 Good afternoon, everyone. And for anyone in the public who was listening, you can see I'm hosting or hostessing for the first time. I usually have technical support. This is the July 1 meeting of the elementary school building committee. And I see where we are still waiting for Margaret Wood to join us. But per the governor's order and actually this is chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. We are continued to, we're continuing to meet by zoom, and the agenda for the meeting lists how the public can join us and public comments at the end of the to start the meeting and their quorum. I need to make sure that everyone can hear and be heard. So I am just going to call out names as I see them on the screen and just indicate that you're here and can be heard Anthony here. Jonathan. Here. Sean. Here. Sorry. Rupert. I'm here. Also here. Allison. Here. Mike. Here. Paul. President. Dwayne. President. Steve. Here. And Margaret Wood is joining us and Margaret, I just want to make sure you can hear and be heard. I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yes. So today's agenda is I think everyone knows is a pretty, we have a two, two part agenda. The first is the one we have to get through this meeting. The MSBA has sent us back edited edits on the draft we sent to them and their instructions to us were literally accept the edits. And then they had a few comments and questions and Margaret has gone ahead and done some of that, I think. Yeah. That she's prepared to show to us and that I think Margaret, I'll let you walk us through where there were some places we had to make decisions. And also to talk about any. Things you did in response to their requested edits of us. Absolutely. And then everyone can chime in if they saw something or don't agree. Because the goal is to get to final and then we will vote on what we see in front of us before we turn to the other agenda item, which is Mike is going to lead us through quickly. The school committee's timeline for making a decision about the sixth grade. So Margaret, if you want to share your screen, I think it's set up so that you can be the person sharing screen. Okay. And I, I wanted to say, honestly, their comments were extremely minor, in my opinion. Mike is nodding vigorously. That's a good sign for what you come to expect is a lot, frankly, a lot more commentary than what we got on this one, which could have see you Margaret and the committee for sending a document that didn't require much in the way of extensive extensive supervision. So thank you for your work Margaret. Well, and let's go credit or credit is due because pretty much everything I did in this was crib from what you did for the opium so. Okay, so can everybody see this document I'm going to enlarge it a bit. Especially I see Steve's in this car so everybody can everybody see that well enough. Yeah, you should just anyone should shout out if they can't and otherwise we'll assume the answer. Yes. Alrighty. So again, the comments for minor. I'm going to just go through I have this set so that I'm really showing simple markup not all the markup just to clarify. And again, what I did hear when I sent the original draft out was I highlighted in yellow, the stuff that we put in. So it's not highlighted in yellow it's their boilerplate. Okay, so we're not going to spend time looking at their boilerplate. I'm not going to answer questions about the process but the point of this exercise is to just go through their my fairly minor comments and then to get it off to them the good news is as I, I want to relay is that we are officially in the queue we did make the cut for the September 15 review a designer application so we're sort of officially on the timeline now. And to the end I'll summarize that a little bit but so first immediate step is to get this into them gets out then it gets advertised and then we're, then we're rolling so okay so no changes here at the top. I believe we discussed this issue which was the value construction value that I'm showing at the last meeting so this was as submitted but just to reconfirm. Let's basically take Sean's very detailed thinking, and I took out 20% to get to construction costs. Now that's a very kind of, I shouldn't say crude, simple way of doing it but it reflects the fact that the MSBA has a cap on reimbursing on soft cost so it's tied to that way of thinking. I thought shot what Sean did the opium application was very thoughtful and detailed and, and I think conservative in the sense that it gives us quite a wide range, terms of where this could add up. So the first comment that they had was they. They asked us to correct these numbers which had inadvertently gotten reversed so just to confirm these these values for MBE and WBE minority and women business enterprise participation which are goals for the designer are as they are for all. The town has some flexibility about using different numbers but what we decided to do is to use the state, the current state standard which is the DKAM standard, which is 6.6% for MBE and 15% for WBE. I just want to say the reverse was not completely by error or we have a responsible employer bylaw, but in reading it, it refers specifically to construction, construction design and so, and, and the state has two different and I confirmed with people who helped draft that bylaw that it was not meant to apply to design so we are in compliance with our own bylaw I didn't want to be out of compliance with it. Yeah, exactly. So the, this is all as it was reviewed. Can we go back. I'm so sorry to do this and I know we're doing it for time. I think the population of Amherst is now just over 40,000 than just under we were told it's going to be 41,000. So if we just around maybe we should say, around 40,000. We were told that the preliminary census shows around 41,000. Yep. There you go. Done. Okay. Excellent. So, again, this was all this content I'm skimming was reviewed. Could you go up just a little bit because there was a comment here that we needed to fix and did you fix it. Yes. So it was just the documents referred to the 70s in one place, and then, and then was very specific here. Yeah, that Wildwood was built in 1970 and for river is built in 1973 so again I'm using your text by assume that's correct. Thanks for catching that. So, I want to say, because this was the part that we really worked on. I am very proud of the whole