 Good morning, everyone. This is the January 12th meeting of the elementary school building committee, and I'm going to make sure that we can all hear and be heard by falling out names as I see people on the screen. And I'll start with you, Jonathan. Sorry, I've needed myself. Good morning. I can hear you. Okay, Tammy. Good morning. Jennifer. Good morning. Doug. Good morning. Paul. Good morning. Rupert. Adam. Well, that's good enthusiasm. Good morning. Alicia. Here. Okay. Terrific. As I see other people join, I'll just make a double check that they can hear and be heard. So people, other people might have heard, but Phoebe wrote about a week ago or last week that she's not going to be her schedule has changed in a way that she's not going to be able to be on the committee anymore. So I'm not expecting her today, but that is the only person who I wasn't expecting. We don't yet have the replacement for the school committee because it has to go through an appointment, but we will have one at the next meeting. So I think with that, Margaret, I'm going to turn it over just for you to review people for the agenda for today. And, but everyone's going to see it's, we're moving along pretty rapidly. And one of the issues that Margaret will be going over is a series of meetings that are now being set up as, as we move forward. So, and including the meetings that our team has been doing. So Margaret, you're, you're, you're on. Okay, so we're going to start with a schedule review. There is a lot going on, but hopefully the schedule review frames that for all of you. A lot of the update we're going to do today is on permitting. We've had a bunch of meetings that we have a bunch more coming. So we'll give a little bit of a summary of that. We are planning now that we have the estimates and are have finalizing the documents for the 60% submit 60% construction documents submission to the MSBA, which we're planning to send. Assuming that you give us your authorization we're planning to send on Tuesday next week right after the MLK holiday on Monday. So I'm going to give you an update on the early site package, which is advertised now on the streets so to speak. We have moved made some moves ahead with establishing the playground equipment working group. We've got a couple of invoices, and then we'll have public comments. So, any question about that before I take that down Kathy I see Simone has joined. Yeah, I'm just I want to make sure that you can hear and be heard. I can hear. Okay, thank you. Thanks. All right, so checking Angelica in particular no hand her. Because yours is always the one I miss. Alright, so I'm now I'm going to pull up the schedule and take a few minutes to walk everybody through what's going on here so and everybody see that document looks like it. Okay. So here we are actually happy new year everyone is our first meeting of the new year. And now we have our meeting schedule for the whole year, which is fabulous. So, this is, you know what I'm sort of calling a three month look ahead. And I will. I've also got a week in here that is behind us, because I want to just comment that the team achieved something really important over the holiday with a lot of help from Bob parent and from Rupert which is, we were able to Berkshire gas was able to come in and remove the existing gas line to the building and put in a temporary service. So that is, that was a task that had to happen before the early site package so thank you. Thanks to the folks from the city who helped with that. So, but looking ahead. So, we have a meeting today we will have a meeting in February. We will have a meeting in March so I've sent holds for all of those so hopefully that's all going to be good. What the consultant team is doing right now. So, as I mentioned we're about to submit the 60% construction document set on Tuesday. The design team is beginning the final bid document coordination. And I want to pause just to talk a little bit about the pre qualification process so we need as part of this project to pre qualify. The potential the interested filed submitters and general contractors for the project. That is a process that is, it's very important fairly bureaucratic. And I have recommended to Paul that the participants in that committee be. First of all, Simone, Simone, you are what it will be involved because you are the procurement officer for the, for the town, Bob parent, because of his expertise in public work and Jonathan Salvin thank you has volunteered to be a participant. Most of the work of the sort of behind the scenes work of this process will be done by answer and denisco, but that group will be meeting periodically as we move through the process to pre qualify folks and you know essentially this is to ensure that no one is bidding on the project that doesn't have the qualifications to do a project of this size. So that's, that's what the design team is up to early site package. As I mentioned, the gas line is gone. We've got the early site package documents or advertised. I think they went up as of Wednesday. We are expecting the bids back I think on January 31. So that's the time I'm working with the district to message provide messaging to the staff and parents about the change in the traffic pattern that will occur once the fence goes up to separate the southern part of the site. We believe that the, it'll take about a week and a half to get the contract awarded. And we anticipate that the contractor will be on the site in early March and around that time we're planning to have a public event just sort of celebrate the, the physical beginning of the project. I'm just going to skip over this to say we'll go into this in more detail. We have met with concom. We have met with the planning board. We are getting ready to meet with the zoning board, and then we have sort of, you know, going back to those groups and as part of that, there is also a tree hearing, because there's a tree that has to be removed at the site. So we'll come back to that design coordination. The design team is working with all these different groups on design core ongoing design coordination. We have established a playground working group which is several folks from the town. Nate Malloy and Paul Deathier, if I'm saying his name correctly Paul, who Paul is a civil engineer and Nate is a senior planner so that group will begin to meet on the playground equipment. We've got a kickoff meeting in person kickoff meeting scheduled now for January 26. And then we'd like to have a design subcommittee meeting and a second meeting of the playground working group on February 9. And then a third meeting of the playground working group on March 1. So the times for the this meeting and this meeting are still sort of in the works. We've pegged a proposed sustainability subcommittee meeting for mid March. And then I also just want to comment that we have, we do have a few proprietary items on this project proprietary items being things that can have to be bid, because of their functionality with other with similar materials that they're just using. They would have to be bid to, they only would be could be bid to a single source, and that requires a vote of the school committee. So we've put a pin in going to the school committee for that vote on March 19. And I just comment, because we're going to talk about this with the corkeen so the corkeen material, if the, if the town and the building committee want to pursue that that would be included in that vote. MSBA is sort of percolating along in the background. And then the last thing I want to note on the schedule is that the school vacation week. There is going to be some additional hazardous material sampling at Fort River. Some was done previously but this is really to make sure that we have the quantities right in the bid documents. So, any questions about that super fast overview. Okay, I'm not seeing any questions. So, wait a minute. Angelica and then Kathy. Okay. Yeah, I was just wondering about the equipment for the playground equipment working within my apologies if I missed any emails about that, but I had been hoping to join up with that committee to offer the perspective of families and caregivers, the students with special needs about equipment. So I'd be eager to find out more if I could still fit it in my schedule. Okay. Why don't I send you an email with the dates and times and let's see if we can wrap you into that. Kathy, did you have a