 Hi, I'm Michael Morris, Superintendent of Schools for the Amherst Public Schools and this is the latest episode of Window into Arps. And for today's episode, it's a little bit of a special episode, a little different format today, but with me today is the town manager of Amherst, Paul Bachman, so thank you for coming. My pleasure. And today's topic is the recent, the MSBA process. So the town of Amherst was, got some fortunate news last month in December. And as the MSBA sees this as all projects as a partnership between the towns and municipalities and then school districts, this is something Paul and I have talked a lot about and will continue to talk about for the next five to seven years. And we thought it'd be really good to have you on and be able to share with the community some questions that I know you're receiving and that I'm receiving as well so that the community gets some accurate information of where we are in the process, what to look forward to and how to become involved. So thank you very much for taking time out of your day to join us. So we'll start with, on December 11th, both of us were at the MSBA, a little snowy morning. They're headquarters in Boston and what was your first response to the news that the town of Amherst would be invited back into the MSBA process? Yeah, so the snowy morning in Boston sounds like the beginning of a short story. Our state representative, Mindy Dam was there too as well with us to share the news. I was thrilled, a little bit shocked, I have to say. The blunt reality of the challenge became pretty apparent. But I think that the reason we got in was because we had made a clear articulation of the need for the new building and it's kind of unusual to be out of the program and get right back in. But I think the real fact is that the needs of the district haven't changed. You and the school committee had done a really good job at articulating that need to the MSBA. I think that the statement from the town council that they had voted unanimously to support the project meant that all elected and appointed officials of the town were in sync on this project and that that made a big difference to the MSBA. They made a site visit in advance of their decision and we were able to show a united front in a way by saying that the elected officials and appointed officials were standing shoulder to shoulder in support of this project and I think the clear articulation of the need along with the political support of the town made it an easy call for them. And I'll add to that. I think another thing that mattered to MSBA and we both heard this was the level of engagement that the school committee and town council had last almost a year ago actually. There were nine listening sessions, three for staff, six for the community and the attendance was very high of both school committee members but also town councilors. Well the school committee was hosting the event they reached out and it was one of the first probably big things the town councilors who were recently elected jumped into but they jumped in with both feet, heard from the community, they were all attended and we heard a lot from the community about the need. I was just reading an article this morning about another community in Massachusetts that was in the pipeline, didn't have a successful process and is trying to get in and is a bit at what's end with what to do because they didn't get in in December. They weren't as fortunate as we were and I think one of the things that really stood out to the MSBA was as you said the partnership between the town and the schools and the level of engagement with the larger community. It wasn't 13 people or five people sitting around saying we need to do this. It really got the voices of many more people into that process so thank you and you are very present at those sessions as well so thank you for all your work on that. So one of the questions I get often is what's the timeline for everything coming up? So this is, I'm sort of interviewing you now, it's a two way street so and you know this is a lot better than anybody in town so what is the timeline for this project moving forward? So I think I'll start with the meta and then I'll go to the micro. So one of the things we heard both at the listening sessions a year ago but also the recent listening sessions that the town council organized and I think that was also in December last month was the urgency and certainly I feel the urgency I think I've been on record for numerous times talking about the urgency as have you and one of the challenging things for the MSBA is every community that applies and particularly every community that gets in also feels urgency. We're not unique in that regard and one of the concerns they'd expressed in the past is some communities have tried to rush the process. We've already done all that work we can just bypass this and MSBA has been very clear with us as well as every other community that the process takes five to seven years for a reason it's not a bureaucratic reason it's actually to get the best outcome. These buildings are supposed to last 50 years to do that they're supportive to every district and thinking about the things that perhaps architects in the towns have not thought of to ensure the quality is high. The reason MSBA was created is this predecessor was not seen as being successful in it in accomplishing those ends and so they built in safeguards so at a larger level the soonest the MSBA will vote on funding our project would be the summer of 2022 so about two and a half years from when we're taping the show and the soonest that you know sort of design development and construction could occur is another two and a half years assuming the town supported the funding that the MSBA granted. So the soonest we'd walking into a new or renovate building will be the fall of 2025 and that's in the best of situation best of circumstances process run smoothly construction type is quick the quicker of the quicker variety really and that's the five to seven years could be any couple years slower than that and the more proximate end of things we officially enter the enrollment period on May 1st 2020 and that process is around building a having a school building committee formed enrollment projections which is more of the district side working with MSBA identifying funding for the feasibility study it's a lot of technical tasks to show that we're ready to enter feasibility and and that the enrollment period can last up to 270 