 And so this meeting now, I believe being recorded. Yes, this meeting is now being recorded. Welcome everybody we have not met for a few months because we have been short on our commission we were down to four members, the four people who are here right now. This is us, Sanjay Sanjay are what. And, and because of that, because of our delay and getting somebody and we have not met in a few weeks, in a few months. The first item of business is I want to again put forward to the to the commission here that there is some interest in trying to find a chair. We operated for a year with without a chair. We operate with a year essentially I have done most of the work in terms of organizing the commission meetings and making, making the, you know, putting for the agenda and trying to line up our speakers and what have you. I have been encouraged by members of the town hall essentially been, I've been encouraged to try and get somebody to become a chair as a, as a face and a name for the commission and a representative that people can talk to. I don't, I can work with with the chair, if necessary to try and find. If I need to continue doing what I'm doing that I can do that but we do. Now, I can't force anybody to do it but I would like to be able to encourage somebody to assume the role of chair. I think that and it's, it's relatively low in terms of its events responsibilities, especially if I'm working with them to manage the agenda in the meetings. If somebody wanted to take over that piece of it I would definitely not stand in the way. I don't want to deal with meetings the way we've been doing it but I do want to try and encourage somebody to step into that role. When people are looking for a, the voice of the commission, I would rather it not be me relaying that this is what the commission is thinking I would rather have it be somebody from the commission that can speak for the commission. Any questions about what I'm asking in that. And are there any questions about what I'm asking for in that are there any volunteers right away. I can still have that conversation if anybody might be interested, please let me know. The one person who I will absolutely not ask to do it would be McCain for a few reasons. None of them are about capacity. I also want to say with Matt's new position. He's going to be the first person that sort of, that sort of speaks to us this evening. When I get done with the intro stuff. But Matt has volunteered graciously to be our representative for CPAC. And that is, that's, that's a really good get for us and I hope it's not overwhelming. I don't think it's overwhelming. Andy McDougal, who we're about to introduce in a moment has a bunch of experience and Andy are you still working on CPAC as a representative. So we have two people who are essentially voices on CPAC in the commission here. And CPAC is a lot of nerd fun. It's a lot of it's a lot of looking at review you get a chance to basically shop with a purpose for the town. And so we have two people who were involved in that process on our commission. And I think that gives us a clearly advantageous position in terms of terms of having our voice heard on that. If there's consensus here then then they will certainly, they will certainly be able to carry that consensus into CPAC. Matt's responsibility has been he has volunteered also I want to say responsibility is volunteered to keep minutes. I would love it if Matt continues to keep minutes but I suppose I should start the this new year off by asking Matt if he's okay with doing the minutes again. I think during the minutes that's okay. Matt I appreciate you. Right, do I needs to. I mean it's not a, it's not a term but do I need to move going to hear a motion for Matt to take meant to continue taking minutes. Sarah was always my, my, my expert on when I need to take a motion when I don't. Matt continue to take minutes. Now it's official. I'll second that. It was a long time ago I'm going to skip by the approval of the April minutes to review that would there was, I have minutes for June, I think, June. Oh, I'm sorry, I probably didn't adjust that minutes for June, June minutes. Are there any, I can ask are there any objections or any corrections or conversations we had about two minutes. I know it's been a while and I didn't review it this past week. Okay, then really quickly since we're a little bit. Not that far behind schedule. Do we need to vote to approve the minutes on June. Yes. All in favor of, of 40 minutes as, as is. All who oppose. Okay. I guess for clarity, I'll change mine to an abstention. We're not, we're not recording votes. Okay, so that's I was going to ask I actually didn't even get a chance to see the minutes and I don't know how you have a board is like Robert's rules to a T which, which, you know, I think this may be a little bit. I need to learn a little bit just just coming over here and it's, and it's going to be while you're going to come down here and say whoa this is how the other world live. So we will submit the June minutes will submit the minutes for the June meeting to town. And, and what we usually do Matt keeps the minutes and then he shares them with the commission for us to be able to review in time for the next meeting. And so the last thing I need to do in the intro section is an actual introduction. Andy McDougal has come to he's our newest member, the fifth member of our rec commission. We still have two spaces open we are in the process of finalizing one of them. But, but Andy came to us I did. I've worked with Andy and his work and youth lacrosse and my one year here, which I think he does a fine job with. I did introduce to him the idea of working and thankfully he looked into it and, and, and accepted the, the offer to apply and had a nice sit down interview and we made the, we made that appointment. Andy, would you like to share anything about your background or interest. Yeah, sure. So, use of and Matt I've known for years. So I don't need to like go into too much detail, but I will say just for the benefit of the, you know, the board and attendees that. Yeah, as Ray mentioned, my involvement in, in recreation in Amherst for last decade or so has been pretty heavily focused on on growing the sport of lacrosse. So I've been the president of Amherst youth lacrosse. I coach the mini mites. Just in the last year as Ray mentioned, we've, you know, the organization has offloaded that kind of operations to Ray, which has been great to, to let sort of the professionals run that so super happy about it. I'm also the high school girls lacrosse coach to so continue to stay involved in that front and then in terms of other. You know, town activities, I'm on the planning board and on CPAC. As well. And yeah, three kids. Mary to one dog one dog unfortunately just passed away but I'm happy to happy to be part of the team here be the, that fifth wheel. Until you get to six wheel. Well, welcome. We appreciate your being here. Moving into today's agenda. The first item we do have, I briefly introduced Maria just to make sure that we had, we had people that I knew that people were in. But we do have two proposals that are on the table that have particular involvement that we are particularly involved and they've been identified as recreational proposals. I have spoken with both of the, of the groups directly I'm essentially a co author and the second one. But I did want to extend the opportunity because of the schedule here for CPAC to come forward. Before I do, I would like to mat or even Andy, would you all like to share with us what the schedule is for CPAC and what, what we're looking at here. In the next month or so. I can do it. I am just going to read the document that I've received from Sam. So it seems like Sam McLeod who's the chairman of the CPAC is has everything pretty under control. And I've received a whole bunch of documents, which I haven't yet had a chance to really review. The proposals have been all submitted at the end of September, and I received like a week or so ago. A big dossier of all of the proposals, and I'm supposed to review those with the committee is supposed to and staff are supposed to review those over the month of October, and submit some questions. And in November, we start to have presentations from the, the people who submitted the proposals and review them. And in December, we discuss and vote on the recommendations. The only thing the only thing that I would add that I noticed, so this is my third year on is that in years past, I would say that the amount of money we've had to