 Okay, we're now recording. Good afternoon. This is the March 10th meeting of the joint capital planning committee. And my first order of business as chair is to make sure all members of the committee can hear and be heard. And I see everyone is actually here today. So I'm just going to go around the screen. And call up names Mandy. Alex. Yes. Farah. Yeah. Anna. Present. Her. Present. And Jennifer. And I'm, I will, as chair, I'm going to turn it over to Sean, but I, I just, in case people don't know, Mandy, Kathy, and Anna are all members of the council. Alex and for our, our here from the library as library trustees and Jennifer and her over here from the school committee. So that's the, the six person composition of the PCPC. So Sean, we're ready to go. I'm a little concerned because I don't think we've had a single attendee this, like entire process which I think the, I think the link works because a lot of people are coming in that way but I don't know why we've got to bring my masses of Middle Street people. I have not told them. The board of health is meeting. That's about masking tonight. Okay, maybe that's where people are. People might be there. So we have a few more departments tonight and that will wrap up our department review phase of JCPC. And then next week we will dig into the sort of the heart of the issue which is developing a recommendation. So tonight we have recreation planning and conservation, and then school facilities. And Ray harp our recreation director is here and he's going to go over his projects. You want to go ahead Ray. Thanks Sean. I am. This is my first time through this process will bear with me. The, I believe the three projects that are on the table for us and recreation are two pieces of golf equipment and signage. I suppose I could briefly describe the signage first I think that's one that has been one of the first things that was brought to my attention on my touring. When I was being on boarded over here and recreation. It's a, I think it's a need for our for many of our external recreation areas. Mill River North Amherst in particular Mill River and the golf course, especially. There's, there's some demand slash desire to get out and do some branding to get out there and inform people as to where our resources are. I believe that that is that's something that I have to be honest I've gotten lost probably about three or four times and I know where I'm going I can't imagine what, what other people are doing themselves. It's very difficult it's a difficult turn both Cherry Hill and Mill River in particular are pretty difficult sort of nooks off of the North Amherst. We don't have any signage at at Mill River that is outside of the outside of the recreation area that really draws any attention or claims to space we don't have any signage no, no. There's there's no recreation branding there. I don't know who know it know where it is and know what it's supposed to be but I think we can do a lot better with that so that's the reason why that is. It's been encouraged for me to, to make a point of that by town by members of town hall by our department by users of our department. It's been a major issue for a lot of people as we go through. I can answer any specific questions about that as we go along. Do you answer questions about that now or should I look at the other ones I introduced the golf equipment. I guess you could do questions now because it's that one so much different than the other two which are very similar. Are there any questions on signage. I'm not seeing any hands but I have on a go ahead. I'm sorry. You said that I believe I'm refreshing here. You said this is going to be consistent with the town design standards is that is that matching the signs that are going up on conservation areas the new like white sign with yep. Yes, yes. The more recent ones, if I'm to understand correctly the more recent ones the Kendrick Park signage is is up to a me it looks like a different era of Amherst. And so I'm assuming that that the same things that that make it consistent with some of the graph signage with some of. I'm assuming that that's all. Yeah, I wasn't sure if you were trying to do different ones for recreation versus conservation versus technical thank you. It was more that was more curiosity so I appreciate you answering it. My question was, we've, we voted some money for way found fair finding signs, particularly coming out of town they weren't necessarily I actually live just north of Cherry Hill and Mill River. I sometimes miss the middle of return when I'm going south, because there isn't anything that says here you are, but would we also because I've been stopped downtown coming out of the roundabout saying how do I get to. And correct. The, the signage to say you are at Mill River turn here or you're at Cherry Hill. Would you be doing something further to the south to, to say this this way to these or similarly to go downtown, you know to go to growth park to go. Yeah. Yes, the answer the answer there is yes I know that like you mass has the Cherry Hill signs you know you mass has some way finding Cherry Hill signs Cherry Hill two miles down the road here. Especially because there's that. I don't know the origins of why that came in college kids play there. I was going to say I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that we did somehow we establish a relationship with the colleges to say we want to try and send them in the direction where we're going. I don't know. I don't know if I don't know what to what extent like puffers pond has has way finding signs I don't know to what to what extent. You know, other sort of local landmarks that the college kids or first generation Amherst residents would be looking for. Yeah, I do believe that some way finding maps would be important for us, I lived here for 11 years before I, before I moved away as a student and beyond and a bunch of the things that I'm familiar with now are just becoming familiar to me now because I went through a touring process and got outside of the college area got outside the downtown area. So I was here as a as a student and a young graduate and didn't know graph didn't know and I drove by graph a bunch. I didn't know graph didn't know what you know. I didn't know. I kind of knew where Mill River was but I didn't really ever get over there I think there's a large number of Amherst is sort of a transit community I think there's a large number of Amherst that could use the directionals. Chris. So I apologize to Ray for breaking in on his time but we do have a way finding sign project that is working its way through. And it includes signs for the downtown either pointing to the downtown or when you're in the downtown pointing out to various locations and some of the locations that Ray was describing are in that system we have these post signs with directionals and they point to things like Mill River and Cherry Hill and points north so anyway we'll keep Ray informed about that but that is. Thank you that system. That's, that's very helpful for me thank you. Any other sign questions Mandy, did your hand go up and then come down. Yeah, it did it's more of a general question so I'll wait till after vehicles. Okay, okay we're ready for the next. And then for the vehicles, the, there are two requests in for vehicles that are situated up at Cherry Hill. The rough moor is a is a rough moor in order the most important is the rough moor they're both of of functional importance of pretty high functional importance for for us at Cherry Hill but the rough dresser I mean the rough moor is the one that that we are most in need of because what we've been using was repurposed like a lot of the material there, it was repurposed. Basically the machine wasn't designed to, to, for the purpose that we're using it and it's already well beyond its, its life expectancy. This would allow us to use a rough moor is designed for mowing the rough and put the other one that we've been using into a vastly reduced capacity to, to, you know, we can still use it and take some of the where off of the new types of equipment but this is, it's the most, it's the most used moor on the, on the golf course. It is, it's the one that, that, you know, maintenance that our superintendent has been asking for for two or three years because it's, I know that it's been the life expectancy of the other one has been has been dwindling we've been getting as much as we could get out of that. The golf course is beautiful so I feel hard. It's, it, it almost feels like I'm, I'm arguing against the vision of what we have here the golf course has been, has been kept beautiful over the course of this time but I think it definitely is something that is, is against, I can't imagine that going through another year with with sort of sort of the gorilla maintenance that they've been going through up there I can't imagine that we can expect that without some major upkeep on the on the mower that rough mower is is definitely the the equipment piece of equipment that's in the roughest shape and is has the least likely it's at least it's the least likely to make it through the full year without some major repairs on it. The, the, the utility vehicle and top dresser is similar. We've been using basically what a utility vehicle does is it basically allows you quickly and efficiently to get materials to get see to get to get heavy equipment around the golf course. We've been using there has also been repurposed and it's also has been on our list for a little while and necessarily we've we've been, we've been asked to sort of sort of make do. We went through budget issues in the past I don't know if that if that will be possible for the coming year here also for the utility vehicle top dresser is is it basically puts it treats the the short grass it treats it treats the, I don't know it's basically disperses seed around around a wide amount of of land and a sort of efficient short short time. Those two are partners are their it's partner equipment that I think basically again with a with a life expectancy of what we're using up there it becomes it becomes something that will have to be replaced. Maybe this year, perhaps, perhaps through the next year. I mean, it isn't it is an issue that we're going to have to deal with questions Mandy. There's a question that isn't really about whether these need replaced it's more of when we purchased or signed the purchase and sale for hickory Ridge did we also purchase their equipment or was it just a land purchase, such that when that finally goes through will we would be receiving their golf course equipment to make sure we don't know the answer to that I don't I don't know the I do not know the answer to that Dave's he'll be on and he'll be on it a little bit for conservation so we can follow with him he'll know for sure that is that is actually a terrific question I don't know why that hasn't hasn't come up in our conversations I've talked to Dave about it a few times that hasn't come up in our conversations but that is worth looking at honor. So, and again, and I don't know Ray at this is as much as the question for you or it is for Sean, as it is for Sean. I mean we've got like $100,000 worth of mowers on our on our list between the three this year. And so the rough mower. I'm admittedly not a good golfer and I've gone like twice in my life. So the rough mower is not something that's like, none of these mowers can be shared right so Sean we're looking at a forestry mower, a scag mower and a rough mower, and they can't do double none of these can do double duty nor can the two parks has another one and highway has another one. So, none of these can overlap and support each other. I don't believe so I mean I think they're pretty specialized and Ray, you can correct me if I'm wrong I think they will use that rough mower. You know, if not every day every other day or very rough more gets a lot of use. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so yeah part one was how often part two was, can they ever. Alright, thanks. More about it was a hopeful question. Yeah, no, it's a, and it's something we can check in McGill for two but I guess would be it'd be difficult. Make sense. Thanks. Thank you for the question. So, I think that I am channeling Larry Kelly here. Who, for years, ran didn't rave about the cherry hill golf course. And so there's been some mission creep here where before we when this deal came down. Cherry Hill was going to be self sufficient. The user fees, etc, when supported. But however, over the years, what has happened in this particular presentation demonstrates it. It is now become an official Amherst department under recreation. And I just want us to remember that it's supposed to be self sufficient and town funds were not geared to be expended upon. But here we are, and we're doing it. Kathy, can I respond to that quickly or right you want to go ahead. I can try I think you'd be a better expert this I mean I would love to answer the question. And I know it was more sort of a general observation than it was a question for what we're doing. I was, I think I've been preparing for the for the for the Larry Kelly angle here for the last couple months I, I, I've heard plenty about about our relationship with the golf course I've heard plenty about about our relationship Larry when when he was sort of sort of in the seat of sort of challenging stuff. I know my, my perspective from the seat where I sit is that is that it is an asset to the town I don't know about the should or shouldn't. I've been asked very recently I was asked very early in my time here is should the town be in the business of running a golf course. And when the town decides that's not something that we should be doing then my, my intention has been before I let Sean answer the question with the historical background or anybody else can offer some historical background. My intention with this and our commitment has been to make sure that when the town makes a makes a move with it. If they ever decide that this is something that we don't want to have on our plate anymore, that it is in the best possible situation to to to be capable for the town to move it. And so a large part of what my fall has been has been an examining what those the fee structure is there so we can raise revenue and and help the town out is trying to make sure that if, if it is a situation that is tenable I want to make sure that if somebody can come in and buy I know the Hickory Ridge is sort of a is is a is another situation that kind of echoes in this situation that echoes where we are right now but if we are going to make a decision on it in the future I want to make sure that that the golf club, the golf course is is dressed up in a way that that allows the town to make it worth its while. And so, when I put in requests for it, I knew that this question would come up. The one thing the one thing that I told myself I didn't want to do with the capital request was to ignore it, because it might not be something that we want to do in the future. I think that my intention with your help of course, my goal is to is to keep it beautiful is to is to really examine the way we can raise some revenue and make the town decide whether or not it's it's possible but I want to at least give it a chance to be possible that the town would say this is something that helps us out. There's a lot that I don't, there's a lot of it that I don't know about it is a lot of the history I don't know about it there's, there's, there's pieces of this that I'm stepping in and just saying well this is pretty cool, I get a chance to run a golf club. I've never thought I'd be that in that position before I may have golfed a couple times more than Anna, but, but I'm running a golf course right now, and, and that's exciting for me. So I'll just add earlier points a good one which I think this is a year where a discussion about the commitment to continuing golf at Cherry Hill is a conversation we need to have because it is such a large investment. You know, once we buy this machines it's sort of indicating that we want to stay in that realm for a while. And there's some other capital projects coming up in the next couple years as well for Cherry Hill. So I think that's a good conversation for JCPC to have. What I'd like to consider is that Cherry Hills had a couple of its best years or, or at least in recent history a couple of its best years the last couple years. FY 21 was really good. It either broke even from an operational perspective not including capital but, or was very close to breaking even I don't know what the exact number was. So this year through the first two quarters of the year. It's up compared to pre COVID years so, so it is doing better and I think what we talked about last time this came up was, we don't know if it's going to be doing better permanently going forward because Hickory Ridge closed and now there's just Cherry Hills the only game in town besides Amherst Amherst golf course, or if it's still COVID that's driving people there. I will say just from a financial perspective, the golf course has been doing better in the last couple years. And we're in position to counts on that sees that also we've, we've put a lot of our of our programming capital into trying to make sure that we don't lose that momentum. Just remember that in finance it's not only what is happening right now in terms of your debits and pluses, but also what is what has been happening in the past and relationship to incoming revenue and do those things add up into a positive or a negative. Obviously, I would argue that it obviously does not add up to a positive. And I think if we went back over all the numbers you would find that. But the question remains and it has to, at some point, and I would think sooner than later that the town has to decide whether it wants to be in the golf course business that decision has to be made. Somewhere or another, the town cannot be permanently put in a position of saying, well, we don't know, but yet we keep paying for if your efforts. If it's if you keep paying for something, and you haven't made a decision that means you have made a decision because you continue to pay for it. Anyway, I guess what I want to say is that the town needs to sooner rather than later, make a decision on this, and just bite the bullet and say, hey, we want to be in the golf business. We want to be in the golf course business, or no we do not. But don't, we can't keep setting on events here. Jennifer. Yeah, and you said that in the past year or two, the golf course has been doing better, and it has been breaking even or close to breaking even, which says to me that like in past years it wasn't breaking even. It's not right. So that to me that weren't if we're not breaking at least breaking even we're not in the golf business, we're in the business of subsidizing people's golf experience. So that's very concerning to me and I thank you, I thank you to her for bringing this up. I, are there other recreational activities that we subsidize to that extent like when like swimming do we do we take I mean I guess I don't know how this works like are there other recreational activities where we don't take in enough to cover the expenses of the of the recreation and therefore we subsidize that it just I've never played golf. And so I, it doesn't, it that just that doesn't sit well with me. Yeah, no I think it's certainly on an activity by activity basis but there's certainly other activities in town where the fees that are raised do not cover the cost of that activity so I think there's a lot of considerations with that land and I don't know if Dave is here and wants to weigh in on I believe there's some restrictions on what that property can be used for. Which just adds to the conversation in terms of if we weren't going to do golf there what else can we do. Dave do you want to add a couple fill that in. I apologize for being late, and I didn't I only caught the last comments by Jennifer. So happy to answer other questions about the property if I can, but to Sean's point, just to fill out. So, so the property was purchased many many years ago I think it predates probably everybody on the call working in local government and certainly me to, but it was purchased using state and federal grant funds. So it does come with restrictions so the property is not unencumbered it is it is quite encumbered. So, so that means that we do not have to continue a golf operation on the on the property, but we cannot basically liquidate that asset very easily. We would have to go through a very cumbersome state process to sell the land or develop the land or to use it for something else like housing or or some some other non open space recreation activity. So I think that's what you were referring to Sean. Yeah. But it does not mean that we have to have a golf operation I want to be clear about that the grants said we we when we went for the grants at the state and other and federal level. It was for recreation and open space. So golf falls under that category. For many other things as Ray probably said for hiking and and and sledding and birdwatching and all those other things winterfest happens there and all of that. Dave one other quick golf question that came up earlier. In purchasing Hickory Ridge. Was there any transfer of golf equipment as part of that purchase or did all of that stay with the previous owner. Very good question. Originally yes I remember years ago when when Hickory Ridge the first conversation started, we did we did approach them about the possibility of them giving us some of the golf equipment. Personally for us they own I think a dozen other golf courses in New York and New Jersey. So they immediately you know when they decided note to no longer operate a golf course they move those all to their other properties. So I did try, but it was for not. Mandy. Thank you for that answer Dave because I'm the one that asked that question but I don't have any other questions about the golf thing so if Kathy and Irv are still on golf course I'm happy to wait until that conversations over to ask mine. Okay, I'll just, I'll just make a couple comments on one. One of it was actually a question, a couple other golf courses have gone belly up, not just Hickory Ridge the one over in North Hampton did so, similar to Mandy's that Hickory Ridge, but bigger. Is there a used golf equipment market out there that we could tap into that weren't part of these big mega complexes Dave, you know and I just don't know whether we explored where the mowers went and where the reference. So it's a question I don't need an answer on it. But my observation on the golf course is a the swimming pools don't make money either. So this is a question of, do we want to offer this as a recreation golf, and if you go out there what's been interesting and it may be a coven phenomenon is the age range and the sex range and the age range is a lot more diverse than it used to be their kids out there of all sizes and shapes the high school. You know people who literally can't hit the golf ball or over there, you know swinging away at it, because it's good outdoor activity, when it's golf season, and they get they get to play when they're on the course when others aren't so not the weekend players, a lot of women, college age women but, and it's pretty diverse. So, aside from golf Dave already mentioned what I was going to, I live near there so I get to see it. So what I think is that piece of land is used constantly scares hikers the cross country trail and the fact that it's kept in good condition with those hills. As a golf course makes it an amazing place in the wintertime, you know, because