 Great. Thank you. So this is our district two meeting. And Pat D'Angelo's and I are your district two counselors. We're joined tonight and we'll be having other people joining us as well. By Kathy Shane, who is here because she is a district one counselor, but more importantly, because she has been chair of the elementary school building committee for the last two years. Kathy. It may seem like a decade, but I know it's two years, I think. And Andy Steinberg. Who lives in district two, but it's actually a at-large counselor. So with that, Pat, why don't you go ahead and extend greetings and then we'll move on. Yeah, I'm welcoming everyone to this meeting and I want to apologize because I cannot stay. I'm recovering from surgery forced me to miss the Echo Hill North meeting that happened, which was in district two. And it's a conflict tonight with a public forum on planning and zoning that I have to attend because I'm presenting some changes, zoning change requests. So I'm going to be leaving in just a few minutes, but I wanted you to know that Lynn and I collaborate very well together and she will be filling me in. And I will also view the recording. The other piece for me is that recently Mandy and I on another issue met with a small group of residents in the home of one of the residents. It was a very productive meeting. So I'm realizing it might be a very valuable thing to do. So if anyone here tonight would like to meet with me or me and Lynn, I'm not speaking for her right now, I'm just speaking for me. But if you would like to meet with me to discuss specific issues or something, I would welcome that and ask you to contact me through my council email. And I'd be happy to make myself available now that I am up and talking to you again. So thank you. And let me just add to that. In fact, it was really nice. We were invited to the. Echo Hill North annual meeting. And if you're, if your neighbor, your neighborhood area has an association and you would like us to attend an association meeting. We are glad to do that when we attended that one. And we had about 30 people there. So it was a very worthwhile and we're glad to see so many people here tonight. Again, I'm going to ask if you'd like to enter the room and be. On the screen. Please raise your hand. And we'll do that. And I also want to welcome. Sean. Who is our direct or finance director for the town. And Sean is actually here. He's here to answer questions about the. Thanks again, Sean, for taking time out of your evening. He's here to answer questions about the school. So we have a couple of gender items tonight, but the most and biggest one and Michael Childs would like to come into the room. The biggest. Gender item is in fact, to give you a preview of the school. And begin conversations to some extent about financing and impact on taxpayers. And again, we have both Kathy and Sean here. To answer those questions. Okay. So it's like Michael. Childs wanted to be let into the room. He has actually arrived. I don't see him. That's all. He's there. He's here. Thank you, Michael. Hi, Michael. Okay. So with that. Kathy has access to the screen. She's going to share her presentation. And after that, we'll move to questions about the school. So I'm. Let me. I'm hoping. This is up on your screen. Is it up on everyone else's screen? Yes. Okay. I. Both have the honor. And a privilege of being able to present this. Presentation to you. This is the work of a large group. And I'll describe that in a minute. But we are really at a critical juncture. In bringing a new elementary school. To Amherst. And what I see it as is building for our future, our kids future, as well as all of our future. I'll now we'll describe that as I go through. What I'm going to try to do in a set of charts tonight. And I am happy to be interrupted or come back to any of them. I've just give you an overview of the. School, the project. And to, I will end with and Sean can tell you more about it. The timeline. The big thing facing us is we need to vote on May 2nd. On a debt exclusion. The school is expensive enough that we don't have the internal resources in town. To do it without going out to the taxpayers. If that vote moves forward, construction will start in 2024. And the school is due to open in 2026. And you see here the building. Our large building committee. Membership. Our designers are Dinesco design. And they've done an amazing job. As an overview of the content of the school. Is we, the school is going to replace the school. The school is going to replace the Fort River and Wildwood school with one brand new school. It will serve about 575 students grades. kindergarten through fifth grade. Because the sixth grade is due to move up to the middle school. This means there by about five classrooms in each grade. It's going to be a three story school with two grades on each floor. And I'm going to be showing you pictures of all of this. And it's, there was a strong emphasis from the community on making sure we had daylight filled classrooms with a flexible design. There's community space. The cafeteria has a stage. And our special needs and do language programs will be in it. This school will be located at the Fort River site. The school is going to be constructed while the current school stays open. The site plans include a lot of space for outdoor learning, and play. And are going to be restoring the community fields. Sorry. I didn't mean to jump forward. As importantly, this is our first big. Public building that's a net zero school. What this means it's an all electric school with ground source. He's pumps with solar panels for renewables. The school design. And these are the four big take homes. Was done with education in mind. The students and the teachers drove the programs that we have drove the layout. Drove the content of the school and the side. The size of the school. There was a strong demand. And interest in outdoor learning as well as play areas with COVID. People want to be able to take the classrooms outside and they've liked it. The classrooms are daylight filled with very flexible learning spaces. And I'll show you that in a second. As I said earlier that there's a net zero energy design, which was going to provide a model for our kids to learn from. In a highly efficient building. Because we've been ambitious in the energy conservation. Ever source. We'll be providing us an estimated 1.6 million. For the HVAC system. They're also new federal tax credits. And we know that this is going to save us at least $250,000 a year compared to the two current schools. Wildwood, which runs on oil and Fort River, which runs on gas. Throughout, although the school is expensive, we've made a really cost conscious choice of long lasting materials. The three floor design itself. The three floor design itself. Is lower in costs and more energy efficient. As I said earlier, we can build on the Fort River site while the school stays open, which means less disruption or delays during construction. And we're going to lower our operating costs and avoid very high repair costs. Sean has recently put together some information on this. And we're estimating about a million dollars. In operating cost reduction and avoiding as much as $80 million in repair costs. The Massachusetts school building authority is going to provide an estimated $43 million to help the town build it. And we get a new community resource, both the school, which can be open after hours, the fields, and the way back off facility. And we're going to be providing an estimated $80 million in repair costs. And the way back off facility. Looking at this site plan, I just want to show you quickly this little dotted areas when I said building while the school stays open. This is the current location of the Fort River school. There's about a hundred feet between it and the new construction. And we were asked during a forum, will the kids be able to watch? And the answer is yes, there's going to be a fence all the way around it as the school is built to protect the existing school. But when the school opens, it's going to be open with the play areas, the outdoor learning areas. This is a forest with some trail areas. And the design has got the buses coming in and out from one exit. It's moved this north exit a bit to the south. So cars can come in and out with a circular pattern. With solar panels on top of the roof of the, of the parking lot and solar panels on top of the school. I'm going to take you on a virtual tour of the school. But one thing to note about the way the school is designed is these are the classroom areas. So each floor is more or less a replica of the floor below it with classrooms. And there can be doors for safety shut