team. They had no comments on our objectives. None. So that was good. Well done team, not a single comment. I do have a question. I have a question on under workforce diversity and wage compliance, this responsible employer by law or by law is for construction. Should we add the word for construction just before page 109. So if they happen to click on that they don't say those are different numbers. I think we should I think that's helpful. I don't I mean I just don't want to send them off on the tangent. So, it is an objective, and it will continue. I think it's good to get this stuff here but let's click clarification will be helpful. Okay. Okay. So this is boilerplate. This I think. This was where there was some duplication because I hadn't deleted something. Now, Margaret, I, they asked us to cross compare this whole section which is a repeat, and I did and we captured everything above. Yeah, you can, you can delete it when you figure out what part of it was the repeat. Yeah, I did delete it from the from this version so. But it's, it looks like it's still here. So, you know what I, it's probably because in the version I send you I haven't accepted the, the edits. Okay, so what this is what you would see if you accepted those edits. And I will do that just so there's no confusion before I send it to them. Okay, I'm just seeing because you said this was a markup if all of all this text, a key issue that's a repeat of what's up above. I'm not saying it's a repeat somehow that repeat kept. You'll find you're right. Okay, let me let me take a look at that after we get off the call. Okay, I can work with you I, and it was somehow the box you don't stayed in rather than deleted and we'd moved it all out. So they should buy said this is almost verbatim. So, okay. I thought I had deleted the box but I guess not. So, here on project schedule, there were a couple of minor edits. Carl Brown noted that the, I had had a fairly brief duration between what will probably be a summer 2022 approval of the MSBA board of the schematic design report and then the scope and budget approval actually would not happen until after the vote. So, it's a minimum of four months so I have plugged in the minimum here. Also, as a point of record always incorporate when your agreement expires. So this date that I'm highlighting was actually updated by the project, the MSBA project manager so that's in May of 2024. So feasibility, what that means is that if you haven't got a project with an approved local appropriation by that date, you have to negotiate for an extension or you get kicked out of the program. So that's that's what that is is a milestone. No other changes here. Although this looks a little weird. Margaret, can I just ask a quick question. The two, the two items that have November milestone dates. Do we need one first in order to do the second one. Well, like do we need to be a part first in order to see you. So you don't the local vote can take place. Actually, interestingly, the local vote can even take place before this. Okay. Well, I think that's a good question. I mean, in general, I think you, this is better, which because you get to say to the community, the MSBA board has approved it. I mean, I think in reality what would happen is, and I'm sort of stuck with the sequence. Because this is what they give us. They would have this local vote. November 8, and then they would probably have the subsequent, but the truth is, I can't see, and they don't know yet because they haven't published the dates for the MSBA board meetings. So I mean what I could do was I could change this to December. And maybe that makes a little more sense to people. Carl says, basically, it would be a minimum of, it's a minimum of four months, but you know, could be longer based on when you have the funding and authorization. Sorry, this thing, the scope and budget approval, oops, scope and budget approval does not typically happen until after the vote. Okay. Yeah, you don't have to change the date unless the group feels they want to I just wanted to make sure that those two things were okay to happen the same month. So let's leave it at 11 and keep the pressure on. Okay. It's, I will say it is not an obstacle to the process you kind of keep once you have the local vote, you kind of keep going keep rolling. And then the MSBA, you sort of negotiate the details of the funding agreement it gets executed. The real moment where you're saying to them, this is what the project's going to cost is here. Okay, does that make sense. It's almost like you end up having these two processes going like there's the process of doing the work, and then there's the process of the bank, sort of going along in parallel. So, so the number that would go in the local project funding authorization would come from the preferred schematic report approval. That's what that's where that number gets settled. Okay. Okay. And then it might be a little later than July. I mean I'm being pretty aggressive in the schedule and once we have the designer on board that the only real point about this is that you can't, you can't have the vote. Your local vote, until you have identified a number and you have it in your ballot materials. And I think, you know, typically what we see is that that number has to go into the ballot materials by September. Paul I think you and I talked about this a little bit right. So you'd have to know by September, what that number was and you would have to have submitted it to the MSBA, because they actually ask for the ballot vote language as part of the submittal. There's a little wiggle room there could be later than July, it could be August, but you really wouldn't want to go later than August because then in September you've got to publish the, the ballot language. And that you have to have told the MSBA what the ballot language was as part of the submittal. If that makes sense. Okay. So, almost done. So this section is important because it lists what consultants, you want the design team to bring to the table. And sometimes not all of the consultants are used, but you want to know who that individual is. So they, the list that they give us has a couple of items in it that aren't terribly applicable to elementary schools. And Jonathan caught this when he was reviewing. I think one of them was there was a theater consultant and there was a lab consultant so we took those