 Good morning. Margaret, can you hear us? I can. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. We have, um, we are just starting the meeting, um, and we're all learning about how to start a meeting. We're sitting in a room together with masks on, talking into the mic rather than into our computer. Um, wow, it couldn't get more complicated than this, right? Right. So, so can, um, this is, I'm Kathy Shane. I'm the chair of the elementary school building committee. And we are here on Wednesday, June 16th at eight in the morning, or a little bit after eight, eight oh two. And Margaret Wood from answer, who is the lead on our owner's project manager part of this, our OPM and I'll just call her Margaret Wood. So we will all know that, that's who, correct. But I think it might be good just for people to introduce themselves because we have, this is the first time we've met together. So I'm Paul Backelman, town manager. And if you speak into the microphone, that's the only way Margaret will hear us. And you have to push down the button and hold it while you speak and then let go and it'll turn off automatically. Okay. So then just everyone should just go around the room and introduce themselves. Sure. Mike Moore, superintendent. I'm Phoebe Mariam, uh, and Emory Sifton. I'm Jonathan Salvin, also a parent assistant. Kathy Shane. Steve Schreiber. Anthony Delaney, pro-chemist officer. Ben Harrington, school committee. Rupert Roy Clark, facilities director. Sean Mangano, finance director. And we are all here with the exception of Allison and Diane. Yes, and Ben, Ben has not, Ben is here. So, so no, we're missing Dwayne, Dwayne. And is the door downstairs now open or? Yes, everything was open. Okay. So we're, so I know Dwayne is joining us, but I think we will start the meeting. And I'm going to introduce Margaret to at least explain to us why we're on a faster schedule than we originally thought. But everyone got a draft of the request for services for design. And Margaret, after our last meeting, got information on, on moving this faster. And she did an initial draft, which worked off the draft we've done for the owner of project manager with goals and we, we formatted them. Then a few of us looked at it and just added some other pieces. And I'll talk about what we've done. So what we're trying to do today is have everyone review that draft document with a focus on the objectives, the goals for the designer, because as you'll see in the document, a lot of the other is the required text that the granting authority requires. So the place that we particularly added is the objectives. And then there's a timeline and Margaret will also talk us through a slightly different variation. But Margaret, why don't I ask you to lead off to talk about the, the timing that you found out about? Yeah. So good morning, everyone. I honestly am really wishing I was there with you, because I think this mixture is a little suboptimal, but we'll make it work. So we met last week, this time a little earlier. I got on the phone right after the meeting and talked to the, we have a assigned project manager at the MSBA. Her name is Brittany Gomez. And I, because I wanted to walk through with Brittany, what they had been unwilling to share with me before, because I'd asked this question a two weeks ago about the timing of the designer selection, knowing that as we discussed last week, we're a little bit crunched her. It'd be nicer to have a longer design period in that shell. The news she gave me was not exactly what I had hoped to hear, but in a nutshell, she said that the designer selection panel, which meets approximately bi-weekly, is super booked up right now. That the earliest meeting that we could be at, which is to say the meeting at which they would review designer applications is September 15th. And then the interviews would be at the next meeting, which I think was October 5th. In order to get in line for that date, we needed to get the RFS in as fast as possible. And she wasn't promising. So we were sort of competing for that spot, that September 15th spot with the other OPM, the other project that had its OPM approved the same day that we were. And that's a project in Winchester. Now I have no idea where the Winchester thing stands. For all I know they've submitted it, but maybe they haven't. So I let Kathy know this. And I immediately that afternoon drafted an RFS with some questions. And Kathy has kind of masterminded getting several of my questions answered. So what we're going to do here today is we're going to walk through what I think is a very good draft. And I also want to comment that what will happen next is it will go to the MSBA and they'll come back with some comments. So if you wake up in the middle of the night tomorrow and you're like, oh my gosh, we should have added blah, blah, blah, we can do that. Okay. So I don't want anyone to feel like this is your last crack at it, but it should be as complete as we can possibly make it. So I will have this meeting this morning. I'll send it off to her and say, here it is, book us for September 15th. And the date that it will appear for public advertisement is in this document. It's the middle of July, essentially. So what happens now is there's this back and forth. It gets queued up for advertising. And actually the MSBA does the advertisement in the central register. And then I think we will need to post in the local paper. So that's the background. As Kathy said, we've tried to make it relatively clear. What is MSBA boilerplate and what is the edits? Kathy, do you want to pull it up or do you want me to pull it up? Why don't you pull it up, Margaret? And then as we go through it, if this is okay with everyone, if there are changes people want to make, if you want to add something, then Margaret can make the edit right on there. And so she has control of it for the time being. Is that all right with everyone? Okay, Margaret. So... Okay, hang on a second. I'm struggling with, of course, I'm working from home today without my multiple screen options. So I've got too much stuff going on. Okay, boom. Okay, can everybody see that? Not yet. Coming up soon? Sorry, yes, we haven't. You got it. Okay, so what we did was we, in this document, what we have added as a team is highlighted in yellow. So I'm going to scroll through great chunks of this and just tell you what it is, but it's everything is not in yellow as MSBA boilerplate. So the first couple of pages are just the instructions. I'm not going to look at those. So here we go, you know, put it plugging in the stuff about this community. The first item, I want to just touch on briefly. And we can come back to this, but what the MSBA is looking for here is the construction budget number. Should I make this bigger on the screen? Can you all read it? Is that better? I think that, is everyone okay with that one, that version? Okay. Okay. So they're looking for a construction budget. Now in the OPM advertisement, these were the numbers that were used. 40 to 80 million. And that's for the, you know, the small number is the 325 student version. And the big number is the 575 student version. And Sean did because Kathy and Sean have shared with me his calculation of how he came up with a similar, a very solid way of arriving at these numbers. What they're looking for here is construction costs as opposed to project costs. So I did a calculation. I looked at Sean's calculation. What I'm going to recommend here is that we take these numbers and just make it 80% of these numbers. And the reason I say that is that the MSBA