 This is the first meeting of the subcommittee of the finance, or is the subcommittee of the council, the standing committee of the council. Right now, we still have not appointed the members that are residents by virtue of the charge that we have passed. There will be four members who are residents. And we are challenged accepting applications for those at this time. I do want to point out how by the charter, those residents actually are not voting members, but advisory and development. I look forward to that advice. So that's a way of saying if you have a plan to apply, have it, please go ahead and do so. So with that, we do have an agenda that was posted for today's meeting. And I'll take the first item, which is the election of a chair and a vice chair. And I would like to place a nomination for the chair. Do I have a second? Is there any discussion on that? All those in favor? And for vice chair, I'd like to second that. All those in favor? All right. So we have our first two items are just taking minutes. We all do different things, aren't we? Yes. And we'll explore this meeting. Oh, okay. You've just been given the job for this meeting. We can do it on a rotating basis. It's been dispensed with the first item on the agenda. And I've moved my life in the Senate. It doesn't matter. This is all on the table. Okay. But thank you. Thank you. All right. Council members, if you have the minutes. Once again, the chair of a finance committee. We've done that for the other finance committee for three years. So the major topic, obviously, discussion is to get into the question of capital projects. And in particular, we were referred to by the council as a whole. That is to make a recommendation regarding a temporary bridge. It's a part of the project and other matters related to financing that were tested by the kind of manager for financing the higher station road project. Whether or not we would be council ultimately has bridge temporary bridge included. I just wanted to say also for everybody's not information here because it has not been posted. When we did a survey of this group as to when we would be available, we actually identified two dates. So that if we because we did not necessarily anticipate that we could conclude the discussion. In one single meeting, we may identify information or get the on the time. That's a lot of it. So the second meeting that we have identified is January 22 from 630 to 830 p.m. And the first four conference room in town hall has been reserved by our staff. So again, it's January 22 630 to 830 p.m. And the first four conference room at town hall. So the way we I had suggested structuring this after having to survey everybody to make sure that we have the items on the agenda. The reason to be there is to start by doing a little bit of follow up on this morning presentation. For those of you in public who are not there, we've been doing a series of orientation programs, which time managers organized with staff coming in and making presentations to us about the work in their departments and what we need to know this morning. So there was a presentation that was made that covered part of the question of how the budget is structured. Because I wanted to make sure that finance committee is approved understood the question that one of our members asked during the discussion is where capital is included and how decisions can make about capital. So Sonia has prepared to provide us with copies of something that was on the screen. This was the item that was on the screen. And I wanted to make sure that the finest we actually have a physical copy for each of you today, which is the one I asked that she provided. I guess there's a few extra copies up here for anybody who feels need to grab one item. And Sonia, you had a course and this goes to the most page under where it shows capital budget. And you had explained a little bit about how that works. And I wanted to make sure that people from committee in particular, some people from committee, had an opportunity to ask further questions about that because I wanted to make sure that there's much understanding of how the capital budget is first and possible. And so I wanted to hear your questions from the committee regarding funding of capital. It would be very helpful if we could just briefly describe each of the lines under capital. And also I'm curious about the debt exclusion at the $13,000. As I said this morning, how we fund our capital is we've been working our way up to 10% of the tax levy to fund our capital in that case for our debt service. If the debt service is paid, then we consider the rest of that cash level that can be directed for our capital projects. And so we basically take what we are projecting our tax levels going to come into 90% of that. Now, our financial policies that are in place now in the previous finance committee, which I'm still going by, our plan was to increase our percentage that we put towards capital by half a percent every year until we reached 10%. And that was part of the bigger plan for large capital planning in the future. We're projecting 95% for fiscal year 2020. I just want to caution that that could change depending on whether our budget is down, depending on how we might have to lower it. So when we go to the capital, this is going to be my page. If you are the current debt, the projected debt and the tax support, just the three in the bottom, that's all part of that tax levy calculation that I'm talking about. The CPA, we hold debt for CPA as well. So the first one is the exclusion. That's a whole expiry. So CPA, our community preservation act, we borrow from some of those parties as well. That one comes from the CPA fund, so that comes in. So we keep that separate. Same for this year, we have a pedigree on there, which is the educational government channel. And last year, we voted to authorize $410,000 to purchase audiovisual equipment. So we're expecting to have some debt service, even if it's just short-term interest in fiscal 2020. The debt exclusion, that's for fiscal year 2018 at $32,000. We no longer have any debt exclusions in the book, right now. We can't get that lost payment in fiscal year 2018. So if we do build school in the future or the library on the debt exclusion, then it would show up here when that debt starts to go away. So the current capital projects that's done under the annual basis will be ultimately decision council as a whole. The Joint Capital Planning Committee process will make recommendations, but they are recommendations to the council so that it is the council that will be making the final capital decisions. And so we're looking around to see if there are any other questions. This is from October of 2018. This is a sheet that's presented to the board board meeting back in October. We didn't want to, we have a motion to keep changing it. It's regular, but we just felt like it's important as a public document to stick with that one until we get a chance to decide if they want to change this or change it. We usually make a major change after this weekend. That's what the governor makes in his presentation. I hope the state will be back again. Do you have a follow-up on this morning's presentation? After the governor releases the budget, which is usually the week following the MMA meeting, maybe two weeks after this year, then immediately there's the new first charity sheet by the money is issued, which was referred to earlier. And that's when you start being able to actually see numbers to boil down policy that you will announce starting Friday morning. The audit gets translated into real numbers that we can work with just when that charity sheet comes out. And when they come out, they get to us instantly because they're available from the little world of the state website. So, anything else on this topic? Could we come back to it? But I wanted to make sure that... I'll ask a question. You've got the allocations here, and they're a part of the way through the capital attorney. So some of this allocation under the capital... We're in FY19, so this is just... Yeah, FY19. The way that fiscal years are labeled by the Commonwealth, which is what we're working with, is that fiscal years go from July 1st to June 30th, and they are labeled by the year in which they begin and face a little bit of mental gymnastics. The outside, the Odeon. So we're in 19, which began on July 1st in 18. We are now developing a