off or for community use when they're using the cafeteria or the gym at the front office. So there is an entrance here, but the normal entrance will be the, come this way. So it's, it's got a safety design to it, as well as an accessibility design throughout everything will be ADA compliant, which is not true of our current school. This is going from that big view on the site, a better view. And I'm only going to show you one floor because I had the others if you want to see them, but the entrance comes in through here with a cafeteria that faces the upper fields. And with daylight in it and the music rooms were placed right near it because there's a stage in the cafeteria that the music rooms will be using to practice actually could be performing. The gym is over here on the south side. And when the buses come in and the vans come in, the kids will be able to come in through here or if cars are coming in through here, the kids will be able to come in through here. And this is where I'm saying that there can be doors that shut off this whole outside wing doors to get outside doors to get inside. And we were asked about safety. All of these doors can be locked by the teachers inside. So we can close off the building. If we needed to. Our EMT and fire and police all do look at the site plan to provide safety. So now we have our designers without whatever software they have have been able to produce this virtual tour of us. So this is that site plan I've been talking about. You're seeing the entrance of the school, the car loop. And this is the north side where down here is where the music rooms are. This is the cafeteria, cafeteria where you can go right outside to eat. And we've talked about bringing picnic tables that are already at Fort River out so kids can go out. The, the library is up above. And this is the classroom wing with kindergarten on the bottom floor along with first grade and the kindergarten rooms are bigger. So they stick out both in the design, but also with place finding. I'm rotating you around where the play fields are as well as learning fields. So this is where we're going to go. And this is where we're going to go. And this is where we come around to this other side of the building. Sorry. What you'll see is space for the kids to have outdoor gardens. And these are their gardens. And these were, we have some of the two schools now, but this will be for them to be gardening and out. These trees are real trees. There's money in the, the budget to plant trees and bring them back in. And then we're going to go to the other side of the building. And this is where we're going to go. And this is where we come in as we come around and we're about to come entrance. So this is designed so the buses can come in and leave off students coming in in the morning or pick them up. They can queue up. And then there's space as I get all the way around to the front for the vans to be able to park. To let off children who may need to come in through the front door. So now swiveling in. This is a safe vestibule. The principal's office and the staff will be there to greet people as they come in. And when you see artwork on the walls, just imagine something will go there. We haven't designed that. And the kids can just do it. The gym, which is on the south side will be flooded with daylight. And I was in one of the schools, Denisco designed you didn't need the lights on during the day to see in the gym, which is a big contrast with the current gyms, which have no windows at all. So you can see the way that cafeteria looks to the outside. And this is what I described as the music room, which are right next to the cafeteria. And they can enter through a back room to get themselves on the stage. Now I'm moving up to one of the floors and one of the efficiency of the way this building is designed is the floors are very similar. And they had this shared innovative project space. So teachers can take students outside. And have them in the project area and very small groups. And the classrooms around this space will share these spaces. All the lockers are outside. So no space inside the classroom. And these wooden panels are storage for the teachers, paper, books, materials. This is the look of what one of the classrooms is. And each of the teachers will be involved. If the school moves forward with exactly where their white board is, what kind of materials they want in their classroom. And this is another view on one of the exciting things. The principle of Fort River has talked about is with fourth and fifth grade across the aisle or third and second, they can think about cross age learning. And the teachers can be talking to each other, the kids can be mixed. And the last part of this virtual tour is the library, which is up on the second floor. Again, the design has been to bring daylight in. So you can minimize electric lights, but all of these bookcases move so that the librarian or teachers can come in and say, I want a little cluster of space because I'm going to be teaching a lesson in here or I'm going to be using the media room. And so the permanent wall fixtures will be there. But this is all movable. Let me hope this up. No, we want to move out of here. How do I move out? Okay. So one of the questions we've had is, can I say more about the educational benefits for children? This is after all about kids. I've talked about the abundance of natural light. We have a lot of evidence that. Not as it only is daylight good for people, but it increase test scores. It keeps kids awake and that connection to the out of door through the windows is really important. The spaces are designed to be very flexible. If we got more third graders one year or fewer, we can interchange the spaces. There's dedicated special education, English language learner space and academic classrooms. The technology is going to be 21st century learning. And what I've learned about our current buildings is we are not wired to be able to do Wi-Fi easily in the building. We are not wired to be able to do Wi-Fi easily. We're not wired to be able to use Wi-Fi, the, the, the, the ancient systems with a secure entrance and exit. The climate folks. Who am particularly the leaders put net zero energy by law on our books. So we were required to build a net zero school. And what does that mean? We will own the bulk of our tags. So every kilowatt hour they generate will offset our energy costs, and we expect to drive the utility costs for electricity down to zero. It's very energy efficient. And the other things about the way the school is designed is it's quiet. The HVAC system doesn't make noise. You don't hear air conditioners going and the ambient air, the thermal comfort doesn't vary from one place to the other. There's a terrific video of a school in North Virginia that was built this way, elementary school, and it's talking to the teachers, the parents and the kids after the school opens about the excitement. The mother said, you know, our child comes home and they keep unplugging things because they're talking about energy conservation so it becomes a real learning lab. The building, unfortunately, is expensive the costs have gone up, even in the year we've been doing cost estimates the price of glass is higher. The budget is around 98 million we expect we're hoping that MSBA will provide a grant of 43 million which leaves us with 55 million to cover as the town chair. Sean is here to help you explain this more. One of the things we've done is we shaved already $5 million off the cost of the building, the legislative efforts by the town, as well as our representatives have increased MSBA reimbursement we reduced the cost of the school by increasing the MSBA share. We need a debt exclusion to because we can don't have the resources internal. Right now, we're preparing for a debt exclusion vote, the council just voted that to place it on the ballot, and the ballot will be on May 2 with early voting, as well as mail in voting. And it will require voter approval to move forward. These are the, what are the offsets we're not sure yet what the offset will be on the federal energy credits, but they are real they're on the books, and I just penciled in two to three and a half million, because I did the 30% we could potentially get times the cost. We don't have any assurance of that at this point, and for some reason when I'm thinking I'm not moving the next slide forward. So this is the question everyone is asking now that they know there's a debt exclusion, which is basically an increase in an override from the two and a half percent limit of an increase a year for the purpose of just this project. And this is the average of home assessed value and to calculate your