has a cap on what they will reimburse for soft costs or project costs of 20%. So I think for consistency's sake, I'm just going to take these numbers. I'm going to take off 20%. And that's what we'll submit. And then we'll be able to tie it back to the prior advertisement. I actually think it's possible that the bigger project could be a little bit less than this. But I think it's probably better to under promise and over deliver on this. So this is a kind of taking 80% of these numbers is a really sort of easy straightforward way to link it to the OPM advertisement. Does that make sense? I'm just going to ask if that's clear because I know I didn't originally understand this range. Any questions? So to Margaret, when we're talking to the larger public about this in the minutes, we should emphasize this is not the total project costs. It's just construction. Yes. I think it's important that you stick with these numbers for the project costs. But that cost includes OPM fees, designer fees, all the other quote unquote soft costs, which are services as opposed to construction costs. And again, it's not unusual for projects to have a soft cost of more than 20%. I mean, sometimes it can go as high as 25, but the MSBA will only reimburse on 20%. So it's a kind of really clear way of linking these original numbers to the MSBA numbers. If we have time at the end of this meeting, or if not at a future meeting, I will walk you through how the MSBA generates likely project costs, but I don't think we should spend the time right here. That's fine. Okay. Okey-dokey. So continuing on to the next yellow bit. So then here we need to plug in M and WB participation goals. This should probably actually be yellow because this is coming from Kathy. And these are consistent with the state's current goals. So then the next piece. Should I just let me just quickly explain that, Margaret, because not everyone knows. We have a bylaw that we passed called Responsible Employer Bylaw that has these target percentages in it. And fortunately, it's how we constructed it. It is the same as what the state has and updated. And it's also what MSBA has seen. So I just put them in. That's where that's the origin of these numbers. Yeah. And again, you really want to be consistent here with how you're managing things in the town. They've given flexibility now for these to be greater if you want them to be. But I think the consistency is really important across all town projects. All right. So this background piece, this all, I mean, I just took what was in the OPM advertisement. And I made some minor edits and I plugged it all in. So I'm not really going to focus on this because you will have seen it and signed off on it before. It just, it talks about the buildings, the student population, the kinds of things that are the background information. It talks about the former field vote. It plugs in the enrollment agreement. And I'm going to recommend this piece about Crocker was in the OPM advertisement. But I don't think it's directly pertinent to this project. So I was going to recommend that we take it out unless anyone feels strongly about that. Does everyone, is that all right with it? Does anyone, I'm looking around the room. It looks like it's fine. That can be deleted. It's gone. All right. So then this just tells a little bit about the committee and then points to this webpage where there's a lot more information. All right. So now this is the most important section for us to talk about this project goals and general scope. Because this is really when the designers are reading these applications, this is where they're going to look to understand what it is you want to see from them in the applications. Okay. So this first piece was from the designer or the OPM advertisement. So and Kathy added this, which was the OPM approval. Oops. Okay. So here's where we're going to start in. So what I did to draft this, I have to say, I thought that the committee did a pretty stellar job of laying out objectives in the OPM advertisement. Many of the items that were mentioned are, I really think of as being mostly in the designer's court. So I just pulled those in and I kind of organized them in buckets. So there's a couple of budget buckets. So again, this is where the designers reading this and going, oh, yes, I know what project I would use to illustrate. I know what to say about this. That you have to kind of think about what it is they're looking. So the buckets are excellence in design for educational programming, excellence in design for community engagement, use and access, excellence in design for safe and cost effective building operations, excellence in sustainable design, excellence in design for cost control, excellence in workforce diversity and wage compliance. And then lastly, support community engagement, support sharing feasibility and design. So I think organizing it that way kind of helps you sort of group things together. So going back to the top, excellence in design for educational programming, with minor edits, these items, the six items pretty much came directly out of what was in the OPM advertisement. Modern classroom environment, integrated spaces for special programs and populations, flexible spaces for assemblies, good air quality, temperature control and lighting, natural light throughout the building, and then use of outdoor space for creative play. Actually, I take it back. The first item, a warm child centered environment designed to make the building feel small. And this use of outdoor space for creative play, those were added to the other ones. So I'm going to pause there for a moment because this bucket is really important. Is there anybody who has any questions or further thoughts about those for, again, for educational programming? Do I have to keep my mask on? Yeah. So thank you so much for this. So I guess I have a broad comment, which is the major headings. And because we use excellence in design a number of times. So I think excellence in design is assumed. Yeah. I'm wondering if we can't just say educational programming, then community engagement use and access, then safe and cost effective building operations, sustainable design and just leave out the excellence in design. It just seems that they shouldn't be applying if they're not, if they don't see themselves as being excellent in design. But then the other point I want to make was the, first of all, I think it's a great list. Second of all, whatever. But the design to make the building feel small. So that, that is an arguable goal, like maybe designed to make the building feel human-scaled or but small. I'm not sure what that means, and I'm not sure how we would measure that. And nor do I am I completely confident that's a goal we're looking for. But I like the first part of warm child-centered environment. Steve, how would you feel about the use of the word intimate? Feel, feel like an elementary school? I don't know. Any other, any other comments? This, just so people know, I put that in because we, my kid, kind of when he said small, warm, he, he had intimated that, yes. I don't have the perfect word for this, but I, I understand what the goal here is. I, I kind of support that goal, that, that, you know, there is a concern that, or it has been a concern expressed in the community that, that a, that the school not feel big, you know, that there's still a community feel to, to the structure when it's complete. But as I say, I don't have the right word. Yeah, because, you know, I think, I mean, intimate may not be the right word either, but