 This is March 3rd and it's the meeting of the elementary school building committee and I am calling the meeting to order. Per the governor's orders, we're allowed to have this meeting virtually. So the first thing I want to do before we show the agenda is go around the room to make sure everyone can hear and be heard. So when I call out your name, just indicate that you can hear us or whatever. And I'm going to use the order that I see people on the screen. Anthony? Here. Dwayne? Here. Steve? Here. Allison? Okay. Here. Diane? Here. Good morning, but only until eight, unfortunately. Good morning. Phoebe? I am also only till eight. Shane? John? Not Shane. I'm Shane. John? Here. Jonathan? Good morning, here. And Ben? Morning. Good morning, everyone. Did you acknowledge Miss Merriam? Pardon? Phoebe, did you acknowledge Phoebe? Yes, Phoebe. Oh, okay, sorry. Phoebe, did I forget? Phoebe? Phoebe? No, I'm here. Thank you. Okay. So both Mike and Paul have said they will not be joining us this morning. Mike sent me in one comment on the draft request for services. And that is the only item on the agenda today, actually. So I know Diane needs to leave early. So what I would like to do... And Allison needs to leave early also. Okay. You both need to leave early. So what I'd like to do is start the meeting right away on the draft unless anyone else has any comments first. Steve, did you have a comment? Okay. So we sent everyone the draft, which our subcommittee on drafting revised, and I sent a list of the revisions, the main revisions we made last week. And Anthony can put it up on the screen. And maybe Jonathan, as chair, you could just walk through some of these changes in the goals and the changes in the waiting. And then we can see if there are any comments. And just so everyone understands, this is our final, we're hoping final review. And yet, if we get to final, we're planning on submitting it for review by MSBA staff by the end of this week. And they ask for at least two weeks to review. And then if once, if they don't have any changes, or if they have changes and we make them, then we'll be able to be put it in the register and post and start getting people to apply to be OPMs and start that process. So this triggers the process of selecting an OPM. So Jonathan, maybe you just walk us through I think the main changes were in goals, correct? Yes. Let Anthony scroll down. You want to start with objectives or you want to go down to the grading? No project objectives. I think that we should start there. So we had a couple of edits or suggestions last time. We discussed them as committee and we did adopt a couple of those. And I'm reading it as I'm going, just trying to remember where they were. Yes, that's right. The second one, dedicated space for special programs and special population position, just in change. I think we had called out specific spaces in the prior draft. And then moving down. I think we may have made a small edit to natural light throughout the building. We did. Yep. I think we added the COVID line or did we have the COVID line? I apologize. I can't remember. We had COVID before, but we did the including daylight and view in the classroom to natural light to emphasize that we met in the classrooms as well. Thank you. And then I believe the next one that was added in was the compliance with the town's wage theft bylaws or have I missed something? It's mainly when you added the word capable after net zero energy because that's right. Yeah. Thank you. It's good to have someone is my conscience. And then the very last one was added to or maybe Anthony, the achieving project is while controlling costs to cost effective. So I have one addition, one change Mike wrote in, I asked about auditorium space and he said that MSBA elementary school program would not want an auditorium space that wasn't multi-use. So he provided suggested wording that would be a space designed for use for school wide assemblies, comma performances and production as a substitute. So I can read that again as use for school wide assemblies, comma performances, comma and productions. And that allows for things like a cafeteria or a dual use of a gym where gym is so is I'm basically that was a suggested change. And I thought it was a good one coming from the schools. So I don't know, does anyone else have any comments on this because this this is the generic goals. And we do say these among others. So this is what people would see as we're hoping the newly built the renovated building would have in them. Beyond the usual classrooms, gyms. Gyms are assumed to be in everyone. So that's why this that's not called out there for those from schools. Okay, I'm not seeing any others. So mainly, we can go down to the evaluation criteria. So here, we varied the weights a little bit, things don't total up to 100 anymore. But we didn't feel as a subcommittee that that was, you know, particularly important that that really mattered more about the the waiting and making sure that our waiting reflected our goals, I guess is the way I could put it. And so, Anthony, I don't think we changed one or two changes further down under they go. We increased this one, right? Yep. At this point, we have we know red marks next to so much of the document. Right. Yeah, and all the changes get folded