own. You can take your assessed value divided by 1000 and multiply at times $1 seven. Sean can talk a little bit about this that he is going to be putting an information sheet together so everyone will be able, I think to plug their own address in and say what does it mean for me. The series of pieces, the key piece here is the May 2 vote. And then, as I mentioned at the very beginning, if we move forward the school is scheduled to open in 2026. And I am going to end there Lynn with just the back to where I started that this is about education. It's also climate action. And we're on a timeline before we can move the next forward. I can share this and you can share back out we are in the process of updating the website. This is the project website. We've gotten terrific questions from the community from community forums and we've gone through an extensive effort to try to answer all of them and as new questions are asked, we will be answering them. And Sean working with town staff is going to be providing an information sheet for the special election on the debt exclusion vote. I am finished. Okay. Thank you. And I want to welcome again another special guest tonight Mike Morris superintendent of schools. So Mike, I don't know how when you came in as I was rattling through this but I would have called on you if I knew you were there. And Mike like Kathy and Sean have been on this building committee from day one. And I, I just want to say, one of the many reasons, but one of the key reasons that Amherst has the second chance with MSBA is because of the tremendous relationship our school superintendent has set with MSBA. Thank you Mike for that. Questions were open for questions from the audience were open for questions from those who have come in as panelists. And if you want to come in as a panelist just raise your hand and, as long as you look legit to me, we'll bring in. So, questions. Yep. Patricia Applebaum. Why don't we bring her in and Patricia go ahead and ask a question. Can you. Please unmute Patricia. There you go. Okay, the school looks beautiful it looks wonderful. I didn't fully understand about the classroom spaces and the surrounding space that are the spaces that they surround you showed an area with the lockers and the teacher storage spaces. And we heard about classrooms and smaller project spaces and so forth. And I didn't fully understand how all that works I wondered if you could just clarify a little bit. Mike, why don't you take that. Yeah, I'm happy to. So, I think it's it's really thinking about and clock farm has some examples of this as well but in modern kind of school architecture the idea is that you want to have a core classroom space. So kids are going to be sitting in rows, listening to a teacher for a full period at the elementary level in particular. There's a lot of interaction there's a lot of creative and collaborative learning and having an external space where small groups can work, sometimes guided by another teacher or para educator sometimes independently at the upper grade levels because there's windows and there's visibility allows for us to do the kind of project based learning that we'd like so we really, you know, think about. The classroom and the acoustic privacy that comes from it, but also have additional sports spaces it's also true that some of our students receive special education English language learner and other supports. And there are rooms for those but as much as we can the inclusion inclusion model we believe is best and the some of those spaces provide sort of half inclusion so that you know students may be able to participate in the core lesson. So it's a direct instruction as students are doing more independent or group work so really it's a flexible model that allows for multiple workspaces for students to be engaged and learning it. Great. I'm going to ask Jack Hirsch, who has his hand up and is in the room with us. Go ahead with your question. Hi. Fantastic job Kathy the school looks wonderful. I didn't mention anything about the sustainable landscaping and I'm wondering if there's been plans for maybe less impervious space around the school that look like a lot of concrete, and what sort of sustainable landscaping. Are you planning. Great question so for starters, we are. We're not at the beginning. We're at an intermediate stage where the size of the building, the building systems, the layout of the floors has been determined but what you saw on the site is a proposed site. And a lot of that we can come back to some of the pavement is dictated by the need for an ambulance to be able to get all the way around the building, or someone in someone in a wheelchair to get all the way around the building. Others we can revisit on a, is there more. And so some of what you saw is not necessarily impervious it's just a circle saying there's going to be a playground here. This is going to be a play base. What, what has been extensively talked about is walking trails bio swells, a rain garden, which you could think of as stormwater runs out down into all use a lay person's a ditch. So what wildflowers can joint down there so it's a way of getting water off the land. So there's been a lot of thinking about using the fact that we got an extensive grassy areas and how can we use that. So there's not a final decision on pavement. We have to have walkways to get in and out of the school, and we have to have a walkway all around the school. But what you saw does not mean that every piece of land is covered by something with no drainage. They've also talked about some material where the water can go through. So even if there's a play surface, the water is not impermeable, it can, it can drain downward into the soil. Did that, did that answer your question. And by the way, we've talked about setting up a subcommittee, when the school moves forward on planning of the outdoor space and the site so we would love community input on this this is not no play equipment has been picked yet. You know what, what will be there someone said where the bike rocks going to be well there are bike racks, but where should they be you know where's the ideal place for them. So getting, we welcome and urge people to come in and be part of this as we go from the big design to actually getting to yes about this. Mike did you want to add to that. I think, you know, I think Kathy did a great job describing it but I think the other thing to note is when we're going back to site selection and looking at Fort River. You know the fact that we have more acreage more green acreage more flat usable acreage and this is going to improve as Kathy said the spaces we have. So, I think it's just worth noting that that was really in our minds about both the sustainability of the site the usability of the site not just for the school but for the larger community as well and, and we think, you know, that I've taught at Fort River I know it really well and you know this is going to really improve that site for the school but also improve for the community and open up another site for you know the town to consider what to do with it but you know I think the sustainability was definitely in mind as we thought about site selection. One other thing Jack you know when I went down to the virtual tour you lost the full scope of the, of the layout. So there's four plus acres of community fields that are being restored and playing fields so it's there's a huge amount of green and then we're not building into the wetter areas we're not getting anywhere near the flood plan so it's 31 acres is surrounding this whole piece. So the school itself has about half the footprint of the current school. This current school is 82,000 square feet of one sorry, one goes up so we're we're really preserving space by building up as well. And then with the initials of ESE 43 has raised their hand. Could you allow them to speak and they can identify themselves. Please unmute. Yeah, I think I am now. Okay. Eric Einhorn calling. I don't know why it came up anyway. I don't know what I've been reading in the newspaper so this was used very useful. Both of my kids went to Fort River. And that was a great experience but I noticed the size of the school I mean a number of classrooms I remember I'm recalling that this is going to replace two schools, but do we really believe that enrollment is going to be sufficient to use all that space, especially if sixth grade is moved to the middle school which is a good idea by the way. So just the question of I know it's hard to project the future but not the distant future. I really think that ours is shrinking as far as kids go. I'll give a quick answer Mike and then you can try and I just want to clarify are you