 Okay, so I see we've got attendees live attendees filtering in welcome everybody. Just give 10 more seconds for others to get into the room and then we will get started. This is when we need that jeopardy music or something. Next time. Okay, it's one pass so I'm going to go ahead and get started. Good afternoon everybody my name is Brianna Sunrid I am in the communications manager community participation officer for the town. I'm joined today by your town manager Paul Walkman Jones library director Sharon Sherry and Austin Serrat Jones library trustees. I'm going to give everyone an opportunity to ask questions today live. We have some questions that were submitted already by people and to do so today you can raise your hand and zoom and we'll recognize you and come into room and ask your question live, or you can use the Q&A function. But before we get to that, I'm going to go around to ask our guests to introduce themselves and we'll give Paul a chance to give any general updates on town matters. So take it away Paul. Great, thank you I'll try to be brief because I know there's lots to talk about with Austin and Sharon so thank you both for being here and thank you, Brianna. Thanks. You know, the in terms of COVID which is our always our first topic is we have really stopped the mask band date. We have maintained certain capacity limits in municipal buildings to. The other information that's coming out and came out yesterday is that the university has announced that it will no longer be offering community testing through their stop the spread site as of March 31. That's a decision that the state made we wanted to keep them open we advocated for that as did our state legislators. The other two announcements that I think are really exciting is first, Hickory Ridge we have closed on Hickory Ridge $520,000 for for a project that was valued at $5 million. A great bargain sale negotiated by Dave Zomek and his team, and in a really honorable ownership led by Barry, Barry Roberts is noticed interesting in the Gazette a few days ago on this on St. Patrick's Day actually, there was a 10 years ago a applied golf which was the owner of the property had bought the Hickory Ridge golf course at auction for $1.2 million or something like that so 10 years ago as it was sold for $1 million at auction, and we were able to get this incredible piece of land for with 150 acres, just a unique parcel, a mile of frontage on the front and Fort River, it's going to help the community forever. And the third thing is just to announce that we do have a great developer wayfinders who will be developing two sites in East Amherst on Belcher Town Road and that the East Street School preserving the East Street School to create 70 units of affordable of housing 60 of those 70 units will be affordable housing some with very deep affordability so really terrific project that the town has put forward with a really terrific partner. So those are my quick updates. Great. Thank you, Paul. I'm going to let Austin and Sharon introduce themselves and give some general updates about their work on the project. Everybody I'm Sharon Sherry the director of the library before we get into the project. Paul reminded me. So regarding the test kits you know this partnership that the town has with with UMass, the library has been a pickup site. And so this morning the Amherst ambassadors will be out on our front lawn, basically distributing the final test kits that we have so come on down to the library and come get them while while they're still hot. So we'll let Austin talk a little bit about the project. Thanks Sharon. Thanks Paul and I just want to say on behalf I know of all the residents of Amherst having Brianna in town doing the work that she is doing is just absolutely wonderful and we're incredibly grateful to Brianna for her efforts and if this community chat goes wrong, we're going to blame Brianna. Thanks Austin. I have the privilege of serving now as chair of the Jones Library building committee. The building committee is an amazingly diverse and interesting group of folks. And our work is to shepherd the building project from here until the ribbon cutting and beyond. Our hope, our hope is that we will have a this project completed and a ribbon cutting in the spring of 2025. Between now and then we're going to go through several stages. The first stage is we're going to have to review the existing schematics that our architects have prepared and that were the basis of the town council vote and the conversation with the community that resulted in the overwhelming vote on behalf of the project. And the second stage is we're going to have to review that the town engaged in. Once that is done we go into design development phase, again with the architects throughout those that this process we will have opportunities to talk with members of the community solicit input from members of the community. And then we're going to have to review the commitments, the bidding phase, and then the very exciting work of actually seeing the renovated and expanded Jones Library emerge. So that will tell that's a little bit about the process the Jones Library building committee has a design subcommittee that's going to work very closely with the architects, making recommendations to the building committee. And it will then make recommendations to the town manager and to the board of trustees of the library the town manager and the board of trustees of the library, I mean joint final say if you will, about the design of the library. And I'd like to ask Sharon now to say a word about. Let's imagine it's April of 2025, what do we hope that people will see an experience and love when they come to the renovated expanded Jones Library. Have to say, this is this it's such an exciting question to be asked. I hope, you know, number one, I hope that everybody feels welcome in this new space. It's really exciting to think on, you know, day one we're going to open the doors and so the space is going to be completely accessible. It will be sustainable net zero ready on day one and then you know the purchase of offsite renewables will make us net zero. And the preservation aspect of this project is also super exciting. There are so many gorgeous spaces in the 1928 L that we're going to be able to bring back to life and and again open the doors and say please everybody come on in and and check it out. Function so that's another huge one that staff are especially really excited about that this new space is going to be fully