you're not skiing through briars so I think we have an asset, we may not be in the golf business, we may be in the recreation business, and it happens to have these little golf balls and balls. So that that was just the comment I was going to make and the other thing I want to do is, we do an Easter egg hunt called golf ball hunting. And I've been meaning to bring our car down to you, because we have maybe 500 golf balls we can donate that have been washed and cleaned, where people knock them into the woods. And that's something we've done for 20 or 30 years collect golf balls. So, I mean people are donating equipment so that people can come and not have to buy their own golf clubs by their own balls. So it's, it is an asset for the town whether we're in the business, or we're just in the recreation business. That was my comment. And then I see her, Jennifer and Anna. Yeah. If the town as at the town. So wishes, it can do exactly what you just said Kathy is say this is a recreation asset. And take the name of Cherry Hill golf course offer there. And the town then would be making the statement. As of now the stamp town has not made a statement to say this is the Cherry Hill recreation facility for the town of Amherst, rather than the Cherry Hill golf course. What's before us is not the Cherry Hill recreation center, but the Cherry Hill golf course. And that needs to be rectified. I think sooner than later. And I think Kathy with your points are well taken. And so the town council or whatever process we need to go go through. We need to say and say very clearly that this is an asset a recreation asset. The Cherry Hill recreation asset is a part of this town and drop the word golf from it. That would be delivered. It would be intentional. The town council would be the place to start with that. And it needs to make that statement sooner rather than later. So I'm not sure the order I'm going to call on. Let's see, I guess for for all is has not spoken to this yet so maybe I'll call on you and then come back to everyone else who's spoken is that okay with people. Just to kind of piggyback on what earth was saying but if we were talking about the space as a recreation space. Could we not offer it to the schools as a space to use like putting golfers at the high school or in the winter for skiing, because I know there's a fee with you go golfing there right. Right now but could we offer it to the schools for winter for certain activities and then for summer for other stuff and go from there that seems like that would be in a man not charge the schools or the students. Is that a possibility. Just throwing it out there in terms of recreation and how we could use it for our town. In terms of in terms of school use and tell you that we've had as many as two different teams using the high school teams that use the course in the past frontier still uses it frontier regional high school uses it as they're basically a home site for for school golf. The first doesn't use it anymore I think partially because of the, the, the sort of sort of running into frontier and running it, which there was a longer relationship with frontiers program. So the schools have used the cherry hill before. We're in North Hampton now is where is where the high school golf club is and I don't think it's as many people as they've had in the past. We have been looking at ways to try and to try and keep the place active in the winter time that's been another thing that I've been looking at for the last couple months. And it deals with our efficiency of keeping the clubhouse open on on winter months because it is we shut it down and there's no heat inside the building so anything that happens there is is a recreation like, like the cross country skiing that they do a great job of grooming the trails and, and they have a lot of participation out there, the schools could be involved in that I suppose but I haven't looked at that. So, Mandy Jennifer and Anna. I'm still not on golf so anyone with golf should go before me. Okay, Jennifer are you on golf. So these are some great. These are some great ideas and I love the idea of broadening the usage of the golf course. So the way I look at it. The choices are not keep as we've been doing or no more golf and sell the property and get rid of it. Like, my question is, how can we turn this into a profit center, or at least into something that breaks even instead of something that breaks even on a regular basis something that we intend to break even instead of something that actually takes from our resources. It's my opinion that no top tax dollars should be used to subsidize golf. Unless it's to like subsidize reduced cost or free lessons to people who have been underrepresented in golf that that and that would be a great investment to create more golfers in town who then use the course, like how often and to what extent do we raise, whatever it's called greens fees or fees for individuals to play golf and can we turn this into something that benefits the town, not something that take, you know, takes resources from the town. And as for the swimming pools I feel like there's a difference because there's there's a relatively high bar to participate in golf, you have to have the equipment maybe or you maybe you can read the equipment but you have to have some knowledge or maybe you have to have just, I don't know the golf mindset maybe I'm biased because I think of golf as something that sort of like skews towards more resource people, whereas for a swimming pool like you don't even need to know how to swim to go to a swimming pool so those are just some ideas I'm glad we're talking about this and I would love to see some creative ways to beef up the revenue possibilities for the golf course. I don't know if Dave wants to respond to anything before I am on golf. Okay, so I feel like I'm a little worried that we have like exited our lane, pretty aggressively. And I want to pull us back to our lane which is mowers. And that's not to say that talking about Cherry Hill isn't important and relevant to our capital planning, but realistically if we are saying like we have we have thrown some very big ideas out there that our community would need to know about like these are not quick simple things and I'm really, I'm getting feeling a little bit of like angst that we're, we're talking about them a little bit at length. And so I think that, you know, if folks are really concerned about Cherry Hill generally. That's fine that's great I think there's validity to that and maybe it makes sense to then suggest finance look at it, you know, like the finance committee look at it or have Dave come back and do a longer Dave and Sean do a longer report or something like that. But I just, I kind of want to refocus us a little bit because it's not that it's not relevant to the capital plan, but what's in front of us right now is a mower. And that's, that's where my head is at. I just, yeah, thank you. And just to piggyback up what Anna said, finance will be looking at Cherry Hill as part of the budget process in May there's a, they'll dig into the expenses and revenues for Cherry Hill. And on a next week we're going to talk about the report on the draft of the report so we can put a couple sentences about this you know on a focus on the mower first but say they're a larger, a different larger question came up and we can write a sentence or two. I mean we can figure out how we want to phrase it. Yeah, I think that would be appropriate. Okay. Dave, are you on golf. Thank you and I'll be brief. I know I really appreciate all of the comments that that I've heard since I joined the meeting and Anna in particular you bringing us all back and maybe pointing in a direction of of of finance looking at the broader pictures. I do just want to mention for years. I've been involved in this very conversation and actually, and when when Ray started, you know, we had some pretty lengthy conversations about the future of Cherry Hill so I think, you know, I know for one, having been with the town a while and you know, I think Ray and I would welcome, you know, looking a little deeper with Sean and with the town manager and again, we've had conversations with Paul about kind of the future of of golf at Cherry Hill is that something that we want to be in the business of doing. I will say I give great credit to to bar bills for years doing the very best she could and really doing a tremendous job on the golf side of things at Cherry Hill, and bringing in as much money as possible but I agree with with Jennifer in that, you know, we have tried very very hard to to to make it be an an income generating property, and I think people have done some amazing things there I'm just not sure with golf as the anchor, whether we can do that and I think that's one of the fundamental questions that the curve was raising and Jennifer you've brought forward as well so I think we'd be happy to look at that and maybe in the broader context of the Finance Committee and the Council in general so one last point I will make more housing in North Amherst more residents in North Amherst Cherry Hill we will be is and will continue to be an incredible asset for North Amherst. We know North Amherst is growing it has grown over the past couple of years. There will be more and more people living there working there and, and, and so that community is going to see more people. So I just would put a plug in Cherry Hill will be an important part of that future I think. I just Mandy I will call on you and her but we need to do a time check because we have a hard stop at seven o'clock tonight so. Maybe we can make sure we come back if there's some tail ends of this to talk about next week for the report, but just, you know, and Ray said he came prepared to have this conversation where you got it. So I'm just thinking can maybe we can ramp up on the golf and and Mandy you said you weren't on golf and not so I'll go to you now. Hopefully it's a quick question. I noticed that both War Memorial and Mill River were on the out years for funds regarding playgrounds I'm hoping that we're going to be applying for park grants and CPA money, you know, for them. So my question is really around War Memorial and a playground there since we just got the Kendrick Park playground which is fantastic and really being used. Is there a conversation about doing something other than a playground that is recreation focused at War Memorial, particularly the possibility of some sort of mini skate park or something else that older kids. There's still high school crowd that can walk to that area might be interested in instead of a playground that kind of mirrors what's already at Kendrick Park now. Ray do you want to respond. I can say that we, we've been looking at a bunch of different options I think more more than anything with that that's a, that's a great question. But it's a separate conversation about doing a skate park about doing something like that. Right took the job skate park was one of the first things that people said, well, if you get in there and do this, let's talk about skate park. That was separate from our, my conversation about war I think a large part of the war. redesign project is revolves around the fact that what they have there has to be redone. They have there is probably unsafe, but it certainly is unsightly it's not used it's basically in disrepair. So we have to transform that space, the playground space there. It became a site as a potential site for a bunch of the different small projects that we thought about. I'm very willing to look at that as being a looking at a skate park as being a, or something like that as being a part of the process in the future. And probably for the reasons that you mentioned because it is basically older kids space and it is, it is sort of central it would be something that would