budget for 20, which will begin on July 1st of 19. So then if I look at the column called 19, which is our current... And one of the issues we're about to talk about is the position bridge project. That's coming out of here. That's what you're talking about. It's a question. I should explain in a sustained way the question. I think if you should jump in if I mistake this, but because we are town meeting voted in the spring, the allocations for capital for FY19, they are already committed to projects in a lot of which this has been spent or actually committed to. Whether there's any money coming back is a matter that we need to hear about. When we talk about this, we get into what's happening because we're talking about a project that we need to be funded now and it is probable in this respect that we would need to take the money out of reserves either out of free cash or stabilization fund, which is the two parts of the reserves. And then we may choose as a council to reduce the amount that will fund in FY20 and replenish those reserve funds. That's choices that we would make with recommendations from the town manager. I do. And there is another one which I'm talking about for the total reserves. So you can see what the total on the reserve fund is here but I've seen that in your honor. I'm just talking about where I looked for dollars. I thought of the orientation that we were told that the money that we would use was money that was actually earmarked for roads and sidewalks. Does that change? So the money that we're using today because we already sent some money came out of the road sidewalks in town because we couldn't be contracting the reserves without it. We made that decision and currently we're still going to have to, instead of doing some other projects for the models and the spring, the questions before the money has been submitted. One is, can you replenish that money that we already contracted for, back into the PAPO account? PAPO? PAPO? PAPO? And then the other one is if you want to do another project there's a short term bridge or a temporary bridge for it. So the big question is about the bridge itself but I wanted to make sure that we give an understanding of how the budget works and where we would take money from to fund the bridge. And that's kind of where we're starting from in the logical direction of moving. Does that make sense? So the next agenda item, I just wanted to touch on briefly, we don't have anything to end out on this today. I think what I'll probably do is we have something available for you to look at which I'll describe in a second to send that to you so that you can look at it before our next meeting. And that is the analysis that was done and presented to a number of boards and committees including the People's W and Fire Station Study Committee and the other major boards and committees about how we could fund four major projects and I think that that was done in my case correct in September of 2017 maybe. And so that PowerPoint which was presented to us like when we asked was not here anymore on the time of the lady is what is the reference but I think the question everybody was asking was how are we going to fund four major projects and there were really some several pieces of it when you look at this sheet that we were just looking at and the question came about that exclusion so it was noted that the less that exclusion override was to be paid just paid off and that by 18 is done we have no longer a need that's really sound financial management that one tries to plan a capital project so that as you incur as you pay off debt then you can take on new debt through new projects and you use space to the extent you can the age of projects so that the budget for paying the debt on those particular projects gets added to the space over time because ultimately as you can see from these sheets it's part of taxation so the ability to borrow which doesn't necessarily all of that exclusion we only have to go to a debt exclusion override if we need to exceed the two and a half limits if we can build it into the budget itself we can do that so that the whole management structure is part of that and again available information for you but there's just so much that's out there I don't like flooding too much paper it could be as confusing as anything else so that's part of it part of it is that there's been an effort those references to it earlier today about building up reserves and being able to use reserves for some of our capital needs and that was part of a very thoughtful plan as far as how to do this and then the third was the recognition that at some point we would not have enough overall for projects to be needed for debt exclusion that presentation that we can send you the link to or send it to you as a media later today or tomorrow gives out the numbers behind that thought process and shows how it works but if I go back into the timing that presentation preceded the decision to go to the funders and ask for approval of an override for the elementary school building and because that wasn't part of the three pieces and the voters could pass it but then the downtown team authorized borrowing the literature to speak to this investment plan and he's told us to bring in the people who spoke to me and Gano who is here to help us to develop a similar financial structure in the way it's very close to an end Gano, you will have to pick some of the schools that came last night so there's going to be another 22nd now and this is the regional school committee and the union 26th, so so they will pick us up in the 22nd or just sharing some of the different time and abilities and what knowledge will there's no ramp up time in the other schools our sort of vision is that we're in priority to sit together so we should be certain to consider a school project and we have some things as well as it is a school project we also did not have the zero energy bylaw for municipal buildings which affects three of the projects and then we also did not have the half percent which is staying in but you focus on the capital budget if I look in out years beyond 2020 the debt service projection is going up so that you've built into this some discussion about major capital expenditures so if you plugged in a lot of to the projects to get to know those lines one is going down from the current so we're spending down the debt we already have but we'll take you there when it goes up so it's way by the time it gets 2024 so just asking if it looks like a few of the big projects are built into this right now I'm not sure it's the big projects I'll have to go back and look at the other actions and we can talk about that next time because we do borrow money from various purposes that's good so as you mentioned any big projects or is it spreadsheet that's a work set line yeah there's one for debt exclusion there's a work set from previous startups in there so I can that's fine but there's no projections here for debt exclusion no I understand there's no override in here but the debt service goes from a new project it goes from $300,000 up to $1,000,000 $1,700,000 so we're taking on debt for some for some things it's not a major part yeah so you'll get that for us one large project we do at times I just think of an example we borrow a bunch of money to do a lot of road work all at one time and to sort of create a bump for some of the road reconstruction and that's what's done borrow did not require an override it's only required to kind of kind of pay the council a little bit about the future as we move now in the direction of getting more specifically into the bridge and how it would be funded to the extent that we take money from the reserves to some extent debt is money that would have been counted in towards the amounts of capital projects and large capital projects that we've talked about so it just it does tie together and I just wanted to you're our finance committee I wanted to help you to focus on that so good questions the reserves are not shown on the sheet the reserves are not shown on the sheet it's so far and the reserves to balance the budget so that's the reason they show up here on the funding and resources the new reserves the Slater 19 home would change it would add whatever would add it to the budget and then the funding source would add the reserve or whatever you decide the tax raise the Slater 19 so it has to be ones that are resistant or are