functional it'll be easy to navigate you know you know you're going to go to special collections. It will be easy to find your way safe safe is another piece of this puzzle that will be a lot of wide open spaces and a lots of lots of staff oversight. Right fun children's room I always think of the children's room of any public library bigger small it doesn't matter. As being very much the heart of that space it's what's bringing families together into the library and so we're going to have this great new space that families can come and enjoy the teen room. You know, when when we started this project my daughter was very young and I was very excited that hey you're going to have a teen room. Unfortunately, this has taken a little longer and and she will have aged out but this next generation of teenagers, they're going to have a space that they can call their own. And they'll be able to help design it and populate it and then it's going to be so great. And you know the other piece of the puzzle. So ESL Special Collections the Burnett Art Gallery. These are spaces that are kind of hidden in our building right now, but they're really important programming elements. And again they'll be easy to find, and they'll be, they'll be large enough to handle the demand that this community places on it. So those are some of my, my fun shout outs. I wanted to say one thing. What we hope will happen when people will walk into the renovated expanded library is they will recognize this library. This will be still the Jones library. And second, they will understand its centrality in the cultural and social life of our town. Third, they'll see it again as the most democratic space in town and space for the old and the young, the rich and the disadvantaged for English language and native speakers. And Sharon will tell you that what we've heard over and over again from our colleagues in towns across the Commonwealth is that when libraries are renovated expanded often what they hear on day one is simply wow. And we're looking for some walls in April of 2025. Thank you both I got some good visuals there I don't know about the rest of you, but that was really helpful and nice to hear from your perspective. I want to remind all of our live attendees that we would love to hear from you with your questions whether you want to raise your hand and ask them live or type them into the q amp a box. I will start with some of the questions that been previously sent, but please jump in there and raise your hand and ask your questions. Well we have our special guests on the line. Okay, I do see a hand from Dylan Dylan I'm going to invite you into the room if you could introduce yourself and ask your question. Hello, I've never used this computer so let me know if my mic's too loud or anything is it is it okay. We can hear you a lot nice and nice and clear, not too long. Okay. All right, perfect. So yeah I'm Dylan Corey. I'm a reporter with the reminder. And I wanted to ask about, I know that, you know, in the in the PowerPoint, and also earlier in the meeting as we're talking about how with the renovations. So I'm going to take net zero and and one of the more environmentally friendly buildings so I guess I would ask, you know, are there any ways in which the renovations to library itself are going to help with that and also I know you said that some of it was purchasing renewable energy so I would ask what was that purchase what did that look like. And yeah just kind of information about that. Thank you. Thank you for your question. Yeah, so I don't I don't have the chart in front of me. So yes there are certainly things that will be happening to the building for example, you know the, the low hanging fruit is the photovoltaics that will go on on the roof. Oh, Austin I'm going to need help with this. So, so Dylan, they're going to be a variety of, they're going to be a variety of things we've worked with the a sustainability committee. So the building is going to be more insulated. The building is going to have many solar panels. The building is going to have a lot of windows which will allow sunlight and warmth to come into this building. We have an HVAC system in our building which is failing. So the building will be adequately the building will be adequately cooled. The way in which the building is being constructed so we're not using steel beams we're using cross laminated timber is designed to minimize the carbon output during the process of construction. So, the hope is that in the building of the new renovated expanded library, as well as in the maintenance of the library and its day to day operation. It's more than a hope this library will be one of the greenest buildings, if not the greenest building in Amherst, and will certainly be a model of environmental sustainability in libraries throughout the Commonwealth. Thank you for that question and for that answer Austin. Again, feel free to raise your hand or put questions in the Q&A. I'm going to start with some of the questions that we have here. I've heard this one a couple of times so have all the legal challenges to the project been resolved. Are there any impediments to moving forward at full speed now. All of the legal challenges have been resolved all of the appeals periods have expired. So there are no legal impediments for moving forward, and we're full steam ahead. Great, thank you very clear. I have a hand from Martha so Martha if you could unmute and introduce yourself and feel free to ask your question. I'm Martha Hanner Amherst resident and it's really exciting to hear about our expanded library, and I would just like to know what concrete efforts are you making to involve high school students in the design process. I'm wondering, for example, whether one or two students might actually be invited to be members of the design subcommittee you talk about a teen room but but really having them actually involved in the process of designing would certainly be something very, very great. Yeah, so let me start and then Austin can follow up because Austin is on the outreach subcommittee. So the outreach subcommittee they're just starting to work on their processes and they're planning a couple of big events coming up where people will be able to come to the library and talk. The outreach to the schools is going to be in the students teachers and students and families that will be a large part of this because absolutely we need the teenagers at the table and telling us their ideas. It really is a wonderful question and I'm really