out. But, and the MSBA was fine with that because it's an elementary school, but then we added historic preservation consultant. What this means is that when we get these applications there's like a page in the application that's like a big chart of all the people who are available to you to work on the project some of them have huge roles and some have minor roles. So we asked that they provide a historic preservation consultant because the these two buildings are actually on the cusp of being eligible eligible for consideration for historic preservation, and it is possible. I know it else is laughing. I always get a couple of chuckles on this one. It's impossible, you know, given that Amherst is is a community that's very sensitive to your heritage that someone might say, you know we want to document these buildings before, if one of them is going to be demolished. So, this isn't necessarily going to happen but it does mean that when we get the applications, each of the teams will have somebody on there who has the capacity to do that if it's needed. I think specifically they're subject to the Amherst historic and I can't think of what the term is but because, well I just learned right now that wild was over 50 years old. So, not automatically means that it has to be looked at by the historic commission. Yeah. You know, and I had a brief discussion with people who know how the historic commission works and Steve you know a lot of this too but we have a potential change in demolition delay bylaw, which would have an expedited early review on whether the building is historic whether it has any issues that wouldn't have to go through the larger process that would make this faster if that passes, otherwise it's the more formal. So we will know that by October. Yeah, yeah, which will be super helpful so that person will be available to the team. And it would be great to have to know in October because at that point when we have a designer selected, and we are. I am on your behalf and with your assistance negotiating the designer contract. It would be good to be able to say at that point yes we need that person and the scope would be axe, or we don't need them. Can I make a comment. So these don't mean that these are 28 different people or 28 different firms, it could all be within one firm that could all be many of them could be with one person who might have multiple expertise is. But this is a way of making sure that those muscles are flexed. So one that I had suggested to Margaret after our last meeting was a public art consultant so and I mentioned that in a perspective of having been once a public art consultant on a public project in a public art consultant. So I don't know that a 1% for art by law so I don't know. Amherst is somewhat unique that the 1% for art is not typical be seen by the MSBA. So I don't know if that's something that we would want to call out also. So we have a public art by law and we have a public art commission, and then the town managers involved and so to the, the intention would be very early on in the process when the designers on board to try to figure out what kind of So it would be integrated and I'm not sure we'd be asking the designer to have the public art person so you're thinking that the designer should have one so I'm just, you know, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. So it's not that it's not a huge project it's not like an airport. So it's, but it is significant it's you know potentially I forgot what the number was. It's $700,000 of art right so. Yeah, but we also have an historic commission we also have a town engineer but still we want the architects provide those consultants. So Steve there is the role of the consultant to help with the selection of the artist. What is there, what is the role except the bylaw. Most architects would feel comfortable in that role right so working with the community to, but so maybe I'm overthinking this. So I will tell you that I think that what would happen, what I would recommend to you is that the, the opium and the architect together, working with you draft the RFP. I don't think you need another person in this mix because what you really want is to have the architect be an active part of the selection, as well as whoever is identified to be on the selection committee, and having done quite a few of these types of projects. I don't think you need an additional professional to help with this. However, I will say that what the architects are likely to do is to because we noted in the objectives. That this is a, is a piece of the project. I think they are likely to comment on, usefully comment on their experience with public art in a way that will, you know, could potentially be a factor in the selection of the architect. You know, which is about, you know, their level of experience with collaboration so I probably would not add the public art, I would recommend you not add the public art consultant because I don't think you're going to need it. And basically what they would do is the architects would all say, oh, we're doing that. Yeah, they wouldn't bring somebody else in to do it because that's additional fee. I'm good. Thank you. There any other, you know, I think people should shout out because I'm going to be having my screen is small for hands up if there are any other questions. I just just for management of the meeting Kathy many of us have a one o'clock hard stop just so we can factor that in. So the good news is Paul we're almost at the end here. The only other thing is just to tell say a little bit about the schedule is so what will happen here is it that the MSBA actually puts the advertisement into the central register. And then we will need to file it listed with concom and put it in the local paper. It will appear on the 21st of July. And then the applications are due, as is noted here on the August 18, which is, you know, a decent chunk of time. So there is a site visit scheduled in the interim. And then once these applications are in they come to us, we share them with you. And then we have some work to do we have to kind of construct a sort of big summary spreadsheet for the MSBA that sort of confirms that the dot that the applications are correct. We edited someone for all of those lists of categories up above, and we do some reference check and we do reference checking, then about a week later the stuff goes to