days become optimistic as are you that will be a little quicker than that and we can enter feasibility without 270 days going by but the reason they have that time is they want two reasons one is they want districts and towns to be able to organize themselves to enter a five to seven year intensive process and I think the second reason two is that they want to set the marker at the beginning that this is a deliberate process that there aren't mistakes made that throughout everything we're communicating frequently with MSBA and vice versa so that we start with the pace that's going to be consistent throughout so I think we can get through the enrollment phase faster than 270 days but they want to build that in for communities to to get organized because the intensive stuff really starts right after that feasibility where you're hiring architects and designers and owners project managers and and getting to see nice models that look likely look a lot different than our current schools look inside so on the short end we get in May 1st we'll start with that enrollment period on the larger end five to seven years of 2025 to 27 to be in a new renovated building and that is the MSBA's process and we can only move as fast as they allow us to move exactly there's a number of gating moments about gating I mean where we have submissions to the MSBA that need to be approved before we're advanced into the next phase of the process and and again the enrollment period is no different they need to approve our enrollment and come to kind of what that means is taking a look at enrollment projections and saying what are you going to study we know that we had this you know 600 student school that was in our statement of interest we're going to study other options as well and come into a resolution on what those other options are school building committee needs to be approved again and we'll talk about that in a second and then the funding needs to be in place to enter that next phase it gets increasingly more complex throughout the process where there's architectural submissions that are that go through for instance even picking the designer the architect is something that the MSBA manages at a subcommittee meeting that they run that we're allowed three members that so throughout that entire process there's always approvals by MSBA before next steps are taken and so I'll turn the tables again what are some steps the town can or is taking right now to prepare for this process so you already mentioned the forming of a building committee so that's one thing we can get started on I think one of the key questions for the town will be whether we have this building built to our local bylaw net zero standards or not and that's a question I think the town council would need to address and then relatively in the next few months we will ask the town council to appropriate funds for a feasibility study and I know the district has already taken some steps to start publicizing this as well yes yeah and we'll continue to do so so you have a website set up for the for the project we're doing events like this to share with the larger community we'll certainly be talking about at every school committee meeting I'd say indefinitely for five to seven years and I think less so as a as a constant topic at town council but I imagine it'll still it'll come up from time to time and which what we're connecting with staff and connecting with staff so I've already met with the staff so we'd optional meetings at a cargo farm Wildwood and Fort River so that staff are kept abreast of this we're working one of the pieces I want particular feedback from staff on is how can staff members stay engaged in a leadership role without necessarily being on a building committee our teachers are working incredible hours as it is and so I got great ideas from staff members at those schools about kind of what a steering committee might look like and how can staff members be engaged in the part that makes sense to get feedback deeply and then for some other things perhaps you know let the process run through and and that it wouldn't have to be as intensive again many hours as a building committee and so I think we're going to put something together actually in our budget in the Amherst Elementary School budget to support that we want our staff members involved like we want the community but there has to be some acknowledgement of they're wearing multiple hats and there's only so many hours of day and the most critical role that all of us play is advancing the education of children and so we're working on all those things and and trying to prepare as best we can so that when we're formally in the process it's very clear to everyone where we are in the process what the next steps are who's involved who's making which decision and how input can be gathered so speaking of building school building committee since this falls on your side of the table so to speak you know who'll be on the building committee and what's the role of that body and sort of what's the process of getting on a town committee as per the the charter so first as you noted the MSBA controls this part of this as well they have definite roles that need to be filled on the on the building committee for instance the school principal must be on it there must be a member of the school committee on it the superintendent has to be on it etc under our town chart but the employment process actually goes to how the town does appointments under our new town charter the town manager is responsible for appointing members to all multiple member bodies so I would approach that the same way I've done with all the other appointments that the town has done in the first year of the charter before we start recruiting people we will work on a charge for the committee that will outline exactly what the committee is to do what's responsibility is how many people will be on what sectors of the community they will represent what the time commitment is and when they were likely to meet so that anybody who anybody is interested in serving on the committee will have a clear picture of what they're what they're committing to when they put their name forward and as you said it's a five to seven year committee it's a five to seven year commitment if people are willing to do that long so that's the first step that's a charge that I would ask the town council to review and the school committee obviously to review to make sure we're all on the same page before we start