no donors. I mean, there are no donors for the DPW building, no donors for the fire station, totally agree with that. But there also is no state board of fire station commissioners or state board of DPW commissioners that give these incentive projects to improve schools and libraries. And it's absolutely true that this is a once in a generation opportunity for both the elementary school and for the library. Okay, so we are almost to the end of the time for our retreat. And so I'm going to suggest that with regard to item C on our agenda, which was the original items that I did the polling on, that I will go back and look at that. Some, in a number of instances, people have assigned those projects and said, gee, that should just be referred to. PSO, the GOL or whatever. And in other instances, there's really not a lot of interest or in some cases they don't feel it's pressing. So if it is acceptable to the group, I will take that group and come up with a list that's more concise and suggests referral and bring it back for a council meeting. And what I would like to do, and this is very tough to do in a Zoom environment, but I'd like us to use brainstorming, okay? And try to address number two on our agenda, which is any other projects out there that would be considered capital. And it's not, I don't want a lot of, tell me why you think this is important. I just want you to say, I think this is important, okay? Dorothy. Three townwide broadband internet or municipally controlled internet where we would control the price and then we could provide it more accurately to people in the town, okay? Others? Marcy. Well, there are going to be some proposals for potential capital expenditures in the climate action planning coming forward. So, as I mentioned at the meeting on Monday, I'm hoping that we're not going to be moving back to the old normal, that we are thinking of reorganizing and reprioritizing and thinking of new ways to reorganize our town expenditures and money, whether it's moving policing money or whether it's different capital ways to spend money like Steve was suggesting, look at smaller fire engines or, you know, there's just a lot of ways that we can use this COVID-19 era to start rethinking the way we're doing things. I'm trying to stick to the brainstorming because we're going to end early if at all possible. Mandy Jo. Yeah, so two of them I think have been mentioned already, the athletic fields in North Common to me are some that are priorities of the ones we've heard about. Okay. Andy. Two possibilities to be thinking about some sort of recreation center and senior center. Okay. Pat. I would like to see the creation of a permanent shelter in Amherst. I think that the staff and residents have done a good job to get us through this winter. And I think that it's something that we really need to look at is to really create housing for our homeless presidents. Melanie. Yeah, I would second Pat on that. And I was thinking of things that bring community together like a performance or music and some kind of performance space. Okay. And Alyssa. We need a public restroom downtown. We missed an opportunity with Kendrick. We absolutely need to have a freestanding not attached to a building public restroom downtown. So already mentioned by Kathy and Mandy by just third in it, I guess, community field. Related to that, we've invested in Kendrick Park. We've invested now in Groff Park. I'd like to see us look where we can invest in other parks, specifically Kiwanis Field, which serves a neighborhood that I think is often forgotten about in our community. North Common and I want to second Alyssa's public restroom downtown. Everybody has spoken once. R.C. you still have your hand up. Yeah, I'm sorry. I forgot some other things. I just wanted to specifically mention the resident capital request for a solar study and the possibility of solar canopies at the middle and high school. And, you know, what Crocker Farm potential expenditures and if the sixth grade is moving to the middle school potentially renovations that might be necessary for that move. Internal types of renovations. Water. Evan, you still have your hand up. Dallani, you have your hand up. Did anyone mention early learning center school? Pre-K. Okay. Pre-K. Mandy Jo. I'm going to third the public restroom in downtown. And I want us to think about with what Shalini just mentioned about an early learning center and what Andy mentioned about a recreation center and senior center is whether those could be combined if we start moving forward with that. I think we need to start having buildings that have multiple uses. And I've seen in other parts of the country places where recreation centers and senior centers and early learning centers have been successfully combined into the same facility so that differing populations of residents can use the same facilities and we get more use out of them. At the Angeles. Yes. When the first people's assembly, one of their top priorities was the creation of a cultural center for the BIPOC community. And I think that's totally possible. And some of the buildings, something like the old Hitchcock Center could easily become a cultural center if the town worked on it and promoted it and maintained it. Dorothy. Talking about don't sell town land. If we have a school that is not being used as a school, that's a perfect place to have the senior center the recreation center and which includes could include BIPOC cultural center. Perfect place. Okay. Kathy Shane. I just want to build on the idea of co-locating senior and early learning, but not just to think of it's efficient to have them in the same building, but at the place I worked at early on for multiple years, especially Scandinavia, co-located senior and early learning because the seniors became mentors to the kids and having young children around brought back a sense of life and learning. So you're getting synergy around the programs. It's not just that one has one room and one has another and really brought people out to do activities, including just reading stories, doing the kinds of things that seniors who don't have their grandchildren living in town would come down to do. So there's something. And the people who looked at that, it kept people out of falling down in their homes. It felt keep people out of nursing homes. It kept people out of assisted living. So the bigger public budget where fortunately we don't pay for that was enhanced by trying to think of co-location. So I just would put, want to be thinking about, you get something much more than what you're probably thinking about if we could get them in a similar place. In the spirit of brainstorming, any other ideas you want to put on this extensive list? But great wish list, wonderful wish list. Are there any parting comments for our meeting today? Mandy Jo. I just want to thank Lynn. I wasn't sure how a retreat on Zoom would go. And I think Lynn did a great job running this and making it happen better than I thought it could be. Thank you. Shalini. I was just going to recommend a brainstorming tool if Paul in town or if you ever have future retreats like this, it's called Mural. It's mural.co and you can actually do sticky notes and bring them to move them around and then do anonymous voting with dots and all of that. And so that's part of the human-centered design tool that's and it's very affordable. Thank you. Yeah. I'm curious. Well, I just wanted to say thank you, Lynn. I had dreaded today. I do not want to come. I have been feeling more and more out of step with the council and not feeling listened to and feeling that we were caught in a rigid pattern where we were just going to keep marching forward. And it is very good to see. I think you ran a great meeting and I prefer this to sticky cards on a board. Okay. That to hear from my fellow counselors and to realize that we do think more alike than I had gotten the feeling of it at many of our recent meetings. So thank you. Thank you very much. Good. Kathy. So we're going to keep praising you, Lynn, but I want to also, you know, when I saw the list of potential topics and a lot of them were process of the council, I am so glad we took the meeting. I have about five pages, six pages of notes that people had ideas and thoughts on each of these. So I recommend thinking of retreats like this where we're grappling with something really meaty. We're not having to make a decision. We're putting on what we do know and what we don't know and sharing. And Alyssa, I am listening to you that you're expecting regular reports from. No, but I think that's good. I think that notion of what's going to be happening in that building committee for the school should be reported up to the council but we're reported out to the town as often as possible around key decisions before they're made. So this to me feeds into we should know more because I think we have really hard choices we have to make. And I would like us to at least be informed we made those choices rather than have an impression of something. So I just can't thank you enough for carving this topic out and everybody for coming prepared with great questions. I thought it was excellent. I have to go get a new pen for all the writing I've done of all the questions. I just want to thank you, enjoy your Saturday evening. And I want to thank our staff and all that have been with us throughout this. I'm sure at this point that it's been and you're going, oh my God, I can't believe that they've won all this. But here we are. We are the town of Amherst Town Council. Have a nice evening. Thank you. Thank you.