question. Yeah, I just wanted to say one of the other meetings you've gone into is design review. You did that. So, my question was on timing. So when you have the final rounds of the permitting, those have have to be completed before this is I should print it as a question. Do all those get completed before we go out for the main bidding for the whole project. Yes. And in fact, the conservation commission was very helpful this week, because we actually needed what's called an order of conditions, which is their requirements for the construction project they were they provided the concurrent the notice they agreed to provide the notice of the conditions for the early site package. We do need to go back to them on the playground surfacing question, but in the super short answer as Kathy is that yes, all of these would need to be complete to go to bed. Rick, were you going to say something. Oh, okay. That was just on timing and then so this early site package that doesn't have to happen for it. So we're moving forward on that with. Yeah, it's the notice of conditions was what we needed and we have that from the conservation commission. Thank you. Okay, so, um, let me. So the next thing on the item was to get into a little more detail on the permitting. So, I'm going to ask Rick and Tim if they want to sort of expand at all on the conversations with concom. And then I can, I can take up the question of corkeen. Sure. The conservation commission was very helpful to helping us get out to bed. With the early site package. The, the ciltation controls and the construction controls that the conservation commission imposes on construction cost projects have a cost. And Aaron was very helpful in giving us 99% of the special conditions as a draft and with the commission closing the hearing and issuing the final means that we can get the final out into the. Bitter hands. And I don't know if you've seen an order of conditions or study data, but there are a lot of conditions imposed on various. Part partners in the project. It directs things that the owner will do in perpetuity. It says things that should happen during design. It says things that the contractor must do. And one of the things that we do to make it clear to bidders that they hit everything is to. Annotate the order of conditions, giving the responsibility to the various players so that they know that they are the ones that are responsible for not doing this or doing this. The last discussion with the conservation commission was that they. Wrote the order of conditions without any playground surfacing mentioned. Which has given everybody time to study and to come up with. A final decision as to what would. We would go back to the conservation commission and say. This is what the surfacing in the area. The playground area will be and the conservation commissions. Jurisdictional authority over the playground. Is the comment that there's a potentiality for. Surface drainage that permeates through the material. To leach something into the into the. Ground water and so that's how they get to have a say in. What they think that material should be. They sum it up Margaret. That's great. Very helpful. Thank you. Okay, any other comments you want to add about the planning board or the zoning board. So the plan, the tree hearing is rolled into the planning board hearing, right? Tim? It's not. That's right. Yeah, the tree hearing and the planning board hearing are both on the 17th. And so. Tree without snow is advisory to the planning board, but at the same night, just like we met with the design review board in December, which is advisory. And so then the planning review board will review the overall appropriateness and compliance of the project. That will probably be 1 of 2 hearings. And then on the 25th, we also also have a zoning board of appeals. There are 2 things that we have to go before them for 1 is to actually build a part of the building is in the flood. And then we are also bringing in fill to bring the building up. And to do that also requires a variance from the zoning board. So that hearing will be opened on the 25th. And all things going well with 1 or 2 hearings, we expect all of this to be wrapped up. In February, that being said, the approval that we got from the design. Review board was contingent upon us coming back when we have the signage design. So all of these things are going to be approved just like the concom. But when we have the final bit of information, we'll have to come back and fill out the fill in the information that was missing. Yeah, you know, I think planning boards in general. That have there's there's always some challenges between. There's always some challenges between the progress of the project and sort of important details like the signage. It's that's a pretty common item to be returning to the planning board for when the signage is designed and ready to be bid. So any questions before we move on to money. Margaret, do you want to, on the agenda, we were going to talk about the playground surface at this point? Oh, yes, exactly. I think I would stay, stay within that context since that's the 1 condition that. Was not signed off on by conservation commission. Yes. Thank you, Kathy. So, I hope you all had a chance to read the memorandum that I wrote to the conservation commission. So, you know, in our last meeting, the corkine was raised as an option during public comment. It wasn't something that either, well, Denisco or Brown Sardino or I were familiar with. So, while the design team was wrapping up the, the 60% construction documents, I went ahead and did some research on this. So I'll just summarize very quickly what's in the memo. So corkine is a pretty new product. It is an offshoot. I think my favorite part about it is it's an offshoot of the port wine industry in Portugal. So the company Amarim that owns corkine is a Portuguese company. And they're basically taking the leftovers of the cork material that is put in wine bottles and they're sort of finding a secondary use for it. So it's been, it was first installed in, began to be installed in playgrounds in Europe in 2016. So that's a, that's quite a new product. It was introduced to the American marketplace in 2022. And the first installations of it were made in 2023. So there's some really good news about it. I mean, first of all, it's very, it's a very porous material which matters to the conservation commission because they don't want to see runoff. It's probably, it may actually perform, I think, better than the port-in-place rubber. The, the biggest sort of immediate flag on it is that, as I said, it's a new product. So, but it is, I mean, it is quite beautiful. And I, if you, I'll just pull up quickly the pictures. The biggest installation to date in the US, and I'll talk a little bit about the other New England installations is this playground in Philadelphia. So this is the Franklin Delano Roosevelt playground park in Philadelphia. And last year, I believe in the fall, they installed about 24,000 square feet of the material. So it's going through its first winter. But you can see from these photographs, you know, it is, it is a beautiful, natural looking. Obviously not all. There's, there's other components in it. For instance, the binder that are not natural, but the substrate, I guess you would call it, is these, you know, small pieces of cork. So, so that all of that is good news. So the questions become, I think, for the, for the committee to consider. There are, I would say some risks associated with this. And I think we established in the last meeting that there is no perfect product here so I would put this in the same category as no perfect product. Beautiful. It's really sore substrate. But the issues that I think the building committee has to consider, as well as the town is, first of all, I think cost has to be discussed so the material is new to the market and although this is likely to change over time. The current way it's being sold in the US is it's, it's being licensed to installers who have regional markets. So it doesn't, there's no competitors. So for instance, if you bid poor in place rubber installation, there would be different people bidding on it. This is only ever in the current market ever going to have one bidder, which is why school committee would have to take a vote on it. But it also means that you're, you're subject to that installer wanting, not having competitors. Now, the good