recruiting members members then we will do outreach to make sure we have a very broad and diverse pool of people and once we have a pool that we feel is adequate and in representative I'll follow the same process that I've done on other appointments which is a key person for yourself the superintendent and I and a member of the residents advisory committee will meet with everybody who puts their name forward the residents advisory committee is a committee that was established by the charter it is members of the community who advise the town manager on appointments this committee for our town has Jim Pistrang who's the chair of it Connie Krueger former select board member and Keisha Dennis who's a member of the public who are all served as members of the residents advisory committee and they're all very excellent at their this process once I make the appointments those names are referred to the town council the town council has 30 days to either approve the appointments disapprove the appointments or take no action in which case at the end of 30 days the appointments become effective great thank you so that's a really thorough explanation of a question is I'm getting all the time so I now have a clip video clip I will have a video clip to refer people to which is which is great and I think you yeah so so one of the questions that people will say I mean if I don't have time I can't make the commitment to serving on the building committee what are ways that I can stay engaged and be informed about this process yeah so we do have a website and that'll be across the bottom of this screen for people to to be able to view and it's going to update with agendas minutes of meetings of what happened but also ways to offer feedback throughout the process additionally there will be organized forums multiple forums throughout the process so that community members can come have their views heard as well as the public comment at building committee meetings but I think the forums are much more intentional where there's more two-way give and take and they're explicitly the explicit focus is is to have committee members feedback included we'll continue to do whether it's me and you or we'll figure out this we're going to continue to do window into ARPs throughout the process so that it's another vehicle by which and thank you Amherst media for supporting us in this that the community can access information what we've learned over the last few years is that no one medium does it for everybody some people love go on a website they can do it in the privacy of their own phone or home or wherever they are some people really like the interactive what feels interactive about viewing a video like this they can get information on their TV or again online other people really like to go to meetings and be able to voice that and and we're open to all of those those things we'll set up an email account for the school building committee so they also can we don't know what it wait what the address will be yet we'll share that out so that if a member of the public wants to email the whole building committee they're a public body and and they can the public has access to be able to email them questions concerns suggestions or compliments so we want that ongoing iterative process to to truly involve everyone in the community and all of the school building committee meetings will be open to the public and anyone can attend and they'll all have public comment periods absolutely good excellent so have you chosen a site I mean the application was for Fort River we had put in for Wildwood and Fort River and they said no to Wildwood they said yes to Fort River but does that mean that it's going to be at Fort River or how does that all work and how does the work that we've already done on Fort River in the last couple years which is a tremendous amount of work by a very dedicated committee how does that play into these decisions sure and that that's a question I've gotten the most often I think since we got in was I think there was some confusion so any MSBA project has to look at every site that's viable in the community we know from the Wildwood site that the town of Amherst doesn't have a tremendous number of viable sites because we've done that process and what I can say confidently is that the building committee will likely look at both of those sites no decisions been made it should be it has to be at Fort River or it'll be a Wildwood if it's a consolidation none of those decisions have been made the great news is we have a tremendous amount of data what I've shared with MSBA is we have more data about those two sites than any other district that got into their process that I'm confident in the prior site looked and was got some on Fort River but was heavily invested in understanding the site and we have tremendous amount of data from there and as you noted the Fort River Feasibility Committee has a similar amount of information on the Fort River site so really what what I imagine happening is you know we have to figure out what we're studying but if we're looking at some building that would resolve in both of those buildings being offline or those schools being offline as a result of the project that we would have a matrix of options a matrix to rate the different sites there's going to be benefits some is based on location some's going to be based on soil testing some's going to be based on the topography of the site they're really different in terms of topography and so that'll be for a building committee to weigh multiple of those options look at the matrix get feedback from the community and eventually make a decision what the site what site would be best but at this point there is no no sites been chosen and I don't have a people like what do you think you have a preference and one of the I'm not great at lots of things one of the things I am good at is I know what I know and I know what I don't know and understanding the the details is that's why we have consultants who come and and help us understand in great detail what the benefits and drawbacks of each site would be to weigh those options and that'll be for the committee to weigh in on so at this point there's no front runner there's no there's no preferred site it's we know both sides are viable and we want to figure out what the best one for the the community is and what it's going to be for 50 years I mean just one other wrinkle that I've gotten a lot of feedback on on both committees as well as continued to is with