just to our committee knows where to look for that information in the meantime it's in the finance committee report I'm not sure if it's in the budget but the budget our reserves is about 12.9 and 3.1 that is pre-cash which means pre-cash is really not free it has to be recertified every year so that number could change so the population state does for that stabilization fund is what we say it doesn't close out every year 3 or 4 is listed on the agenda okay the the next topic is listed on the agenda is criteria for consideration of station roads, temporary bridge funding I think that was also a question that you raised at the meeting earlier a little bit this morning I think that one question came in during the public works you put into the context of other needs that you've identified around $172,000 was available for a project this was not named as the project but we have that amount of money are there other things that we might be considering or that you might be recommending? yeah could be either I think we have a backlog of road repairs and sidewalks repairs and construction projects we have city first stages I just wanted to build I think that Andy was starting to have savings from time of going the amount of time people would have to go to where they want to go line delays in the intersection it doesn't allow traffic to go it's a quite different thing than a survey to do a sidewalk for $15,000 but you can't do the sidewalk until you've done that so just how do you line them up with a potential list how do you decide what goes to the top if you have one what is really necessary what is most necessary to the intersection so it's a criteria of time I see sidewalks as a public safety issue I haven't seen many people come I mentioned sidewalks once in town meeting so people began coming and showing me their ruses there are a lot of falls in town where people get seriously hurt on their sidewalks and that's a very bad place so I'd like you to ask a general question are you ready to talk about station road I was taking what you asked the general question what will you prepare station road to I think it's sort of the next question on the agenda list the point you have been raised with your question from the committee to include criteria isn't this fashion to consider the guidance to the question what role will it take to advisory committee to be on that you look up from there you look up from the area yes I just I guess I was struck it's not to say what happens if you talk about what's happening in the intersection people are deciding rather than going to the intersection each other and do a security so it's in effect trying to get around intersection and we have this backup because you can't go with time on this farm it's traffic so we have a lot of traffic backing up in the morning so it's it's a similar set of issues that it just has happened and it's a longer term solution because we've got huge conflicts coming up next year which really happens more trips a day through an intersection with traffic so we wait it as it is why are we just forced to delay some time I just don't know how to make a decision we're more than happy to say we're also looking at long bridge so we've set out a schedule for this bridge and if the cops decide to stick with the schedule you'll have a permanent bridge right in the block of the 2020 so we would also look at that type of thing for some reason we decide not to stay on that schedule although you're not going to do this bridge unless the state makes for it then you're pushing the schedule for the permanent bridge part of the route so then you have implications other implications on the temporary bridge if you don't do a temporary bridge then the detour stays in place longer if you do do a temporary bridge you can create some type of easing on the issue until state funds do not available so those are the things we have to think about we would think about as well do we guarantee money to do a temporary bridge but now we even look at that as well so let me ask a couple questions on that one is the temporary when does the state make the decision about whether it's going to fund the permanent bridge and because I don't we were asked to look at temporary bridge we were asked to look at permanent bridge but so is there a risk that it won't be funded by 2020 with state funding the answer to that is yes it's always yes given the state's guarantee you might not be able to always give it to you you might go to the state before to start an lease to us for temporary projects in front of things so the state is the state mask give a key is not scheduled yet for this route we're going to keep talking about it and get on there and give back to me and hope it's going to be something a little more current by the next meeting other programs going for this cycle but I don't have it right now one of the questions that we talked about during the war was whether by moving aggressively on the permanent bridge but not doing the temporary could be moving in the timeline given state money, et cetera, et cetera, is there a way that we could be shortened to get them? So we shortened the temporary bridge. We looked at that. The schedule we have is very, very aggressive. It is very aggressive, it's all the same. We try to figure out what we would gain in the temporary bridge, and we may gain a mark at the most, that would all be all of the gain. For all construction work, our temporary bridge, we just put aside the temporary bridge. So we're not seeing much of a gain. Is there a period of time during the construction project that you enter in the volume presentation, or if we did a temporary bridge where we would have to take the temporary bridge out of use and there would be no bridge again, the schedule we have actually has a temporary bridge coming out is when we start construction on the temporary bridge. And you know that the consultant is looking at, possibly being in place, if you're being in place, your construction schedule for the temporary bridge is going to go out far, far away from the next one. So the way it's set up now in our schedule is to go to the tacticus, is that when we start the temporary bridge, we take the temporary bridge out, we close the road, we have no interruptions to the structure and the cycle, it's all construction, and it's coming here so forward. You know how long it'll take to be closed? So he's looking at it to be closed from about March, April to May on the weather, some of the season, how the season changes on us, so it has to be waited to be changed for a period of hours. So that traffic, I think the permanent is for sure we could still get this through. So the issue is, the issue is you have to accommodate people who want to use the temporary bridge. The roadway is only 50 feet wide, so you're going to try to build a bridge, which is probably 32 feet, but it's 34 feet wide. You're still trying to let the traveling of cars go up and down the road, so you will have to just accommodate that. There's going to be times when construction will stop because there's cars rolling, there will be times when computers will be stopped because construction will end the way. Trying to balance that out, I mean, everyone's driven through a project that works out in their state. Yes. The lanes close, there's only one lane, it gets a little slower, it's a little more convenient. It's also convenient to sort of construct contractors for people. So those are the trade-offs. Let's go ahead. The temporary bridge, as you said, will be used for other projects. That's all we have for the temporary bridge. That bridge here will be the same bridge as on the mountains. You can do that, but as you do things like that, you put more restrictions on the kind of tractor that will require more signs for the contractor to respond and actually prepare ways to move the dates for completion of the temporary bridge farther out. Right now, the estimate of when the time, if we decided on the 28th of January to do a temporary bridge, when would it be passed? Right, so it's on the, it's on the website. There's some updates in the schedule. Like you see on the temporary bridge schedule, this is the big one. So we're looking at having the temporary bridge in my later part of April, or 17th. So then on the permanent bridge schedule, the temporary bridge is the date you have from the end of March, March 27th, but the beginning date of March 23rd. So