news about the licensing is the reason, part of the reason they do it is market control but part of the reason they do it is that it, it gives them more control over installation. So they're licensing the installation to experienced installers. In this case, unless something changes before we bid it in the summer, the installer is a company called note, the one that is licensed for for New England and the actually the Holy's first is a company called no fault service, no fault surfaces. They also do other services for instance board in place, and they are based in Baton Rouge, Rouge Louisiana. However, their work, they're going to be doing an installation in Eastam this coming spring. And I, I believe I'm pretty certain they did the project in Philadelphia although I haven't confirmed that. So overall you're going to have less control here and although because because it really hasn't been bid extensively. I'm the only numbers I've gotten so far. I talked to the gentleman in Eastam who bid the gentleman, the gentleman, the landscape contractor who is doing the project in Eastam and I asked him what he thought it was likely to cost in a bid situation. And he said that he would use as a rule of thumb somewhere between 26 and $32 a square foot. And the estimates that we have, we've been carrying 25 report in place rubber. So if you do the math on the size of this playground, depending on where you are in that range. That's somewhere between a $15,000 and $100,000 increase in cost. But there's not a lot of predictability about that for the reasons that I've stated. So the second, the second risk factor is warranty. So what they are, what Corkin is doing by licensing the installation is they are giving you a five year warranty. We're going to ensure that you have a quality installer may cost you more but you know we're backing these people are going to give you a five year warranty. I thought Brown Sardina commented. I mean, it's important to understand that the construction industry and designers in particular do not embrace risk with new products. Brown Sardina, Bill Brown wrote that they do not typically specify new materials until they have been installed for at least five years, and there's a minimum of 10 installations. So that is not the situation. The only place in New England that this has been installed as last year about 200 square feet of it was installed on a playground in Carlisle. So this has nowhere near the kind of track record. It may be fabulous but it's the track record that most designers would look to to make sure that they had. They were providing something that they could stand behind. The third risk factor is resilience. So, although we don't have all the data we do know that this material, while resilient is not as resilient as Port of Place rubber. It is a matter of degree. I mean, obviously, it's got a lot of other advantages. But one of the things that it may impact, for instance, is the design of the playground equipment, because the design team may recommend using playground equipment which has a lower height. In order to mitigate the fact that the material of corkina is used the material isn't going to be as resilient. That is my brief dissertation on corking. So, questions. I see Rupert has his hand up and Kathy so Rupert. Can you just clarify please what you mean by resilient is it like how soft it is or how durable it is or or what. Yeah, it's how flexible it is. Okay, that's the fall protection angle. So that's that's the cushioning. Got it. That's what I thought but I just wanted to be clear. Yep. No, good question. So I see Kathy Angelica Alicia and Doug. So Kathy you want to go next. Yeah, just on from what Margaret I think she put it in her memo. Yes, the school in Eastern Rupert is saying that a fall from eight feet or more wouldn't be protected. So don't have equipment that someone could fall off of that's eight feet 10 feet tall. You know, so it's thinking that way. I have a question on the, if we take a reboot to allow the design team flexibility to choose within the budget. If, if there were equipment as a swing set is a swing set eight feet taller than swing. And does someone climb to the top of the swing set. There be any way of saying part of this might be one surface and part of it might be might be another or is it a, if we switch, it's all or nothing so that's a basic question and then I'd like to stay within the budget for this and I know we have that in our cost estimates. So it feels to me that the design team with our landscape and the playground equipment could be thinking of we've got 14,000 square feet now is, is there some flexibility to stay within the budget. If it was slightly less square feet, you know as you're starting to look at the playground equipment Doug and Tammy, you know I'm what's going to go on the surface. It's all about what's underneath the playground equipment we're going to have grass we're going to have basketball courts we're going to have other play surfaces. So those are my two questions. And I thought, and I think it's that height, Margaret it's not that it's not, you know, if you, if you fall off it from five feet you're going to be fine this is. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah, go on. The height and the swing set and the swing set is the example. But, but climbing on top of the swing set frame isn't really the eight foot height. It's actually pretty common at the top end of a swing arc. So it's not it's not as as unusual as you think it might be. So the one other property Margaret didn't mention that's nice about for keen is heat Angelica you had raised. And this doesn't heat up. You know, it. So not there's one picture in the ads with when Margaret said porous. They have a little girl trotting out with a pail of water and she pours it in and there's no puddle. I mean, it just goes right through. So this has a property for on rainy days. You're still going to go back without without a puddle. So it's got some very nice properties and in Europe. The, some of the early adopters of this are Norway and Sweden. So it has been in cold climates but what Margaret is telling us is, even there it's not like 20 years of history. And Kathy, thank you for bringing that up because I mentioned last time failed to mention this morning so the, the sales guy for corkeen told me that there is a couple of school districts in Texas for instance, that are using this material quite a bit recently. And, and it's the heat issue. So it. The, what the porn plays rubber people are doing by comparison as they're starting to use very light colors as the color mix I visited a playground in eastern that was adjacent to the site of this upcoming playground project that was had acres of porn place rubber but it's all super light colors, right. So, you know, the industry recognizes that issue in the porn place rubber but corkeen is an alternative that seems to have very good performance around heat. So, okay, so Angelica I think you are next. Thanks Margaret and thanks Kathy for noting that that's fantastic to hear about that because he does such an issue and my question was more about accessibility. I want to talk a little bit more about that. So how does resilience relate to that because that's what was a big concern in our factor before it was choosing for it in place. There was that it was much more accessible for learners with wheelchair mobility issues and not having to have the ground be unstable all the time and report so if you could speak a little more. And I, I don't have any numbers to point to but it's, it's appeal is that it has a comparable performance to the port in place rubber for accessibility. It's a very accessible surface, compared to the engineered wood fiber which you know as we discussed we've discussed a couple times has some limitations. Okay, I think Alicia you might have been next. Thank you Margaret. So I think that considering the feedback that we've got from concom and I think the board of health also wanted an opportunity to take a look at this. My question is more about process in terms of like in which direction we will then take this starting today. So I think Kathy mentioned that we do have the possibility of taking a vote. To sort of allow flexibility for those who are designing the playground equipment, which I think would be a good course of action. But I'm then just wondering what would we then anticipate that we would allow for the board of health