bring new life to that to that area. Just briefly, a rough more is a rough more is not so it is for the golf course. It is, you know, it's a people understand or know what golf is and the play golf, they know what the rough is. All right, so it's specifically for the golf course, take your links. And trying to separate it out from well you know we're just talking about a more that is not really correct. We're talking about more for the golf course, and therefore you automatically bring in the golf course. I was going to get back to that I do hear what I heard or say earlier is that if you're putting money into the golf course, you're making a decision, make a decision and that's why the conversation about about the town's relationship with golf comes in. And so if we if we throw the money behind golf equipment behind behind this sort of this sort of major golf purchases then you're making a decision to decide with golf. I hear that I understand that to honest point about it being a different, a different conversation we're talking about a more here. I can tell you that if we do decide not to be in that business, then, and we don't do it abruptly right now. The course needs a new mower, I can answer that question say the course needs a new mower. If it's our course or something else. What is the, what's the need for the equipment that golf course needs and needs a new equipment because what they're working on right now is not that it's basically repurposed it's not it's not a golf mower. And it's not long for this world. So we, we own the asset, I completely hear you Irv, we own that we own the course we own the asset and if we want it to be in its best shape. Then, then I think my request for the purchase is, is in those is in that direction. The course needs a mower and if we're going to turn it over to somebody else, then it needs to be at its best. So, so, Ray, I want to thank you. You probably got a bit more of a conversation that you knew you were going to get but welcome to Amherst also I think it's terrific that you've taken on recreation and you clearly have a passion for it so thank you very much. Thank you this I survived this so I think I can do another year. So, so Sean, I think we could move. Yeah, thank you right. I appreciate it. Good night. So concert actually planning is going to go next with Chris. Hello everybody. Nice to see you all. So I had actually two requests that have been melded into one, and the two requests I had work for one was for $20,000 to be used to help the planning department and the building commissioner to draft a solar bylaw, and there are things that we don't know about with regard to the solar bylaw I'm sure you're all aware that solar, the solar bylaw and the solar site assessment have risen to, you know, a high priority in the town. And so, you know, we, we write bylaws all the time but, and we can pick up on other towns bylaws but they're not all up to date and there are things about solar that you know we don't completely understand. Among them are, you know, how do we deal with battery storage. Another thing that keeps coming up is the idea of carbon sequestration and what the ratio is of carbon sequestration of forests versus solar, you know, solar saving carbon escaping and forests sequestering carbon so we felt that we needed some help to sort of sort these things out and we hope that we'll be able to hire a consultant to help us with that we are going to hire a consultant to help or a technical expert to help with the preparing of the site assessment. So we've already, you know, gone down that track and Stephanie Chickarello is working on an RFP to hire a technical expert to help with that portion of the work but Laura and I felt that we needed help to in developing the solar bylaw with the things that we don't understand yet or can't easily glean from looking at other cities and towns and what they've done with their solar bylaws or by researching ourselves and we felt that we needed some extra help there so we put in a request for $20,000 for that. The other thing that we thought we should get some help with is whenever we talk about parking garage, the topic of the boltwood garage the existing boltwood garage comes up. Although, you know, the boltwood garage was built many years ago and at that time, it was built with the idea that another story could be added to it. But, you know, since then, while the building has weathered. There have been different things built around that building, and regulations have changed building codes have changed structural codes have changed we felt that we needed some help in evaluating whether the boltwood garage would be a good site for additional parking. Would we actually be able to put another story on that as had been planned many years ago. And we can't say that now for sure and Rob more you know when he looks at the drawings he can't say that so we thought, if we can hire a structural engineer to evaluate that garage. And let us know is it capable of holding another story that would help to answer some questions for people if we decided to move forward with the garage somewhere in the downtown area. So those are our two requests and then the town manager and Sean I think and maybe Sonya as well, thought that you know the planning department often needs little bits of help here and there. And if we do need little bits of help we need to come to JCPC and town council, once a year to sort of predict, we're going to need this help in the next 12 months or actually it's probably more than that because by the time we ask for the money you know it's a couple months before you vote for it in a few months before July. And we don't actually get the money until July so the idea was to try to set aside a portion of money that would allow the planning department and the building commissioner because we work very closely with them to use the money for things that we need it so Sean and Paul increased the amount that we had asked for from 20 plus 20 which equals 40, and they added another 10,000 to that and said well, why don't we a lot $50,000 for the planning department and then they can use that to do the things that they've said, to help to figure out whether the boltwood garage can handle another story, and help them with the technical aspects of writing a solar bylaw that aren't immediately clear so that's, that's where this comes from so be happy to answer any questions. Questions. Anna. Hi, everyone. I have questions about solar. So, Chris, we, poor Paul was subjected to like 20 questions from me on Monday. We played a fun game. And they were all about the composition of this working group that I understand the mission of which is to craft a bylaw. I'm just curious about that a subject matter expert would help in that case, but this was not mentioned in that charge. And so I'm just curious about where you see this consultant fitting in with that process. Because I mean folks there are two resident members of that I think it's it's important that people understand there will also be. professional expertise from the outside on this working group as well and so I'm just curious how you see, and I also I looked at the request and I was like you submitted this way back before this working group was a thing so I'm curious how you see this person working with the working group which as I understand it and I don't know is Stephanie heading that up or are you heading that up. Stephanie is heading. That's what I thought and so I just, I want to make sure you know I'm hearing you and Rob want this person to support in the bylaw. I just want to know how all the pieces are coming together. So when it comes right down to it. The staff is most likely going to be drafting the text of the bylaw and bringing it to the working group for input for comments and questions, etc. So, in that regard, you know, the working group isn't going to sit down and put the words on the paper together at the meeting right and something to react to and so that's what we are going to be doing and we want some reassurance that we're doing the right thing that we have enough access to information so that we can give the working group the latest. The latest ideas on, on whatever it is that we're working on, whether it's battery storage or whether it's erosion under solar plates or you know all those different things that you know we hear from the public. They, they're doing lots of research out there and they're coming to us with questions and comments and concerns and we want to be able to answer those and. Sure, we have expertise in the planning department and the building commissioner also has expertise but you know there are a lot of other things that we're working on so if we could get some technical expertise to help us to draft the bylaw that we're going to bring to the working group for their discussion, that would, that would be very good. Yeah, that sounds great. My second question is, this is for fiscal year 23, and I know that we're trying to get this group going as soon as possible and so can you explain how the timing of this would play out. Sure. Yeah, by the time that the group actually gets together you know it's going to be a while because you know it hasn't been hasn't been formed yet. So we have a draft of the charge, and then it has to be populated and then they have to start meeting and I think you know one of the first things they need to do is get an RFP together for the solar siting study and so that's going to take some time and we're starting to collect a lot of information to draft the bylaw even now we're not going to wait until July 1 to do this but once July 1 comes I think there's going to be a tremendous feeling like oh my goodness we only have until May of next year to get this big thing done so you know we will have a lot of questions by July 1 to help to engage this technical expert with what we're doing and so we're not going to wait. The other portion of the working group that is working on the site assessment is going to be chugging along and doing the RFP. My understanding is that they have their money already although Dave may be able to chime in on that but I understand they have a chunk of money. They have a chunk of money that we're going to be using to hire the expert that's going to help with the siting assessment so we're not going to wait on that but I think it'll all work out but you know come July 1 we're going to feel a rush to get get something in place by next May. Thank you so much. Other questions. I'm not seeing it. I have one on not on solar. So I was going to switch to the boat with garage. Is that all right with everyone. So, Chris, you mentioned some things that have changed since we originally built it saying we can put a second layer. One comment made by the head of DPW during a finance committee meeting when I asked a question and this was shown might have been there but I'm pretty sure it was my first year as a counselor and I said, whatever happened to the ability and he said well since we built the condo the white building behind Judy's that set of apartments. He either said since we built it. There's not enough room for the construction equipment to get in to be able to put a second story on, or he said, and that's what I never went back to read the tape or he said, there's not enough room for me to read an entrance and exit ramp, because we lost some space. So, would it be possible to have a conversation with him and then I had, I asked the next question I asked is, did when we were giving the permit when the planning department and board was making a decision where people are aware that by saying yes to that building, we might be saying no to a second story on the garage. And he gave a little bit of a fudged answer on that one. But so it was so I would just want to double check before we do a structural engineer. The second