worried that we'll have too few kids for the school because we've also had a question do we have any room to grow so is your question is, will we have too few. Yeah, that's basically it I mean, Mike why don't you address that. Yeah. So we had an enrollment checked by two independent groups one actually MSBA does their own enrollment study and looks at that and make sure it's right sized. And the second is we have nezdek which is a new England school development. I'm going to mess up the acronym but they basically project enrollments for all districts, just about every district in New England. And they, they all had, you know, kind of landed in a similar place that this is right sized for our school environment. You know, we are seeing declining enrollment as was mentioned but we're also seeing a flattening of that. And that's what everybody sort of projects about 140 150 students per grade level we also have some school choice students in our schools and that allows us to flexibility if for instance enrollment does drop and we have empty seats. We fill them with students from neighboring communities and get $5,000 students for each year they're in our school so it allows us to adjust if we did have enough decline in enrollment to fill seats that actually supports the town's budget and the school's budget so we do have two independent groups that looked at the enrollment again. So if it ends up being projected if it ends up being low the real the projections are higher than reality. We have other options of how to make sure that we're filling the seats in a way again that makes us more financially sustainable as a district in a town. And you know Mike, I might add that some have said you know this school, the school will have the common on taste program the bilingual program, and will be a pretty exciting school. And some that have opted out private schools or to charter schools come back as well so they're there we've got. I think it's not our enrollment has shrunk by more than the number of children in town has shrunk is the other way to do it we have some, some kids that are not in our school system now that could be. So I think they're there's flexibility with a little room for growth in the school as well. Let me mention like, like, Professor Einhorn, whom I was a quasi colleague with the university. Nice to have you here. You know my son went to Fort River, and I, the other thing that I think is just really exciting for district two is Fort Rivers in our district. So, I am looking forward to having a district meeting in the new Fort River school in 2026 when it opens. So, it's just central to the whole district. Are there other questions. Eric you still have your hand up. If you have a question for Rodi would like to be brought into the room and ask a question. And Michael Charles has his hand up also Lynn. Got it. Thank you. Thank you Lynn and Kathy has great presentation the school looks fabulous of course I have to ask about percent for art, and whether the art commission has been involved in this process as yet, and if not, when would that take place and where does that whole process stand now. Thanks Eric that's a great question. It's that process. If we get past my second, and we're moving forward. There's a full intention of doing the process as we outlined for those of you don't know we have a percent for art bylaw and it's actually a half a percent. And so we've talked about how to set up and get input on what are the options and, and people have been volunteering some ideas along the way like what about a sundial. There are other things that are theme around the school itself. And the architects have designated places as you either come in the building or on the outside of the building that if we wanted to do a mural if we wanted to do something and to involve the kids. The whole process would be starting probably, you know, summer fall of this year going into next year the construction on the school doesn't happen until 2024. So we have a lot of time, because that will not influence the size and shape of the school, so it can continue. Another thing I want to say about the percent for art is what there's been a request or they said if we could do it. The Fort River has a terrific mural on the outside of right now could we reproduce that in some way and bring it inside to the school on the outside and the answer is yes we could. So there's been some creative thinking about what all this might look like, not to mention some people said, should the name be the Fort River School or would we want to have a naming contest for the school. So trying to think of how do we bring the community in while the project is moving forward. I'm sorry. And I know that the chair I'll speak for the chair of the Emmer School Committee Alison McDonald I mean she's done some research into other consolidated schools and community informed collaborative naming processes. She's done some really good examples of how to do that and I think you know it's not worth going down that road until we know if the building is happening. But she's eager to obviously very supportive the project which is also eager to engage the community in that because it's actually, it's more complex than it may seem in terms of naming a school and having the community involved in it and the kids in particular, involved in it is can be a great example of how we've got some really good examples of set out a public processes around the naming so something we're eager. We get to May, we'll have that conversation and hopefully move forward with that and have kids and adults in the community be involved in that. Maybe we can call it the wild Fort River. Throw me out a name. Mike. Len may I follow up on that. Absolutely Eric. I'm not certain about what the process will be. Because, as you know, it is a complicated issue about what the art will be where it will go is the art commission, going to be managing that I mean who will be in charge of that piece of the project and how will that work. So, so Eric, it's, as you know, because you were there where we worked on the bylaw together. I chaired the ad hoc committee that. So, there will be that process just the art commission will be involved so we just have not sat down yet to say exactly how that's going to work and are the opium for this project. My name, Margaret Wood, she worked with a couple of towns with an art with a public art commissioning group so she has a system that she worked with and she said you're going to have to have someone run it for you, one work with the art commission. So we're aware that it's, it's got a couple steps to it. And so we will be talking about how to do that in a way that's participatory and abides by the bylaw. It's not forgotten. It's just not the focus right now of setting that up. Okay, thank you. Okay, Mike, Charles, please unmute and ask your questions. Yes, thank you. Kathy, a lot of work. Well, everyone, a lot of work. I'm wondering. Are we able to ask money questions or just structural questions. I'm glad you brought that up. No, no, absolutely money questions. And in fact, Sean, who is the money man can help answer some of those questions I'm sure. So please go ahead. First I'd like to ask Mike Morris a question it's not a money question it's, are you happy with this vision of this new school. Thank you for asking extremely happy. I wish this was the school that the kids were in right now obviously that's not a literal, you know, kind of reality but I think the architects have done a fabulous job as has the building committee of thinking about what's developmentally appropriate we visited schools and again I came out of the lake Kathy may have mentioned this we visited schools and multiple different three different communities at least that I was part of groups of doing urban suburban more one rural ish in terms of its setting. And I think both academically and social motionally I mean it feels really different walking through the schools and walking through Wildwood and Fort River and I you know I could Kathy did a great job, you know, from the part I heard. And also just the natural light it's not just about the academic achievement it's about how students and how human beings feel walking into the space it's, you know there's studies Kathy said one about achievement there's also studies about natural light and actually mood. And, you know how people feel psychologically being in that space so I'm thrilled, I won't take more of this meeting but I could go on and on about how excited I am because I do think this is really the right building for students right now and Kathy has done a fabulous job in us to do this process but 100%. You could definitely ask Sean the money questions