offer has been in the one and a half to $2 million range. Roughly, is that, you know, and that's, that's kind of, again, what we get there's some sort of games we can play in terms of how we might be able to get a little bit more money. But, you know, it's in that range. And typically, I would say we have about a dozen applicants, and the total ask is not much more than, than that, that we have. So, for the two years I've been on, I won't say it's a rubber stamp, but just about everything has been approved. This year looks like it's pretty different. I mean, I just started to go through, and Matt, if you hadn't looked it's not one big dossier, it's two big dossiers, it's 230 pages. And some of those are, I would say like in total, it looks like we're in the five, six million dollar range. So, unlike years past, we'll have to say no to stuff this year. And I mean, that's, that certainly is a daunting responsibility for the committee to, to be able to look at, they have a number of valuable and well thought out well research proposals that they're going to be looking at, they're going to have to say no to some. I invited the two particular ones that I know of, that are recreation based to speak here, and because I see so many people in our, in our attendee room. I'm assuming that this is overlapping with this most of them are probably here to hear or see these proposals. So maybe with the proposing group that's going first. I will, I guess, without any further delay, I will unmute Maria. And Maria, I know that Tony and Rudy are here, I assume that I'm, I should allow them to talk also is there anybody else that you would like to have to talk. No, those are the only folks to speak to this. We do have a PowerPoint presentation and so I think I might need to be admitted as if we could be admitted as attendees, otherwise I can't share screen. Okay, I will do that, because I know how you can kick us back out after we're done. Okay, not a problem. Promote to panelists. Promote to panelists, promote to panelists for two and three. So, now we have as temporary panelists we have Maria Kopecki, read Perkins Tony Cunningham, who are all with the Fort River project that was highlighted in the agenda. So I'm going to assume share. No, I don't share screen I need to allow you to share screen. Yeah, I can try. Let me. Oh, it's disabled it says so I think try it again I just, I just made all panelists share. Yeah, that should do it. When I go to slide show there is a chance that I will lose visual contact with you so please interrupt. If, if you guys have any questions. So, let us do this I can still see you fantastic. So thank you very much, Ray and the Commission for for having us here. Just to get you oriented this is a nice picture, a little Google Earth of Fort River site, and you can see the current state of affairs with the fields. So Rudy and Tony and I submitted this application to help to offset some of the costs that are going to be involved in what will be required for the athletic fields portion of this project so let's get to it. So why improve these fields at Fort River. Well, first of all, there's, this is a unique opportunity we are as part this is part of an elementary school building project. And as part of that project, the grounds the site of the, of the Fort River site school, which has been chosen to be the location of the school needs to be improved and that includes drainage that includes raising up the fields by one foot. So, a lot of improvements are going to be happening to these fields as part of the project. We, many of us have either played or had our kids play on these fields and we know that the fields have drainage issues they're wet they're muddy they're damaged, and they. I can speak from having a concussion playing there myself that they need some help. There are a lot of organizations that that use these fields and we spoke we reached out to the ones that we knew about that are currently using it from ultimate and soccer and softball and football and cheer. And there's at least 1000 regular participants as part of actual organizations not to mention all the people that use it all the time on a on a more casual basis so very well loved and used field. The open space and recreation plan that was recently up, well, not so recent anymore but updated in 2017 speaks directly toward the Fort River fields as being an important, an important site to update and and improve. So we're in alignment there. This plan also points out that the the area of that Southeast Street area and East. What is it called the East Village Center is an environmental justice neighborhood. And there are actually plans that I'm sure Andy knows about from being on the planning board that there are there are going to be additional developments there for affordable housing with multi bedroom units. Hopefully more kids moving into the area as well. And as these fields improve, there'll be some of the best fields that we have in town and I'm anticipating we're thinking that there's going to be more sports and recreational programming. Once they are improved that are going to want to be using these fields. In addition, the site has a comfort station and there's field lighting for the primarily for the larger softball field. And in speaking with the folks that are using it these are actually very well highly valued and used especially because there's a lot of little kids that are coming directly from school and so on and they need to get changed and they need to use the bathroom before they head out onto the fields. The comfort station and field lighting are not part of the school building project because at rightly so the school building project is poking on school uses so that is not part of their planning at this point so we asked for it in the CPA application. So why CPA. The CPA, which is the state granting authority puts a cap on site costs at 8% of the total direct cost for any, any and all site work and most projects go well above that for this project. About $7 million worth of site work is not eligible for reimbursement from the state and what that means for us is that that will be entirely borne by the town. So that's going to be town money that's going to be paying for a lot of the site work. Again in line with the OSRP. The, this document specifically calls out that CPA funds should be used to improve heavily used field facilities at Fort River. It is as this is going to be used for recreation both passive and and active and sports. It's it's right up the alley of the CPA recreation category. The reason that we're coming to to you and then going to the CPA is that if we can offset that cost to the town. What it means is actually giving it's it goes directly to taxpayers because the anticipation is that this school project will be paid for with using a solution override. So anything we can do to decrease the total amount that that has to go out to taxpayers is a benefit and obviously tied in there hopefully improving the chances of a successful override vote, which is going to be occurring in May of next year. So we just wanted to show you a little bit about the site plan. So this is what is currently in existence and you can see there's multi use fields the that are used for soccer and ultimate. And there are currently three softball fields this is the main one with the lights and this field. This field is also used by the football the Belcher town Amherst, Granby youth football and cheer use this field at night because of the lights. The comfort station is here. And what I'll show you next is a possible future. And so this this comes from some diagrams, the latest diagrams that the building committee is using for the the background to it. And what I've done is to overlay what this could possibly look at. Now this is very conceptual this is not the final plan they are in schematic design, still thinking about all of these things. But the, you can see that in this, the school is going to be in the south part, right on top of that comfort station and down here. And there's going to be fields, definitely to the north there's some discussion about whether fields are consolidated or not the consensus of the users so far as that the consolidated gives a lot more options, and you can see there's four ultimate fields lined up next to each other with room in between them. And on the right, you can see that two softball fields can fit a third softball field is not going to be able to fit on the site I don't nobody's talking about that I don't think it's likely or possible. These other