the MSBA. And then the meeting at which the applications are reviewed is dated September 15 so we do need to confirm on this committee. And I think there had been some back and forth about who would go to the September 15 designer selection meeting. We should have before the designer selection meeting at a meeting to look together at the applications or a subcommittee should meet to look together at the applications and then report back to the full committee. And then the, the, so what happens on the 15th is the designer selection panel, which is about 12 people in partnership with three representatives from the community from this committee. Meet review and shortlist typically three applicants and then those applicants will be reviewed will be interviewed on October 5. This is all going to be by zoom which is great for you all you do not need to travel to Boston to participate and, and actually anybody on the committee can join, obviously, which is also super helpful, but there will be three people who will be asked to, you know, chime in, comment on and vote on the applicants on October 5. And for the purposes of this application, the only thing that really matters is that we just take the highlight office, the, they're going to be due on the 18th, and shortly after the August 18, shortly after that I'll be distributing them to you. Now there is a question about how many hard copies the standard the MSP standard has been in the past 20 copies, but they've given us leeway. They asked us to actually do it by addendum to reduce the number of hard copies. So in the previous iteration we sent to the MSBA, the MSP, MSP get six hard copies, and we had listed a total of 10 here. So that would give you four, but I think I just need to know how many people need hard copies because we can certainly ask for 20 that's the standard. That's a hard copy. I said what's a hard copy. What's a hard copy exactly. Yeah. So where are existing copies going on the town side. They'll all come to me. Yeah. And then I will, we will immediately turn around and create probably a drop box to distribute them all digitally the day they come in. I then will turn in and mail the hard copies to the individuals who want hard copies. So on the Mike you were starting to say something on on just I don't know. I personally would not want a hard copy but I don't know how many people would want a hard copy. My experience is a lot of these end up on a desk somewhere. So I think it's worth it to have a hard copy in the town hall and in the school's office to so people can get to. Yeah, and I was going to suggest since my, you know, I imagine myself and then we talked about this at a public school committee meeting would be the representatives, you know, I don't know about then I find it helpful if I wasn't going to be on the in the meeting, I'd be fine doing it digitally but so I'm being the meeting it's sort of helpful because of the remote setting to have a hard copy in front I don't know I don't want to speak for you Bennett but you know as someone who is going to be part of that panel I don't know how you thought of think about it. Yeah, yeah, kind of agree to sort of be two copies from the school. Yeah so for the school one for the town would that be sufficient maybe you want to for the town Paul so that Anthony scope, you know, maybe maybe five and we put one at the library. Yeah, the Jones library because this is a public document. Yes, you might make it easy for people to get to yeah. Awesome. We're going to get to 20 pretty quickly. When you say to for the school do you mean one at Wildwood one at Fort River and then. What I was thinking is that Ben and I would utilize them for the interviews and afterwards they certainly could be distributed. You know, the primary purpose as I see it is that people who are evaluating them are able to see it in terms of the public access I agree with Paul and others that having one at the library is a good idea but if it's public information we can do it digitally you know if I wasn't just me personally if I was going to be on the panel. I would, it would, it would end up in a recycling bin somewhere and it's a lot of paper so I'd feel not so good about that and the only reason I'm asking for a hard copy is because, you know, I likely will be on the panel and if I'm not someone else then I'll give it to them but I think otherwise frankly, you know, my opinion is Margaret emailing it out to everybody who doesn't have to literally be defending their choices at a public meeting probably is sufficient. Mike, I think that's exactly right because the people who are participating are going to want a stack of them sitting next to each other next to themselves as this conversation is going on so I definitely think we should get three for you, and then I'm hearing in this conversation. Should we just say 10 total. Yeah. So, well so six for the MSBA, and then and then 10 so total is 16. Yeah 15 whatever yeah. Okay. Looper your hand. Oh, I was just, I wanted to clarify that we're talking about stacks of documents, depending on how many people apply, not just one. Yeah, it could be a shelf full. It's a pile. It's something that you could flatten flowers with for sure. Is it possible for us to review who the three from Amherst, who will be joining the panel are because I don't remember that from. Yes. The last. So I believe we talked about it being Mike. Ben. And Kathy I think it would be you but you may be out of the country so the question was whether. I think it would be physically in the country when this happens. And it was a question, but Paul was, I think is the executive of the town was the other person name so. And I had asked Steve and he said he's willing to do it so I don't, you know, Paul and others. So I, you know, I figure, I mean, I can. I'm not willing, but, you know, I can do it remotely but the time difference would be pretty weird. Yeah, because they'll be, they'll be meeting early in the morning, which would be afternoon your time. Yeah, so it's physically possible actually once it's zoom. So do we, should we make that decision right now or should we check do they need to know which three. I don't need to know right now. I think you can have a further discussion about it. I think what we need to know is by the time these things come in on the 18th. We need to know whether it's a subcommittee review or a full committee