in. Exactly. So I'm not sure what we increase the weight on number C under capacity and skills as we're hoping to all along the way with this project, the community facing when we are about to make decisions or when we have choices. So wanting to know that they've been engaged that way. And we increased minority and women-known business. The 15 from 10. Or was it 15 from five? 15 from five, I think. Yes. Yeah. I think that accounts for our 15 points. I think we did five points up here and 10 points down there. Yep. So Paul, just before he left, when he announced he wouldn't be here earlier this morning, said his primary hope on all of this is we get the best possible OPM. So the background checks we're doing in the interviews to get someone who can really guide the process and be tough, be a good guide when we're facing decisions on saying you could do it this way or that way, but you might want to consider the following. So I think that is Anthony Jonathan can tell me, in the interviews with people and in the background references, that's where we're going to get that kind of qualitative flavor on aside from they are competent to do this. What is it like to work? I would agree. That's where that best of information is going to come out. We're going to get hopefully lots of very qualified candidates that respond when we're trying to find, as Paul has said, the very best. That's going to be the best for us. Let's give 100 points for that. If it was that easy. Best possible OPM, 100 points. So I'm not saying I'm looking on the screen and maybe I have to put up the participant list. If anyone has a comment, they can actually just be informal and call it out at this point. Okay. I'm not seeing anything. So Anthony will then make this final. And my understanding from a quick conversation is that Mike has been designated as the key contact with MSBA. So once we get it final, Mike will be the person who submits it. And we've been assigned a coordinator who up until now has been very, keep the schedule up here, Anthony, a little bit so everyone can see what that is. So they ask for it to come in. This is their schedule. They ask for it to be to them two weeks before we put it in the register. So if we can get it to them on Friday, we're well before that. So we think at the latest we'll be in the register by the 24th. And then the rest of the schedule is designed to meet each of their target points and get them back or final selected OPM, the group we've selected, by May 5th. We have to make May 5th in order to be on their June 7th panel. So these are their dates. So these, you'll see these are the key issue, the key points along that that we're going to get interview people, shortlist, pick the final per final group, negotiate, and then submit our selection. And one of the things they're asking is that we document that each step of the way when we do our final selection. So what did we hear? What did we ask during the interviews? What did we hear back? So at this point, we don't have a next meeting for the full committee set. So for in April, so we could make it that week of that third week in April. Maybe I'll get back to everyone on the best date because trying to figure out what part is subcommittee and what part is full committee is something we haven't done yet. So our meetings will always be this Wednesday time unless we can find out time. I know this is difficult for Diane and for Alison because they have to leave early, but any questions on this? I don't see any. Kathy, this is Sean. This is more of an observation. I really question it. It seems like the, and you guys know your workload, but the time for shortlisting respondents seems pretty like a tight turnaround from when you get the responses. I guess that'll sort of depend on how many you get, but a lot of times these are really big books of information that you might get from these OPMs. And then the interviews, I remember again, depending on how many you shortlist, I know those took, I think we might have done those over a couple days last time around because I think we interviewed, I want to say three or four of them, and they were pretty lengthy interviews. So again, it sort of depends on what you get, but just a couple comments from last time. It's definitely tight. It's tight and I think the place we might get an additional week is if we get this draft in by Friday and they review it with fairly minor changes. It's just that they want two weeks to review and we've given them more than that for that 24th date. So we could potentially, if we get it into Friday, we could possibly be in the register earlier than that. And just again on what that initial review process is. So that would give us some additional time. That wouldn't change the 19th, right? It could. Okay. If we get the RFS in the central register earlier, then we could just move this date up and leave the deadline where it is. Or we could move everything up and give ourselves more time for evaluation. There's arguments in favor of both, but this is a very tight timeline. I would be inclined to give ourselves a little more wiggle room here. So Anthony, is this schedule is the once we get it to them, we can change this as long as we get, right? Other than I'll include that in the email I sent to Mike to send to MSBA that if