to make a recommendation and that they would then take that recommendation into consideration and is concom. It says that they got us to bring it back to them. And so I'm wondering what that means and does that mean that they are looking for us to change our decision and bring that back to them to get an approval for that portion of the project. So again, like my question is more about process and where we go from here in order to I think in my opinion, we should at least allow the flexibility for the people working on the playground equipment to look into the other options. But just not actually like in terms of process. So Alicia, can we put a pin in that because that that is where we're headed with this discussion. I want to just hear from Doug and Jonathan. If they have comments that are not process related and come back to that. So Doug, did you have a comment you wanted to add to this. The thing I just wanted to ask was, you know, Kathy mentioned in this along these lines, the same sort of thing she mentioned that some of the installations in Europe or in northern countries. And so I was wondering if we know much about those installations or how long they've been there. So, you know, if they have five or six years of experience in those northern installations that be really useful information if we've got it if we don't. We, if we could find out that would be helpful. Just because I think that's more parallel, you know, a bunch of installations in Portugal and Spain don't help us as much because they have more temperate climate. Anyway, thanks. Yeah. So let me, let me respond to that and take Jonathan's question next. So, I definitely encourage you all to go look at the corkeen website. It's very good, actually. So, what I'm showing you here is, this is, this is their, I think this page is their case study page, right. So you can, you can see, here's, I'm pretty sure this is the project in Philadelphia, right. Here's all the projects in Europe. You can sort of zoom in and sort of see the locations and you can click on them and see the projects. So some of them are larger, some of them are smaller, but then they have case studies. I haven't looked at all of these, but let's just take a look at this one in Norway. So they have, they have pictures of them. I don't have records of the, the history, like they, they're not giving dates in this website of history, but I'm sure they have that information available. Margaret, the previous slide on a Norway installation, I think was 2020. Yeah. Yeah, that makes that makes sense. So, again, 2021. Yeah, it's, it's pretty new, pretty new product. So, Okay, Jonathan, you had a question. I had a couple of questions. Most of them were like Alicia's about process and where we're going forward from today and what the, you know, what that process would be. I do have a, but I do have a concrete question, which is the installation in Easton. How big is that? How's it compared to what we're doing? I would say the playground in Easton is probably a third of the area. Oh, I have photographs of it that I'll, I'll poke around and look for, but I would say it's probably about a third of this playground area. How big is that one in Philadelphia? Is that That one is 2024,000 square feet. I'm just hoping to reach out to them and get the imperative costs. I mean, it's a slightly different instruction market. I'm just hoping to narrow if we can narrow down that cost per square foot range. Yeah, no, I am planning to track down and talk to these folks. Okay. I have found the picture. So, This is a photograph from my visit to Easton. So this is the playground where they installed the playground equipment. In the fall. That's, that's some, that's another site. So it's, it's between a middle school and an elementary school and it's kind of a long ish narrow ish playground with a set of, you know, that may be the best picture. So I mean, I'm guessing it's about maybe a third to a half of the size of this one. So, okay, so we'll come back to process Paul. Yeah, thank you. So I'm kind of challenged by this in the sense that You know, our consultant is not recommending it. I need I'm sort of having the same questions that Alicia raised like what is our process and what are we making the decisions and when we have to make decisions. You know, I never am one who wants to be the first out of the gate on some of these things because you just don't know the experience and that's why our consultants not recommending it. But that being said, you know, it's Amherst, we like to do things first. So sometimes this will be it's going to be a really remarkable great win for us. So I'm open to that idea. You'll have a lot of visitors. Yeah. But in terms of, you know, the, you know, I'm always going to be focused on costs and anything that's going to cost us more money. For what advantage is a real question for me because there's a lot of needs that are going to be expressed during this building project and a lot of things that we eliminated in the project. So I just want, I don't want this to be a standalone thing. I want it to be if it's a significant cost differential, if it's in the $15,000 range, but it's probably not that big. But if it's in the $100,000 range, probably pretty more significant. And, you know, I think, you know, all we are going from is the manufacturer right now and like, well, of course it's going to be all, you know, roses and honey and all that kind of stuff. So, but I'm just really challenged to with the construction project to do something that's really not been done in America before. So that's, that's my orientation, but I'm open to hearing more about it and understanding exactly why we are going in this direction. Okay. Well, let me, so let me talk about the process piece a little bit. The challenge here, and we talked about this a little bit the last meeting is the design team needs to keep going with their design. We don't want to create a wrinkle in what they're doing. And so when I, so I attended the Board of Health meeting last night because they, they wanted to hear, you know, what you have heard this morning. And I would say, I expect that both the Board of Health and ComCom are going to, well, Board of Health will provide comments on the project. I don't believe, Paul, maybe you could help me here. I think they are, it's an advisory board, correct? Well, I don't think they have a permitting authority on this. Yeah. I mean, again, like if we're looking for, I'll stop there. Yeah. So the ComCom on the other hand has permitting authority. So I would say that, you know, if you go think back to that schedule, we need to go back to ComCom relatively soon in order to allow the design team to proceed. So I would argue that it is, it would be ideal since this committee is only meeting monthly at this point, it would be ideal if there was a vote taken today that allowed the design team to sort to proceed seamlessly without needing to come back to this group for a further update. Paul. Is it possible to bid it with two alternative, with an alternative, like do one and then the alternative pricing for the second. So when the bids come in, we can compare and contrast the two prices. So I would love to do that because I think it puts them on notice that if, you know, they are need to match a price. But that's, that is a little bit of a figment in the marketplace. I don't know Rick and Tim, I guess there's a world in which we could go back to ComCom after we bid it. That's a world that would have to happen. ComCom wants to know what is going down the project at what is going to be built. And if we say wait until the bids are in, there's also a question of whether that whether the product would be considered a de minimis change or requiring opening the hearing and I don't think Aaron could comment when things like that were discussed. Aaron Jakes being the administrator for ComCom. Well, also we're not going out to bid right now with the intention of having any other alternates but of course there's this statutory requirement of having alternates be accepted in order. So if there was a second alternate in the project and the surface was an alternate, it basically would have to accept the surface alternate so that ComCom knew what you were doing if it wasn't for the conservation commission and the orders and their interests. It would be a different question. Eric and Tim, I would like to hear your perspective about the design impact