review, or a subcommittee review that then goes to a full committee review. What you want to come out with a community wants to come out of or the building committee wants to come out of for the purposes of the designer selection is the sort of a set of agreed upon points about what you think about these applications that can be used by the people who are then representing the committee. So I would say it's probably at least, I probably suggest two minutes that you have a subcommittee that reviews a short list and then brings a, you know, sort of the talking points, because what the thing the MSP does not want here is they do not want you to decide who you want. What they want is for the committee to be bringing a thoughtful and informed opinion about the applications to the designer selection panel itself on the 15th. So I have a question. What I could do after this meeting because I know Paul you said you've got a hard stop. I could ask we could, I think we could make the subcommittee as big as those who want to sit down and read through all all of them. Yep. So anyone who's interested. It could I could just send out a note would you like to be on the reader and be expect to have a huge amount of digital things to read on August 18 19, you know, and so I could just get names and so no one would be. No one who wanted to would be excluded and I'll let Phoebe know that. And Dwayne and Dwayne. Mike, I have a question. Okay. He is here. I'm not seeing. I just don't see him on my screen. So I have a question Mike on whether you're going to be Diana's formally resigned from this committee. So are we going to have another person on by then or not. Yes. Okay, so I'll inform you when that's all settled. I'm on board. I know there's a townpiece in the spring in but we'll. Okay, so same thing. So I'll just make sure I that invite that anyone who wants to can be on it. Yeah. I think that's a good plan. Okay, yeah, this is my opinion, which is just an opinion. I, I think if you're going to be out of the country. You may want to delegate someone else to be on this because I think it's really important that three people be present. And you could even switch at the last minute, right? They, they, you know, we could say like, Oh, Kathy can do this, but I'd probably put forward three that we're not trying to do it from an international time space. That was my instinct. So just, I want to see whether we can get all the way through this document so we can vote on it. And then to the extent people have to run, but there was what there's one other issue isn't it on the insurance. Yeah, so there I've taken it out, but they, there was a quite they did that they do ask a standard question about whether you want additional insurance which we've come in the, in excess of the MSBA standard contract, and we've confirmed that we don't so that was deleted I think actually in the draft, and then this is a list of the attachments. And this is where I think we're really going to be able to hit the ground running. These are all the documents that were created as part of the first project that do not have to be recreated here. And it's going to give the designers who are looking at this a tremendous amount of valuable information. And you have all of that. I have all of these attachments, they're all here. Yeah, they're all here. Let's go back to the insurance question so everybody's on the same page on that because I was just to be clear what the standard languages is for a $2 million professional liability insurance by the architects. Anthony checked with our insurance company and they said we'd like to see $5 million of professional liability, which is a very large number. I did review this with our town attorney who basically said well two million seems to be the standard. The architecture firms and the architects can confirm this usually have a one or $2 million limit. If you wanted more they would likely go out and purchase more in liability insurance which would just be an added cost. So the question was really up to us as to whether we felt like it was that urgent to add additional liability or not. And my instinct was to keep it at the 2 million but I want to make sure that everybody was on the same page with that. That is important to recognize is that if you increase the limits you reduce the number of applicants. Yeah. So you're reducing the competitive quality by doing that which is generally my issue it's with with doing that and unless there's we have actually never had anybody use on an MSBA funded project so we all know that insurance companies always ask for additional anyway to protect themselves. But I just want to make sure that we're clear that we're all in agreement that that's where we're going to go. Yeah. Thank you. So that's it for me and I know we need to toggle to the update on the sixth grade. And I'm really sorry and I know that we're helping out. Should we be recruiting there should we and then maybe Margaret this is probably your job but should I mean August 15th or August 18th is soon. So should we so who's reaching out to designers to say hey this is coming up. So, good question. I certainly think that if anybody on this committee knows folks who are tracking these things that in you you'd like to see apply. It's totally okay to call some up and say hey do you know this is coming out. I mean in general, I find that most of the folks who are familiar with the MSBA process are kind of very on top of this, because they see they saw the April board meeting and they know that everybody who was at the April board meeting is like now in the hopper, but I see Anthony has a question. Any comment. Just a comment. The architects are definitely watching very early in the process and then like if you look at the plan holders list for the opm procurement. There's a lot of architects on there. They, they weren't. They just want, they're aware of it and they're they're looking at it at the very early stages. So, yeah, I would concur with that while we don't do MSBA work. There's plenty of other state and municipal work and we keep our eye open for the opm solicitations because it gives us a clue to what might be coming down the road in the way of a designer. Exactly. So I don't think that's a concern but again if there's someone who you think might not be in the loop, especially if they're not really plugged into the MSBA cycle. Okay, so what