question you already mentioned this is, is it an issue of we because we built more in in a way that it's going to the entrance and exit will be difficult or getting a construction and so I'm not sure how you go about answering both questions so it's I want an answer to this question, but just having, having heard that I'm wondering if there's two parts is a garage structurally able to do it with the new codes and with weathering and or can we not do it because we don't have the space we had when we first built the garage so that's my question on that and I don't need an answer right now I just thought that if the second was true it doesn't matter if the garage can or can't hold the second layer. I think that the other thing that we're hoping that this technical expert can help us with is assessing the kinds of things that you're talking about right now. I understand that the boat would place was built. I think that there's a garage and there may be some aspect of that that would prevent a garage from being built but my memory of that is that when it that building was going through permitting. We did bring up the issue that we had planned potentially to put a second story on the garage and is that all going to be okay and you know the general consensus was yeah that'll that'll be okay. But you know we need. I'm not able to answer that question I don't think Rob Mara is really able to answer the question but a structural engineer would have experience building these things knowing what kinds of equipment need to come to the site to put something together so that could be part of the mix and the other thing we wanted to get from this person was some sense of what if it's possible to put a second story on there. What would be the next steps you know what would we have to do after that and does he have any idea of what a cost would be for putting a second story on so they're you know sort of other questions that are involved in this. investigation. So I wasn't question I think this is a good idea but I was just saying you know that it's there related and you answered it very well thank you. So I see I think, or did I see your hand go up or no. So Kathy just keeping an eye on the time do we want to move to Dave and conservation. Yeah, I think so. Thank you Chris. Or Kathy I joined you late so I'm just looking for a little direction do you want me to simply go through the list or give a brief overview of each of each project and then we'll open up for questions. Do you typically put it on the screen or not. I have it on my desktop I just I haven't been so if you just want to identify which one you're talking about. Sure. And I guess I would start with an apology I know that I had talked to Sean and I and I see down at the bottom of one list that I talked to Sean about doing a little more work on the out years. I apologize because I have not done that. And you'll see under conservation. You know some some big blank spaces 24252627 and I think, you know I need to kind of put pen to paper there I know we're focused on 23, and I do see that Chris added some additional quote ads in some of the out years so my apologies and I will do that. I might also like to kind of reserve the opportunity to talk to Sean a little bit about, you know, the possibility that some of these 23 may move to those out years. And that's typically kind of a fluid conversation but let me give you a little, a little understanding a better understanding of what these items are under conservation so. I don't really know, you know, this department, which, which includes two full time field staff people it's not a very large department but they get a lot of things done conservation is is responsible for over 2000 acres of managing over 2000 acres of land, and about trails and and historically they have not had much equipment to do that. They have a couple of pickup trucks, they have a tractor, and then they have one very small tractor that is very old. We, and I know and I always anticipate one question that comes up at finance committee meetings at town council meetings and JCPC meetings is can can we borrow equipment. And the quick answer to that before I talk about the individual items is we do the very best we can borrowing equipment. We also rent equipment. DPW does have, you know, they are the department that typically has the most equipment that is similar to what we need in the conservation department. In particular Alan Snow and the tree and grounds crew is very, very open and supportive of, of sharing equipment and we even share people power we we help them they help us, as we do with the cherry hill staff in the recreation department. But often what happens is, when they need their equipment is the field season the same time we need their equipment. They're using it so I'll go through these items and why don't I start with the chipper. There is a request for a $35,000 item under chipper. And again Alan has been very gracious in using that, letting us use that borrow that. But again when they need it we need it is the same field season that they have that we have. And what I want to why I want to put a little emphasis on the chipper is that what we're seeing out there is more and more of these flashy storms. So with global climate change. We're seeing that one storm coming through, and there will actually be 30 or 40 trees down on conservation land, all throughout town just like we lose, you know, we lose trees on streets. We lose trees that go down at Puffers pond over the parking lot that go down on trails that go down over trails all over town and some in Southam or some in Lawrence swamp. We get to these trees and some of them are 80 feet long or tall, and there's a tremendous amount of brush and other materials that need to be moved off trails, parking areas, etc. So that's what the chipper request is all about. And, you know, we price that out at about $35,000. That, you know, is probably a 10 to 15 year lifespan for us. We've never had a chipper. So we often rent one which can be extremely expensive. And I don't think is, excuse me, cost effective to do. Forestry mower is something that we use to keep our open fields in early successional habitat and more importantly open. If any of you use our conservation land. Think about how do you keep Mount Pollock's open how do you keep Wentworth farm conservation area how do you keep Amethyst Brook, how do you keep the open fields open well you need mowers you need forestry type mowers to keep those areas from brushing people really enjoy those areas that's where they walk their dogs they fly their kites they birdwatch and they hike and they run and to keep those areas open, we use mowers throughout the summer season. The third item is the Larch Hill, excuse me the Larch Hill building it formally the Hitchcock Center I, I don't call it the Hitchcock Center building anymore because of course they have their brand new living building down in Hampshire College. We have a very old asset at Larch Hill, which is where the Hitchcock Center for the environment was for all I think about 50 years, and that building is very tired and needs to be needs to come down. I'm very happy to be purpose in the building. I've had Rob more our building commissioner as well as Jeremy Jeremiah Laplante our facilities coordinator look at that building. And it's a wonderful old barn that was converted to a nonprofit use back in the 1970s and the Hitchcock Center was there, as I said for 50 years, but they couldn't afford to put any money into it, and it's very tired it has no insulation. I've talked to nonprofits, I've talked to the common school, it needs hundreds of thousands of dollars of work to actually have any other use happen in that building, and I think it's time for us to simply look at removing the building. In the spring, the basement, which is a walk-in basement, you know, it's an unfinished basement that you have to go down through a crawl space, actually fills with water. So in the spring, there's four to five feet of water in the basement. So we put on a figure of $55,000 to remove that, re-grade and repurpose that area. That number is a little dated. I'm a little worried with some of the increases that are happening out there in the industry. I'm a little concerned about whether that would get the job done, but we put that in as a placeholder. We have a very large bridge off of southeast street that unfortunately, again, as we look at global climate change and we look at some of the surging and flashy storms that we are having now, there is a very large bridge which takes people from southeast street to the Norwatic Rail Trail over the Hopbrook, and the abutments on that bridge have begun to cave in. We've gotten some cost estimates, and I have some grant money that I can potentially put toward this project, and I put in a number of $50,000. I don't think that will do it, but I think that will be an anchor amount of money to replace that bridge. It also happens to be a bridge that we need to get equipment over, our own conservation equipment, as well as a local farmer has an easement over that bridge to get to their fields on the other side. Again, this is a piece of property that we've probably owned for 40 to maybe 50 years, so the easement is something that came to the town years ago and maintenance for that access way that provides access both for the town, town residents and for the farmer came with the easement, so the maintenance is on us of that bridge. And then lastly, I put in a figure of $75,000, the town in various parts of our various holdings from our watershed lands to our water supply protection lands to our conservation lands, we own a number of dams and dikes, and those dams and dikes need maintenance. Think of Puffer's Pond, an incredible recreational and conservation asset. There is both a dam and a dike at Puffer's Pond, and both of those parts of our asset need work. They need constant maintenance and they need repair, and it takes very expensive engineers and permitting processes to get that work done. It so happens that Puffer's Pond is what they call a high hazard dam. The state rates dams in kind of the high, medium, and low categories. A high hazard dam is the most hazardous, if you will, and the one that we have to take the most care and concern with when it comes to potential loss of life if the dam were to ever breach, and so therefore we need money to maintain both the dam and the dike at Puffer's, as well as dams and dikes in other locations. Think of Wentworth Farm. Think of the Mount Hoyok Range. There's a dam at the Plumbrook Pond. There's a dam in Orchard Valley. These are all dams and dikes that we have to maintain. So those were the items that I have in the FY23 request line. I'm happy to pause there, take questions, and go from there. Questions, comments. I'm not seeing any. I have just a quick comment, Dave. Across the street from us, someone had to take down their barn. It was a full demolition and they found a person, and I can get the name, who took it down for them because when he took a look at the wood, he could use all the wood. And he basically removed all the wood for free. They had to do the rest of it, and I just had simple gifts called the same place, and they're taking out the simple gifts born for the same. So if it would be at all of interest to you, I can just get you the name. I would absolutely be interested in that, Kathy, because that's exactly, we put in this placeholder number, and part of our approach will be two-fold. One is that we would need to go through the historical commission because the Hitchcock Center is, at least parts of it would be deemed historic. Two, we would want to follow any and all reasonable sustainability approaches to that building, i.e. exactly what you're talking about. That is an old barn, and if there are old beams and parts of the building that can