they can approve us earlier, we'd like to expand this schedule a bit. I don't know how this, I don't know how this process works, if it's like a little bit of back and forth or if they, if it just kind of goes into a black box and comes out again. At least my one experience with the project coordinator when I sent her question, she got back with me to me like two hours later. So I think we're assigned someone who jumps right on this and pulls in the resources. So any other questions or comments on this? You know, I also thought, you know, it's whoever is reading the documents, there's a lot of reading and then getting background interviews in a condensed amount of time. But if the readers simply block out the 20th and the 21st, just right, it can be done, right? Yeah, that's pretty much what would have to happen. Yeah. Yeah. So you just have to any of the, all the readers will, yeah. But the goal is to not extend the bottom there to beyond six, 10, right? Yeah, I mean, well really five, five is when it has to go to MSBA and we lose control of the timeline. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And then there is this negotiate the price tag of all of this in there too. But all of that has to be, as Anthony just said, Steve, that May 5th date, if we miss the May 5th date, we're on July rather than July. Yeah, we don't want to do that. Yeah. Well, I've got the weekend that we, I've got that blocked out. So yeah, I'm ready to help. Okay. I have no idea how many responses we'll get for something like this. Okay. Yeah. So even for Fort River, we got three and that wasn't an MSBA project. So Yeah. So maybe 10 then. Yeah, I'm not sure. Well, and if we, and if we block the time and are prepared with, you know, rating sheets that are big enough to write comments on, you know, then that kind of read can go faster. So any other comments by anyone. And then I'll get back to people with the next meeting date once we just figure out what this schedule is looking like. So when the next full committee meeting would be, I don't see any hands up. I'm assuming we'll have public comment. Yeah, we are. I'm just making sure on the committee and I've got the full committee list. Okay, nobody's hands are up. So then I think we are, we will turn to public comments. And the call in person has his hand. I see one person, Anthony, with hand up. And so we'll call on that person first. Okay, color, if you unmute, you're muted right now, we brought you in and we can hear you. And if you would please state your name and where you live. Okay, my name is Vincent O'Connor. I live at 175 Summer Street in Amherst. And I was actually encouraged by the editorial comment and the bulletin by Bruce Coldham to think about your goals and so forth. And given that this, that the two buildings that are one of which will be the subject of this process are 50 plus years old. I hope the committee will think about what the climate is going to be in 50 years. And the, we've had a fairly stable climate. We have done without air conditioning, excuse me, we've done without air conditioning in our buildings. And I think that may be not a wise decision for the future. And we've also, and I, you know, given the potential instability of the climate over the next 50 years, I would certainly suggest that a system that allows for the heating and cooling process in the building to be, so you don't have a stop point and you stop heating and go to cooling, essentially a two pipe process might be a wise thing to look at for, you know, when you're looking 50 years out. Also, with regard to Bruce's thing, having hail resistant glass, I think might be important. It's unfortunate that we may have to deal with this, but I think we have to. And, you know, this is a Midwest Southeast process. Sorry. And, and also a tornado assembly location in the building, just trying to think about because you can't really, if you have a tornado warning, you really don't want to start putting kids on buses and sending them home to homes that may not have parents. So you may want to think about your, one of your locations, the cafeteria or so forth as a tornado assembly location. So those are just the common climate related things. And just related to all the, all the construction that's going on that is assumed to be only for university students, things change. And once you have all that housing in place, there is a potential possibility that you may end up with families with kids. So, and, and have a completely different demographic scenario than the one that appears to be on the immediate horizon. And I would just encourage the committee to think about maintaining control of both sites, because there really is not any really good site left in town for a school. And, and to think about the out, you know, years, what would happen, how would you go about the process of making sure we have sufficient elementary school space? And what is going to be the effect? I think you'd have to work with the region on this, on the region of reduced or increased school population. I don't think we should assume that the direction we're going in now is the direction that 10 years from now will be going in. And, and because the university is so dependent on out of state and out of country student that it's, this is a potentially, a