presumably, the temporary bridge would be in place if we did the temporary bridge from 4.17.19 to 3.23.20. Yeah. And that's the same agreement for sure. Well, that's the next question that I have. And I'll tell you what it is, and then I'll say it in case you're in. Which is, if we decided to guarantee the money from our reserves to do the bridge so that we can go forward with the 2020 bridge project regardless, does that affect our chances of giving statement to the group? I don't think it does. You don't have to appropriate the money anyhow from the town's funds, because this is a reimbursement for the program too. So the finance committee and the council have to go to the money for the bridge and then it reimburs for it. And that's kind of how these programs work. We'll have to do some type of action about you and I will say, you know, the money now. So, kind of the council has made that decision prior to they're making their decision as not a factor in their decision. Thank you. That was my question, because with all the uncertainties, if we keep delaying things to find out if we're gonna get money, then the whole thing just goes on and on and on. But if we say we're gonna make the commitment, we're gonna spend the money and build it to the permanent bridge, not during the temporary bridge, but we're gonna build a permanent bridge with likely reimbursement, but not guarantee reimbursement. I think we would end up with, by saving a lot of money and maybe moving faster and getting it into the system. Is that, as I've made a statement, or should I get the question, I'll just kind of be safe. If you use the bridge prior to including it around those days that we're on, yes. So I think that one decision point is, for a permanent bridge, would we build that fully to get state funding or not? So we only build a permanent bridge. The answer to that is yes. There's uncertainties to when that state funding will come through. So there'd be a more calling bridge than I think to say, we can put in a temporary bridge to solve the problem. And then from the state, the other option is that the panel just talked about, which is, assume we're not going to depend, hope that we will, but we compare it to not use state funding, in which case we might take a more aggressive approach to put in a permanent bridge. So that's the question. There's one other thing, typically you won't be faced with these types of the criteria and stuff. This is a, you know, unusual situation because the bridge is closed. We need to do something that we're moving forward to you with consideration. Typically these types of criteria are just a decision to wait at the transportation. By street, you can see that the transport to JCB city and you're really talking about the numbers that Zonia's chose to give them that federal protection of balance. So this is a hot-ball one. We need to track the decision on that. As for transportation, by street, you can't even compare it. It's not possible. No, it's not bad. For me, a bridge cost, you can have a sort of a slower idea, just to shade another million. And that's a pre-sand number. I mean, I know you've got a 20% contingency on that. Right now, that's a pre-sand number. Too late, the permanent bridge is too late. Yes, it's going to be too late, at least two shoulders and possibly two shoulders, two sides of it. So it's a lot safer to me, it's a lot safer. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. So, I don't want to get that. I think there's a safety issue. Yeah, we'll just public comment a little bit. There is one thing we didn't recognize while we were running a presentation for council. The total engineering cost is on the third page of the project, which is $2.7. And when we talk about reversing the road to your fund, we want to talk about $1.60 a month, $1.60 a month. We're going to need to spend a little more to engineering money to keep this thing moving. So the amount that we probably should talk about to bring back the road to repair or a powerful model is the $227 number, around that number there, $200,000, $220,000. So what you gave us is the accounts for that. That should, yeah, it's the money we paid, part of the money we paid already, the part of the money we'll have to pay it, and then it's done. I'm trying to remember your suggestion that we're planning to spend maybe $1.60. We've allocated $1.60 a year. Probably about a little over a minute. Which, as I recall, you said, we would have spent anyway to do the permit. Except for our small fees, we're just in some permit range work we've done. That's about $10,000. I think it's about $10,000. What are the issues that this relates to the North Amherst intersection and so forth there? I think about what else are we looking at in that regard? In North Amherst, we're not only looking at a library thing that needs to be done, and that would be done regardless, but we're looking at a complete redesign of an intersection that, when we get done, may not have a traffic light. So I don't think spending money on traffic lights in North Amherst as being, getting to our permanent solution, if you will. So I don't know how to say that in a criteria way, but for me, some of the decision to spend money is this getting us to our permanent solution, or is it just the being there? So I just want to retry this a little bit. And the reason we made, or I made a decision early on to move forward aggressively and take money from another account to move this project forward. In September, we decided fairly quickly, we had lots of, you know, there's a life goal project and so we just worked right, and it just takes time to get to the level of how we have all the rules. And so we got to this point. I think that it tend to, not to, should be prepared in the North Amherst intersection, but if that traffic light felt down, would we say, oh, nothing we can do about it, or would we have a decision then saying, just restring it up, put it up, it still doesn't work so well, or do we fix it permanently, we just bust a lot more money and just, so I think of this as being, we're putting that traffic light back up, and sort of because it's not even as good as it was before. And so that's what a temporary bridge would do for this street. I wouldn't recommend this on every street, on any bridge that depends on the traffic flow, and I think there are cases for that, and I think there's a fair amount of traffic for a lot of stations that aren't used for some kind of passageway. I would also say it's visibly responsible, but I really can get the state to find something that we should, this is what I'm thinking on school projects, on any of the library projects, on any of the projects, and the state has appropriate one of the projects that we should work really hard to get the state to step up and maybe that's what I meant about it. So I think that I would not be advocating for aggressive, permanent bridge replacement, unless we get state funding and give us some time to work that through. So I wouldn't say, and let's just keep spending money, I think permanent, unless we get state funding, unless we work through the state first before, I think that's visibly responsible ahead, but at least you've got the bridge open for minimal traffic. It's still, it's still a headache to people who are exploited, still have limitations in terms of the types of vehicles we've brought up, but it's at least responsible for industrial, or industrial, or particular. So that's why EMP assists the council for your consideration and this moment as well. Thank you. Regardless. Could you review for us the restrictions for vehicles that we'll be able to go over? So, but you're at this point where you're saying anything that's 14,000 pounds and wider to go across the bridge that's actually covers our ambulances, our ambulances, believe it or not, are around 12,000, 14,000. So that needs to pick up trucks, that means no roll-off trucks, no dump trucks, large dump trucks, the school buses, those things go on it, but you have a pickup truck, you have a trailer, you have a long trailer, you have a short trailer, no more 15 feet probably, or 20 to 20, those trucks are about 20 feet, so it's made for the trailer to deal with those who are there, but that's not what we can have the restrictions do based on it. So there's a weight restriction on it, and then there's, you know, weight restriction, because of the weight of the vehicle. So the argument about