but I'm happy to ask answer any questions about education for anyone. Um, one question Kathy you mentioned in your presentation something about. If I heard you write $80 million of repairs that we would not happen if the new school were built. Yeah, the estimate during during. It has felt like a forever process but this was only last, last spring. We had to look one of the building designs we looked at was just repairing Fort River and bringing it up to code. And that building was in the $49 million range once design fees were in it but a good solid, you know, 35 to 40 million. Wildwood has an even even greater problem with hazmat with hazardous waste. It's a million point six alone to move that. So the delayed it's not even delayed repairs we the facility look at the buildings made the comment it's amazing you've been able to keep the systems going this long was the comments on them that that there's a picture of wires coming out of the wall and old intercom systems being rewired so it's plumbing, lighting, wiring, windows, doors, cooling, cooling, parts of the building have no heat parts of the building are too hot. So that's the level of repair and we basically have not have been trying not to sink one needs a new roof. You know so we've been trying not to sink money into this that because the buildings have no insulation, you know you really are people have plastic over their windows because there's they're not double paying they have no storm windows. So that's where that $80 million comes in work treats. What. You know, Mike took me out tour but what I didn't get to see was the guts of the building as well you know the, where the water fountains don't work what what the engineers are seeing down in the heating room. So, Kathy your presentation was so positive and I, the money questions I want to ask I don't want to get into dark places but it's, I mean, so we're going to ask the town to make a very big decision, an expensive decision for each homeowner in this town. And as I understand it it's for a period of 30 years is that accurate. Yeah. So, I guess, pertaining to the repairs, if the vote fails. Then we're on the hook for $80 million of repairs is that correct. So those $80 million of repairs. How would that be funded with that need a special assessment to or is that come out of our budget. Well, John can respond we don't have the money in the budget to do it so I watched when I first came on council a chiller failed on whatever a chiller is I assume it makes the air cold but a chiller failed. And because our chillers were so old, they're renting a chiller, rather than buying a chiller, because it was cheaper to rent so we've got a rented chiller. It's, we don't have the money internally so we, again, for that extensive and we wouldn't get any help with it, we wouldn't get any help on the two schools. I'll just add, and I have quickly Lynn, it would be a long process. There wouldn't be something we would do all at once we just couldn't. So it would be a long process to start sort of piecemeal replacing the systems that need to be replaced. And the issue is that we also have three other facilities in town that are requiring major repairs. Our goal right now is to address those other facilities without any additional taxes from a debt exclusion for residents. But if, if, if the schools, if we don't have the solution for the schools and we do need to take make repairs at the schools, and it's going to squeeze it that much more because we have these other competing buildings that have a lot of repair needs as well. So, so I think the short the, I don't know that anyone knows exactly how we'll do it but it'll be a long process a long expensive process, and it won't improve really the conditions in the building it'll, it'll address the systems that are failing. But it's not going to make the classrooms feel more open and, and, you know, bring in more natural light. It's not going to address the accessibility issues, largely. So, again, it's going to be a lot of sort of deferred maintenance type things new roofs new windows, new electrical systems new heating systems for depending on the building. So kind of. Are there other sources of funding besides the homeowners and the state I understand the state will pay for 40 plus million dollars but for the school project. Yes, what is what has happened to the two motions that are before the council regarding use using a portion of cash reserves for this. Yeah, so the finance committee just yesterday made a recommendation to pull $5 million out of reserves to help reduce the cost to the of the debt exclusion the cost of the taxpayers. So that still has to go to the council be considered and voted on, but the finance committee has made that recommendation so the numbers that you saw earlier in Kathy's presentation don't include that. In terms of the in the estimated impact on the average single family home doesn't include that yet. So if that were to be approved by the council we would update those numbers to show the new impact would be for the single family average single family home, but it's roughly. So the in the presentation the average single family home is about $450,000 somewhere in that range, and the average impact from the debt exclusion was about $480 a year. Every million that we take off reduces that impact by about $9 so 5 million would be roughly $50 less lower than what was shown in that presentation. And I guess there's a question about the role that the library plays in this in terms of money from the library that is that is the town committed to the library. My question has to do with, is there any opportunity to use money for that is dedicated to the library for the new school. So, let me take a first stab at that. And then I'm certainly welcome other people to chime in. If we do not go forward with the Jones library grant from the mass board of library commissioners, and we fall back to, let's just repair the library. The estimate for the repair is presently more than the town is even voted to commit. The reality is that that building, like many others unfortunately is not in good repair. And we did, we did ask the Jones library trustees and they did, they did go ahead and they provided us with an estimate about a year and a half, two years ago, on what it would cost if we were going to just repair, not change anything, not redesign, not reorganize or anything else, just repair the existing library. And at that point the number came back equal or greater than the number for the present amount that the town has committed. So, it's, it's, we, we boxed ourselves in, and having been involved in building study groups since 2006, going back to the fire station study group, and then the DPW fire station advisory group. So, our putting off the repairs in this town is costing us more. And this is where we are. Just adding one real quick I know what you said. The timing is bad and that we've seen this unprecedented period of costs escalation in the market so for all the buildings and what we've seen most recently as a library because they've had the process and it's most recently. The costs have gone up quite a, you know, from where we were originally when we were planning. And so the school project we've built in contingencies that we think this the number that we have that we've shared, it already factors that in so there's a cushion and protection there. That number won't come in higher, but that's the reality for all the projects is that we've been dealing with this cost escalation last year and a half. The cost of repairs as well as it's not just new buildings or renovation the cost of repairs is more expensive. Cost of vehicles everything is more expensive because of what's going on in the economy. I'd like to also recognize and welcome welcome in our town manager. So, everybody, you, you district two has gotten the full Monty today. Michael, I also wanted to say when you said you know, is there any other source of money. We're not done looking for it. Okay. You know, there's in my in my dreams, we would get a large gift from an endowment in town that hasn't given us a large gift yet. We're one of its arrival school has but but they're the federal money that we hope is coming to us is a piece and some of what will have long term Sean can describe this if we get money along the way that we can repay this off faster he will have structured the debt so that we can lower it as we go along so it's not that you know we're we're stuck forever with it if the money comes in in a different way. So Sean I didn't articulate that very well. Well, I think I'll just add and say that the numbers that are in the presentation around the impacts. We're trying to make sure that