I think, you know, you can have a large building that creates small or cozy environments for elementary school children. So I think there's the instinct is correct. I mean, it's also possible that a warm, child-centered environment is enough here. So I have two questions. First on the excellence in, I thought that was an interesting thing you put in there, Margaret, and I wondered what your logic was, because I agree with Steve, it seemed redundant every time. And so I saw you delete it, but I was wondering if you had some reason for putting in excellence in design, was that to sort of emphasize that we care a lot about this? Because I think the redundancy of that is made to feel like, oh, they're looking for really high quality. So that's point one, point two. And, and, but I, I felt like I didn't understand why that was there. Same question Steve had. And on the, and that, the design to make the building feel small to jumped out at me too is like being, that sounds terrible. Because I think we all understand what the intent was, but I don't think that those words achieved it. And I don't think small is the right word. I don't think intimate is the right word. And I would agree that a warm, child-centered environment achieves the goal. Any other comments? Sorry, it's been a while since I've been in this room. I had two, I'm fine with leaving it as is if you want to stay with the words missing on that. I wondered a wild child-centered environment explicitly designed for young children. Something like that. Because it's not then, it's not, you know, small, big, like those are kind of, yeah, I won't get into the weeds on that. But if we need anything, that's just another one that I think, recognizing this is an elementary school, we don't want it to feel or be like a middle school or high school. And maybe that gives a designer a sense of really thinking about young kids here. You know, because that's the goal, right? The goal is this document is sent out and designers say, oh, we know what they want and we've done that. And here's some examples. And so if, I don't know, people, I'm fine cutting that whole thing, but just that was my thought. And the other one was five or six, I guess six volts down, good air quality, temperature control. I wonder, even though this is, I'm sure everyone's going to talk about this if we add something about good air quality and ventilation. Just because I think it's good to point it out explicitly, you know, it's a community where people are rightfully reading scientific journals about ventilation in schools and all that kind of stuff, which is a good thing, but I think calling it out explicitly because it's not the same thing as air quality, as Robert and Ben have explained to me multiple times. If the committee was open to that, I thought it might be a helpful addition. Is everyone fine with the changes we've just made? Yes. Okay, I added that very last bullet use of outdoor space for creative play and to encourage outdoor learning and climate awareness for a couple reasons. One, I was really struck when Shelley Hadoff talked about the zero net energy building as a learning lab. And the other is that we lost some children to during COVID because there were other private schools that could convert to using the outdoor space as a learning place. So I thought it was something anticipating a potentially different world. So I didn't know whether everyone would be fine with that, but it seemed to go with thinking about the future. That wasn't in our original list. I think it's a good ad. Honestly, I would definitely agree with adding that. All right, going once, going twice. Yes, Steve. Yeah, I love the last bullet. I think that it should be two bullets, one outdoor space for play, which is kind of one purpose of an elementary school, but then the outdoor learning. So outdoor learning means what you're talking about, you know, pandemic or being outside as much as possible, but then there's also the environmental awareness, which you also have there. But in a way, I don't know if that's worth two bullets just to, I'd hate to see it all get lost. I'd rather have the same. I would be fine making it, too, if others are fine. I mean, no. How's that? Okay, with those changes? Great. And maybe I'll just leave my mic on, so I don't forget to turn it on. All right, nice job, team. All right, let's move on to community engagement. So this is a little simpler. And the last one is two bullets, space for community purposes. After school hours with controlled access. This is a little bit of wordsmithing from something that was in the OPM advertisement. But what I understood, and this, I don't feel like this is yet ideally phrased, is you want to be able to use the building, but not necessarily use the whole building. So you want to be able to use some part of it, maybe with that, you know, maybe the performance based with bathrooms while having the rest of the building separate. In this situation, that's an important design thing to state, because not that anyone's coming to the table with the design, but how you arrange the kit of parts on the site, if you need to do that, is an important distinction to make. And then the second one was broad engagement with the public in all phases of the project, beginning with feasibility. Now that's duplicated a little bit down here. But I think that's okay, because it's a really important item. I'm just looking around the room to see, Steve. So, again, I love the bullets here, but so I'm just trying to think of how this is organized. So these are two very different things. So the first bullet is about the actual design of the building. So that's the project that the town is getting. The second one is more about the process. So I'd rather, I personally would rather have those separate. So we have a major heading for the process. I would rather, so thinking about how somebody organizes this, they might have portfolio pieces that describe the first couple of few bullets here, and then they might have other kinds of examples about how they engage with process. I think for the simplicity, I think we should separate those. So what Margaret just did is she moved it. She made it a one bullet, your two dressers, and then move the community engagement as a process down to the last section. Anthony. So would it not belong with the very last section on community engagement during feasibility design? Yeah. So I just moved it down and I changed the heading here to take out engagement. And then I just says community use and access. And then there's just this one bullet about being able to use part of the school, not all of the school. Sound good? Okay. So then this next section, this is again me wordsmithing a little bit what was in the OPM advertisement, safe and cost effective building operations, security, access control, COVID-19 best practices, and minimized operating and maintenance costs, including design for net zero operations. Paul. So it's not just student security. It's everybody's security, right? Yeah. And improve building layout and access. What do we improve? If this is a new design, I don't understand what the way the word improved is there? Well, I think we could take out improved. And we probably should remember that the MSBA is going to ask you to look at renovations as well as new construction. So in that sense, improved has a meaning. But let's take it out because I do think it's looking a little confusing here. Yes. Oh, good. I got my mic. In terms of the operating costs, I think we want to have some language in there to talk about