I'd like to do, since this was required for the opm that we missed the step and then had to retroactively take a vote, I would like to make a motion that we approve this final draft and I will as as amended during the meeting and Margaret will then clean it up. Do I have a second so I'm making a motion. Second. Second. And I need to do it as a roll call vote so I'll just again go. I'm good. It's easier for me if I just do it on the screen. So Anthony. Hi. Kathy's a yes. Jonathan. Yes. Sean. Yes. Rupert. Yes. Ben. Yes. Mike. Yes. Margaret. Oh, you don't get to vote. I'm not voting. Yes. Alison. Yes. Paul. Yes. And Dwayne. Yes. Okay. So, and we're, we're down to people. So we, we're down to people. So we have 11. Yeses. And we do see somebody's email on the screen. Just sharing your screen, Margaret. I don't know if it's intended, but just see it. Oh, sorry about that. It's okay. Okay. Thank you, everyone. So Anthony, we will do, make sure we get the minutes for this one done so that we, when we need to have formal certified minutes, which is what they needed to have last time. So I, I think we've completed this part of the meeting. And then the next part was for Mike to do an update. On the sixth grade decision. And the only other piece that if people have to leave early. Margaret had told me that once the designer, once the designer. Decisions made that we're likely going to, we're going to be needing to meet. Weekly as a committee. So we don't need to do it now, but people should be thinking about the day of the week and the time of the day. And I can send out some kind of poll. That we can get as many people to choose. We don't have to, I believe we were meeting Wednesday morning, particularly because of Diane schedule, Mike. So right now, you know, if we still want an early morning, we're going to be meeting to meet weekly as a committee. So we don't need to do it now, but we don't need to do it now. We don't need to do it now. You know, if we still want an early morning time. But we, that will start with the clock with the designer. On a weekly meeting. So we, we need to just peg a date. A day and a time. So. And so I'm not going to go over that now. I think it's easier to do that by email anyways, but I think it's easier to do it by email. I think it's easier to do it by email. I think it's easier to do it by email. As of October. So I will turn this over to you, Mike, on the seventh grade. And I'll be quite brief because I know we have that topic plus public comments. And I don't want to not have time and because there are people in the public who are here. But all this was presented in a public meeting. Of the school committee. Ben is one of the two school members who's been working on this. But let me see if I can. Sure. That is that visible to folks? Not yet on my screen. But maybe it's because of what I'm doing with the videos. I've seen it. I've seen it. So you can just go, Mike. Okay. So just short story is where this is a document that was put together by one of the school members and discussed in a public meeting. So we're talking about designer selection and things in blue on this calendar that Kathy emailed out to the committee. Are based on this, this body. But the idea is that in August, there'll be public forums on the conditions of the elementary schools. There's an ad hoc, which is Ben me and Kerry Spitzer group to draft surveys and presentations and plan listening sessions. So we're starting to help the community understand what the current situation is as it relates to space, especially at Fort River and Wildwood. And that people know as they're going to get their placement letters is their classroom may say cafeteria three or something very unusual for a classroom space to be in or art room or things like that. And so we want to make sure that we've done this at school committee, but at a broader level that people are aware of the space needs at the schools and that they're not short-term problems. See our first day of school is the 30th. And that's the 30th. And that's the 30th. And that's the 30th. And that's the 30th. And apparently it looks like there's an Amherst school committee meeting the next day, which is fine. And that's to agree dates for listening sessions and provide feedback on format. Getting to September. Hold more listening sessions. Again, the August ones are more sharing information and gathering some level of feedback, but there's not a lot of feedback of other spaces we could use. For this coming school year. But we wanted to share that with the community so that when it comes to the school year, we want to make sure that we have that context. We think it's really important that people are recognizing that the decision around sixth grade to the middle school or staying in elementary isn't purely an educational one. Some of it's an infrastructure and space related or actually significant portion of it is about infrastructure and space. They're asking me to present. Findings from those sessions on their meeting on September 21st. October 5th. To potentially vote on moving the sixth grade to the middle school. I think it's worth noting we included that. Tentative October 19th date for that second designer. Selection panel. MSBA and the idea is that if this decision is made. Kind of concurrently more or less with the designer being on board. That's actually going to really be helpful for the process moving. At a good pace and for the designer. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. Having a sense of where the school committee and community are on the sixth grade question because it's such a linchpin of where we go and what direction we head in. On a personal level, I've asked the school committee to maintain that schedule of a fall vote because we would want to use the bulk of the rest of that year to plan a specific programming. In other words, a December or January vote is probably too late on the educational side. For us to do the job that we would want to do with that. And it's a good idea to think about the. The, the, the. The August engagement, the two green ones here. And September engagement. You know, they did ask me and Ben to bring this back to this body. So that, you know, it doesn't necessarily need to be today, but at some point we could have a conversation about how do those dovetail to the engagements that this group will start once the designers on board and we start going into the community. And, you know, I think while they're two different bodies to the community, it may feel like one. But we're going to start with a little bit of a topic. We wouldn't think that way, but we want to, you know, be honest and transparent with the community that these things are interrelated. The decision about six grade does influence this project. So this is the draft schedule, the school committee came up with. Ben can certainly jump in. If there's things I'm missing, but we, you know, we wanted to share it and let folks know this is where the school committee is. This is the timeline may have publicly committed to. Which I think really works really well for this body to receive an advance of doing the outreach with the designer on board. Sorry, that was a lot in a small amount of time, but I'm just conscious of time, particularly the public comment. Are there any questions, comments? I've got my hand up, but the, I can't see beyond the green October. Oh, there we go. So the decision on sixth grade. So if the decision is not to move sixth grade, that's an airma school committee. Alone decision. Yes. But if the decision is to move sixth grade, that would be Amherst school committee, the regional school committee and the union. Whatever it is union. I'm sorry, I don't know the number of the union. Is it three that would that be three different votes or three? Yeah, I mean, what we talked about in public meeting is. That the regional school committee has already said the doors open and they're very open to towns who want to participate. You're right to say that there would have to be some level of negotiation on, you know, potentially finances. If you're sharing a nurse, for instance, or renting space. But the sense I got from the regional level is that they don't see those things as barriers that they're open to having six graders from member schools. It would have no bearing on union 26. Which is the Amherst, Pelham elementary supervisor union. But it would involve a potential vote of the regional school committee. I think it is, you know, the regional school committee is composed of five members from Amherst, two from Pelham, one from lever, one from shoots barrier being majority vote. And there was no opposition to the exploration or of the idea, even if they remember actually a couple of the towns were explicit. My town won't do this and we're still open to it. And if one of the towns wants to do it, we think it'd be a good use of, you know, they're very open, even if their town doesn't participate to the idea and the concept. So I sent strong collaboration between the members of the regional school committee on this and Ben, if I'm remembering things with rose color glass, as you'll let me know, but I, that's the sense I got. Steve, did that answer the question? Yeah. So, you know, one of the things I think we, it, once this decision is made, it clearly affects the study design so that we have to, at some way, be alerting MSBA as well. We've got these two possible great grades and student composition, number of students. So any other, I've got my screen open so I can see your hand like this or the little button. Any other questions or comments now before I turn it over to open it up to the public for comments or questions. I'm not seeing any. Yes, ready to go. Okay. And, and as I said, the next piece coming out of here will be to all of you to see who wants to be on the subcommittee. So on, let me just get back to the screen. So we are now open for public comments. And I see two people have raised their hands. So I'm actually, I don't, when I. Allow to talk. So Bruce, I'm going to call on you first. Your hand is up first. So I'm going to, I think allowing you to talk brings you into the meeting. Okay. You need to unmute Bruce. You are here. Can you hear me? Yes. I want to speak to the need for a day lighting consultant. I had come to the town hall last meeting in order to do this, but had to leave. I've been at every one of these meetings since the beginning. For the half hour. That I wasn't at that. And that turns out to be the critical half hour. Unfortunately, it seems. Margaret, I should introduce myself. I'm an architect. I have a practice in town or I did. I had a lot of experience in high performance building, zero net energy buildings that we produced some of the first I have created through my office, the fifth living building that was created in the, well on the planet really. So this is something that I've had a lot of experience in. And for many years I was a. Daylighting consultant that I ran in conjunction with my firm. But what I've noticed in talking with people at Landman partners and other day lighting firms is that in recent years, it's become possible to do. Electronic simulations of day lighting at the time was that you would have to make a physical day lighting model if you wanted to get an accurate rendition of quality of life, not so much quantity, but quality. And in fact, I think Michael is the only person on the committee who was in the last round. And that if you were part of the last round, you would know that I was deeply involved in trying to. Effect a high quality of day lighting in the classrooms, emphatically in the classrooms so much so that I made physical day lighting model at a fairly large scale and invited the committee out into the parking lot as well as the architects and it was very well received. It was very positive and I think the architects would have taken advantage of what I was offering had that project moved forward. But what I know now is that the increasing computer capacity allows us to do high quality. Modeling without the need of making physical simulations, but in order to get that capability, it resides in daylight consultants. Architects firms don't have either the capability or the experience to really use these at the level that I think we need. And if I'm successful in persuading you all to require the highest level of the chips day lighting standard, which would put I think somewhere around 70% of all classrooms with an acceptable standard of day lighting. It's kind of elaborate, but a high standard of day lighting is described in the chip standard. But I think it needs the capability that a day lighting consultant nowadays has and can bring. And I think without that capability, we're not going to achieve that objective. So