those are the highest the impacts might be we built in some flex conservatism there so that if construction costs come in higher if a grant comes in lower. It's not going to go any higher than what we're showing you right now. So that's the other one of the other reasons why we have our reserves as well as in case something happens we can tap into those reserves to make sure that that impact doesn't go any higher. So our goal is to bring it down and again the vote that the finance committee took. If that gets approved that will bring it down further. And as Kathy mentioned we're continuing to look for other sources to get it down. And even more, the, the federal credits that Kathy was talking about so we're what she's looked at her just the federal credits for this school project. But the town invest a lot in sustainability initiatives beyond just the school project from electric school buses to replacing heating systems that are fossil fuel burning with electric to insulation and new windows. We're doing a lot of this right now especially because we have the climate action and resiliency plan now that sort of lays out a path forward for modifying all of our municipal buildings that if the credits are as good as they've been portrayed that this new program from the federal government that we should be able to anticipate lots of money coming back to us from all of our investments in these different energy saving projects. And what are the total cash reserves of the town. So right now it's about 24 million in that range. And so some of our reserves are meant for capital so about 10 million is meant for capital. It's meant not only to help with this project but also with the other three building projects that the town has been planning on the fire station the DPW and the library. And the remaining 14 million is what we have in turn in case there's an economic downturn where we can stabilize the town's budget we don't have to make cuts all at once, or we could sort of have a smoothing effect. And it's also there for if we had an unanticipated emergency expenditure some, you know some piece of infrastructure gave out that we needed to replace quickly if there was something, you know a bridge or something like that that we had to address so. So that's one of our reserves that we have just because it's good to have it in case of an emergency. And also our, our bond rating agencies look at our reserves and if we're below a certain percentage it's viewed negatively in terms of our bond rating which then obviously will result in higher interest rates when we go out to borrow so that number is around 15% is what they they like to see to give you sort of the best score. So our reserve policy is set up to make sure that we stay at that 15% range for our, again, our rainy day type reserves. Michael, any further questions on that. Well, I just, I guess is there any contingency plan if the vote is not enough. That's a very good question. Last time we had one of these votes. And it went out twice to voters to determine the final outcome. I think, most importantly, this point, people need to understand that there is this is the best option. Eventually, this is the best option for this town. Educationally it's clearly the best option for this town. And, you know, I, again, my son went to Fort River my son has special needs. He sat behind a shower curtain for one of his classes. So we owe this to this town it's financially the best decision and it is educationally the best decision. And I would, I would jump in here Lynn to say it long term it's the best decision because we will be combining two schools and all the operations expenses that go with two schools to one school. So one principle instead of two principles one facilities crew versus two facility crews, things like that. So there will be ongoing cost savings with a brand new building. Right. Thank you. Yeah. Other questions about the school and this school project, or frankly, since you have Sean here and since you have the school superintendent here and since you have the town manager here. Any other questions at all. Hey, that's what district meetings are for. Go ahead, Michael. I have. I mean, I just want to add in you, all of you folks. I appreciate your hard work with Mr. Backelman and and Lynn. You recently have gotten a number of letters from our neighborhood echo Hill North regarding the status of our roads. I think it, there's been some back and forth in our neighborhood about, we have all these capital projects and our roads are going down the tubes. And it would be nice to hear that there is going to be funding for the roads. That's important. And I don't know where that money comes from. But I don't know how much the state pays for. But it's very important. Yeah, so I can take that on. I'm surprised we haven't heard from Dr. Morris who also is an echo Hill residents. I don't mix my personal life and work also. We hear that offline, I think until the car axle breaks. So it's a very serious issue. It's not just echo Hill. It's other parts of the community as well. The town has invested substantially more in roads than it has in the prior years in the last three or four years. The issue for this is that we have a huge backlog and $27 million backlog in roads when we did it, we did a survey previously. Every couple of years we do have a company come in from Northeastern University that scans every road and they rate the road based on the condition of the road. And then that gets factored in with the number of vehicle trips that are on the road. And then. And we sort of prioritize that. And then we sort of try to group them together because you're it's much more efficient to group roads together when you're going out to bid so they don't they're not mobilizing and demobilizing all the time. So we have our list and I think I've shared that with several people and echo Hill. But the issue for us is that costs have gone up as you have seen with everything else but especially with road paving because everybody's putting money into roads right now and there's not that many companies who are doing it. For instance, we get $840,000 a year from the state for roads. The section of Bay Road that we did last year was $800,000. What is needed, we needed to invest that the town puts an additional million dollars in every year plus $200,000 for sidewalks. We'll be looking to see, can we make that do better than that. The challenges are, do we have contractors who are able to take this on. Do we have internal staff capacity to do the engineering work for all of them. And then there's also that we triage the road some roads need a full reclamation some just need a top coat and so that we try to manage them that way as well so we have our engineers do as best as they can with the resources they have to do that. So I think, you know, we have done Northeast Street, we've done Southeast Street, we've done Meadow Street, we've done Bay Road. Tom Roy is on the list for sure. That's a road that needs attention. And then we are able to start to get into the neighborhoods a little bit more this year I think, and start doing some of the worst neighborhoods streets which includes Oakville and some of the streets in your neighborhood. So it's a, we have not gone to bid we will see how much how far we can get. Once we go out to bid and see what the, what the interest is from the paving contractors. Paul, can I add one additional thing. Sure. The other thing that we've been doing is each year when we close out our budget, we look to see if we have any surplus. And that surplus generally falls to reserves. We can see the two times or I know last year for sure, we've looked at that surplus and we've a million dollars into roads beyond the regular million that we put in our capital budget. So I think it's twice now that we've put an extra million dollars into roads and it's something that I think we're going to continue every year when we look at if there's any funds that aren't spent in our budget, roads is sort of the number one priority that we look to to see can we put any more money in it to try to address the backlog. So out of our capital budget, we, we dedicate about 25% of the funds to roads. Thank you. Last question I promise, is there a standing committee. Is there a standing committee on in the town for, I guess a town gown, town gown matters relationship with the universities. I mean, as, as, as I discuss as I hear discussions and as I am involved in discussions about the school and the financial outlay for homeowners. It always comes back to why isn't the college, why aren't the university and Amherst college contributing more to this town that comes up a lot. And, and I'm wondering is there's any