be reused, repurposed, I would love this to be a demonstration project for the town, but undoubtedly there will be costs for some of the materials there to be taken away, and there would be a cost to that, and then there would be a cost for basically landscaping to make that a site that is safe for those people using Larch Hill, and also for the common school that is right in proximity there. Absolutely. All this person did is he took it down, and then he left some rocks and other stuff for the homeowner to get rid of the rest. It didn't do it, but I can get you the name, because it was a good use of all the wood. If you are at the Hitchcock Center and want to take a look at that building, feel free to walk around. There are three ages, if you will, three different parts to that building. There's one that probably dates back to the 1800s. There's an addition to the West that is 1970s, and then there's an addition to the North that is 1990s, and different woods, and there's probably some beautiful, there are some beautiful beams in there. Many of those materials could be repurposed. That was my only question. I'm not seeing anyone else, so I think we can move to Doug Slaughter, and thank you, Dave. Just don't let Dyer Hazard Dam go down, because I know the apartment buildings right below it want that dam to stay solid. I think we all do. We want to be safe and have Puffers Bond for everybody to enjoy. Thank you. So, shout out correct. We're on to... Yeah, Doug and Rupert are here to speak to the school projects. Doug, are you going to start, or Rupert? I'll be very brief. I'll just say that I'm going to lean on Rupert to go through most of the projects and kind of walk you through each of those, and I'm just here to support and answer any other additional questions you might have that he may not be able to answer, but I'll let him take it away and walk you through what requested. Thank you, Doug. I'd like to start out by just pointing out that we're in a sort of an unusual situation here with the two buildings being considered to go away or no longer be schools, and the time period between now and when the decision gets made and finalized and the construction happens leaves us in a little bit of a limbo land. There are certain things that we have to do to keep buildings safe and usable. There are certain things that we really should do to maintain the value if the town we're going to take over one of those buildings for some other purpose, but we're very mindful of the fact that those buildings probably have a limited future for the school system, so we want to spend what funds we have wisely, and it's a sort of a moving target as time goes by and we get more information. That's it, yes. Rupert, would it be helpful if I put your projects on the screen because you have quite a few of them? Well, I've got a second screen here, so if it looks like I'm ignoring you, I'm looking at the other computer. Would it be helpful for anybody else if I put them on the screen or leave it down? Jennifer, I think I've seen your head. Okay, I'll put them on the screen. That'd be good, thanks. So, let's see what the screen looks like. Which page are you on? So, we would start with the Crocker Farm gym floor. Page nine. Okay, excellent. So, what I'd like to do here is divide all of our projects up into three groups. Two of them are on the page that you're showing. I'm going to start with the ones that just stay schools in the location column. So, and the reason for that is that these are kind of regular ongoing requests that we ask every year or every other year. So, I want to run through those quickly and then we'll have more time to spend on some of the more unique projects. So, let's see. I'm going to go in the order that's on my screen instead of what's on your screen and hopefully it's not too confusing. We have a district abatement management for asbestos for mitigation and consulting services. That's an ongoing ask. We have projects that we can plan ahead, but there are also projects that come upon us unwanted in an emergency situation. So, particularly in Wildwood Fort River, but there are other. So, Crocker Farm, the asbestos is pretty much inside boiler enclosures and things like that, but there's still the possibility of some issue that we have to deal with. So, that's 20,000 district energy management upgrades. I want to sort of lump that together with district HVAC replacements and improvements. We have a situation where we have ventilation equipment fans, motors, controllers, transformers that are all past their useful life. We are trying to be frugal and simply replace parts as they fail. So, those two lines are to allow us to do that. District furniture is a common replacement desks, chairs, especially furniture, cabinets, shelves, all kinds of things that just need replacement over time. And then the interior upgrades and the ADA improvements. Sort of an omnibus grouping of interior improvements that we need to do, like painting that we don't normally do on an annual basis, but also we have a long, long list of ADA improvements that we're trying to work our way through. And so that that subject is to try to incorporate those two when they seem like a good match to sort of fold it together. Robert, just quickly to add for the committee. So, this line item for the schools is comparable to the town hall line item that we have, which is interior exterior improvements, which again is for sort of general, you know, more significant than regular maintenance, but projects that you can anticipate at this point in the year. Right. Yes. And district school security, we have, you know, security systems, we have blocks, we have door swipe card systems, all that kind of stuff. And it's, you know, we're always trying to make it a safer and more usable space for all the students and staff and the public when they're in there. And this supports us in doing those kinds of things. And these, these six, I think, items are kind of, if you look, they're sort of repeating, they've been repeating, and they allow us to keep everything moving in, you know, as efficient and inexpensive manner as we can. Then also on this page, there are the special projects for Crocker Farm. We know we want to keep Crocker Farm, we know that it's, it's big blast renovation was something like 20 years ago, and its equipment is nearing, so its equipment is nearing the end of its life. So there are three particular issues there. One is the Crocker Farm gym. You probably all are aware that the gym floor has had a history, a troubled history, let's say, with buckling. And there have been repeated efforts over the years to try to control that. This past summer was particularly bad, and it took months to get the, the wood to shrink again. We think it's time to really redo the floor and address the underlying conditions that are causing all these problems. And that's twofold. It's the, it's the gym floor itself, but it's also the ventilation system isn't able to handle humidity levels that we're seeing these days. So we really need to address that, and I would like to see us address that as soon as we can. Also Crocker Farm playground, the playground, you know, our staff has been working really hard to replace timbers as they rot and keep spots filled with wood chips. But there are a number of safety issues and design issues that we would like to see get a big picture and really address. This is the first step to sort of do some design work on that, to talk to the various stakeholders, they are the teachers, the students, see back, all these various groups and try to come up with something that will be more useful and more accessible. So we're asking to, for some help to get started in that project this year with some design and engineering work. And, and Rupert, I'll just quickly add that the number here, the 75 and the 125, that's likely not going to be enough for the whole playground. We're, we're still discussing whether, once there's a design in place, whether CPA is approached for part of that playground or not. So this number could grow in the future, the next, in the out years, not for FY 23, but in the year after. All right, I think, I think there's a line somewhere, maybe in the description someplace that talks about additional funding, something like $700,000 that would come from other sources, we hope. But that's really up for discussion. We don't really know what it's going to take until we get a better idea of what we need to do. But it at least gives gives folks an idea. The other item for Crocker is a unit of that replacement. We've had a long history of trouble with the second floor classrooms. They become really difficult to use at the end of school year and being in school year. Our cooling system is unable to keep up with the problems there. And so, in this particular snapshot, what I'm looking at is replacing the unit of editors for those classrooms if we can. And I'd like to speak a little bit about sort of the thinking behind that because I think it's it's significant. Everywhere folks are talking about moving away from fossil fuels in their buildings. And we're looking at that in the new elementary school building, for example, and that means using some kind of heat pump technology. The heat pump technology today is not what it was 20 years ago. It's much more robust. It's able to provide heat at much lower outside temperatures. It's much more efficient than it was. And I think this is the direction that we want to be going in. When I say heat pump technology, you can think about like mini splits. But I don't think simply adding mini splits to those classrooms is a wise use of resources. And here's why. Mini splits are very difficult to integrate into the existing heating cooling system. And you can end up wasting a lot of energy if you have two systems trying to do ventilation and air conditioning or heating in the same space. So we really want to integrate this technology with our ventilation source, which is the unit of ventilation. So this would be a good chance for us to take a close look at how that would work, how we could do it in a way that would, A, take some of the load off of the existing chiller so that it could do better for the rest of the building. And B, give us some opportunities to do to get away from oil for that section of the building in terms of heating. And I'm sure I'm up to C or three. The idea that the problem with large building systems is that it's very difficult and time consuming to change between heating and cooling. And there are months every year when you want heating part of the day and cooling part of the day or one part of the building once heating the other part of the building once cooling. This kind of heat pump system is much more flexible. And this would be a start to making Crocker farm a much more pleasant and musical space. So those are the those are the quick highlights for that page. Do you want to go on to the next page briefly? Yeah, you just have a couple of vehicles. Why don't we Sure. So in the transportation section, there's I think three asks. I have to get my screen to scroll down. Come on. There we go. So there is a transportation transmitter and bus software. We had an old analog transmitter that let us communicate between the schools and the buses and vans. And that has failed. It's old technology. It's not repairable. And the new technologies are all digital. So we're looking at changing over that. And we're asking region, Pellum and Amherst to all chip in on updating our communication infrastructure. And there's also software associated with that and with our bus routing and all of that stuff that we need to upgrade because it's also getting old and obsolete. So that's this is just a share. Other the other groups are also being the other districts are also being asked to pitch on in on that. There are two vehicles