future use. I've got in a little white box here, where a comfort station might be. If the fields are all up north people can park up here and not have to schlep equipment to too far. But that comfort station maybe could go in this area this is our thoughts conceptual. And then there could be field lighting around the softball or and and other fields because the other the other sports might want to use these at night as well. So the budget for this this the amounts that we put in our request came directly from the two professional cost estimators that did work in June before these documents were submitted to the Massachusetts School Building Authority. And what we did was we took an average of the two values, and they have specifically list out and if you guys want. I've got tons of detail on this I can point you directly to the page and this multi hundred page report. This is drainage it's for the topsoil it's for the seating, and it is for for softball you need a backstop and and foul foul poles and benches and that sort of thing. So that this $2.4 million is the approximate cost of the athletic fields. And that includes the soft costs and so this this is not a direct cost this is a total project cost. We looked for for the field lighting comfort station since they aren't part of the MSBA project at this point. We for the field lighting we look towards the Western and Samson report from 2022 I believe it was for lighting for one field. And had to make had to make an assumption that you know it would this be comparable and it feels like it like it is that would need to be confirmed. The comfort station, there was a comfort station planned for Kiwanis Park. And this was in the JCPC budget of 2022, but it was priced out to the anticipated building in 2023. So we used that cost to put an ADA accessible comfort station and that's how we got to our approximately $3 million price tag. I want to stop because I don't want to take up all the time with the presentation but please are there questions that that we can answer I've got additional slides if you that I might be able to show you something if you wanted. I have two questions. This is Matt speaking. Firstly, what are all the other site costs. So you said, I guess that that this wasn't able to be included in the site cost because I guess, why is the site cost so big. Maybe you might be able to speak well to this, but the site costs are literally everything that happens on the site, aside from the building so all the paving work you know the any what the utility work and all the stuff that's outside of the, you know, quote four walls of the building is is for site is included it's it's $11 million worth. It includes the playgrounds and that rubbery surface place any asphalt and the grass area that's outside of what they've deemed athletic fields so grasses that will be used for school play gardens, anything like that. It's a huge site. I'm confused about that I'm wondering if there's no overlap between the school project and this recreation project or could there be some is there some. There actually is and it's it really is integral to the project because the entire site needs to have the drainage improved and for it to work as a site for a school. So much of the work must be done as part of it, but what we've done is to tease out the parts of the the site work, which, which could be used for community and recreational use. Right, so this is it's none of the kids playground areas it's none of the driveways it's literally the fields where sports would occur. They're also planning on putting a trail around the outside of it so I mean it can't it is available these athletic fields to use by the kids as well and you know and the school community, but it's it is. It's I mean it when you let me see if I can if I can go. Let me let me just escape back out here to. I think basically what you're saying is this project has a lot of site costs because they have to take down the old school. It's a very large site. They're really that reconfiguring a lot of things at the site so the total amount of site costs is more than usual. It's because of the size of the site yeah it when you talk to the folks that that do the school building projects, they say, nobody stays below the 8% cap. Every project goes over everybody every every project in the Commonwealth is going to have to take that burden on, but because this is a very large site. And actually, when before they chose the Fort Rivers site, they estimated Wildwood also and Wildwood had many many millions in site work to even though it didn't have any recreational community fields. So the difference at one point was $2 million between site work for Wildwood and site work for Fort River in the way the architects explained that was many many acres of athletic fields. Okay, so my second question which is not 100% just about this project but just in general. Is this is CPA funding the typical way that athletic fields are going to get funded like in my experience. Amherst has a lot of recreational fields that haven't really been maintained over time. Because we're seeing this at the high school project, we have CPA requests that Plumbroke, you know, is that is that is CPA really the only mechanism for capital at the like projects for recreation fields. So I can take that one. So there's the joint capital planning committee Matt, which is a couple of people from the schools couple of people from the library and some people from the town, and they get all the non personnel requests like all the capital which is buildings, its vehicles, but it's also grounds. So, a lot of the funding could also go through the JCPC process, which is like they take a portion of the property tax revenue, their target is 10% of the property tax revenue, they set it aside for capital for assets and maintenance and grounds is in there. So things like that Kiwanis comfort station, we got that number from the JCPC plan from a couple of years ago, and they put in things like irrigation in there and various maintenance projects, but what happens is, unlike CPA where Andy mentioned rightly that often the requests are either below the available funding JCPC is different JCPC the requests far exceed the available funding every year. So routinely things get pushed off. So when it comes to making decisions are like, Okay, well we can afford to do these projects but everything else is going to be pushed out to another year. So what happens to the recreational areas frequently. Have they funded, have they funded anything in the recreational areas. Yes, yes. I'm trying. I don't have anything off the top of my head but there's usually a bunch of stuff in there for parks and recreation and conservation and vehicles mowers. You know machinery snow plows. I just wanted to clarify Tony so in years past. We had like a little bit more, but we're able to say yes to just about everything. And this is the gear that we're going to have to say no. And so a question I would have is knowing that CPAC is actually before he asked my question, Matt, I would also just say. I think we'll absolutely see recreational stuff going through CPAC is that's one of the purposes of CPAC is to help fund recreational needs. I know that we were hearing kind of anecdotally that across the region. You know, you would see a lot of requests gearing towards improving athletic fields. The question I had is knowing that we're going to have to say no to a lot you've got 3 million in here. Right, which is more than than we've given in any of the years I've been on in total. And this is going up against, you know, other projects which affect, you know, historic preservation and providing access to housing, things like that. We're coming off of this big ask to try to improve the high school fields. The track is, you know, how would we. I guess is the is the number I guess is the number like you'll take whatever you could get. Right. Like is anything's going to help. Or are you, are you in a position where you'd want to make a case why we should pursue this over an affordable housing project as an example. The, the, the, the thing that's unique about this is that it is going to be coming out for a debt exclusion override and a lot. If you listen to all the finance committee meetings and so on, many, many things hinge on that debt exclusion override passing many of the other capital projects. And the, the, the Fort River project because it has such gorgeous fields that are so well used. It is a natural tie in to bring people on board to support the school building