committee in the town that works on that in some way. So there isn't a citizen committee but we do have a team from the town staff that do does work with the university and the colleges on a regular basis. We are working on the strategic partnership agreement which is our agreement with the university, and we're getting close to that Sean has been key to that, the development of that. And so as we got to the college, we had made a fair amount of progress and then that sort of fell by the wayside when the president switched, switched, and so we're really revving that up as best we can. They've just got a new CFO so that's been a barrier for them in terms of major commitments of resources. Because we did the last strategic partnership agreement that we did a study of the university funded a study of the students in the school district that live in university housing family housing. And once that study was done, they agreed to compensate the town for that this sort of costs on that I think that's 200,000 bucks a year that goes straight to the school district. And that all through coven even though their dorms were empty so we appreciated that, but we are confident that they will do substantially more this time. Yeah, and just real quickly, there is a difference between the university and some of the other private institutions, the university being a state entity there's there's more limits on what they can do because their funds are taxpayer funds largely just like us and there's limitations on, on what we can do with our funds for example so just just know that there is a little bit of a difference between the university and the other institutions. The other, let me just mention and then I want to go back and call on Eric Einhorn. The point is that, as Sean mentioned, they're different. So we have been in active and I mean very active conversations with our legislators about getting the formula that is used for state institutions increased. We would like to see it increased in a way that recognizes when land is developed, and when there's more people involved in that land on a, on a regular daily basis, such as we have with the university. And from that, there are now also bills and legislature that are looking at nonprofits which would include places like Amherst College, and what would be a fair way for them to be asked, if you, if you will taxed for a ongoing distribution. I will say and it's, I'm not shy about this. Other places have been more successful than Massachusetts in this particular area where we have higher ed. And to be honest, part of the problem that we run into in the state legislature for the nonprofits is the healthcare industry is also in that nonprofit group, and their lobby is fierce. And that comes to trying to get that legislation passed. I really want to go to Eric Einhorn. Okay. And you have several in the audience now. I'll be very quick because Mr. Charles really took most of my question I live in Echo Hill South and occasionally I make the mistake of going through Echo Hill North. And I wish I had a half track vehicle or something like that. Anyway, I just want to say the roads. I mean, it's also relative. When I drive into Belcher town or Hadley or South Hadley, the road seem notably better than not Massachusetts generally is often, but Amherst as I'm afraid, pretty far down the list. And that, you know, I just wanted to, last, last week I got my auto excise tax and I had to replace a $200 tire from a pot hole. So I feel it very strongly right now. I know you're doing the best you can. And I just wish we could see more results. Thank you. And Eric and others, I just, Paul's tired of hearing from me about roads. I have been unwilling to let it drop. So Elizabeth, hey good, let's go ahead, please. Hi, I just wanted to piggyback again on the road conditions because I to just paid my excise tax for free cars. And I understand what Sean and Paul were talking about when it comes to our roads but somebody who travels route nine a lot, given where we all live. I understand that belongs to the state and route nine is also, especially from. I would say rolling green all the way through. And down to down North Hampton Ave. I was just wondering what is, is the state planning on fixing those roads. I know that Amherst College did some renovations to the North Hampton road but part of it is still really taxing on our vehicles when we're trying to get to places like the mall a big stop and shop. So the state was doing the construction project from South Pleasant Street to the Hadley town line, which is that section basically from the center of town to Hadley. They got about three fourths of the way through it they will as soon as the weather breaks in the asphalt plants open up they will finish that part of the second part that isn't paved yet and they have to do a top coat as well. So this little section will be finished. College Street and Belcher Town Road are at the state highway but the town maintains it. So we're going to be putting our money into those and it's the college street especially is blowing up quicker than we had anticipated and it's sort of what happened with Bay Road last year. So we got some grant money to do some sidewalk work from the East Village Center, which is like where Cumberland Farms is up Belcher Town Road, but we'll be doing a lot more work in that area. I think the East Amherst area is really needed. In addition to the neighborhood roads as well. There's only other thing that I was going to ask, and I don't want to take away from this conversation if other people want to weigh in on the conversation about our roads. But does we have or supposedly a rule in town saying that no more than four unrelated people can live in a single dwelling. And I'm wondering, do we have somebody that monitors that because I know, at least on my street. There's more than four unrelated people in single dwellings. But that could be for another discussion. If we want to just keep discussing about the school which I think is fabulous by the way, as a retired teacher I'm excited. And also our roads which, you know, with with our excise tax just coming out it's on everybody's mind. Let me. Paul, do you want to take a stab at that or shall I go. Well, the four unrelated has been a major topic of conversation amongst the counselors as they look at zoning and rental registration, then you might, you might want to weigh in on that. Right. So, rental registration has been the topic of the Community Resources Committee for a major portion of this year they've been working with the inspections department they've been working with the planning department as they've looked at all of that. There have been a couple of revisions made. With regard to fees, but we expect, and we'll see if we if it happens if there's consensus enough to have a rental registration or a rental bylaw proposal come forward. There is a lot of difference of opinion on the very issue that you've raised. Okay. Whether, if you go say from four unrelated to three, then is the price going to get raised so high that it even becomes now tougher for students, or other people that live in our town and rent. And then the other question there is actually even a legal question, whether it can be enforced. But the other question that comes up with this is, maybe we have very decent bylaws on our books, but maybe the issue is enforcement. And enforcement includes the issue of enforcing whether houses are kept in good repair. Mike Morris is leaving us Mike we want to thank you for being us. You're a busy person and this is really nice to have you come to district to your district by the way. Thank you very much thanks for having me in the dialogue and the questions really appreciate enjoyed it. So thank you. This is what I'm just going to go back and I'm just giving you a little bit of a sense of conversations that have been ongoing. There have been two public discussions, although all discussions of committees are public but there's been two evening public discussions on this very issue. The question for many people is, is an issue of enforcement, or is it an issue of the bylaws. So just giving you a tip of the iceberg. Yeah, one of the one of the things that I think is part of the enforcement is the number of cars on the street especially we just had a major snowstorm, and there was at least five cars parked on the street. There was a number of people on dwellings that didn't have access to all of their cars being able to be put in the driveway, which then impacted me and the people on our street, as we tried to try to maneuver during the snowstorm yesterday so that's one of the reasons why I'm bringing it up, you know, the number of people in the dwelling