ambulance, what, obviously, most of the buyer wasn't cannot go down there. Most of it arrives to that area of town, but it leaves that area particularly and the most like station road, because it's going on to other hospitals. It gives it the opportunity to take a trailer road road and wants to out, and actually, if you have ambulance, we're just doing it, like a fire or something. Spoke alarm, a fire alarm, disinfection somewhere, and they're in the south end of town, and you get called to this east end of town. It gives that way if you get there, instead of going out and around, which is rare, most of the company's stations. If it does get a lot more flexibility, it's easy to respond if you're in a certain time. A question about the monitoring of this. When you set these rules for it, as to who can safely cross, but there's no one there to say you can't come through. So I just see, you've told me that Bridges has this funny bend in it. It's one lane, it's narrow, it's not lit. It just doesn't seem safe to me. Anybody who doesn't fit is going to find out very quickly, they don't fit. We're going to be there doing the work. How deep is the water? And is that really the question? No, almost half of the bridge is about four feet. They might be a little deeper, you should get away from the bridge, but it seems that the channel, they don't have a bridge over the bridge. That's why it's about three feet full of the top of the bridge. That's the only way. Because the chief will point this out, and that is the real critical issue is that the ambulance gets to the person's house. Once the ambulance gets to the person's house, essentially you have an emergency in the wheels. And whatever's going to happen is going to happen, probably because of what we have in the emergency vehicle. I'm sorry, actually. You can't do a step. So one of the things I think about is right. So we don't have any traffic counts. We do have a traffic count back in 2004, or three or four, and the traffic count is about 1,000 people. Yeah, the spills as well. Although the spills is closer to the route I've done. Oh no, I see. Rep in the name. We go to lots of migraines with that. We go to the Atkins. We go through not engine through the station. There's a lot of. Do you all have a number? Yeah. There's not. At any of our cells is the only involvement. That's why it seems like a lot of houses. It's not really that many more houses. So it's correct. So a lot of people here today Yeah. I didn't understand something that you said. When you kind of point about it, we always go after your recommend going after state money or outside funds when it's available. And I didn't think that any of our discussion was leading in the direction of designing the solutions that we don't do to have putting into a temporary bridge and advancing the question we came up earlier about advancing. We advance the money. I think he is addressing the possibility of being determined in the bridge by paying for it ourselves. So where are we risked in? My understanding, once they grant you money, that's what they will start reversing. So anything that is spent in this way ends with that grant. So if we spend money in this way So in a scenario where the state doesn't have to be very good, the temporary bridge could end up being placed a lot longer if we insist on waiting for the state money. And it's a question of not receiving the state money but the commitment of the state money for you to spend. So, whether or not sometimes they quote commit but don't pay. Once we're going to say get us a contract we'll be finding that we've had projects where they put money in the budget and said we're going to allocate this much to you but then it's not really based on the contract. Once they release it in the contract and we sign the contract and they sign the contract that's the date in which they will reimburse from that date forward. We need capital projects that are ever I think there's two actions before. One is to reimburse the money which is a mainly the other is to help with the funds. But you can't make a decision under 200,000 or two projects of what you're going to do for the permit. But at some point we have to replace that version of the permit and say well we're going to do it in total overall. I hope they have a way for state money. One thing that I wanted to just clarify is that if you said something that I couldn't understand it wasn't my right that I'm understanding of the North Amherst project. There are two pieces that were in the Mass Works grant really. One is the traffic light replacement in the intersection of Meadow Street and the other was to re-align the street north of the library to go through the land we purchased from the former service station and what intersection work has to be done to make that happen. And so Mass Works had funded us who would have been able to do them both. But the traffic light was going to happen anyway so that if you place the traffic light earlier it's just one piece less than we would be going back to Mass Works for the reason it comes up and people who are familiar with the intersection is that if you're not familiar with the intersection would you particularly comment eastbound from group 116 towards that intersection because there's a lot of traffic that wants to turn left and there's only one lane to back up can be as long as 20 minutes because you're going through multiple light cycles because people are hung up to make that lot turn because we haven't been able to install the narrow because the traffic light mechanism is just so antiquated am I stating that correctly? Yes. So if you're saying 20 minutes a day of additional travel time because of the loss of the temporary bridge the analogy is that people who use that intersection if they use it a few times kept them losing approximately the same amount of time on their trips through there for a long period of time and now it's projected to go through a long period of time forward to get them in that first screen for this year so I was going to ask the last question first screen so it's not the ever intersection I'll just give you guys another review of the whole project since it's coming up a lot I started working here in 2002 2003 when the director's office said look we have to do something for a different intersection this is a major issue so we've been doing many small things with this intersection over time right now where we are is we actually have a design for the pine meadow or pleasant street part of the intersection and we have a sexual designs for the realignment of the sun on the road by the people so we should look at these holistically and overall in one intersection it's considered one intersection by the state in the current climate so we did that and everyone agreed to it because we realized if we keep going to the state group we either get a mass works grant or we put in money on the transportation for movement plan which is the state funded process we're going to have to have the intersection analysis in mind to show we chose the right analysis at this point all the concepts are being modeled by our consultant they're modeling around the valves they're modeling around the valves and signalizing the intersection around the valves they're modeling signalized with no left turn lane signalized with the turn lane they're modeling all the concepts for that and sometime in the end of February and then we'll know which way to go and then we'll be at a point whether or not we get a mass works money or we use a little amount of money or we can start making incremental changes to the intersections but we're kind of if you want to do an analogy we're kind of at the point where we are at the bridges we did the environmental work and surveying we're doing analysis we're kind of doing analysis on the bridges now too so we kind of follow the same process we do a lot the intersection of our cameras is just a little longer behind the alley to the traffic light a few months back well we did the exact same thing we kind of talked about here we bought a $13,000 controller we put it in if you look at the intersection they've got these two big boxes that are like hooked together, funny well they are funny because they're not hooked together correctly and when we decide what we're going to do with the intersection we can take that $13,000 box we can put it someplace else and get it in some quick notes to get it as a spare so