lifetime costs as well. I think that's really important. I didn't catch. What kind of, did you say life cycle? Life cycle costs, yeah. Life cycle costs. Is that look at that? Is that work? Yeah, I think even just having the word in there with nothing else is fine. This is great. And just as a quick addition to this, I listened. I only was able to listen to half of a webinar that MSBA ran on zero net energy. But one of the things they emphasized on maintenance and operating was in the design phase, having the maintenance people be part of interactive for I wouldn't do it this way versus that way in terms of the building design. That several of them in the project said that that had been really important for working well once the building was open. So I think it's just something to think about when we look at whoever is proposed to us as designers. So there's a little bit of question on my part about this phrase here, which then gets repeated again in the next part. But maybe I'll leave it up to you whether we should repeat it. So the next section is sustainable design. So compliance with Amherst net zero energy bylaw is Kathy, is there a link that I could include here to the bylaw? I tried to find one online. Yes. Yeah, we can find a link. Yeah. I think it would probably help them if we just put it in here. Anthony, do you not have a link to all the bylaws? Just a couple of lines down for a responsible employer? No, I linked on that one. I think I linked it just to 355. If you know, that's a link to the entire set of bylaws. Okay. So that link takes you to the whole set, Margaret. I did a hot link. Oh, okay. Then let's then let's leave that. But we I can I can send it to you and you can figure out whether you want a hot link it this way or just include the two later. Ideally, I would put it right here with this bullet. Because I will tell you, I mean, some people who are applying will like go and read the whole bylaw and really want to do that. So I think it's helpful to provide it to them. If someone can send it to me. Well, I'll do we'll make sure we do it. Okay, then he's do it right now. Right. You know, I had a question for the net zero experts when we say net zero does everyone understand that we do not want to heat or cool with it's always renewable, you know that we're using it's all electric. So is that understood and net zero? Is that a question for me or for your team? Yeah, it's a question for the team. You know, so is that an understood clear every school or the older buildings, they all end up being all electric and then they're generating the offset with solar or wind or or something else. So yeah, Steve, so it's already understood in turn. Yes, okay. Okay, the answer is it's understood that anyone. Okay, great. Yeah. So this one. Another question. Rupert. Oh, I was just going to comment that I think taking the net zero operations out of safe and cost effective would be a good idea because it I think that just diminishes the force of the first part of the sentence. I agree. So let's do that. Okay. I think this is very straightforward and and this is clear by deleting it. Everyone's fine with that change. Okay. So I want to just comment about this item, which is this is one the MSBA is going to want to see in there and and I just pulled it in from the OPM. You do get some I'm trying to think one or two additional points of reimbursement for compliance, higher levels of compliance with lead. And so the first one, the first bullet is really about the town's requirements. The second bullet is really about the way the MSBA calculates reimbursement. Okay. And and designers are given the option to use chips, the Northeast Collaborative for high performance schools or lead. So cost. We have one. Wait a minute, Margaret. We have one question here. Okay. Margaret, just based on the way you phrase that lessons do will we ultimately have input on which one they choose? I don't I don't know enough about the non lead option there to to know whether or not, you know, we as committee would would have a preference for one over the other. But is it purely a designer preference or it's a designer recommendation to you and they'll provide the reasons that they're recommending it. My last last time I looked at this, what I remember was that lead was hard, much harder to satisfy in a renovated building. And I think in a new building, they're more equal. But I it's I I'm not. I don't know the nitty gritty details of that. So the recommendation would come from the design team. Yep. Sean. Thank you. Three things. Three things. One, I have to leave it 845. So if you seem to sneak away, that's why your mic on. Yes, can you hear me? Yeah. So the second thing was under sustainable design. What is the second part of the first pull of point means? I think that might make it seem like the building could be net zero energy ready. But I think if we're compliant with the bylaw, then it has to be net zero. So I don't know that second part of unless there was a specific reason for it. Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I mean, I think the point is kind of the point we made in our interview a little bit that the designers are not responsible for making sure that you have the electrical supply. The town has to figure that out. So if for some reason you didn't have the electrical power at the time the building came online, the building still needs to operate. So that may be splitting hairs, but I can take that out if you think it's more clear. It's a very fine point. Okay. And then the second piece was under cost control. Yes. It'd be nice to see something about limiting change orders or design design to minimize change orders. I know that's something that always comes up with big projects like this and I don't know how we say that, but something that just gives, you know, that we'd like to see the design as complete as possible so that we don't see a lot of change orders throughout the process. Honestly, Sean, I always worry about statements like this because you tend to, you can get back a fair amount of blather about it, but I do agree it's an important objective to state. And to me what that means is that you're going to have really well coordinated documents, big documents. So let's add that. That's great. Okay. And it just was everyone fine. I thought I saw it nodded. We took off the second close. We just have it compliance with the net zero energy bylaw. So that's our goal, right? Okay. And since we all work through that, okay. Okay. Anything else on cost control? Okay. Workforce diversity and wage compliance. And then this one I think is worth a little discussion. So I just pulled in, you know, this is the bullet that I pulled in from up above. But I think, and I think what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to move it up to be the first bullet. Agreed. So then we have three bullets. I'm not good to everybody. Broad engagement, participation and strong communication skills. That looks, that structure looks good to me. All right, I'm going to save this in case something happens. And we'll keep going. So that's honestly, Sean, if you have to go, I think that's the part we really needed you here for. So I'm going to keep going, but Steve, Steve has a So help me out here. We're not saying anything about the public art. Oh. So we have a public art by law. Thank you, Steve. I thought it up. We have a percent for art by law. So where do we? Where would we, where would we call it out? Excellent. It's a design for art. I know. I think it would be in the very first part. No, I think I'd make