here, because I think the details of this material are different. So, from a, from a, you know, continuing to stay on track with your construction documents when do you need an answer on this in order to go forward. The, the permeability of the surface of the two surfaces port and place rubber and corkeen have absolute no effect on the drainage system or anything that was assumed for the stormwater calculations that went to the conservation commission. So that decision is air bead. No issues. It's designing. Now we're starting to form a committee and design the playground equipment. So knowing which material will be used will start to affect height and as Paul mentioned, he'd like and some others mentioned that as we get a handle on what a cost might be if proprietary, then maybe there's less of the material. So that all comes into the design of the playground and since we're trying to start designing the playground in earnest in February. The decision should be made by them. We can't have too many variables in the surfaces because the surface can affect the playground size and the surf for cost and the surface can affect the playground equipment because of all heights. The, so aren't the next meeting of this group is February 16. So, I would, what I would say is we, we, we cannot make the decision definitively any later than that meeting is that does that work for you and Tim? I think looking at the projected schedule for the playground working group. It looks like it falls in with that. Kathy. To address Paul's concern. I agree Paul 100,000 is a big difference. So if, as I heard you Rick, you know one of the unprepared to make a motion to give you flexibility to explore this alternative surface at within a budget and then come back to us because I think we have to do. It sounds like we, we likely have to make a change to get the final permit from the conservation commission unless we can somehow a lay their concerns about the pip, the pip rubber problem. My, my question would be, I'm, I have a background in negotiation so this is I, but never, never about this, that if this manufacturer and their, their installer knew that they might have a big project in Massachusetts as opposed to a smaller project that they're, they're breaking into a market. Could we get a better feeling for the total cost given the size. So what I think Jonathan was saying, you might do more per square foot if you're only doing a small piece. If you're getting a bigger installation the way Philadelphia did, and they are doing, they're doing 26 playgrounds in Texas. So this is not a, it's, it's going to be in the marketplace, just not a lot in the northeast. And the, the western part of the country has got an installer that's got some in the works too. So I'm looking for, I know it's part of the general contractor piece but if you are really talking hardball that the price is going to matter on this. So we'd be closer than to knowing it. So if the surface needs to be somewhat smaller, Rick, or, but then think of the playground equipment, you know, I mean it's, you know, but not a lot smaller to come within the budget. So that's sort of the interaction of the amount of it, the play what equipment is going on top of it, and needing to make give you all the, the, the go, go for it. Vote from the committee to allow you that flexibility to move this forward that that's my interactive kind of comment on this. Let's look the comment from Paul and then a comment from Jonathan. Kathy, I want to respond to part of that. No, I think, but I think we're pretty happy. Yeah. So I just quick question. So what's driving this? It sounds like it's the conservation commission permit. That's what's driving it. And I guess the question is, is the conservation commission said they're not going to permit poured in place. Is this material in the town, or are they saying at this location, there's so much is because of the water runoff because that's pretty broad implications to all of our institutions here. It does. It has broad implications. So they're saying there they want to ban. They, they have, they have not said that definitively. In fact, I, my sense was that they, they read the memo. And they understood that there was more work to be done on it. But at the first meeting, they expressed, you know, very significant concern about the port in place rubber. Yeah, we're hearing that. Yeah. And Paul, this was particularly because of where we are to wetlands where we are to the river, you know, say in a different location it might not be that I'm just saying it might not be but that's what brought us before concom in the first place. That was my question. Yeah, is it, is it unique to the site or is it, is it about the material, the toxicity of the material in general? I mean, my, it's hard to tell, but I think it may have been different for different people. But I will say that I think that decision for whatever reason has implications for future projects. Great. Thank you. Jonathan. I'm certainly open to giving the design team the ability to go and explore this, you know, between now and our next meeting to get a little bit more resolution and Kathy was correct. My, my previous question about the size was related to, you know, the notion of larger installations being, you know, usually a little bit more cost effective. I think we should be honest with ourselves and honest about what the design team can do towards towards keeping this at equal. It is a new product. It's a new product in the, the area, you know, I wouldn't trust numbers from Texas. It's a totally different, you know, labor market, they, they, they can do things down there much cheaper than we can up here. You know, I think Philadelphia is similar enough they have a similar, you know, public procurement processes that are more like ours than they would be in Texas. And so I would, I would love to be able to put a finer point on it, but I think we have to accept that there's only so much the design team is going to be able to figure out with a with a product this new, when it comes to, you know, kind of final cost, ahead of an actual bid. And so, you know, that doesn't change my supportiveness towards exploring it, finding out more is new products. It has some admirable features. I think, you know, as long as we're not derailing ourselves in our overall timeline, I think it's, I think it's worthy of exploration. I just like to share my perspective for a moment. I want to echo concerns about relatively untested products. We don't really, in my opinion, have a very strong track record of this of success with experimental products. I'm thinking, for example, of an electric bus that hasn't run for two years now, early on in the electric bus market. So I'm fairly skeptical. I think the other thing to throw in for consideration is when you need to repair port in place, there are a lot of vendors that can come and do repairs. Long term maintenance of corkeen is going to depend on some company in Louisiana makes me very nervous. Excellent point. Okay. I don't see any more hands. Kathy, do you want to make a motion? Yeah, so I'll make a formal emotion and people can make it sound more like emotion if it doesn't quite work. I move to allow the design team flexibility to further explore the surface or the playground area. And with consideration of total cost, and they should come back with us with a decision by our next meeting. I would second that. So any. Rupert do you want to add into the motion just a suggestion that they consider not only cost, but the implications for what kinds of equipment we can put into such a playground. That. Yes, and I will totally add that and Margaret later we can do the specific wording in the minutes but you know that consideration of cost and. To what extent it limits the choice of equipment that we can put on the playground. Alisha. Would it be possible or make sense to also include something about the actual concerns, which is, which are why we are reconsidering this and so maybe something about. The feedback from concom and also the input from the board of health. I guess my reaction Alicia is this motion is because of those two things so we don't need to put it in the motion where we're we're this is an effort specifically to get the permit from the conservation commission which we need to move forward. So the motion is addressing that I don't think we have to put it put it in. So would it be like included like how would