that's what the intersection is now probably when we start talking more capital stuff for 2021 you're going to see that intersection popping up more I'd excuse myself again I would say we're just setting up sort of the temporary boxes to make an argument that if that box costs $130,000 instead of $13,000 so that's why I take the question of doing a temporary bridge but not making promises to move forward on the permanent bridge until we get it that's my recommendation just to clarify so have we re-submitted the last works proposal? are we on camera? no because the the Linda for the application process oh I guess or something yeah if you're going to say you're really not going to say you're not going to fund a temporary bridge and you want to fit over here you want to go over here and capitalize on remembers I would say, well I don't have a plan for you to put in those kind of signals and yes okay so I just want to go with maybe just one last time to make sure we have the criteria of at least 10 where we are now down in the I would propose at that point we've identified the criteria so that's before everybody here could that be the time to then open it up to the public is that the agreement process so we talked about public safety we talked about added time and added miles that people are incurring because of the problem and we talked about the environmental environmental effects but there are other trade-offs with other projects so there's been a lot of discussion just about having so there's extra time but then there's also the issue of safety to people traveling over a one lane bridge or a no bridge at all you said your plan was not to have lights there at the temporary bridge I mean to my mind you would need lights the consultant has chosen to have a stop sign for the bridge I don't think so unless it has to be a major part just like I'm coming to a place with the temporary bridge and it's night it's dark and that's not safe I would suggest that we might be more safe to cross what I would worry about is that the length of the trucks will be lading once they mess up it's like once the truck messes up going under a bridge on E Street they don't make that mistake but somebody who's successfully got their dump truck across there exceeds the weight kind of to do it again dump trucks are not going to dump that dump truck it's not a dump truck I can take across them the rest of those guys probably not do it it's going to probably be the pickup truck that has a trailer that's a little longer than it should be compared to the ones that are really good to have at the temporary bridge who pays for extracting them and the repair their insurance company so criteria-less so I guess I appreciate the patience that all of you have I wanted to make sure that we have the criteria-less down and have some discussion in the comments but we certainly do them a policy of public comments and so on how many people would like to speak just raise your hand so I can get an idea in my case so about and so we start right back and we we will not be engaging in comment I guess back to me there's basically two sort of major publics one is as I mentioned a very broad and important safety issue and a safety issue is I talked to a poor member of the Cooley-Dixon hospital and she told me it's very true which is every minute makes a difference in life and death when you have a cardiac issue although the amerses have all this they're not equipped to do steps in the ambulance a lot of people in Amherst Woods and Amherst Hills are like, gosh, they're old and being old we're more likely to have a heart attack and it takes 10 more minutes to get the Cooley it's a good chance I'll be dead and that's really a very, very major concern the other safety concern which no one mentioned you know it's got a southeast view and it happens now and I feel terrible for the people who live on Stanley Road it's one of the people in Amherst Woods are good and Amherst Hills are good we're going down Route 9 to take a left in the Stanley a nice little community has ball fields a little kids right around playing in the street and so on I saw a couple police cars and now they're trying to control it it's a dangerous story when we get out there, along the southeast and generally we think the bridge in the southeast is a railroad bridge and how tight it is so you have two pickup trucks they go by side by side so here at night you have a snow storm, you have an ice storm it's dark as you're talking about if people zip it through there, there's going to be an accident there'll be a lot of accidents and when you come off the temporary bridge it's more likely you'll want to get access then you're going to get some lawyer somewhere you can say you know what you've got this accident supposed to be counted after you fix that bridge it's been a year and a half after you fix that bridge so that to me is a major bucket the second one is small businesses I have small businesses you've got lots of little guys you don't have to come here but you did you've got people doing landscape things there's a lot of little stuff which we have a temporary bridge they can take it to the top of the cross so this can deliver pizza hot rather than cold and there's a lot of small businesses so it makes a lot of sense and the third thing on the 20th side is a lot of nice argument allocated and it's been spent and we use for the permanent bridge as well as the temporary bridge so I think it just makes a lot of sense to try and afford the temporary bridge she asked everybody to say their names because Kathy my name is Chris Blondoff B-L-A-U-P-G-L-2 in 1985 I was working Blondoff, B-L-A-U-P-G-L-T Blondoff so I'm Mark the Hatter from the 18th Jefferson Drive and I just I want to do the hazards of having to drive around under the passage of that B-Street in the middle of bad weather and so on they're concerned people went very slowly for that bridge and oftentimes waited for another car anyway and so I really don't think that people would try to super-cross very fast on the temporary bridge but certainly they didn't super-cross fast even on the temporary bridge but I would like to make a very rough assessment of the environmental impact of the statements for not doing the temporary bridge again an estimate of how many cars used the bridge today and I was not able to find what I was just saying and typically I would see two or three cars while I went that section of station roads and the estimate was two cars a minute between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., let's say, ground number so that would be about 1,400 cars a day and then the detour adds about three extra miles I would say roughly and so that would be about 4,300 miles a day extra and then if the temporary bridge was constructed let's say at least 16 months that would be 480 days at 4,300 miles a day would be somewhat over 2 million extra miles and then if you said that typically a vehicle driving around those secondary roads was getting 20 miles per gallon that would be over 103,000 extra gallons of fossil fuel so I would say that's the environmental impact statement the pollution, the carbon dioxide etc. from 2 million extra miles would be irritating and 100,000 gallons of fossil fuels there is an impact also that many cars on these more secondary roads and more where to road they would need repair sooner and so on to the risk and impact there so certainly I would feel there's a lot of reasons also a reserve fund to make means of fund to be used for expenses that couldn't normally be anticipated but that's what we have here for the temporary bridge and to be a number 170,000 dollars compared to major capital projects and I really don't see that it should be afraid as an either or kind of opposition thank you my name is David Neelan I live at 20 Indian by plane in the south of Hamish I want to live there for a little while I heard something here that was a little disturbing I don't need the bridge I don't think we need to discuss that here I certainly don't see discussing safety to the finance committee but I've taken it in a financial point of view I heard a suggestion that in best case we could expect a permanent bridge by August of 20 and that would assume an adherence to pretty tight engineering schedule a probability that we would be assured in some way of state funding assuming that schedule it was suggested that we would have the bridge removed several months