it a separate category. I think it's an important point. It's going to get lost. So the only other place you might put it is under community use, where we only have one bullet. Yeah, that's true. That's a good point. So if you if community use public art and access, we put, you know, in the title. Yes, I just want to say I really agree with that. I mean, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. I have a lot of thoughts about involving the community, particularly students, if it's a school and we're doing a math of art project. And that's so I really like that element of it. And I think it's the right place. I think it situates it where, you know, and I'm just one person in the committee, but from my vantage point, I would much want much more want students involved in such a project. I know they'll be hiring and, you know, there's a certain amount of money to be spent more than someone externally just coming in and doing it. It really should be a community wide event. It's a school. It should involve students. So I really like that. And yeah, I'll leave it there. Okay. And we will we it's a percent for it's percent for art percent for public art. Well, I don't remember, but we have a specific bylaw and we can again send you the link to that. If I may. Yeah. Margaret, I just sent you a link to the whole bylaw and it's in there. All you have to do is Google percent for art. It's actually percent spelled out. It's actually point five percent percent spelled out. Just just. Oh, sorry. Got it. And take one out and take the one out. We went to less than one. Got it. Super. All right. Good catch. Thank you. Thanks, Steve. No, I actually thought of that as we go. All right, so going once, going twice on this. Remember, if you wake up in the middle of the night with something we forgot, we can we can deal with that. Okay. So, so the next section is really what the designers have who they, you know, some more contractual stuff. Kathy, I should, before I send this off, confirm with the town's legal counsel that they're not looking for insurance requirements in excess of what's in the MSBA contract, the standard contract. Paul is pointing to himself. So or Anthony and Anthony, we can follow up on that. Okay. I mean, those, those requirements are not in excess. Those requirements are greater than the standard requirements that we require as part of our normal downtown contract. So I don't anticipate we would need to go higher than that. If I will say, I think it is important because if you start having higher limits, you can limit the designer pool. So it would be great if we could, if you guys get back to me today, I'll just take that out. Okay. Okay. So I think you can take that out. Okay. I think they're saying that you can take it out, Margaret, that we can take that out. Okay. So this next section is just a list of documents we're going to give them. And thanks to Mike, I've got a pretty good list of the things that I'm going to include, which is, I know I have a site survey for the Wildwood site and I don't think there's a site survey that's been done yet for Fort River. Is that right? It's in, well, Jonathan can speak to it. I think it's in the larger that it wasn't a separate document. It's in the larger Fort River studies. That's my belief, but you know, it's been a year plus now, so memory can be fuzzy. Okay. I will say, I'm not going to attach these here. I'm just going to make a list. Why don't I send us the MSB of what we're planning to attach? Mike. Yeah, I feel really confident supporting Jonathan's point. It was in that larger Fort River document because the site issues were the issues. Yeah. So, you know, whether they're met with, you know, however people feel about the survey and the findings, they were there because I remember that being a large part of discussion. And Margaret on educational program, what you've got from the Wildwood project was a building, the structure was going to split the grades, but a lot of the things that weren't about the grade specific would still apply that those were worked through. So I don't know how, you said you're going to just reference them and people give people links to them, but you know how we, we haven't yet gone through the K through five to something part of the grade structure. So however you, yeah, okay. Okay. So, and then Mike, I can't remember if I saw, but in, is there a place that the information listening session material is published or are you, and if not, are you comfortable with me including it as an attachment? Yeah. So in that long seven, they were listed in that document. We also included a link to the statement of interest listening sessions, because that, you know, that's directly relevant to this case. So it's in the many links I sent you. I apologize for I'll find it. I'll find it. I'll find it. A lot of you font, but with lots of pages behind it, but it's in there. Okay. And again, I'm not going to, when I send this to the MSBA, I'm not going to attach all the stuff. I'm just going to tell them it is our intention to attach it just because I want to get it off to them today. Okay. So here's a chunk of stuff to talk about, which is schedule. Um, so this schedule, milestone schedule starts with the assumption that we get in the pipeline for the September 15th application review and then in the pipeline for the October 5th contract execution. Sorry, interviews. And then I've picked a date you know, a couple of days later that the interviews would be on a Tuesday and then I'm basically saying that by that Friday we would have a contract executed. That's pretty fast, but I've done it before. So, so then, then we do our work and the next milestone is the preferred schematic report, which is the end of this phase and the approval at the MSBA board meeting in July of the following year becomes the last milestone before the local funding authorization. So, you know, here's the, they approve it. They approve the scope and budget agreement at the next meeting. This is the date, I believe the MSBA will confirm this that your agreement expires, which is 120 days after this meeting. Okay, so they approve the scope and budget and then you have 120 days to get to the vote and here's your vote. So, local project funding authorization on November 8th, 2022. So, I took a look at then what I thought was the likely timeline for project completion and I made pretty conservative assumptions. I want to share that with you all because I actually had the project ending in 2026. And then, and so let me stop sharing this and I'm going to open my little schedule because I think I kind of gathered that that date seemed surprising to everybody. So, I want to talk through how I got to it. Just, Margaret, this first set of dates that are yellow in the document were in the draft you sent us, except that I changed it to 25. So, correct. What we're about to see, no one has seen, I guess, except a couple of us since then. And, again, I'm a big one for under-promising and over-delivering. So, that's kind of in the mix here too when I'm looking at this. Some reason I'm not getting this thing to show up. Let me put away a couple things here. Aha. I'm going to have to enlarge this for everybody to see it, but can you all see this? Yes. To be a little bigger. Aha. All right. How's that on everybody's screen? Is that legible? On the big screen, whoops. Sorry, I just clicked the wrong button. Is that work for everyone? Yep. Okay. So, let me make it bigger on my screen. Okay. So, here's what I did to generate the milestone dates that occur in here. So, here