the design team like that will be included in a memo that we want this to happen because of these concerns, because I think it's not simply like cost implications like if they come back and it's a certain cost but I think also the implications of what the actual concerns are need to be considered. I agree I'm just saying that I don't think we need to put all that in the motion so I think we. But I think that the motion itself as it reads as we're saying right now is to just consider the cost implications and what type of equipment can be used on top of that material we're not saying to take into consideration. Anything else so I'm just wondering how we know that that is implied in this motion if it's not explicitly stated. Okay, so we could we could add to secure successfully secure a permit from the conservation commission. Does that work. I think I'm thinking more along the lines of like with consideration of the specific concerns from the conservation commission and the recommendation from the board of health. I don't I'm not comfortable putting the board of health in I think the conservation commission is the key here because they are the permitting authority. I know how other people feel I just think the motion. I guess the reason we're making this motion is we had to. We've got an approval all but for the playground surface so this is getting giving the design team the flexibility to meet the concerns of the conservation commission maybe that's the way to word it with the recommendation for a surface. We the project can't move forward without that permit. Paul did you want to add something. I think we were asking where this what you're trying to make the motion on is to instruct the or allow the architects to do something they're not environmental specialists. I don't think I don't want to spend an enormous amount of time on this that's money. And you know, I don't think they're going to come back and say here the health effects of it that's that's, you know, that's our responsibility or someone else's responsibility to make that qualitative judgment. I don't think the architects are going to come back and say here's here's all that here's a bevy of studies about, you know, port and place rubber versus port and place cork. I have not seen anything from the board of health so I'm not sure I wasn't at the meeting. I guess there was a discussion last night but I don't know what people are referencing in that regard. So I don't want to reference birth health because we don't know what they're talking. I don't know what they've recommend if they've taken an action or not. So I can say they did not take an action. They asked me the same question that you all are asking about timeline. And I told them that I thought by the time of the next committee meeting. This committee would have to make a definitive decision in order to keep allow the design to proceed in a appropriate manner and that was keeping in mind that there's other permitting processes going on at the same time. So Alicia, your hand is still up. Do you want to add something? Yes. Yes. So I think my intention is not to make like it is just for them to take these things into consideration. Like I'm not asking them to be the experts on these things. But I think it's important that they give consideration to the reason why the permit was not approved. Like not just simply the permit was not approved. How can we move around this but why was it not approved and taking that into consideration is going to be critically important. And I don't think that that's asking them to be experts. I think that that's just asking them to be mindful of the concerns that came out of the concom meeting. And as it goes for the Board of Health like that is our town's board that would be like that is their responsibility is to look into those things. And I think at their meeting they expressed interest and having the ability to weigh in. So I think simply asking them to consider those things is not even like it's not saying that they have to go with what the Board of Health's recommendation is. It's just saying that these things should be taken into consideration. And I think considering the concerns and the interests that were expressed by both the Board of Health and concom. That it would be in our best interest to bring them into the conversation at like as it is possible not over necessarily so that this can be successful in moving forward. Kathy. Oh, Rupert has this window. That's okay. Rupert has this hand up. I'm trying to I'm trying to write something. I think I can see you're doing so while you're doing that Rupert. Thank you. I guess I'd like to suggest that the concom can ask their own questions and advice from the Board of Health. We don't need to direct the architects to get involved in. So here, here's. I'm trying to wordsmith this to get us to be able to vote on it. I moved to allow the design team flexibility to consider alternative surfaces for the playground to address concerns raised by the Conservation Commission. And then the costs in the budget and consideration of the impact on choices of playground equipment. It's a very long motion but it's basically giving the team flexibility to move this. Very well done. I think that concerns the Conservation Commission which which are the, the, it's the runoff from underneath of the surface. So if our people ready to move forward with that motion and vote on it. I'm not seeing any hands up so I think the answer is yes. What we're doing is we're, we're in effect saying we're willing to take some risks because we want to take, move this project forward. We realize one of these is a new material. So I'll go across the screen and the order I see people Tammy. Kathy, I just want to make sure. So you're, you're making a motion. Who's the second here? I think Jonathan, Jonathan, do you see my ever longer motion. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Tammy. Okay, she said yes, although I didn't hear her. Jennifer. Yes. Rupert. I'm going to say no. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And Kathy is a yes. So, um, Margaret, did you take, did you. Yeah. So the motion passes and we pushed it back to. Our very skillful team. Okay. Thank you, team. Um, not an easy subject, but, um, We're, we're going to get there. So. All right. So I'm going to switch to something that is a little bit easier. Which is just an update on the 60%. Estimates, which, um, again, hopefully you saw my. Memo, which documented the very good news. Which is that, um, This is, this is the nugget here. So the, the value, the construction value and the funding agreement is this first estimate. The two estimates came in very close together. Um, the Fogarty estimate, which is the designer's estimate is considered the designer, the estimate of record here. So you can see it's say, you know, safely below, um, the funding agreement. And then I also, um, I want to kind of give a picture of what this means. In the larger, uh, world of, um, What is still embedded in this project that is protecting. The owner as we move forward. So. The early site package is about to be bid. So it has less contingency in it. Then the building package will, which won't be good till the summer. So this, um, this, uh, Little calculation here is just kind of pulling out of the estimates, those numbers. So, um, as you hopefully will remember, we carry what's called the design and pricing contingency on the design until it is bid. And we also continue to carry escalation. So for the early site package, those numbers are small now because we're actually out to bid. And for the building and site package, they're bigger. So embedded in these estimates is a little over $3 million of escalation. Now you've seen this process at work. You've seen as we've gone through this process, the, the, the design and construction contingency escalation have shrunk over time. As the building gets designed and gets ready to bid, but that, that's what's in the estimates now that is protecting you. And then also as a reminder about the overall project budget, there is, um, a soft cost contingency, which is sort of for fees and services generally, but also a construction contingency of a little over $4 million. So, um, you know, really the, the one to sort of focus on now is this one, but just a reminder that there are also contingencies for the future as we move into construction. So before I take that down, does anybody have any