project and to say, you know what, not only are we going to get a great school for 60% of the elementary skid, elementary school kid population. But we're going to have these much needed and much used fields going forward and the bigger the tent that we could bring in to help people support this project and in supporting that project support the community recreational fields. The better the total price tag for the building project. So the estimate that was given in June was $100 million. The MSBA funding, the portion of funding has decreased as time has gone on. So the town is going to be bearing that and the, and it's actually directly to the town taxpayers in the form of a debt exclusion override. So in as much as if we can make the best faith effort we can to lower that burden on individual taxpayers and to make people more inclined to vote to support this project and vote for it. I think that that is, I think it's a strong, I think it's a strong argument for for doing everything we can. And I hope that that there are other sources that are that are sought. Every source is going to be matching for not matching, but contributing for the geothermal wells right so then there may be the inflation reduction act. Money is possibly for so you know so I think that the every bit that we can bring that down is going to help, but the MSBA is not going to give as much as they have in the past so it's going to be a hall will have more more developed numbers as we reach the end of the schematic design phase which is where we're at now and we'll have that in the early part of next year. And we'll and we'll know what the MSBA is going to be willing to reimburse before that debt exclusion override, but the reason that we wanted to get this into this into this year is be the timing is right there right if we can if we got it next year well that's that's super but people won't know about it next year so I think it's it's trying to support the project as well and get it to pass. Can I just add in answer to Andy's the part about would you take less. I would be happy with whatever we can get, but we went in for what we think it's going to cost. And, and honestly I think, you know as you know from being on CPA see for the last few years figures like this aren't out of cash you know they're borrowing so it would be more like if it was a 10 year borrowing it would be like 300,000 a year plus interest, and you know I don't know if CPA see does more than 10 years, I know for the school it's going to be 30 years but but I think CPA see typically does 10 year borrowings. Yeah I don't think we've done more than 10 for anything. And so it wouldn't be like wiping out the entire budget for the year it would be a portion of it but but yes, I mean, whatever we can get is is going to help. And I think one point is anyone that's been involved in capital projects knows budget crunches come at some point and there's no engineering efforts done and then there's talk of what can we cut in order to reduce our budget. And this could be one of the things that gets scaled back or reduced if it feels like it's not essential for the school. They might be like you know what, we could cut a couple of million off our budget by not doing the fields. And that's a real risk. And I know that the superintendent and the two principals that are on the building committee, their vote for Fort River. They said it was contingent on the fields getting fixed. And it is, it is susceptible to getting scaled back and not getting this work done and I feel like this is a critical opportunity for the town because this project is happening. And a lot of other projects we'd love to repair our co on us we'd love to repair graph all the other fields but they're not in the pipeline right now this one's in the pipeline. So I think getting some money from CPA secures that work. It's it's it's going to if we know there's funding available, then when it comes to value engineering, they're not going to cut something that is already funded. You know they could cut something else. I mean, you know who knows what what'll end up getting cut but we see with the library project that struggles they're having right now to scale back things. And it's likely that that'll happen to the school too. So I think that whatever we can get from CPA is more assurances that these fields will get addressed in this project. You're immunity changing it. What, what do you see right now as being the architects responsibility in this that they're developing it. If they, if this proposal doesn't go through is the fear that they'll that they won't have that they won't have a priority of making the fields better is your fear that they that that the existing plan doesn't doesn't know what they want there. What responsibility does that do the architects of the building project have to our goal and recreation Rudy you want to take this. Well, I think they're already looking at this. As part of the project, the the the dimensions of the field and their their placement on the site are still being discussed. So you can imagine that they could be more expansive or less expansive more accommodating to the different programs that have dimensional needs for the fields, or less because the community recreational portion is understandably not. I don't want to say not the top priority but the school building committee is focused most intently for obvious reasons on the educational program of the school and to a certain extent the community recreational use is. You know, I guess you could say secondary. The great thing here is that there's a synergy possible for the fields because you're doing a lot of drainage structures and partial irrigation hopefully extensive irrigation that's already going to be put in for a lot of the needs for the school. And so those fields to the north, it's sort of, once you're doing that, adding to the fields to the north and making sure their size, the way they need to be to serve the community recreational uses to kind of optimize that that's already able to capture some synergies in terms of economies of cost because you're putting in stormwater drainage and stuff that will will basically run through the south of the site. So it is a really good time to capture, you know, recreational uses I think, because this project is already going on. Are the is the is the request for field is the request for field. For the landscaping of the fields is that is that more or less important for you than the, and the lights and the changing station are they, do they talk about if we have to pull anything back the pieces that I know are not involved in the school project. As you pointed out, are the lighting and the changing station is that is that a priority the priority, if that's the only thing that comes from this is that a success. Are you saying if it was only the comfort station, the field lighting. I mean, it would be. It would not serve the needs of really taking a bite out of this. Yeah, very big, very big ask of towns people I mean that's going to be that you know what 600,000 yeah. I mean, if the fields are not developed well and we don't have that I mean there's there's nothing to light. So, so, yeah, I mean, I, I would personally not a success. Yeah, and we definitely heard from other people involved with the ultimate and soccer programs that the bathroom particularly is heavily used by all the programs and and lighting is a big asset that's not available and a lot of locations so But I agree with Maria that, you know, taking a bite out of the debt exclusion is really important and the timing of that. The other two pieces could conceivably be done later. You know the lighting and the and the bathroom and if they weren't funded I think we would push for trying to set up the subsurface infrastructure so that those could be added to later date. But I think we all know that mobilizing to get the funding for that will will not come next year or the year after if we postpone them it'll be a while before we get back to that. It would be nice to do at least some portion of the fields and the bathroom and lighting if we could. I had a to mind if I jump in with another question. So I was just looking at the CPAC application earlier and there are actually some more detailed options of late field layouts. I don't know if Maria if you have those handy because I was the question I was going to ask in CPAC was in all of the scenarios. Yeah, it might do you have that handy that the rendering from the application because that's what CPAC will be responding to site plan option