grateful for the question the outreach subcommittee. Right now is really in the early stages of figuring out the kind of outreach that we're going to do in the most effective mechanisms. What Sharon said right at the start of her remarks is that we want this library to be a library in which all segments of the community feel a sense of ownership that this is their library. So it's not just with teenagers that we're going to be working we're going to be working with communities throughout the city throughout the town. So we're in, I think more specialized meetings, rather than adding membership to the outreach, the outreach subcommittee. So when we're talking about the team room. We will be making special efforts obviously to engage the teen population of the town when we're talking about the children's room will want to make special efforts to engage families with children. When we're talking about special collections, we want to make special efforts to involve people who care, particularly about historic preservation. So rather than just adding communities, you know, to the, to the committee, it's our hope that we can design processes that will involve them both throughout the process, and also in those particular moments. Part of the library that they are most concerned about is being discussed. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you Martha for your question. Okay, next we have something that's like us on everybody's mind but we hear that inflation is driving all construction costs up significantly is the project being adjusted in light of this. Well, I can tell start. So we have a we have a we have a fixed budget at this point. It's our part of our process will be again as I said to look at the schematics and to go through design development along the way we're going to be asked to make choices. And some of those choices will be different in 2022 than they would have been in 2016 or 2015. Early on when we conceptualize this, this process, inflation is a fact of life and it's going to affect everything that the town does, not just in the building project for the, for the library, it will necessitate some difficult choices and some even more energized fundraising for our for our project. Paul, do you want to say anything else about the. Yeah, yeah. So we are noticing that inflation is ticking up. You know, in interest rates are ticking up very slightly as well. Those are all cost adds to what we hoped would be where we are on the project. And for this project is for every project we're dealing with with the school building project we're dealing with it with road construction projects, quite, quite frankly, which is very oil dependent industry. So it's just a fact of life, as Austin said, and it's something that we manage through, and we won't be able to do as much as we as may roads as we might want to do otherwise but you know we manage in other ways to but we those costs have to be incorporated into the existing project. And it's not it's not the nice it's not just to this project it's to everything that we're doing. Even supplies that we're looking at now. This next question is kind of related to the increasing project costs but how is the fundraising proceeding and has that target been increased to compensate for the growing costs. So our capital campaign committee is absolutely working to reach to reach our goals they the goal has not changed. And as far as what we are success so far. So we've raised over $1.5 million that's towards our $3.3 million community component. So you combine that with the 1 million from CPA. And so we've raised a total of 2.5 million towards the 6.6 million goal. One of the important pieces of this process will be applying for grants. And so we have, for example, we submitted the Massachusetts cultural facilities fund grant the amount of $500,000. And I think we have more than one year to be able to apply for that. We just submitted a grant for the beverage foundation. And we're working with local and state legislators on additional funding and, you know, because we have so many special interests regarding this project whether it's historic preservation or sustainability accessibility, there are different grant opportunities out there for these different pieces. Okay, great. Another reminder to our live attendees. Please feel free we've got another nine or so minutes. So please enter your questions you can type them into q amp a or raise your hand. I have a question here that I think I meant to ask when I did the legal challenges question but just quickly. Maybe this will be for Paul. Is the Attorney General investigating contracts related to this project as was reported recently. Could you explain. So the Attorney General is not doing any investigations. We typically when we are doing contracts for major construction projects or anything we do review all of our steps that we take with our legal counsel with anybody at the state that has to look at our library commissioners. And we also review it with our bond council because at some point we will be going into the market to be borrowing money. And we just are always asking the questions are we all in good shape and that's where we are at this point in time is continuing to do our due diligence. But there is no investigation going on or anything like that that I'm aware of maybe there is a secret but I don't know of a Jeff says thanks for clarifying. I have a question as I was asking you someone else that also so it's out there. Okay, so I'm going to have let me see my next question here. What's going to happen when the library is under construction will we still be able to go to the branches. Yeah, actually so the branches are going to be our number one place where we will start. The branches, the North Amherst library project, you know that addition project should be complete by the time we need to move out of here so we will be able to utilize that new meeting room space for collections for programs technology. So both branches will be staffed more their open hours schedules will be increased. And then we will also be looking for other spaces, the two branches aren't large enough to hold everything that the Jones does the staff have put together a spreadsheet of their, their space needs. And we've given that to the opm and the opm will will work with the town to see what what spaces in town are available and and then we'll go from there but definitely library services staffing programming technology, all of that will still be happening during