I think, and Margaret, you're right, I did giggle when I saw that there was a historic consultant listed, but not a day lighting consultant. I would wonder, Kathy, whether it's possible. I know you voted on this, but the vote did say as amended during the meeting. Am I sufficiently persuasive. To cause you all to feel that the presence of a day lighting consultant is critically necessary. If we're going to achieve the goal that was written further up, that we wanted to get good day lighting, especially in classrooms. We, you know, we wouldn't normally do a response to comments and during public comment, but I think it's important to at least hear back on this Margaret from Margaret or from Jonathan in terms of what architects would typically have, whether we could request that they would bring someone on or we could make this a core part of the interview. So first of all, Bruce, I, I want to just say, you, you clearly impacted the process so far because when the committee was drafting the objectives, they were said multiple committee members were really clear to me with me that the, it was really important that a core requirement for the project and core objective was daylight design. And in fact, I'm just going to pull up the objectives because it's embedded in them. And what I, and, and Kathy also raised to me and she referenced your participation in previous project and the previous project and how important that and useful that conversation had been that this seemed like kind of seemed like something that was important to everybody, but you had spearheaded it. What I suggested to her is that we, we have the ability as part of the interview process to provide questions that the designers should address in the interview. And I suggested to her that that was, would perhaps be the best way to really get a focus on this because, and I'm, Jonathan's going to start nodding about this in a minute too. So the, the applications when you get them, there's, there's a lot of boilerplate and they're, there's, you know, to some degree people are kind of reciting stuff. You know, to me, the issue is so important here that I think you really want to have the designers reflecting it as part of the interview. I'm more interested to hear what they would say in an interview to know what they'd say in an application. That being said, I don't have an objection to adding a daylighting consultant. I just want you to be aware, you know, relative to the, so there were the other, the two issues that came up for historic preservation, which I think we do need to add public art, which I hopefully you heard my back and forth with Steve about it. I do. Now the daylighting, if we list it, it doesn't mean that they have to have an independent consultant. They can choose and responding to bring someone to say, we have a member of our team who is going to provide that expertise. So I just want to make sure that you understand that if we add it, that it isn't necessarily going to be an independent consultant. I do. Okay. I think I want to end this just, we've got one other hand up and so is that okay, Bruce? I'm going to. Yes, I will send you Kathy a, a two paragraph or maybe three short, but a short argument for it, which could either, it could be used as the basis for inquiry as to how the teams would respond to that objective that is listed previously, which is the especially in classrooms phrase, how they intend to respond to that. So thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. The other person we have is Tony Cunningham. Tony. I think I brought you in and you can. Yes. Thank you. Tony Cunningham and North Amherst and my questions are around the timeline and the timing of some important pieces. Assuming the sixth school committee votes in October to move the sixth grade to the middle school. When does the education plan need to be written? And has the district begun work on that yet? And how will the public be involved in the educational plan? I believe the educational plan will define what spaces will be needed in the building. So I imagine decisions will need to be made around what specialized programming would be located at the school, what spaces that programming would need. What, if any preschool would be located there, what spaces the dual language program may need, what spaces STEM or project based learning will need, etc. And secondly, what body would discuss whether this school should be designed to have a climate resiliency hub? And when would that need to be decided? And lastly, if the town is consolidated into two schools, when would redistricting need to be completed? Knowing where the district lines would be drawn. Thank you. Thank you. We, I, we've written down the questions and we will, those will be definitely topics. Thank you, Tony. That we will need to discuss. I don't think we have concrete answers right now. I know there is some work. That's going to be started right away to look at the earlier education plan and what needs to be changed. But that is, those are clearly all three parts that we will need to address. Thank you. And I think that is it for, I don't see another hand up. So are there any other issues. Or comments that people want to make? I think what we've said to you is that I will get back with a request of how many of you would like to be on a review committee for the proposals. And then something about the day of the week and the time of the day with lots of choices to see when we, if we're starting to meet weekly in October. And we will figure out whether there is one more meeting that we need to have just to review. So I think we need to put together the timeline for first and kinds of meetings. So I think one more meeting of this group in the summer, that's not related directly to designer, but our own timeline. So people have an understanding of what we need to do when. Would be useful to have. So I'm committed to get that, getting that back to you. That's not directly designer related. Anything else. And it looks like Paul, I know some people said they had a hard time talking about Paul, if we can. It's Anthony shot and I, so we all have to go. It's just after one. So there's nothing else. I think we can adjourn the meeting and I thank everyone for meeting with us and Margaret, I'll be back. We can get back in touch just to make sure we've got the pieces together. Absolutely. Thanks everyone. Bye. Bye.