that we're looking to replace. One is a wheelchair accessible then and the other is just a normal special and then these vehicles are over 10 years old. I think one of them that would I don't want to be pinned down exactly which vehicle we're going to replace because if one of them dies, we want to be able to replace that one. But right now my intention is to replace a 2009 vehicle with 100,000 miles and a 2007 vehicle with about 200,000 miles on it. And we're taking a very close look at electric vans. They're they're they're they're coming online. There's there's a for example, I think for transit is come out with electric model to eat transit. We're taking a closer look at that. My feeling is that this would be a good thing to start on electrifying our fleet would be with the the pupil hands. I don't have an item in for the infrastructure to charge them at this point in time. And I, you know, costs in vehicles has been just unbelievably out of control. So these guesses may be a little low. I don't I don't have pricing yet, but I definitely like to look into that for both vehicles. And that's the quick overview. Ripper, can I add a couple to things? One is the accessible van. If it's still in good shape. Our senior center director has expressed an interest in potentially being the purchaser of that when when the new one comes in and taken the old one. In ARPA, we had set aside some money to increase transportation for the senior center. And having an accessible van would help a lot. So we've had some conversations about sharing that. And then the other piece I'll just say because I think it's interesting is Rupert Doug and I heard a presentation from a company that kind of helps finance the transition to electric school buses. And so it's a it's a complicated process. And we're sort of just scratching the surface. But I think in the next year or so, we'll have more information to bring back to you all about trying to electrify fleets and what Rupert brought up around charging stations. They also look at that component of building that infrastructure financing that infrastructure. They've worked with one other school district in a major way in Massachusetts. I believe it's Beverly. And so we've only had an initial presentation. It was really exciting. But I know that's a high priority for many is looking at the school buses and the school vehicles and converting them to electric as fast as we can. Thank you. Questions? Comments? Mandy? So I appreciate you talking about taking a close look at what needs done to Fort River and Wildwood because of the expected potential short term use of at least one of those buildings going forward and the unknown use of the other building. But my question actually relates to Crocker on those issues, you know, because I had the question about are you considering that for the other two and you answered that one. But with Crocker, you've got the UNIVENT replacement here and HVAC equipment replacement in FY 25. And I don't know how they relate to each other or whether one is sort of the same thing as the other, but in a bigger scale or whether two years you'd be doing UNIVENTS now and in two years redoing those UNIVENTS or something where they wouldn't be usable. So can you talk about how those relate to each other to make sure, you know, just ease my mind that they are not competing against each other? Oh, thank you for that question. I'm sorry about the confusion. Yes. So the longer view picture of Crocker Farm is we're approaching, you know, we're coming up to 25 year old equipment, which is kind of the expected lifetime for, say, the chiller that's up on the roof and a lot of the unit ventilators elsewhere in the classroom. And I think in the long term we're looking to do the same thing building wide as I'm trying to do sooner with the upstairs classrooms. So no, it's not the same UNIVENTS. It's a larger project in more of the building. That chiller replacement is quite expensive. And I think that it's really worth looking at converting the whole building to all electric and getting away from fossil fuel as much as possible. You know, that said, we may need some for domestic water or backup systems or something like that. But I think moving away from fossil fuels for the rest of the building is in the cards as well. It's just a little further down the road. Does that answer your question? I'm looking at Mandy's hands back up. And after you Mandy, I have a couple. You can go next. I have a different question. But if no one was going to raise their hand, I was going to go to my next question. But go, Kathy. Okay. We heard either last week or the week before Jeremiah is looking at replacing some systems at the old North Amherst school and the fire station. And I'm wondering if there's any synergy if you were doing some of this at Crocker and if we're doing it together with an engineering firm or someone to come in and advise it. I don't know whether you ever get or if you're going to get two of these. And he was doing industrial scale to many events. So that's one question. And then the second is related to the hopeful new school that we're all working on. If the new school has charging stations, could we think in terms of the charging stations could be serving middle and high school bands if we put them in the right place? And of course, we don't know whether the quote new school is at the Fort Riverside or the Wildwood side. But just trying to think of other opportunities that if we're doing an investment, we get more than the single use out of it or the single knowledge. So those are the two related. And then the last is I know this is a stretch. We have a very good engineering high tech team behind the design team with the new school. Are any of their people useful, potentially useful to you when it comes to Crocker, you know, on complex systems, on not trying to run two systems at the same time. And I just, I have no idea whether people give away knowledge for free when they're not doing the work. But I'm just thinking that they're trying to assess these things with an ad reno as well of gutting systems. So those are my three because Crocker, when I added up, it's, it's well over $4 million over the not this year, but if I go out several years, and that's got the playground in it, but you're really moving toward, as you explained it, major upgrade in its internal systems. That's it. All right, I don't know if I'll catch all of your questions, but let me try. In terms of EV chargers, part of the issue that we have in transportation is that we need to charge when we need to charge. And so the public charging stations might not be available when we need. So I have a little bit of concern about that. And so far, all of the grants and subsidies for charging stations require them to be publicly available 24 seven. So, you know, the grants that I've looked at for charging stations didn't seem like it would be useful for our fleet means. I think I also am a little bit reluctant to spread the fleet out to different parking areas. I think for safety security reasons as well as just plain logistics, it really helps to keep them all the same place. So I don't know that that's the way to go, but we're looking at a lot of infrastructure upgrades at the middle school anyway, in terms of electric buses and their electric, this is region, but their electric system is in the cards for capital plans in the not too distant future as well. So and there may be town grants, there may be a lot of other opportunities that we can fold in, but definitely I think it's great to try to expand it. And I'm hopeful that federal money will also be available to help with that. In terms of the team that's looking at the design of the new elementary school, yeah, I've been going on walks and tours and picking their brains and asking all kinds of questions. So yes, I'm trying to take as good an advantage to them as I can without getting too upset. And it's interesting some of the discussions that we've had, you know, just in terms of the Adreno versus the new building with them in the net zero group as well as in the building committee meetings. A lot of the heat pump systems that I'm talking about, which are called VRF systems, it's a variable refrigerant flow system, the VRF systems are much more common, I guess, in retrofits and remodels. And there's a stronger emphasis on the ground source water based water source heat pumps in brand new buildings where you can support it. So yes, they're looking at it. It's a developing field. The main manufacturers of each equipment are expanding into sort of more institutional type equipment, like unit ventilators, there are a couple of companies that are making unit ventilators that could sort of have a similar footprint to what we have in our schools that use heat pump technology. So yes. And then lastly, in terms of coordinating with the town, yes, there's a big learning curve for all of us. And I think sharing that information is very useful. I think concept-wise, whoever's first out the gate will, you know, bear the brunt of the learning curve, but I think it will be useful for town and school, this kind of moving this direction. Thank you. Mandy. Thank you. I'm sorry, I was looking at something and trying to shape those at the same time. My question goes to the unexpended list or I'm trying to figure out what is called the status of approved projects list. I know I had this question last year. It always seems the schools have a lot of three year or older capital improvement project money that does not get spent at a regular, you know, within that three years or more. And I noticed at least particularly for this year that FY19 money building and there's a lot of building improvement money out there that hasn't been spent in addition to a lot of building improvement money from FY18 and FY17. And, you know, in looking at last year's unspent project money, there wasn't a lot of decrease in the FY17 and 18 numbers for the building improvements. I just looked up what the new equipment for FY19 is and it looks like that was funded for a replacement Fort River generator or HVAC system. So I might understand a little bit more as to why that might not have been spent because if it hasn't failed, you might not want to rent the equipment. But I asked this question because it seems like every year we're faced with $100,000 plus in requests for building maintenance funds for the schools. Yet they don't, it doesn't seem like the schools spend, you know, $100,000 plus dollars every year on maintenance issues. And so they just seem to be building up year after year after year and in tight capital times. That doesn't seem like a wise use of resources from the global perspective. I am appreciative that you don't spend money you don't need to. I want to make sure you know that. But, you know, and so I'd like you to talk about whether the current year requests for interior upgrades of 160,000. And all of this is something that has been reduced because you have so much available in prior years or whether that money that has been available is that shows is available in our unspent projects is actually already encumbered but didn't show that on this report or can you talk about that sort of to me dichotomy about requesting it every year but seeming that year after year it doesn't ever get spent within two or three years. You need to unmute again Rupert. Right. Two screens and I lost the mouse. I'm back now. Yes. I would say I think we only have maybe half a dozen capital accounts that are 2019 and older. I was just looking for for my write up of those older accounts. So I would say I'm conscious that we can't just sit on this money. We need to spend it or send it back. And out of those half dozen or so older articles, I think there's one or two that we're proposing to return. And there's a couple that we're we're working