before the finish date of the bridge which certainly makes sense to me and so we have use of the bridge for as I understood it in less than one year now if we accepted that old premise it wouldn't be too difficult for you as a finance committee to suggest well we could rent the bridge for about a year I understand that's an option in this arrangement it also wouldn't be too difficult for you to come to a financial recommendation that we not even do that due to the competition for funds in the short duration that the bridge would be useful now I think it's foolish and we're all old enough in this room to kind of agree on this I think to agree that a best case scenario that depends upon construction schedule with New England weather it depends upon state funding coming through when you expect it's going to come through we haven't even talked about conservation commission approval of all of this and I'm sure they have a good deal to say about it in the surface yet I understand there's some federal engineering requirements there's a lot of variables in here and I think a best case scenario is a pretty rash assumption to make when you're making a financial recommendation now if you went to the conclusion that rental of the bridge does make some sense because we might make the first case scenario in which case we save a lot of money but on the other hand if we had the bridge rented and we didn't make all our schedules we'd still have to make the bridge rented and we could turn that out as long as we needed it that makes a lot of sense because that gets it's a bridge which we need and that's my premise going in and that's my conclusion that we rented the bridge for an expectation of that's maybe a year but probably more than that and we can either give it back or you want to buy it that bridge is not unique in this country we've got a lot of bridges a lot of towns I used to live in back in the beginning we could use we've waited three years for a bridge you can go into the bridge rental business or you can sell a thing but there's a lot of money to buy rental not so bad yes and then a trillion yen I just wanted to agree with everything you said about safety I've been living there for almost 18 years and using that little bridge on the station road there's never a problem when there are two cars coming towards at one stops that's the other one go by 17 years I've never had an issue with that never had an issue driving at night you mentioned that there might be a temporary bridge a temporary bridge the bridge that's there is like a temporary bridge it's small and there's no problem there's no light and there's no problem but going down going under that which the train tracks that is scary because people go past they aren't used to slowing down and waiting and it's not like in my 15 years if it is, you feel lucky you made it through but that is scary and there are no lights there either I think there's a huge safety issue that's on the screen underpass I don't know if you've ever done it the first time I did it because I haven't done it before because I don't understand that way normally the first time I did it I actually was very surprised how difficult it was when you had a car yes, there's a couple people God yeah, I see Carol Williams, I live in IJunilang been there for over 40 years and a policeman did tell me that whenever there's an emergency on IJunilang or Amherst Woods a police will come and usually from both directions and he said to me now it is a real pain because we only can come from one direction and it's serious I've read the paper where the police said well it's no problem, we can still get there it's the same amount of time but that's nonsense, you can't yes I also wanted to point out oh sorry, Pat Patrick Amherst Woods has been disheveled and torn out for like a year or two years probably at least three years and so we've been going out one way Station Road and then next week we have to go out through nine so we've been trying to navigate the roads for three years and I think that's a consideration that we've been trying to maneuver and manage the roads for three years in Amherst Woods so this is just another drop in the bucket that we have to figure out the other thing is there are a lot of houses there for sale up in that area and this has been an inconvenience I'm not selling my home but people trying to sell their homes that they can't go in and out for three years the roads have been all torn up so that hasn't helped resell or selling their homes but now having it blocked off in one direction I think that adds another inconvenience for people trying to sell their homes and the realtors and the realtors but so I just wanted to point out that we're not just looking at this one piece in terms of navigating the community in Amherst Woods but it's been three years and so we have to kind of put that in perspective I think You're welcome Hi Amanda Walling I live on Marksburg I would just add several people have mentioned the roads that people are taking as workarounds Southeast streets, Stanley which are not designed to have that kind of traffic and the photographic gas can create safety issues I would also add I think there's a few other roads that are in that same category right now I think we could take GPS directions to get to Amherst Woods from Hadley it'll tell you to take Mill Lane Southeast Street Mill Lane is obviously not a great road for high speed traffic since half of it is unpaved I know a lot of people are also taking the station road the other way down to Grand Wright so it's a very narrow winding road especially if weather conditions are not great it can be a little dicey too so I think other than just taking route 9 straight to the center of town which often has traffic back up so there's no very good route for a lot of traffic and helps Thank you I'm at Marksburg here almost last time that while I appreciate the comments that were received and what I'm going to say is the council and the fitness experience is number the second board too there's not always the perfect committee but to handle all of an issue but we can try and get a committee to spend more time with things and finance really is not just about numbers but priorities of how we spend money not money and so that is why our committee is here dealing with the issues of my next question to the committee is do you feel ready today to make a decision or do you want to delay until 27th because of all your call we reserve for the day after the use of the stone well sure I have a thing that I need to comment on if it is an option just send us the information there is no information going for a big package for this is it's a performance type of specification you have to be in these performance specifications you can propose a panel bridge you can propose such a bridge you can propose varying cars back and forth it's actually not an accurate that so I can really some people might not want to offer a bridge that has lights and whistles and bells they just want to say it's a bridge it's this yeah I do oh I see I'm sorry we need to announce above we need to make recommendations for you started to say I would also like to our next committee I'm a big reality so I don't make my best guess the spelling I'm scared so certainly a business that subjects this is the argument the second is the application process it's been open for a while I don't know exactly and the manager does recommend and understanding of the council that they see as an application application is meeting again only at once what they are looking at is a process by which the moment the town manager files a set of recommendations with the council and the court that that committee would meet and they would review a process there the appointment and the council recognition so I think it's in our best interest as council to meet the addition of four people who are residents to the process in the works right now the other question that we still don't have an answer to is do we vote on it as the council yes the town manager there's a video that reads that's correct and the town manager for all of us right now is the one for the license of license official and to us and the names and the addresses of all of the people and it had the whole description of the entire process including how many people live interviewed and so forth the other piece of still being fit into all of that is a group called the resident advisory