C site plan option be one. Yeah, so they they've actually they've they've not landed anywhere yet and there's actually this is the out the outside everything outside the building is going to be the major topic of conversation of an upcoming school building committee meeting. A B B one C and D which are the ones that we had when we had to submit this, we've kind of moved on from there we're not they're now working on E and I'm anticipating that they're going to be having an ease soon because they've done some changes for on site. Traffic. Do I have. I guess it's all right if you if you don't I mean I can just describe basically all those other options you mentioned where you have those ultimate fields which those by the way don't look like their proportion properly those are that's supposed to be four fields. I think ultimate field is is a bit wider than that. Actually, they're 40 by by 120. And yeah, so, so they they are they are kind of long seen or they've got, you know, those end zones there but yeah they it. We are hoping to have this big discussion about where how do you position the fields that hasn't really been discussed yet. Okay. And so, so the question I just and all those options that are in the CPAC packet that Northfield is taken up by a softball field which there's no scale bar and almost looks like a baseball field and if that's enclosed with a fence. Yeah, so I was going to say is why, you know, like that's taking a softball field which is too big for elementary school kids really to play on taking away from the school. Let me sharing for a moment because I think I can let me let me dig that up I have them to if you want me to share that would be great Tony and then while you're doing that. The we did talk to them about it this this enormous baseball field it's I think it's a baseball field yeah yeah I think it is a baseball field and and we've been asking to have this conversation. So, so for a softball field for for women's from home plate to the to the outfield 250 to 275 for men 275 to 300 this you know there's coed leagues there. And you need you know another 25 feet, you know for the backstop. This is well more than that. It runs like, if I don't know if you can see it, but you see the outline of the current building, and it goes from like the from the current building down to here and that's this is like 400 feet so that isn't over. These are not to scale. I don't think that this baseball field is to scale. So, yeah, it's crazy. There is a lot of room more than it sounds like it sounds like the actual plan is not finalized, but you have you have a rough idea of what it's going to cost but the actual plan has not been decided because the whole project is still in schematic design. Exactly. And the what was in the cost estimates were cubic yards of material and square feet so I know how many how many how many square feet of seating right and and so on that they wanted to do. They were calling for a bit less than in that rough estimate from June, then would be then you'd need for for ultimate fields you need about 200,000 square feet to fit for proper sized ultimate fields with some space in between so people aren't crashing into each other on the sidelines. So, yeah, but this is a this is a proposal for funding. And so, and we think it would be applicable, no matter the field configurations that were laid out so we're not to you all. Yeah, you based it on a certain square feet. That that's right. The need for lighting in the bathroom would apply, no matter how the fields are laid out and exactly how many of each so. Yeah, again just sort of speak like if you have updated plans I would definitely get it over to see back prior to our meeting. Because again, I see this and I all four of them have the same thing which has like a fence. If the if the fields can be closed you've got a fence or like this, these fields overlaid over that couldn't work because there's a fence in the middle right so like just to clarify. Yeah, there's just again to clarify like so when committee sees it they understand that we're not taking Ford Rivers playground and turning it into a softball field for the community use this is their playground, which we're trying to repurpose. So I think just that might be an enhancement to bring to the package to make that clear. Yeah, so just to let you know there is not going to be an outfield fence. Most fields in town that there's only one field in town that does have an outfield fence and that happens to be the one that's currently at Fort River. But there will be no outfield fence because that would get in the way of everybody else. So there would be a foul pole. You know in markings but there is not nothing going to be running through those other fields the other the other sports would be able to use all of that. I did talk to the other sports to to to try to find out like, you know, well if there's a dirt infield how does that impact you and if they're and, and, you know, softballs the only thing that's got kind of permanent structures, but if you can have removable bases, then they're they're happier I mean they're not it isn't ideal to have to play on part infield, but there's plenty of room that's pure grass. And if you have removable bases you don't have tripping hazards there. And the backstop would be peripheral so not in the middle of the field. But yeah they're still developing these so please, you know, come join join the meetings and we can, you know, they're still thinking about this. So with the fourth that they're having the big meeting on the site. So November 4 at 830 am the elementary school building project is going to focus the entire meeting on the site plan. And so if I know it's a terrible time for those that have jobs, but you could also watch the recording later but if you are available at 830 on November 4 that would be a great meeting to join. And that and that will also be addressing outdoor learning spaces and their bus drop off layouts and and playground spaces. So it won't just be on the playing fields but that will be an important component for the discussion. But we can keep CPAC updated. I'll maybe ask about how do I get things to you now you know now that we submitted the application, how do I get additional materials as because this is a work that it's literally changing every week so. So just one question that what was the total square foot of fields that you based this on. They were basing it on and let me pull up my. I've got a sheet. So there were two different cost estimators. One cost estimator was as calling for about 185,000 square feet. The other one was looking at 157 to fit for. Ultimate fields with that room in between it's more like 200,000. So the number that you that is in our application is actually for less than the total that would be needed but to fit for ultimate fields. But it's what we had. We use the cost estimators information we didn't use our estimates we use theirs. Okay. So, about 180. Any more questions. I assume that the commission is okay with us going over time with the questions that I think we were a great opportunity to find out a little bit more about the proposal to find out where. Again, I sat down with the three of them to sort of talk about where my interests were and where we overlap with with our interest for racial planning there. It is a weird situation because Fort River has always been weird for us. You know, what is recreational space, what is school space and that's been a that has been an overlap that has been a concern for us for a little while and so what happens with this building project is we do. We do certainly have to redefine already. We do have to re establish that relationship there we lose pieces of it when they talk to me I did learn very early on when they did reach out to me to find out what we value in the Fort River layout right now and what we're looking for what we need in that space that they're renovating and softball being one of the major ones. We do use it for softball we do use it for ultimate. It is a backup space for soccer and football does have some, some use out or also. What we lose in that process is our, our main softball field. And so early on, our conversation with the architects was about the space that we're losing in the process. But again, the, the, the town is making a decision to school are doing a project that is there, their programming is and should be their number one concern. But in terms of what we have what we need what we lose. I think we need to make sure that we're still in that conversation