construction. Okay, thank you Sharon. So this Austin spoke a little bit about this I think when you were talking about the outreach committee's work but this question is, is the design set. Are there is there still time for me to weigh in on things that I think the library should include. So the answer to the question is no and yes, but but I'm a college professor and I need to go on for a little while longer than no and yes. So the design is not set there are certain things that we cannot change. There are certain basic things that we had to get approved by the Massachusetts Board of Library commissioners that kind of basic footprint of the building, the program for the library those things are not going to change. As I indicated earlier, we're in the phase will will be soon reviewing again the schematics going into design development, there'll be ample opportunity for people to weigh in for example on details of things that are going to go on in those on in those rooms. I also want to say something else about this opportunity for people to weigh in. The town had a vigorous and very engaged debate about this project. We are incredibly grateful for the commitment of citizens throughout the town and their vibrant engagement engagement with the question of whether we should go ahead with the project that we proposed. Those debates seem to me now to be over. And it's our hope going forward that the energy that was brought to the debate about whether or not we should go forward with this project can now be brought to the question of making it the library that everybody wants it to be. So it's our hope through the building committee process through the design process and through the outreach process that the love that everybody has for this library will bring us together to work together and hear each other's voices. As we go through this very exciting process of making the Jones library yet again, the crown jewel of the town. Thank you Austin well said. So I have a question that just came in live and we're coming up on the last few minutes so anyone else who's live in the room wanted to get something out. This is your chance please put it into the q amp a or raise your hand. So next I have what are the immediate next tasks, for example, over the next six months for the building committee on this project to tackle. I'm definitely working with the architect ending schematic design going into design development. Great, and we have another question here from Martha and it actually this is normally what we end on so this is perfect Martha asks perhaps you can mention websites for people to leave ideas. So that is a great prompt for us. Someone else asked how do I stay up to date on this project. I'm happy to share a couple different ways right now that you can. As both Austin and Sharon mentioned earlier the outreach committee for the Jones library building projects just getting started so they're going to be much more opportunities that those are going to get fleshed out. I'd like to look at some of the materials that have been compiled and, you know, really well done, I will say, on the Jones library side is Jones library dot org slash building project, go there and really everything that's happened about this project is there is a lot of information to digest so it's a great place to start for committees for the Jones library building committee and their subcommittees you can go to Amherst m a dot gov slash JLBC, which stands for Jones library building committee. There you'll find all of the meeting minutes packet materials agendas those types of those types of things and as the outreach committee starts getting, you know, having more meetings and has to get their planning out there could be other specific things to better answer you Martha about how you can leave ideas or how you could interact with the project so stay tuned to the outreach committee for those types of things. All right, well, make sure there's no other questions I don't see any other live questions we've just got about two minutes left so I'm going to ask Paul Sharon Austin to leave us with anything they didn't get asked or something they want to say a call to action for for those watching and for those who will watch later. Yeah, I just want to thank you Brian I know you've been under the weather but you powered through our session here today, so thanks for team up to be here. Anything for the library. I want to say one thing I need to give for all of the, all of you who would like to donate to the project. You can either go to the library's website there's a big old donate button that you could click on. There's also a printed form you could fill out mail back. If you have any specific questions about, you know, giving stock or, or, or donating from your IRA, you can email info at Jones library capital campaign.org. Thank you. It's beginning to feel like WFCR fundraising appeal. So I just want to again thank Brianna for for this and thank Paul thanks to Tom for for doing this. I've always been very fortunate in having a wonderful partnership with the leadership of this town with the town manager with the finance director with the assistant town manager with the town council and its distinguished leadership. You've propelled the project and made the work on the project truly a partnership, and there are many, many, many, many people that one could thank and point to who played really great roles in getting us to where we are. This is an incredibly exciting moment for this town. The renovation and expansion of the Jones library will be the first time since the new police station I believe that a significant town building has been developed, or in this case renovated and expanded. The expanded Jones library will be designed to serve citizens, residents and visitors to this town for generations to come. But for the vision, commitment, energy, dedication, and optimism of our library director, none of this would have been would have been possible. So great thanks to Sharon Sherry for her leadership throughout the project. But I'm still not going to give you any money so it's okay. Those words awesome that was a nice way to end our session I want to thank all of our live attendees for being here today this recording will be up on our playlist shortly. We'll share it on social media to probably end up on the Jones library building project page so feel free to share it with friends who weren't able to make it today. And thank you to our special guests. Yes. Take care everybody have a good weekend. Thanks.