on spending down. As I'm sure you understand these COVID years, it's been difficult to keep projects moving. There's just been a lot of putting out fires and trying to take care of emergencies. But Doug, would you like to jump in if I may? Doug. Sorry, but the chair. Absolutely. Go. Sure. So I think there's a couple of things that are at play and Rupert mentioned one of them and that's COVID. And it's sort of, you know, sort of stolen energy away from working on some capital projects just in general because we've been and some of them are related to some of the residual capital projects. We've been fortunate to have some federal funding that's helped support those. And so we've not spent capital because we've had the federal resources that we've leveraged a little bit here and there. We've also it's also shifted focus away from some projects because, you know, when you're making sure that your air change per hour in all your classrooms is at a high level, you're not working on your energy management system. And some of that's for some. So I think there's a couple of those things. I think also going back a little bit further is, you know, our capacity to take on and work on capital projects was inhibited a bit. We had Ron Bahanowitz for several years that worked in our facilities department. We had his replacement was only here for a short period of time. And then Rupert came on. And so I think there was an overall backlog and tangling, I would say, of some capital projects while Rupert kind of got up to speed and got himself and his staff in order and in place. And so I think that that also has contributed over the last few years. And that's not to say he's not doing a great job or that we're, you know, not trying to get things done. It's just there are complications in taking in a three part system like we have because it's, you know, it's really the Amherst schools, the regional schools and the and the Pelham school that he's juggling simultaneously. And then, you know, you sort of throw pandemic in the mix. And so, you know, not to make a lot of excuses there, I think we do take a cautious approach. We do try to spin things down in our wise to try to spin them down. We also have had turn in staff that help us manage the specifics of the accounting part of it too. And so sometimes and there were a couple of the smaller dollar amounts for, you know, it stuff that that I was looking at. And it's like, Oh, well, we overspent to account that's newer than that. And it's a matter of making some transfers. But it's a matter of kind of getting to those things and getting those transitions made. And so I think there's a number of factors. I don't want to be, you know, a full of excuses here. But I think that there are there are a few things that have played into that. And and, you know, we're trying to be diligent about spinning things down. And of course, I just sent to Sean, I meant to send it to him, like yesterday, because I just didn't want on some of these. But there's one of the projects that we've kind of held on to at Fort River, that that we're going to yield back. And it's, you know, like $85,000. So that'll, that'll be a nice opportunity to reappropriate in a different way in capital. There's a couple smaller ones related to lighting at the two schools that why wouldn't work that, you know, which again, it gets back to what what Rupert said right at the beginning of his remarks about trying to strike the right balance on sort of safety security and building health and not spending money that then we're going to immediately sort of rip out and get rid of, you know, so it's it's trying to strike the right balance on some of those. And and so something to kind of persist a bit longer than any of us would like in that regard. So, you know, definitely want to let you know, we're respectful of that. And I've sat in the chairs that you guys are sitting in and sort of gone through that same set of questions for other people that in my now current position and and and you know, others around that topic, you don't want to sit on the cash, it's not getting used, it's not doing anybody any good. So we definitely want to try to try to approach those projects and get them moving if we can. And but we also want to be wise about it, not waste the waste the resource either. Thank you so much for those responses. Um, I'm, I'm seeing, okay, Rupert's hand is up Rupert. Please go ahead. Thank you. I just want to say, I think some of the consequences of of unspent capital funds are showing up. Invisible are not showing up. That is to say, we might have been asking for more money, say for electrical upgrades, but we still have some money left over from prior articles for electrical upgrades. So there are a number of areas where we, we might have been asking for money, but because we haven't used what we had, we didn't feel as appropriate. But it's hard to define those because they're just blank on the page. Thank you. And, you know, I think Sean, you had said earlier that you and Sonya would be looking at the extent that there's some repurposing as we look at the total picture. And I don't know whether that'll be next week. Yeah. Yeah, we can bring, we can bring back an updated with the list that Doug sent me. We can bring back an updated list of the unexpended articles and you'll see some new ones that can be returned to the town. And in past years, at times we've repurposed that money. I think last year we did it for, I can't remember what project it was, but we did it last year for something. So yeah, we'll bring back that updated list. So I don't see any public, so then therefore we won't have any public comments. But I just want to look around the screen because I think you said to us this is the end of us going through all the projects. Is that correct? So yeah, I think we've gone through all the departments. So next week we'll start to focus on the report that we would be writing and we can send you again the one that we did last year, just as what the report from JCPC looked like. And for the most part, most of our discussion focused around are there any areas that we have major questions about something that we want to either know more or have doubts about, but also things that have come up and I would use the golf course tonight as one of them that we want to write some additional sentences and my memory from an earlier one and Irv was talking about the uncertainty with buying vehicles that you put forth a certain price and then it turns out it costs you a lot more. And do we want to have a fund the way we have a sustainability fund? Do we want to have a fund that then you don't have to come back to the council to ask for a new appropriation because it turned out to be 10,000 more. So that was an idea that came up. So I think everyone should come with anything that's beyond the easy part is saying we like your list. And thank you for the original draft report and I will assemble or Sean will assemble some of the tables that can go into we don't have to redo the tables he's already given us. And it's more a question of what we're writing at the beginning of the report on any comments or recommendations beyond we recommend the list that was recommended to us. So I don't know other I mean Alex has been through this more times than any of the rest of us any words of advice but if we're turning toward what is in the report I don't want to I will do a draft but I don't want to do a draft for next week I would just do an outline of some things I heard and any thoughts that anyone has if you want to send them to me I will collect them in a not even an outlining way just bullets you know so we can talk about them. So I think that's it you know the minutes have been amazing everyone. So the minutes are pretty good record you don't have to go back and look at the videos and we have the original documents that Sean gave us that are both looking out five years looking at the inventory and we had a discussion about the inventory too so we will comment on all the pieces. So coming back with ideas is great and we're making you all remember we're making a recommendation to the town manager I mean we the report goes to the town council but this basically feeds into the town manager's report that then comes back to us Sean. Yeah I was going to just add if there are any outstanding questions on any of the projects that you that we need answers to just email them to Kathy and I I know we have one that we need to come back to like was the Jones library the shelving and if it was part of the CPA project so we'll have more information we can come back and discuss that one but there's other projects that there were unanswered questions that we didn't get to and you remember them to send them to Kathy and I. And it's one I noticed the other day and Sean already got me an answer but I think it would be good to bring to us that I noticed in the Hampshire Gazette that Northampton bought a ladder truck and they paid a million dollars for it and our our request was a million point five so I asked why you know what's the difference and they are different vehicles so we you might want to bring that back just that yeah that's a good one yeah because it was a $500,000 difference for something that looked like at least a similar thing so it was enough that it caught my eye so that that was one I asked but it's kind of an asked an answer but I think it's still something that worth discussing. Yeah I think the town manager specifically is looking for guidance from the JCPC on that one because it is sort of a it's a trade-off conversation is the additional we'll come back to it next week but the ladder truck we're proposing has some additional features but they're very expensive and so the question is you know from looking from out of from a JCPC point of view is do you recommend that or not and Sean perhaps you can get us something that's a few sentences even if it's just the thing so everyone has the same shared knowledge the one we're talking about it yep I think that's it um I'm really glad to see the Crocker list um you know I think it's good that we're saying let's let's not just focus on the two schools that are the super big ticket items but keep up with Crocker and make sure we're doing the investment we need for Crocker. Jennifer has her hand up. I'm sorry I have two questions first what time are we meeting next week? 6 30 is the time for next week. Okay can you or someone resend the meeting invitation? Okay and then secondly so we've heard from all the departments now and we have three or four more meetings so just generally speaking so that I can report back to the school of committee what will we be doing for the next few meetings? We next week since we actually have more breathing room than normal Jennifer and we don't have to meet all three times okay so we would talk about what we want in the report that would be beyond just the boiler plate so looking at the earlier report and then I will do a draft that I would do my best to turn around really quickly so we could be reading something and doing a group edit on it and Alex in the past has always made sure that my poorly written sentences turn into excellent sentences or where I'm not clear I sometimes am too terse she adds the extra words but anyway she's always awkward to be a second writer just to clean it up but that would be you know get the ideas that would go in the report look at a draft report and if we're pretty close we can just go to go over the finish line at that point but it's it's the it's getting the report out is what we'll be doing thank you and thank you Sonia for for being with us the whole time so I think we are adjourned um at six fifty five thank you very much uh it was a very active meeting with a lot of good comments and thank you schools people for a good clear presentation thank you very much