committee and we actually get a legal read on what role that that's about pre-existing now it's actually great about each other it's a functional idea it would be great to have a sense of whether it's on or by the time that we are receiving the budgets and starting to discuss the budgets that we receive and that's a time table question that budget coordinating that help us to submit the library and the schools for the artwork but it's already a timeline but the town manager does not have to submit a budget we also mentioned one other I think it's the charter that directly relates to our job but definitely relates to budget and that is the charter that requires the town manager the president calls a town form and the town manager delivers an address about the budget who presents the budget and Mr. Bachler and I are looking at dates for the first full week of March and we have made a decision that we believe it will be a popular event that we are planning to hold and have during middle school and maybe but I don't we want our two dates weeknights but maybe if we don't fill the auditorium we'll just make another this is a week so just the last question I have maybe is whether you now know of agenda items that you would like to have for our meeting on the 22nd of January but obviously the risk for our meeting is including a recommendation to the council regarding the issues presented to us to financial issues related to the bridge but if there are other things you know now or you think of within the next few days please send them to me and I will work happy on just making sure that we have an incentive that's agreeable and it will be posted on time it has to be posted by this time so we don't have much time so we do have to if you already mentioned giving us a length to the presentation that would be revisiting the number of the stars but just getting a sense of what this is currently starting to work out yeah I think that the reason I wanted to do that is to see how everybody can see how it is structured how you structure those kinds of presentations and be able to ask questions about that we're not going to have a recommendation from staff about that and it would set us up though for the front page we are going to talk about the projects that are bringing to the council meetings in February and it begins to also give you a sense of looking at the whole but I do want to stress it does not include the two items we mentioned the zero energy which does not apply to the library but it does and it does not include the numbers that are told by the next person but it lets you see the thinner action of what happens on that service line so we will get that to you in the discussion to bring that back onto the agenda with the decision of the group to get us in next year's budget we're in an unusual situation and we'll be seeing that within this year's budget the money was allocated so we're taking money from one set of pieces to another because we're doing this off-cycle so it's going to pass from out of this year's budget but it's not in the approval process to just but we're being asked to replenish the money into the funds of top holes to incur as a result of the winter so we can prepare and so those were the two decisions but out of the interest was to consider I don't know what we have to spend on new projects I don't really have a good understanding of how we're going to do it yes even without this so until I know that I find it really hard to come up with a commitment on this if there's money to do it here because I know that we went into school because we did a bridge this way we could have done that way so it's the lack of having a big picture which isn't going to happen I need that picture those are probably not the real trade-off ultimately the reality is that the discussions that I'm hearing from to carry to school because it seems to be the first capital project emerging is they kind of would like to have that big picture because they influence their conversations we have to decide we have a very sharp window on the school we have to as a town council admit to something for the state to do the local we don't but in order to present to the United Front in order to present to the United Front it is highly important that the council would have a lot of questions so the big project we cannot do the major capital projects that we discussed in this town without doing some kind of overrun we generally on exception somebody mentioned in the past evidently we did take out alone to do some major road that's just this project road side here's anything else but I just want to kind of clarify the pop-up it's really not pop-up money it's road and that was part of the pop-up last year almost $1,000,000 to add to the road repair money the only reason we were able to use it for this is because it was road you know my average is a road so we were able to use that to do the work we did in preparation for the office we did that money last year we would have had that money go on we had to go back to the council to ask for a supplemental so because it is road they planned on using that money we pledged to go back to the road for the money so there's boundaries that I have to follow we're going to stay in the lock for that money so I just want to clarify that so I think the short answer to your question is you mentioned that capital plan yeah that's the short answer and slow just thinking about that the other thing that you had asked was that you know road projects in general prioritizing road projects in general and normally that's not an issue that prioritizes the time on because we're going through transportation advisory committee in the decision to select board we're kind of in the new territory because we're in a new form of government trying to work these things out so in our relationship the council as a whole is with the transportation advisory committee but they are the ones who in Guildford speaks this a little further I said it fully enough but they have a process of looking at the keeping road needs and traffic needs prioritizing and making recommendations which are based on recommendations and information that you provide to the transportation advisory so yes road resurfacing road maintenance is kind of held in my department we make that recommendation but on top of that we have the project work which is to expand the sidewalk we do this traffic sale we do traffic comment somewhere and I go to the education advisory committee and they make a recommendation and so when they see one by time they came to the select board there were three recommendations buying input for certain things but as the town manager took that and made something to recommend to the select board to the council there's lots of stuff to present to them it will all contravene the budget from the time they they're still actively meeting they voted not to make recommendations one way or another on the particular issue that we're facing which is the station road temporary bridge question and so but for other road issues that we sort of prefer to we probably will be getting and I expect we will be getting like North Amherst they look at North Amherst they look at North Amherst they're a second three times already they'll look at it again they'll study it and they'll look at that and they'll make recommendations on that you expect this to be and then February and our time is really run but did you have something to add? yes just wanted to quickly say when you're considering the temporary bridge consider that the reserve fund has 12 million dollars in it and the purpose as I understand it of a reserve fund is for expenses that cannot be anticipated we're asking for for the temporary bridge that approximately $70,000 to carry that as well that is one of the different the reserve fund is also financially to build our reserves because we only have these very large projects coming for us and as more and more projects come on line times we won't be able to pay that debt service for any operating project that reserve fund will be used to pass through those years so I'll just compare the 12 million that we've got before stepping up to this committee so we will definitely we'll need people to read from the next oh yeah wonderful comments so I want to make sure I so we will uh like where we go about the time that I think we've got the input from all of you so I don't think we have any other business uh thank you