that we're still trying to maximize the space we have. I think the point about this being an optimal time is important because we don't want to get caught behind that. Years from now saying, well, this is what we, what this is what we lost we had an opportunity to try and change this in the place where this is particularly helpful is because we are, we have a chance right now make our, our needs known. Yeah, that's good question. Yes, Tony. So what's the recreation, recreation commission schedule as far as taking votes on recreational CPAC applications do you have a timeline for your when when that would come before you. I believe that that that happens, and maybe our next. When does I think it's our next month's meeting. I don't remember when it was last year I can look at my notes for for last year when, when we, we all reviewed those that affect us and we had a chance to to sort of speak about it at a commission meeting and talk about what our priorities were and talk about where we were interested. If you all would be available to be placed back on call is will be a topic of conversation in in November also. Absolutely. Yeah. If the fourth is that big meeting coming up in November, our meeting won't be before the fourth, but if there is a, if there's an echo there's, there's a conversation needs to be had at that point, then we can, we can, we can discuss what, what we need here. There will be there, there'll be probably two other members who are not here right now, at least two other members two or three other members that will also want to want to be able to ask some questions with this. We do have the position of advocacy here with a voice and really appreciate you guys having us here and allowing us to speak with you. This has been great. We're, we're very excited as you might have noticed about this project. I can't speak for, I guess I can speak now I can't speak for the commission's support. I'm not going to try and speak for the commission support long term. The fact that we have a similar interest does not does not guarantee that we'll be pushing for it. But it's a conversation that I think is important for us to have as we figure out what we're doing with that with that space. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Remove my removing move us back to attendees. That'd be great. I'm looking for the kick is completely promote the panelists rename or remove that's all I have here. Oh no, I'm sorry I got the wrong person. Got it. Bye. Sorry, I'm learning. Okay. That was good. I will. I will definitely table the war memorial pool piece we went a little bit over there and I'm not the best expert to I told you I'm the I'm essentially a co author recreation is sort of a co author in this one, not sort of a co author I'm a co author in this with I will let you know right now the war memorial pool application is basically three parts. One is a to fix a leak in the war memorial pool. The second piece is to replace the liner which is do for replacement. The third part, and I believe the cheapest part of it is to commission a study for it to, to, to recompose the pool house over there. There's some sense that we would knock it down and reorient it to the, to the, to the field side of the pool. But we want to try and commission a study to actually go through the process of moving that pool house or update the pool house which is also poorly in need of an update. The things that are that are particularly immediate are are the liner and the leak, because they affect the immediate functioning for the next season involved in the liner it's a liner and the, and the ADA compliant lift. The lift is inoperable right now and, and we absolutely need to have that taken care of. So, TPW, and myself, we sat down to try and try and figure out how we could, how we could make that happen without the to basically to make that happen without having to shut down any of the services over there. This is one of two incredibly important pools for us as an apartment recreation apartment. I will give, we'll be able to prepare a presentation in time for November here but the, the concern about World War Memorial is that it is bordering on inoperable, if we don't get those fixes. And then long term this is also that that perfect time it's been on the Western Samson has been part of their part of that study and design was to try and move the pool house to update and move that pool house. We are looking at ways to make that happen sooner than later. And for that purpose it's probably to commission the study so we can bring those results. Any questions about that again I will have that information officially for you all as we move forward. That was a, that was a last hour submission. Fair enough. Okay. Moving into our our programming pieces. I need to. Program updates. I will try and make these as, as time honoring as possible, as we are over time. But program reports from the summer we've been gone for a few months. And the first couple things I mentioned there were, I want to just officially and publicly here address a couple of the issues that we had over the summer. The first was, in some ways, a disaster for us in terms of executing a plan, there were things that were outside of our control there are things that were very much in our control in terms of, in terms of the success of having a basic Amherst had its first major crowd event since COVID. And for that purpose, I can say it was successful if it was just a matter of getting people out and getting people out in people's space and celebrating it was a success for us. The fourth was a disaster for us because essentially we, we dropped the ball and some of the, some of you followed through and some of the, and what was what we offered was not what we delivered that day, what we advertise is not what we delivered that day. There's a major concern for everybody who's involved in it, it was a major concern in the public, and we have dedicated ourselves towards making, making up for the fact that that was not what we, what we expected of, of recreation programming. Again, a good deal of that was out of our control. We certainly had the had the ability to address that publicly before people showed up, which is what my staff was was particularly disappointed with ourselves about but there was some stuff that was under, it was complete under our control also July 4 was will will be we already are in the process of planning and getting that team together to make it so that that problem doesn't happen again next year. For summer aquatics, this was very much out of our out of our control. The problem was that we had a major major equipment failure at war Memorial and so our, we learned about it. Unfortunately, we learned about it pretty much on the eve of the of the opening that we want to be able to open in time, and then supply chain issues and and installment issues. It was basically three plus weeks of, of having to do, having to take all of our pool programming over the mill, which was a nightmare in terms of managing that managing our staff managing our managing the numbers that were going over there and managing all the programs and opportunities we we try to do over there. We had to take summer camps and rent the high school pool to be able to run the kids up from summer camp to pools. And so, to a to a probably lesser degree we owe the Amherst community apology and our earnest effort to to atone for that over the course of the next year and we'll be right on, we'll be on top of that before we reach that eve of the season next year. But that was almost entirely out of my control my my staffs control, but we did lose a great deal of our, our programming. Those are two pieces over the summer that happened that had us sort of digging to try and to try and keep ourselves from from losing too much of the esteem that we thought we had built up for the whole year. It was difficult to maintain through the aquatic situation it was difficult to, to sort of stand up and take the, the, the, the disappointment, the, the upset community the people who were noticeably upset about July 4 after the fact. But we are in a position where I think that we have landed our feet and we can hopefully move forward. Summer camps were fine summer camps I can say that summer camps we had a large first summer of relative normalcy we did have a somewhat normal summer in terms of sports camps in terms of summer camps at the middle school summer day camps, we did have some sense of normalcy and so for that the summer was, was, I think a relative success. Questions