situation that could potentially change very rapidly and very substantially and have a really unfortunate impact on the need for elementary school space. So anyway, thank you for listening. Thank you for your comments, Vince. And just so listeners and a public knows we are recording. So we'll take minutes, but we will be posting the recordings. So the comments will be recorded both us listening to it now and for the future. Anybody else? I'm not seeing any other hands. Wait a minute. No, I don't think so. Okay. So turning back to the committee, does anyone else have comments, questions? Did you say that Mike had one comment or was that Paul? Mike's comment was the auditorium Steve. When he was said, he wasn't sure he could make it. I said, what about the word auditorium? And he said, we actually can't, a dedicated space that was just an auditorium would be unusual or not. So he gave us that wording. That was it. And Paul was make sure the points get us the best possible person, you know, team, which is I think the interview and background checks and more, I don't think we can, we do have, in my opinion, we have a lot of points for experience and past performance through sprinkled throughout. So And I know people have to go now, but the points are to get us to the shortlist. And then after the shortlist, do we redo the points or what happens then? You rank them, but not based on, not based on any kind of rubric. Got it. So the points only get us to the shortlist. Got it. But I'm confident we have a process for that. And there's a disclaimer just before that you will be evaluated on these as well as others, you know, so it's, you know, we're telling them what our weights are for those specific attributes. Kathy, can you remind me who's doing the interviewing of the committee? I think that's a really good question, Phoebe. You know, right now we have, you know, the assumption going in, we have the subcommittee on OPM selection that started out with drafting. So we might, one issue would be, do we do a broader set of interviews when we get down to the finalist, and we certainly could do that would, you know, to, we've done that with the council, we've done, you know, if we're a full council, even if we're a subcommittee, we would have to be doing it in public, you know, so people, and then have some lead questioners with it. Anthony or Steve or Jonathan, I mean, what is your, would it be, and the subcommittee has five people on it right now, including Anthony, because we particularly, we were drafting this request, and he will be the officer doing the contracting with it, but we don't necessarily have, we didn't, people weren't volunteering for a subcommittee thinking about who would be doing the interviewing. So any other, any thoughts on that, Steve? But Anthony, I was just pointing to Anthony, because his hand up, yeah. So I'm not strongly, I have no strong feelings about whether the subcommittee should be the ones doing the evaluation and interviewing. I have very strong feelings that anyone who's doing the interviewing should participate in reading all the responses and and doing the short listing process. I don't think coming in just for the interviews is a very good idea. Also, Kathy hit on something that the interviews have to be in the sunshine, right? They have to be at a public meeting, so. Right, that doesn't mean that, you know, they'll have to take public questions, but yeah, I would have to, it would have to take place in a, in a posted meeting. Yeah. So Phoebe, well, I see Diane also, is Diane waving goodbye or yes? Sorry, thanks so much, Allison as well. Thank you. But we would make sure, because we're an Allison, but we're posting it, so you would be able to be, if you're not part of reading every document, you would be part of listening to everything the way I asked of people and those interviews will be important for the final selection. You know, so I think Steve's point is right and Anthony's point is right that you need to both be reading what they've submitted and writing and including to guide the interviews. Any other questions or comments? So what I will leave this at right now is we will get this ASAP to MSBA through Mike and once we hear back from them, we'll have a concrete schedule because we'll know are we ready to go to the register and the clock will start ticking on that. So we'll be able to send out a notice just to make sure everyone's available for, keep your Wednesdays open for a next meeting and then look at when, when, what times a day we might be scheduling some of these others like the interviews. But the, the, the subcommittee right now, whether everyone understood that, including Dwayne when you signed up for it, at least that group will be reading every submission. So we can broaden, we could increase the group if someone wants to be on in that and we can, we can, you can send me comments on it separately if you want to think about it now, but it will be an intense reading project when these first come in. I'm not seeing any other hands up either in the little raise your hand technique or this way. So I think we can adjourn the meeting and I thank everyone for getting up early in the morning and see you soon. Have a good rest of the week. Meeting is adjourned. Take care. No free. Thank you all. Thank you.