we are, local appropriation, November 8th, right? So, we sign, then we get the designer, you know, they get to start basically as soon as you're comfortable, they can start design development. I have shown five months for design development. At the end of that, there is an MSBA submission. Then I have given them eight months for what are, you know, known as 60% construction documents. And again, there's a submission. Then I have given them five months for the completion of construction documents for the purpose of bidding. Then I have given us three months to bid it. So, you can see now we're in kind of the summer, right? Here's June, July, and August. We're in the summer of 2024, which I think if it's a new construction project, it would actually be better if it was, we could get it even more closely lined up with the end of school. So, if we could be back this all off a month, that would be ideal because then you're going to start construction. And typically, the beginning construction activities can be pretty disruptive. So, they might include demolition, they might include site work. You know, it's the stuff that you don't want to be doing. You want to really use your summer when the buildings are mostly empty intensively. But other than kind of wiggling around this, then I showed a 24 month construction schedule. Now, could it be less than that? Yes, it probably could, but it's very much in my mind here that we're, we need to look at renovation options as well as new construction options. Renovation, if you did renovation, it would be a phased renovation. And even if you do new construction, you're probably doing phased construction on an occupied site. So, this is a pretty conservative assumption. And you can see how all of a sudden, ouch, you're in 2026. This is the move in date. This is close out. So, that's how I got to the 2026. Completion of construction in the draft, Kathy, and everybody. Does that make sense? It would clearly be a goal if we could do it faster, to do it faster. But again, I don't want to over promise on this right now. So, right now, just so you know, Margaret, those dates are not in our current drafts. So, it's just that the year numbers are different. But I'm going to put it over to everyone for comments, reactions. Yes. From my experience, the schedule that Margaret's applying is both conservative, but really realistic. I think that's where we would be. While you could go faster, I think those are reasonable dates. Mike. So, I agree. I want to put out a slight posh getting to November 8th, 2022. I think Margaret appropriately described that, you know, this is going to be a push for the designer to get all these things down the timeline. I think if there wasn't a townwide election already on November 8th, I wonder if we'd be pushing that back two months. But there is a townwide election on November 8th. So, you know, I get that there's some practical reality. I just wanted to share some degree of caution about the level of engagement that's possible in the timeline that's here. It doesn't anything that bothered me. I just want to flag it as something that perhaps the committee, once the designers on board, will have to come back to in terms of the terrible overuse of that word. But the likelihood of that being set a sanctuary to the larger community. So, I'm not saying it's not. I just want to note that that's a lot faster than that to accelerate the timeline a bit. I think we have a lot of advantages. We have tremendous amount of data. I think, you know, school committee go Ben is doing a lot of work on the front end of sixth grade question and we'll continue to do that. So, I think we have a lot of advantages. I just wanted to note that for the committee that this would be a bit accelerated. No, I agree. And I think if this gets finalized with that, we're going to have to explain that that is the big, the first big reach is November 8, 2022. I just have a question on at the point we're going to vote in the town, the design that we will be looking at, we will have made a decision whether it's the consolidated school, which site it will be on. And will people have enough in that design to get a sense of what the building would look like? So we're not at the 25%, the 60%, the unschematic. So is the answer yes, you know, so you could put some pictures up, you know, in terms of how you talk to the broader community about what's the school look and feel like? I think I'm seeing Steve and Jonathan both nod their heads. Yes, they should be able to provide some visual context for what their design is going to look like. I think we should be a little bit, you know, careful that it won't be a final design at that point. It is still feasibility and both the look and the feel and the size of the project could change. But yes, they should be providing the character expression that we would want people to react to. I want to belabor the point and extend the meeting. I think the other thing I want to note is my prediction. And hopefully people look back on this meeting minutes and laugh at me later. But I think the site is going to be an area that the community needs high levels of engagement on. That may be as much or more than the actual design of the school. I think the site is going to be a big thing for people on this particular matter. I'm not weighing in on what the right site is or anything, but I just want to note that that's going to be a big one. Margaret, could you hear all of that? I did, yes. The decision of whether it's the Wildwood physical site or Port River will be a big one that requires a lot of discussion for a variety of reasons. Yeah, great. Steve. Well, you had me super psyched at the 2025 move-in date and I marked my calendar, but I have an eraser, but we also have to consider not just the school committee and the town council, but all the other boards and commissions that will be involved. For example, planning board, zoning board, depending on what the particular project might be, those approvals, historic commission. Wildwood and Port River are 50 years or at least approaching 50 years old, which is a trigger in Amherst for historic commission review. There might be, who knows what else, what I'm forgetting, but those also add to the schedule. Yeah. Well, and honestly, if there is, the MSBA will expect to see as part of feasibility, at least conceptual agreement to any of those issues before the board will vote on the project. So that actually is going to have to be addressed prior to the MSBA board vote for the project. Kathy. Yes, Paul. Is it possible to, I mean, I think Mike's point is accurate and I think location is going to be the one that is going to matter. Can we sort of tag when that decision has to be made so we know when that conversation has to happen? Because I think that's so pivotal to everything. Yes. So that, and I can pull it up if you want me to, but that will happen in the first four to five months. So designer joins the team in October of 2021 this year. The first submission, which is at the end of that quote, unquote, there's feasibility, you'll remember, and then there's schematic design. So feasibility is doing all the due diligence and updating the program and identifying the options and picking an option. So when you make your feasibility submission, you're making a submission that says we have, this is the range of options and this is the one we're going to pursue in schematic design. So it will, I would basically say October, November, December, February, by the end of February approximately, you will be needing to state