about anything from the summer. So, so can you just be exactly a bit more specific about July 4 is that a lot of people showed up but hardly any vendors showed up. My relation guess the fireworks were fine fireworks show we had a we contracted a fireworks display to come in. What usually happens at July 4 is there's usually number one, a hot air balloon I would start with my favorite ones and the ones that I was most disappointed about. We have hot air balloon, which is, which is at the hot air balloon is one of the big attractions, we advertised it, and we lost. We lost when they couldn't come that day we, we, we lost them as a potential vendor. Because we got started pretty late and they were trying to juggle what their, what the commitments were. And so we got caught behind that one but we thought we had them, and then we didn't, we didn't share that with the public before we showed up at the, at the July 4 and so people came to July 4 except hot air balloon didn't see it. The one that we probably heard the most about was the offerings of, of food carnival food to have to have food trucks and have a large food display. Our vendors our food vendors did back out at the, at the last minute. Again, it wasn't a holiday plan this year it wasn't on the holiday because the vendor couldn't come out on the holiday. We, we, so we, we chose a date that right before the holiday that we thought would be reasonable and our food vendors basically left at the last minute because they were waiting and try to find something else. We did it. We didn't have a contract with them, which, again, if we start earlier if my staff. I don't need the full story I just need two sentences that's fine beer garden hot air balloon food vendors. Sort of kid carnival carnival carnival events. It was a gathering without a lot to do. Yeah, how's that. That's great. Our, our, our responsibility the community was to deliver, like if we would have just said that this is what it's going to be it's a gathering going out and enjoy each other's company fireworks celebration we got a food truck or two. It would have been, I would have been happy on a low key sort of sort of situation. Yeah. But you've got, it sounds like you've got some, you've got some takeaways and learnings and maybe you'll be doing things differently. Move forward to cover your bases a little bit better. We've already begun that yes. That's, that's the important thing at this point like let's learn from it and move on. And that is a segue I believe into upcoming projects. I can table special impetus we haven't gotten a lot of, we haven't got a lot of traction in that yet but we have talked about one of the holes in our, in our programming is with we lost in the pandemic when we lost one of our program directors. We lost our special needs programming. And one of the first things I looked at early last year was, you know, these are places where we don't have programming answers. I did speak at a, at a conference to some folks that are really interested in extending special Olympics programming in the area. We're doing some, some, we're having some conversations about bringing special Olympics children, adults doing, doing a sort of a full life span special Olympics program that would be competitive that would be cooperative that would be with the schools I've started trying to introduce the idea to the schools and I'm hoping to get that more pickleball is. Now we finally have a little bit of work there. Yes, CPAC last year did approve of the, of the, of the pickleball courts. We have not picked its forever home the town and I are working with working to try and find out where the pickleball long term permanent courts will be placed. There's a series of conversations about that. In the meantime, because it's really important that we get that that we, that we honor that that mission of CPAC the approval of CPAC and the, and the proposal that was put forward last year. One of the things that we did is that we, we basically converted one of the two tennis courts at Mill River, the temporary lines into the lining for a pickleball court. We don't have net season started to turn right now. We don't have nets out there right now because we don't have an ability to, to loan them their good nets are frequently portable and I, I don't want to spend that money right now on on having somebody to order this for, for open run, but there are a number of people who have been out there playing already, who have portable nets, and it's an access for people to at least see the lease have pickleball here in the community. And so it's a process of course, when we open up in the spring, we intend to have the net situation taken care of where we can offer that to people who don't have portable nets, but a lot of people in the community do have. Nets or access to them. Halloween Spooktacular is coming up. It is a cooperation with the senior center in Bangs. It's basically a haunted house and a scavenger hunt to treat scavenger hunt on the 30th, on October 30. That is, you know, I know that Nikki Belly and our outreach team are really excited about the opportunity again be in person for Halloween and to be able to have a, a, a robust holiday plan here. You know, it's an exciting time because we do have, we've already gotten a bunch of sponsorships and for it we've already gotten a plan to, it was a cooperation that weekend we're going to be over there, setting up the, the bang center for the haunted house and setting up. It's a, it's a fully orchestrated event that I think is a pretty good step towards earning some of the credit back that we're looking for in our special events drops of the past few months. Winterfest planning is the last piece that I'll say and this is attached to July 4 also the two biggest community events that we run our winter fast July 4. We are all like that's, that's, that's going to be one that we also do this with but because winterfest is coming up quicker. One of the things that we need to be able to do is we need to be able to extend. We lost during the pandemic we lost sort of the breadth of the commission of the committee planning groups. Last year's winterfest, which again we had issues with winterfest last year and part of that was the Omicron situation which our commission, we did have a conversation with our commission about things that we would like to do better about that this year. The, particularly about being about scaling back. The, the, the meeting. You're already the Omicron, the Omicron situation hurt us for winterfest last year. One of the things we want to do is we want to try and extend our committee involved more than last year was essentially myself. And especially, Nicky and belly, my outreach and special events coordinator, and it was the bit of chamber that we're doing the work around trying to set up those, those weeks. I didn't know until the planning started this year for winterfest until we started talking about planning for winterfest that it wasn't always three weeks that it wasn't always that I think that was a accommodation for the plan this year for this past year. But they do have dates already set up for the luminaria for, for the, for the fire and ice festival which is basically what you might imagine it's the ice sculptor is the ice sculptures, and, and the torch show, you know, the carnival is going to basically going to, it's going to be a town, common celebration of fire and ice. I want to, we don't need to have anybody volunteer right now but I would like to involve our commission the commission is the first group that I want to reach out to, and offer positions in that committee to another people who have served and have, and have very, very deep interest in making sure that winterfest happen on our commission. And so I want to try and encourage you all to, to participate with us to join us for our committees will be talking about planning meetings. We're going to have a meeting set up with Nikki next week to start to prioritize who we wanted to try and involve in this who the stakeholders are in winterfest. If you know people who are who are interested in being involved, people in the business community and people with, you know, people who are interested from a family perspective, people who you know people who would like to be involved in it, you may feel free to send them my way, the planning for winterfest again as part of our redemption tour as part of our, if we're back in now, we were back in it without the normal inspector of what do we do about break, breakouts what do we do about