questions? I don't see any hands. I'm going to stop the share. So, um, Jonathan's hand is up. Oh, Jonathan. Sorry, just real quick and remind us again that the main package is going to go the, not the early package, the main package is going out in which month? July. July. Okay. So there's that 2% escalation between now and July. Correct. Expected changes due to inflation. Yeah. Tim, Rick, do you want to add anything about the estimating process? Where we are at this point. There was a lot of discussion other than that. I think the committee can have confidence in both estimators. Uh, they weren't trying to get anywhere and we didn't figure out what the final number was. Was till the very end when we talked about the design contingency and the markups. So it's a pretty good place to be. There's no closing your eyes and hoping in it. Kathy. The other thing I saw when I looked at the most recent on the two different estimators is that. We do seem to be. Out of the. Closure eyes and six months later, it's doubled in cost world. We're, we're, we're, we're, you know, I just remember from. There was one period of six months where the price of glass went up and a ridiculous amount per square foot. So I think it's good news. And then the one other thing on the. Timing of this, you know, again, this is fingers crossed, but interest rates are starting to come down. So your, your timing, Jonathan, of when we go out with the main, when, when the big money has to flow. I, I, I think we're going to benefit. In both directions that some of the worst is over. And not that this is a cheap project. Yeah. Well, and I think a really important thing to keep in mind relative to this is just to go back to the. My crazy schedule slide for a moment. So we're going to, we have the bids due. For the early package. Right at the end of. January. Actually, it's a, it's the eight that we're giving them four weeks because of the design aspect of the peers. Okay. So it's the eight. All right. Just a week different. Right. So, um, that means that. The week before the next CSBC meeting, we will, we will have those numbers for you. So we will be able to report on that. I'll probably. As I have been send out an email update. Um, but, um, that's, that's going to be a really major milestone. It's also going to give us some feedback about the market. Jonathan's hand is up again. I think. Just one quick last comment. I assume just like most of the public. Estimate bidding estimating that I've been involved with. The estimators aren't, aren't trying to. Establish the low bidder. They're trying to hit the middle of the pack. Correct. And that's always something to bear in mind. It's that second, the second low bid, I think is what they. Try to focus on. Right. Yeah. Okay. Construction documents submission. So, um, yesterday I sent out the table of contents. Um, as you will have noted, if you looked at that document, there's really no new material here other than that, the MSBA looks for other than, and they, at this point, they pay very close attention to where we are with permitting. For the reasons we just discussed, which is we want to be able to move seamlessly. Into construction. So, um, I would like to add. I would like to ask the committee for a vote to authorize the submission. Of the 60% package on beginning of next week. I'd like to make that motion that we accept the 60% package. Submitted. Change seconds. Thank you. Comments or discussion. So I will go. Again, on the order I see people on my screen. Tammy. Yes. Jennifer. Yes. Rupert. Rupert. I. Yes. Paul. Yes. Jonathan. Yes. Doug. Yes. Angelica. Yes. Alicia. Yes. It's unanimous. And. I want to. Just with that unanimous. I just want to thank the team. For moving all these pieces to this point. And. So thank you very much. Lots of pieces right now. So. Okay. So I think we can go through the next couple of items pretty quickly. So. We have on the agenda an update on the bidding of the early site package. So Rick, Tim, do you want to add anything to the conversation we've had so far about that? Process. Just that. It's a. Chapter 30 process, which is, which means it's not. Decam certified general construction. We do that. Because these are really earthwork people. And we want to make sure that. People that. Can do the work. Are. Included. And brought in and you don't necessarily have to be decam certified. But that does mean that we. Like the old days before construction reform. After the bids are in, there is a review to make sure that the little bit better is in fact. Responsible based on. The submission with their bid. Of representative projects so that they can prove that they're able to do it. So that's. A little something different in this. In this realm. We have a. Non-mandatory site walk through next Wednesday. I think it's three o'clock in the afternoon after schools out. So. And I haven't checked recently. So I don't know. It's was. Advertise Wednesday. I don't know if anybody's picked up the drill. It's on. It's on bed docs. I haven't happened to check. Yeah. Cassania, can you tell us what you see on the docs? I'll check what I see on the docs, but I know that I've had people reaching out directly to me and I've had to direct them back to bed docs because not everyone reads the advertisement fully. So yes, there's interest. Great. Thanks. So that's it. The 17th. The afternoon. Okay. Okay. Anything else on early site package? Okay. I think we've already talked about this one, but the next one was next steps with the playground equipment working group. So Angelica, as I promised, I'll sort of, I'll provide those dates and times to you and hopefully you can join us. The, the first meeting is going to be an in-person meeting. The others, I think we'll probably be able to do that. I think we'll probably be able to do that. Okay. So the first meeting is going to be an in-person meeting. The others, I think we'll probably be on Zoom. So the, again, those, those dates, I'll put the dates in the schedule as a follow-up, but I think we're all systems going. Paul, thank you for coordinating assistance from the town with that group. So, so with that, we are ready to turn to invoices. So Cassania. And then take the screen. And I will, before I get into invoices, here's bed docs. So this is our list of current plan holders. So there's quite a few. I haven't gone through it yet to understand if they're all meaningful. Sometimes people like publications register, but actually all of these look like general contractors and site. Yeah. E T and L is actually a site contractor that did a ESP for us on another school project. I gave them a call and let them know it was out there. Excellent. And we will do more outreach as necessary. If we don't see some, you know, likely candidates already on the list. All right. Invoices. Thank you. So this month's package. I'm just under this and can everybody see this pretty well? Zoomed in enough. Okay. So this is summary of this month's package. The total value do is 373. 231 and 14 cents. It is composed of an invoice from answer advisory. Several invoices for from the nisco architects. And two more I'll talk about in the second that are related to the gas line relocation. That happened over the Christmas break. The answer invoice is 24,000 802. And it represents a 1% progression over the 14% previously paid. So bringing it up to 15% complete. Of course, a lot more work ahead. And a lot of it really isn't in the going to be in the construction oversight in the future. But the nisco services, it's a progression of 5% of their contract value, bringing them to 47% complete. That is not to say that they're only 40% done with design. But we also have services, significant services in the construction phase. So there are four invoices. The first one of them is the major one for most of the design services, the progression. And then there's three invoices in addition to that for consultant services, wetlands, surveying and traffic engineering. The two new companies popping up here, Taylor Davis landscape and construction and Tansy and electric, they were both involved. And the school departments efforts to investigate. So Tansy electric investigated some of the underground electrical lines before any digging was done to create a new trench for a new gas line to be laid in to the ground. And they did a small bit of repair for a line that was unfortunately damaged despite all best efforts. And then Taylor Davis came in and