to the MSBA, which is your preferred option. So is there time built in for community discussion about that? So it will happen. I think it's going to happen kind of fast and furious during that five month period. So I don't want to be like a doomsday person. I just think it's going to be really, that's going to be a really sticky wicket going down to two schools changes the dynamic. I think in people's thoughts, we have a lot of information on site information. None of that means that it's going to be an easy decision for the community to make. So that again, I don't want to overplay that point, but I do think that's going to be one of the high points of conflict. I agree. And actually, for those of you who attended the OPM selection committee meeting, this is exactly why Mary Piketty was questioning me about that schedule because she sees what you see, which is that there's quite a bit of community engagement that needs to happen in order for the project to move forward on the timeline that we presented. And just can you, if we, what is the, you had key dates for at the MSBA level, the going backwards to that first five months, getting this to them, if we miss that target, what's the next target? I mean, answer it right now. So I'm just, so Mike's worrying about, so are we talking about, it's another three months, which moves this all by three months or, or is it much longer than that? Just don't know. Hang on one second. I think I can, I think there's a short answer to that question, which is that we take a less aggressive approach to the MSBA board vote. Let me just see if I can find my schedule. So in a nutshell, not to pull up another document in case you use things, my schedule had a kind of idealized schedule in terms of getting the MSBA board vote before the local vote. But you could act, it's not uncommon. I think that the schematic design issue is really that you have to have, you have to have the cost of the project established in time to put it into all the publication requirements for a vote. So you can work back from that date in terms of the submission. I had worked back from the elect from the vote date to the, to get the MSBA board meeting ahead of your meeting, but you could work back from the vote date to when you need the dollar value. And the MSBA board vote can come along more in parallel with the local appropriation. It is not unheard of for the local appropriation to happen first and the MSBA board meeting to happen second, right? And then you're sort of, you're pushing on the, the detailed design and construction schedule, but that has more float in it than the feasibility does. Does that make sense? I had an MSBA board vote in July, right? I mean, you could have the MSBA board vote post local appropriation. You just have to have the dollar value for the appropriation in time to get it into all the publications for the election. So I'm looking around. Yeah, hi, Phoebe. So because I have not been part of this process before, I want to, I want to clarify, I understand when the end date of sort of the, the community meeting to understand and, and all of that, what is the start date? Is the start date of that, not until the designer is on board? Or is it after that? I'm wondering what that period of time is that we have to bring this to the community and get community involvement and buy in and all of those sorts of things. So no, the designer will be on board, we hope, in October. That's the October 8th that was in that milestone schedule. So the designers on board right away and they are really doing the bulk of the work for feasibility and schematic design. So that's why I was saying earlier, you get the designer on board in October. So now you really want to be making your, in order for them to have enough time to do the detailed schematic design, which is going to be the basis of your funding agreement. You want to have the selected option in, let's call it February. And then from February until the final pricing submission, you just need to leave yourself enough time to get that number, the cost of the project, into the election publications. So to clarify, maybe I was not clear, I meant in terms of the location, the site chosen. So the site again, the site, so the site chosen that first five months. So designer on board, October, November, December, January, February, it's in that five months that you need to look at the site options, pick the preferred option, if you're going to do new construction, and then point in the range of options that you're looking at, say, we want to do that option, and then you have to submit that to the MSBA and say, that is our preferred option. Yeah, Jonathan. And I think what I'm hearing is the engagement of our broader community around the site question needs to happen in that five month period. That's exactly right. Before we, as a group, are kind of commenting on the designer's suggested location. Yeah, Paul. Yeah. So the decision matrix is one school or two, right? And then location of, if it's one school, where's the location? And those are all, all that has to happen between the October to February of this year. Right? Yeah, correct. That's where I was going. That's Mike's angst. That's Mike's angst. Yeah. I'm just going to quickly pull up one other document that might, if sometimes the picture is that everyone is saying, okay, you know, that's an intense set of meetings, Paul. And who is the decision maker on location? Is it this committee? Is it the town council, school committee? Who is that decision maker? So I'll try to see if I can answer that. So because this particular, so there's an educational plan, which was referenced earlier needs to be written, part of that educational plan has a great configuration component. So if there's a great configuration change as at least one of the two options has, the school committee has to vote and approve that. So that decision lies with Ben and his four colleagues on the school committee. In this sort of awkward instance that sort of defines which option gets chosen, because if it's a K through five school, that's one option, but there's no option that has the same configuration. We have two options and they each have great configuration, great configurations, school committee decision. As it relates to site, that's this body. School committee, I mean, they can weigh in like any member of the public, any other elected body or board or pointed board. But and Margaret can correct me for wrong, but I feel pretty confident that this committee ends up making the determination of site. Margaret, I get that right. You did. You got it exactly right. Can everybody see the schedule that I pulled up? This is just to kind of recap what I was saying earlier. So we're here in this blue zone. You know, this is the OPM coming on board. This is has designer selection going through the end of October, which could still happen. Honestly, if we don't get in for the October 5th interview, it'll be the next one, which I want to say is probably October 19th, right? So I was hoping that we would get the designer on earlier, but the MSBA's schedule preclude that. So here's feasibility, right? And it's it's in this phase that you would kind of and I agree. It's very fast. You would look at the sites, recommend the site and do exactly what Mike was just describing on coming from the other end. My point was if your vote is in November, right? Here it is. I had I had developed this to have the submission, which is a schematic design. So here's schematic design, which is six months. I had had that to allow for