rising, rising COVID numbers what do we do about, you know, can we plan as early as we want to plan, we have all that going we're trying to assume that this is a normal year and we're going about it from this point as a normal year. So, sooner or not later, we will be will be putting winterfest in earnest about all of those different smaller activities to go alongside the major ones at the beginning of the end kickoff and the finish of the fast. We want to do this right, we want to do this and excite people again, and, and give them reason to come and participate in our special events as we move through the year. Halloween winterfest July 4. We're, we're, we've been supporting and other events in the town. We're talking about potentially doing some things a little bit different with July 4 same idea, there's gonna be a lot of stakeholders involved in our July 4 planning also. Questions, comments, feedback on any of that. Do think about about the types of things that you would want to see in winterfest in particular. If you're on the committee with me, if you are unavailable but have interest. We are going to be, we're going to be asking for your involvement directly in this. We can do it with the, with the select groups that are that are been involved in the past, we can do it. That is, in no way our interest. So, consider yourself invited. In lieu of any other businesses there any commission business that anybody has to share open floor now 15 minutes late open floor now open floor now for new commission business. We skipped by and I know there's some people here. I did it. Oh, we didn't discuss any sports programming for the first time ever is that because it's all running really smoothly. That is partially because it's running really smoothly it's partially because it's just sort of getting started now we are. I can say that we did all this is a little bit of announcement. We did hire a new aquatics director. Well, we're in the process right now. We made the hire we just have to finalize the she hasn't been officially hired yet. Denise Leckinby has been hired as our, as our aquatics coordinator. I'm really excited to have her in she's she's one of the primary architects in extending our rec swimming program to into the middle school and high school was to teach some to basically do a competitive swimming program for us. And she also, two days before we hired her the schools also hired her as one of their co coaches for the high school swimming team. And so it is great to have her on her own merits, but it's also great to have her because she is. You know, it gives us a active connection with schools that I think I think make it eliminate some of the middleman. And I just think the world of her I think she's strong she's she's thoughtful she's great at at instructing and managing and she's, I think she's a great role model for the people that were both our instructors and our young people that come through our programs. Because of a hiring crunch, we, and part of it is is the transition in in our coordinators but because of a hiring crunch, we have made the decision to move our first fall session, our first fall quite session into Saturdays to to at the same time that we're doing our second session so that'll come up instead of having an October session in a November session Tuesdays and Thursdays we're going a, we're going with Tuesday and Thursdays in November and Saturdays in November. And, and so we're not losing any programming that as soon as she gets aboard I'll have her introduce Carolyn I'll have her introducing herself to to members of the aquatic community and make sure I have her. I'll sort of give her your contacts I know that's a particular concern of yours as a particular. Not relationship that I want to make sure is there. Um, and in terms of sports basketball start about to start soon and we're going to have we're going to be full board into into the heavy part of the winter when we try out start in November. That is easily our biggest, our biggest sort of program between now and and spring late spring summer. The other news the theater is back up and so keep your eyes open for the theater they have. They're already going through rehearsals they're already getting themselves into into costume and set design and little mermaid is coming in January. Their cast has been selected it's a fantastic cast from what I understand. And so I, I, we will be advertising for that more than we've already advertised in the future, but I hope to see you all there. I'll be there every night I can be. Next meeting, obviously we'll, we'll, we'll involve Sanjay in the conversation is Monday, still a ideal day for people. For me, for Andy's sake, we, we've always met on Mondays we wanted to make sure we got a meeting in and there were some, there was some conflicts with with as soon as like this weekend for folks who weren't been able to meet in October if we didn't need today. That would be the seventh right. So, so yes Monday the seventh if you want to try and meet the first Monday in November, I will send that request out to Sanjay also make sure that he has that on his radar. If people are available on Monday, November 7, then we can target that as our next date of meeting that'll be right after the, the CPAC, the November 4 CPAC meeting so I think that's appropriate. The wait. All right. Okay, yeah. Okay, that seems fine by me. I think the CPAC meeting is is on November 10 and 17. Well then we in our position I was going to say the fourth would be a Friday and I can imagine that as, as, as excitingly nerdy as the CPAC might be. I can't imagine that people would want to meet on a Friday night for CPAC. But if it's a 10, it looks like this the schedule for Thursdays. Okay, November 10 17 Thursdays, November 10. That would put our meeting right before that November 10 meeting. And that could also give me a chance to, to get more information here for you on one more. To get them at least come in to answer questions us to answer questions. Folks have the application to, I mean, I know Matt and I do, but it might be worthwhile for other folks to look through that what happened last year and it may be that we could do this better. What happened last year was, as we got into the point where they needed some, our feedback. I was given copies of all of the, all of the applications, and I shared that with commission and commission members, I basically asked them to familiarize themselves a little bit of homework as I think I shared with you Andy when we're looking for people to apply for the position. There's a little bit of homework around CPAC time where we say, review these applications and be versed in it when we come and discuss it as to what our priorities are. If I have access and if we have access to commission, I can look at that to sort of point you towards where your access is there so the people who aren't, Yusuf and Carolyn aren't on the commission, aren't on the committee. If Sanjay is not on the committee, if there's a place where I can just get them in to review these, then, then I can certainly, I can certainly do that and point them in that direction. Last year I just submitted to them I shared it with them. Okay, yeah I mean they're, I'll look to see if I can find the link but the applications are posted online. I don't know if they're posted yet, but they would be available online for folks to look at. Should I and I still have one to I still have two people three people in our, in our attendees list, I realize as I got to the end here that we kind of graze past the public comment section. If there's anybody in the meeting right now that has public comments or concerns, I want to make sure that they have it's out of order here. It's not where it was in the, in the agenda but I want to just make sure that if there are any of the three people who did not have a chance to speak right now, I look to speak. Can they message me. They could raise your hand. If you could raise your hand if you have a, if you have a public comment you would like to make here now. I feel, I feel excited because they're, they're people involved in our meeting which we don't always have. And so I forgot about that public comment section. If anybody here would like to comment publicly please raise your hand. Okay. Motion to adjourn. Seconded. And I will send an official invite when we, when I get the confirmation from Sanjay and anybody else that we put on the commission, but we're looking for targeting November 7 as our next day. In here. Good to see everybody. Everyone. Right. Thank you.