they milled the pavement above the trench to create a neat transition and to allow the material to be reused later. And those invoices were 3,000 and 1100. Right now, no additional costs are projected for those two vendors, but they may be available on standby in the future. This is the detail of those. I will gently and not to slowly flip through each page of a package. Please stop me if you see something that interests you and you have questions. That's and any questions. If I may, I just like to make a comment. There is one other contractor involved with the gas line trenching. The invoice didn't get to get submitted on time, but it's another $441 that will eventually come before us. Right. You'll forward that when that's available. Yeah, yeah, it's from Elm Electric. Oh, that that is. Is it in the same thing? Oh, no, they're two different companies. Oh, interesting. Okay. And I think the, I think the 1187 50 is just the Tansy. Okay. But I can double check that. Yeah. I just want to add to Cassania's presentation. We have reviewed this package and are recommending it to the committee for their approval. Correct. Are there any other comments? Then I. Move to. Accept the invoices and. Accept and pay the invoices. Is there a second. Second. Okay. So once again, Tammy. Yes. Jennifer. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Jonathan. Yes. Angelica. Yes. Elisha. Yes. And just so people know, these are all being cross-checked before they come to us. We were assured that early on. So I don't see any other. Comments right now. And I see one member of the public has raised her. Hand. So if it's okay with people, I'll move to public comments. And just so people know, we do these at the end of the meeting. And I, and we have. Six. People. Let me see. Let me see. Six people in the audience, including. Well, I'm going to move to the next one. And we have a group of people. And this person, Deb Leonard. Who has her hands raised. Bruce Coleman. A staffer from Dinesco. Rudy Perkins. Tony. I've been asked to do this. Tony Bruce Coleman. Rudy Perkins. Maria. Kepeki. So dead. I am bringing you in. If you unmute your part of our group. Hi. I think I successfully unmuted. My name is Deb Leonard, and I am a new member to the Amherst School Committee, and I expect that I will be appointed to this committee as the school committee representative. So, I'm just getting up to speak. Thank you for all your work. Do I have a time limit? Yeah, we limit it to three minutes, Deb, and there's, you can ask questions, we don't interact, so we will take your comments and respond later as needed. So I'm looking at the school committee vote on if you go forward with Corky on the 21st, and I think you're going to want to separate the vote out from any kind of information presented. On Corky, or any alternatives before that, because I think the school community is going to need some time to consider it and frame any questions that they may have. So I don't really know. I mean, it looks like the time was really, really tight and already that March, March meeting is going to be later than, than you want. So I'm just going to encourage you to anticipate the need of the school committee to ask questions. That's it. Thank you. Thank you for your comment, Deb. Maria Pecky, you are with us. Okay, and unmuted presumably. So thank you, Maria Copicci, South Amherst. Two things. The first is really brief. The softball backstop is still not back in the cost estimates for the 60% construction. So could we please get that back in there. The second is about the playground surfaces. Somebody on the committee asked, you know, why are we, why are we doing this? Well, the conservation and commission and the Board of Health have expressed concerns and I think that when your town's conservation commission Board of Health express concerns about a substance, it behooves us to heed their warnings. The specific statement by the conservation commission was this is relevant to our jurisdiction because there is a stormwater drain from the playgrounds that empties into a riverfront and into bordering land subject to flooding. It's very close to riverfront area, which is a critical cold water fishery this type of material that's rubber poured in place is known to have contaminants that aren't good for people or ecology and that is the concern. So thank you for reconsidering your decision about this and I look forward to you getting away from this rubber poured in place. I'll remind you that in terms of cost control and other situations that you appropriately pointed out the combination of materials can be used. There is a track record of this in Europe and I'm glad that you're going to be looking into that. And in terms of talking about resilience and other issues. One of the things that the Board of Health wants to do is to further examine this and to consult with with experts in the field to I think are the people that should be giving you information on this. So, for example, Terry and the National Center for Health Research. So, again, you know, once you bring chemicals onto the site, we own them. Those are there. If they start leaching that that has happened you cannot undo that. So best to avoid bringing rubber poured in place onto the site in the first place and to use alternate materials. Thank you. Thank you, Maria. Bruce, I have brought you in you can unmute. I think I have. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. I was a little surprised to hear what Deb said they blended and her comment a moment ago, where she was encouraging. I guess I understood correctly some kind of expedition on your part in order to allow the school committee time to render some comment. I thought that this was the school building committee and I, and so far in the two and a half years we haven't had the school committee itself. Being expected to chime in or render some kind of review or support or comment. And so, I, this is a question. I know you can't answer it now necessarily, but. But do I, do I correctly understand that the school committee is beginning to expect to render opinions and so forth in this project. So, Kathy, can I respond to that because I think it does need clarification. Yes, please do. So, Bruce and Deb, if you're still there. So the. The MSBA requires that the school committee take a vote on any proprietary items. So Corkine would not be the only other the only item there are some other items that are related to security and fire protection. It's not an opinion on the thing. It's not, they're not weighing in on Corkine or the other, which is they're weighing in on the use of proprietary items. So that's, hopefully that clarifies that the school committee does not need to go out and look at that. I mean, they're welcome to go out and look at the material, but the specific request is to consider the use of a proprietary item in the bit process. Thank you, Margaret. Very helpful. I'm not seeing any other hands up. So I, again, I want to thank the committee. This was, I thought a rich discussion and I trust that our design team will be able to wrestle with this. I know it was. It's a late coming set of issues. So I look forward to the next meeting and I just so everyone knows, I think you're aware that everything has been posted. So people want to go back and look at the cost estimates and the they are in the packet. And one of the things that the town has started to do is look forward to things like the ever source money that we're going to be getting because we've gone with ground source heat pumps and an efficient design, making sure we're on track with those documents. And then when this fantastic building is built, billing the IRS for the first time ever direct credits to a public entity for what we've done in terms of our heating and our solar. So those are working behind the scenes that it's not the design team in particular but it's out in the, it's at the town level. So it's, we are a first at a lot of ways on this on this school, which is for me very exciting. So I want to, I want to thank everybody and Margaret will get back in touch with people about there's some dates been penciled in for various subcommittee or working group committee. And so we have some busy time but we're only meeting once a month going forward as the full committee. So unless I see any further comments, I think we are adjourned at 1003. That's it. Thank you very much everyone we are adjourned. Thank you. Bye bye.