the submission to the MSBA and an MSBA vote before the election. But you could actually have it after. You could make the submission later. But that it's this submission that has the dollar value that is going in the election materials. So the difference between this red thing and this yellow thing can be reduced by the the date that you need the value for the election materials. And it gives you a little bit of wiggle room on this end. Does that make sense? The bent bent. Yeah, kind of in an interest of the rapid fire timeline here, what ideally when we need to determine like great configuration by like in order to keep this timeline. Here by February. And maybe you could push it to March and have the schematic design, you know, start a month later and run a month later. But it's I would say it's February or March. Mike, can that could that in theory just move faster that if the sixth grade issue is a live issue anyway? Yeah, Ben, you can correct me if I'm wrong. But at the last Amherst Spoke meeting meeting, we had a conversation. I think there was a discussion anyway about making that determination separate from MSBA or at least somewhat separately from MSBA process in the fall. Because the Amherst School Committee is considering whether that would be the right thing to do for the 2022-2023 school year unrelated to MSBA or at least primarily unrelated that a fair statement based on space needs in our current school because of construction that happened because of COVID. So I don't think that timeline, I don't anticipate one way or the other. I don't anticipate that timeline being a problem because I think the committee wants to take that up and I think we'll be talking about our next meeting which I think is Tuesday night. So, but I think we'll have by the time this group gets together, I think there'll be more work done on the Amherst School Committee side on the timeline for that decision making process. Because I think if that got made earlier in a separate way, then you're talking about a K-25 design, which makes it easier than to look at the two sites, you know, to say Wildwood, you know, it just, you know, this is the size of the school at least in my, you know, so, yeah, Steve? Yeah, that was going to be my question. So just to clarify something said earlier, so if it's K-5, that suggests one, we're talking about one building, if it's K-6, maybe not or? So the only design piece, only design enrollment that we're permitted to study based on our agreement with MSBA, if it's K-6 is 320 students. So the 575 student school is not an option for staying K-6. Sorry, I missed one part of what you said. Sorry, the 575 student option is not an option if our elementary schools stay K-6. Yeah, so that's the only reason I was saying that it's the set. Once 6 isn't in, we're down to the consolidated school. Otherwise, we don't have enough space for people in the 320. So if, okay, so any, I'm just looking around, this is interesting versus Zoom. Any other questions on what we've gone through? Because I think we've gotten to the point, we have a draft that we're turning over to Margaret to put the final pieces on in terms of the links and other things that would submit the draft. Yes, Paul? So if we have tiny little editorial changes just to send that to you and Margaret, there are a couple of things that we're going to change. So Anthony, are we not going to discuss selection criteria? Yes, we are. Let me just say the selection criteria are based on your objectives. So the piece that we went through that was objectives, that basically is the selection criteria. The other criteria is team members, which we haven't talked about yet. So can you, and one thing I, in the OPM, we assign points to that, and in the draft you've got, if you put that part back up, it's a list that came out of MSBA's list with just all of the following things plus our objectives. So how does that get weighed? So the MSBA will not want you to do that, what you did for the OPM. They will basically be asking you to come to the review of the application with your thoughts, but you're not going to go through a similar grading process to what you did with the OPM. Mike, can I ask a question? I just want to be conscious that we're getting close to quorum. And my time's getting a little tight, so I don't want to break the form. I want to make sure we vote. So I'm not trying, and I did a lot of talking today, so I've extended the meeting, but I just wonder if we're close to being able to vote, sans small editorial comments from Mr. Bachman and others. So see, yes, you know, it's going to make that motion. Okay, so yeah, we just lost, we just lost Rupert. So well, is it appropriate time to make a motion? So you want to make a motion? I'll make a motion to recommend approval of the RFS as drafted today with minor editorial comments submitted by committee members by the end of today. Second. Second. So is there any further discussion on that, or can we take a vote on that motion of this draft? Margaret will clean it up. And then if after, I guess send it all to us, Margaret, you know, as as revised, and then Steve's motion, I think was you get a second chance to look at it today. And then if it's just wording, you know, if it's a typo or something, it's not going off. But in any case, they also edit my my. Okay, so are we ready to vote? So I'll just go around the room. Okay, oh, we can, we can do it right now. All those in favor, raise your hand. Okay, anyone against? So it is unanimous, not okay. Well done team. And then, and then I think the process will be if you submit it, then they give their edits and changes. We get to a final that's going to be advertised. So we could convene the committee again to take a vote on the final. Last time we missed one step. They wanted to know we had officially approved the RFS as it was going to the register. So you just have to alert us. Yeah, there's a little bit of back and forth. But the most important thing is that I get it in today as soon as possible to try and nab that what I understand to be an open slot for the September 15th designer review. So I want to, I think that's it. And then Anthony, did that answer your question about the selection criteria? So as just to read, to feedback, what I heard is that the MSBA that we didn't change list at the bottom assumes that the list we put up at the top is our objectives, or is part of the evaluation. That's the evaluation criteria. Okay. Okay. I think then we could have, we can adjourn. Yes. There is, we don't have a way for the public to be able to comment because there's no public on Zoom and there's no public in the room. Well, the public is the public. So seeing no public and hearing no, I guess in the future, we're working out this hybrid mode to enable the public to join us. So I want to thank you, Margaret, very much for moving as fast as you did to get this to us to at least get us. It's clear that getting sooner gives us more time for everything Phoebe asked about in my case in terms of being able to go back to the community and say now we're started. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I do want to say I completely agree with Mike's comment that if the school committee piece of this could move along during the designer selection process, it will make the feasibility process go much more smoothly. So thanks everyone. Good meeting. We are adjourned. All right. Have a good day. Thanks for putting the edit, Steve. What is this? Excellent. And I just said, the less I do, the first draft, the better. But I put that outdoor space.