is not as present in my brain, except for when I'm trying to renew the access cars that are there because of the number of people that are living in the single dwelling. Okay. I want to Kathy I just want to go back to Eric Einhorn. I was, again, the previous Elizabeth I don't know your last name. This is an issue in Echo Hill. I'm getting more and more complaints. I would say it's enforcement. I mean, whether it's three or four is not an issue. When it's six or eight, that's when it becomes an issue, each one having their own car so I just second the previous speaker. Okay, thank you. Are there other questions. I, it lives if I can just jump in on the enforcement piece and one of the challenges is, and I don't want to put an excuse out there but when we have taken these things forward for enforcement judges are reluctant to evict people. It takes a long time to go through that system, the legal system, and invariably by the time it gets done, it's the end of the school year and the kids are gone. So, but we're so we're aware of what the process is. That's not an excuse. And so, but it is, you know, sort of a reality that our inspection services department deals with. One of the things we felt then can enforce is the number of cars on the street, especially when there's a mandate that says during the snowstorm, we can't be having on street parking. That's something that can be enforced. And so it's that move to a couple of cars once or twice, and everybody will get the message. Yeah, so that if that interferes with our, our snow removal efforts then they usually they should have been tagging tagging towing on Tuesday night, or Monday night. They have another chance on Friday night. Yep. And then it's the landlord who should be prosecuted and persecuted. That's part of what the committee is looking at, as in terms of where does the, where do the fines get levied to. Paul Kaplan has also come in with a question, Paul. Yes. On the, I think as equally important, if not more important than the, than the cars is, and I know this has been discussed, but it didn't come up tonight. And the price of a house is obviously going to be raised. When there are so many people, then if you had three or four, then maybe a normal human being could compete with these landlords. But if they're bringing in, you know, rent from six or more people, then they can afford to pay a lot more than the normal consumer home buyer. So I think that's really another reason to increase the enforcement as much as possible because it's just not working for regular people to buy a house in Amherst anymore. Right. Yes, we are hearing that regularly. Thank you. Are there other questions or an opportunity to take advantage of the fact that we have our town manager here we have our director of finance here. Kathy's still here from the schools, Andy Steinberg's here as a townwide counselor. Our community participation officer Angela Mills, who's been with us the whole evening. We want to thank her. We want to bring up one other issue and that is, this time of year is when we are actively looking for people who would like to be on town committees, and there is a community, community participation form that you have to fill out. And there are lots of vacancies on these committees. And so I think in the next news item I sent out I don't do a formal newsletter. I will actually provide the link where you can see which committees are open, and also a link to the form to apply for those committees. There's a process you do get interviewed, but at this point in Amherst, if you apply your name is not known, unless you are actually then nominated by the town manager to go through that process. The only committees that are separate from that are the planning board and the zoning board. And in those cases, town council actually does public interviews, and we're looking for people for both of those boards as well. So there, those are very important boards. In fact, the reason that Pat, the Angeles is not here anymore this evening, she was with us in the beginning. This because she had to go to a planning board meeting because of her proposal she and another counselor have before the planning board right now. Angela, are you present you want to talk about the vacancies or not sure if you're still here. You may have just left your computer on. No, I'm here. I'm definitely here and baking for my boys who are coming in for spring break on Saturday. We do have lots of vacancies we have a vacancy. We're hosting interviews at the end of March for the board of trustees for the affordable housing trust, and we have two vacancies for the disability access advisory committee. And then we're also heavily recruiting for the recreation commission. And there will be lots of will not lots but a few vacancies on energy and climate action committee. So we'd love to have some new community activity forms. And Lynn, thank you for sending out that information I can send you an updated list of vacancies or you can go to the town website which is Amherst MA dot gov. And head to the boards and committees page and the vacancy listing is right at the top of the page. And we'll be trying to find one maybe two members for the Human Rights Commission and also one maybe two youth for the Human Rights Commission. Thank you Liz. Yes. And I just re up for three years. Okay. Thank you for doing that. I just have to say that, I mean, as a person who basically took my introduction to local government through working on committees. It's a great way to learn more about the town. I was just really fortunate to have just terrific committees and got to meet people across the town that I maintain relationships with, you know, to this day to hear from them and find out what they're up to. But we're still trying to build a fire station and a new DPW. So, patients is a virtue and local government. Any other questions or comments from people in hit that are with us tonight. Do you want to know we have one of our library trustees that's been with us all evening Lee Edwards. And there are still nine people in our audience and we have somebody Tracy Zafian is in our audience she is on the Transportation Advisory Committee. And she is critical in making serious liaison work with the with the town services and outreach committee. So we want to thank Tracy for all her work several others. I think here, Eric Brody who's with us and spoke earlier, has also been on the Public Arts Commission for a number of years. Many of you have been active in government we hope you'll remain active in government and we are look for new opportunities. So if there's nothing else will probably close the meeting Kathy do you have some final words. Yeah just just a quick one. If anyone has or you're talking to anyone if they have questions about the school, send them either directly to Lynn, or send them to me. I'm sch o en C. We're using the questions. They've been terrific to create answers, particularly where we get them from multiple people. So we really appreciate where we either, we should be saying more, or we didn't say clearly. Please stay involved. And I'll follow up with information about that. The other thing that I will mention is, I know some people may still be getting and I'm going to continue to leave you on my district to newsletter. But our notices and so forth but the reality is the district to lines have changed. And so as we work on moving toward the next town council election, which is in November. All of the district counselors are working to readjust their lists. And so if you have neighbors who are in district to and you don't think they're hearing from me, then please make sure they let me know and or give you permission to send me their email. Okay, Andy. I just wanted to say that I have not spoken tonight. I always like to go as a counselor at large since I'm elected by town wide vote and therefore represent all districts to as many district meetings as I can. Really, I participate. I didn't tonight because we had so many really well qualified speakers that I didn't think it needed more airtime from someone. Someone else but I did listen to the entire conversation and I really value the comments from all of our residents and voters. And I want to hold these meetings because that's what keeps me in touch and keeps all of us in touch with what your concerns are about what's happening in our collective community. So thank you. Great. Any other final comments. Paul, thanks for joining us Sean thanks for taking time out from your family tonight to join us and Kathy thanks for coming out of district one, and to be with us this evening as well, and thanks for all of you. Have a good evening. Thank you. Thanks Angela. Thanks Angela.