climate change occurring you know what do we think about 50 years from now what'll be the best site what do we think with development in Amherst what will be the best site thinking not just about the climate in the soil but just in the neighborhood if both of those are on the table so all those factors weigh into a pretty complex decision-making matrix that I'm be glad that the big committee to help us with that's great so if it's the case that one site is not selected and then becomes vacant what happens to that that site that's another question I receive a lot so the sites both sites that we were if those are the two sites wildwood and fort river are under the control of the school committee the school committee determines that it no longer needs those sites they would say I don't need them anymore and they refer them back to the town and then there is no one knows what will happen with that there's that has not even come up very much and it would be up to the council to ultimately decide what had to dispose they made say let's put this piece of property back on the tax rolls they may say let's use it for a town use or a school use or a secondary school use secondary ancillary school use I think the limit is only left to someone's imagination so there this is a process that will be discussed very publicly because I think people will care a lot about what happens to the vacant sites so it also could be used for as a for another town priority like for open space or for affordable housing but again we're well that's years down the road we have to choose which site first and then that conversation can begin yeah and we have some we have a track record room for instance the east street school as an example which was used actually historically was used by the school department and then wasn't and then was again as an annex to Fort river and then was since it wasn't being used for an educational purpose went back to the town and not to have to go into all that but then the town has had its process to determine use of that site and I would imagine this would be well the scales different the process is pretty similar so one of the things that comes up frequently is the town council has been pretty clear about its commitment to climate action and managing all of our town affairs with an eye toward sustainability and how that work into the feasibility study and how would you integrate those values into a feasibility study yeah so climate justice is something that I know we talk a lot about even on the school side we recently were fortunate enough to apply for and receive a grant from ever sourced get 50 some odd thousand dollars of led lights over a crocker farm we've done it on our own dime with some incentives at the high school and at other sites and so this being a joint project I think there's a shared commitment to climate justice what we know is that these will what result would be a much more energy efficient building than what currently exists and we feel really good about that and any consultant that is hired has to have a what's called a green consultant actually like a designer so someone who specializes in sustainable construction I think this project I think anyone who bids on this project will will fully understand on the front end that that's a real value of the community it's not kind of lip service it's people are going to have high expectations around that the Fort River feasibility study a good example of having interesting debate as well as the existing one before this bylaw existed about do we want to be lead silver do we need to be the gold and all these kind of categorizations of energy efficiency and sustainability I look forward to that town council debate about that topic I know the ECAC which you'll be able to do that energy and climate action committee yeah which is kind of a sub sector subcommittee committee of the town council they've expressed some interest and connected and had some thoughts initial thoughts that they want to share with us as being experts in that area we are we have the commitment we're not experts and explicitly in that area and that's why we rely on both our local experts like that group but also a green consultant to work on that I know the most what's been billed as the most sustainable school building in Massachusetts was built in Cambridge not that it was completely not that long ago MLK and they aimed for net zero they didn't get quite they got near net zero with net with as technology changes they'll be able to adjust that there was a site visit I wasn't able to go on last year I believe but we have a lot of the information from that resource and I think one thing to note I was sharing this with someone last week actually is these weren't architects flown in from Arizona or California the architects were based in Boston the consultants were based locally so as the field emerges we do have there's some perception that we'll have to rely on some technology that's only only used if you're in the sun belt or something like that and we've got some counter examples to that that we're starting to gather information about and we'll look forward to that process moving forward but I think that is a crucial juncture of where the school interests to reduce operating costs over time as well as the climate justice really aligned so closely with the town interest as well so I think you know Amherst is a leader in climate addressing and climate change and has you know the home of two living buildings which no other community is has that but I think you're right if you say if suppose we go from two buildings to one building that carbon footprint alone with a near or net zero building will be dramatic it will have a dramatic impact on the town's carbon output yeah yeah and we know our buildings right now where they were built in the early 70s they were not built with that in mind and the technology wasn't there so I think that's going to be a unique part of our process MSB is aware of that unique part of our process and and they're excited for the ride yeah so well I think we're just about out of time but I want to again thank you for taking time of your busy day to talk MSBA I know it's certainly something that people in the community are interested in care a lot about and are rare to go for as as we are as well again I'm Mike Morris any comments questions morrism at arps.org we're always interested in hearing feedback and we'll be back soon with another episode of window into arps thank you for watching